Seasons Greetings!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!
Love the Gilberts :)

Joshua (7), Claire (4), Wyatt (2), and baby girl - due April 5th, 2012!

Halloween Family Fun Day 2011!

Our yearly tradition continues...

Fun and ice cream in hell, michigan.

And then ON TO THE PUMPKIN PATCH.

The pumpkin patch we go to is a small family farm, not very well known.
We are usually the only ones there.

You just grab a wagon and hike out to their garden pumpkin patch back behind the house.
They decorate the path to the pumpkin patch really cute with lots of fun Halloween decorations for the kids.
Wyatt especially loved this Winnie The Pooh tea party.

All that's left to do is pick your pumpkins

 

 

 

 

In our search for that perfect pumpkin, we found a little something we didn't expect....

Meet "Pumpkin Seed", the mouse.
(seemed an appropriate name)

She was just a baby mouse, and barely alive.  The kids fell in love, and to tell you the truth I really didn't expect her to live the trip home, but we took her home to see if she would get better.

 

 

 

The kids were so happy.
We had found pumpkins, and a new "pet".  Haha.

 Pumpkin Seed actually perked up quite a bit on the way home, and lived for 2 days with us.
She seemed to make a quick recovery and was doing really well. She ran around and jumped all over the place.  I began to think she really would make a full recovery.
We made her a little home in the old aquarium tank from Jason's college pet gecko, Draco.
Josh even made some lego obstacles for her to climb, and this sweet lego car.
We fed her with an eye dropper, she was too young to eat on her own.

The poor little thing only lived for 2 days, then passed away.  We think she was just too young to be on her own, and she really was not well when we found her.
The kids were sad, but they felt good about giving her 2 more days of a warm and happy place to live, and they had a lot of fun playing with her.

Nature Walk

Josh had a nature walk at school back in october,

and Claire and Wyatt wanted to go on one too,

so we had a little outing of our own!

Claire learned a lot about the seasons changing and why trees drop their leaves for the winter. 

She still brings it up all the time on her own! :)

 

Wyatt at least understood that the trees are getting ready to go to sleep for the winter!



I caught this picture right as she was about to blow a wish fluff!

 

"Expelliarmus!"

 

Here is our day's collection!!



And a super creepy tree!!!

 

Can you see the face?

When we got home we created some fun fall artwork!

The kids have a cool book that shows how to make people and animals from collected leaves. 

We made a few of our own!

I just love fall days like this!

Wyatt the Riot turns 2!

I love Wyatt the Riot!

Wyatt turned 2 a couple of weeks ago, and it has been a tradition with our kids that on their 2nd birthday we take them to Domino's Farms to see the animals.

Yup, Domino's Pizza owns it.

The headquarters are in Ann Arbor, and the farm has a collection of regular petting farm animals as well as several species from all around the world that are too strange to pet.

When we took Claire and Josh there for their 2nd birthdays it was exciting and fun,

but Wyatt surprised us...he was afraid of the animals!

Everything was cool until the donkey started heehawing in the barn, which got all the other animals riled up, and they all started singing their appropriate animals sounds.

All of a sudden Old MacDonald's farm was too loud and overwhelming for Wyatt, and he cried and cried and wouldn't let me put him down.

He would say "I scared!" Sad!!

He was ok a little later when we saw the animals outside, but was still weary of the animals inside the barn.

Claire loved the goats, and the feeling was mutual I think!

And Josh really loved the bunnies and guinea pigs - very cute!

Although I am forever reminded of a certain brother of Jason's who lost the tip of his finger to a vicious bunny!

("Where? Behind the rabbit?" "It IS the rabbit!")

Ya. So it was kinda a muddy day.

My kids are no strangers to mud.

I can only imagine that Josh was probably thinking of swan diving into the mud at this precise moment!

We waited a really really long time for the hayride to begin because the farm had a surprise farm inspection to attend to, so we had lots of time to see every single animal!

Since Jason was in Switzerland during Wyatt's bday, my mom came to help me out. She was heaven sent!

We made sure to skype with Jason as Wyatt opened his presents.

Josh drew Wyatt this awesome Thomas picture for a gift!

That night Wyatt wanted to sleep with his "birthday ball".

He even said "Move over kitty!" to the stuffed cats he sleeps with every night!

We held a tiny party for Wyatt the day after his birthday.

This was really his first birthday party ever because he was in the hospital last year at this time and we missed out on giving him a party.

It was pretty little. Just my 3, and 3 other kiddos.

The only kid missing in this picture is his little friend Isabelle, his betrothed.

She's cute, and her mom is Canadian too, so it would make immigration papers a cinch!

I made orange julius for the party, and it was delicious!

Here are Wyatt's cute ice cream cone cupcakes .... right before I dropped half of them on the floor! Ha.

Wyatt loves to sing the happy birthday song to himself!

He was quite delighted that everyone was singing it to him.

When you ask him "How old are you?" He will always answer "Good."

Then, if you ask him again he will reply "6", because that's how old Josh is.

He's in denial over the whole terrible 2's.

Wyatt James is not terrible at all.

He is such a sweet boy, and he loved the cupcakes....

Even if they did fall on the floor! :)