Fall Festivities

Last weekend was the big Fall Festival at the elementary school. It is one of the main fundraisers that the PTO does each year and includes a dinner (if you pay extra, of course), a carnival for the kids, silent auction, etc. We took the kids and they seemed to enjoy it.

Courtney doing the pumpkin throw (or something like that...)


Courtney, by the way, came home with the most loot from the evening, I think, because she figured out the secret to these types of events -- look for the shortest lines! The other kids would stand in line for quite a while to play a game they liked. But we watched Courtney discover that one game (the stick-horse barrel racing) had pretty much no line at all, so she would go through the course, get her prize, then go right back and do it over again. We lost track as to how many times in a row she did this one little game!

Hannah and the duck pond:


Hayley with her costume on backwards! (she insisted on wearing it that way)


And here's Hayley doing the hole-in-one game (don't you love the form she has swinging the club!)


I didn't get any pictures of McKay because I had to stick close to the little girls and he pretty much went off on his own.

Then last Monday, we had our annual pumpkin-carving FHE. We have traditionally carved our family pumpkin on the Monday before Halloween.

Dad always gets the job of scooping out:


This year, since the kids each got to carve their own pumpkin at the neighbor's pumpkin party, we decided to try using a pumpkin pattern for the family pumpkin. Many of the patterns are quite intricate and have very detailed cuts, but since we were short on time, we opted for one of the easier, basic face patterns.


McKay wanted a turn doing a little of the cutting -- and he made sure to tell us he was being very careful not to stick the knife through from the inside.


The finished pumpkin!


The other part of our pumpkin tradition is taking a picture of everyone with the pumpkin. First, we start with the kids:


And then we do a whole family shot. Sorry about the lighting on this one. I turned off the flash because it was reflecting badly in the windows behind and changed the other settings, but I don't know that this was much better!


And we end the evening by lighting a candle inside and turning off the lights to enjoy for a minute.



Happy Halloween!

What's for Dinner?

I've been in a new recipe mood lately and have several on the menu this week. Tonight's pick: Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas (sorry, I forgot to take a picture!) that I found on a blog, along with a Spanish Rice recipe I got from my cousin-in-law Kris. Plus I threw a bag of tortilla chips on the table for good Mexican measure.

Here's how dinner played out.

15 min. before dinner
McKay: What's for dinner?
Mom: Yummy stuff!
McKay (suspiciously now): What's for dinner?
Mom: Chicken enchiladas and rice -- new recipes -- they'll be good!
McKay, with a frown on his face, proceeds to swipe some crackers from the pantry.
Mom: Please don't eat snacks this close to dinner.
McKay: You KNOW I don't like that.
Mom: You've never even tried it!

Hannah walks in kitchen, surveys the various pots and pans.
Hannah: What's for dinner, Mom?
Mom: Chicken enchiladas and rice, plus tortilla chips.
Hannah looks closer at the pan of enchiladas then comes over and whispers to mom: You know I don't like any of these things, Mom, and I'm really hungry. Can I just have a bowl of oranges on my plate?

Dinner Time
Mom: Who wants to try some chicken enchiladas?
Courtney: ME! And don't forget the stuff on top! (sour cream and diced tomatoes)
Hayley: I will. (Big surprise here!)
No comment from the other two.

End result: Courtney proclaims it is the "best ever" and asks for seconds. Hayley eats one very teeny-tiny bite and decides she doesn't really like it (no surprise here). McKay has a bunch of tortilla chips for dinner. Hannah eats her little cup of mandarin oranges. Mom sighs, but is glad at least one kid ate some of it. Unfortunately, this dinner scenario is all too common at our house. Occasionally, we'll come across something everyone will eat, but I sure wish I had an answer to picky eaters!

Dad and Mom's verdict? We thought it was quite good! The rice didn't turn out quite right, but it was still okay. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I had to leave it simmering for quite a bit longer than the recipe said and it still seemed like some of the rice was a bit "crunchy." It might have been my pot. Kris - do you remember what size tomato sauce can you used? I just put in a small one. And you forgot to mention that the recipe makes a TON! If I make it again, I definitely need to try cutting it in half, at least.

I'll keep on trying new recipes, and I'm sure I'll keep having kids who won't touch 'em.

Cast of Characters

The kids got to dress up last Friday for their school's Fall Festival. Introducing this year's Halloween crew...


McKay the VAMPIRE


Now normally, McKay's costume selection shies away from anything remotely considered "scary." His selection of a vampire this year stems from the fact that he listened to one of the audio books in the Twilight series. (He happened to be with Brian once in the truck when Brian was listening, so McKay wanted to continue with the story.) He listened to it on his little MP3 player during his long bus rides. Now he is anxiously waiting for the other books to come in at the library so he can read those (we have been on the waiting list for awhile!).

You will note that he does not have any of the usual vampire "accessories" -- vampire teeth, face paint, fake blood, etc. That is just not McKay's thing.



Hannah the SKELETON


You might recognize this particular skeleton from last year. Hannah chose the same costume again (it was originally McKay's two years ago) and that's just fine by me -- one less costume to worry about!



Courtney the WITCH


Courtney decided she didn't want one of the hand-me-down costumes this year and picked a witch, so we got this simple costume. She ended up not keeping the hat on after pictures -- I guess it didn't fit quite well enough! But she makes a very cute witch nonetheless!




Hayley the BAT PRINCESS


Hayley picked the costume that Courtney wore last year -- the "bat princess." But she simplified it quite a bit as well. She left off the little bat mask, some bat "wings" (made of sheer fabric) that velcro on the shoulders and wrists and a bat emblem that velcros across the top of the chest area. She also had the entire costume on backwards (the back section is purple). I had her turn it around for the pictures, but the minute we were done, she turned it back around and wore it backwards the rest of the night (I guess no one would know otherwise!).


And I had to throw in this picture -- it just made me laugh. I was trying to get the camera settings for her face (by getting in close) and she was obviously miffed about something at the time!


There'll be more Halloween pictures coming...

Cookie Party

Yesterday afternoon we kept our annual tradition of frosting Halloween sugar cookies. I don't make sugar cookies nearly as often as I'd like to eat them (one of my many favorite sugar treats!), but we try to do them every Halloween.

This year we got to share our frosting and decorating party with our good friends, the Roberts family. We were over at their house, as we have been almost every weekend this fall, to watch the BYU football game. (They get the all-important satellite channel that carries most of the BYU games.) While the dads watched the game (and the moms checked on the score occasionally), the kids got to get sticky!

We even tried out some black food coloring (it turned out a little gray, but still better than we could have got by mixing colors).

You can never have enough on top!

And of course, you've got to taste one (or two, or three...)

Finger-lickin' good!

Photo Tag

So I usually don't have time to do all the fun "tags" that go around the blogging world, but I saw this one on a couple of blogs recently and it seemed fun and easy, so here goes! (Plus, I was really curious to see what the picture would be!)

The instructions:

1. Open your pictures folder.
2. Go to the sixth folder.
3. Open the sixth picture.
4. Import into your blog and tell the story

(I had to add an extra step of opening a sixth folder because I had a whole extra level of subfolders!)

Here is the picture that came up:

This picture is from June 2003 when McKay was 4 1/2 (just older than Hayley is now!). He had gone to his first (and only) kid's workshop class at Home Depot that morning with Brian. We had heard about these little free workshops on Saturday morning and knew McKay would love it, and the two of them finally had a chance to go. He got to make the windchime he is holding, with lots of help from Dad. He was so proud of it, plus the orange apron he got to keep. We still have the apron in our dress-up box!

So, if you're curious about your sixth picture in your sixth folder, consider yourself tagged!

Pumpkin Adventures, Part 2

and now for the rest of the story...

As I mentioned in my last post (part 1), the kids had been so excited for our neighbor's big Pumpkin Party on Friday evening. However, when they got home from school on Friday, McKay was really complaining about his right ear hurting. He had a runny nose and sniffles, so I knew there was plenty of fluid that could lead to an ear infection. And since it's not like him to complain about such things, I also knew it was really bothering him.

Of course, it was Friday afternoon at 5:00pm. And of course we haven't found any doctors yet in town. So we just looked up one of the closest urgent care clinics (because I really did NOT want to go to an ER) that was open until 8:00pm. The Pumpkin Party started at 6:00, so we told McKay he would probably miss at least the first part of it. He was not happy about that, but I told him he would be miserable all night if we tried to wait until Saturday.

Brian had to make a quick visit to see someone in the hospital from church, so I took all the kids to the clinic. When Brian was done, he came and stayed with McKay so I could take the girls to the pumpkin party (we were about 20 minutes late). It turned out that he did indeed have an ear infection and was given a couple of prescriptions (antibiotic and ear drops). It also turned out that after filling the prescription, they didn't get home until the pumpkin party was just ending, so McKay didn't get to the party after all.

(As a little side note here, we realized when we got the antibiotic prescription that McKay has never had to swallow pills before. It has been a long time since he has been sick enough to take any kind of medicine. So we spent quite a while that night working on swallowing pills. Lots of practice with M&M's. And quite a few tears along the way. But he finally got it down and subsequent pills have gradually been getting easier. I told him that's one thing he needs to know for the rest of his life, so now he can check that off the list!)

At the party, Hannah picked out an extra pumpkin to take home to McKay for him to carve. He was excited to get started and Saturday morning we made a quick stop at Wal-Mart during the girl's gymnastics/dance class to get a pumpkin carving kit with the little carving knives similar to what the girls had used at the pumpkin party.

Later that afternoon, he was working on his pumpkin at the kitchen table with the carving knives. Brian was out working in the garage (on the breaker box, so all the electricity was turned off) and I went outside briefly to clean up the dog run a bit. When I came back in, I heard Brian in the kitchen telling one of the girls to "go get Mom" and I looked over to see blood ALL over the kitchen floor (and some splattered on the cabinets, the wall, outside the back door on the patio, etc.). I was relieved to see that it all stayed on the tile and didn't make it onto the carpet (although it got pretty close). At first I thought Brian had done something to himself out in the garage, but it turned out it was McKay. (I was going to take a picture of the blood-spattered kitchen, but luckily you get spared that image.) :-)

Besides all the blood everywhere, this is what I first saw sitting on the kitchen table:

Later, I learned what had happened (and McKay kept saying over and over "That was just so stupid!"). Apparently had had carved around the big mouth section of his pumpkin but was having a hard time pushing that big of a piece out. So he grabbed a bigger kitchen knife and reached inside the pumpkin to try to pop the piece out with the knife that way. Yeah, you can see what happened. The knife popped through instead of the piece popping out and his hand happened to be in the way. Ouch.

It was more of a puncture wound, but it sure seemed to bleed a lot! Despite all of his Cub Scout first aid training, McKay panicked. He was alone in the kitchen and saw all that blood and I guess just started running franctically around the kitchen (getting blood everywhere in the process). Brian finally heard him yelling and had come in shortly before I did. We got his hand cleaned up and bandaged and we think he'll live. No stitches required even!

Since our power was off and I figured the easiest way to clean up the floor would be to use our electric floor cleaner, Brian hooked up our new generator briefly (great to give it a test run!).

Despite a couple of tingling fingers, McKay decided he could even get back to work on his pumpkin (you can see his bandaged left hand).

And here is how his finished pumpkin turned out:

We told him he was lucky he got an ear infection because he was already on antibiotics! I wonder if he'll have a battle scar from the incident. If he does, hopefully it will help keep that Cub Scout knife-safety foremost in his mind! We're very grateful that he was okay and not injured more seriously.

Pumpkin Adventures, Part 1

Last Friday, the kids were invited to our neighbor's big Pumpkin Party. I guess they've been doing this party every October for several years. They have it in their barn and I think she told me they get about 200 pumpkins. I think most of the families that came were from their church (I didn't know anyone there besides our neighbors, although the girls recognized a few kids from school).

For reasons to be explained soon in Part 2, McKay was not able to come to the Pumpkin Party (much to his disappointment). So I took the girls and had a busy night carving pumpkins and chasing kids.

After having some hot dogs and snacks, the girls picked out their pumpkins. They had pumpkins all along one wall of the barn and butcher paper taped all over the floor.




They had a bunch of the little pumpkin carving tools, so you just found a spot on the floor and went to work! The girls all drew their own faces on their pumpkins (I think Hayley ended up with 3 or 4 different faces around hers).

We scooped out the insides.

Hannah was able to do most of her own carving.

I ended up carving the faces that the other two girls had drawn. Here they are with their pumpkins!

The girls also discovered the horses outside that they could pat through the fence. They absolutely love horses! (That doesn't mean we are getting one anytime soon. I'm still adjusting to having a dog.)

Then they had all the kids take their pumpkins outside and put them on a little hill with a candle inside (it was dark by this time). This is only a section of the pumpkin hill:

Here are the three cute pumpkins we came home with!

Story to be continued...