henrietta creek apple orchard field trip

burrito's first grade classmates went on a field trip on the big school bus to henrietta creek apple orchard today.  when i heard the location of his first field trip, i knew noodle and i would not pass this one up!  i love the fall field trips the most.

visiting an apple orchard was a first for me and it was so fun!  i highly recommend this place!

the program started in a little covered pavilion with a woman dressed in prairie clothes talked to the kids about living on a farm long ago and famililes being large so that there would be plenty of people to work the farm.  she showed the kids how to pick cotton and turn it into thread to make clothes and blankets.

then we broke up into groups and were led around the orchard by a tour guide.  our guide was mrs. peel (isn't that hysterical?!?!?) and she was very smart about all things gardening.  we stopped and looked at okra and black-eyed pea plants.

 here she was showing the kids a dried up sunflower and the seeds they keep to feed the birds.

 next was cotton.  she showed everyone different colors of cotton and how to remove the seeds.

 this is a picture of the orchard taken by noodle. :)

another picture taken by noodle.  it's amazing to me how cooperative burrito is when noodle's behind the camera!

this is a plant that grows a large sponge, like the loofah sponges you can buy at bath and body works.  it grew on a trellis shaped like a tent and all the kids loved walking through it.

 here is a butterfly garden planted with flowers that attract butterflies.  the kids have their arms out trying to get a butterfly to land on them!

 morning glory vines were growing over this trellis they call the worm tunnel because at the end of the tunnel is a large barrel full of dirt and worms with a little peek-through window.

 here are tour guide, mrs. peel, is telling the kids not to walk under this next tree because it grows horse apples and if they fall on your head it will hurt.  she's holding a horse apple in her hand.

 and just as she is warning everyone of the dangers of the horse apple tree, two fall down to the ground and that's what burrito is pointing at here!

 here's a picture of noodle listening...he's in the mavericks shirt on the left.  i think sometimes he thinks he's in first grade too!

 and finally, after all that listening and learning we were able to pick our own apples!  they grow dwarf apple trees here and because it is so hot, the apples never turn red....just green.

 my little apple-pickers!

 after we picked our apples, we went into the bakery and put all the apples through the apple washing machine.  yep, there is such a thing and i've seen it!  then we went back outside to chomp on the apples, complete with a little honey!

 yummo!  check out that bite!

 and to end the day, we just couldn't resist getting a class picture!

what a fun adventure!  the only thing i could complain about was my allergies.  oh well, it was worth it!  i love making these sweet memories with my boys!

promises and covenants

in teaching the catechism to our boys, question 24 goes like this:  what is a covenant?  answer:  a covenant is a relationship that God establishes with us and guarantees by His Word.

one way we help our boys remember these truths is to make it fun so when we say the above answer, we do this funny thing with our hand like it's talking in front of our mouths when we get to "Word."  the boys crack up everytime we do it.  i've learned a lot about boy humor, but that could lead to a whole other post!

anyways, out on the soccer field tuesday night, we were reminded of God's covenant with His people.

Genesis 9:8-17
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him:  "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you-- the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you-- every living creature on earth.  I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:  I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."  So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

john's birthday weekend

yesterday was john's birthday but we've been celebrating all weekend long!

my goal for this birthday celebration was to surprise john with his gift and a date night out with me.  surprising john with anything sounds a lot easier than what it is.  he is so good at sniffing surprises out and i must admit, i'm not a very good secret-keeper!

john has been wanting an iPhone forever so i decided this would be the perfect surprise gift for him.  i did a little research and had my game plan.  i secretly hijacked his cell phone thursday night because i knew once the iPhone was activated, his other phone would show no service and give the surprise away.  john misplaces his cell phone occasionally so i didn't think he would figure things out if it came up missing.  he did notice friday morning when leaving for work that he did not have it and i convinced him he must have left it in his car.

now i should back up here in the story to say that earlier in the week i contacted some super great friends at school via facebook to alert them of john's birthday and to ask them for their help in making his day special.  they came through in a big way and i am still kicking myself for not taking a picture of his classroom!  let's just say his students used their creative energies in decorating!  it was so sweet to see the smile on john's face after all that attention!

so when he got home from work on friday he immediately set out to find his missing phone.  he took my cell phone out to his car to call his cell phone and see if he could find it that way.  meanwhile i was in the house with the new iPhone all wrapped up and the gift began to ring!  i thought the guy at the apple store had turned the iPhone off but i was wrong and now it was ringing inside the house.  i knew john's next move would be to come in and call his missing phone in hopes of locating inside the house and i didn't think i had enough time to unwrap it, turn it off and wrap it back up before he came back in.

so my next move was to go outside to tell him that the boys were itching for him to come in and unwrap his presents and that we would worry about his missing phone later.  however, when i got outside to tell him this he had my phone on speaker and this message was playing: "the voicemail for this phone has not been set up yet."  he had this perplexed look on his face and i just knew he was about to put two and two together.  thanks to my quick (or maybe i should say deceptive!) thinking i suggested that someone must have stolen his phone and messed with the voice mail.  i acted all stressed out about him losing his phone and told him he just needed to come in and open his presents and we would worry about the phone later.  he totally bought it!

so he and the boys sat on the couch to open gifts and i could not wait to see the look on his face!  the boys gave him some caramel syrup that he likes to add to his coffee.  it's a little hard to find so we bought 3 bottles!  the card was about a cow and fertilizer and i'll let you figure out the rest...hence the smile on burrito's face!

then the big moment came.  i love these pictures of him opening the present.  he told me later that at first he thought it was the new iTouch and was really excited to see that it was the new iPhone 4!

and just when he thought the surprises were over, the boys told him that my mom was on the way over for a sleepover so that we could go out on a birthday date.  i seriously love my husband because he looked more excited about this than the new iPhone!

we enjoyed a delicious dinner at our favorite, Gloria's, and then went to a concert at church that was so fun and reminded us of our single/dating/newly married days.

we celebrated his birthday a day early because we had soccer games on saturday morning, but then met up with my family for dinner that night.  my sister and her husband moved into a new (to them) house with a pool so we swung by there first to see it for the first time.  the boys were just dying to go for a swim but i didn't think to bring swim trunks so i told them to just go skinny-dipping.  they were a little reticent at first but then totally stripped down and had a blast!  i couldn't resist taking pictures but i know they would not appreciate me sharing them here!

then we went to my parents' house for dinner.  they picked up some food from chuy's and i made john's favorite brownies for dessert.

it was a great time to celebrate him!  happy birthday john david!!!  we love you!!!

keep your camera handy

so you can capture random moments such as these...

wearing dad's white shirts

running across the new football field

testing out the new umbrellas.  we bought these just before the 10 inches of rain we got from tropical depression hermine.  we should have bought some rain boots too!

we dug out the halloween costumes for fun this week.  here's the nice version:

and the scary version!

and we caught this sunrise on our way to school one morning.  doesn't this make you praise the Lord of creation!?!?!

so today's lesson is....carry your camera at all times! :)

spontaneity and baseball

you will definitely make fun of me after reading this post.

really.

if you know anything about me or john you would know that we are not very spontaneous.  we are planners and we don't particularly care for suprises.  we like to know what's coming not just hours, but days in advance.

we sound really old, don't we???

well, spontaneity came knocking on our door yesterday and i am proud to say, we welcomed him in!  we were offered 4 free tickets to the rangers vs. yankees game.  the boys had been begging us all summer long to go to a baseball game and for one reason or another, we never did.  i knew they would love to go.  the tickets were seats in the lexus club, front row, just behind home plate.  not too bad!  the catch:  we were offered the tickets around 1:00 in the afternoon and the game started at 2:05!  the other catch:  it was 5 thousand degrees and 100% humidity!

we said yes and we threw on some baseball attire and headed out.  it took about 5 minutes for me to sweat out half my body weight but when i looked over at these guys, it was all worth it!

if i really wanted you to make fun of me, i would have had the boys take a picture of me at the end of the game.  it pretty much looked like i had taken a shower with my clothes on.  not a good look!  here they are delirious from the heat!

john and i learned a couple of years ago when we took the boys to their first rangers game that they stay happy as long as you keep feeding them.  this still held to be true.  we went through 5 bottles of juice and water, 2 lemon chills and 2 bags of cheezits. 

we stayed for the whole game and witnessed the rangers' sweep of the yankess, woohoo!

we had a great time and it felt great to be making more sweet memories with my family.  it just felt like a perfect sunday afternoon kind of thing to do.

i won't mention the pathetic game we watched later last night of the team who plays in the stadium in the background of this picture. ha, ha!

boosterthon fun run

this past friday brought a school tradition back to campus...the boosterthon fun run.  burrito participated in the fun run last year and noodle was so excited to get his chance this year.

what is the boosterthon fun run?

it is a fundraiser in which students ask sponsors to pledge money per lap of their run or a flat donation in order to raise money for their school.  the boosterthon fun run team of boys are on campus for about a week prior to the run to encourage the kids in building character by examining a new character trait each day.  and of course, the kids are motivated to raise money by earning a prize for each dollar per lap they raise.  the week concludes with a high energy run in which the kids can run up to 35 laps.

thanks to our generous sponsors (insert shout out to mimi, poppy, nina, pappaw, nonna, uncle daniel, aunt stacey, mr. brad and mrs. susan, and dr. doss!), the boys raised $150 each. 

and run they did!  both boys ran all 35 laps and then some!  here are some pictures from the run. first there was a little warm-up.

and then they were off!

they keep track of how many laps the kids run by marking it on the backs of their shirts.

the Lord gave us beautiful weather (it was in the 60's) and a beautiful new football field to run on.  it was so fun to see all the kids run and raise money for their school.