At the Beach

This weekend we went to the beach at Destin, FL., with Andy's dad and step-mom. We had a really good time. I was afraid it was going to be really cold, but the weather was so nice. It was in the high 70's during the day, so it was plenty warm enough to play on the beach. The water was pretty icy, but the place we stayed at had a heated pool, so the kids got to do lots of swimming. There were people down there, but the beaches were pretty empty, and there were no waits at the restaurants. It was nice to get away, as it always is.

Halloween!!!

Here are the pictures from Halloween. The kids had a great time. It gets more and more fun the older they get. In case anyone is struggling with figuring out what they are, Drew is a pirate, Evan is Batman, and Alli is Princess Leia. After we made the rounds to all the grandparents and aunts and uncles, we took the kids around the neighborhood, and almost every time Alli would run from the house screaming, "We got some! We got some!" Of course she meant more candy. Apparently she didn't remember last year and was fascinated by the fact that you can go to strangers and holler "trick or treat" and get handfuls of candy. The funniest part was that as she was running and screaming, her little wig would fall down into her face, so she was running, screaming, dragging a bag, and pulling her hair out of her face. Drew has finally reached that phase where things are starting to embarrass her, so Alli was the source of that embarrassment last night. Evan was just a kid doing his thing. They were all really cute, though. The last picture is of the ridiculous pile of candy at the end of the night. The picture doesn't really do it justice. I'm sure Andy and I will end up eating most of it. We're really good at monitoring when the kids have had too much sugar, but not so much with ourselves.

Playing Outside

Obviously I've had a lot of free time this weekend. The weather was really nice today so we decided not to sit in the messy house. Don't forget about the whole white box video thing (see the next post). It makes my blog so unattractive! I'm not sure what order the videos are actually in since they're just a bunch of white boxes, but one is of the terrible ladybug infestation we get every year in October. You can't really tell in the video, but ladybugs were swarming all over the place. It's awful. The other ones are of the kids playing on the swing set, and one is of a typical fight. Not really a fight, but lots of annoying each other and whining.

Yay, videos!

Ok, I think I figured the video thing out. I had to do it a different way than before, so instead of the little picture coming up there's this big white box (at least on my computer). It works the same way, though. Just click the white box and it'll play the video. If you get a little message that tells you to download some version of this Adobe thing, just click the link and it should only take a minute to download. Then go back to the blog and re-click on the white boxes. These videos are of Evan and Alli playing, and of Evan and a nasty splinter.

Drew's Field Trip

As I write this I'm completely frustrated because the blogger people updated their stuff, but the photobucket people haven't, and I can't get videos posted. Anyways, here are some pictures that I don't need photobucket's help with. These are pictures of Drew's field trip to the pumpkin farm. In the one of her whole class she's on the front row in the pink jacket. The others are of her on the hay ride. You can see her big toothless grin. At this point the teeth are falling out faster than they're growing in. I think she currently has 4 holes where teeth should be. Speaking of toothless grins, in case any of you enlarge the whole class picture, yes, her teacher does have all of her front teeth. It's not a very flattering picture, I must admit. I'll keep trying with the video, but for now enjoy the pictures.

Catching Up

I know it's been too long since my last post, but life is so terribly busy, and when I don't have to be on the computer I tend to stay away from it because I get sick of sitting at it for school work. Anyways, here are some pictures from the past few weekends. This top one is the kids with our ceramic pumpkins. Yes, we will carve pumpkins (probably), but this way we can have jack-o-lanters without the rotting faces. We also went down to the old hunting house and got a picture of Andy and the kids on a tractor and then there's Drew climbing a ladder to a big stand Andy built. Also, there are pictures of the kids playing around the house. I keep trying to get video, but they all end with someone crying or 2 of them fighting these days, and while some of that is funny, I hate for all the videos to end that way. Other than that life is pretty normal. Drew has no teeth right now. She just keeps losing them. Evan and Alli are loving school and don't seem to understand why Drew gets to go 5 days and they only get to go 3 days. I'm getting closer and closer to being finished. Just a couple more classes, and then student teaching in the spring. Hooray! One more check on my list of things to accomplish before I die.

The Corn Maze

There's this huge country store really close to where we live.  They grow all their own fruits and vegetables to sell, and they turned their 6 acres of corn into a big maze for people to walk through, so we took the kids this weekend.  It was really fun, but when we got there we just let the kids take us wherever they thought we should go.  We had a map, but once we were ready to actually start figuring our way out, we realized that we had no point of reference for the map to be any help.  There are stations throughout the maze that you can find on the map, but we had to find a station once we got lost.  The kids had a great time, though, and we found our own way out without any of the workers there having to come get us, which we were told happens a lot.

Evan and Alli's First Day of School

Here are the pictures from Evan and Alli's first day of school...sniff...sniff. They did really well. The only tears we had were a little from me, and then Evan didn't want to go home in the afternoon. But, they've adjusted well, even to the early mornings. I have some videos that I keep trying to post but either the computer or the website is giving me a hard time. Anyways, enjoy looking at how terribly grown up the kids look with their back packs, or paa-packs, as Alli says.

Going to School

These are some videos of this morning getting ready for school.  Yes, I took video while I was driving, but only in the subdivision and while waiting in line to drop Drew off.  I promise I was safe for all you grandparents.  In order the videos go from top to bottom.

Everyday Stuff

Here are some more videos of the kids around the house.  These videos show how much I'm like my mom and how much my kids are like I was because Evan and Alli aren't wearing any clothes.  I think about half the pictures of me before the age of 4 were of me running around in my underwear.  But, who am I to argue with comfort in the dead heat of summer? 

The First Day of School

Here is a picture of Drew on her first day of first grade. She's so big. Things are going good so far. She seems to have adjusted just fine, and she's really excited that she has a science book this year. Apparently it has some pretty neat pictures. These are also some pictures that she's drawn recently. She made the rainbow all by herself without having to ask what order the colors go in. I was impressed with that. Evan and Alli will be starting in less than a month at their pre-school, which I have mixed feelings about. I have some things I have to get done with my school, like observations and student teaching, so it'll be nice to have an automatic babysitter, but it kills me to think about how old they are. They're excited, though. It took us forever to convince Evan that he was going to school this year. He kept insisting that girls go to school and boys go to work. I guess that's what he sees at home with me in school. Now he says he's going to Alli's school, though. Maybe he'll get it when he sees other boys in his class.

Gatlinburg Trip

This past weekend we went to Gatlinburg with the entire Clark family for Andy's grandmother's 80th birthday. We all stayed in one big house together. These are some pictures from the trip. We walked around and looked at things and rode some rides. Me and Andy and Andy's dad all subjected ourselves to bumper boats so the kids could ride and we got absolutely soaked. At one point I finally had to scream that I was losing my contact so people would quit squirting me in the face, but I found it rolling around in my eye. That ended up being about the funnest thing we did. I laughed so hard. The kids heard about this haunted house that was there, so we had to go check it out. It ended up being a real haunted house. Not real as in real ghosts or anything, but quite a bit scarier than the Haunted Mansion at Disney World. Evan and Alli wouldn't even walk in the driveway, so I sat at the end of the driveway with them. Drew made it up to the hurse sitting in the driveway with Andy before she started crying, and then one of the other little cousins made it to the porch with Andy's dad before she changed her mind. This picture of Evan crying is actually him trying his best to smile while we were waiting for the rest of them to chicken out. I have to admit I was a little scared myself. And, the picture placement on this is kind of out of order because the Blogger website keeps flipping out when I try to move them around, so I give up.

Drew's Birthday

When we asked Drew what she wanted to do for her birthday, she said that she wanted to go to a restaurant where they would sing Happy Birthday to her and then go to the movies to see Monster House, so that's what we did. We had a great time. These are some pictures of her with the birthday cake that we got for the actual day of her birthday. We couldn't do the other stuff until the following Friday when the movie came out. The movie was a bit scarey, though. It was funny to watch it with them. Alli jumped several times, but Drew likes that kind of scarey stuff.