Boyd Orchard Field Trip

This past Wednesday, Jacob's 1st grade class took a trip to Boyd Orchard  (in Versailles, KY -- and yes, you should pronounce that "ver-SAILS" because we ARE in Kentucky, after all...)

 Jeremiah & I got to go along... (Daddy was working, of course, but remember last year when Rich & I both got to go?  Might have been the one single solitary benefit of working  midnights/weekends!). 

Besides being FRIGID, it was a very pretty day.  But I have to admit, keeping up with Jeremiah made it very hard to get good pictures.  :)  But here are a few anyway...

At the petting zoo, Jacob fed the goats...

And the whatever-this-animal-is... a turkey maybe?

Jeremiah played in the sand...

 

...while Jacob went on the BIG slide!

(Look for him at the top of the slide, on the left... and notice the 

"absolutely no adults" sign at the bottom...not fair, if you ask me!)

Oh, No!

Now, multiply that by about 3 hours...

Bi-Water Farm

This past Saturday morning we took a quick trip to a pumpking farm in Georgetown (about a 1/2 hour north of Lexington).  Mostly I needed to scout it out for a Life Group fun night ;) but we figured it would be a fun trip for the boys too.  We couldn't stay long, because there was a wedding we needed to be at that afternoon, but we did do a little browsing, a little chicken-chasing, and got a few good pictures.  

I think we'll probably go back sometime when we can stay a couple hours & do the hay-ride and corn maze (and something called bunnyville which may or may not involve baby chicks going down a baby-chick-sized water slide...?).  I'm sure that trip will warrant another post!

All the boys next to a really cool old chevy truck 

that was filled with pumpkins in the back...

And the little boys chasing after the chicken 

that was wandering around.

And, sadly, we never could get this one quite right, but we sure tried:

  

Catching Up Chapter 2: Fun Moments

Here are a few fun moments from January of this year:

Ring-around-the-rosie:

Jeremiah playing along to Rowlf the Dog's "Halfway Down the Stairs"...Listen for Jeremiah's enthusiastic "hallelujah!" part-way through. heehee.

And, one rare quiet moment that I caught. Check out those faces! (Jacob's eyebrows, especially!! Yikes!)

Catching Up Chapter 1: Jeremiah Turns Two!

Jeremiah's 2nd birthday was April 1st... He opened some presents:

And played:

He did great at blowing out the candles:

And eating cake:

The present that Jacob picked out for Jeremiah (with Nana's help) was this microphone... which Jacob also enjoyed a lot:

I remember thinking "I can't believe he's TWO!?!?!" ...and now I'm still thinking, "I can't believe he's TWO & a HALF!!" :) Arrrrgh...

Playing at the Park

Jacob has some kickin' new monkey skills:

And Jeremiah was learning about his shadow:

All very fun. :)

snow day!

Wednesday was Jacob's very first snow day! It was supposed to be his first day back to school after the winter break, but it snowed Tuesday evening, sending most of Kentucky into a tizzy.

To be fair, most of the tizzying was warranted. :) Richie & I were out to dinner for our anniversary, and on the way home we did a slow 180 as we tried to brake down a slight hill. Since we ended up exactly backwards from where we started, we decided to just go with it and go home a different way. Yikes! I was glad I wasn't driving...

Anyway, our day off was a lot of fun! (We're all SO glad that it happened on a day that Richie was off too.) There was pancakes for breakfast, and playing in the snow:


and warming up:


and plenty of fun inside (Jeremiah's very into music these days):


The best moment may have been when Richie brought Jacob & Jeremiah into our bedroom at 7:something am & told Jacob there was no school... I wish I had a sound clip of Jacob's reaction. It was a very excited, yet calm & collected, "yeeeeaaaaahhh!" :)

christmas picture attempts

The progression of funny pictures from the "boys-in-front-of-the-christmas-tree" photo shoot... These guys are so fun:

thanksbegiving

We went to Tennessee for Thanksgiving... All the Blisses converged there, and we got to stay in Dave and Dawn's great new (huge!) house. We had tons of fun with everybody (playing Settlers, loving on the cousins, playing Happy Family, eating turkey dinner with the best GBC in town, hanging curtains, etc), but one of my favorite memories is the leaf pile. It was truly fabulous!

Here's Jacob's turn:

I love how Jeremiah comes in halfway through to see what the heck is going on! If you listen close, you can hear him "talking" to me about it just before he appears in the shot. :)

And here's Jeremiah's turn:

halloween

Halloween was pretty fun. Jacob had been begging and begging for a Buzz Lightyear costume -- WITH wing-span, as he calls it -- for months and months and months. Nana & Auntie Jen finally gave him his wish. :) They also sent a lion costume for Jeremiah, which was very cute (though I think a monkey might have been more appropriate for these days!). Unfortunately, me being me, there was no eye-liner or anything to give him a lion nose and whiskers. :)

They got to do two trick-or-treats this year... First there was "trunk-r-treat" at church, where a bunch of people volunteered to pass out candy & stuff from the back of their cars, all lined up in the parking lot. Then there was the regular neighborhood trick or treat.



I've decided that I really don't like trunk-r-treat. It's no fun at all: kids are just herded along in a big crowd, you don't see anybody except the back of the person's head in front of you, and the older kids keep going around and around the loop, cutting in line all the time & taking more turns than they should. All the while, Jeremiah is cooped up in a stroller, tired & cranky, not able to see anything or anybody. Blah. Who wants to do that?



Whereas the regular old trick-or-treating is so classic! You load the little one in the wagon, while Jacob tears down the street ahead of you (to infinity and beyond!). Then you walk all around the neighborhood, seeing all sorts of people & costumes, Jeremiah waving all the way & making friends with everyone. Jacob gets to stop at a house to explore the many decorations (all-be-it creepy), and to chit-chat with the owners (who are pleasantly surprised by his precociousness...hopefully). Plus, after you get home, you still get to answer the door for the kids who are still out, and see Rita's tail puff up to 6 inches around whenever the doorbell rings. :) Far superior to the trunk-r-treat cattle drive!

See? How is this fun? It's not. I think next year we'll stick to the real trick-or-treating...even if we have to skip church. (Scandalous!)