I Heart Faces features a photo every Friday that someone is having trouble “fixing”. They have several contributors that take the picture and fix-it in their own special way. It’s so much fun and the best part, my picture is being featured today. I was so excited this morning when my friend texted me and told me. You can play along and leave a link to your fix or you can just check out my beautiful girl being redone all over bloggy world. Thank you to I Heart Faces’ Angie and Amy. Here’s the link http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/2009/11/fix-it-friday-35-hands-on-photo-editing.html

Yesterday after J got home from school we ate some lunch and then attacked the leaves outside. It’s our neighbors tree but all the leaves end up in our front yard. I’ll have to remember to thank them for that. Anyway, I raked all the leaves onto the sidewalk into a huge, long pile and the kids, being kids decided that jumping in them and throwing them was more fun than putting them into the bucket. I did get some cute photos.

When we came inside J and I had a hard time breathing and were coughing so I am sure there was something nasty in those leaves but it was worth the fun we had.

My mom and I worked on L’s costume all of Tuesday and I think it turned out really cute…

L was a flower pot and J was of course, Scooby Doo. This picture was taken at my in-law’s house and after we took J’s costume off he immediately fell into a fever-induced heap. Poor guy. We brought him home to nap and his fever just got worse (103.1) and he had a headache. We called our exchange and they told us it’s probably viral and not H1N1. He had a semi-good night’s sleep and his fever (99.0) is down today but the poor guy missed out on trick or treating. L didn’t blink an eye and offered him half of her candy. Such a sweet little girl.

L’s costume was a huge hit. Maybe I’ll do a post on how I made her costume (with my mom’s help) probably not today I have a sick baby boy still to tend too.

I feel like every post should be titled, so very busy. We had an extremely busy week with all the parties and preparations for Halloween. Thursday J had his Halloween party at school, we rushed home ate lunch, ran out the door to dance class where L invited J to be her guest for the Halloween party, went to the dollar store to get party supplies for L’s Halloween party at school the next day, went to school to attend L’s first Daisy meeting, picked up JT, went out to dinner, then out for dessert AND finally home. CRAZY day.

Friday I dropped L off at school and it was raining buckets. Thankfully JT was working from home so I left J in his care and went out to my friend SK’s house. I borrowed her tripod and needed a little refresher course plus just some girl time. We decided to go shopping, I bought some stuff for Christmas at Target. Left my friend and ran home to pick up the party supplies, ran to L’s Halloween party at school. I was there until 2:45 then came home and cleaned my house. Our friends came over at 6:30 pm, we ate a yummy dinner, sat outside by a warm fire and played some Wii. Our night ended around 10:00 pm.

I have to say that yes I was busy and it was crazy but I look back now and know that it was a lot of fun. I know this post was quick and scattered but I needed to jot it all down for posterity sake.

Remember the old kids saying:

Rain, rain, go away

Come again some other day

We want to go outside and play

Come again some other day

It’s been raining (it feels like) nonstop for several days. I just want to get outside and enjoy what’s left of the beautiful color in the trees or take pictures of my kids in their Halloween costumes outside. The best would be carving pumpkins outside instead of on my kitchen floor. This picture is what’s getting me through.

What’s with all the ladybugs? Holy cow. I have heard of them in swarms all around our area. I had never seen so many until my session on Sunday at Concordia Seminary. It was gross. They were everywhere, you would walk through the swarm and they would be in your hair and on your clothes. I counted 12 on me at one time. I’m not a bug person, can you tell?!

I guess it could be worse… especially if you lived here.

This weekend was busy busy busy.

You know from the previous post we had an excellent time on Friday at the wineries. Well on Saturday we woke up early and met my friend at Castlewood State Park where she took pictures of our family outside in the wonderful air and pretty trees. I also brought my camera and took a picture of her and her girls. She then took some time to talk “shop” with me. Explaining more about my camera and f-stops and shutter speeds. Everytime she talks a light goes off in my head. I’ll blog more of those pics after this post…

Saturday afternoon we attended our little cousin’s 3rd birthday party. It was a cute Cardinals theme and the kids had fun playing but oh my J was not happy when we left. He was down right pissed off. He threw a fit like I have never seen before. Their favorite part of the evening (besides cake) was the tractor ride.

Sunday morning I met one of L’s classmates and her mom at the park for some christmas pictures. We had a lot of fun and I think I got a couple really good ones. If you wanna see more of their session you can visit www.hollajanephotography.com.

Sunday afternoon I met the P family at Concordia Seminary (an awesome place for photographs) to photograph they’re two darling little girls. They were flower girls in their uncles wedding and they never got pictures of them and the beautiful dresses their grandmother made. Again, if you want more just check out my professional blog at www.hollajanephotography.com.

What a fantastic weekend. Busy but full of family and friends.

My mom’s birthday was this last Friday and she loves going to the wineries so we decided to try a new batch of wineries this year. We usually head to Augusta, MO and enjoy the views and wine at Mount Pleasant Winery. It’s really beautiful there. But I had never been to historic Ste. Genevieve and knew it might be fun for my mom to walk around the antique shops and then head to another favorite winery, Chaumette Winery.

We drove to historic downtown Ste. Genevieve first and walked through one antique store, not finding much. We were a little disappointed in the historic area. Shops are harder to find, we were expecting a street similar to Old St. Charles. It’s still a wonderful town we just didn’t stick around all that long to explore it more in depth. The kids were rather lucky, when we parked our car we parked right outside a cute candy store. So my mom took them in there and let them buy whatever candy they wanted. I may have gotten some too.

I found this really cool old house just outside Ste. Genevieve…

While paying at the candy store JT found a brochure that listed all the wineries in the area and he found one called Cave Vineyard. It’s on the way to Chaumette so we decided to stop and check out the winery in a cave. Very interesting. You stop at the top where you can park and pay for some wine, buy some cheese or do a little wine tasting for $5 and you get to keep your glass. We bought one bottle and started walking down towards the cave. The trees were beautiful, there isn’t really a “view” but it was amazing. We were the only ones there so the kids could run and they loved that they were sitting in a cave. There is a pesky yellow lab that wouldn’t leave our sides and kept trying to get our food but being a dog lover I didn’t let it get us down. At the cave vineyards we gave mom her presents, the kids gave her a polka dot umbrella and I gave her a new coat. She loved both of them, but the kids played with her umbrella the whole time we were there.

We left the cave vineyard after our bottle and headed to Chaumette for lunch and more wine. Chaumette is beautiful. I highly recommend it to anyone that is getting married. There is a small chapel on top of a hill overlooking the winery, the inside of the winery where the reception would be held is gorgeous and there are cabins for your guests to stay the night. Love it.

Happy Birthday Mom, we love you and had a wonderful time.

Here are some fun photos I took at the patch Sunday. No one is in them, there just random shots.

This last Sunday we visited the pumpkin patch. It was pretty much the only day we had available the whole month of October. We lucked out on the weather. It was beautiful. Even more exciting… my mom, brother and future sis-in-law came along. So the kids were surrounded by their favorite people.

We went to Eckert’s over in Millstadt, IL. It’s our favorite pumpkin patch because of all the things you can do there. It was really crowded because it was finally a nice day but it was fine we still had fun.

It was like a kid free day for me. They got to sit on the top of the wagon so they were super excited, plus mommy and daddy weren’t up there with them. Just their GeGe, Unca Na and Aunt Carrie.

Love this picture of my little man

Oh and this guy is pretty cute too…

Awesome view… you can see the arch from the patch.

Then the hunt began

The horizon is so off on the first picture but oh how I love it.

My mom wanted a picture of all of her “kids”. Aren’t we adorable? My family is so short compared to my brother (he’s 6′5″) and C.

They are too cute together and so much fun to take pictures of…

More pictures of the family, these two are pretty cute too.

Pony rides and flocks of ladybugs

Finally after all that fun we were starving so we headed back to STL for a yummy steak lunch to celebrate my brother’s birthday. I love my family and love being with them all at the same time.

I forgot we stopped to pet the animals and there were two baby camels. We watched a little boy feed one of them and while we were doing that the other walked over to J. He put his hand out to pet the camel and the camel took J’s whole hand and part of his arm into his mouth. When I pulled it out it had so much goo all over it I had to walk away because I was gagging. My poor Mom tried to clean him up as much as she could but it was all over his sweatshirt. We are still laughing about it today. I only wish I had captured it on film.