Visiting Silo Pumpkin Patch

The Moody Chiperno Family spent the Saturday at the Silo Pumpkin Patch.

Honestly, the past two years this event was great and I had really looked forward to this weekend, but I was quite disappointed. This year they raised their prices and the crowds were tremendous. It was a lot of effort to get out there and at 10am it was fine, but by 10:30 the place was downright mad. Josh had to stand in line to get tickets and after his hour in line, we were all farmed-out and ready to leave. Poor Joshy :(

And wouldn't you believe it-- We completely forgot to take our own family picture. OOps.

I did get a shot of the Stanfords in, though. I thought this "oops" shot was too funny!



Such a beautiful family, but I managed to take such a bad photo!

I tried to "redeem" myself. Ahh, at least William's adorable, right?



And of course shots of the girls




Artem



and Artem with Mommy Susan



And Artem again because he's stinking cute!



Jeramiah




Alison




Heather & kiddos



TRIPLE TROUBLE



Cutest Little Monster EVER

Welcome Jordyn & Sonya

My friend since I first moved to Alaska, Sonya, has been having a rough time in Virginia and this week arrived to stay with us and get on her feet. She came toting her daughter, Jordyn, who is cute as ever, as you can see.

We have the girls fairly well settled in. We have returned their UHaul and have a storage unit. Sonya also spent today online applying for various jobs and updating her resume. While mommy did that, Jordyn played with me and "helped" around the house.

I am also proud to note that Stephen has been very sweet to this baby, which has been a bit of a pleasant surprise. Stephen tends to be weary of babies usually, but he has been quite the "big boy" with Jordyn around. He's still a bit possesive of his toys, but he is sharing a lot better than I had anticipated and even goes out of his way to check on her and to say goodnight.

The Moody Chiperno's Ride On THOMAS the TRAIN!

I have been excited for quite a bit about today: We bought tickets for "A Day Out With Thomas!"

I have heard great things about this event from other friends who have gone and we were not disappointed! I had it planned out better than I plan most things. *Smile*
This morning Stephen woke up and put on a train shirt and his Alaska Railroad socks. Just before we gathered into the truck I gave Stephen a present that has been wrapped since last Christmas, that I had been holding on to for just the right time.





Stephen loved his new train and will hopefully like it that much more once I put batteries in it! I packed his train whistle, pretzels, his conductor hat, and off the Moody Chiperno's went!



Our friends Carla, Ian, and Aaron pulled in at just the same time as we did.





Stephen seemed most excited just to see Ian! I mean, really, what's so cool about Thomas the Train coming to a town near you when you can play with Ian?

The boys went and got their Thomas Tattoos and colored some pictures for their moms.





Then they let us snap a few photos of them and we checked out the "Storytime" area. The train conductor-dressed man thought our kids were the cutest (of course) and offered to let them have a photo with the big Thomas storybook.



After the story area, we got to check out a small petting zoo. Stephen's favorite part was feeding the goats and he was determined on getting them to eat from his hand!



From the petting zoo the boys ran around a small hay maze and right into line for an inflatable slide. Stephen was quick to climb it and even quicker sliding down it!



By this time Stephen was no longer on his best behavior and mommy was thankful that after we rode Thomas it would be naptime! Even daddy looked like he could use a little shut eye.





Soon, though, Thomas pulled into the station!



Stephen and Ian had their pictures with Thomas snapped first.



Stephen looks as if he is on a mission!



Then, finally, it was time to board Thomas! As we sat in our seat and Thomas chugged on, we answered Thomas trivia and learned about how Thomas drove, stopped, and turned.

Drafting Guys Over 60

Drafting Guys over 60----this is funny and obviously written by a Former Soldier...

New Direction for any war:
Send Service Vets over 60!

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35.

For starters: Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier.

An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell.. Besides, like I said, 'I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up......

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser...

Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eye s, not the back of his head.
These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.

***How about recruiting Women over 50 ....going through the change !!! You think Men have attitudes!!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my God!!!

If nothing else, put us on border patrol....we will have it secured the first night!

So much to do, So Little Time

"SIT HERE, Mommy!"













I am terribly behind in updating my blog. There are so many adorable pictures of Sir Stevie that I have just not made the time to share. My appologies.

I have had a LOT going on lately; Diane's baby shower was this past weekend, and we have an even busier weekend coming soon... I have also been trying to help Sonya and her daughter Jordan relocate here to Texas. Somedays lately it has felt like I have more errands to run then time to run them all in!

What else? We finally celebrated our two year anniversary Sept 14th!! Yay us! This is oddly enough the first time we have really celebrated being married; I mean our wedding consisted of a "hey, Ill bet you'll chicken out," on his lunch break, our first anniversary we were on different continents....So this year was kind of overdue. On our actual anniversary we sat our butts on the couch and watched TV after cooking a nice dinner together. Josh also let me buy a new prime lens for my camera and we reserved a table for a dinner at Dead Fish Grill in Belton where they had one of the Hell's Kitchen Chefs prepare us dinner. Chef Koi made a pan seared bass that I am itching to reinvent in my kitchen and it was served over black rice and was delicious! I have been on the lookout for black rice and I'm DYING to see if Heather and Brandy will give it a try. If you see it somewhere grab it for me! Apparently it's hard to find around here. (Seeing as I cannot find it! If I can't find something it's got to be hard to find!)

Besides all of this, Stephen is doing very well in school and I am proud to announce that soon he will be pull-up-less in school! WHOO-who! Peer pressure can do some good!

Last but not least, Susan has been schooling Rhandi and I on how to use these pricey cameras we had to have on manual. The "M" is still pretty intimidating to me. This will be our third week of schooling and while I am less intimidated, I need to memorize my notes!!! We are watching her and playing as her assistants for a free "Naughty Mama" photo shoot this Tuesday. Who said playdates had to stop when the kids started school?!