18 with 22 years of experience!

Turning 40 really doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me.  Probably because I'm not the one turning 40... not even close (sorry Jared).  He isn't thrilled with the whole "over the hill" thing, but I'm handling it much better than I did when he turned 30.  That felt so grown up when I was only 26.  I felt like Jared turning 30 meant he had to suddenly worry about his cholesterol and high blood pressure, I even convinced him to go and get a physical just to make sure he was healthy.  A few years later when I turned 30... I realized it was no big deal.  30 felt just the same as 29.  It's just a number, but being that this year was the big 4-0 that number means that we had an even bigger excuse to celebrate!

I invited some of our friends over for a 40th birthday bash Friday night.  We ate yummy food and played some fun games.  We told stories and laughed til our cheeks hurt.

We played a whole variety of "minute to win it" games; this one was probably my favorite to watch.  Jared and Jon had to pick up all of these bags using only their mouth.  Here they are stretching.

Ready, set, GO!

I love how DJ is laughing so hard.  It was pretty hilarious.

Here are a few of the other games ...

cereal box puzzle

knock over cups with air from a blown up balloon

empty a box of tissues with only one hand, one tissue at a time

stack 7 cakes on your head

We were quite loud cheering and laughing.  You can see my kids peeking down from the stairs behind Barb. They never came all the way down.  First we saw Austin's little face, and then a mirror, pretty soon there they all were.  

moving a cookie from their forehead to their mouth without using their hands

balance 6 dice on a spoon held in your mouth

unravel two spools of crepe paper with your arms

empty two boxes of tic tacs with your teeth

Proof that he cheated.
In his defense, both of us hit a point where they got jammed.

We had a great time laughing and finished off the night by sharing stories about Jared.  Everyone shared a favorite memory or first impression of Jared.  There were lots of fun stories and also several references to Mr. Incredible.  That will never get old.  

Sunday night we invited Jared's family over for dinner.

They are always so much fun to visit with.

Because we had had so much fun with the games on Friday, we decided to try some of them with our family.  It was still a lot of fun, but very different.

The adults didn't do this every time we had a mess with tissues or toilet paper.

Look at the pure joy on these kids faces.  I Love it!

The adults certainly didn't go after the spilled tic tacs.

Since Jared did such a great job on this game at his party, we had him do it again with his brother Mat.  It was just as funny.  Mat went after that bag with all he had, even fell and then resorted to using his dad's cane.

Jared is a wonderful husband, my best friend, and the greatest dad our children could possibly have.    We are all so lucky to have him in our lives.

Happy Birthday Jared!

We love you!

Pumpkin Patch

Oh how we love to visit the pumpkin patch.  It's one of my favorite Fall activities.  Not every pumpkin patch is quite like this one though, Maris Farms is so much more than your ordinary pumpkin patch.

It's fun to race around a course on these little go-karts.  (A good leg workout too.)

 And this never gets old.

This kid, he's pretty great!  I wrote about his struggle starting at a brand new school this year and then about how he surprised us by running for Vice President a few weeks later.  We found out last week that he WON!  I'm so proud of him!  Not necessarily for winning, but for reminding me that even against all odds, it's okay to go for something that you really want.  If you don't try, you'll never know.

Someday we'll come when they have the pumpkin shooters and zipline up and going.  That's only on the weekends.  Thankfully there were lots of other things to do and we kept plenty busy.

Friends always make things more fun.  We sure love the Tew family.
The corn maze I wasn't quite as fond of.  It was fun at first, but very muddy and it took way too long to get out of.  Yeah, I admit... we got lost.

These girls looked extra pale after coming out of the corn room.  Yup, that's corn dust covering them from head to toe.

A few days later, Austin and I came back for his preschool field trip.  Here he is with his sweet teacher Miss Cindy.

Oh, and that corn room is just soooo much fun!  Kids love it.  

It's fun to feed the goats and visit the baby animals.

Austin loves his little friend Gavin.  Here they are waiting to go on the hay ride to pick out their pumpkins.

I just got word that we are going to do family pictures with Jared's family at Christmas.  I was purposely putting off our own much needed pictures because some of my kids are in awkward "smiling" stages.  I won't go into detail, but I wasn't worried about Austin as much.  Then he started doing these awkward poses when I'd tell him to smile.  Seriously...

Family pictures are going to be awesome!!

Linsey went back to Maris Farms another night for some of the scary fun!  They got to ride a bus while shooting paint guns at scary zombies, one even snuck onto their bus and scared the tar out of them.  They also went through a haunter corn maze.  But look at how adorable this scary little clown is.

Gotta love Maris Farms...  It's my favorite pumpkin patch!