More Pumpkins

Even though we had 4 carved pumpkins after the pumpkin party last weekend, we decided to keep with tradition and carve a family pumpkin for FHE this past week. We had a bit more drama this year with the kids, but we all survived and even managed a family picture at the end.
After scooping out the pumpkin, we kept with our tradition of the last couple of years in having the kids each draw what they think the face should look like.

Then we choose one aspect from each drawing and put it all together -- Courtney's eyes, Hayley's nose, Hannah's mouth, and McKay added the ears.

After the successful pumpkin party, we also let the kids each carve "their" feature on the pumpkin, with some help from Dad when needed for tight corners. Love the concentration!

And finally, a family picture with the 2010 family pumpkin:

BOO!

The Rainbow Connection

I love rainbows.

When I was growing up, I decided that rainbows would be my "thing" -- not that I could really collect rainbows, so to speak, but I loved to find rainbow-themed items. I had rainbow sheets on my bed, rainbow notebooks and one year I even made a giant paper rainbow to hang on the wall over my bed.

So whenever I see an actual rainbow, I have to stop and admire its beauty. And then take a picture if the camera is handy.

Last week we had some rain showers come through and we were treated to two double rainbows. One of them was even a full rainbow, but I couldn't capture the whole thing in one shot. (And of course the colors in the photo never do the actual rainbow justice.)

It's a beautiful world!

And I can't resist including a couple of my favorite sunrise pictures taken from my kitchen patio. One of my absolute favorite things about our house is the view!

Pumpkin Party

Last weekend our neighbors held their anual pumpkin party. They put on a big event every year (I think this is the 21st year) and invite lots of people. They hold it out in their barn (which has been modified to include a living area on one side) and bring in a big truckload of pumpkins. Each kid gets to pick a pumpkin, then sit down on the barn floor and carve it!

We didn't make it last year (because Brian and the kids were picking me up from the airport that evening), so everyone was excited to go this year. Jana, Ashley and their kids also came along this year.

First step is to scoop out the insides.

Then draw on the face and carve it out. I was impressed that each of my kids did all of their own carving!

The finished pumpkins:

Then everybody takes their pumpkins outside and puts in a candle and sets them on a little hill.

Flash on:

Flash off:

Our 4 pumpkins!

Fall Festival

Last weekend was the annual Fall Festival at the elementary school. This is probably the biggest fundraiser for the school PTO, so we do what we can to support it. We donate bags of candy, we donate money for auction items (although I am not one to actually bid on the auction baskets) and we pay money for the kids to participate in the carnival-type games. It adds up, but I suppose I'd rather be donating money to this type of event than having the kids have to do fundraisers and sell wrapping paper or boxes of chocolates or something. I know the PTO does a lot for the kids and the school.

This year I ended up just taking the girls and we only did the carnival -- we didn't pay extra for the dinner because I figured they probably wouldn't eat it anyway (it was BBQ). The carnival wasn't really big or elaborate, but the girls had fun and that's the most important.

The girls each got their face painted as well by some of the older middle school girls who were helping out.

As part of Fall Festival week, each class decorates a pumpkin to put on display. Last year as a room mom, I had the job of actually creating the pumpkin (see here for that post). I was glad to not have that responsibility this year and could just enjoy looking at the work of the other room moms.

Here are the girl's class pumpkins. Hayley's class did a Harley Davidson (and ended up winning with the most dollar "votes"). Her teacher has a Harley so it was perfect! (And there are several pumpkins in use here -- not just a single one.)

Courtney's class did a spider.

Hannah's class decided to create Shrek.

All in all, it was a fun evening!

Whales and Snails

When I was a kid, my little sister Amy lovingly came up with this little nickname rhyme for me: "Gayley-Whaley eating snaileys in a pailey." We laughed about it a lot. Many years later when I was all grown-up and married with kids, she presented me with this one day:

She said she couldn't resist when she saw the pail with the snail, so she added the little whale to it. I was given strict instructions that it was not for my kids to play with, so it has kept its own special place in my room since then.

Lately, in my triathlon training quest, I have been thinking about whales and snails. Whales, because, you know, that's often what I feel like in the swimming pool. :-) But more so snails, because that seems to be my pace whether running or swimming or biking -- excruciantingly S-L-O-W. I don't know how many times I get "lapped" by other swimmers at the pool and I'm running a 13-15 minute mile so you can see I am not anywhere near a Speedy Gonzales.

But you know what? I am okay with being slow. Sure, it would be great to increase my pace and perhaps little by little I will. But I am just happy that I am even moving at all. This whole exercise thing is such a new experience for me and it has been great to have some goals to work towards. I have a VERY long way to go, but I feel like I am slowly (there's that word again) making progress.

Three cheers for snails!

Crazy Pets

It's been awhile since I've posted any updates on the furry members of our family, so I thought I'd put in a little recap summary. Sometimes I still find it hard to believe that after so many years of being a strictly no-pet family, we have now have two big dogs, an inside cat, and a fish (which belongs to Hannah).

First up, the dogs.

I came across a couple of pictures that Courtney's teacher gave us last spring when we got the dogs from her. The dogs weren't this little when we got them, but aren't they cute?


Here is Courtney with Bear shortly after we got him in March.


And here are both dogs together after we got Lupin in April.

Now the dogs are much bigger! I would guess they're pretty close to their full-grown size. We never did find out their exact birthday, but based on what the vet said, I also guess that they are getting pretty close to a year old now.

One of their favorite things to do out in the dog yard is "play fight" with each other (this is how the kids describe it).

I try to walk them just about every morning and they are getting awfully strong! They have managed to pull me over a couple of times when I've stepped on loose gravel and I've got some scars on my elbows to prove it. They have lots and lots of energy and could probably run all day. In fact, just a couple of days ago, they did almost that. I went out in the morning to walk them and discovered that they had broken the gate latch and were nowhere to be seen. I had no idea how long they had been gone or which direction they went in, so it was practically impossible to search for them (although I did try for a bit). Several hours later, I get a phone call from a man who had the dogs at his home several miles away along the busy highway (probably close to 5 miles). He managed to keep them there until I could come and pick them up. Crazy dogs! I really don't know if they would have found their way home -- they seem happy to just keep going and going and running and running.

Their dog yard is outside our master bedroom and we keep our windows open at night since the air conditioner isn't working in that part of the house. As evidenced by the episode described above, we have to keep them fenced in all the time. So sometimes Brian and I are awakened in the morning by dog barks (Lupin usually) or whines (Bear almost always) or fighting scuffles. Makes life interesting!

Next up, the cat.

Daisy is 6 months old and is no longer the tiny little kitten we brought home in May. (It's really too bad they don't stay so tiny and adorable.)

She is pretty big now and has the markings of a Siamese cat, although we know none of the other cats born in her litter look like this.

She is an inside cat -- the girls are too scared to let her out for fear she will take off and never come back. But she likes to watch what's going on outside.

I think she is a little bit of a psycho-cat. She will zip around the family room, jumping from one piece of furniture to another at a blazing speed. She jumps on our bed and attacks our toes. She launches herself up onto my shoulders. She is not very big on cuddling -- at least not with me. She is tearing up one of our chairs with her claws so we are working on discouraging her from that. And she puts up with a lot of abuse from the girls. Sometimes I'm amazed that she lets Hayley pick her up and carry her around the ways she does sometimes. Although I think everybody has some scratches and claw marks too. She likes to climb ladders and is quite capable of disappearing somewhere for long stretches of time. The girls love her and I think Brian is even a little attached (but don't tell him I said so).

I'll end with the story of Hannah's pet show-and-tell at school last week. She was allowed to have a parent bring in one or two pets and she really, really wanted to take both Lupin (who does tricks!) and Daisy (her favorite, since she is foremost a cat lover). I was reluctant since we don't own a regular cat carrier, but finally agreed to try because her heart was so set on it.

Hannah planned to put Daisy in a little fabric carrier that came with one of Hayley's stuffed animals. The kids had put her in it before, but she's definitely gotten bigger since the last time she tried, and she did not want to go in there. At the last minute, we spied an old Build-a-Bear box (that looks like a little house and folds into a carrying handle at the top) so we put her in that. We got both animals in the car and off to school we went.

After I dropped the kids off, I had to wait in the parking lot for 20 minutes or so until it was time to go into the school. Lupin enjoyed the car ride and waited very patiently.

Finally it was time to go in. I grabbed Lupin's leash, got out and then picked the cat box up. I shut the van door, took one step when the box handle broke and the box went crashing to the pavement. I was so worried that the cat would jump out of the top of the box and never be seen again, that in my panic I dropped the dog's leash and he proceeded to take off across the parking lot. Definitely some panic going on!

I picked up the cat box, tried to hold the top closed and carry it in my arms while chasing the dog. Then I realized that her weight was making the bottom of the box start to fall out. I finally took her out of the box and tried to hold her tight against my shoulder while I chased after the dog. I'm sure it was quite a sight for anyone watching. Fortunately, Lupin found the school building interesting enough to sniff around for a bit so I was able to get close enough to step on his leash and get him under control again. Whew!

I decided I had no choice but to just put the cat back in the van and leave her locked in there while I took Lupin in to the school. We visited Hannah's classroom (she was very sad about Daisy, but there was not much I could do at that point), then we also stopped in Courtney and Hayley's classrooms which was great fun for them.

It was an interesting ride home with both animals roaming free in the van. I think Daisy spent half the ride perched up in the dashboard.

Crazy, crazy, but we love 'em!

Hair, Part 2

If you were wondering, here is the website we found for the girl's hairstyles:

http://www.cutegirlshairstyles.com/

And McKay took another (slightly blurry) picture of me the other day so you can see how long my hair is getting!

Hair!

Since I've been lacking in material for my blog posts recently, I thought I'd post about some hair-raising changes around here.

First, I was surprised over the summer when Hannah willingly asked me to try a hairstyle she had seen on a Web site for church one Sunday. She rarely lets me do anything with her hair -- not that I'm not willing to try, despite my dire lack of hairstyling experience -- she just doesn't want to bother. So it was fun to do something with it -- and it turned out really cute!

That same Sunday, Courtney and Hayley also picked out a "short hair" style from the same web site -- mini-heart pigtails. They were happy with it, but I didn't think it was nearly as cute as Hannah's. Short hair is harder to style!

Then just before school started, I had my sister-in-law come over to give the girls haircuts. I mentioned how Hayley had a very bad habit of constantly chewing her hair and I was hopeful a shorter cut would help discourage this practice. Julie suggested giving her bangs -- she thought it would be cute and would help with the hair chewing. Hayley was very reluctant at first, but we finally convinced (okay, bribed) her to try it.

As soon as they were cut, she immediately told me she didn't like the bangs and to please get rid of them. She thought we could just completely cut them off the rest of the way. Courtney said she also didn't like them, so that made Hayley complain even more. For the next several days, Hayley insisted that I clip her bangs to the side.

Now I think everybody is used to her bangs (I do think they're cute!) and for the time being she is happy to have bangs, although she told me she wants to grow them out again.

And finally, I hit my 40th birthday and decided it was time to dye my hair -- something I have never done before! I was getting discouraged by all the gray hair making its appearance, so I asked my niece (who went to beauty school) if she'd help me out. She helped pick out a color that we thought was close to my natural color and she went to work! I forgot to get a picture after she was done coloring, cutting and styling (of course, I can never get it to style the same way). I have been letting my hair grow out so I can pull it back in a ponytail for exercising. It's not super long yet, but it's about as long as I've ever had it.

The only recent picture I could find of me was one that McKay took when he was messing around with the camera the other night. It's not a good picture, and my hair is pulled back, but you can at least see the pretty (mostly non-gray) color!

You'd think with 3 girls I'd be better at fixing hair, but I've got a long ways to go still. I'm usually feeling good if everybody at least gets a brush through their hair before heading out the door in the morning!