Mary, Mary quite contrary, how do your brussel sprouts grow?

On trees,of course! Today, I went to Jungle Jim's (Trader Joe's on steroids)and discovered this in the produce section. I was actually looking for brussel sprouts, and this is what I found. We all love brussel sprouts, so boy was I excited to find that they grow on trees-like money. I had no idea that this is how brussel sprouts grew. Did you?

Wish list x 4

Okay, I thought it might be fun to show you what my kids want for Christmas. It is funny to see their differences. I'd be curious to know if any of their items are on your children's lists. The items on their lists are in no certain order.

Hayden- age 5

1. Rock Band xbox 360 game ($200 incase you are wondering...I think John has been telling him what to put on his wishlist)
2. Hot Wheels Rumblers Thunder playset
3. Guitar (at Target for $10) He reminds me every day since he saw it.
4. DS game: Jam sessions
5. Webkinz little kinz lion
6. idog spiderman ($35 everywhere except Sam's and it is $7.81; I probably should have bought this already, but I haven't.)
7. Playmobil pirate corsair ship
8. Little Tikes Aircade Wall Court (Even I think this is cool. It hooks to your door, you shoot the ball and it returns it to you)

Rachel- age 7 (I keep forgeting and saying she is 8 and she just says, "mom, I'm 7".)

1. Disney Camcorder
2. Spotz maker (yes, it makes spots...kind of like little discs of paper?)
3. B Chic Nail Studio (Because painting her nails is a huge deal!)
4. dog
5. fishe
6. mukey (monkey)
7. horse
8. turtle
9. owl
10. duck
11. frog

Note: #'s 4-11 are real animals! She is too funny, maybe we'll get her a tour of a vet clinic, or a day at the zoo as a zoo keeper. She watches Animal planet every chance she gets and loves learning about animals.

Sarah- age 10
Okay, this girl has her list organized by categories:

American Girl Stuff ( she does have Samantha and Nellie)
1. Molly's 1944 swimsuit
2. Pup tent
3. Molly's dog Bennett or Emily's dog Yank or Both
4. Samantha's book strap & supplies
5. Samantha's party treats
6. Samantha's victorian lemonade set
7. Nellie's Holiday outfit or Nellie's spring party dress
8. Kaya's food

DS Games and other stuff:
9. Imagine Fashion designers
10. Imagine master chef
11. idog or ifish
12. Hannah Montana Music Jam
13. Yoshi's Island
14. Animal Crossing

Notes by Sarah: I also would like any girl DS covers, girl clothes, webkinz and a littlest pet shop and any books

Added at a later date:
Other American Girl stuff:
-really want with a big arrow to the side> 2-in-1 ballerina set + book
-sweet treats
-Wheelchair for dolls

DONE***! (She really wrote everything just like this. Ironically, she didn't include what she has been asking us for. A new ipod nano.)

Kate- age 12
Okay, she keeps it short and sweet!

1. Hero's season 1 DVD
2. Digital camera -pink (She does have guidelines though, she wants a very thin pink digital camera. She does not want the big fat ones that don't fit in your pocket.)
3. im me (We don't allow her to text on her cell phone, so she wants this to be able to instant message her friends. We said why don't you just call them, or email them?"

That's all for now from Kate. She may resume her list at a later date. If she does, I'll update you.

Rachel's Poem

Bat's are cool thay
dot drol, Bat's flly
ate nite thay dot bite
bat's lived n threes thay dot snes
Bat's eet fes that is not a ly

Translation:
Bat's are cool, they
don't drool, Bat's fly
at night they don't bite
bat's live in trees they don't sneeze
Bat's eat flys that is not a lie.

We're The Kids of The Future

Hayden is working on his air guitar! He has been playing since he was about 2. We did have a real guitar for him for a while, but he was seen regularly smashing it over his head like a rock star. We have not replaced the real one, but he plays the air guitar all the time. Last night, he decided to rock to "We're The Kids of The Future" by the Jonas Brothers. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did...

PWOC Fall Focus October 2007

This past weekend, I experienced something I'd never done before. It was a PWOC (Protestant Women Of The Chapel) Fall Focus. This was a regional women's conference with about 500 women from Army Posts and Air Force Bases in the Southeast region. We took about 25 ladies from Wright Patterson Air Force Base, here in Ohio to Franklin, Tennessee. It was a 6 hour bus ride. I had never gone to Fall Focus before and it was a great experience.

I attended workshops throughout the weekend with topics like Preparing for the Bridegroom,marriage, being a better Bible study leader, preparing young hearts for Christ, mentoring and many more. I really learned a lot in just a few short days. I met some really great ladies and had fun getting to know some of the women from our group.

During the conference, we did create a bit of drama. We caught the carpet on fire in our prayer room and the hotel had to be evacuated. The fire department came... it was pretty funny. Some of our single ladies begged me to take a picture of this tall, dark, handsome fireman so they could have his picture. Thankfully nobody was hurt and we were able to finish the conference.

While we were there, Ronda's son,Toby,took us on a tour of the Franklin area. We saw a couple of homes of some Christian artists and then stopped at Sonic for a little snack. After that, we headed to Nashville for a quick stop. We had to be back for dinner, so we didn't have much time. We had a lot of fun!

On the way home, about an hour out of Franklin, we got a flat tire on our bus. Thankfully, we did not make the national news. I did, however, take pictures of the adventure. We were able to drive on the shoulder and get to the next exit where we stopped at a Cracker Barrel. I picked up a couple of my last few Christmas presents while we were waiting.

Harvest Party

Last week, our church had their annual harvest party. We went last year and our kids LOVED it. They have great games and fun prizes. They have food, bouncy castles, ball pits & a hay ride. It is done as an alternative to Halloween. During the evening, families are encouraged to participate in the treasure hunt. You are given clues at various games and then you have to search for a person that has an answer for you. Once you fill all your answers, it gives you the ultimate answer for the treasure hunt. All the clues lead you to the GOSPEL. At the end of the evening, they do door prizes and have prizes from local businesses to give away. Hayden, as you can see, was Spiderman. He and his friend Noah made plans to dress up the same that night. They were so excited when they saw each other. Rachel, well, she had a gymnastic suit on with a skirt over it and her cow'girl' boots. She likes to be creative. Sarah was a cheerleader. We invited several neighbors to come and a few of them did. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time.

Clifton Gorge II

The dinosaur head

Hayden and his daddy

Rock climbing prohibited. (Like we were going to try that.)

The water below.

Blue hole

Wild Mushrooms

We did it, we went back! We took 2 extra kids with us, so we had quite the parade. We hiked about 1 1/2 miles up and back. We had a great time exploring and being outdoors. We saw some amazing things on our hike, but we did not see the falls. We did find a sign that said the best time to see the falls is in the spring when the snow is melting and running off. So, we'll go again. We did see some mushrooms growing out of the botttom of a tree stump; that was pretty cool. We also saw a U shaped tree. Rachel saw a rock coming out of the side of the cliff that looked like a dinosaurs head. There was moss all over the rocks and colored leaves covered the path. It was a perfect day for hiking and everyone had a good time. After our hike, we took the kids over to Young's Dairy for ice cream. Yum! What a day...

Clifton Gorge

Audra, Dede and Becky

Colors of Fall

The water below

The trail...

The top of the Gorge

My friend Becky came out to Wright Patterson for a visit and we got to go to Clifton Gorge. Another one of Becky's friends, Dee Dee, lives here and joined us also. It was a beautiful day for a hike. The colors of fall were beautiful; the leaves are just starting to change color and fall off the trees. We just took a short hike, but had a great time. It was really good to see Becky and get to know Dee Dee.

Our family is planning to go to Clifton Gorge this weekend. The kids are very excited! I will take more pictures and post them. We were not able to see the falls, so we'll be sure to get over there this weekend.

The Jonas Brothers

I have to tell you about our plans to see Hannah Montana before I tell you about the Jonas Brothers. You probably don't know that Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers are coming to Columbus and Cincinnati in December and we were going to get tickets. Apparently, large families are not welcome at Hannah Montana concerts because there is a strict limit of 4 tickets per household. Our kids were very upset to hear this. So...

We got a phone call from the Jonas brothers about 2 weeks ago (of course it was a recording). They were calling to let us know that they were doing a FREE concert in New Albany, Ohio on September 30 for kids 16 and under. All you had to do was buy an adult ticket. We went on to Ticketmaster to find out more information and found that adult tickets were $15 each. The concert was a part of The New Albany Classic Family Day. This was a fund raiser for the Columbus Coalition against family violence and paired the Invitational Grand Prix with a FREE concert in a festival type atmosphere.

So, Ticketmaster and Hannah Montana can keep their 4 tickets for $25-200 each. We took our family to see the Jonas Brothers for $30. It was such a great deal, we even invited all our friends to go. All together, we had 13 people! We had such a great time. Although, we do think it will take about a week for our hearing to come back after listening to 1000's of screaming girls.

If you are reading this wondering who the Jonas Brothers are, well, they are #1 on Radio Disney, #1 on i-tunes and in the top 40. They are Kevin, Nick and Joe. I have been told by my 12 year old that Nick Jonas is the cute sensitive one. I'll let you see if you can tell... Let's see, when I was 12, my crush was on Kirk Cameron. Does that bring back any memories for you?

I've gone bananas!

Bananas on Parade

Dancing with the stars Banana

Hummingnana

Hulanana

Peg leg Bananarrr

ipod Ba-nano

Dawn and I hosted a Tupperware party a few days ago in my home. It was the best home show of any kind that I have ever been to. It was a banana split party and you had to bring your own banana dressed up for a contest. The Tupperware lady gave out 'tupperbucks' for all kinds of different things like: being on time, bringing a friend, decorating a banana, if it had eyes, arms, legs... I loved seeing everyone show up with their decorated bananas. I had to share some of thephotos with you.

Quilt Show

On the way home from Young's Dairy, there was a quilt show at an apple orchard. I was so excited to get to stop and take pictures. It made me wish I had a better camera. There are so many neat things like that here. I just wanted to share...

The Wool Gathering

Alex, Emma, Kate, Hayden, Sarah and Rachel

Okay, switch hats....

"Hayden, feel this one."

Our kids all wanted us to buy the bunny. (Emma petting it)

Looking at yarn sure takes it out of ya.


Okay, most of you know that we went to the Wool Gathering at Young's Dairy last year. Well, we had to go back. I love going to touch all the different kinds of yarn. I just got a few pictures this year. They had a few more booths this year and a lot more people. We walked through all the booths and I bought some organic cotton washcloths that were hand made. The weather was much nicer this year. Last year, it was a little warm and this year, it was jacket weather; we loved it. After walking through everything, we went to stand in line for ice cream. After we ordered, I saw they had pumpkin ice cream, so I asked for a sample. Well, if you have never had pumpkin ice cream, you have got to try it. It was like pumpkin pie heaven. Delicious! Definately worth a drive to Ohio...just kidding.

Hayden's 1st day of Preschool

Well, not really preschool, but that's what we call it. He is going to a Mother's Day out program one day a week. He is in a room with mostly boys which doesn't usually happen with Hayden. He is used to being with girls everywhere we go. Last Wednesday was his first day and he was so excited to get to pack his own lunch, choose his clothes for school and do all the things he sees his sisters do every day. He had a lot of fun and even got to watch the cartoon version of fantastic four. He is in the big kid room, so he didn't even have to take a nap.

Worth the drive...

70miles= $11.32 (cost of gas roundtrip)

2 Southwest supersonic burgers, 2 wacky pack kid's meals, 1 wacky pack burger meal, 1 large popcorn chicken combo with Onion rings, 2 Rt. 44 vanilla Diet Dr. Peppers, 1 large fry, 1 jalapeno strips and 2 Supersonic breakfast burritos (to freeze for later)= $35.31

Our annual drive to the nearest Sonic= Priceless!