Who's Busy Like a Bee?

Me, me me!

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and I am pretty exhausted.  Last week Jason was on a business trip, so Sims and I had some quality time together.  Mom and Smith came up on Thursday to help take care of Sims, while I went to some training for 2 and half days at Duke Chapel.  Work was crazy last week with a big event for prospective students, and to top the whole week off, I led the lesson at Children's Chapel on Sunday for the first time.

Mom and Smith took Sims to the Veterans' Day Parade, which was Sims' first parade.  He loved it, even though it was super cold outside.  Then they took him to Marbles Kids Museum.  I'm jealous that I couldn't go with them because I know that they had so much fun!  I can't wait until Jason and I can take him back to Marbles.

The training at Duke Chapel was for Godly Play, which is what is used in Children's Chapel.  It's Montessori-based, and I'm really excited about it.  The training was pretty intense, but it made me feel much more comfortable on Sunday morning.  I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to do it.  With our Director of Children's Ministries leaving, I think I will be the only one at church with any training in it.  Luckily, there are others who have interest in it, but they were unable to go to the training.  I won't be the only one teaching!

I am so looking forward to things quieting down at work a little because our weekends and evenings will be so filled with activities for the next month and a half.  And it all starts with Isla's big birthday this weekend!  We are so excited to celebrate her first birthday with her.   And can you believe that next week is Thanksgiving!  Where did this year go?

British Royal Guard

Since Sims loved the British Royal Guard (or "Marching Men" as he calls them) so much in London and still talks about them and gets excited to see pictures of them, it was a no-brainer what he should be for Halloween this year.  I think all the effort it took to make the costume was worth it.  He loved being a Marching Man!

Halloween evening was a wash out, literally.  It was cold and rainy, but he did get to trick or treat at 3 houses.  Luckily, Sims had worn his costume to 2 parties over the weekend.  His daycare had a party on Friday, and the church had one of Sunday evening.  The church party was great!  After doing some singing and dancing (well, Sims just watched everyone else do that.), there was a costume parade to the Capitol building and back.  Sims even marched most of the way there.

And a video:

All that marching wore this little Royal Guard out!

We are now all exhausted from our big Halloween weekend!

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday morning, we headed to Ganyard Hill Farm to pick pumpkins and enjoy some farm activities.  This was our second year going to this farm, and we loved it even more this year.  Now Sims is old enough to participate in all the activities like the hay mountain with slide and the hay maze.  I love that there are lots of fun things for Sims (and us) to do, but it still feels like an authentic farm.

Remember last week, when we went to the State Fair, and Sims refused to milk the cow?  Well, he had no problem milking this one. 

We also got to pick some cotton,

and walk through the kids corn maze, which wasn't actually corn.  It was sorghum.

We then graduated to the big corn maze.

We picked some corn to feed to the goats, and Sims loved playing with the corn.

We took our corn to this cute little guy.

The goats were interested in us but not so interested in the corn.

I didn't get any pictures of us in the pumpkin patch choosing our pumpkins.  I think by that time we were all ready for some lunch and ready to head home to rest up for our evening activites (the birthday party for our friends' daughter, which was also loads of fun for all of us.) 

We had a great morning at the farm.  It's the perfect way to kick off the autumnal season. 

State Fair

Yesterday, when it was drizzly and dreary, we spent the afternoon and evening at the State Fair.  This was the only day and time that we could go all week, even though the weather was not ideal.  Or maybe it was ideal because there were no crowds at all!  We only had to wait in line once, when we were getting NC State ice cream, which was worth the wait!

I hadn't been to the fair in a couple of years, and it had been about 10 years for Jason.  We're not the biggest fair fans, but we knew that Sims would probably enjoy it.  He didn't get to ride any of the rides, since he wasn't tall enough, but that's not really why we went anyway.  We were all excited about seeing the animals!  I hadn't explained to Sims what kind of animals we would see because it didn't occur to me to do so.  On the way to the fair, he told us that he wanted to see the giraffe.  Oops.  I guess I should have told him that they were farm animals.  Luckily, he wasn't disappointed.  And as a bonus, he got to see a camel and a zebra at the petting zoo.

My favorite part (as always) is the chickens.  A lot of people think I'm crazy when I tell them that, but how can you not love this:

Isn't she beautiful?  I would swear that's hair and not feathers.  There are just so many kinds of chickens that I didn't know existed before my first trip to the State Fair.  I want a pet chicken!  We also saw a chicken that had Tina Turner hair.  I can't believe I didn't get a picture!

We, also, got to milk a cow.  This was a first for all of us.  Jason and I thought it was pretty neat.  Sims really didn't want anything to do with it.  He quickly touched the utters once and refused to do it again.  He much preferred petting the cow.

Sims got to ride a pony, which he loved.  He did not want to get off of the pony, when his turn was up.

We all had a wonderful time at the fair, which may be hard to believe if you knew how Jason feels about the fair.  Now if we can just have a fair day every year when it's raining (but not too much!), we may start to become bigger fans of the State Fair.  Because you know that Sims will have to go every year from now on.

Kitchen and Playground

We had a busy weekend!  It was jam packed with work, dinners with friends, kitchen designer decisions, and shopping at the brand new Target right up the street from us.

We have been so slow to make a decision and start the kitchen remodel process.  We've had 3 companies/designers come out to the house, and we're finally ready to bite the bullet.  We've decided to go with Essence Design Studio.  Redoing a kitchen is such a large project, and I really didn't want Jason and me to do it alone.  The ladies of Essence Design Studio will even go shopping with us to pick out everything.  I am so excited!  And I am happy to finally get started on this and get rid of our 1980s kitchen with lime green walls.

Sunday evening we went to a new playground that is at an old shopping center that is being revitalized.  It's actually a playground for older kids, but Sims still enjoyed it.  Well, we all enjoyed it.  (These pictures are from my phone, so they aren't great.)

I loved the fake grass on the playground, which looked real!  Can we get this at our house?

Mother-Son Night

On Monday night, Sims and I attended Chick-Fil-A's Mother-Son Date Knight.  The mother of one of Sims' classmates told me about it, and I'm so glad that she did.  It was a totally different Chick-Fil-A experience than normal.  We got reservations for 6:30, and when we got there, the greeter showed us to our seats, where the tables had tablecloths (albeit plastic ones) and flowers.  We sat with Sims' friend and mother and their neighbor and son.  The server came and took our order at the table just like a regular restaurant. 

I had been a little worried that Sims wouldn't eat any of the food.  Even though I was partially right about that (Sims only ate one of his chicken nuggets), we still had a lot of fun.  They handed the kids balloon swords, and Sims was so excited about the balloon!  As we left, the mothers were given a long stemmed red rose.

The boys, also, played in the indoor playground, which was a first for Sims.  He loved it!  He needed me to teach him how to climb up to the top (it was slightly difficult for the little ones), but once he got it, he was up and down and all around that thing.

As much fun as it was with Sims' friend and mother, it made me realize that Sims is at the age, where having a mother-son (or father-son) night out would be a lot of fun.  Just the two of us.  Actually having a conversation!  How can he be that old already?!

Life at the Beach

Here are a few more pictures we took at the beach last week.  We were all pretty excited to find a starfish in a tide pool as the tide was going out.  This is the first time we have ever seen one at Holden Beach.  Don't worry - we didn't keep it.  We threw it back into the ocean.

On our last day, the sky was gorgeous as we watched the rain approach.  Since it was our last day, we refused to get off the beach.

Luckily, it only drizzled on us and quickly went away.  Then we were treated with this.

Did I mention that it was hard to return home?