One of our favorite things to do in the Fall is visit Carmichael's Pumpkin Patch.  They have the best gathering of live farm animals in our area not to mention a hay maze, cool pumpkins, and lots of other cool stuff that costs money that we never let our kids do.  This year we ran into James' best friend from the last two years at Hoover.  His name is Will.  James has been asking to call him for over a month.  Finally I let him about two weeks ago and we had to leave a message.  Anyway, James was super excited to see him.  It is hard to know how to handle the moving on friendship thing.  I have tried to distance us from him but it feels so sad to James because he doesn't understand how us moving 30 minutes from him changes anything.  I told him to pray about it and see what God does...

 We got a few new school books for the girls to practice their basic preschool skills and they beg me to get them out everyday and beg me to keep working when I tell them time is up.  I hope they stay this studious.

 Small sample of our family pictures!

 It rained really hard all day one day last week.  We had been to the grocery store and two other errands and were soaked by the time we were done.  I had a major fiasco in the walmart parking lot that included a 12pack of cokes rolling all over the parking lot, walmart bags looking more like water balloons, and an unruly basket.  So, when we got home I let them loose in the water.  It was freezing but they played for an hour racing bottle caps in "rivers" and rescuing worms from drowning.

 We just returned from out 6th Annual Beaver's Bend Campout!  This year only our household and Jason's household were able to make it AND we didn't get the spot that we've had the 5 previous years! But we had a great time and made some fun memories.  Our family always gets there first on Wednesday night.  We always have bad weather the first night we are there it seems.  This time it was raining when we arrived and proceeded to rain all night.  So we set up as fast as possible in the rain and just hung out in the tent for the two hours until bed time.  We sang songs, told stories, played "I'm going camping and I'm taking a …."  It was so sweet to have that time with the kids.  Mallory's "ghost" story is hilarious and I have tried to video tape it but she won't have anything to do with it.  Sometime I'll get her then I'll post it.

This is a bear we always take pictures with but this time we realized he could hold Mallory.

 I forgot to post this story a while back but one day in the back yard Mallory wanted me to push her in the swing so as I was pushing she told me to stand in front of her and I asked why.  She said, "so I can kick you in the muffins".  What in the world.  She meant she wanted to kick me in the breasts but apparently someone taught her that they are muffins.  

 I've been telling Mallory that it is just going to be her and I next year because Kinley will go to school like James.  I ask her "what are we going to do?" She says "have tea parties!!".  Yesterday Josh and I were talking to her about it just being me and her all day next year and she said "Well, I AM the cutest in our family".  At least she doesn't lack confidence.

 As for parenting on the camping trip once we got to Beaver's Bend the kids were great!  We didn't have to discipline at all.  It is so nice that they are getting big enough to have a good time with.  However, on the way there they were quiet intolerable.  We had to pull to the side of the highway to give all three spankings at one point.  I was cracking up because we were in hick SE OK and Josh was having the kids put their hands on the car while he used his belt to spank them.  I yelled out the window "you are going to get taken to jail if you don't watch for cars!".  Oh parenting...

 Our family is officially too big to fit in one canoe.  So when we went on the float we got James his own kayak.  He handled it like a champ.  There is only one small spot of rapids and they are right when you get in but he only spun around once and didn't get stuck at all.  I think he really enjoyed it and we were really impressed.  Does he not look like a teenager in the pic below…what happened to my baby?  It started raining while we were in the middle of the float so we pulled into a little grove of trees for protection.  Simultaneously James had to poop real bad so Josh instructed him on how to dig a hole then hold on to a tree and swing it way back then poop in the hole.  He did great and he did it all while all 8 of us watched.  He is a true outdoorsman.

 Canoeing is my favorite thing at Beaver's Bend.  I started thinking about all the places we go where canoeing is possible and Josh mentioned something about people that own their own canoes and I suddenly came up with the Morris family Christmas list…GRANDPARENTS listen up…we and by we I mean all 5 of us :) want 1 canoe and 1 kayak.  We will take used and beat up!  Grandad, we could even bring them when we come to your house and use them on your ponds!! Ok enough of my shameless begging.  I think it would be really great to be able to float that river 10 times while we are there camping, it is beautiful!

 Ezra (Jason and Emily's 1 yr old) passed out in our canoe.  We were just rowing along and Mallory said "the baby is falling asleep".  He was sitting up and swaying side to side with droopy eyes like he was just about to fall over. We laid him down on a life jacket and there he slept for over 30 minutes.  So sweet.  Now, the reason he was so tired is that he didn't sleep well the first two nights we were there. The third night (again I am revealing some great parenting techniques of ours - please know we love and care well for our children and don't turn us in to DHS) Josh and I told them about the wonders of melatonin crushed up in applesauce.  Jason affectionately labeled it sleepy sauce.  Anyway, Ezra slept great the whole night and woke up happy.  That morning we discussed it a lot and laughed about it then packed up and left.  As our family was eating at McDonald's on the way home we were telling the kids they had to get in the car after lunch and take a nap while we drove home.  James said "So did you put that stuff in our food?"  We died laughing.  The way he said it was so funny.  It was "I'm curious how that works and I kind of want you to give it to me"mixed with "how dare you drug your children" mixed with "what else do you put in my food?". We assured him that we only drug him when absolutely necessary (like when driving 24 hours non stop to Hilton Head - that is when we gave it to our kids - the only time I might add).  

 Gotta love car naps! How do they sleep like that?

 This pic isn't very good but I wanted to document that the girls love to eat mac and cheese out of coffee mugs.  I was out of town or gone for the day and Josh was feeding the kids mac n cheese and all the bowls were in the dishwasher so he served it in coffee mugs and Kinley thought is was the best thing ever.  So now we eat mac n cheese in mugs.

Over the summer we went to the Kiddie Park in Bartlesville (one of our favorite places).  We are sad because the kids are beginning to grow out of it.  However, we still had some pretty fun times.

 The girls cracking up on a very slow turtle ride.

Kinley and I were sitting at James' flag football game the other day and she was playing with a baby that was there.  I told her how fun it is to watch her love on babies because I loved babies when I was a kid.  She said "then you got three of your own! But it's so sad because we are growing up!"  I said "I know...whaaa...what am I going to do without my babies?"  She said "You can hold my babies! You can be their Gigi and you can see them whenever you want, as long as I'm not busy."  I reminded her that when I'm busy I let her grandparents keep her. She said "Oh yeah, when I'm busy they can come stay at your house."  I said "well maybe we will live down the street from each other?"She said "Ok if my husband is ok with it that would be fun?"  Such a precious conversation.  I can't believe how she is growing and it breaks my heart but leaves me excited at the same time.

 James and Kinley are becoming really good friends.  They enjoyed the train ride together and today James was talking about the hard time he's having at school with his friends.  He was crying and Kinley came up to me with tears in her eyes and said "I feel bad for James". I told her to go up to him give him a hug and say I love you.  She did.  He hugged back and said see I'd rather be with you guys all the time. So sweet!  I have hope!

 I've taken each kid on a date in the last month or so.  The girls both chose Braum's and James chose snow cones.  I love how they come alive and chatter constantly when they have me one on one.

 This is the wreath I made for halloween then I got a fall flower arrangement  to replace the bow with for Thanksgiving! It was so easy!!

 James wrote this paper when his teacher asked them to write about their weekend.  I was so thrilled that he so openly exposed my keeping him out of school to do something fun.  To make matters worse the teacher assigned me to hang all the childrens' stories in the hall! Oh well, I've always been a little bit of a rebel.

  

We took family pictures this weekend and right before we left we asked Mallory how she was going to smile for Miss Erin the photographer and she put on James' batman mask and stuck her tongue out.  We were scared considering last year she was a complete terror.  But, she did wonderfully.  We had and great time taking pictures and everyone did great!  I can't wait to post some!