200

You know what I really want to be doing right now?

Watching this:

Image

But I can't, because this is how we feel about TV in our house:

Image

I could always watch it on abc.com tomorrow when they post it on their site, but it just isn't quite as exciting after the fact.  Oh well.  Such is life.

Guess what?  This is my 200th blog post!  Yahoo!  Shouldn't I do something fun to celebrate?  If I were a real blogger I would host a giveaway or something super spectacular like that, but I'm not a real blogger so for those poor few souls that read Just the Four of Us, you're just going to have to give yourself a pat on the back and pretend I'm giving you a hug saying thanks for being my friend and following what our little family is up to.  

Seriously, I think only about 10 people read my blog (thank you Scott, Mere, Amy, Mom, Mom A, Caren, Lisa, Shannon, Cerissa, Jess...), but some other people out there are reading because I just added my blog counter a little over a year ago and there are 19,791 hits (and now even more than that since apparently YOU are reading this right now)!  Granted Scott and I do our best to pad the stats checking the blog daily (I'm kidding, we aren't doing it to pad the stats, just to check our friends' blogs!), but there must be other people reading too!  In fact, my stats page tells me that there are pageviews from not just the US, but Germany, Canada, Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, Cameroon (Simone?!?!), England, Netherlands and Morocco.  For real!?!?!  Will someone please explain to me how this is possible and if blogger is just messing with me?  Anyways, I enjoy having this space to write down random thoughts, record pictures and funny quotes from my boys and record this crazy life of ours that is flying by too fast.  If you want to peek into my life, welcome and enjoy, and if not, that's OK too.  I don't need to be a famous blogger - just a good mommy and wife and daughter and friend.  (But maybe you should leave a comment so I know who you are.  It's more fun that way after all). 

Oh, and here are some pictures of my cute monkey and bumblebee that I promised:

Happy 200th post!  :)

Oh dear - Haha...I just counted up my posts on the side and apparently it's only my 194th post because my "stats" on my homepage counted a few posts that were never published.  Oh well, I'm not erasing this whole post now!  I guess we'll just celebrate again in a couple weeks when I really DO pass 200.  Anyways, it's time to go watch Friday Night Lights with the hubs.  Later!

Happy Winter

It is hard to believe that Christmas is still 50 days away (nearly as long as Kim Kardashian's marriage! Sorry, I couldn't resist). I got into the Christmas spirit very early this year. I mean, how could I not when we got a foot of snow and have had our wood stove burning to keep us toasty warm. A snowstorm any time of the year, even in October, calls for a little Amy Grant Christmas music...so alas, I started listening to Christmas music two months early and there is just no turning back now! We got the first snow of the season last Thursday and the boys were SO excited! I'm sure Micah has no memory of playing in the snow from last year, so it was really fun to watch him re-discover the beauty of winter. The boys were thrilled with the light dusting, but little did they know, the weekend would bring us a foot of snow!
Here they are tasting the first snowflakes on Thursday night...Micah still needs to learn the art of catching snowflakes! 

 Friday morning...

 My boys...

 We felt like true Homesteaders on Saturday.  I spent much of the morning attempting to make beef stew.  I chopped veggies like a pro, but let's just say it didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped...

 Scott and Camden worked outside making us a new coat rack for our mudroom...

 After a long day of stewing...we enjoyed our beef SOUP!  Definitely put in waaay too much water, but it was still yummy.

 And that evening, the snow started to fall.  It didn't come quietly and slowly as many storms begin, this storm came on with a vengeance and went from 0 to 100 in seconds.  It was so exciting to see the snow literally pouring down, and we are thankful to be on of the lucky New Englanders who didn't lose power! 

 Our church service was canceled on Sunday morning, and we had a wonderful relaxing day at home...

 So happy!

 Super Dad!

 Strange to see the fall colors against the white snow!

 We love our little road...

 Scott had fun playing in the snow too!

And all of this before Halloween!  I'll post some pictures of my little monkey and bumblebee on the next post.  Happy Winter!  :)

Local Apples

Last year I went to a huge apple orchard the week Micah was due and had a blast with Camden.  We went on a hayride, jumped in a bouncy house, played on a swing set and ate ice cream.  Oh yeah, and we picked apples too.  It was super fun, but there was something special about the simplicity of our apple picking experience this fall.  Instead of driving an hour to a huge commercial orchard, we drove 10 minutes to the small local orchard in our very own town.  It didn't have the same hype surrounding it.  It was simple.  It was authentic.  We went all together as a family of four and the boys chomped on apples and laughed at Mama sitting high on Daddy's shoulders trying to reach the highest, juiciest looking fruit.  We've already made apple crisp once, munched on numerous apples throughout the last week, and there are still more...so I've decided I'm making apple crisp again tomorrow.  Take advantage of the season, right?!?

 I love small, family-owned, local farms and am so glad we had such a beautiful fall day to enjoy it!

Wonderful Whirlwind

We had such a wonderful weekend - full of outdoor adventures, our students, family, food...We're both exhausted heading into this week, but are so thankful for the time we got to spend together as a family this weekend.
On Saturday morning we had Scott's Economics students over to our house for breakfast! When we bought this home, we decided that we really wanted to share it, and it has been so fun to have kids over. They are always so thankful to get off of campus, have a homecooked meal and just be in a real home! Our boys, of course, had a blast with the big kids!

After the students left, my mom and I brought our boys just down the road to a little pumpkin festival. They had a huge pumpkin chunker that flies pumpkins through the air, but we left before that actually happened. Camden and Micah didn't care...they had fun walking around, seeing a few other friends and of course, Camden had fun eating a hot dog as a special treat!

After nap time we went over to watch Scott's soccer game. They tied 1-1 and I had the lovely task of trying to keep two crazy boys busy and happy when all they wanted to do was go stand with their Daddy! Oh, and do you like Camden's outfit - he refused to get out of his jammies - pick your battles!

We enjoyed a nice quiet evening together Saturday night and went to church on Sunday morning. I ended up having to hang out with Micah for most of the service, but Camden did a great job in the toddler room! Yahoo! After running a few errands, we came home and went for a walk down behind our house in the meadow. Some Proctor people were going on a trail ride, and Micah is obsessed with horses, so we thought it would be fun to go see them! We also let the boys sit on some huge tractors!

After everyone got back I even got to get up on one for a few minutes! :)

Camden was really excited to go look at the old, old car that is buried behind our house. There is a lot of history surrounding this little road and the three houses along it and there is some crazy stuff in the woods behind the house!

Scott finished residing most of the house last weekend! He's so handy! Next year we will paint and the exterior of our house will finally look as good as the inside!

Tonight we had one of Scott's advisees over for chili and cornbread. He's going through a tough time and (i think) he had fun getting off campus and hanging out with the boys (although Camden was a maniac running on not-enough sleep! Eeek! We'll see if this kid ever wants to come back again!).
Another busy week lies ahead. So thankful for my home, my family, our job, my boys and the beautiful place we live.