You know you want to see eight bazillion pictures of my kids at a pumpkin patch wearing handmade outfits and playing with another funny blogger

A while back, I had this great idea that I would take my kids to the pumpkin patch. What a great fall experience! Pumpkins! Hay rides! Cute pictures!

How delusional I can be sometimes. At first I thought I'd wait until my parents came up for a visit, but when that didn't pan out, I decided that I'd take them on my own. Easy enough. One of them can walk, so I can just strap the other one to my person or in a stroller and everything will be peachy! Easy! Enjoyable, even!

Again. Delusional. Luckily I mentioned the idea to Sarah and she wanted to go! With us! I know, I wasn't even offering a chocolate incentive or anything. She must be able to anticipate these disastrous situations. (Can you tell I am in the gung-ho phase of this deployment? Thinking I can do all of these two-person jobs on my own? Will reality ever set in for me or is this just how it's gonna be until Steve gets back?)

I picked a pumpkin patch in Hopkinsville because they advertised live animals, not just corn mazes. (I'm sorry, but if I want to walk around in circles for hours, I can take Sam out in the field behind our house and just follow him around. I will not pay money to do that.) Turns out that it was a good hour or so drive. Take into account my missing an exit and almost running off a skinny road thanks to a fat truck and not knowing what my updated directions were telling me, I think we came in right around an hour for drive time.

When we arrived, the drive was instantly worth it.

Whose kid is this TOUCHING GOATS and letting them lick his sensitive hands?!

Baby goats!

This is Sarah's This-Goat-Is-Going-To-Eat-Your-Hand face. (By-the-way, it totally did.)

These are hillbilly goats. Harhar.

Like this place could get any more charming.

Old truck turned into a corn-filled sandbox.

These pigs were the size of Volkswagons, I kid you not. Sam found their oinking hilarious.

Molly's thoughts on the hayride. (To be fair, it was a little jerky. That could very well be because the truck was produced in 1927.)

Don't look now, it's another awesome picture of the three of us! Molly- distracted, Sam- overly enthused, Me- can't remember to take sunglasses off to save my life

YUM my fingers taste like dirt and sawdust can't get enough.

Corn maze!

Where's Sammy??

Ahh, such a happy child... (Do you see that halo above Sarah's head? Because SHE IS A SAINT.)

It's a great pumpkin patch, Charlie Brown!

The hayride from 1932

At first, things did not look so promising.

At second, they did not look much better.

Ahh, there they are. Just had to get past the picked-over part of the patch.

This is the one, Mom. (discarded minutes later in exchange for a different one)

I'll take that pumpkin right there. No, not that one, the one next to it. Nope, a little further to the left. No, my left, not your left. You know what? Just skip that one, I see one I like better. It's about a mile that way. Yep, I'll just wait here for ya. Thaaaaaanks.

After loading babies and pumpkins back into the truck, I snuck back off to grab more than the one baby pumpkin that Sam picked up. Sarah caught me lookin like a pumpkin thief.

Goodbye pretty part of Kentucky that I do not live in!

A tractor pull!

COWS! OMG! COWS!

This little boy was so sweet, trying to help Sam feed the cows. Sam, of course, acted very interested until it came time to actually feed the cows. 

This lasted 4.6 seconds. I managed to take 8 pictures somehow though, so I'll let you figure out the shutter speed there.

This is approximately 4.3 seconds in.

Can we just take a moment to petition for Ruthie to open up an Etsy shop already? These outfits she HANDMADE for my children are the CUTEST.

Taken a half second before his little toosh left the slide and flew through the air before making solid contact with the ground. I think someone greased up that slide.

The second attempt required careful hands-on guidance from Sarah and a little coaxing.

Is she killing you with pumpkin patch cuteness yet???

Seriously, if you are in the Ft Campbell area, check this pumpkin patch out. They are some of the sweetest people, it's family-owned, Christian-based, and there is so much more to do there than I took pictures of! I was in no way compensated to advertise for them, but when the guy running the place didn't charge us the admission fee and then practically let us steal pumpkins (I got 4 pumpkins for $8!), all he asked was that we tell our friends about this place. We might even go back just to play around. Sarah? Yes? Are you up for this again? I'll bring chocolate this time.

Oh we had a giveaway, right? Let's see who won.


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Congratulations Stephanie! And thanks y'all for participating. I loved reading your funny responses and tweets. 

Ah! Just noticed that this crosses off #75 on my 101 in 1,001 list. More updates on that list soon. (Hint: it involves my oral health. Who's excited?!)

I don't see how they can legally call that "fun"

I have mentioned to a few of you (through email, twitter conversations, etc) that Steve is on top of his game when it comes to physical activity. I probably mentioned this to you while we were lamenting the fact that we are (or rather, I am) NOT good at physical activity. I used to be in really good shape. Sometime back in college. Before Steve started giving me rides to class, because after that started I had no way to burn off all that pizza we were eating and then bleh. Present-day Jenn. Chubs McGee.

Pounds have slowly but surely (emphasis on SLOWLY) been coming off since Molly's birth. Nowhere near as fast as I want it to obviously, but the scale is still moving. Down. Sort of. I mean, I uncovered the secret to making loads and loads of breastmilk (spoiler: it's CARBS. Tons and tons of CARBS. Preferably of the pizza variety.). So consuming carbs and then burning carbs to make milk has sorta evened me out weight-wise, but THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT WEIGHT OR BREASTMILK SO LET ME GET BACK ON TRACK HERE.

Ok. I haven't officially "worked out" in quite some time. My sister and I did some Jillian Michaels over the summer and I hobbled around like a centennial for about four days, but that's about it. So it is no surprise that I am out of shape. Steve recently came home from work and told me CASUALLY that there is a family fun run on the 30th. I asked how far fun was. He said two miles. I might have said a curse word or seven. Because two miles?? Seriously?? How is that fun? How is running anywhere fun? I mean, running out to get wine is one thing, running around in a big circle "for fun" is another. So since Steve is the resident heckler about people falling out on runs, I obviously canNOT fall out on this run. How would that look? And how would I ever be able to tell his coworkers all of the other things I am very GOOD at instead of running? Like, for example, wine-drinking? Fudge-making? Cute-baby birthing? I think I would be too winded to explain, in proper detail, all of the things that I am very proficient at. (I know I'm not supposed to end a sentence with "at" but OMG- have been staring at that sentence for five minutes now and can't figure out another way to say it. ARREST ME NOW, GRAMMAR POLICE.)

So my question to y'all IS:
What is the easiest, non-time-suckiest way to get into shape QUICK? Like, two and a half weeks quick? I am hoping all of your responses sound something like, "Be sure to rest and hydrate yourself, occasionally with water. White wine is best though. Antioxidants and such. Chocolate is good for the legs. Pizza is known for its endurance building; carb-loading and such."

How I feel when someone mentions running

Also, I know good and well that I just need to get out there and sweat. But ugh. Sweating. I hate it so. Almost as much as I hate running.

I'm calling some of you out at the end of this post.

If you follow me on twitter or instagram, you are well-informed of the saga that is my hair. In case you missed out, I went to get my hair cut at a salon the other day, by a lady who "specializes" in curly hair. I had the highest of hopes. She asked whether I would like it styled straight or curly. Having never been to anyone before who even pretended to know what to do with curly hair, I asked for it to be styled curly. And this was the end result.

As she kept telling me that this was "so so cute," I started wondering whether I was just.... not with it enough to recognize cute when I saw it? But many of you confirmed that in fact, this is not cute. This is a hot mess. My mother (always the first one I complain to, always the first one to offer rays of sunshine) reminded me that it was not as bad as "that one time in high school when a "stylist" blew it out straight" for me. My hair looks awful every time I come out of a salon so I cannot remember specific horrible experiences, but THANK YOU MOM for reminding me that I have looked worse. I reminded her that that was 50lbs ago, and it's easier to deal with bad hair when you're skinny. She countered with "you are healthy, have beautiful babies, a handsome husband..." I struck back with, "I live in HELL and my cute dog smells like ass." Then she called me and I had to own up to the fact that I was being dramatic. For reference, this is what my hair looks like now.

A little frizzy and frazzled at the end of the day, but Molly seems to like it, judging by her near-constant death grips on it.

LOOK AT THE CHUB CAN SHE GET ANY CUTER?! Also, she does own clothes, she just never happens to be wearing any when I take my camera out.

My parents came to town this past weekend to visit and to take my sister back home since school starts up soon. I love having them around. Always funny stories, good food, and hands that are looking to hold or play with a child.

Sam was already in bed during that particular "photo shoot." But the next morning, he was back to work, demonstrating to his adoring fans the fine art of properly separating shapes.

Molly watches with anticipation. "When is he going to pull some milk outta that box? Isn't that what we're all waiting on?"

I also made this monstrosity.

Back home in Alabama, my dad's shop caters to BOTH teams (I know, the things people do to make money), so I made him a little decoration to hang some tshirts from. Fear not, I'm making an Auburn one too. AND IT WILL BE BIGGER AND BETTER WAR EAGLE!

Why won't they come live with me? Are those cheeks not sweet enough? (Rhetorical question. Those cheeks ARE sweet enough. Too sweet, actually. Sweet enough to give you the die-uh-beetus if you kiss them too much.)

Yes, this is as happy as Sam can muster on-demand while sharing the spotlight with his sister.

He much prefers some one-on-one time with Pops.

And then, after these photos, they packed up and left us. (I don't know why they would do that either.) So now we're back to the usual: pumping, feeding, errands, diapers, laundry, dishes, timeouts, playdates, cooking, sweating. (Ok, to be fair, the sweating never stopped.)

Now that it is almost the weekend, and I am done recapping LAST weekend, I need to ask y'all a favor. More than anything, I love when y'all leave me comments and let me know what you thought about what I've written. I try to respond to every! single! comment! Seriously, I do. But if you're wondering why I haven't responded to your comment (I know you all sit on the edge of your seats, checking your email, waiting for me to respond...), it's because you don't have your email address set up for me to reply to. Stupidly, I reply to every comment, even the ones that say I'm emailing noreply-comment@blogger.com, but I would much rather respond to YOU! Repeat offenders being:

Ruthie
Kerri
Stephanie
Aggie

I'm sure there are more of you out there, but those are just the most recent comments I've tried replying to. Also, Kerri, I am flattered you think I look like that Olympic swimmer. I wish that was the reason I haven't been blogging much lately. I also wish I had an Olympic swimmer's body. Amen.