Pumpkin Carving

The pumpkins we carved this year were by far our best effort ever! Here are the finished products:

To get the above, we started out the evening like this:

The girls cleaned out the pumpkins and then used a stencil kit to etch the pumpkins. This along with the carving was pretty delicate work so that by the end of the evening this was the scene:

Yep, mom and dad slaving over pumpkins with the girls nowhere in site.

Birthday Girl

Today was Paige's Birthday! I can't believe how big my baby is getting!


As her birthday is so close to Halloween, this year we decided to turn our basement into a dungeon (it's not that big of stretch) and have a Halloween-themed birthday party. It was pretty much impossible to find a free Saturday this month to hold the party with soccer and church activities so we ended up having it on Friday which happened to be her actual birthday. It also happened to be a day that the kids had off from school, so we had the party in the early afternoon which was very convenient except some of our friends who don't have the same school schedule as us couldn't come. However, it all worked out in the end and was a good opportunity to get to know some of the kids Paige goes to school with and meet their parents, most of whom live in the same subdivision as us.


But I am getting ahead of myself, birthdays in our house always start with the Birthday Girl's favorite breakfast. In Paige's case, pancakes with homemade berry sauce:

Then we let her open presents from her family as we knew she would have plenty to open at her party later in the afternoon. She got a fancy new dress from Mom, a Webkin from Ashley and some new games for the Nintendo Gameboy from her Dad. She also got some cards from her grandparents and an adorable outfit from Grandpa and Grandma Smith.

Then it was time for last minute preparations for the party. Here are the cupcakes, topped with white chocolate spider webs I made:



Before we knew it, it was party time. Fortunately, Dave took the day off to help and Ashley was home too, because all three of us were busy going from one activity, to clean-up, to set-up, to the next activity, etc.
All the kids wore their costumes and we played a game called "toss the spider on the web." We also made slime. The kids were pretty intrigued by it but also a little grossed out!

Ashley led a game of Halloween Bingo

Then we sang "Happy Birthday" ate cupcakes and ice cream and opened presents

After that we had time to make Halloween candy necklaces
and then finish off big with a pinata

And if all that wasn't enough, after the kiddos went home, the family went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner at Paige's request. (Of course, I made the girls change out of their costumes before we left, but when we got to the restuarant there was a sign that said "kids in costumes eat free"--figures.) You would think by now we would be done for the day, but we still hadn't carved pumpkins and Halloween was the next day, so guess what we spent the evening doing...

School Halloween Costume Parade

Every year at Halloween, the girls elementary school has a huge costume parade, followed by class parties. This is a change for us, as our previous elementary school did not celebrate Halloween during school hours. Kids were not allowed to wear costumes and the parties were curriculum parties, i.e. "the sink or float party" or "healthy eating party." A Halloween carnival was held in the evening for families, so it was an okay compromise and I understand the reasoning behind it.

I do have to admit, however, it does make me smile to see the girls so excited to wear their costumes to school. Although, Paige almost didn't make it to school on this day because she kept worrying about whether this was the day everyone was wearing a costume. She kept asking me, "mom, how do you know everyone will be wearing a costume? What if I get on the bus and no one else is wearing a costume? What if I am the only person wearing a costume? Are you sure I can wear my costume to school?" She was so worried, she started getting me paranoid, but I double checked the date and eventually sent her off to school with costume.

Here are the girls in the school parade

Baby Teeth

This month both Ashley and Paige lost a baby tooth. Two teeth in one month, what did I do to deserve such punishment?

Did you know that a person has 20 baby teeth? That means between our two girls they will lose 40 teeth. Did you know that a loose tooth in our house is not a happy occasion? Would you like to know some of the things that occur in our house when there is a loose tooth? I am listing them from mildly annoying to drive you to the edge of insanity-make your blood boil-puLL YOUR HAIR OUT ANNOYING...

-child will not wiggle loose tooth
-child will not wiggle really loose tooth
-child will not wiggle really, really loose tooth
-child will not pull loose tooth
-child will cry and have meltdown over fear of pulling tooth
-child will not let mom pull tooth
-child will not let mom touch loose tooth
-child will not even let mom look at loose tooth
-child will not pull tooth that is dangling by a thread
-child will not pull tooth that is dangling, starting to dissolve and rot away
-child will let deadline for pulling own tooth pass
-child will be taken to the dentist to have tooth pulled (because mom follows through on consequences)
-child would rather go to bed at 5pm than pull loose tooth
-child will stop eating because loose, dangling tooth is so bothersome
-after a huge crying fit and being threatened with the loss of every privilege known to man, child finally allows mom to pull tooth
-mom barely touches tooth and it comes right out, to which childs brightly says, "that didn't hurt at all"
-exasperated mom bangs head against wall

According to my count, we have about 16 more teeth to go....I would rather potty-train a half dozen toddlers.

Slime

My friend (Kori, for those who know her), told me how to make slime at home with your kids. What a great idea...and a perfect activity for Paige's upcoming Halloween Birthday party!

Paige and I "practiced" making slime today just to make sure that we had a succesful trial before doing it with a bunch of 6 year-olds on Friday. It was a success. Paige thought it was great and had a lot of fun playing with the slime afterwards. I am sure that it is going to be a hit at the party.

Trunk or Treat

Every year our ward has a Halloween Trunk or Treat. It starts with a potluck soup dinner, includes Halloween games for the kids, a costume parade and of course, ends with trunk or treating in the parking lot.

Eating dinner

Playing games

This year the whole family dressed up and for the first time in about 4 years I wasn't one of the persons in charge! It was very nice and relaxing to just enjoy the party.

the Trunk-------------the Parade

The girls picked their costumes out online. Ashley is pretty cute in her '50s poodle skirt and Paige wanted to be a tiger, but this tiger had to be wearing a dress.

Dave and I went as a pair and I can't believe what a good sport he was. Taking advantage of his size, we but together a Stay Puft marshmallow man costume, which he bravely wore!! I went as a ghostbuster to complete our homage to the 80s movie Ghostbusters. I guess I don't need to tell you Dave got a lot of laughs--what a good sport.

I should also mention that our usual m.o. for trunk or treat is Dave passes out candy and I walk around with the kids. The past couple of years Ashley has opted for walking around with friends so it has just been Paige and I. Well, to my surprise this year, I wasn't wanted! Paige preferred that I keep a safe distance and follow along behind her. My, my we are getting old.

Apples, Apples, Apples

This week the girls and I decided to go apple picking. The girls had a day-off of from school, so even though mom was a little under-the-weather, we headed for Jonamac Apple Orchard, as recommended by a friend. Most of the u-pick farms around here have been turned into tourist destinations which are more about entertainment than farming and this one is no exception. The girls may have no concept of what a real working farm is like, but they sure had fun.

We started in the "barnyard" play area designed especially for kids. Here they are climbing on stacked hay bales. (Seriously, I have spent many a summer on a working farm. Fortunately, I was too small to throw hay bales, but I know hard work when I see it. In my mind baling hay was never associated with fun or play.) The girls loved this, especially Paige. I should seriously recreate this in my back yard!

The tube slide was also pretty fun and fast.

Who needs sand when you have corn kernels?

(This was my personal favorite.)

Water pump duck races

Okay, enough play. Now it's time to get to work. We picked a 1/2 bushel of blushing gold apples.

Here we are with our apple cart in the orchard.

Apple picking and eating

The apple picking was very easy and we were done in a flash so we took our apples to the car and then decided to take a ride on the apple train.

The train was so cute and the girls loved it because the driver "went really fast!"

Since we hadn't had enough fun yet. We also decided to try out the corn maze. This year the maze was designed like a penny to commemorate Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday.

This was our first time in a big corn maze. The maze was divided into two parts, so you could do part 1, take a break and then do part 2. Part 1 wasn't too bad, the girls and I were not able to keep track of where we were but some trivia clues helped us to find our way.

Here are the girls on one of two bridges in the maze.

Now, part 2 of the maze was a different story. We, along with everyone else in this part of the maze, were lost and could not find our way out. After about an hour of wandering around and coming up on the same dead-ends again and again, plus realizing that you can't just "quit" when you are in a maze, mom made the decision to forget finding the exit and just backtrack out the way we came. Fortunately, once we adopted this strategy we were out of the maze in 10 minutes. We left through the entrance, but at this point we were happy to just be free!

A note about this picture: In the evening, the maze becomes haunted. When Paige saw this board, she wanted to take a picture so much. I told her we didn't need this picture, but she really wanted to, so I told her to hurry up there and I snapped a quick picture. Once we got home, and looked at the picture, I laughed at her tongue out pose, which I hadn't noticed when I took the shot. The funny part is that when I showed Paige the picture she wanted so badly, she took one look at the fake blood and started gagging. Now she can't even look at it! That was worth it.

After our maze adventure, we needed to replenish, so we stopped by the orchard store for some hot apple cider, apple donuts, apple dumplings, and a caramel apple to take home. We definitely got our fill of apples and now I need to get started making some applesauce!