Apples, Pumpkins, and a little Flag Football

We have had a very busy week here in the Paxton home. Sunday afternoon Wally suggested that Kelsie and Brandon ride their scooters around the block (listening to 4 hours of conference can be very taxing for those so young) and get some energy out. It was a pretty big deal for them to do this without an adult. Kelsie was in charge, of course, with Brandon happily scooting along behind her. They came home and wanted to go again and Wally decided to go with them. While out on their adventure around the block, a lady in her car stopped and asked Wally if he was the father of those two kids. He said "yeah" and she continued on to tell him that she saw them riding their scooters with no sign of adult supervision around and took it upon herself to call the police. To which Wally replied, "Yep, their mine." and walked away. A nice gesture from a concerned lady driving along, ended with her calling the police back and letting them know all's well.

Our week continued on with all our regularly scheduled events (FHE, dance, baths, etc.). Wally has been sick all week with a pretty bad head cold. I don't think I've seen him this sick since the first year we were married and he couldn't swallow his spit because his throat hurt so bad (it went into a cup in case you were worried). I was able to finish Caleb's Halloween costume and get started on Kelsie's and even come up with some fun things for us to do. We were excited for Friday since there was no school and we could sleep in. Well, with a baby it's not as easy as it sounds. Caleb was up and ready to eat by 7 a.m. and Brandon was already downstairs playing his morning's dose of video games.

We decided to pick some apples at a local farm here that morning and really had a great time. I'm sure it was pretty comical watching me herd 2 kids along plus our apple-picking buckets, our boxes, and the stroller with Caleb. We managed to have a fun time except for Caleb's crying and all the bur's that stuck to our pants, which Brandon had a really hard time with. We still managed to come home with 42 pounds of apples, a little more than the 25 pounds I was planning on. The plan was to start making some applesauce together until I couldn't remember where all my canning jars were (still haven't unpacked them).

After eating some lunch and getting everyone going on something I was too tired to think of anything else so I decided to read my book until Brandon got bored and thought it would be fun to repeat things over and over in my face. In an effort to keep my sanity, we decorated our trick-or-treat bags, watched what Rachael Ray was cooking for dinner that night and two compelling episodes of Arthur. Kelsie then had a friend come over for a few hours that ended up being a sleep-over, which meant a late night and early morning with the kids.

Saturday started out really fun with Brandon's final flag football game of the season. The weather was great and he was happy and he even scored a REAL touchdown this week and outran one of the bigger kids on the other team to do it. He did end up getting tackled and fell pretty hard on his face, but he was OK after the tears subsided. If you happened to see his almost touchdown from last week, here's another video of him scoring his real touchdown today.

We also drove out to what is probably the ONLY bona fide pumpkin patch here in the tri-cities. Located at the Country Mercantile Market in Pasco, we were able to enjoy a hay bale maze, hay bale pyramid, tractor hay ride to the pumpkin patch, a corn maze, a barn with some animals in it, and some ice cream. Kelsie and Brandon each picked out the perfect pumpkin that they could carry (very important) and found a nice small one for Caleb, who quickly marked it with his drool. We had a fun time together enjoying the nice weather and the harvest.












Just to prove that I was, in fact, there with my family, here is a rare picture of yours truly:

Perhaps the things most noteworthy about our week:

Caleb started crawling! He has been rolling around all over the place for some time now and has even been up in the crawl position rocking back and forth for a while. He finally figured out how to scoot forward and move. It is an exciting time here for his newly discovered mobility, but also a time to remember how to baby-proof our house. Oh yeah, and buy a gate.

For those of you who know Kelsie, her eating habits are nothing less than fastidious. We have never known another kid who is as picky as she is about food. The food on her plate cannot touch at all, and can only consist of cheese, tortillas, or pizza. This last week we reached a milestone here, folks. Kelsie ate LASAGNA! I figured that she just wanted dessert really bad that night but then she double wow'ed me by eating it again another night! For such a momentous occasion, we happily provide a picture!







Until next time...