Creating Cat in the Hat

Somehow I ended up as a room mom for Hannah's 3rd Grade class this year. I didn't really volunteer, but also didn't say no when they called and asked me since no one else had volunteered. I've always said that being a room mom just isn't my thing. Don't get me wrong -- I absolutely love to be involved in my kid's classrooms -- reading stories, volunteering in the science lab, even helping the teacher make copies and stuff in the workroom. But planning parties and fundraising for the PTO aren't necessarily my favorite things.

Nevertheless, 3rd grade room mom I am this year. (Fortunately, they also asked another mom so we get to help each other.) My first assignment as room mom was to decorate the class pumpkin for the Fall Festival. This is the big PTO fundraiser -- as part of it, each class submits a decorated (not carved) pumpkin which is on display for a week in the cafeteria. The kids bring their pennies and nickels and quarters to vote for their favorite. Then, at the Fall Festival the pumpkins are auctioned off to some lucky parents.

I asked Hannah's teacher how much she wanted to involve the class in decorating the pumpkin. She said it's just easier for the room moms to do the decorating. But we did decide to have the class vote on how the pumpkin should be decorated. I gave her a few ideas I found online and the kids got to vote. The winner? Cat in the Hat!


(I'm actually relieved they picked this one because I think it ended up being the easiest. A couple of the ideas were really just ideas with not a lot of concept as to how they would be turned into reality. If you're curious, the other choices were Cinderella's Pumpkin Carriage, a Pumpkin Turkey, and a Pumpkin Armadillo.)

Now I am also not the most crafty person around, so I was a little worried about this project. Sometimes my "vision" of how something will look and the actual reality of how it turns out are quite different. But I'm happy to say this project turned out pretty darn good!

I found a few ideas online and bought a few materials and got to work. I started with the hat. I decided to try sewing some felt together. Normally I do not do well when sewing stuff without any type of pattern and just trying to make it up as I go. And I did have to unpick several seams and my resulting hat did have several, ah, anomalies. But it worked.

Then we got out the paint and brushes and transformed our little pumpkin!

The ears are also felt, the whiskers are cut from a broom, and the bow is wire ribbon. Hannah's teacher and class liked it -- we'll see how it does in the fierce class competition! :-)

Little Furry Friends

I got a big Monday morning smile when I came across this sight as everyone was getting ready for school:

This is Hayley playing "Go Fish" with some of her favorite little friends. She had a whole dialogue going and everything. So cute.

Then I found Courtney eating breakfast with a few of her friends (the two black ones are a little hard to see!).

I love when Mondays start with a smile. :)

I Love to See the Temple

Today Brian and I took a long-overdue trip down to the Lubbock Temple. We talked about needing to go all summer, but one reason or another always had our plans changing. But today we finally made it -- 2 hours down, 2 hours there, 2 hours back. Need to go back more often -- I love this place.

I found this little clip from last summer...

Sea of Sunflowers

I realized the other day that I haven't been taking very many pictures lately, unless you count all the construction "update" pictures I take for my dad. So, today, on my way over to take some more construction update pictures, I took a little detour.

Last summer I took a lot of sunflower pictures (practicing for my photography class), but I don't think I've taken any yet this year.

We have a beautiful patch of sunflowers that grows where the land is most fertile. (Yep, over our septic system leech field.) :-)

I noticed they're starting to die off... summer must be on its way out.

Layers

One of the few detriments to living out in the country and having to drive over a mile on dirt roads to go anywhere.

That's a lot of layers of dirt and dust. And I've learned it doesn't do an awful lot of good to wash it off -- the next day it'll be right back.

Five!

Hayley turned 5 this past Monday. How did that happen? I can't believe my baby girl is 5 years old -- she is growing up way too fast!

She was excited that her birthday fell on a holiday this year (Labor Day), so that meant she got to open her presents in the morning instead of having to wait until after school.

She is officially a big kid now that she has an MP3 player just like her older sisters.

But she is still a little kid who loves her stuffed animal friends.

And she is still a huge fan of books (love that!).

She wanted a dog cake this year and picked one out from a Web site that I did my best to replicate.

Hayley is a sweet girl who brings our family so much joy! She gets lots of comments on her beautiful blond hair (a Humpherys family trait) -- I was remembering the other day how even as a newborn baby the hospital nurses commented on her "golden" hair. She is loving her Pre-K class and learning new things every day. We love having her in our family!

As I've done with the other kids, here's a quick glance back at our Hayley-bug's birthdays!

4 years old...

3 years old...

2 years old...

1 year old...

True Blue

We are not huge sports fans in our house (especially now that there's not even a local professional team to root for), but we do still love our BYU Cougars.


Football season started this last Saturday and what a way to start! We had some friends over for the game, put on our BYU shirts, rearranged the furniture and cheered our little hearts out. McKay has a new favorite player -- McKay Jacobson, fresh off his mission, and who even managed to catch the winning touchdown pass against 3rd-ranked Oklahoma (final score 14-13). How could you not cheer for a guy named McKay? :-)