Apple Picking in North Carolina

A few weeks ago, we decided to pack up the car with the kids and drive to NC and go apple picking. The kids were so excited. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive and really not too bad. But let me tell you, we did not pick the greatest day to go. It was raining and very cold. Luckily we dressed for the occasion so the kids were ok. I had really hoped to go on the hay ride but after all the apple picking Riley was tired and freezing so we decided to go home. We got a whole bunsh of apples and also picked up some hot apple cider for when we got home. Let me tell you, that is some good stuff!!
Ready to go Apple Picking.

" This is fun"!

"Ok, so pulled off this apple but how do I put it back""Look at this tiny apple I found, Mom"! I love these pictures!

Here we go again...

Trying to get Riley to pull her own tooth. This tooth has been very lose for about 2 weeks now and she has not been wanting to pull it herself. Terry did not want to pull it this time because he wanted her to do it this time. Well, I noticed today that it was almost falling out of her mouth. But she still didn't want to pull it. So we put her down in a chair tonight and told her to pull it or daddy was going to do it. Well, I have to say...she did try. As you can tell from the pictures. I think we spent about an hour working on that tooth and then finally Terry just went ahead and pulled it again. He had to pull pretty hard and she was not too happy about it when he was pulling it but as you can tell from the picture with her "tooth dollar bill" it didn't last very long. I have to say, she looks pretty cute with that tooth missing. I would love for her other tooth to come out soon so she has a BIG hole there. But I don't think that tooth is coming out any time soon.

So life at the Rogers has kind of been at a stand still. On Thursday afternoon around 1pm I got a phone call from the nurse at school saying that Jesse had come in with a head ache and a fever of a 100.1 and I was asked to come and pick him up. He was so sad. I got him home, gave him some motrine and he watched movies for the rest of the day. Since he still had a fever on Friday he could not go to school. I did take him to the doctor because I wanted to get him tested for the flu. The nurse swiped his nose (which tickled like crazy he said) and then had to wait about 15 minutes. Doctor Phillips eventually came back saying the test came back negative but there is a 40% chance of a false negative. And by the way Jesse was looking and feeling he said he was pretty sure he had the flu. So... he had to prescribe us ALL medicine. Can I tell you, getting Tamiflu filled is expensive!!! I think we paid about $300 for all of us to be on this medication. I sure hope it will keep us from getting the flu (FOREVER)!! Although now Riley has a fever. So I guess it doesn't work that well:) Jesse however is feeling better today. I did take his temperature this afternoon and it was back to normal. So I am hoping he will be ok to go back to school on Monday. I am really hoping and praying that Joel is not going to get it. He is very worried about it. I guess he has heared about the people that have died of the swine flu so he has been very worried about Jesse. He asked me yesterday if Jesse is going to be ok. We told him that the people who have died of this flu are people that had very weak immunities and they already had some kind of illnesses. That made him feel a little better.My two boys that are still healthy!

Dropping like flies...

Yes, it is happening again...but this time around it is Jesse. And the funny thing is, his permanent teeth are already there. A few months ago he mentioned to me that his bottom teeth were lose and we were very excited for him. When I took a closer look I noticed that they were already coming in. We started calling him "Shark" since he had two rows of teeth. I have to say, that boy was very brave. The first one I pulled this past Tuesday and he didn't cry. It scared him a little bit especially since it started bleeding a little bit but he did not cry. Then Sunday night I checked his other tooth and it was ready to come out. So I told him to go see daddy and see what he could do about it. He said he didn't want him to pull it. But Terry pulled on it and it came out (with some hard pulling) but he didn't cry and was SO excited. The first thing he said was "NOW I GET ANOTHER TOOTH-DOLLAR BILL"!

Calling Opa & Oma to tell them about his lost tooth!

Being Crafty.

Ok, so I came across this great blog the other day (http://chrissyscricutcorner.blogspot.com/) and found this great basket she made and I thought it was so cute I decided to make one for my neighbor. She has all kinds of different of baskets for different occasions. I decided to make this one for my neighbor since Fall has officially started and I wanted to bring a smile to her face. I love the way it came out. I can't wait to make more of these.

Having fun with Pretzels; Prep Time; Prayer Time and Pee!

On Saturday, while we were eating lunch we pulled out the pretzels. My kids are kind of funny, they are not really crazy about then. Josiah just took them, broke then in half and said "broke, Mommy". But then when I showed them you can write words with them, they all wanted some. Jesse and I wrote his name. Not really sure what Riley is doing with hers and then Joel also wrote his name. Hey, you can teach anything with food!

Jesse doing the "Pretzel Dance".Then Sunday afternoon, I had to get dinner together quickly because I had a meeting at 4:30pm and would not be back until about 6:30pm or so. So during dinner I prepped my meat loaf and potatoes. Since Joel has really started getting interested in cooking, I let him cut the potatoes. He feels so big with that knife!! Can I tell you, these were some GREAT potatoes. I roasted them with some wonderful seasonings. Every body thought they were AWESOME!Before dinner it was time to pray! We let Josiah pray for us. He usually keeps his eyes open so he can see what he has on his plate when he thanks God for his food. But this time I told him to close his eyes and put his hands together. This is what we got... So cute!

Finally, yesterday I thought it might be a good day to start potty training my little JoJo. I really thought he was ready. He has been telling me when he goes. He will even come up to me sometimes and tell me to change his diaper. So I decided to pull out the underwear and see what would happen. Well, let me tell you...I am glad he has a LOT of underwear. He just kept wetting himself. But at the end of the afternoon yesterday he actually told me when he did pee. He didn't do that in the morning. So he was getting more a wear of it. So I had HIGH homes for today. We started early and peed in the potty 2x in the morning (only because I made him sit there for about one hour). But then at one point he peed in his potty so we got a sticker and put our underwear on. And while we were eating our marshmallow he peed again. At that point I decided that we are not ready yet. I am going to wait a couple of months and then try again. I am very proud of him, he did poop in the potty one time yesterday. And instead of getting a marshmallow I let him play the WII. He always wants to play but had he had never do it. So we told him that if he pooped on the potty he would be able to play the WII. Can I tell you, he was so excited. He got to box on WII Spots. He loved it. (See pictures below).So this might help me with the potty training when I start again. Enjoy the pictures.

Homework has officially started!

So many of you know about the summer reading program our school district has done for the past two years now. it is called "No book left unread" and you are to keep up with how many pages you read through out the summer. Well, many of you know that Joel is just a little competative. So this is a perfect program for him. Last year he ready about 3000 pages (I think) and he really wanted to beat that. So this year (Drum Roll, Please)...he read 10,226 pages.

Many times this summer I would find Joel in his bed like this.Then on Tuesday Jesse brought some papers home and I noticed he had written some numbers backwards so since he asks every day if he has home work, I decided to go ahead and make him some homework. I wrote the numbers he had messed up on our white board and made him write them. He loved it (as you can tell from his face). We had to keep it on the board until daddy got home that night. Now Riley had her first 1st grade project due today. We pretty much had all week to work on it. She had to make a time line of something important in her life. So we made a time line of our family. We started with mommy & daddy getting married then Joel born, Riley born, Jesse born, Josiah born and finally Nellie born. Can I tell you, she had so much fun.And I have to say, I did too. Terry and I both herlped her. He did the outline of the timeline and I got to help her with the fun part-the crafty part:) We pulled out my Cricut and she made all the people in our family with it. She did so good! I could tell she loved every minute of it. And the thing she was most excited about, she got to stay up late one night to work on it. She picked out the people's outfits and glued them on. Lilli let her borrow her glitter glue so she got to "fancy up" my wedding dress and her dress. She also wrote all the names and dates on the time line herself. She did an awsome job. We both had a lot of fun:)