Dusty and I gave the kids a choice at dinner last night, that they could either go to the homecoming football game for our school district that evening, or they could go to the carnival at our gym the following morning but that they couldn't do both. Max was adamant  he was going to watch football with his dad. His mind was made up the moment he had his choices and he and Daddy seemed to enjoy themselves.

Rory struggled a bit. She wanted to do the petting zoo at the carnival but when she realized that meant staying home and going to bed instead of leaving with Daddy and Max. She impressed me though, she thought her choices through again and decided on the carnival and went to her room to put her pajamas on while Daddy and Max were getting ready to leave. She's getting to be quite the big girl! And the carnival was great, she got her face painted and practiced some Karate moves along with lots of other fun activities.

And we returned home to find the Fleet Farm Toy Catalog in the mail. Now the kids are busy screaming with excitement, circling, and of course, fighting over the pages as they dream of the mountains of gifts they'd like to receive. It's a perfect weekend if you ask me!

You can all thank GG for providing me with the initiative to take some photos today because Rory's birthday package from her (and the Disney store) arrived.

Rory was far too excited to focus on opening the package and finally asked Max to open it for her because "you are strong"!

What's this? More princesses? GG sent her Pocahantee, as Rory calls her, and Tangled! (Yes, Rapunzel.  She also calls Ariel "Little Mermaid" and Cinderella "Cinderelly" so we just go with it.) Please note that Cinderelly is also with the princesses because she is by far the favorite and was nearby so she had to be in the photo too.

As if that isn't cute enough, Rory than ran out and grabbed all her princesses from her bed and laid them out for me to take a photo. Now that's my girl, posing for pictures!

As I write this, she's teaching the princess how to dance together, sporadically setting them on the ground and walking on them like a bridge, and loudly announcing their names to each other. She is so happy , thank you GG!

The head cold that took Dusty, Cecil and Max down finally caught up to me this week. I've been miserable and taking it easy, including neglecting my blog. Sorry, it had to be done. Also? You'd think my kids would learn after the first day, that when Mom isn't feeling well her patience is non-existent, but no, they have not, and there has been a lot more hollering and screaming from me this week than I'd wish to even admit. So today, a list of things that have happened, that I've discovered, and that we've done in the last week. In no order, and let's be honest, more of a ramble than anything.

• Maya had a rough couple of days at our house this week and I decided she needed to stay home for the rest of the week. She found a dead gopher and tore it up and continued to eat it although it made her sick. Both in the yard and in our house. She also decided that the chapsticks in Max's backpack smelled too good to miss out on and tore off the front two pockets on his bag. So until his new (Spiderman!) backpack arrives, he's that homely boy with the tore up backpack at school. I just don't have the patience for the dog this week too.

• Max's class met some firefighters on Tuesday this week. A couple years ago, when Max was still in daycare, he freaked out when the firefighters started suiting up in his classroom so I was a bit nervous with how he would do this time. He came home extremely excited with his new firefighter hat and various other projects they worked on and explained the different items of clothing they wore and why. I think it's safe to say he did fine.

• Rory has watched a ton of TV this week. Don't get me wrong, both kids have been sat in front of the TV as I just haven't had the energy to do much of anything, but with Max in school I had hoped I could figure out something on my bad days and alas, I have not. My mom guilt with this is ridiculous.

• I was still able to make all the meals and I feel as though someone should cheer for me because I could pull it all together even at the end of the day to still do the meals we had planned. Yay for Mommy!

• Also? My husband is amazing. He started a bath for me after dinner on my worst night and took over the clean up so I could rest.

• Going to the gym when I wasn't feeling good was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. Whoever said working out can help you feel better was obviously a fool because that was horrible!

• Rory and I were able to clean out our garden while Max was in school yesterday. My energy levels have been going up, we haven't sat in front of the TV for two days, and it was time to do something else. We filled the dump trailer up and I can feel accomplished now.

• Max has now developed a fear of his upcoming tonsils and adenoids surgery and has been asking us about the pain and crying seemingly out of the blue. The poor boy is not happy with this development and we are all anxiously awaiting the day so this can be over.

• A funny adult note? The book they gave us to read to Max to prepare him for his surgery is called Your T & A Journey. Tell me how to not giggle while reading that?! Better yet, watching Dusty's face the first time he read the title out loud. We are so mature over here!

• Today my big girl officially outgrew her harness on her car seat and is now in a booster seat. I'm very excited about this as it makes getting in and out of the car easier. At the same time, anytime Rory outgrows something it's a bit sad too for it's the end of an era, even a car seat one!

I think that's it for my ramblings today. I'd like to promise you some adorable photos tomorrow but I can't. I promise to try soon though!

This past week has been really windy, and the day before the wind picked up the nearby farmer harvested his cornfield. So our yard, along with all our neighbors, have had cornstalk pieces in them. Today we raked it out from around the house and gardens where it piled up and I made the kids a cornstalk pile.

They threw the stalk pieces around, jumped into them and all around enjoyed their substitute leaf pile.

And tomorrow we'll still have to pick them all up and get them to the compost. At least we had fun with them today.

Yesterday Max developed a fever right before I was about to ship him to school on his school bus. He missed his second day of school that week and I started scrambling to find a babysitter for him as we had Dan, Dusty's cousin, and Michelle's wedding that evening. Thankfully our neighbor Chris was willing to let us bring Max over to his house so we could enjoy the wedding!

Michelle was a gorgeous blushing bride and Dan looked pretty handsome too!

We didn't stay long after the dancing started, it was getting pretty late and we wanted to get back to Max. Congrats to the newly weds!

Max got out of school today because he woke up in the middle of the night with a fever. It was the second night in a row that Max woke up complaining, the first night he didn't have a fever but complained his neck hurt. We're currently waiting on his throat culture to see if his strep reappeared. Keep your fingers crossed that it's just something viral and already over as his fever is gone.

Since Max was home but not really sick, the kids and I tried one more state park this year and I don't think we'll be going back again soon. It was a pretty boring park. But we did get at least a few cute pictures. Here is the overlook. It was beautiful, and had the colors not been past their peak I bet it would have been awesome.

We also stumbled upon a gigantic leaf pile. Naturally we had to spend some time throwing leaves around and digging in!

The walk down to the river was really steep and it was much to cold to do anything on the beach but check it out. The kids had fun throwing some sticks into the river and than we continued on our way.

Hopefully tonight I'll get some uninterrupted sleep. These middle of the night wake ups are exhausting!

Auntie called me today and became very upset when I wouldn't stop everything I was doing and blow the kids bedtimes so they could go to her house to play with the puppies she had for the evening. In fact, she was so upset, she loaded them up and brought them to us! Such a good Auntie! Say hello to the Basset Beagles!

The kids and the puppies were instantly attached to each other. Well, almost instantly...

Rory would yell at us the minute her arms were empty. "Can you put one on me? Excuse me?! Can you put one on me?!" So we'd load her up again!

The puppies loved when the kids would sit down. They would jump all over them and each other to get at the kids. Max wasn't much of a fan and would push them down quickly as they did have some sharp claws.

Rory was impressive, she just sat there as they jumped all over her!

Max was really enjoying running around and having the puppies chase him. It was super cute and they would all run after him but he'd run so fast that I could never get a good image of it. Then Rory tried it, and I got this beauty, so it had to be shown off!

Thanks again Auntie for bringing the puppies to us. The kids are still talking about it. (Instead of going to bed. Sheesh!)