Mentone & High Horse Lodge

So I have wanted to go visit Mentone for quite awhile and finally we decided it would be the perfect place for a very long weekend.  We stayed at the High Horse Lodge which was just over the GA line and was a very beautiful short drive from Mentone.  We quickly fell in love with the little town of Mentone atop Lookout Mountain and all the great things that are so close by.  The land the house was on was beautiful.  Josh and I couldn't have been happier about the location.  For as far as you could see was just mountains and trees beginning to burst with color.  So we could have easily spent the 4 days just at the house.  There were miles of walking trails that went by indian caves, creeks to wade in and ponds to fish in.  The owners also had goats that days earlier had babies so one evening we got to go visit and hold the baby goats.  Rylee also got to climb the 'mountains' of hay bales they had and slid down them with the owners grandkids Sam & Sarah.  She loved that.  So we tried to have a really relaxing vacation and just stay on our rented 500 plus acres but we also wanted to explore and we could't have picked a better location.  While there we went to see DeSoto Falls, went to the New Salem Mountain Festival, and went to Cloudland Canyon which was an amazing drive up and down some mountain hills.  One of the great things about the cabin was that the owners had decorated it with all of this local art, they themselves own Iron Age Crafters so the house was filled with many of their amazing works as well.  The house was made out of many things they found on the land they lived on and there is a whole binder detailing who made what, and where it came from which I thought was awesome.  One of the tables was made from an old moonshine still that was given to them by a neighboring family.  They also supplied us with so much information about things to do locally, what to do with toddlers, and there were lots of books with history on the area which was also really great.  Staying there really gave you a feel for the Lookout area.

The house (High Horse Lodge)

Here is our wonderful screened porch

Here is the view outside our wonderful screened porch

Fresh wildflowers in almost every room :)

Josh & Ry at Brow Park in Mentone

Ry & me at Brow Park

Wildflowers, wildflowers everywhere!  

Our very own hammock was included too and put to great use by all of us

Baby goats!  So adorable, Rylee was in love

At DeSoto Falls

DeSoto Falls

Cloudland Canyon

Probably one of the best restaurants I have ever ate in.  Amazing creative food,
wonderful atmosphere, great staff, and good music.  I love it.

Waiting on Daddy to bring us dessert.  Great little area to pick flowers and be silly in
right by so of course we had to take some photos.

Dessert & dad... two of Rylee and my favorite things.  Strawberry Crepes...
yes please

Random pictures outside the house

A game of horse shoes

Sunset

One of the walking trails at High Horse

Fall Fun

Fall is such a wonderful time.  Since I've moved to the south it has become my favorite season.  I quickly learned that summer is just hot and unless you are in some type of water it's just not the best time to be outside.  Then fall comes, and you wake up to cooler mornings and a hot cup of coffee becomes even more perfect than it already is.

So needless to say I was super excited about fall coming and couldn't wait to take Rylee outside to explore the changes that have stared to happen.  So we brought a jar with us to put all the wonderful fall objects we could find in it to bring some fall inside with us because it is so pretty.  We found some acorns, red and yellow leaves, pine needles, and some pretty grass.

We used some fallen pine needles to make some pictures

We also got to go to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens last weekend to see their treehouse exhibits and scarecrows.  It was really cool.  They had different themed tree houses that you could go up in and they have a special children's garden that we could have played in for hours.  We will definitely have to go back because I just loved it and so did Rylee.  

Josh & Ry

Play time in  the grass.

Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar

She LOVES the Cat In the Hat & Fish.
Too bad you can't see it because this is her super excited face.

Wishing Well

Mining for gold

Walking through the Sunflower Maze


Rylee and Josh have also went to two Auburn games together.  She loves some Aubie.

Love them :)

Rylee & Papa sharing some snacks.

This is her excited face.  She was sooo excited about seeing Jacob
and that she was going to get to see Aubie.

And this weekend we will be in the Mentone and the Cloudland area... can't  wait.  Looking forward to taking some pictures!

Sweet babies

The other day I was walking around our living room with Ryder rocking him to sleep.  I was walking in a circle around our coffee table kinda bouncing the sleepy little boy.  Next thing I know Rylee is following right behind me with her baby in her arms doing the same thing.  When Ryder closed his eyes I laid him in his bed and Rylee took her baby to her room and laid her baby in her bed and covered her up.  It's amazing how much these little ones imitate us.

Summer

So I have not done a very good job updating this blog at all but I think the people who check it are aware that we have an amazing new addition to our family, a sweet little boy named Joshua Ryder and that Rylee just turned 3 last week.  So I will not go through all of that but I will share how we are currently doing.
Rylee is happy and busy as usual.  Tiresome threes I think are what they call it, yep we are there.  Who knew someone could have so much energy all day long.  She wakes up and starts singing right away, plays all day long, when its time for her to lay down for nap she even goes out singing, wakes up ready to go again, plays all evening, then goes to bed singing and talking to herself.  She just turned 3 last week and we normally just have a birthday party at our house with immediate family.  This year we realized with just immediate family it is a lot of people so we decided to have a birthday party at Air It Out.  She LOVED it!
Ryder is wonderful... on the 13th he will be 3 months old. Roo (Rylee's current nickname for him) has been sleeping through the night now for a little over two weeks, which I'm so very thankful for.  He is such a happy baby.  The only time he is ever fussy is when he's sleepy or hungry.  Once those issues are satisfied he is full of smiles and is even starting to muster up a little noise that sounds like a laugh.  Rylee LOVES her brother.  She has a little jealousy but none of it has been taken out on him which is wonderful.  She is as great as I thought she would be with him.  So ready to help him when he is sad, she will surround him with all of her toys.  Even her favorite ones this normally does not help but I'm so proud of her sweet and caring spirit.  One of her favorite things to do is play mama with her babies and she has put all of that pretending to good use these days.  She has been a great help to me too, fetching diapers, wipes, burp rags and what ever else I ask her to get for me.
Now of course there have been some hard times thrown in there.   When one child is sorta whining and asking you a million questions and the other is crying because he is sleepy and I'm trying to make lunch or get something cleaned up it's really easy to get more frustrated than I need to be in those moments.  It's really easy to expect more out of my little girl than I should, and to just want some peaceful life changing silence so this week we have started asking God to help us with that.  To help us be sweet and gentle and of course you can always count on proverbs for some wisdom.
 A gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger.  Prov. 15:
 One of the books I am currently reading is by Charlotte Mason whose method of education is famous in the homeschooling world.  One of the things she mentions that has really stuck with me is how adults view their children. Sometimes it is really easy to be condescending and make them feel less than for all the things they do not know and may need help with, or just when they are asking you the same question over and over and over.  It's easy to see them just as children and feel like you don't need to always respect them, that the only thing that matters is that they respect you.  Charlotte Mason instructs us to view them and us as the same though.  God has not only created our children but us as well and we are all his children.  He has made us all unique, just as he wants us to be.  A child is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels.  Charlotte Mason believes "He is a separate human being whose strength lies in who he is, not in who he will become."  A child is just a person who needs to grow in knowledge is what she tells us.  Reading things like that is pretty helpful in these times.  It helps guide me to the mama God would want me to be to our precious little ones.

 Here are just some miscellaneous pictures of what we've been doing the past few weeks.  We've had some busy times, Easter and Haven's birthday.  Not to mention some bad weather and a mini Alabama vacation for a day.  For the most part it's been the same old same old.  Playing outside, watching Rylee dig in the dirt which is one of her favorite things to do.  She says she's planting tomato's :)  Last week Rylee also learned how to pedal her bike.  She is so proud of herself and we are so proud of her.  We also decided to go up to Muscle Shoals one weekend for a little mini music themed vacation.  We went to the original Muscle Shoals Sound Studio where some amazing musicians have played and some great songs have gotten recorded.  The building itself isn't much to look at and you would NEVER think that Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson and a long list of others recorded songs there.  Then we went to the Wilson Dam which the Drive By Truckers wrote a song about called Thank God For the TVA.  We realized after last week that maybe some buildings won't be standing forever and there are so many amazing things close by us so we might as well start visiting them while we can.  This past weekend Rylee was the flower girl in Chris and Wendy's wedding.  She did an amazing job, she actually walked slow and threw her flowers.  It was great!  The whole wedding was just beautiful and eventually we will put some pictures of that up.  Currently we are just awaiting the arrival of Ryder and I'm going to take it slow till then :)