handsful

This year’s Autumn Moon Festival holiday in China was on Sept 11th.

We were supposed to get together with our local Families with Children from China group a couple of weeks ago, but the weather didn’t cooperate. So, it was postponed till this past Saturday.

No, the moon wasn’t full – a nice crescent shape, actually. But, we still had tons of fun at a local farm doing the pumpkin patch thing, making lanterns, having a parade, playing, eating our own version of moon cakes, and roasting s’mores.

Here are the pics to prove it.

Josh joined in on the fun, too. Let the silliness begin.

We took a wagon ride around the property, and ended up at the pumpkin patch. They had all kinds: regular, squatty (which I later found out were for pies), white ones, splotchy gourds, etc.

Dylan went right to work, and found his pumpkin on the edge of the patch.

Lainey was all over the place, trying to find JUST the right one.

We all ended up getting one, except Randy who was too busy helping everyone else. Mine was the squatty one, but I doubt it’ll end up being pie. None of us are fans of pumpkin pie. Gasp, huh?

Contender for our Christmas card photo…

Have no clue what these little “leaf balloons” are, but aren’t they sweet?

Arms outstretched, enjoying a pleasant fall day. Truth? The boys were pelting him with patch debris. Heh.

Back on the wagon…

Lainey and Dylan won’t mind me putting this cute pic in. The one of Payton and Marley? They’d mind. But, I DID take it…

And, over to the silo playground. All us kids had a blast…

The following is a series…

Woo! That was fun!

Hey, where’s Dylan?

Oh, THERE he is!

After we played ourselves out, we sat down to eat the dinner we brought with us. We first got permission from some residents of the farm.

I’m not sure the chickens saw the irony here.

Time to get the bon fire started. Break out the marshmallows.

After Lainey and Dylan…with lots of help from mom and dad…finished making their lanterns, it’s time for the parade.

Marley found another use for the lanterns…

Parade over, time to pack up and leave. The girls decided to ride these horses…backwards.

Wonderful, fall day celebrating the harvest season in China…Happy (late) Autumn Moon.

Me and my six, after church today…

Okay, quit goofing off and smile.

That’s it.

Us big girls.

Still sane after all these kids.  Most days.

Love from my family – cute new shoes – hoping for a frozen yogurt treat later.  Great day!

What?

You didn’t expect a photo of Ethan smashing a toilet with a hammer?  I guess you’ve never been to Gram’s for Easter.  All kids love a little demolition duty.

Randy had to get a swing in, too.

I had to include this shot….Randy’s brother on the throne, with his sweet son about to clock him on the head with a hammer.  Sweet.

Getting ready for the actual Easter egg hunt, Pa-Paul decided he needed a little practice for 4th of July.  We were all getting a tad bit confused.

Time for the hunt!  Dylan’s first.

Lainey was going so fast, all her pictures are blurry!

Dylan, feeling triumphant after a successful hunt.

The big kids (who hide all the eggs for the younger kids) work together to figure out clues that lead them to their BIG eggs full of treats.

Tony and Randy…doing what they do.  Making each other laugh.

Great shot.

The crew, minus 1.  We missed having Caleb here this year, but he wasn’t able to get away from college this time.

For the record, Abbey had on cowboy boots with heels.  Just sayin’

Time to open the eggs.  Gram has each egg coded with a sticker, one for his grandkid.  So, each child gets the same number of eggs.  I can’t imagine how long it must take to do ALL those eggs.

Skip forward to today…on our way to church.  Jesus is risen!!

Gram came home with us, so we can take Dylan to Shriners in SC for his surgery…she’ll stay home with the other 5.  What a blessing that is!

Finally able to get some of our Christmas pics up (yahoo!)

Later that evening…

And, here’s what we woke up to.

Our backyard.

No, we haven’t thrown our pumpkins away yet.

Yes, Ethan is trying to sled on a skim board. We have some winter shopping to do.

The artistic photos are credited to Abbey. She’d want you to know :)

Our neighbor came over with a sled – guess she felt sorry for us! Here Lainey and I are headed down. Did you know sleds are incredibly hard to steer?? We almost hit a tree, and then slammed into the bushes. Fun.

Virtually no time for words here, but wanted to share our evening. We attended the Carolina Christmas at the Charlotte Motor Speedway…huge drive-through light show with music and tons of other fun stuff. Given we’ll be gone for half of December, we wanted to make some Christmas memories early.

We stopped the car so the kids could run out to the sign and pose.

I only had our point and shoot camera, but you get the idea. It was really pretty!

Of course, we looked at race cars.

Lainey found one just her size.

There were ponies to ride.

And animals to feed.

And, a first. A smiling Lainey with Santa. She still didn’t want to stand or sit by him without me, but it’s progress!

There was a lot of food. Delicious fudge, cinnamon almonds and pecans, and funnel cake. Lainey decided the powdered sugar shouldn’t go to waste.

And, what happens when you eat too much sugar? Crash! Sorry, it’s blurry…

So, what does this picture of our morning milk remind you of? Our Gotcha Day for Dylan, of course! I’m off to do more packing…

That’s what halloween is about around here. Picking out the perfect pumpkins and collecting the sweet stuff. There are a few too many sweet teeth around here (most of them are in MY mouth).

After church on Sunday, we stopped by a popular produce stand that had lots of nice looking pumpkins. We jumped out of the truck and quickly fanned out…

Marley lost her focus, picked up gourds, and started lifting weights. Focus, child…

As usual, Ethan went for the BIG pumpkins. It’s usually the boys in the family that decide on the carving theme for the year. I let them have their fun.

Lainey stops to smell the…uh…mums.

Abbey and Lainey take time to pose in front of the sign…a quick shout out to our friend, Josh (no relation!).

Back to hunting…

This one, mama!!

and, the BIG one is chosen. Now, home to carve…

The kids chose the cartoon character Domo…we weren’t sure what exactly that was, but it was cute.

Now, to the costumes…

The girls took our new state into account and went with a cowgirl theme. Yee haw.

Now, brace yourselves for the boys.

They didn’t really have any clue what they wanted to do, so we went to the store and just looked around. They found these plain masks and a couple of wigs, added some black clothes and…

…came up with this. I think these masks are CREEPY. You think of scary halloween masks and you think Freddy Krueger, etc. Nah. These mannequin things are just weird. They loved them.

Whew. Onto something much cuter. Lainey wanted to be a butterfly, so we bought some wings and gold glitter hair spray (hard to see, it looked really cute) and voila. As I thought back, Lainey has been a ladybug, fairy, and now a butterfly. She likes wings, obviously.

We took the kids around our neighborhood for a while, and then drove to another neighborhood across the street where friends live. They loaded up…

Happy “How-way-een” everyone :)

Will I EVER catch up posting about our Christmas??  After this post, I should be about there…I know you’ll all be relieved. 

First stop, Granma and Granpa’s house. 

Granpa’s a goof. 

With Great Nana, my grandmother.  She’ll be 89 this year :)

Next, we headed to Nana and Paw Paw’s house…

Presents there had a nighttime theme :)

Apparently someone told Lainey to laugh. 

The kids with Memaw, Randy’s grandmother.  She’ll be 90 this year :)

And, finally, the last grandparents house.  Gram and Pa-Paul. 

The boys and some of their cousins…would you trust these boys at the dessert table unsupervised?

Abbey and her cousin Samara cheesing for the camera.   

11 of the 17 people there.  And, that only includes our family of 7, Randy’s brother’s family of 8, and grandparents. 

Payton and cousin Caleb…he goes to college this year.  Gracious, I’m getting old. 

Our last big get-together was seeing Randy’s mom’s family.  We were able to see Randy’s aunts and cousins, some we haven’t seen in years.  It was loud…tons of kids, and a whole table full of teens this year.  Did I mention I feel old?

Gram and her boys. 

See?  Lots of kids. 

Marley with her cousin Anna Grace, enjoying the evening. 

Other than our Christmas celebrations with all the grands, we had time to see old friends (Hi, Debra!) and just relax and spend time with family.  Our kids loved their time with cousins, but never seem to get enough.  We had a wonderful visit!