The Baker Bunch

As the title of this post proclaims...we have been very busy here lately! (So busy, in fact, that I realized yesterday that I forgot to take Zane to his hair appointment...whoops)!

At the end of the summer, Jo invited us all over to tie-dye and grill out at her house. This week she had all the kids wear their tie dye to her house. Here are a couple of pictures. I made Zane and Mason matching shirts! Didn't they turn out cute?

Zane & Sammy playing Mario Kart

Mason looking like he's saying "CHEESE!"

Thursday evening my mom and dad came to our house. They got here about 8:00 so were able to see the boys for a little bit. They had a hardware show in Overland Park, so they came down a night early and stayed at our house. They were our first visitors that slept on our hide-a-bed in the basement! Zane was excited that they were here. Friday morning the boys hung around here a little bit and went to preschool/Jo's house a little late. Zane asked Papa and Grandma if they wanted to go to his preschool with him, so they were able to see his school and drop him off before heading out.

Friday evening Jo and her girls offered to take Zane to the circus with them. We took him last year and he wasn't too impressed (of course we sat in the nose-bleed section), so we weren't sure what he would think this year, but he wanted to go! They also took Madelyn so the two of them got to spend some time together. He came home telling us about tigers, lions, and had a horse cup that he got a snowcone in. Jo is so good to our kids! While they were out, Matt, Mason and I shopped for Zane's soccer supplies and went out to eat. It was weird having only one child with us!

Saturday was our first sporting adventure with Zane. We enrolled him in "Fun Soccer." (That's really what it's called)! It all started with us going to the wrong park, so we ended up being late (we were 1/2 hour early to the WRONG park)! When we got there the kids were all just kicking their soccer balls around. Zane seemed to be having fun with that, but didn't have a clue what he was doing. Then they began playing games, and Zane did NOT like it when they were kicking his blue soccer ball! So that kind of started a downhill spiral for him. After the first half hour, they play a "game" against another team. They play three kids from each team against each other. I'm pretty sure most of the boys on the other team have played before, they were pretty good and knew what they were doing. Our team has some rookies...we kept kicking it into our own goal! Zane went in a couple of times, but seemed more interested in standing there or looking around. We'd get him all ready to go in and play, and he'd want to immediately run in, so then when we told him "hold on," he'd start to cry. I think he was a mixture of tired, worn out, and didn't want to share. He was "the kid" who was bawling. It was a little embarrassing for mom and dad, but oh well! We'll have all week to talk about it in hopes he'll do better next week!

The orange team stretching out

Zane warming up

"I'm tired of this!"

Not so bad...

And now we're done...

After soccer, we headed to the apple orchard for our annual apple-picking adventure. We have always gone to Vaughn's, but we had heard they didn't have many apples, so Matt called and they said their apple picking ended last weekend. So Jo told us about another one called Alldredge's. It is a lot closer to home, which was nice. It was smaller than Vaughn's, but a LOT less crowded! They have some animals, a tricycle path, hay bales, apple trees, and a bakery. We found some yummy apples and wanted to get some things from the bakery, but there was a long line and we were all hungry and ready to leave. So we came home and now have apple cake and caramel apples that we are enjoying!

The boys at the apple orchard