New Tradition

What do you do with decorative pumpkins once the season is over?  Start a new family tradition of making pumpkin puree!  E and I tested out our abilities at making pumpkin puree while the boys napped.  She was cute.  Touching the inside of the pumpkin was "yuck" to quote her. 

After our success with her small pumpkin we decided to try our hand with the Cinderella pumpkin.  The boys were up by this time so she wanted to make sure they got to touch the goo.  K's response was the same he heard his sister say... "YUCK."  I thought the Cinderella pumpkin was very pretty on the pan. 

The process is really quite simple and I do love pumpkin pie made with fresh pumpkin!  I'm not sure how many cups of puree we'll end up with when this is over but I see lots of pumpkin recipes in our future.  :)

UPDATE: The final count was 12 cups.  If we had a bigger freezer we could have made more!  There is always next year.  I'm crossing my fingers for a stand-up deep freeze after we move.  We two growing boys we'll definately need to buy in bulk.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Parker's Rafting Trip

Parker was able to take a rafting trip while he was in Oregon.  He had a great time.  I am so glad he got the chance to catch some down time and do something fun on the weekend instead of always working or being stuck in a hotel room somewhere.

Veterans' Day Parade

E's school was in our town's Veterans' Day parade.  She was so excited she was going to ride in a float!  She was a little disappointed to find out the float was actually a trailer which she has ridden on numerous times.  The kids still had a great time waving flags and honoring all the men and women who have served Our Country.

Beautiful November Day

I keep thinking we are out of beautiful days to play outside and then God provides another one for us to enjoy.  We usually take a picnic meal to eat and then play until we drop. 

Trick or Treat

This year we dug in our dress up box again and found these goodies.  I love it when things are free.  One of these years I may have to spend money on costumes but so far we have found everything we need already in the house!

Tinkerbell was the final costume choice of the day.

What a cute pirate!

K would tell people thank you about three times.

Vaseline

Well, what a day!  Boy did I have a surprise when I got K up from his nap.  I had just changed his sheets that morning so of course a mess was sure to follow.  Little did I know how difficult to clean this mess would be.  In his room above his changing table was a shelf that had a basket of items I'd sometimes need with the baby.  After K kept climbing the table I moved it to the closet but the shelf remained and so did the basket of items.  Monkey K decided to climb his dresser and reach over to the shelf to retrieve the valuable basket of "goodies."  So evidently he enjoyed the beginning of his nap very well.  He opened the jar of vaseline and gave himself a new "do".  Have you ever tried getting vaseline out of hair?  Me either, and let me tell you - it is NOT easy.  I washed his hair three times with dish soap.  Not much help.  I covered his hair in cornstarch (google said to do it)  didn't help either. I skipped the idea of using whiskey since it said it'd burn...Maybe the whiskey was for the mom!  ;)

 I ran to the store and got Dawn dish soap and the ad is right... "Dawn takes grease out of your way!"  I ended up washing it 3 more times with Dawn just to get it squeaky clean.  He was not happy with all the hair washing but I didn't want everything in the house greasy.

Oh Kelman, I'm scared to see what you'll be into next...

Mickey's Rockin' Roadshow

I took the two older kiddos to see Mickey's Rockin' Roadshow.  They had a blast!  K had to keep moving so he wouldn't fall asleep since we had missed naptime to get there and he refused to nap in the van.  His favorite part of the show was bouncing with Tigger.  E's favorite part - I know this will be hard to believe - was getting to hear Cinderella's beautiful voice.  E decided she needed to wear her Cinderella dress to the show.  Check out her shoes!  It was a fun outing.  C wasn't left out.  He had a fun playdate at a friend's house.  :)





Pumpkin Patch

We made our annual family pumpkin patch trip!  It is my favorite tradition we have so far.  I love the colors in Autumn and the cooler weather.  This year Caleb was old enough to run through the corn maze with Ellaina and Kelman.  What a difference a year makes...

I can't wait until next year!  We'll have to find a new pumpkin patch...

Circus

Who would have thought that the circus would come to our little town?  It may have not been a three-ring circus but anything is better than nothing!  Besides, it is a three-ring circus at our house everyday.



E's class even got to go in the morning to watch the elephants set the tent up.  It was quite chilly that morning.  After waiting for an hour they finally went back to school without getting to see the elephants work.  They did get to walk around and look at all the animals though.  Setting up the tent was a lot of work!  I'm glad I wasn't on the team that had to use the sledgehammer.  The guys worked 3 on a spike and had a really good rhythm alternating hits with each other.  It was impressive to see.  I can't imagine having to set up the tent for a one day event and then take it all down just to drive to the next town and do it again the next day!  How tiring that must be!




The kids even got to ride an elephant.







K chose not to ride the camel.








K's favorite was the train!



Sleepy baby

I have not had a baby that will just fall asleep whenever and wherever. It is crazy. One moment he is up - the next sound asleep. One day we were on our way to pick up his sister from school and by the time I buckled up his brother and got myself in the van he was out! I am thankful he is a good sleeper. It helps make up for the older brother who likes to see how long he can stay up!