Pumpkin Fun 2010

Over the weekend, we met up with some of our friends for our Annual Pumpkin Patch Extravaganza at Rombach's Farm in Chesterfield. We have been the last three years with the Laramies' and Thies'. This year, the Thies' had two additional kiddos to the mix. Everyone seemed to have had a great time. Seemed a little weird to wear shorts and t-shirts to a pumpkin patch in OCTOBER, but ya know.
The kids rode ponies, rode a little train, played on a slide, climbed and crawled all over pumpkins and as always-they had to endure the pain of me taking pictures like a crazy woman. I really love some of these pictures!

A free picture slideshow by Smilebox

Hate You With a Passion!

Some of you know that I am DEATHLY afraid of snakes. I don't care WHAT kind it is; I DO NOT LIKE THEM! Well, today I got a treat.... (ready to strike my dad)
The kids and I were just getting home from grocery shopping and as I open the garage door, I notice I can't pull in because there is a HUGE toad in the middle of my garage, but close to the garage door. I couldn't pull in, so I got the kids out and took them inside. I tried for 5-10 minutes to get that big nasty thing out of my garage with a piece of wood (scooting it towards the grass). However; it just kept jumping back inside the garage. Finally, I got a plastic bag, put my hand inside of it and picked up the toad and placed it to the side of our house in the grass. I put a couple of bags of groceries inside and went around the side to see if it was possibly hopping back towards our garage, but it wasn't. The poor (yet nasty) thing I had JUST let go was being EATEN BY A SNAKE! It had to have been at least 4 feet long. That snake had to have sensed that toad before I even put it to the side of our garage and had to have been there when I put the toad in the grass. AAAHHHHHH!
I felt awful for the toad! After I screamed and then gave my condolences, I came inside to grab the camera to take a picture and find out what kind of snake this was. I found out it was just a garter snake. I didn't not know that even if you are bit, you could risk infection. So, I knew I wanted this thing removed from my yard. I called my dad (who was on his way over to work on my basement) and he said he would toss it over the fence when he got here. The other guy working on our basement also hates snakes as much as I and wanted to kill it. Needless to say, the snake had a taste of his last meal. I don't think the snake would have EVER fit that big ol' toad down him. My dad took a shovel to the snake; which made the snake really angry, so it coiled up to strike. My dad ended up cutting him up with a shovel. Now, the remains are behind our fence in the backyard. I am petrified to have the kids walking around outside now!

Fire trucks Galore

This past weekend in the Kohl's parking lot, there were fire trucks from different stations set up for display. There was an ambulance, helicopter and rescue boat available to sit on as well. The kids didn't really want to climb on the trucks or helicopter (they said they were afraid they were going to move/take off). They did enjoy watching a car catch on fire and then put out by some fireman.

Saturday + Fall= FESTIVAL!

The Rau Clan loves going to festivals and parades and this the other weekend, we had fun at Oktoberfest in St. Charles. We enjoyed the parade, a great lunch of beer, brats and pretzels (well, Greg & I did), and Leah had fun playing on a variety of bounch houses, got her hand painted and painted her own pumpkin. Evan decided he didn't want to participate in any of the fun stuff for kids -what a party pooper! The kids each had a short nap and then we were off again for a Lawn Olympic party. A friend of ours from Greg's work has had this party for the past 4-5 years now. This was the 1st or 2nd of which was with kids. They had some really cute games for the kids to play-potato sack race, walk with marshmallow on your spoon, lawn mower race, etc. The kids all had a great time as did we.

Ready for Halloween

We're excited about Fall and the twins are excited that next month they can go ringing doorbells for candy.

For Halloween, Evan's going to be a Pirate and Leah is going to be a Princess. At the Mother of Twins Club sale this year, I found Evan's costume for $3.50 and Greg's mom is going to sew a princess gown for Leah (so the one in the picture is just a dress up outfit we already have). We have had Evan's costume for about a month and a half now and last week was the first time Evan would even try it on. He said it was scary. Let me tell you just HOW we got him to try it on...FINALLY! Greg came up with the idea to play "Trick or Treat." So, we got the costumes on and the kids went to the door, rang the doorbell and you know the rest. Well, we have played this several times since that first time. They will even play it for dry cereal or fruit :)

I am so excited we finally got Evan to try his costume on and I am a little more confident that he will put it on Halloween night! He looks so gosh darn cute!

At the Car Wash

Evan and Leah HATE going through the car wash. Our 4-Runner is absolutely filthy and really needed to be washed. So, yesterday we took the kids to Orlando's Fruit Stand and the kids and I bought some fruit and veggies while Greg washed the car behind the fruit stand. We were done before Greg was. Evan decided it was more fun to be on the outside of the car washing it instead of on the inside (of course Leah had to have her turn of washing the car as well).

Playing With The Big Kids

(should we stay or should we go?)

(finally made it out there)

I always told Greg I wish there were more kids that lived on our street. Well, my wish came true. The three kids that live across the street hardly come out to play, but they have been coming out more and more. The next door neighbors have their grandchildren over more now and they play outside often. There is also another neighbor that have their son and his two children now living with them, so those kids have been out alot lately.

Everyday the older kids are out playing, Evan and Leah immediately want to go outside to watch them and try and play with them.

In the pictures above, Leah and Evan were slowly making their way towards the street to play with the big kids. It was too cute to watch.

Just yesterday riding in the car, Leah asked me if Hannah was home. I said I didn't know. She then replied, "Mommy, I like Hannah." I said, "That's nice Leah." Then she said, "Mommy, I love Hannah. She's nice." How cute.