Trouble-makers

These trouble-makers.... I bought the kids animal crackers at the store, and Emily was having fun shaking them on the way to the car. So I let her keep the box to play with on the way home. Well - shaking it turned out to not be enough. By the time we got home, I found her with handfuls of cookies. She had EATEN through the end of the box AND the wax wrapper inside to get to the cookies (see the pic below)! You'd think some animal had gotten ahold of it!

"What mom? I wanted the cookies!"

Nope - not a mouse in the house, that's Emily's handiwork!


This guy, on the other hand, has trouble with hotels. Within a 5 min. span, he went head-first into the corners of furniture TWICE last weekend in NJ when we went down to pick up the trailer. His first shot was right along his right eye (hard to see in this pic), the 2nd one was the bigger doozy, right smack in the middle of his forehead. This pic is 2 days later. It was bright blue and standing out. =)

New Jersey!

We finally got our new trailer! YEAH! We had to drive down to New Jersey to pick it up. 4 hours each way. (It's kind of funny that in 4 hours we drove through 5 states....) But here it is. 24' long, brand new. Big enough to haul the racecar plus a golf cart. Now we just have to get to work setting up the inside to carry everything. (BTW - it comes with AC and Heat, since we'll be camping in it from now on.)

Anyway - while we were in New Jersey, a couple of Melissa's friends came to meet us for lunch. We had 6 kids and 5 adults (the men aren't pictured). From LF to RT - Robyn, Riley, Conor, Emily, Zach, Melissa, Izzy, Nicole and Jack.

Melissa and Nicole

Izzy, Jack and Riley eating ice cream at Friendly's.

Conor and Izzy. Conor is almost exactly a year younger, but taller and 5 lbs heavier then Isabelle!

Apple Orchard

We went to a local apple orchard on Friday and picked our own fruit. The place also had a huge play area for the kids, a petting zoo, a train that took you around the farm. The kids, especially Izzy, had a lot of fun!


Emily LOVED eating an apple whole.

Sisters sharing the fruit.

There was a huge hay pile for the kids the climb, and Izzy made it all the way to the top on her own.

There was a big treehouse with a slide. While the twins and I ate lunch, Izzy took off and played for a long time.

Of course this one ended up in the dirt, and with a few handfuls into the mouth as well!

All Dressed Up

Since it's a weekend we're finally home, we were able to go to church today. With the kids all dressed up, I got a few pictures of them looking pretty spiffy.


Zach LOVES his hammer. It's probably his favorite toy.

This girl can SCREAM when she's happy.

Posing for the camera. This week she started walking. No long distances, but she can do about 4-5 steps between mommy and daddy.

Dirty Girl

This weeked was Steve's last race of the season. (We still have a few more events we'll work, but this was the last he'll drive in.) During his race on Sat, Isabelle and her friend Jacob went under the bleachers and spent the entire race playing in the dirt. They started off just dumping dirt on their legs, then it moved to their arms, on top of their heads and down their shirts. It was quite the dirt bath they gave themselves! They were covered. After the race, Jacob's mom and I had to take the kids, strip them down and hose them off - there was no other way to get them even semi-clean. But that's the fun of going to the races, right... playing with friends outside in the dirt!

That's NOT a tan on her arms. =)

Red Sox No-Hitter

We went to 4-5 Red Sox games this year, our last one was last weekend, on Sept 1 when Rookie Clay Buchholz pitched a no-hitter in only his 2nd MLB game. It was the first no-hitter by a rookie in Red Sox history, only the 17th time ever a rookie has done that in the history of the major league. It was pretty cool to watch history happen. These pictures were from that night - forgive the poor quality, they were taken with my phone!

Final score. By the way - that's Steve's company, Covidien, that's displayed prominently on the Green Monster.

Fans were selling their ticket stubs from the game for $800 the next day on ebay! We kept ours. =)

It says "No Hitter" on the left, and "Clay Buchholz" on the right.

Immediately after the last out, the crowd went wild and the players all stormed the field. (Notice the heightened security.)

Zoo

We're trying to spend as much time outside as we can before the weather turns cold. So today we went to the small local zoo. They had a feeding pen, and Izzy had so much fun feeding the llamas and billy goats.

Our llama friends...

Trouble

Once again, I learn the perils of leaving a 2-year old unattended while taking a shower. This morning, she got into my bathroom drawer, put my headband on, some blush (which you can't really see) and proceeded to dig out all my deodorant with a comb and smush it all down the front of her shirt. =)

Twins

Here's a couple fun shots of Zach and Emily.



Daddy instigated a wrestling match between the two of them the other night. They each had their turn pinning the other. What's funny is that this is kind of the norm - they're always crawling all over each other. It gets even crazier when Izzy jumps in on the action as well!