We’ve had a good busy week of celebrating, culminating in a fun evening tonight.  Analise had her school Halloween-alternative on Tuesday, a Nursery Rhyme/Fairy Tale Parade.  She was a beautiful, sweet Cinderella.

Thursday Analise’s preschool class went to a nursing home to sing their fall songs.  They were so cute!  I was happy to drop in and get them on video, and maybe someday I’ll piece them together and post them.  We had a festive dinner of jack-o-lantern pot pies (which were very cute, and Brian liked, but I didn’t think they were anything worth noting) and spider cookies (oreos with pretzel stick legs and M&M eyes).

Today, I had my weekly bible study (on Beth Moore’s Daniel study) with 2 women from church while Analise was at school.  After good long naps, we got dressed up for the evenings festivities.  Lakeside Baptist, Brian’s parents church, has a Fall Festival with lots of fun preschool oriented games, bouncy things, free food, and of course, candy.  Oh and a cake walk, at which we won some yummy treats.  We came home early enough to visit a few houses around us with actual trick-or-treating, which was a first for Analise and Josiah, and they really enjoyed it.  A fun evening all around!

Oh, and this photo below is specially so you can see Josiah’s new short haircut.  He looks so much older… and less shaggy!

The Old Baker Farm is becoming a fall tradition for us.  I remember our first trip with Brian’s parents in 2005 with their church for the hayride to the patch, pumpkin pickin’, and bonfires with hot dogs and s’mores.  I was newly pregnant with Josiah, and Analise was our little 15-month old pumpkin at that time.

In 2006, we had 2 little pumpkins… Analise was 2 and Josiah was just 4 months old…

Last year, Josiah was a bit bigger, opting to carry his own pumpkin…

This year was just as fun.  It was their Cotton Pickin’ Celebration at Old Baker Farm, and the cotton fields were bursting with fluffy white bolls.  Analise had been there on Wednesday with school, so she enjoyed showing us around and telling us the rules.  The kids climbed all over the hay bales in the maze, we munched on a picnic lunch, we visited the animals in the barn, and bounced in the cotton.  There was also going to be a battle reenactment, so there were lots of people dressed in beautiful old-time clothing, as well as a colorful group of Indian dancers who performed.  We took the tractor hayride out to the field, tromped around looking for the perfect pumpkins.  On our way back, we caught a ride on the horse-drawn hayride, and the kids got to ride up front and even help “drive”.  It made their day!  We wrapped up the day creating our no-mess pumpkin family for the front porch.  Happy fall, y’all!

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When one-syllable words become two-syllable words… then you know you’re raising a Southerner.  Josiah’s picking up a sweet Southern drawl in his words.  Da-own, ha-elp!, ya-es.  And just this morning, I heard him say, “A-owch, you hur mah ha-ed!”  (Ouch, you hurt my head!)

Honestly, though, both Analise and Josiah have stronger Southern accents than Brian and I.  Not sure why or how that happened, but I do have to occassionally toss out my word of correction in… “No dear, it’s town.  Not ta-own.  TOWN.  Say it with me!”

Ok, I just looked back at our Toones Alive archives and found virtually no photos from this fall break trip in other years. This is the 4th year we’ve made this beautiful, fun trip. Amazing because I know we’ve always taken lots of pictures. But I’ll make up for it now! I’ll spare you the chatter and narration and just give you the pictures. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow to narrarate and expand (I started out promising my mom “a couple pictures” posted tonight, and lo and behold, I’ve got 15 out of the 150 we’ve taken!)

A quick stop mid-way through the trip at one of our favorite landmarks… a Citgo-turned-pumpkin patch, complete with a petting zoo, pony rides, a giant pumpkin for jumpin in, and several backyard playsets (for sale) for playing on!

I found this picture of Analise and I from the 2005 trip, right after I found out I was pregnant with Josiah.

We made it to Clemson and visited the South Carolina Botanical Gardens. Brian and I stopped here just before he proposed to me in March of 2002. Ahh… sweet memories! My how life has changed!

Analise took this picture of us! We were actually impressed she managed to get us in the photo at all! She was pretty excited to be the photographer.

The frosty morning over the field outside our little modular cabin. It was COLD this morning!

Beautiful Lake Hartwell is very, very low. We just looked at news reports, and it’s 23.5 feet below full pool, and it will hit an all-time record low this week. In case you’re interested in why (we were!) it’s because Lake Harwell is at the very northern end of the water supply for Georgia’s Savannah River, and water has to keep flowing at a certain level for the power plants and for the National Wildlife Refuge. You can sure see the cumulative effects of a couple years of drought!

The view of the Georgia-North Carolina-South Carolina mountains from the Clemson airport. Each year, Brian’s taken an “epic” ride, usually around 100 miles on the roads he used to frequent when he was at school here.

The beautiful fall colors (not quite their peak) going up Sassafrass Mountain, the highest point in South Carolina. Brian rode up here this morning, and we all drove up this afternoon for a little hike.

The kids and I enjoyed the horses just feet outside our door. We were feeding them carrots, so they liked us immediately!

This guy liked Josiah a lot! I love this picture! I didn’t get a picture of a few seconds later as Josiah was continuing to climb down, and the horse started nibbling on his hair, which certainly does look a lot like fresh hay!

Analise great picture Analise took for us! I’m glad to see we’re raising a photographer!

This morning Beverly and I took the kids to a harvest festival.  I mentioned in the previous post that Snow White was going to make an appearance.  Although Analise wasn’t excited to see Snow White at first, I remind her to be nice and to ask Snow White if she knew Belle, her favorite Princess.  When it came to it, though, Analise was quite enamored by pretty Snow White.  We saw her several times, and Snow White ooh’ed and ahh’ed over Analise’s fairy princess costume and Josiah’s little engineer costume.

Besides Snow White, we trick-or-treated at all the little arts & crafts booths, the kids bounced in the inflatables, we munched on hot mini-donuts and hot dogs, and went on a little hay ride through the pretty neighborhood.  All in all, a lovely fun fall morning.

Always trying to get a good picture of the two.  Um, this one wasn’t it originally, but I spliced 2 pics together.

Don’t I look like a movie star?   The original picture was poorly lit bc we were in a shadow… this is my try at improving it!  Just call me “Photoshop Queen”.  (Please no comments from anyone who is eons more Photoshop-experienced than I… I know who you are and you’re my heroes!)