It is best to read the weather forecast before praying for rain. ~Mark Twain

What a way to end the weekend! At about 2 minutes until 11 on Sunday night Ryan and I were getting ready for bed and I was standing in our bathroom looking at the window as the rain picked up. Suddenly, the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't see a foot out the window Everything just felt wrong. I could tell this was not just a little rain. Within about 20 seconds, I had managed to snatch up a still sleeping Jonah and make it into the hall while the house was pummeled by hail and debris. So scary!

3 days later, and "thousands" of dollars of damage, we are getting things back to normal and are thankful that no one was hurt. On the bright side, we will finally be able to tackle those home improvement projects we have been avoiding seeing we'll have a general contractor working for us the next several months!

Looking down our street. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the damage was pretty severe.

We had "snow drifts" of hail. It was insane. The hail came down so hard it shattered a window and tore the paint off our neighbors house.



The tree resting on our roof which has since been removed. Thank goodness!

The Barn

More pictures from our trip to the pumpkin patch, but I loved these and thought they deserved a post of their own.

Dear Great Pumpkin, I am looking forward to your arrival on Halloween Night. I hope you will bring me lots of presents.

A fun Saturday morning at the Great Pumpkin Patch. We took a ride on the tractor, found the perfect pumpkin and of course, people watched! The only complaint, it wish it was cooler ... I know I will regret those words in a few months, but the sun was blazing!

Part 2

Before you go judging me on my 101 photos, (as if a Jonah overload is ever a bad thing) I will have you know I snapped nearly 200 images in the 1.5 hours we were at the garden center visiting Mikey. So really, I am only sharing a small percentage :) When it comes to this kid, a bad photo is hard to come by and I love all of these for different reasons. Enjoy!

My personal favorite. What a look!

Weekend at RoRo's Part 1

With Ryan wrapping up a busy week of his last school projects, we decided that Jonah and I needed some entertainment in his (mental) absence. So we packed up the whole Babl clan to Grandmother's house we go.

We had a great weekend, so much good food, perfect weather and lots of Jonah-RoRo play time. Jonah slept great in his pack n' play which was a nice surprise. All around a great weekend, except for that Big Red football game, but we won't go there!

Could NOT get Jones to look at the camera.

Ro Ro and Jo Jo!

Our Fall photo shoot at Madison Garden Center after visiting Uncle Mikey.

He thought he was so cool hanging out in this pot. Silly boy!

Jonah and the Amazing Technicolor Goose Egg

Some of you may have heard that in a matter of hours, Jonah has gone from taking tentative steps, to full-blown running. The first day back at school, with his new skills on the loose, I guess it was inevitable. When I went to pick up my guy, he was fighting an icepack on his forehead from taking a spill on the playground. This picture does NO justice to the size of the lump. However, this morning, he was good as new, showing just some leftover scrapes and bruises. If he hates ice packs, I wonder how he'll feel about Ryan wanting to outfit him with an egg crate helmet to protect his head during future (inevitable) falls.

What's behind that smirk? You may tell, he thoroughly enjoyed his spaghetti dinner.

Railroad Park - A Little City Oasis

Choo! Choo!

Best seat in the house - DAD!

School Picture Day

All ready for my closeup!

Saturday's Farmer's Market

The problem with having multiple cameras is that you often come across week-old pictures that you forgot you had taken. Here are a few from this past Saturday morning when we hit the farmer's market bright and early.

leading the way


we must have went up/down these steps 50 times

my happy boy

Bittersweet October. The perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.

Park play! Saturday morning it was actually a bit chilly, but we hit the park bright and early to enjoy the crisp, fall air. Jonah had a blast running around with Daddy. But, I think the highlight of his day was the little dog "CoCo". This sweet, little, curly-haired, fru-fru dog, weighing in about about 3 lbs was there with a sweet women and her grandkids. Jonah was SO fascinated with the pup that he walked him around the playground for a good part of 30 minutes. In fact, looking back, I am not sure how I missed that photo op!

But, the doggy is over there :(

Hello!

Baby blues + Mohawk = Serious Cuteness

Showing us how it's done.

This about sums up their relationship.

Don't you wish you could have this much fun crawling through a tunnel?

All's fair in love and football

Around here, your only options for cheering on college football are Alabama or Auburn. So as you can imagine, I'm get a lot of flak around here for pushing Nebraska on my Alabama born son. In all fairness, my child cheers on another team too ... it just happens to be another non-Alabama team. ooops.