Apple and Pumpkin Festival

Brian was in the field ("doing Army" out in the woods for those of you not familiar) for the weekend and my mom came up too and so we went to a Pumpkin Patch on Saturday.

There were lots of different vendors and activities for kids.Petting Zoo (with only bunnies)-the kids loved it!
Natalie holding the bunny...until it poked her with its "sharp stick" (nail).
They were amazing bunnies, all the kids, including Blake were grabbing at them but they didn't seem to mind!
Face Painting
Free samples of apple cider and apple butter.
Wagon ride to the pumpkin patch...started to get really warm out. It's been so nice here this week!




Trying to pick it up. :)
"Oh, there's just too many to choose from!" Lunch time... our first experience with Apple Dumplings. Yummy! :)
Blake is our bottomless pit!
Tractor ride around the farm.

What a fun day in PA! Thanks for coming up mom! :)

We're having another Baby BOY!

We just found out that our little one is a boy! I realize some of you might not have even known I was pregnant... with the move and all, I don't think I ever mentioned it on this. Sorry! Things have been going well with the pregnancy although it's harder to find time to rest with two other little ones to take care of. :)
We are really excited and can't wait to meet the little guy somewhere around mid-February. Here's some ultrasound pictures of his profile, little foot and front view of his face. He's so cute already! :)

Playing and a New Playground

Playing "superman" on our feet one evening. :)
Natalie loves music and dancing to it (and making a mess of her room, I might add!)
Blake has quite the dancing moves too. He squats and bounces up and down with a huge grin whenever you say "dance" or if he hears any kind of music--even from a tv commercial or when we're out. It's cute.
Blake is so into books these days.
We found a new playground/park in Bellefonte (a few minutes drive from us). They are building one in our neighborhood but it's not done yet so this is definitely a place we'll be frequenting a lot in the future!
From the kids point of view, the best part is the ducks!
You can't feed them so Natalie was telling them, "We have no bread, ducks. We can't feed you. We don't have any, okay ducks?"

And it has a fun fountain for splashing. :)
"But wait, I want to go back to the ducks!"
They had fun running around the playground and swinging.
Bellefonte really is a beautiful place. It's an old Victorian town and has "small town charm" that I've never really experienced in the States (only in Europe). We have much more to explore but it's great so far! :)
We actually saw someone getting married in this gazebo one day.

Blake finally started cutting teeth over Labor Day (yeah, not a single tooth til 13 months!) You can see the bottom two in this picture. And now he's a teething machine with 4 teeth and several more about to pop through... and so of course he's quite fussy and drooly but you couldn't tell from these pics!
Pretty sky
And to leave you in suspense... check back tomorrow for some BIG news....

The Yoder's Visit and Penn State Game

Brian's parents and sister, Bethany, came over on Saturday. It's great living so close!
Grandpa did Natalie's hair. Beautiful!
"Hey! Where did everybody go?!"
Dinner together--actually the first time I'd ever cooked for them since we've always lived so far away. Everything turned out okay, so I think I passed. :)
Brian wore his Penn State jersey to be ready for the big game. Another advantage of having family so close is that they can watch the kids for us sometimes! Thanks so much!
Tailgating is a serious way of life around here... people go all out, spend all day (weekend!) and really get into it. Many stores are closed on game days, people wear Penn State clothes all week and you can practically feel the excitement. This was a night game, plus the first Big Ten game, so people had been out there all day and were really pumped up by the time we arrived. I've never seen anything quite like it!
Fuzzy of me, but you can see the miles and miles of cars, RVs, and tents.Practice before the game. It was a "White Out" and literally everyone was wearing white and people had white pompoms. It was so loud too-somewhere around 110,000 people in the stadium!

You can see the few Illinois fans in orange...they really stuck out. :)

People were cheering and yelling and chanting all night. We were both a little hoarse after the game! The video is right before the game: "We are... Penn State!"
The team coming out on the field.
You can see the "S" in the stands... pretty cool.

It was fun to take a break from school and unpacking and just be together. Love you honey. Thanks for getting me into football. I love sharing it with you.

We won 38-24. Still undefeated this week too. Yay!

After the game, another party starts as people head back to their spots. I don't know if you can make it out very well, but you could hardly see the end of the rows and rows of people. On our way home from church the next day, we could still see RVs parked in the fields.

Sitting on Bethany after church. :)
Lunch time.
Bethany and Linda getting in a little XBox before they headed home.
Ready for another day of football... Go Steelers! :)