Carve em' up!

We LOVE to carve our pumpkins

or as Cy says "Punkins"

He really was having a good time,

just a little tired of posing for pictures I guess!
Sometimes he is all work and no play!

Now that we have 7 pumpkins to carve, we are moving on to power tools! The kids draw their face on and then daddy carves it up. I don't feel like the kiddos are missing out because their favorite part is getting the guts out anyway...go figure.

No interest for Gussy.

Some of the results. What a great time!

Punkin Patch

One of the farmers Matt sells to has an awesome pumpkin patch at his farm. There is a HUGE corn maze, cute little country store, animal petting area and lots of other fun things. He invited us out for some fun...and fun it was! Freezing...but FUN!

Cyrus is too much like Matt I guess. He didn't want to go on the path, he wanted to walk out in the corn! He just kept saying "Dis way Mama! Dis way!"

They had a blast in the maze. It was by far the coolest and HUGEST maze I have ever been in.

We had a small set back at the petting area. Bailey got a little too up close and personal with a pony and he bit her. Brutal, right on her belly. He got her pretty good and had a big scrape and bruise right away, but she was a champ about it and we moved on to find our pumpkins!

It was a great time! Even Gus Gus had fun in the cold and was pretty stoked about his pumpkin....can't you tell?

We were all tuckered out by the end. Thanks Leininger Family, you have the best pumpkin patch around!

I LOVE Fall! I LOVE Fall!

Our yard has many many MANY mature trees, so we have more leaves than I have ever seen! It is awesome. This is a daily gathering, 10 minutes later you could do this all over again! Good thing they enjoy it so much huh!

A Daddy-Daughters Day!

It was supposed to be the whole family, but when the boys weren't feeling well it quickly turned into a day out with Dad! I am so glad Mattie was so happy to spend the day with them, he always is happy for that.
After spending plenty of time at Grandpa's messing around and driving the go-cart, the girls got all dressed up in their Halloween costumes and went to the Zoo for their Halloween celebration.

Don't ask me about the green lipstick, I don't know where they got that!

The Zoo in Ft. Wayne has some really fun Halloween activities that they hold each year after the zoo is closed for the season. The kids had a blast. They went with Matt's family and it was just great!

Matt snapped this next picture off in the tunnel on the train ride. Taite wasn't expecting it and I thought her face was hilarious! She is such a cutie!

They had a great time, we'll have to go again next year. The older girls are really excited this year because they get to dress up several times and decided they wanted to go as something different each time. I think they are just lucky, we sure didn't get several days worth of candy collecting...or dressing up either! How fun though, they get so excited!

Gus

1 year....REALLY?!?! How can it be? No way this kiddo has been here that long! Maybe that is because every second with him is SO stinkin fabulous that time just flies right by!

Augustus Quentin Johnson
October 15th, 2008

9 lbs. 11 oz. 22 inches long!

My baby Gus

Now he is 24.5 lbs. and 32 1/4 inches tall!

75% for weight and 98% for his height!

Gus is so adorable, happy, giggly and OvErFLoWiNg with Energy!

He LOVES to snuggle and give kisses, but loves even more to wrestle! If you are on the floor, beware that Gus will be diving onto you at any moment, growling happily all the way! This is how we know he is 100% Johnson through and through.

He is already sassy and strong-willed. Changing his diaper is the worst thing in the world because he wiggles like crazy and HaTeS to sit still for it!

He is everywhere and into everything!

He started walking a month ago and boy can he move!

My little Gus man is all around special to me. It was such a shock to me when we found out we were pregnant with him! It was a hard pregnancy with lots of difficult situations with all the moving & separation and other stuff I have conveniently blocked out! His delivery was very difficult for me and not like the others, but I know it was all for a reason because without a doubt it was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. Gus is a joy and even though we weren't expecting his arrival so soon, I am eternally grateful that he came right down to me. We all adore him!

The other day was awful. I had a very loud prompting and ran to the stairs just in time to see him at the top of the stairs. I screamed his name and ran to try and stop him and missed. It was a terrifying experience because there is a wall on one side and the other side of the staircase is open all the way down, straight down to a tile floor. When I missed his foot and could see him heading right over the edge toward a 7 1/2 foot drop, I dove head first down after him and by the grace of the Lord grabbed his jacket collar before he went over. I had him, but couldn't stop myself of course and we both fell all the way to the bottom. He was miraculously flipped around so he pretty much just got a bumpy ride on his bum in the crook of my arm the rest of the way down. I crashed at the bottom, but luckily he just landed on me.

It was the scariest experience for me because I truly thought I was going to watch my baby fall to his death head first off the edge. It wasn't a second thought that if he was going down, so was I. It was just one of those moments where you can briefly see so clearly. I love him beyond words, all of my children and am acutely aware of how blessed I am and know what a gift it is to have each one of them in my life. I am inexpressibly grateful for my family.

I am so thankful for his safety and thankful for the sweet whisperings of the Spirit. I know if I hadn't heard that prompting Gus would have gone over the side for sure.

Needless to say, the stairs problem is being remedied immediately...its a sore subject!

Just look at this face...what's not to LOVE?!

We are going to be having a party for him in a couple weeks when Mamau gets here, so look forward to cake pictures...love those!

Crack me up

Taite is hysterical. She has a way of thinking that I just can't quite describe, I love it! She is doing really well in our little Preschool. She is reading like a champ and doing great in all other areas. She has begged me to put a post on here of her reading so Oma....of course OMA! can see her latest reading. I will get around to that, but for today there is this.

Let me preface this by saying that at Learning Dynamics we used to teach the kids about writing and staying in the lines by referring to it as the "letter highway" Which became "letter road" for Taite-because letter highway kept instigating conversations of how she did not like the word highway, so hence "letter road" is my term of choice for Taite!

Anyway, we describe that "This looks like a road!" "Mommy and Daddy drive on the road don't they?" "They stay on the road because they can't drive on the sidewalk right?" "Well, we don't want to go off the highway either do we?" etc etc...you get the idea. There is usually a little discussion the first couple of days, but then they all get it and we all try to stay in the lines! Well Taite takes it a little further. Check out her work.

She got it from the first day and that is when these little characters started appearing on her paper. Right there under the capital Fs. There used to be many, but now we have whittled down to one or two for the sake of time each day.

What is it you ask? Well, when I asked her what those were she replied very casually "Oh, these are the people on the sidewalk that I don't want to run over and then they will die."

Never in all my classes of 12 students each class, or with Ellery, Bailey and Megan going through Learning Dynamics has any of them had such an issue with this...just hilarious! I LOVE this girlie!

School Pics

I think the girls' pictures turned out pretty darn cute! But hey, I am Smitten so don't ask me to be objective!

Bailey 1st Grade!

Ellery 2nd Grade!

Bumps

We have had a rough week, well Gus and Cy have. First, the other day I hear giggling coming from the toy room as I am making dinner. Taite and Gus were playing together and as always, she was making him laugh! They were totally content for about 20 minutes, which is a lot for Gus!
Then I hear a thump and a bloody murder scream! You know the scream that is definitely not an angry or pouty scream...I am hurt scream. I ran in to find Gus completely out of breath he was crying so hard. There was blood on the floor and Taite was crying too. She had tried to rock him in the recliner and he fell over the edge onto a sharp toy.
It bled a LOT, but there were just three small punctures so nothing to sew up. He got over it a lot sooner than poor Taite. She felt awful, "We were snuggling and I thought I could rock him! He's gonna be mad at me." So sad, and NO he was not mad at his favorite giggling buddy.

Cyrus- We had a fun time at the park and he was running to the car when he tripped. He fell forward and nailed his head right on the curb. It was the loudest thump I have ever heard, I honestly expected blood to be everywhere when I pulled him up. But, thank heavens it was just a bad, big, fat goose egg, poor guy. Of course he said "Need my Daddy" so we raced home so Dad could make it all better.

These two little guys melt my heart! They are great buds too. I love it when they get out their tools and pretend to fix things, Cy tries to show Gus what to do~I love it!

Here they are "helping" Mommy put the new bookshelf together, they really helped speed things up! NOT, but it was still worth it to see them try!