IKEA, Land of Happy Money-Spenders!

On October 4th, Allison and I took a day pilgrimage to IKEA in Cincinnati. This was my first trip there and oh what a great place it is! As Allison said in her blog, I have never seen so many people so happy to spend so much money! People are just giddy pulling around these giant carts full of Swedish furniture and decor! If you haven't gone, I can truly recommend, even if its just for the people watching! Its an experience, for sure.




This is us just as we arrived (we're in the lower right corner--not so good with the timer on the camera yet!). The parking lot there is enormous and reminds me a bit of an amusement park--there are numbers to remind you of where you parked and everything! People come from all over to pay their respects to The Great IKEA god and there were license plates from many states.






We brought Katie along with us for the girls day out and she is already a shopping pro! We were there for 6 hours (yes, I said SIX HOURS!) and she was an angel the whole time. And she even slept for the car ride there and home. This picture was taken in the little cafe they have for your convenience. Being a Swedish company, they serve delicious Swedish meatball as well as ligenberries, although I have no idea what those are. They tasted good, though!




Allison and I each bought huge toy organizers which now grace our respective playrooms. I got a few other (OK a lot of other!) items for the home and even managed to buy some yummy cinnamon rolls for the boys back home. Yea IKEA!!!

Fall Festival

Well, we've been so busy these past few weeks making family memories that I haven't had any time to share them! So over the next few days I intend to catch everyone up on our fun fall!

Last Saturday our church had a fall festival that was a ton of fun. Alex was on the verge of catching a cold so he wasn't quite his normal self but other than that, we all had a blast.

Here is a family photo that we had taken. Alex is doing his usual picture thing and not smiling but he is at least looking at the camera. AND its a rare photo with me in it! It's kind of like when you see a picture that is supposed to be Bigfoot..is that really Amy or is it just someone dressed up like her??! Wait...did I just compare myself to Bigfoot??? Humm...

Andrew's favorite part of the festival was the mini-bounce house. He would bounce twice and then get out--no small undertaking!--and then get back in and repeat this 50 times. He got the biggest kick out of it, though, so who am I to judge?!

A few of my friends from MOPS joined us with their kids at the festival and they all had a great time with all the fall activities. The mini-maze (think a corn maze without the corn and much simpler) was a huge hit with the preschool crowd. This is a picture of Alex and Katie racing through the maze.

Just as the sun was setting we got to go on a nice long hayride through the lovely autumn countryside.












The thumb sucking brothers...









That evening the band that normally plays for Sunday services played and Andrew was a maniac dancing right in front of the amps! The video I have of it is super dark so I can't upload it here but our little man was dancing like a fool! We were afraid he would go deaf because the music was so loud right in front of the speakers but he appears to be fine. Next week, I'm sure he'll be stage diving at some concert...

Alex Lents, Soccer Super Star!

Alex started soccer class a few weeks ago and is loving it. He's in a leauge called Lil' Kickers that teaches soccer skills but doesn't play full out games. He is doing really well and says that he really likes it. He even goes out in the back yard and practices, which is pretty cute. Here are some pictures from his last class (he's the one in a red shirt so he's easy to spot!):

Apple Pickin' Fun

To celebrate Alex's successful eye surgery (he's doing wonderfully, by the way!) we headed to Stuckey Farm apple orchard for some apple-picking fun.
Nick and Andrew on the tractor ride out to the orchard--doesn't Andrew look particularly huge in this picture??!!
Andrew wasn't really feeling very well when we went but he did manage to pick some apples, although most of them were rotten ones from the ground!
Andrew actually learned to say the word "apple" really clearly while we were there--this is him saying it!

Here is some video of our little apple-pickers!

First Day of School and The Circus

Alex on his first day of Preschool--he goes three days a week this year! Big time! :)

We also got free tickets to the circus last weekend from my awesome friend Allison! Thanks for the tickets, Al! We decided that three rings of action was probably a bit much for Andrew so we left him with Nana and took Alex for some one on one time with us. I didn't know how he would take it but he really had a good time and seemed to "get" everything that was going on.

The opening act...
The elephants were a highlight!
Three rings of trained horses and zebras...how do you train a zebra anyway???

The guy with the tigers was a hoot--he was Russian (I think) and you could barely understand him but I have to give him credit for being in that ring with 8 tigers by himself. The tigers were actually growling and snarling the whole time which I don't know if they were honestly angry but I believed it!

This cool hat came with the $12 cotton candy--yes, thats right I said TWELVE DOLLARS OF AIR AND SUGAR! But its the circus and you have to have cotton candy, right? They seem to know this and are taking advantage of the parents...circus folk. I suppose they have to pay for the snarling tigers somehow.

Alex actually took this hat with him to show and tell on Tuesday. He was very excited to tell his class about going to the circus. I was excited to still get some use out of my TWELVE DOLLAR HAT...I'm so cheap... :)