Naked baby, candy corn and the letter C

It was not a nice Fall day today; more of a cold, rainy, dark day, but that didn't stop us from having an enjoyable day just being inside. My day's agenda was to include cleaning, cleaning, and oh, did I say clean? It's not that my house was dirty just not tidy and I needed to get caught up. Sounds simple enough but not with two little boys demanding my attention.

My first was to tackle the kitchen. But there were many "pit-stops" that included visiting and playing with the boys. And the first was, of course, playing trains with Chase. He's been on a Thomas the Train kick for about a month now. He got this train table for Christmas last year from his Grammy and would play with it now and again, but frankly he played trains on it for about a month before it just became a toy table; cars Little People, you name it. This is the first time since probably February that the tracks are all set up nice like a train table thanks to daddy. It's crazy how kids get stuck on a certain toy and then every.single.thing about that toy. He knows all the trains, it amazes me. We are working on putting useful information in his brain but he's gotta be a kid too. NAKED BABY
I decided today to give Callen some "free-time" from his diaper. I just can't imagine being in one of those from birth 24/7 until 2 years or so and the only time out of one for a period of time is in the bath. I am researching going cloth for many reasons, cost, comfort and the environment, somewhat. I have debated about this before Callen was even born but couldn't get over the poopie part of it. But after some research online and on blogworld, I am contemplating it again as I am in need of diapers, so mine as well take the leap now.

Anyway, naked baby, so I laid a blanket on the kitchen floor and put a naked baby on it. This isn't his first "free-time" but this time he did pee, which was absolutely fine, he was at least on his belly. :)
So after he left his mark on the blanket, I moved him to his bouncy chair not worrying if he peed that too since I could also just wash it. I put our little space heater pointing towards him to make sure he was warm. He just adores his big brother. CANDY CORN AND THE LETTER C
While Callen was playing naked baby on the floor, Chase and I were at the table learning more about the letter C and candy corn. He is pretty smart with his ABC's, he knows all of them by sight and knows the sounds they make, but today we practiced writing the letter C. I found a fun website with learning tools and print outs. They had the cutest Fall oriented ones and one was about candy corn. I just love candy corn even though it is so very bad for you. But it signifies Fall so we must eat it.

I printed a few pages, one for writing the letter C and a few others for counting because we were also going to do the number 1 and number 2. For whatever reason he is struggling with numbers and counting. But in time he'll get it.

One printout was of a candy corn where we glued the eyes, nose and mouth on, as well as the legs and feet. The legs were two letters C's and the feet were candy corns. After we finished assembling him, Chase looked at him and said, "He's missing arms." So I made some arms and gave him a candy corn in his hand.

The print out I found for the numbers was related to using candy corns too. For the number 2 we counted two real candy corns and then I drew two candy corns in the jar. We practiced writing it, somewhat.
The final revelation for the day is...Chase is not to have anymore candy corn. Oh my, he doesn't normally have sugary sweets anyway and then to learn using candy corn. Wow. I can so see a difference in him when he has a lot of sugar. He doesn't listen, gets crazy and obnoxious, does naughty things just because and more. So he is officially limited to maybe 1 or 2 a day. Mean maybe, but I like my child to be sugar-free, nearly sugar-free anyway.

Grape picking, Grape pie....

Apple pie and Chicken Pot pie...all in one day, plus a walk in the woods and playing with friends. Days like today make me so thankful that I am able to stay home with my babies five days of the week.

The morning started out just plain and simple with nothing planned for the day. It wasn't until about 10:30 when we went for our morning walk/jog. We down the hill and saw the bulldozer and horses and on our way back up the hill I decided to go off-roading into the woods. I've always wanted to follow a trail that went into the woods but just never did. Well today we did and had a nice nature walk. I actually went in there with the purpose of finding two branches to use as curtain rods for Callen's room, picture to follow someday.

Chase got out of the stroller and helped me find a stick and he needed a stick too for his room even though he doesn't have any curtains. :) After our nature walk, we headed back home. As we walked up the driveway I remembered that we had some yummy Concord grapes that needed picking.

We've been here for four years and I never knew we had grapes. Brad found them while mowing and they're not even hidden, we just never noticed. I just love free, fresh organic fruits and vegetables.

The grapes were all over, as well as were the bees. They smelled so sweet and apparently the bees thought so too. I was just extra careful in picking the clusters as to not grab a bee too. We picked so many, enough for two pies, and there are still more to be picked. Callen chillin' while Chase and I picked grapes.

The loot.
So what do you do with all these grapes? We certainly wouldn't eat all of them so I decided to make a grape pie and that's what we did. It was going to be the first time and I had no idea how to go about it. I went to my all time fave recipe site, allrecipes.com, and searched grape pie and found this amazing, easy recipe. Chase helped me too. I told him we were going to make pies and of course all the questions pursued...what's in a pie? I told him we needed to make crust. What's in crust? Flour, shortening, egg..etc. He then says, I need to go get "flour" for the crust as he wanders over to the fence to pick a flower for our crust. LOL. He's so cute.

Squeezing the pulp from skins, a step I had no idea you had to do. Very interesting. After boiling the pulp and milling it back into the skins to keep the seeds out and then mixing in the flour and sugar. Voila! A grape pie. I cut my piece a little early and it ran but it was oh so yummy. The chicken pot pie.
Oh, and then I also made an apple pie. I am so excited that ALL three came out delicious, the crust and the fillings. I had planned on making 10 crusts so I could freeze them but I ran out of shortening and eggs.

Candy Corn Tree

Isn't this so adorable? And it's yummy to eat. I know candy corn is so awfully bad for you but you can't have Fall without candy corn. It's much cuter in person.

Pumpkin painting, goat petting, and so much more...

Today was probably the last real warm, beautiful day of Fall before the frigid winter starts to roll its ugly head in. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy winter but for just about a month or so is nice but instead we get five months of winter. Blah. But I digress, I am thinking in the present and the gorgeous day we enjoyed today.

I checked the weather and saw it was going to be beautiful so I planned a Mommy & Me playdate with some other mommy friends. We went to the Apple Shed to paint mini-pumpkins (gourds), feed the goats, play on the slide and of course, the corn pool. So there was a total of four mommies and nine kids all under four. And three of them are babies all born in May, one to two weeks apart.

It was a lovely 67 degrees out but it was quite breezy since a cold front is coming in tomorrow morning. We moved the picnic table to the sun and painted away. I am not posting all the pics of everyone since I don't have permission to blast her kids pictures all over the net. But here are just a few of our pumpkin painting pictures. And since my camera is maxed with pictures, these were on my phone, such a shame but at least the moment was caught on camera.
After the Apple Shed, we heading home for naps. Thankfully both of them went down easily and right around the same time too. Oh thank you. As I was putting Chase down for his nap, he asked me what we did today and then he asked "Where are we going when I wake up?" I answered with I don't know, I don't think we are going anywhere. "But I want to go sumpwhere." We'll see buddy, go night, night.

After he woke up, I really wanted to do something outside since it was so beautiful but didn't know what. Chase happily played with his Thomas the Trains, his new kick, and I started dinner, home-made pizza. While in process, Brad called to see if we had plans for the night, which I still couldn't think of anything but then it hit me, why don't we go to the Town Park. But we had to go before dinner since the sun will set oh so quickly. So I told Chase to go get his shoes. "Where we going?" It's a surprise. "What's a surprise." I can't tell it's a secret, just go get your shoes so we can be ready when daddy gets home.

We jumped right in the car and headed to the Town Park. "Where's the surprise?" And I told him. "That's far away." Not too far away, we're almost there.

When we pulled into the park, I said "Look Chase, look where we are, we are at the park!" "Uh, I don't want to go to the park, I want to go to surprise." LOL. "This is the surprise honey." "No it's not, it's the park, I don't wanna go to the park." Well, the park is the surprise so let's go have some fun. So the "surprise" was soon forgotten as soon as we started playing.



After about an hour of playing, we told Chase it was time to go since we hadn't eaten dinner yet. Of course the 'one more time' pleas pursued so we let him go down the slides a few more times and off we went, almost. As we put him in the car and buckled him in his seat he said, "I am ready to go to the surprise now." Apparently not so soon forgotten....

So where have I been?

My, oh my, time sure does go by quickly and so much more so when you start adding children to your family. I have been blogging in the back but behind on the pictures. My card is full and I need to make room on the computer or put them on the external drive, but I like them in three places before I delete from the camera card. So I have been missing the opportunity for good pictures since both camera cards are full. :( So I've resorted to my phone, yuck.

Anyway, I guess it just means I've been picture lazy. Sometimes it just feels like I am always behind, behind on laundry, dishes, cooking, baking, house projects, etc. Juggling being a mommy, a two year old, newborn, being a wife, selling lia sophia and on, has come to be a lot. I have to learn to manage my time better, I thought I did, but then as I look around sometimes and see some untidiness, I realize maybe I don't. I asked Brad how come when I worked full-time it seemed easier to keep the house clean, and his reply which made sense...um, you weren't here to make it dirty. :)

So I am going to start spreading my nights out to more than just lia sophia stuff and back to my blogging, well more often anyway. But here is one from August, yes all the way back in August, it was one of many of our fun summer activities.

A Few "Chase"isms

We were just sitting there and Chase says...

"Callen was in your belly." "Yes he was," I replied. "Then he came out." Yes, he did. "I was in daddy's belly." Oh you were? "Yes and then I came out." Oh you did, huh? "yeah"

....he is so, so a daddy's boy and apparently he thinks he came out of daddy's belly too.

My mom says to Chase when he is being a pistol, "I'm going to send you to the moon, pow to the moon with you." This is just something that she says and he laughs. Well the other day he goes to Brad, "I'm going to send you to the moon." Oh no. Brad looks at me, did you teach him that? No, Nonnie. Noooonnniiiieee! How could you not laugh.

To the parade we go...

Instead of going to the races tonight to watch daddy, I took the boys to the parade with Katie and the kids. I absolutely, positively love going to the races to watch daddy race but it's a lot for me with a two year old and 3 month old. Usually family is there to hold Chase while Callen is in the wrap but if Callen wakes up, then I have to tend to him and can't watch Chase as closely. Plus it is a long night, not getting home until 10 or later. So I made the decision to go to the parade but my heart wanted to go to the race as did Chase's, at first. I've never missed a race when I could go but made the decision not to, but I guess when you have kids, things change.

When I told Chase we were going to go to the parade instead of racing, he says to daddy, "I don't want to do that, I want to watch daddy race." He loves his daddy and racing. But he really didn't know what a parade consisted of and we told him firetrucks were going to be there and he got excited.

So to the parade we went...

He thoroughly enjoyed it, singing, waving, marching, dancing, you name it. He was so excited and loved the firetrucks and marching bands.

A day with my two boys...

Thursday the boys and I had a little day out together. There was a garage sale in town so I thought I'd park in town and walk to the garage sale and then walk around town. So that's what we did. We stopped at the garage sale where we found some match box cars, yeah I've been wanting to get Chase some to play with outside and then we also found some fun books. We stuffed our stroller with our finds and then headed to the town park.They were getting ready for the Tractor Show this weekend but we were the only ones at the park. It was so nice and peaceful. While I was feeding Callen, Chase explored the playground. After awhile he called to me to play, so I changed Callen, laid out a blanket on the grass for him to lay on. Then off we went to play on the teeter totter, swings, slides...you name it, we went on it. But after awhile we went and got Callen and we all got on the swings. Well, Chase played with them and Callen and I swung. The picture doesn't show it but he really enjoyed the swing.

See he was so relaxed and fell asleep.


After awhile I looked over to the baseball field and thought it would be fun to run the bases with Chase. So we did just that. I showed Chase how to run the bases. He loved it! He loved it so much that he wanted to do it again and again. Finally I told him it was time to go, well kind of. We were going to walk around the park and into the cemetary. I love to walk in cemetarys. It's kind of peaceful in a weird kind of way. I love reading the old, old gravestones and trying to think what happened and what it was like back in those days. Each gravestone has a story behind it, as sad as it might be.

Have you ever tried to explain to a two year old what a cemetary is? All through the cemetary."What's that?" Gravestone. "What's a gravestone?" "What's a cemetary?" "What do they do here?" Let's just say I really didn't answer but tried to change the subject. "Look at that beautiful flower."

But then we walked by a gravestone with lots of flowers, stuffed animals and such. "I want that. I want the doggie." No honey you can't have those. Interesting walk to say the least.

After our stroll through the park and cemetary, we headed back to town to get ice cream but when we got there, they didn't open until 3pm, phooey. And we couldn't go to Mark's because it's just too cumbersome to maneuver a stroller up a step and through a door, so we just went home.

But we had fun nonetheless and both the boys were pooped. Days like these are why I am so appreciative that I can stay home with my boys. These are my memories and now theirs. They won't remember this day but I will and now they will through my eyes.