A CUGE Mountain and the end of “Paddy-Ball”

I know I’ve mentioned here before how much I adore Mak and CB’s “baby words”.  Neither one of my kids are babies anymore but sometimes they still come out with these words that they either mistakenly pronounce or simply make up and think they are saying correctly.  Those words are my favorites and I’m always so sad when they realize they are saying the wrong thing.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  🙂

We spent the first weekend of October in the mountains.  LOVE.  It was perfectly chilly…cold, even…and for the first time this year I really felt like it was Fall.  We picked apples and drank hot chocolate.  We sipped coffee on a freezing cold huge screened porch overlooking Table Rock Lake.  We bundled babies in fluffy blankets and shouted at the big kids to keep their jackets on.  We wore jeans and sweaters.  It was SO Fall.

So anyway, Miss CB thinks that the word “huge” is actually pronounced “Cuge”.  Hence, the cuge mountain that we spent the weekend on.  And paddy-ball?  Mak thinks ping pong is called paddy ball.  Or rather he thought that.  Somebody told him it was ping pong this weekend so we lost Paddy-ball.  I’m just a tad bit bitter about that.  😉

We went with our Bible Study group.  There were 10 adults, 3 six year olds, 2 five year olds, 2 four year olds, 2 one year olds, a 9 month old and an 8 week old.  At times the noise level in that house was unbearable.  But a fun kind of unbearable, ya know?  😉  I love that Collin and I have these people.  Sunday morning we had a little “home church” in our rented house on the Cuge hill.  No way were we springing this brood on some poor unsuspecting mountain church.  😉  You know those times when you just sit back and watch the people around you?  I loved watching these people on Sunday morning.  Mommas juggling fussy babies, some kids cuddled in their parents lap, others on the edge of their seat ready to shout out an answer.  And their gestures when we sang “I’m in the Lord’s Army” were SO great.  I loved that morning.

We visited Sky Top Orchards on Saturday.  The apples weren’t quite at their peak but the kids didn’t care.  They just knew they got to climb a tree to pick an apple and immediately take a bite out of it.  And they thought that was pretty great.

This photograph of Tallon makes me laugh so hard.  “Apple, you are MINE!  I will kill you and devour you!”  Such a boy.

I love it when I catch them in sweet moments.  🙂

If there is a tree around my son will be in it.  It’s just a fact.

My best friend from college, Chappell, came to see us!  And she brought her beautiful baby, Sweet Sophie!

After Sky Top we headed out to find a picnic spot and ended up at Table Rock State Park.  The kids were pretty happy.  I love these faces!

After lunch, the main agenda for the dads was to wear these kids out so they could get back to the house to watch football.  Check my girl out with those football skills!

Seriously, how stinkin’ cute is Tess?  She thinks she is so big!

Back at the house…S’mores!!

And that was the end of Saturday.  Whew.  Sunday we were all a bit lazier in getting moving.  We lingered over our coffee, snuggled babies and played Jenga.  It was cozy.  🙂

I could gobble him up!!!

Tess caught up on her reading.  😉

After our church service we headed out to Carl Sandburg’s home.  Beautiful area!!

It was SOOOO much fun and, again, did a really great job of wearing our little Sugars out.  🙂  Back home for some hot chocolate!

And that was it!  The mountain trip was perfect and is definitely something we want to do again.  Oh, and Collin photographed Robert, Julie and Luke so I will get those up here soon.  Happy October, Everybody!!