Pumpkin Carving

We carved the kids pumpkins tonight. I did Buddy's and Little Guy's. Buddy wanted an Army Guy pumpkin* to match him. This seems to be a theme with him since last year he and his pumpkin were both firemen and I'm pretty sure that he had me carve his pumpkin to look like a mailman the year before. I asked Little Guy what he wanted his pumpkin to look like and he said, "Cookie Monster." As soon as I cut the top off his pumpkin he got very emotional and asked me I why I was taking his pumpkin apart. We had to show him some pictures of jack-o-lanterns so he understood what we were doing with the pumpkins. Princess Sparkley had a hard time deciding on what her pumpkin should be. We saw a fairy house pumpkin online that she really liked, but she finally settled on a princess pumpkin, complete with accessories. And Daddy carved it for her.


*But then he had me write Navy on the pumpkins name tag.

**The glittery pumpkins on top of my bookshelf were made my Princess Sparkley at her Activity Days activity earlier in the week.

Little Guy Cheek Update

It's been about a week and a half and all of the glue is finally gone from Little Guy's cheek. I've been applying vitamin E several times a day (and at night while he's asleep) like the ER nurse told me to help the scar not be so bad. He HATES it, which is why I do it at night as well when he's asleep and can't fight me.


The day after his ER trip.



Today.

Halloween Party at Church

The kids were super excited for tonight because it was the ward Halloween party/carnival/chili cook-off/costume parade/trunk-or-treat. All squished into one incredibly long and crowded event.

But with it comes... the unveiling of costumes, and how their costumes came about:

Princess Sparkley as Pippi Longstocking
complete with freshly dyed (6-12 washes) red hair
PS wanted to be a character from a novel last year too, but picks books that only 6-8 year old girls have read and know about. This year, she actually wanted to be Annika, Pippi's best friend, and I had to explain that Annika was just a normal girl, like PS already is. She was very happy at the end of the night when she told me lots of grown-ups knew who she was. But with that comes the unspoken... not many kids did and she had to explain it a lot. Oh well, she loved it. AND, she won the "silliest costume" award, a little trophy, for her age group. Her dress is an oversized shirt from Walmart ($5) and mismatched socks from Target ($1 per pair). Everything else (other than the hair dye and wires in her hair) we already owned. I ironed on patches from scraps of fabric we had and called it good.


Buddy as an Army Guy
Buddy was almost a UPS man again this year. And almost a pizza delivery man. But he finally decided on an army guy. I chose to buy him actual camouflage clothing, rather than a costume. So after Halloween, his Old Navy shirt ($8 ish), Target pants ($9.99) and Kmart hat ($5) go into his regular wardrobe. Although I did inform him that he's not allowed to wear them all at the same time except for Halloween. He was a little disappointed that he didn't win anything, but there were a lot of great costumes there and the kid category was especially rough. I think he enjoyed that people kept pretending they couldn't see him, since he was camouflaged and all.


Little Guy as COOKIE Monster
Little Guy wouldn't agree to any costume. Finally we settled on trying to convince him to be a cookie. He turned that into, he being Cookie Monster and Daddy being the cookie. And Daddy agreed. I ordered his hat on Etsy ($8), bought Cookie colored sweat pants at Walmart ($3) and turned a Jayhawk shirt inside out and pinned a scrap fabric Cookie Monster mouth to it. Then we went to work teaching him to say, "COOOKKIIEES" in a funny deep voice. He can also sing, "C is for cookie..." I'll have to film it all. He did a great job at the trunk-or-treat and said trick-or-treat and thank you to everyone (which my older kids were always shy about doing at his age) and I even got him to tell one guy "Cccoookkiiess."


And Daddy as a COOKIE.
Two hula hoops. Tan fabric. Brown fabric. Iron on sticky stuff. Packing tape. A glue gun.





Oh, and I won "most original chili." This makes two years running my chili has won (different recipes, different categories).

Soccer Picture Day!

Today was soccer picture day. Princess Sparkley's picture time was 8:30. We aren't normally awake and 8:30 in the morning. And if we are, we aren't dressed and ready to go. So it was an early day. And it was COLD! I wore two of everything, including coats. I forgot to wear two pairs of socks though and nearly lost my toes. Brr. PS's game started just after her picture time, around 9.



Team Picture: top to bottom, left to right
Coach Greg, Dana, Princess Sparkley, ?, Hannah #1, ?, Aiden, Asst. Coach Charles
Daniel, Hunter, Paul, McKenzie, Caroline and Gabriel (Hannah #2 was sick)

Buddy's picture time was 9:30 and his game time was 11. Between Princess Sparkley's game and his, we had some down time but not enough to actually do anything, so we just kicked the soccer ball around some more.



Team Picture: top to bottom, left to right
Coach Mike, Megan, Natalie, Buddy, Micah, Brandon #1, ?, Asst. Coach Lewis
Trey, Michael/Timmy, Timmy/Michael, Mariah, Ryan or Brian, Andrew
(Morgan and Brandon #2, not pictured)


Buddy and Princess Sparkley were both the second tallest on their teams (although, if Hannah #2 had been there, she is taller than PS). PS's team is 7-8, she's a young 7. Buddy's team is 5-6, he's a mid 6.

Fall Day at the Battlefield

I drove near the near the Manassas Battlefield the other day and saw all the beautiful autumn leaves and decided we needed to go back later in the week and walk/hike around. We invited some friends to join us Thursday mid afternoon and one family (from our homeschool group) took us up on the offer. So here we are with H (6 years), S (4 years) and E (17 months). We asked a guy to take a picture of all of us, 6 kids and 2 moms. He supposedly did it, but there is no proof on my camera. So either it didn't work, or he acted like it worked, but it didn't.


After climbing on the canons (which you aren't supposed to do, BUT every kid does so how can I stop just mine. Especially when it's their FAVORITE part of the Battlefield?) we wandered further on the path and some of the kids ventured into the tall grass fields (mainly Buddy and H). PS was a little hesitant of the grass, as you can see in the pictures, and stuck by the short grass. As did Little Guy at my request because the tall grass was taller than him. They started playing Little House on the Prairie while in the grass and kept that going for awhile.



Then back to climbing on canons. After our friends left, we drove over to some other parts of the Battlefield we haven't explored yet and wandered around. The close up picture of Buddy is him missing both top teeth. I had to pull the 2nd one out the other morning when B wasn't around. Bleh. The close up of Little Guy's teeth is because he has to do everything his siblings do. So if I took a picture of Buddy's teeth, I had to take one of his as well. Little Guys' Bandaid is just to prevent a sunburn on his cheek where it's glued shut. It's not quite ready to be covered in sunscreen yet.

Primary Program 2010

This years Primary Program was a HUGE success. It was a great program, but also, this year, Buddy went up there all on his own and SAID his part. He barely whispers a word or two when we help him read a scripture, give a talk or say a prayer in Primary. He went up there and said the first sentence of his part without any help at all (he sort of said it from memory/read it) then his teacher helped him with the second sentence. He said afterward that he went blank. I didn't expect him to even try to do it from memory. Yea Budd! And, my friend in the Primary presidency said that he's their big singer for junior Primary. He says it's because he's annoyed that no one else will sing.

Princess Sparkley did a great job as well. She wrote her part (I'm not sure if Buddy wrote his or not). She also sang very nicely. The senior Primary had a lot of songs just for them where the girl and boy parts were broken apart.


Buddy: I like the prophet. I like it when he tells us things he wants us to do.

Princess Sparkley: Jesus' example helped me by being reverent. On my baptism day I tried to be more reverent like Him. When I got out even though the water was cold, I felt warm from the Holy Ghost.

Little Guy's Eye Update

Friday Little Guy woke up and his eye looked sort of swollen shut. Or, I suppose, his cheek was swollen and making his eye kind of close. Saturday a big bruise under his eye became more visible. Poor kid. Once he realized I was trying to get a picture of his eye, he was trying his best to turn his head so I wouldn't.

Soccer!

Red Runners!

Buddy is in red, #23 wearing black pants with a white stripe down the side.


Purple Panthers!

Princess Sparkley is #8 in purple with brown pants and two ponytails.
For some reason, the team PS was supposed to play didn't show up so they put yellow vests on half the team and they played each other, but needed more players so Buddy and an older sister of a kid from the team played goalie. Buddy was THRILLED.

Shenandoah Leaves: take 2

We went to Shenandoah last week (getting a 7 day pass with our entrance fee of $15) and the leaves were just sort of changing. So after apple picking on Friday, the kids and I headed a little further out, back to the park and saw the leaves a little further on their trip to red. I loved all the blotchy hillsides with reds and yellows and greens and oranges. And I have that Little Guy yelled out, "MOUNTAINS!" when we saw a little hill on the drive out.




We stopped at one of the Visitor's Centers this time to get stamps in our National Parks Passport books. And we took some pictures of the view outside. I had all the kids by a rock. Then Princess Sparkley wanted a picture of just her. Then Buddy wanted a picture of just him, but Little Guy insisted on being on Buddy's rock with him. So Little Guy finally moved to his own rock... which turned out to be a really short one only a couple inches off the ground. It cracked me up.

Apple Picking

One of my Facebook friends mentioned apple picking earlier this week and it got stuck on my mind. So we went to Stribling Orchard in Markham, VA to pick apples Friday (on the way to Shenandoah to use our 7-day pass to see the trees all colorful again). We were lucky enough to be joined by some friends. And the kids totally outdid any past "pick your own" categories I'd placed them in. Before when we've gone apple or blueberry or asparagus picking, they just sort of help and I do most of the picking. This time, I didn't realize how all out they were going with their picking until I got all the bags together to figure out their weight and price. Yikes! We picked almost 30 lbs. of apples. Needless to say, we'll be making A LOT of apple recipes this weekend.

Here are a few I'm going to try out:
Apple Dumplings and Crock Pot Applesauce
Crock Pot Apple Butter or I might make a similar recipe a Facebook friend recommended
Freezing Apple Pie Filling




We looked at their farm animals when we were leaving. And a special trip to see the horse because Little Guy requested that we go see the "Forsey" which is what he now calls horsies unless we correct him.

Christmas Lists

We wrote our Christmas lists for handwriting practice today because: 1) I knew they wouldn't complain about writing a Christmas list, 2) I'm an early shopper and 3) we're thinking we'll be in Ohio with Grandma and Grandpa M for Thanksgiving, meaning they'll probably send our gifts home with us then meaning Grandma will start shopping soon.

Princess Sparkley's list is here
Buddy's list is here

And here's Little Guy's list:
1. a soccer ball whistle
2. a Wally (Red Sox mascot beanbag)

Those he came up with on his own, the rest Princess Sparkley helped him with and he agreed to.

3. Take the Cake (game)
4. Green Light Saber
5. Toy Story 3 dvd
6. a leash (?)
7. Froggy movie (LeapFrog dvds, we only have Letter Factory and he LOVES it)
8. Blue car from Lightening McQueen
9. Webkinz kitty cat (I think PS pushed this because he steals hers all the time)
10. They might be Giants dvd/cd "Here Come the 123s"