Mostoller Madness: Having fun takes a little work

One of Madeline's favorite things to ask is "what are we going to do today?" She asks this all the time and is always up for an adventure. She loves going out places no matter where we go. Sometimes it can get a little frustrating when we have been out and about doing fun stuff all day together and we finally get home and are getting ready for dinner and she says "so what are we going to do today?" as if none of our adventures ever happened. Anyhow, we have found that it is good to get out and break the day up a little and not have the kids go crazy at home (ie: not drive us crazy at home). Now I really do love doing things together with the kids, but sometimes after a really long week I personally would much rather spend the day inside in my pj's with a cup of tea reading a good book and playing some with the kids...and maybe a nap. But that dream would end quickly if Maddie was all around me asking "what are we going to do today?" and the kids would never let me just just sit and read like that for long. So this Saturday I had it all planned out. We were going to the fall festival at Thatcher Park. It was a nice sunny and FREEZING cold day. I didn't know about the freezing cold part until we went outside because it looked so sunny. I quickly realized how cold it was when the wind hit...I almost snagged some homemade scarves someone was selling just to protect me from the cold. All in all we had lots of fun, somewhat forced fun due to the bitter cold, but fun nevertheless. There were some tears (from the cold and from the wind and from Maddie not getting to go on the swings on the playground), but it was still fun. I am pretty sure Jared's favorite part was the warm car at the end, but he is a good sport.

We found this tent that was quite warm considering it blocked the outside wind. We stayed there for a while and Nathan did some crafts, the kids got their faces painted, they made cornhusk dolls and we had hot cider (my favorite part) and cider donuts. I was trying to figure a way to stay there forever, but we ventured out. And Madeline found a ladybug in the tent and she played with him for a while. She loves little bugs.

I had a hard time getting a good shot of Madeline's face painting because she kept only showing the camera her cheek

Finally she turned. Here are the colors she picked out herself...notice the striking similarity to the colors in her outfit. She is color coordinated (and girly)

Maddie and I cuddling while Nathan played a "minute to win it" game that involved shaking golfballs out of a tissue box on his butt. Very interesting

And then the family made a scarecrow. They said we could take it home, but we chose to leave him there so he could stay with his scarecrow friends. The kids liked their new friend.