Halloween (October 31)

Halloween didn't exactly go as planned this year, but I suppose when you have a toddler and a 2 month old, things are bound to be a little interesting.

The day started off with a half day of work for me (filling in for my boss while he was on vacation), and unfortunately, while at daycare, Cashel had a bit of an altercation with one of the little girls there and ended up with a big scratch or two on his cheek. Considering he has been a little rough and pushing and hitting at home, it didn't surprise me that his little friend there finally snapped back at him (so he really had it coming to him), but nonetheless, he was a little "off" the rest of the day.

The plan was to pick up the boys from daycare and bring them home to nap after lunch. Then, we had these great plans to dress them up in their adorable outfits, check out the horses at Reinbows (which is just down the street), and then go visit Mark's Mom across town, then the Grandparents, Great Grandma Vi and Great Aunt Barb and Uncle Dean, and friends down in Worthington for the evening. Let's just say that it's a good thing we didn't tell EVERYONE we were coming down there, because it didn't quite go as planned.

In actuality, Cashel's little altercation with Macy left him a little worked up, and he was wired until about 3:30pm when he FINALLY went down. (Since he usually goes down at noon or shortly thereafter, this wasn't exactly ideal). Since we knew we needed to wake him up in order for him to be ready to sleep at night, we were dealing with a monster, awoken from a deep sleep, which meant it was about like this:

Thankfully, Kendrick didn't put up much of a fight :)

After about 45 minutes of convincing, we finally fanagled him into his sad excuse for a lion costume (I had accidentally shrunk it and mamed the mane in the wash), threw the boys into their strollers and headed down to Reinbows around 5:30. It was just not an ideal evening.

It took a little while for Cashel to come around, but when he did, he really enjoyed it! The horses were dressed up like Thomas and Friends this year (and I know a couple of Cashel and Kendrick's cousins who would have been WAY more excited than Cashel or Kendrick were), and just adorable!

But Cashel's FAVORITE part, hands-down, was the little Thomas train running around the track.

With a hungry Cashel AND Kendrick and it already being pretty late, we ended up foregoing any other plans for the evening and just staying home. Our final attempt at getting a picture of the boys together went about like this:

And just because we were laughing so hard at this, remember: DO NOT PUT HALLOWEEN COSTUMES IN THE DRIER!! lol

Let's just say that when you have young kids, nothing is ever predictable, except for the fact that when you try to plan something specific, you need to be open for a LOT of changes :) Let's just say I'm glad we didn't invest much in these costumes lol

Turning 32 (October 28)

My 32nd birthday consisted of a fun trip to Sioux Falls with Mark and Kendrick, a lot of birthday freebies, some wonderful gifts and lots of time spent with my three favorite boys :)

I started the morning opening (with Cashel's help) my little pile of birthday gifts, including a great selection of Jim Brickman sheet music books (Joy, Peace and Romanza) for the piano (I'm already tackling Romanza, as I've been dying to play it since I heard it on CD we got for Cashel as a baby)...

...a Tenth Avenue North CD...

...and a beautiful bracelet and necklace! (Granted, this isn't the necklace he initially got, but the one he had initially got fit more like a choker and looked a lot different than it did on my Amazon wishlist, so I picked out this one later that day in Sioux Falls.)

But enough about the gifts, and more about the day itself, right? :)

One of the best parts about your birthday is all the free food you get! And let me tell you, if you aren't signed up for emails from your favorite restaurants, what are you waiting for? They usually send you coupons in your email for FREE FOOD on your birthday! In fact, I got so much free food this year that I didn't even get a chance to take advantage of it all! I got a free meal at HuHot for lunch, free take-home naked burrito from Qdoba (BOGO) for lunch the next day and a free mini pizza from Godfather's for supper! I missed out on a free (BOGO) entree at Grizzly's and Mexican Village in Mankato as well as a free drink at Caribou (can you believe that one?) because I couldn't wait until lunch time to get coffee in Sioux Falls.

I failed at capturing the deliciousness that was HuHot, but managed to get a selfie of Mark and I while there. But really, come on: Who can actually capture the deliciousness that is HuHot?

But I DID capture it a while back (sort of - like I said, no one truly can) at Baby Larsen's shower there:

Qdoba for the road, and Godfather's to share with my favorite little toddler while Mark finished out the night in the field.

Throughout the day, I was bombarded with sweet Facebook messages, emails and texts from friends and family (aw - thanks, guys!), and came home to some birthday cards in the mail :)

It was such a nice day celebrating with Mark, but I'll admit that it felt a little odd not having him there that evening. I decided to splurge on an ice cream cake from DQ, and the boys and I sorta celebrated together, although Kendrick didn't really care too much about the ice cream cake lol Cashel, however - he just ate it right up (along with half of the mini pizza!)

So...Happy Birthday to ME! So far, 32 feels great! In fact, I think I'd take 32 over 22 any day :)

Our Home in the Fall :)

I was out for a walk with Kendrick a couple weeks ago and snapped this pic of our house in the fall.

It was such a glorious day!

And believe it or not, the leaves got even MORE brilliant and beautiful just a few days later!

Man, I just love being here in Southwest Minnesota :)

Carving Pumpkins (October 21)

We decided on Monday evening to carve up our pumpkins that we had gotten from Ocheda Orchard the prior weekend.

Kendrick didn't really think too much about it, but was quietly alert and observing it all.

It was Cashel's first time carving pumpkins (although he really just helped make a mess with the pumpkin guts), and while at first he wasn't too sure about it, he really warmed up to the idea after a little while. Here is his progression from wondering what on earth was inside there...

...to deciding to give it a try...

...to going all out!

As you can see, he was REALLY getting into it by the end :)

As it was starting to get late, Mark got Cashel ready his bath and ready for bed, while I finished up the pumpkin carving, getting the seeds cleaned off and ready for roasting, and getting things cleaned up.

And here's the finished product(s)! (The one on the right side has "Johnson" carved all the way around, but it's kinda too big to show it all)

I'm excited for this new tradition with our little family, and looking forward to continuing it for years to come!

Too Sweet Not to Share :)

I need a nap...desperately. So I will have to get to a recap post of this past weekend some other time, but here are just two of my absolute favorite pictures from this past weekend :) The first is a picture of all 14 of the Ropte cousins, and the other of our two adorable boys - both with their eyes open and of Cashel NOT picking on Kendrick - it's a Christmas miracle! lol

Enjoy, and I promise to post a recap sometime soon!

Ropte Family Autumn GTG (October 18-20)

I apologize in advance for the plethora of pictures in these Ropte Family GTG posts :) It's sort of inevitable when you have 12 adults and 14 kids "in the picture" (sorry - bad pun lol)

We had our annual Ropte "summer" family get-together a few months later than usual. We had initially planned it for the 4th of July weekend, but with two of my brothers and their families in the process of moving, it just didn't pan out for that weekend, so we had it this past weekend.

We had a relaxing first evening, but I'd be lying if us ladies weren't mostly looking forward to the next morning :) Mom, Amanda, Sarah and I enjoyed a girls' morning out and did a little shopping and had lunch together. (You can check out a full recap HERE!)

Dave, Elicia and the kids arrived shortly after 1pm on Saturday, and the party officially got started. It was a crazy day with lots of catching up, crazy screaming, laughing, squealing (you get the picture) kids, some strong chili brewing for the Great Chili Cookoff of 2013, and lots of yummy food!

My Family

We had THREE new babies at this years' gathering: Ruthie (7 months), Caitlin (6 months) and Kendrick (almost 2 months). It was a full house for sure!

The two newest Ropte grankids: Kendrick (7 weeks) and Caitlin (6 months)





Daddy Michael and Caitlin :)

My sweet, silly nieces and nephews :)

Daddy Dave and Catherine :)

On the cusp of Halloween, the kids just had to dress up a bit and do mini trick-or-treating around the house :)

Love this pic of Dan and Mom :)

Kendrick and Daddy Mark taking a nap :)

The Indiana Roptes

We tend to only see my brother Dan and his family about twice a year, so it's special when we do!

The Great Chili Cookoff

The boys worked tirelessly (okay, so half of them had their wives make their chili for them) on their chili. We had quite the variety, and some pretty good chili! My vote was for Jason's white chicken chili (that he apparently "ruined" with too much garlic, but turned out AWESOME!), but it was a three-way tie between Jason, Dave and Dan!

The Kitchen Masters

While Amanda is the true kitchen master at these family gatherings, all of us ladies pitch in a hand from time to time :)

Ropte Cousins

It's crazy to think how quickly we have accumulated FOURTEEN little kiddos in my family! Just within the past 2 years, we have added FIVE more kids...

...and two of them are ours! (Kendrick, 7 weeks; Cashel, 20 months)

Painting Pumpkins

Amanda had a fun pumpkin painting activity planned for the kids this year. The older kids had a lot of fun and really got into it, although the younger ones were a little more difficult to wrangle.

Fun on the Farm

I don't even know what to really say about the rest of these pictures, but they're too cute not to share :) We had fun, and lots of it! The kids had a blast playing outside, the babies napped a lot, and us ladies visited a lot (and kept the little ones out of trouble). The cousins always have such a blast playing together, and it's fun to see the pure joy in their faces. Cashel woke up asking for cousins the morning after we got home, so it's a sure sign that he had a good time too :) So enjoy these. I don't have enough spare time these days to actually write a decent blog post, and well..this one needs to see the light of day :)

The three newest Ropte kiddos: Ruthie (8 months), Caitlin (6 months) and Kendrick (7 weeks)

We can't wait to see everyone again around Christmas time!