Family Fun This Fall

Well, I've been a bad blogger. I just realized how long it's been since my last post and I can't believe I let it lapse so long. We certainly haven't had a shortage of activity!

A quick recap to catch you all up:

October began with my cousin, Barbie's, wedding. We had Ron's parents come up to stay with us to help out with the kids so Ron and I could enjoy the festivities. The kids all enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa "sleep over" at their house and Ron and I loved getting away for a night!

The following week we went apple picking. Allie is now the youngest member of the Maisch family to go to Riamede, where our family has gone apple picking for over 20 years! The boys had a blast picking apples from the tree, and Robbie probably devoured about five apples while we were there. No matter how hard we tried, or how much fun he was having, Scottie still refuses to eat fruit. He did, however, eat every last bite of the apple crisp I made with the apples we picked, so there's some progress!

Last weekend we had a visit from our good friends from Charlotte, Sarah and Dave and their two boys, Grant and Drew. All four boys had a blast playing together and made me miss our friends from when we lived there. Allie just got a kick out of watching all the craziness from having four boys ages 4 and under in our playroom and backyard!

This weekend, we took the boys to a nursery in Westfield to go pumpkin picking. The nursery went all out for Halloween and had a haunted house backdrop for pictures, a hayride, pony rides, cut outs for posing, and a maze. We spent a couple of hours there and all had a great time. This week, we'll help the boys paint faces on their pumpkins and carve the big family Jack-O-Lantern.

And, to top it all off, yesterday Penn State broke our losing streak and beat Michigan! Penn State is now 7-0 for the season and 3-0 in the Big Ten. We couldn't be prouder to be Nittany Lions and Ron and I can't wait to head out to State College for our anniversary next weekend!

And, at some point in the past two weeks, both Robbie and Scottie became video gamers. Scottie has mastered a number of games on the Thomas laptop computer toy we have and Robbie has moved on to online games on Nick Jr and PBS Kids websites. It's been a while since our last attempt at these and I'm just amazed at the progress of his fine motor skills with the mouse, not to mention "getting" the games. He asks to play computer games nonstop now. We've created a monster!

We're gearing up for Halloween here. It's a beautiful fall so far in New Jersey!