Pumpkin Carving

Yeah, you should be proud. I carved three pumpkins by myself! Well, I guess the kids helped :).
Normally you will not ever see me carving a pumpkin becuase it's dumb and it's hard and I don't really enjoy anything about it.
But, I felt inspired to be a good mom and support my kids in the fun of Halloween.
They drew the faces and I dutifully carved. Oh, and these are genuine home-grown pumpkins too! I made the girls go pick them while I fixed dinner. They were quite ingenious about how to get them picked and hauled into the house.
All in all, it wasn't sooo bad, considering it's the first pumpkin I've carved in about 6 years.

We took a whirl-wind trip to Oregon over the weekend to see this cute boy off on his mission. I can't believe he is 19. Pojo (Paul John) is the first grand-child on my parent's side. I was there when he was born and I lived with Shanee for a couple of months afterward to provide day-care. I loved it. I was at the perfect age when playing mommy appealed to me and Pojo learned to love me like a mother. So I have a soft spot in my heart for him. And he is a good kid. He has a big heart and has always been good at whatever he put his mind to.
Shanee has 9 kids, her youngest being 8, 6, 4, and 2. My kids love playing with their Oregon cousins. Although Mialee still adores Elijah the most, I think.
This is Mary, whom I dragged out to the leaves to take her picture. I also tried to get a shot of Hannah, but she wouldn't let me. Too bad because she is so gorgeous! Hannah also took care of my baby most of the time we were there and to her I will be forever grateful.

I was a fun trip, if not a little short. I am so thankful for a supportive husband who was willing to drive through the night TWICE to get us there and back. Here is wishing Pojo the best of luck!

Pumpkin Walk

This post is specifically dedicated to one certain friend who claims to "love" Halloween but had the audacity to diss my pumpkin walk! So let me tell you why I love our pumpkin walk... I love the smells and the sounds; fall leaves, freshly carved pumpkins, bon-fire smoke, exclamations of small children at seeing a pumpkin made into a smurf or into Micheal Jackson or whatever. I love the free Peppridge Farm cookies and Schriebers Cheese sticks that are handed out. I love the sweet old-lady witch that sits for hours and hours so that kids can get their picture taken. I love the character board cut-outs that people, kids and adults alike, can stick their heads in and snap a picture. I love the scouts trying to light the bon-fires to provide warmth for everyone. I love the creativity that goes into making a pumpkin display and that most of them even have music that my little kids dance to. I love the feeling of a community come together to celebrate a stupid holiday and the simple "tradition" of it all. So...if you want to be amazed and witness a "real" pumpkin walk head up to Logan. It's where the fun is.

What do you call it when your tummy bubbles and air escapes from your nether regions?

We tend to lean toward "foofer" but I must admit that I do call it a "fart" every now and then. REALLY, it's not something I ever thought about until I had kids and all of the sudden had to put a name to it... Right now, Nikell, cannot distinguish between "foofering" and pooping. Those little bubbles escape and she says, "I pooped? Oh, I okay."

Do you have a non-vulger name that you prefer?

Here is a short video on the subject...

I am loving these pictures! My neighbor called and offered to take them...isn't she the most thoughtful person ever? Yeah, she is. Aren't they great? Yeah, they are. THANKS TIFFANY! YOU ARE AMAZING!!!!!

This is my kitchen that is ALMOST done that my husband works on every now and then that I love and adore and will someday use and will appreciate for many years.
These are the grapes that my kind father picked so I wouldn't be stuck in the dark digging through vines so that I could make them all into succulent juice and increase my food storage all at the same time!
This is the cute sign that my mother-in-law helped me make on her handy-dandy Cricut all because I commented on her cute sign and she's nice like that and now it's hanging ever so festively in my house for Halloween.

HALLOWEEN

Things I HATE about Halloween

1. Costumes. Whose idea was it anyway? I do not have $20-$40 to spend on each of my 4 children for 10 minutes of trunk or treating at the church parking lot. My mom never had that kind of money either and so, often, we had to come with cheap costumes. I did not see this as an opportunity for creativity but rather as an obligation to come up with something long enough to not be made fun of while trick-or-treating. Now I try for creativity with my kids and all they want are the stupid store-made, money-sucking, last for 7 minutes costumes.

2. Crappy Candy. We don't want your crappy candy. It just goes in the garbage after sitting in my cupboard for a month while my children turned their noses up at it almost as much as cooked vegetables. Buy good candy.

3. Dealing with the cold weather. Why is it that most costumes are made for 90 degree weather and just have to be covered up with a coat anyway?

4. Pumpkin Carving. Call me a Halloween Scrooge but I really hate carving pumpkins. It's hard.

5. Dealing with good Candy. Yeah, I know, but seriously. Mostly I just encourage them to eat it all in one night, get sick, and be done with it. Then we can put the crappy candy in the cupboard.

6. Trying to find good candy to buy without feeling guilty enough about the money I already spent on costumes.

7. The Whining. "Is that it?" "Isn't there somewhere else we could to trick or treating?" "I don't want to eat anything that even looks like it might be healthy." Oh, and if any of you remember Mialee..."Is it Halloween?" "Can I wear my costume today?" These questions are repeated every 5 minutes for the month of October. Then once the dreaded night finally comes the costumes are usually uncomfortable and they end up crying anyway.

What I like about Halloween.

1. The smiles. The pure magic of everyone putting candy in a two year olds bucket.

2. The pumpkin walk.

3. The fun of getting together.

Yeah, I really hate Halloween. Don't tell my kids. But it is seriously the stupidest holiday ever!

Jason loves Moab and hasn't been in about 13 years...So we figured it was about time! We had soooo much fun. The girls loved it! Little did we know that we had a bunch of rock climbers who take after their father (their mother is afraid of heights). We hiked, climbed, hiked, climbed, hiked, climbed, and hiked, and climbed. At one point Jason left to move the car to the other side of a trail and Mialee was scaling walls. I asked her to stay on the trail for a bit because Nikell was following suit (as usual) and attempting some pretty crazy climbs for a 2 year old, and I couldn't really help with Aiddie strapped to my front side. Mialee said, "Aahhwww, but I want to have fun! Can I have fun when Daddy gets back?" And boy did she have fun! The girls were all very cooperative and so nice to help each other. I think we all had fun!



This is Jason and the girls after they scaled a very steep wall from the hole below delicate arch. You can see the same hole in the next picture behind the girls and below the arch. There were a lot of people who were amazed, wowed, disgusted, and even offered verbal scoldings at the places Jason was willing to take the girls. I would have worried...except that I trust Jason completely and know that he would never to anything to endanger our children or himself. And I also know that accidents happen...on the playground, on beds, running outside...I said my prayers and put it in God's hands like I do everyday.
You can't see the bottom of the crater in this picture. It's deep. Jason went down again after he brought the girls up and retrieved a camera lens that someone had dropped and counted as lost forever. He also found a GPS, Water Bottle, Fancy Schmancy Womens Hat, Titanium Mens Wedding Band, a few coins, and a 256 MB memory card for the camera. This turned Arches into a treasure hunt for Mialee...

We really enjoyed our little vacation and will gladly do it again. We played hard, climbed a lot, and have some darn good memories to show for it.

Moab