What we have been up to

Lately things have been busy at the Crawford household. This is great-- I like busy. I am much more organized when I feel like I am in a pressure cooker for a little while. Chris had Veterans Day off so we decided to take Sam out of school (I was so concerned he would have a sea of have make up work-- NOT!) and headed up to Hershey PA. This has been on our "places to go list" for a long time. The boys were great in the car and it was only an hour and a half drive. I think giving them starbursts really helped, even if Liam did get the wrappers stuck all over his face

A kind lady offered to take our picture infront of the entrance so we got a rare family picture

The boys were in HEAVEN. Sam has the same favorite candy bar as my mom, a plain 'ole Hershey's bar, and they were everywhere!


The boys got to pretend to be factory workers and push buttons, load box's and do a little shaky dance then put them on a conveyor belt.

Then they got to twist knobs and Hershey Kisses came pouring out of a funnel. We went on the "where does chocolate come from" ride a few times. At the end they give you a free sample, that day they were Mr. Good bars. My favorite candies are York peppermint patties and Reese’s Peanut butter cups. They didn't have many of these surprisingly, so Chris surprised me with a York topped cupcake

It was soooo yummy! On the way home we stopped briefly at Gettysburg. Christopher had never been there and we definitely have to return because this trip was just a glimpse. We also borrowed the Toy Story movies from some friends. These are Limas absolute FAVORITE movies and since they are in the darn Disney vault we don't have them He was so excited to watch them he went in and got all the characters he has from the movie, Woody, Buzz, Rex, 'tato head and slinky dog. The other day while we were at JoAnne’s he found a 3D Toy Story book and kept asking me for Bo Sheep and Piggy "Pwease Pwease Pwease". Anyways he got them all and lined them up on the train table then hoped up to watch the show. It had been a long day though and before the end of the movie he looked like this

One night Chris and I decided to head to my new favorite cupcake place Buzz's on Slaters. We headed a different way then we usually do and ended up on the GW parkway, so we hoped off at Gravelly Park. This is a really cool area right at the end of the Reagan national airport runways. The planes fly right over your head and are super loud.

Liam and Sam LOVED it.

We didn't stay too long since it was dark and raining. We'll have to go back on a nice Saturday :)

This last Thursday Sam had his Thanksgiving feast at his school. I volunteered to help set up (because I am nuts and want to be involved even when I would probably be more of a detriment then help-- since I brought two kids with me) and to bring cookies. I had every intention of making these amazing turkey cookie creations that my friend Nicole makes, but when it came down to it things were just WAY to busy so I bought the HUGE cupcakes from Costco. The teachers were delighted because when cut up they fed all four classes instead of just Sam’s. Sam wore the headband he made and brought home a fun turkey!

He was thrilled to model his headband for me can't you tell?
We also did family pictures a little bit ago. We got together with our friends the Moons and swapped picture taking. We went to this abandoned house out by Homestead farms in Maryland. I know I am weird but I really wanted pictures in front of this door.

(You can check out more of these pictures on my photo blog)
Then we headed up to homestead to buy some apples and let the kids play in the hay.


Brandon found a caterpillar which the boys thought was sooooo cool.

(Liam had just received that magnifying glass in a kid’s meal-- oh the irony)

He also found this crazy looking gourd that the kids thought was a snake

When we were done we all headed back to our place and were joined by our friends the Nielsen’s for a Costco potpie and apple crisp! It was so great to catch up and enjoy yummy warm food. That night I also took dinner to the Stahles since Ryan had just delivered Ruby. I felt awful because I made orange chicken, pot stickers and white rice, Chris ran it over and came back and informed me that they also had family in town that there was no way that was going to feed everyone-- DANG IT! I was so embarrassed, and what did the Stahles do? They returned our Tupperware filled with bar none THE best cookies I have EVER tasted.

Sam asked for one and I gave him a famous Amos instead, there was no way I was giving him one of these. Ryan gave me the recipe and you can find it HERE. She does not add the orange zest and substitute’s molasses for dark corn syrup. Make them; you will NOT be able to stop!
A ton of my time lately has been spent doing photo sessions. While I love doing shoots on location, the fact that daylight savings makes it near impossible to find a time when there is light and Daddies aren't at work, has made me turn to more studio work. The term "studio" is used ridiculously loosely here. I have been trying to figure out how to get a square of wood flooring that I could have in our apt. for shoots. Well I had the best luck ever and ended up with this nice white wood flooring and I have been practicing lightening it correctly etc.


I also found this adorable green basket at Crate and Barrel that I thought would be solo cute to take pictures of babies in... I was wrong.

Apparently Abby didn't like the wire... even when I padded it.

Even with all this craziness we have still had plenty of time to be silly: