Okay, so I couldn't wait...

We went trick or treating at the mall Monday night with Aunt Tami, the Cunninghams and the Carnes. Here are a couple of pics from that night. I will post the ones from tonight...tomorrow!

Peyton is supposed to be Stephanie from Lazy Town, but we haven't ever seen that show! Haha Dave said that she looked like a Doodle Bop! Take your pic! We don't care what you think she is dressed up as. She is so darn cute in that pink wig!

Gavin really enjoyed his monkey costume and his round face really sets it off!

Reagan went as a pirate this year and is the cutest pirate I have seen!

Zada went as a beautiful fairy, wings and all!

Gabby went as Holly Hobby. I couldn't catch her smiling, but even her serious faces are incredibly adorable!

Peyton was looking up at her hair in excitement. Tami said that is is a little bit spooky!

Gavin started eating the candy through the wrappers as soon as he started getting it. He likes this trick or treating thing!

Pumpkin Show pictures...finally!

Now get ready, this post has LOTS of pictures. I did leave some off, but I had a hard time picking between the rest! We had a blast at the 101st Pumpkin Show. (I was wrong in my earlier post). We had Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks (they were handing them out free!), a whoopie pie (which is like a moon pie but made out of pumpkin), and saw 3 out of the 7 or 8 parades they had! It was a big deal!

Here we are about to begin the day at The Pumpkin Show! (Yes, Gavin put pants on eventually)
This was the winner of the Giant Pumkin Contest. Weighing in at 1524.5 lbs, it took that state record as well! Peyton was a little scared of those giant pumpkins!

Peyton and Nana

The kids got to ride A LOT of rides. We even gave the rest of our tickets away! This was Peyton's favorite. She got to go all by herself! She thought she was big stuff. Gavin didn't really like it much!

Now the carousel, that was another story! This is the only picture that she isn't choking me to death!

Gavin liked it at first, but that didn't last long. He and Daddy sat on the sleigh behind them!

Now the truck ride they both loved!

Can't you tell!?!

Gavin had just woken up from a nap. We put him in the car with Peyton but it didn't go well! He was standing up before the ride even began so we took him off!

We went to a historical living farm our last day in Ohio. This post already has WAY too many pictures so I will try and post those after the Halloween pictures.

The Pumpkin Show was a hit!

We had so much fun during our recent visit to Ohio. We started out in Amherst, OH visiting James' grandparents. They were very excited to see the kids again. Have you ever seen an 84 year old man on the floor playing like on of the kids? Well here you go! It was so great.

Peyton was washing Grandpa Payne's hair!

We then stayed the night with James' Aunt Selina, a.k.a Aunt Sweener. That is what James called her when he was growing up. We passed on that tradition to Peyton and she did it beautifully! Aunt Sweener has 2 cats, Tiger and Snowball. Peyton and Gavin were both very excited to see them, however the cats didn't share their feelings. They tried to check us out a couple of times, but as soon as the toddlers started toward them, they disappeared. So, needless to say, we didn't see much of the cats that weekend. Peyton did fall in love with one of Aunt Sweener's stuffed kittens and Sweener melted and the kitten came home with us! Peyton has carried it around with her everyday since!

(This is one of my absolute favorite pictures)

I will post the other events and pictures separately. For now, enjoy these pictures!

Pumpkin Festival

Well Folks, we are headed to Ohio for a whole week! This is the week of the 102nd Pumpkin Festival in Circleville, Ohio. This thing is HUGE!!! The town's water tower is even painted as a pumpkin, year round! This isn't just for the festival. This is what puts Circleville on the map! James' parents now live in Circleville, so we are taking the kids and heading out for a week of fun with the pumpkins! I am sure we will have great pictures to post later! Have a great week!

Here is the website if anyone is interested in checking out more!
http://www.pumpkinshow.com/index.htm

New Talent?

So, what do you think? New talent? If so, we don't know where he got it from! James and I are definitely not gifted in the musical talent category! Hahaha

Surprising enough, this was actually the first weekend in October and we were still able to be out of the back porch, listening to my brother in law playing his guitar! This is a rare thing for Indiana. It was so nice!

Time with Papa

My dad was here last week. The kids love seeing him! Peyton just heard his voice in the garage the first day he got here and said, "Mama, Papa is here!" Dad doesn't like getting his picture taken very much, so this is one that I caught when he wasn't paying attention! Gavin started saying Papa while he was here too!


Remember, we are from the south, so even though it is written "papa" it is pronounced "pawpaw". For both of my Papa's it was the same way! Dad just kept the tradition going! However, don't be mistaken...my mom isn't granny! She is Gee Gee and she will correct you if you call her anything else!

Starting at an early age!

Teacher Zada with her class! They actually "paid attention" for a lot longer than I thought they would! Gavin didn't do what she wanted him to, but what else would you expect from a 16 month old boy!



Enjoy the video below.

It all started with a new oven.

That's right. All of the chaos this past week started with something simple as a new oven!

My oven went out 2 days after Christmas and I have been going without one since. At first, I LOVED the idea of being without an oven. That meant less cooking, less baking and definitely less cleaning of those big, clunky dishes! It was like a dream come true! Take note, my original oven was a built in wall oven. Therefore I still had my stove top to cook on.

Well, I have since longed for some meat loaf, lasagna and Chicken Divan (even though it isn't one of James' favorites) so I have really been wanting a new oven pretty bad. We noticed that H.H. Gregg was having a huge sale and thought we would go check it out. James quickly found out that the dimensions of my OLD oven were no longer standard. All of the ovens were more narrow and longer...this meant that we were going to have to cut out the cabinet. Since we were going to have to get saw crazy anyway, James decided that we would just get a new range and replace both the oven and stove by cutting out the other cabinet...In fact, it ended up costing the same as the wall oven alone!

So, like I said, H.H. Gregg was having a huge sale. James decided that this would be a good time to replace our refrigerator and to get me a dishwasher, since we were eventually going to have to do this anyway!

Well long story short, here are a list of events that followed!

• Wednesday; Great friend, Bubba came over and helped James cut cabinet out so range could be delivered.
• Found that gas line was coming through the middle of the cabinet and was almost a foot out of the ground (went to the original stove top only)
• Almost a 2 foot gap between the range and the wall where it was supposed to be. Need to hire a professional.
• Wiring for outlet installed. Found that wires that were attached were dead wires. Will need another professional for that. (had to run new wiring)
• Oven is hooked up, sitting 2 feet from the wall, I am using it anyway!
• Thursday, company arrived for the James Dean Car Festival. (Boy are we glad you came to see us Johnny, Mike and Jerry! Hahaha)
• Friday, New refrigerator delivered and set up. NO PROBLEMS!!!!
• Friday about midnight, James finds water in our crawl space. 8-12 inches deep. Come to find out, our tub has been draining into our crawl space for who knows how long! Our oh so wonderful guests check out plumbing and realize that a 20 in piece of pipe has rusted off completely and is just GONE!!!
• Saturday, Bright and early, go rent a sump pump and begin pumping water from basement. Make MANY trips to Lowes (James-3, myself-3)
• Mike, fixes piping to bath tub. At least we have stopped adding to the water under the house. THANKS MIKE!!!
• Saturday about 10:00 p.m. James finds another leak in the crawl space! It is in the pipe coming from the well to the pump.
• Sunday morning, friend from church lets us borrow another pump and we begin pumping water out the back of the house as well.
• Monday, plumber comes out to move my gas line so that my oven can rest where it is supposed to, against my wall. He also fixes the leak in pipe. James is under the house for most of the day moving the pump, still pumping water out...Plumber leaves about 4 pm
• 5 pm, Smell gas, James calls plumbing company.
• 5 pm-10 pm. James makes multiple calls to plumbing company because no one has arrived. Kathy (MIL) and I took the kids in the backyard for a while and then went shopping for things for my yard. (all windows are open in the house in an attempt to air it out)
• 9:30, Kathy and I come back with the kids, get the dressed for bed and I call the gas company. Plumbing company STILL hasn't arrived.
• Gas company, of course, told us to all stay out of the house and they would send someone right away. So I laid a sleeping bag, floor pillows and blocks in the back of my van. At first, the kids thought it was cool!
• 10:15 ish...Plumbing company and gas company show up about 5 minutes apart. We have a leak in the crawl space. There was a bad fitter in the work the plumber did on the gas line earlier. Problem fixed.
• Gas company tells us that our water heater isn't up to code...does a minor repair and "yellow tags" it instead of red...Red tag means they shut off our gas until we fix it. We still have to replace it, we just have a little time "allowance".
• 11:00, Gas leaks fixed, safe to come in, kids finally get put to bed!

So, my dishwasher is supposed to be delivered tomorrow, I hope that this appliance doesn't come with another long list of problems!

WE HAVE GOT TO SELL THIS HOUSE!!!!!

One fantastic highlight is...with the amazing help of my dad and a tiller my mother in law did an awesome job with some landscaping around my house! At least something went well!

Pictures to go with above post!

Here are some pictures of things or events that I referred to in the "It all began with a new oven" post.

Curtain is where my old oven was...soon to be a new cabinet for storage!

My new refrigerator. It looks massive in my kitchen!

This is the east side of my house. Kathy planted these plants 2 years ago. It was so overgrown though you couldn't even see the hostas. The Rose of Sharon did really well though. We were able to take out over 50 new growths of Rose of Sharon from this small spot here to transplant along the west fence row!

This is the row along the fence that my dad used the tiller on. The ground was very dry and very hard. He worked himself so hard! Dads are amazing! We only transplanted 23 of them! A couple of them will be tied down with twine to straighten them out. Some of them were growing crooked. In a couple of years, this should be a really nice hedge row! They are fuchsia, purpleish blooms as well!

For those that don't know...there was a green house on the front of my house when we bought it. That is right, a bevelled glass, green house! It had been there for over 20 years. It didn't take us long before we knocked that down! However, this area beside what used to be the green house had been taken over by Lily of the Vally. We cleaned all of that out, planted 3 mums and are awaiting a hay bail and a couple of pumpkins. We are contemplating a scarecrow as well!

Kathy is very talented with a green thumb and we are ever so grateful that she is! I don't know what we would have done this past week without my dad, my mother in law and our dear biker friends that road all the way out here for a fun couple of days looking at old cars! Little did they all know what they were getting themselves into! We love all of you and are so thankful for your selfless acts while you were all guests in our home. I guess "rent" is really steep around here! Hahaha We charge in manual labor!