Carving pumpkins

Daddy and I spent about 4 hours Monday night carving pumpkins for the kids. This year's choices were a little bit more detailed than last years. C picked Jango Fett (or Bubba; I can't tell the difference between the two) and K picked Minnie Mouse. I always get stuck diggin out the guts. Once the kids get old enough, I'll pass that job onto them. Daddy did all the carving. Then I rubbed them all down with Vaseline; supposedly that will help them not decay as fast. That was GROSS! We didn't get done until almost 11 that night so the kids didn't even see them til the next morning. I think they turned out really good! It was fun but very messy.

So here are "their" pumpkin creations.

Why have we been so busy?

I honestly don't know. It's not like we have had a lot of extra/unusual things going on. We did have missions conference this past weekend. But we only went Friday night and there wasn't even an international dinner this year (what is a mission's conference without a meal????) So I can't blame it all on that.

The 2 weeks immediately following Disney, I had extra kids 2 days in a row. That makes for 2 busy weeks. I also had my blood drawn for a check up (my bad cholesterol is high-fun stuff) and I had a filling done last week. That was THE WORST FILLING EVER! No wonder I always cancel those appointments for 18 months in a row!

Last Thursday a friend (the mom of my Tuesday kids) and her 3 kids and me and my 2 kids (was that a run-on?) went to an indoor playground way up north of Indy. It took us about 40 minutes to get there. But it was so worth it. We were there for 3 hours. The kids got to play and we all ate lunch together. C still ended up doing an entire day of school that day. He did most in the car (we got to drive Daddy's cute new little car). He did very good.

Otherwise, I really don't know what we have been doing. Trying to keep up with the house, laundry, dishes, football............... So I've determined I'm going to try to be more productive. I don't know when, but I"m going to try.

This past Saturday we did get some shopping done. I needed hose/nylons/those horrid college thingys for winter. I never wear them in summer, but winter sometimes requires them. We are also looking for sneakers for both kids (can't find any) and Daddy needed new winter gloves.

Yesterday I got A LOT cleaned out of the garage. I'm tired of storing garage sale stuff and then making little/no money at the garage sale that I worked so hard on. So most of it went to Goodwill. I also had to rearrange some stuff to find a place to store the pool (18 feet around by 4 feet deep-just a little one) that we got from Jon&Teena (C wanted to know when we were going to set it up. It's a little cold don't you think?) I also started fixing one of our dining chairs that has been sitting in the garage for a long time. I asked my neighbor for some help and he is going to finish it hopefully tomorrow.

Last night Daddy and I spent 4 hours working on.........................check out the next post. Today I'm determined to get some Disney blogging done. Tomorrow I would like to start (that's the key word) organizing my scrapbooking stuff. I have also been busy doing some online Christmas shopping (I've found some AWESOME DEALS! Check out http://www.mysweetsavings.com/ She always has some awesome deals)

This week I have 2 different sets of kids 2 different days (did you follow that?) Saturday night we will do our new tradition for Halloween. Wednesday night for AWANA K is supposed to dress up as an animal. Check back for those pix. We still haven't finished our fence staining (on our list for whenever we have a few days without rain). Thank heavens for Green Socks who put up our swing set or that would still be in the garage too. (Oh I guess I need to blog about that too, huh?)

Oh and K got a big girl bed (frame/headboard), but no new mattress. We just put her crib mattress on top. Hopefully we will get her a new mattress this weekend. Then I will take some pictures and blog about it.

And I forgot to mention that C's children's choir sang in church a few Sunday's ago. Daddy videoed it but didn't get any pictures. In the class for this choir they had been collecting quarters for Bibles. They collected enough money for 49 Bibles to send to missionaries. That's 49 Bibles at $5 each! Good for them!

So that's been my life. In a very large nutshell/post. Now I will attempt to finish my Disney blogging--after tomorrow's post.

Here are a few pictures of the indoor playground that we went to last week.

What a deal!

When we were at Wal-Mart the other day, we decided to look through the left-over Halloween costumes to see what they had. I figured if they were a decent price, I would get some for the kiddies for dress-up. All the Halloween stuff was supposed to be 50% off, but some of it had not been marked down yet. There was a W-M employee working that section, trying to get it all straightened out. As I found things, I was asking her prices and she would scan them for me. I found a white skirt that has LED lights on it that was marked $6.50, but she said it should be 1/2 off. I also found a Batman costume that was stuffed down into a bag. I asked her if I would be charged the full 1/2 price if some of the pieces were missing. It was hard to tell since it was stuffed into this tiny bag. She said to check w/ the manager at check out. I also found part of a SuperGirl costume. It was very obvious that parts were missing for it.

So when I got to the register, I told the cashier my story and she called the manager over. The manager told her to give me the SuperGirl parts--for free and to charge $1 for the Batman costume and $2 for the light-up skirt! So for $3 I got quite an assortment of stuff for the kiddies! Never hurts to ask! As you can see in the picture, the entire Batman outfit was there. What a deal! So here are my kiddies dressed up in their practically free costumes. Too cool!

Pizza/movie night

For those of you who don't know, we don't do Halloween. No real reason. Just don't. But this year we wanted to do something special with the kiddies on Halloween night. So we planned a party upstairs in our bedroom (so the trick or treaters wouldn't bother us). We ordered pizza and breadsticks, had Oreos, Sprite, candy corn, and peanuts. And we watched movies while we ate. We actually watched 2 movies, so the kiddies got to stay up late. We watched Herbie: Fully Loaded. That was C's choice. I like that movie. I would like to find all the old Herbie movies for him to watch too. And we watched The Bee Movie. A cute movie--what I saw of it. By the time we got to that movie, K was getting bored and I was trying to entertain her. There was some humor in it that the kiddies wouldn't get and you wouldn't want them to get it. All in all, I think it was a good movie. We had a good night and the kiddies declared it "Fun!" I think we just started a new family tradition for Halloween night (C is already asking how long til we can do it again.)

Here are some pictures of our family night.

Jack 'o lanterns

We usually don't do Halloween with the kids (dress up or trick or treat). We don't have a major reason--we just don't do it. I don't have the money to buy candy to give out and I don't have the money to buy costumes every year (although I'll buy them on sale after Halloween to use for dress up). Anyway. All that to say, this year I wanted to carve pumpkins. I would call it more of a fall or harvest activity. So Saturday afternoon, Daddy went to the store and got 2 pumpkins and a little carving knife. We let the kids draw what they wanted cut out. K had alot of help, but I let C go for it on his own. Thus the hair on the front of his pumpkin. He thought we would be able to carve out the hair. Daddy then carved the tops off and I scooped everything out and then Daddy carved the faces. I think they turned out cute. C said he didn't like his and he should have let me do it. But I told him, "But that's what's fun about doing this--everyone's is different just like everyone is different." I think he felt a little better but not totally. Poor guy. I think it's cute. It's unique, just like he is. Later that night I put candles in them and we put them on the front porch. I think they look so cute! The kids were so proud of them. And we had so much fun doing them! Maybe something we will try to do every year. Here are some pictures to help you visualize the story.