The town of Oriental did a Thanksgiving day bike ride.  It was a five mile ride around town, with a stop at each of the marinas. 

We took the kids with us.  Both of them started out in the trailer behind Grandmommy’s bike, but James wanted to get in the seat behind Jim after about five minutes. 

Grandmommy and Grandaddy have three pecan trees to pick from.  It has rained four of the days that we have been here so far.  One day Grandmommy sent us outside to pick pecans in the rain.  She said that we couldn’t leave until we had three five-gallon buckets filled.  After about one and a half, the rain started to turn from a sprinkle to a steady stream and we gave up. 

Thomas was asleep when we got there so he was exempt from the picking. 

I told James that I would give him a penny per pecan.  Ends up that I was totally short changing the kid, but he didn’t know any better.  His four year old attention span lasted about 15 pecans anyway. 

We put Thomas on Jim’s back and he was gently bounced back to sleep.  It made the excuse for coming out of the rain a bit easier. 

After about 45 minutes of this Jim told his dad, “If you would have had a pecan tree when Andy and I were growing up, we would have figured out a way to poison it.” 

We came up to Grandmommy and Grandaddy Roe’s house a few days ago to spend Thanksgiving with them.  So far James has gotten to ride Grandaddy’s tractor, pick pecans with Grandmommy, play on Grandaddy’s farm, ride on the back of Grandmommy’s bike, and ride on Grandaddy’s boat.  He’s having a blast. 

James Franklin Roe, Jr., James Franklin Roe III, and James Franklin Roe IV.

My sweet little angel face. 

Two of my favorite boys in the sunset. 

Captain Roe. 

I was meant to be a stay at home mom.  It’s true.  It’s been my calling, it’s just not something that we ever thought was feasible.  God led me to this, and it took some time to get used to, but now it’s just natural.  It was meant to be, I’m tellin’ ya. 

I volunteered to host the Halloween party for James’s class.  That was code for I want to do the cupcakes.  I was quite sad when the other mom immediately said that she was going to bring them.  I cried.  I cringed.  I called my mom, my dad, Kelli, and CV for support.  Kelli told me to just write the other mom an email and ask her if I could do them instead.  She was right.  The other mom didn’t care one bit.  She was probably just going to buy them from Publix, anyway. 

Here they are.  They were a HUGE hit.  I loved them.  The kids loved them.  The teachers loved them.  The other moms loved them.  Most importantly, James loved them. 

A better view of my little spiders. 

It also just so happened that I was the snack mom during the week that was themed “Give Thanks.”  Here are two of the snacks that I made for the kids.  Again…they loved them, but not as much as I loved doing them!

My little pilgrim hats. 

I also pre-assembled apple turkeys for the kids.  I pierced all of the apples with the toothpicks (four for the feathers, one for the head, and two halves for the legs), plus loaded up baggies full of a large marshmallow for the head, and several mini marshmallows for the tail feathers. 

I made an example and brought it with me to school.  I don’t have a picture of mine, but this is the one that James did. 

Here are a few of the kids doing their own turkey at school. 

I’m tellin’ ya… I was made for this.  Made for it.

Just a few shots of our family around the Magic Kingdom. 

It’s nice having a little boy who is tall.  He gets that from his dad, not me.  (Like that really needed clarification, right?)  Anyway, with him being as tall as he is, he’s able to ride Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain, both of which he absolutely loves.  If Space Mountain had been open (it’s under construction), I’m sure that he would have loved that, too. 

It’s a little difficult to see, but Jim and James are in one of the middle carts.  You can click on the picture to enlarge it. 

I was very pregnant with Thomas during our last trip to Disney so I didn’t get to ride any of the rides.  We traded off a lot with James and Thomas.  Both were very enjoyable, riding with James, and playing with Thomas.  This picture is me and James. 

James and Jim are in the very back row of this boat on Splash Mountain. 

Jim caught us rounding the bend.  This ride is really cool, and you don’t get that wet, either. 

I wasn’t done posting about our Disney trip, but I had to do our Halloween post.  Here is a little bit more about our Disney vacation.  Because we were camping, we had to ride the ferry each morning from Ft. Wilderness to the Magic Kingdom.  James just loves anything to do with a boat, so he was very cool with this. 

Thomas thought that it was pretty cool, too. 

On the way back from the Magic Kingdom to Ft. Wilderness, Captain Chris was well aware of how much James liked the ferry.  He gave James his very own Captain’s hat. 

Talk about one excited little boy. 

Happy Halloween! 

Today we have for you a gruelful dude, a cowgirl momma, a happy little fireman, and a sweet little tiger. 

ROAR!!!!!  (It’s more like, “Meow!”)

My sweet little fireman at his school parade.  This was the last picture taken before my camera battery died.  I was so sad. 

Under the light of a full red moon. 

This past week we decided to take two of our favorite vacation activities and combine them into one.  We hitched up the camper and headed down to Disney World. 

James knew that we were going camping, but he had no idea that we were camping at Disney.  He asked a few times during the nine hours it took us to get there, but we were able to divert his attention to other things.  It wasn’t until we pulled onto Disney property and he saw a few Mickey heads when he realized where we were.  His surprise and excitement made the trip totally worth it. 

We arrived Monday afternoon and as luck would have it, Monday night was Magic hours at the Magic Kingdom.  We stayed until 12:30.  Thomas crashed around 9:30, but James stayed awake the whole time.  He had a blast with his dad going on ride after ride with no wait. 

The whole park is transformed into fall with pumpkins everywhere.  During Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, they have a lot of Halloween decorations out.  It’s amazing how they can transform the park to each season. 

We walked into the park just as the parade was finishing up.  We saw the final floats, and both kids loved the lights.  Shortly after dinner we saw the fireworks.  Both kids loved those, too. 

Jim and James found just about every color in the rainbow during the fireworks. 

Thomas’s first ride ever at Disney was Buzz Lightyear.  He did great. 

His second ride was the Transit Authority people mover.  It was here that he crashed for the night. 

James LOVES  Thunder Mountain.  It’s his favorite ride. 

Because we stayed at Ft. Wilderness Campground, we got to ride a ferry to and from the park each day.  James loved this. 

That is the theme this week at school for James.  Part of their assignment was to bring in a picture of their house by Wednesday (that’s today) so they could compare how all of the different houses were constructed. James was quick to note that our house was made of bricks, just like the third little pig in The Three Little Pigs. 

Me, being the ever prepared mom that I am, planned on going though all of my pictures and finding the best looking picture of our house.  I was thinking something along the lines of a picture taken when all of the flowers were in bloom and the yard was freshly mowed.  I was thinking of a bright sunny day, preferably in the spring or summer, when the lighting was perfect.  Yep, those were my thoughts. 

Instead I woke up this morning in a panic because I forgot to find my perfect picture and knew that time was running out.  I’d never find that picture.  Instead I was going to have to take a picture, drive past CVS, which is not exactly on the way, run inside with two kids, insert the little memory card from my camera into the self print scanner, wait patiently for the lady to come enter some code because for some reason printing one single 4 x 6 picture first thing in the morning is alarming, pay for the picture with the change from my change purse, run back to the car, (did I mention that it’s raining), and drive behind the slowest driver that ever existed, just to get to car pool line in time to drop James off safely at school. 

Well, this picture is anything but sunny, springlike, and full of bloom. It’s more along the lines of wet, dreary, rainy, and full of goblins, ghosts, skeletons, tombstones, and doom.  And I could have put the trash can in the garage first, but that would have required forethought.

Did I mention that he goes to a Catholic school?  I hope that I don’t get a call from Father John today.