ANNUAL PUMPKIN CARVING 2010

This year we broke our record by a long shot and carved THREE pumpkins.

A PIRATE SHIP for the pirate family....what's a pirate without his ship?

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Christian's very own pumkin, designed and carved all by himself. If you look closely, you can see the hint of light coming through the slits he made for teeth and eyebrows. The poor pumpkin never did get eyes. :)

And one for Grammy, who is fighting hard. We love you Grammy!

October Festivities

Although my recent blog activity (or rather INactivity) may suggest otherwise, we really have been quite busy this month! Here is a glimpse of what we have been doing to enjoy this season!

SCARECROW FESTIVAL

DECORATING COOKIES

Decorating GHOST cookies for our letter G preschool day.

PUMPKIN CARVING

Christian was a really good helper in scooping out the "guts", although he didn't particularly like to actually TOUCH the guts. Ethan was a good helper in sampling the guts. :) They must not taste too bad!

WHEELER FARM PUMPKIN "PATCH"

We missed Daddy this year for the pumpkin patch adventure (who chose to go golfing instead), but the boys and I had a fun time!

We went through the Hay Maze, which was a big hit for Christian! He LOVES doing mazes on paper, and now he was doing it in person. He thought it was pretty cool.

Ethan was excited to see the "bider bider!" This little boy LOVES spiders!

We went on a wagon ride. Christian loved seeing all the animals, and was especially entertained by this funny chicken running around.

And of course, we picked out our very own pumpkins.

My favorite thing this year was watching Ethan attempt to pick up every pumpkin, complete with the sound effects of his great efforts when they were too big. He was so cute when he picked up the ones he could actually carry! I loved the sight of this little boy with a pumpkin in his arms. I love this season.

Christian wanted to show his strength as well...forgive the underwear that is showing in the picture. He also insisted on various pumpkin poses for the camera, like standing and sitting on them. This is a new thing for him to actually request pictures to be taken of him.

And of course, I tried to get a picture of my silly boys together!

Thanks for a fun trip to the pumpkin patch, Christian and Ethan! You guys are my little buddies. And oh how I love you!

What? Winter? Already?

Last night I looked out the window at about 9:00 to find this sight, which made my jaw drop! Jake told me it was snowing, but I was not expecting that it was STICKING. Jake assured me it would probably be all melted by morning.

And then at 1:30 a.m. when I got up with Ethan (because he needed a drink) the house was so light, so I peeked out the window to see, only to see a very chilly winter scene. Although I was half asleep, it looked worse than what I'd seen out the window at 9:00 earlier that night.

This morning, we awoke to a winter wonderland. There were probably four or five inches out there!! I couldn't believe it. And in fact, I wanted to cry. I was not mentally prepared for this winter scene in the middle of the beautiful fall we've been having. Jake said, "It always snows before Halloween." Well, in Utah, it usually does I suppose. But I haven't lived in Utah for four Halloweens! I am not used to this. So rightly so, I was a little upset by the fact that winter has come way too early. I was just not expecting it.

However, as the day progressed, the sun came out, and the winter scene became a beautiful sparkling white sight, filled with two happy little boys, bundled up and playing in the snow. And I also remembered how much I love the sight of my little boys bundled up in snow suits. So I decided that the snow wasn't so bad after all.

This is the first time Christian is old enough that he has wanted to actually PLAY in the snow, and it was so fun to watch. He played in it throughout the day and we spent the afternoon building this:

We call him Mickey Mouse Snowman.

Christian worked hard and rolled all the balls for our snowman. It was fun that he could actually "build" it this time! And after it was built, he really enjoyed eating our snowman!

Ethan enjoyed the snow too, until his toes got too frozen and he just stood there and cried. Poor little guy! I wasn't prepared with boots for him, but we'll have them for the next storm.

So WINTER WEATHER, although you surprised me by showing up on my doorstep way too early, I guess you're not so bad after all. We really had a great day! And Christian would welcome you back anytime...

A Little Halloween Preview

We had our ward "Freaky Friday" Halloween party this past weekend, so our costumes were revealed a week early this year.

If I do say so myself, the boys made the two cutest pirates I've ever seen.

AARRGH!!

Of course, their costumes wouldn't be complete without Mommy and Daddy pirate!

Christian refused to look at the camera, which fit his mood most of the evening. Seeing as the party started at 6:30, which is his normal bedtime, I guess we'll cut him some slack. :) He still had fun and came home with a few prizes after being coaxed my his mom to try the fun games they had for the kids.

Family Snapshots by Christian

Christian's been taking some family photos lately, minus himself, of course, as he was the photographer. These pictures are uncropped and unedited...I'd say he did a pretty good job.

A very SWEET husband

Yesterday morning Jake was so nice to get up with the boys and let me sleep in a little bit. And even better, he started making breakfast, which was almost done when I came downstairs. He was making muffins and it smelled delicious!

I asked, "What kind of muffins are you making?"

"Cinnamon Struessel."

"Where's the topping?"

"There is no topping."

"There should be. Where's the box?"

Jake pulled the box from the garbage, after which I explain, "That's a cake mix!"

Flipping the box over, "No, it can make muffins too! See?"

"Cupcakes, hunny."

Needless to say, we had some very sweet muffins for breakfast, which naturally, Christian devoured. :) I still loved them, Hunny! Thanks!

Giveaway

Free framed temple picture! And gorgeous work.

http://ldstemplepictures.blogspot.com/2010/10/free-16x20-framed-temple-picture.html

Sleeping Sweetness

Today I had about 20 minutes before Ethan and I needed to walk down the street and pick up Christian from preschool, so I put Ethan on the couch and turned on "I Love Trains." It's an old, low-budget VHS showing lots of toy trains, some real ones, and various other things like planes or tractors. He LOVES it. I took a quick shower and thought it was way too quiet when I got out. When I came back downstairs, this is what I found.

So, so sweet.

(I left him like that until the last possible moment when we needed to get Christian. He got about ten minutes of sleep, I figure. Needless to say, he never did take another nap this afternoon. Silly boy.)

Ode to Melissa

This post is dedicated to Melissa for two reasons: one, because she is the queen of hilarious situations that she gets herself into and then posts on her blog for us to be entertained by, and two, because she saved me during my own embarrassing moment this evening. I was still embarrassed, but Melissa had no shame in sticking it out with me.

So let me begin. You know when people ask you your most embarassing moment? Well, I can never think of one, either because I don't get embarrassed, or I have a really bad memory. But tonight I can tell you that I have been embarrassed and I have a "moment" to talk about.

Picture me with my two boys, my mom, Melissa and Rosanna with her four kids all exiting Cafe Rio after our delicious dinner this evening. The men went to the General Priesthood session of conference tonight, so by the time we left Cafe Rio, it was just the girls and the kids. Each of us were heading toward our own cars and the kids were in going in various directions. Picture me carrying a half-eaten Cafe Rio salad, with the lid, topped by a side of beans, with a lid, topped with a side of Cafe Rio dressing for the salad. And yes, the dressing had a lid as well. It was a balancing act, I'll admit. But I was doing just fine.

Now, picture Ethan waddling down the sidewalk, barefoot, black beans spilled down his shirt, which isn't even buttoned at the bottom, making it look more like a dress. And me, still haven't taken a shower for the day (it's Saturday! we've been working hard all day and listening to conference). Now picture me attempting to pick up Ethan with one arm while holding this three-tiered pile of food, simultaneously thinking, "This is not a good idea," but following through with my actions anyway.

Okay, NOW picture the mess: black beans and salad dressing inevitably toppling off the pile and onto the cement. Salad dressing exploding upon impact, inevitably splashing insurmountable droplets (and bigger) all over the front of a brand new, red, shiny VW Jetta, along with the silver (not so newly washed, luckily) minivan next to it.

A MESS! Melissa was standing right there next to me, and all we could do at first was laugh. Hysterically. If you can picture it, it really was quite a sight! But the kicker of it all, is that this didn't occur in the middle of the parking lot. That would have been too easy. We happen to be standing right outside the glass windows where the Cafe Rio customers (and likely the owner of the two cars I just covered in dressing) were eating. We were literally five feet from them, with only glass panes separating us. All I could think was, "Please let the owner of that red Jetta be sitting far, far from the windows." I didn't dare turn around to face any of the customers. All I dared do was take my children to the car to get them buckled safely in while I dealt with the mess. Thankfully, Melissa's reaction (after gaining composure from the laughter) was, "Give me the wipes." And she started wiping with my package of baby wipes. So she started wiping, and I went and buckled Ethan in the car, which was when Christian announced he needed to go potty, and that he could NOT wait until we got home. Great. Now I was going to have to trudge back into Cafe Rio and face the victim of my disaster. So I returned to the scene of the crime with Christian in tow, where Melissa has just finished cleaning off the red Jetta.

As we were wiping off the last drops, I heard a knock on the window of Cafe Rio, directly behind us. Great. The owner of the car really was sitting at the window! I turned around to face my consequences, and this very nice woman was mouthing, "Thank you! Thank you!" And all I could mouth back to her was "I'M SOOO SORRY!!" But she didn't seem to mind but was just appreciative that we would stick around to clean it up. I was grateful she wasn't mad, but I still sent Melissa inside to take Christian to the potty and I turned back around to clean off the minivan.

So all was well in the end, and I suppose the moral of the story is if you ever happen to spill salad dressing all over someone's car, don't just flee the scene of the crime. Stay around and clean it up! They will appreciate it and forgive the offense. :)

And the other moral is, if you're going to get yourself into such a predicament, it's really nice to have a sister like Melissa around to laugh about it and help you clean it up, without any shame. THANKS MELISS!!! I owe you big time!