Apple Picking Time

We went to Hartland Orchard, about an hour's drive from the city, heading toward Shenandoah National Park, and had a wonderful day of it. The kids were running amok, climbing trees and picking apples. It really made me long for a farm of our own! Here Abigail and Ezra are using the apple picker to get the apples up high in the tree...



Look at the scenery ... it's absolutely beautiful out here.



Sarah the fairy princess eats her first apple ... she was thrilled, and gnawed it down to the core.

She's One!

Well, ok, she was one almost a month ago, but here are some pictures from the birthday. Sarah with her attitude ...



Sarah being sweet...



Why only use one's hands to eat cake?



The Oleks came over to help us eat up the cake!

October Craziness

Two days ago Ezra officially had his first trip to the ER ... early in the morning he fell down the stairs.  Yep, ALL the way down that tall wooden monster, head over heels.  Serious deja vu from Abigail doing the SAME thing at the SAME age 6 years ago!   Of course this time I was going to know better, and not rush right off the ER, only to have my "injured" 2 yr old dance happily around the waiting room entertaining all the people there with REAL emergencies!  So I watched him all day.  Then right at dinner time, he collapsed on the floor crying, "my tummy hurts, Mommy, it hurts really really bad!"  Lots of tears, refusing to stand ... so there we are, mom and 3 kids packing out quesadillas to go to the ER.  We waited about 3 hours, ate dinner and some snacks, and of course by the time we got to the doctor (and Daddy scooted in, right around the same time), the "injured" 2 yr old was happily prancing around all the people with real emergencies.  And I was busy trying to keep Sarah from dismantling the bed and all the medical equipment.  The doctor checked him out (I was thinking maybe a cracked rib or something?) but of course he was fine.  And I got some doctor speak about "gas", and I thought, seriously, I KNOW when my kids have gas ... do you think I would be sitting here in the ER for 3 hours with 3 kids if it wasn't something a little more than GAS!!!  So maybe it was just hunger, plus trauma, plus a little muscle soreness.  But he's fine now, of course.  

After a night of that, we needed a break!  So yesterday we skipped school and drove out to an apple orchard to pick apples.  The kids had a blast.  I'll post some pictures soon....

Painting Clouds and Buying Toes

I'm terrible at recording this stuff, but maybe having a blog will help.  I'll just have to assure Abigail she said as many cute things, but we just didn't write them down anywhere...  Ezra had two today.  He has a terrible problem with his toenails, and he rather solemnly informed me today, "well, Mom, I guess we'll have to buy a new big toe!"  Then tonight I told him Daddy should be home "any minute" (hah), and he looked outside and said, "are they painting the clouds?"  It took me a minute, then I remembered one night last week we drove to pick Daddy up at the pentagon, and the sky was brilliant with pink clouds ... ergo, daddy comes home when "they paint the clouds!"  

An Announcement and An Announcement...

We have a house in Florida!  Inspection came back with only minor repairs, so it's a go...  Ok, so it's not terribly charming, kind of a giant box, but hey, it's 5 bedrooms.  Why, you may ask, do the Kennedys need 5 bedrooms?  Well, the Circus is adding a new act ... Baby K #4 will be arriving next March!   

My trapezoid fell behind the alligator...

Two year olds are hard enough to understand.  But when they start freely interchanging their 3 and 4 syllable words, it can get very interesting!    This took some serious mommy detective work, but we finally figured out that "My helicopter fell behind the radiator!"

Ezism #3: DVD's are not a throwing toy!

And no, you cannot race them across the floor like cars, either!