Dinner with friends.

Last night we went to dinner with our friends. We have not been able to get together as much as we used to. Now that the kids are in school we have to be more careful with bedtimes etc. and we are all so busy. We did finally hang out last night. It was really fun and relaxing. The kids played outside the whole time and NO ONE cried or fought at all. They are all 6 such good kids. They played with a sunflower the whole time we were there. They liked picking the seeds out of it. We brought it home and the kids have been doing it again all morning. You have to love things that keep them busy. LOL.

Saturday night we went to Ty and Brittany's house for a bonfire and smores. As you can see Macy really liked her smore. Joel and Dylan were in charge of roasting the marshmellows. That was a pretty scary thought. They did really well and did not burn anyone, including each other.

The kids each got to have a friend over for the day on Friday. We all went to the DeKalb County Fair and then came to our house to play. They were all really good and I think they had fun. I know I was really tired by the end of the day. The five kids wore me out.

Dylan's Field Trip

Dylan's class went on a trip to the Civil War Reinactment on Friday. Dylan was a stinker ad would not get in the picture. He was really whiney sp?. But here is the rest of his class posing with Abraham Lincoln.

Daddy's Elk

Daddy goes outwest every fall elk hunting. He has since he was in high-school. He gets to take two weeks and goes out with Papa. This year he finally shot one. He is so excited. Everyone here is so happy for him. They had a great trip and now they are all exhausted. Unfortunatly, he has 6 days of work to look forward to. Here he is posing with his elk.

Centerville Fair

Today my parents picked the kids up at school and took them to the Centerville Fair, somewhere in Ohio. The kids loved it. They got to see a baby chick hatch, and a baby lamb be born. The girls got to sit onto of this beautiful horse, Dylan did not want to. Most importantly, I got to stay home and clean the house top to bottom. It feels so good coming home to a clean house. Michael being outwest gave us free reign from cleaning and cooking and we played everyday and ate lots of PBJ's, pancakes, nachos all of those fun things we never do when dad is home to cook for. Heck, we had to have some fun too, since he is the one on vacation.

Hiking in Papa's woods

Maddie was using this tree as a balance beam.
Macy was getting ready to try and jump over the creek, this is how it all started. They missed and then once the were wet it became a free for all.
Dylan was laughing so hard when he slid down the muddy hill, I was going to tell them not to but it was so funny.
That is Macy's hand in the bottom of the frame, she was going to catch Maddie.
The kids are looking back at me and saying, "can we jump over the water," the should have said may we, because no they did not make it.

Yesterday the kiddos were really bored in the evening, my house was too clean for projects so we took a little drive to Kris and Neal's and walked back through the woods to burn some energy. It was really fun. It is really neat to watch how easily kids are happy, they played in the creek for over an hour, picked up buckeyes, and slid down the really steap and muddy hill. I would use the old cliche that the best things in life are free, but in this case it cost me all of the clothes the kids had on, they were covered in water and dirt. They clothes are not coming clean anyday soon. I really was missing Michael, this is usually something he would do with the kids, he would have found them pretty funny. Speaking of Mike, he did get an elk. He shot it Sunday night and boy is he a happy guy. They are heading home on Saturday morning, and boy will I be a happy wife. I CANNOT WAIT.

The kids are headed to the field with grandpa, it is always more fun in the back of a truck.
Maddie is waiting with her pumpkin for grandpa to come and help her carry the monster.
Macy named her pumpkin Emily, she has went out to look at it many times since it has been at our house, I guess she just wants to check on it. Too funny.
If you are wondering why Dylan does not have a shirt on, it is because his sister threw a rotten tomatoe at him and he was really, really grossed out. He can be a little girly sometimes.

I have been blogging all summer about the kids garden that they did with my parents at the farm. Today was finally the day to pick the pumpkins. The kids found the ones they called their own in July. They got huge. It was all grandpa could do to carry them to the wagon. They were really excited as they ran out through the field to gather them and put them on the wagon. They are going to sell them and the kids get all of the money to do fun stuff with.

Storm Clean-up

Dylan looks like he is saying, "oh no, mom caught me."
Macy was a good girl, atleast she was hard at work.
Maddie was trying to rake the leaves, all 20 that had fallen, but she too found something better to do, she found this tiny little frog and was a lost cause.

After all the wind on Sunday, our yard looked like a dissaster. I asked the kids to come out and help me pick up all of the limbs that had fallen down. As you can see from the pictures they are very easily distracted.

I already posted pictures of swim lessons but the kids did such a terrific job today that I wanted to post again. Dylan loves Olivia, he kept putting his arms around her shoulders, as you can see from the above photo. The kids love going to swimming lessons they are so excited every Thursday. It has been a great activity for them, and they are so tired they go to bed really well.

Silly Swimmers

Our Happy Home

I took a picture of our house today, I just love the feeling of pulling in our driveway in the summer. It is just such a welcome feeling to come home too, I wanted to capture it before fall takes away all the pretty colors.

Dylan Started Mrs. Ash's Class

Dylan went back to school today. He was so excited to start school at Mrs. Ash's class. He walked right in like a big boy and started playing with his classmates. I was pretty proud sometimes he has trouble when he gets away from the security of being with his sisters. He looked like such a big boy. We are looking forward to a fun year.

Apple Time

The kids have been watching the apples at grandma's all summer. Today they finally decided to try some out. We made applecrisp and the sliced a couple just to eat. The real fun is hanging in the tree and picking them though. Dylan has become quite the little tree climber this summer. They only got a bucket full today but in another couple of weeks we will pick lots for great grandma, then she sends us a pie. YUMMY!

The Knox Family Amusement Park

Thane and Kylie have a really cool new toy. They got a new waterslide and had all of their friends over on Sunday to play. I could not get my kids to want to leave, I think we overstayed our welcome. They definetly had a blast. We had some great food, and got to talk while the kids all played on the waterslide, it was a ton of fun.

We love marshmellow!!

We went to Dave and Lorri's after making salsa and had a cookout, all the kids ate was marshmellows, but that is okay. Maddie thinks you should get to eat whatever you

want on weekends. Though she does not really ever win, she did on Saturday. It was a fun time of just hanging out and not doing much. It was actually really relaxing. Probably not for them, all three kids are like a force of nature.

Salsa......

After we worked in the garden we made salsa with grandma. It turned out really, really great. Dylan loves to cook. It makes Michael crazy that he would rather do things with me than with him, but he really does like it. Here is sporting a very attractive oven mitt. He was in charge of contiually stiring the salsa, Maddie was on the clean-up crew. I think Macy was in the bath tub at this point in the day, she got really sandy in the garden. It was way more fun than I thought it would be, and grandma even had fun too.

Fall Bounty

The garden is almost over, but the kids favorite things are still left. They got to pick their Indian Corn, goards and a couple of pumkins. They have had so much fun this summer, and it was a neat thing for them to do with my parents. Here a couple of photos of them showing off thier prizes

Go-Karting

I had a hard time taking pictures inside. The kids are going around the track with the dads but you can't really tell that.

Last night Michael and I wanted to do something fun with the kids before he left for outwest, so we decided to take the kids go-karting. They loved it. The Smyths went with us and Dylan and Dawson had a blast racing. Macy and Maddie laughed super hard every single lap around the track. The kids also had fun playing the arcade. They won lots of tickets and got to pick out prizes. Tina and I also liked playing the arcade games.

Jellystone

We actually went to Jellystone the week before we went back to school and I just found the pictures on my camera. They were pretty cute so I thought I would add them even though they are late. We went with Megan, Olivia and Evelyn and the kids loved playing together. Evelyn was an angel, not the that she usually isn't but all of the kids were so good. They actually had more fun over in the big pool than at the slides. It was a super hot day so the water felt great to everyone.