Broom's Apple Festival

The kids and I attended the Broom's Apple Festival (in Carlinville) this past Sunday. This is a wonderful orchard where you are allowed to pick your own apples/pumpkins/peaches/you name it. Plus, while picking you are allowed to eat all of the apples you want for free. This kids really took advantage of that! Joe was working, so my mom met us there to join in the fun.

Olivia showing off one apple being eaten, and another one waiting to be eaten next.

I don't know how many apples Ethan went through. He would pick an apple, take two bites, then pick another apple to eat. He was really enjoying himself!

The kids needed a bit of help to reach the good apples!

And since we will be gone on vacation for awhile in October (Disney! A loooong blog sure to come after that trip!) we decided to visit the pumpkin patch a bit early. Although Ethan was more interested in his apple cider than the pumpkins!

Showing off the pumpkin selections.

Olivia resting in the hay bale maze. We did not make it into the large corn maze this year.

Paining pumpkins at grandma's house. We learned that watercolors do not work at all on pumpkins, but markers do!

Hmmm, how much longer will Olivia and grandpa be able to do this?

And, a picture unrelated to the apple festival. This is how I decided to jazz up yet another boring meal of fish sticks. The kids were so excited to pick "crazy plates and cups" that they did not mind eating most of their dinner without complaint. Olivia used a bundt pan, I picked a cookie sheet, Ethan used a muffin tin, and Joe selected a cake pan for plates. Plus the kids were able to eat with chopsticks, which is always exciting!

The Kids' Bathroom

We have finally completed one room in the house. I know I posted earlier about Olivia's room, but I do not consider it 100% completed due to the lack of curtains (those are now ordered!). So, the kids' bathroom is the first official room to be finished! We went with a Dr. Seuss One Fish, Two Fish theme (don't you love Pottery Barn?), and, per our typical style, not a shy color on the wall! We are very pleased with how the room turned out, and are eager for the next room to be completed...Joe's study.

Lincoln Balloon Festival

This past Saturday we attended the Lincoln Hot Air Balloon Festival. It was the first time that any of us had attended, and we all had a good time. Other than being inappropriately dressed for the very cool evening, that is! Here is Olivia on the one carnival ride we would allow (because it was the one free one!). We (meaning Joe and I) still had carnival ride fatigue from the State Fair!

The kids won these wonderful trumpets from the duck pond game. The lovely noise they made would either elicit laughs or glares from people around us. Both kids loved them, though.

We were able to watch the hot air balloons inflate and launch. There were about 20-25 balloons at the festival, but only 5 launched. If we had attended the festival in the early morning, we could have gone on a tethered balloon ride. Maybe next time.

The kids with their own hot air balloons. Or, according to Ethan, just another form of a baseball bat.

Here is the kids' favorite balloon...the Beaver.

And my favorite balloon, the penguin and its chick.

The big event of the festival is the "glow". This is held at dusk and the balloons will light up and attempt to play "games" like flickering their light and attempting to do the wave. I must say that it was really beautiful to see all of them lit up!

Here we are approaching a balloon to give the kids a closer look at the basket. During the glow the crowd is able to walk around the balloons and watch the process. Olivia was very impressed by all of the fire! We were told that the balloon part costs $25k and the basket is $15k, making for one expensive hobby!