Sabic Party

We left straight from the Scarecrow Fest and went to the plant for the party.  It's usually head at Illini Park, but because of the anniversary part of the celebration, they had it on the plant site like they did for the 40th.  Did I mention that Pete (and all of the Sabic Employees) got a Kindle Fire as an anniversary present?!  And, since he's not a reader, he gave it to ME!!!!  Hooray!!  It's awesome!  But, I digress....

When we got there they had an old car show happening.  Noah, especially, seems to be interested in old cars, so he was excited to see what was there.  They all picked out their favorite for the People's Choice Award.

Madie picked this green one from the 1960s.  It was my favorite too!

Noah's pick was this one from 1934.  My second favorite!!!

This one was listed as a car from 1964, but it doesn't look like it's from that era at all.  But, anyway, this was Livie's choice.  They all picked good ones!  There was one from 1974, the year I was born.  I nearly picked that just for that reason alone. ;-)

Since it was nearly 2 by the time we got there, we headed straight for the food tent.  They had this great cake table with a big number 45 on top of it.  The pieces they cut were HUMOGOUS!  I swear our whole family could've eaten one piece!

They had chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, and ribeyes.  Quite a spread!  It was really good and the kids ate most of what they had picked .... until I mentioned that they also had ice cream.  Then eating stopped and they went looking for the ice cream.  Well, I should say Livie and Noah did.  Madie and I had eaten the taco-in-a-bag, so we weren't terribly hungry.

As soon as they were done, Noah was ready to head to the bouncy houses.  Madie and I stayed for a few rounds of BINGO before headed out to join them.

They went up the slide a million times and went into this rocket nearly as much.  They loved it!

Madie was kicked really hard the other day during a soccer game in PE and has had a swollen toe for the past few days.  She had to sit out during tap after re-injuring it again during tumbling, so she wasn't able to really do a lot of the bouncy house stuff.  She went back and played more BINGO, since that wasn't hurting her foot.  And, guess what?  She actually won!!!!!  None of us have ever won playing BINGO at Sabic before and she did!  She won a gift card to Starbucks and Olive Garden.  She was thrilled to pieces!

After her win, Noah was feeling low and they were getting hot and thirsty, so they sat in the shade by the photo booth and decided to take a few pictures.  It was hilarious as you'll see below. 

We finished our time there with a plant tour, given by Pete himself!  It was fun to finally see kind of where he works and what he does.  It was loud.  It was stinky.  But, it was cool to see.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the plant.  Top Secret stuff, you know.  We finished our day with some remote control car races and then headed home.  It was a long day, but lots and lots of fun!

Here are some of the photo booth pictures they took.  Like I posted on FB - did Livie storm out of the photo booth, because Noah was going to cut her head off?  Yes.  Did I have to remind Noah that we don't decapitate people in photo booths?  Yes.  But other than that they had a ton of fun and, now, we've got great pictures to show for it!

Scarecrow Fest 2012

Today has been a busy one!  Starting with Madie going to dance at 8:15 and then the rest of us heading uptown to the Scarecrow Fest at 10:30.  We've been going, going, going until we got home at 5!  We packed a lot of fun in those few hours though.

The Scarecrow Fest was all day today and the weather was not only beautiful, it actually bordered on too warm!  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temps got into the 80s.  Definitely the warmest it's ever been at the Fest in the years we've gone!  We made a quick stop off at the Farmer's Market.  Was a little surprised to see it fairly empty.  It's usually packed with veggie booths, but I'm guessing the drought has affected this a lot this year.  We picked up some buckeyes though.  YUM!  If you haven't had these, you're missing out.  We even picked up a homemade dog bone for Tater.  He was pretty excited when we gave it to him at home later today.

We didn't want to see too much before we picked up Madie from dance, but we had to make a few stops!  The kids always love heading into the main park there.  They love throwing coins in the fountain and climbing on the cannons.  There weren't any booths set up in the park this year, because they've created a new section specifically for that in the area they call the Jordan Block.  Trust me, that place was packed!  Guess everyone moved down there this year.

Usually the street is lined with scarecrows, but we didn't see nearly as many this year.  It seemed like there were a lot of people out - we ran into a lot of friends - but the fest seemed a bit smaller than in years past.  That's ok.  They still loved it!  Livie really liked her monster mask. ;-)

The Petting Zoo was on the street where Madie had her dance class, so Livie and I hung out here, while Pete and Noah ran over to get her.  They later visited this too, because of their love of goats.  They didn't want to miss the opportunity to hang out with the goats!

This is the Jordan Block I mentioned earlier.  This is where nearly everyone set up their booths.  They, in years past, would line the street and fill up the Farmer's Market area, but they all moved up this way, which made walking by the downtown stores a lot easier.  These are all local groups or families that set up tents and sell their stuff.  They sell things like hair bows, food, snacks, etc... 

We stopped at the Girl Scouts tent and made some cute crafts for Halloween/Fall.

Every time there is a Fest of some sort, this booth is set up.  It's call Team Tyler and it's all for JDRF stuff.  They're walking in Peoria the same weekend we're walking in Schaumburg.  Tyler is 18 now and was diagnosed when he was 11, I believe.  They do a lot of fundraising and we, of course, love to support them.  We bought a taco-in-a-bag and BOY was it delicious!!  Love those things!

We only stayed about 3 hours today, because we had another event to go to.  The 45th Anniversary Party at Sabic was from 1-5pm, so we took another photo of a scarecrow and headed off to the plant!

All About Madie

This week has been full of activities for Madie, so I thought I'd share some of them with you.

In her history class they had to work on a project that they would present to the class.  That month she was studying Egyptian history.  She was trying to finish up her work this past weekend, but because she was part of a group, I told her to invite her partners (who just happen to be her best friends!) over to the house on Sunday, so they could work on it all together.  Madie made 2 masks for her part of the project. I drew the King Tut mask and she painted it up.

Of course, with any "working" play date, there still has to be time for fun!  They played dress-up and a game of wiffle ball in between their "work sessions". :-)

The other mask Madie made (with a little help from mom again) was the Anubis.  Their presentation was on the embalming of a mummy - King Tut to be precise.

Didn't she do a great job on the masks?  She painted them, added the colored cut-outs.  All I did was draw them for her.   Guess they got a really great grade that Monday!

Another fun thing she did this week is go to the new youth center in town.  This is something that the area churches have been working on creating for about a year now.  It just opened this week and it's been great!  It's for 6th graders - 12th graders, with specific days just for the jr highers.  Noah is in the picture, because he got to hang out for a little while while I chatted with a friend whose son was there.  The new youth pastor is a really nice young guy and he has great hopes for what this program can bring to our town. 



The space used to be an old theater, but now it's stocked with furniture, games, and more!  Really excited that Madie gets to go.  So far, she's loved it!

Shirt-Making

One of my favorite parts of any walk is seeing the teams in their matching t-shirts.  Every team has their own personality infused into their shirts.  It makes a statement about who they are and it reminds us that everyone comes from different places in their lives, yet are coming together to fight for a common goal.  This can be said for the cancer walks, the diabetes walks, etc..  Well, we wanted to put our own stamp on our shirts, so we could share a little of our personality as well.

Because this is our first year, I wanted to make the shirts myself.  I'm not sure if Noah will want to continue this in the coming years or not (I hope he does!), so I thought it might be better to make them instead of having them made for us.  I'm finding, however, that making them isn't a whole lot cheaper and is definitely not easier!  No turning back now though!



These are our shirts.  Plain white with the ninja sock monkey on the front with needles and our team name and a "Knockin' it out for Noah" sign on the back, complete with the new JDRF symbol.  Oh, and as a request, I added a ninja star patch on the sleeve. ;-)  It's definitely not professionally done, but it still shows our unity and shares our personality with the other teams that will be there.  If he decides to make this an annual thing, I'll definitely get the next t-shirts done by the professionals!  I have a feeling these iron-ons won't last many washings. ;-)  But, there you have it.  We're about 3 weeks away from the big day, have our t-shirts made, and our donations have reached $350 already!  We're on our way!

Apple Orchard



There is a little hidden gem in our town.  Well, actually, it's not IN town, but out in the country, just about a mile out of town.  It's a little apple orchard and we just love it!  We found this little gem about 3 yrs ago.  We went there with some friends from school and had a great time.  Today, we went back with some of the same friends and some new ones too!  We've never been there when other people have been there, which makes it such a great place to go.  Your kids can run around, eat apples, and you don't have to worry about them getting lost in the crowd.  There's no crowd!

The last time we were here, we had our friends Michael and Andrew with us.  They've seen had a new baby brother and we brought our friends Logan, Alondra, Trenton, and Weston along as well.  You'll hear more about Trenton and Weston here in a minute.  Don't they look like an excited group?!

The farmer that owns this property is an older gentleman with a handicapped wife.  I've wanted to ask if she suffered a stroke, because she looks and talks so much like my mom does.  But, anyway, he took the kids up to see their new chickens!  They were loud and curious (the kids AND the chickens).  It was fun to see them.

The farmer offered to take our kids up to the apple trees on his tractor/cart.  Madie found this little frog as we were getting on board.  Livie was thrilled!

This is Livie and Logan.  They sat in the back of the cart.

Everyone else sat in the front.  The kids sang some songs and just enjoyed this absolutely BEAUTIFUL day!  I mean, look at those clouds!  It was a cool 60 degrees but with sunshine and a perfect sky.  So awesome!

The apple season just started, so there were tons of apples on the trees!  Last time we were here, we came mid-October, so most of the apples were gone.  Today was the perfect apple pickin' day! 

See?  Even little Jonny (Michael and Andrew's new brother) got to pick his first apple. :-)

Each family filled up a bag to take home.  The farmer was so sweet and wonderful and refused to take any money for the apples we picked.  He encouraged us to let the kids pick as many as they wanted.  We not only each filled up a bag (4 bags in all), but all of them ate tons of apples while they played.

Three years ago, I took a picture of a then 8 yr old Madie and Michael.  Even then they were great friends.  Time hasn't changed that.  They might be tweens now, but they are still great buddies and I loved seeing how much they've grown since the last picture.  If you want to see my post from 2009, click on this link..Apple Orchard 2009



I mentioned above that I would tell you more about Trenton and Weston.  They are our neighbors and I've been babysitting them since school started.  They come over in the morning and ride with us to school and then they come home with us after school until their mom and/or dad gets home.  Trenton is a year younger than Noah and Weston is in Kindergarten.  Noah and Trenton have become great, great friends.  They love playing together.  It's definitely a busier, louder house with 3 boys in it every day, but it's a little extra money in my pocket and they kids love having then over to play with. :-)  So, there you have it.  Another great fall activity - the Apple Orchard!  Can't wait to soak up everything fall in the next few weeks! 

ZONE Kick-Off Event and Bible Sunday!

After much anticipation, we had our Sunday School Kick-off!!  The past year and a half we've seen a downward trend in our attendance.  The times changed and that caused us to go from nearly 15-20 kids per week to about 10 kids or less.  We decided we needed a change.  We needed to revamp the program, so I've been hard at work to make it more exciting and get the word out that we have a great sunday school program here for our kids!  Today I wanted the kick-off to really be something special.  I got permission from my committee to hire a petting zoo to come in, so we could use that as our kick-off.  We're starting the story of Noah and nothing screams of that story more than animals!  I sent out letters to all the kids in our church.  I made slideshow videos to play during our service.  I even posted videos and reminders on our FB page.  And, all that publicity paid off!  We had a great crowd show up today - and not just of kids.  We had lots of adults show up too!  They wanted to see the animals as well. :-)

Pete is my sidekick and helps me in every way I need him to.  He's right by my side for everything from set-up to teaching and today was no different.  He helped with the crafts, he ran errands for me, but his biggest job was to help hold up the animals for the little ones that couldn't reach them.  Here he is holding up a guinea pig for one of our little not-quite 3 yr olds.

We had a lot of new faces and returning faces today.  One new family that has been coming in recent week brought their girls.  How cute is this face?!  Just adorable!  She wasn't quite sure what to make of this chicken.

My fellow discipleship committee member agreed to dress up like Noah for the kids.  He did a great job acting out the part!  I mean, if we're going to spend 6 weeks talking about the guy and play with his animals, he should probably make an appearance, right?

The playground was filled with kids and parents and adults alike.  It was such a beautiful morning for it too.  We had a fabulous time!

In the back of our playground are two bench tables.  We had crafts set up there.  I thought the kids would spend all their time with the animals, but many of them found their way to the tables to color and paint.

Lots of them played on the slides and stuff too. 

Only in our town would a guy riding a horse just happen by while we were having the petting zoo.  He brought his horse over and the horse and mini-horse bonded.  As soon as he left, the mini-horse was pacing back and forth and neighing.  He wanted to go for a walk too!

These next photos were sent to me by Noah's (Ron's) wife, Sue.  She's a wonderful photographer and got some great shots that she sent me!  Here, Noah is checking out his llama.  Making sure he was ready for the ark.

Livie, being the animal lover she is, had a BALL today!  She loved the llama to pieces!

One of my favorites was the mini-horse.  He was a sweetie, though Noah tried hugging him and quickly found out he doesn't like that. ;-)  Everyone else seemed to love him though.

The skunk that was there was the sweetest thing ever!  So quiet and adorable!  He just fell right to sleep while everyone was petting him.  Oh, if only all skunks could be this awesome!

Noah played with some of the animals, but spent most of his time playing with his friends.  Don't you love his new hat?  He picked that out yesterday. :-)

This guy was another favorite - the prairie dog.  He was just sitting up, alert and checking everything out.  He loved eating the blades of grass that the kids would give him. :-)

Like I said, Noah spent most of his time playing with his friends and not with the animals.  If the petting zoo had been filled with dogs, he probably would've been more interested.

Madie loved the animals too.  She loved feeding them all little blades of grass.

Livie said her favorite was the turtle.  I think, if given her way, she would have one in her room right now!



Like I said, we had a lot of adults stop by to the see the animals too.  Today was a really full, unifying day at our church.  Our pastor is back from Sabbatical.  We started up our SS program again.  And, we had a full church today as we honored our 1st, 3rd, and 6th graders with bibles.

The first day of SS usually marks the day we give Bibles to our kids.  We give bibles to our graduating seniors when Graduation rolls around.  But, we've also always given Bibles to those other 3 age groups.  The 1st graders get the First Hands-On Bible, which Livie got today.  It's a fabulous Bible!  The 3rd graders get the Adventure Bible.  And, this year, because Madie was our only 6th grader (and I'm the one ordering the Bibles), she got to pick out the one she wanted.  We usually give them a leather-bound Teen Study Bible, but those are getting harder and harder to find.  She picked out the Quest Bible for herself and I think I just found my new favorite bible for that age group!  It's got questions and answers on every page and answers some really neat questions about things that happen on each page.  It's bound in blue and green, so it's perfect for either a boy or a girl.  Great stuff!

We had 2 students missing today, but everyone else showed up and they all got their Bibles. :-)

Everyone was excited to be there for the kick-off and celebrate the giving of God's Word to these kids.

After a long, busy summer, it was great to see the church full today!  The excitement of the kick-off, the bibles, and the new fall schedule was definitely in the air.  What a blessing it was to be there today!