Jazzing Up Pumpkins

This year we had a lot of fun with pumpkins.   And by "a lot of fun" I mean Mike and I did all the work and the kids had all the fun.  Haley painted this pumpkin at her art class.  It is a skeleton.  Looks like it has a couple of blacked-out teeth.

This is Mike's creation.  We watched a show on the food network about carving pumpkins and he saw people carving the flesh without cutting holes in the pumpkin.  So, that is what he decided to do.  I think it turned out pretty cool.

Here is Haley's.  And by Haley's I mean that she picked out the design and Mike did all the carving.  

And here is mine, oh, I mean Maya's.  Pay no attention to the disfigurement of that poor spider.  She lost part of a leg.

New Look!

I love the new look of my blog.  I wish I could print it out and make curtains or pillows out of it!

Decastified

My cute Maya got her casts off on Monday.  Right after they took them off, the physical therapist lowered Maya onto the ground from the exam table and Maya almost fell down!  She was pretty wobbly.  She even said, "I think I need to put my casts back on."  It has been 3 days now and she is doing great.  Her walking motion isn't very fluid yet.  She still clomps around, or even shuffles a bit, like she is wearing casts.  But, she isn't walking up on her toes.  She had gymnastics on Tuesday, the day after she got the casts off, and I saw her go up on her toes once.  She was walking up an inclined mat.  Now I know I often go up on my toes when I walk up things, especially the stairs, so I hope that was a normal and okay thing.  I haven't seen her do it since.

Her calfs are about half the size they used to be.  Sometimes she complains that her ankles or heels hurt.  I think it will take a while to get her strength and fluid motion back.
She said after her casts were off, "My feet are free!"  However, she doesn't pronounce the "f" sound well so it sounded like, "My peet are pree!"

A fun trip to a Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday we took a trip to a pumpkin patch.  It was sunny and warm!  We went with fun friends Wes, Cath, and baby Jake (I think my girls will always call him baby Jake even when he's five).  They had some carnival type rides the girls loved.

Look at all the fun things you can still do with casts on!

You have to take these pictures or you are a bad parent.

Look!  Real pumpkins!  Maya had dirt between her toes after tramping through this pumpkin patch with her casts on.

I got to carry Caleb in the backpack since Mike's back hurt.  Now my back hurts too.  That kid weighs 25 pounds.  That is as much as a 2 year old.  Learn to walk boy!

The Worst Pumpkin Patch Trip Ever

On the Wednesday following our fun family trip on Saturday, Maya's preschool class took a field trip to a pumpkin patch.  We had just been, but I thought, you can't get enough of the pumpkin patch, right?  This isn't a load the yellow school bus kind of field trip.   Parents are the transportation.  So, Haley was off-track and I loaded up all 3 kids and we drove 1 hour north to this farm/pumpkin patch.  I knew it was going to be cold before we went, but it was also going to be sunny, and that helps a lot.  I had to go to Target the night before to get Caleb a hat and gloves.  So we get there and it isn't just cold (about 35 degrees) it is WINDY.  Like blow your 3 year old over windy.  Plus, we were told to be there at 9:30 AM.  I was there right on time, only to discover that we were told to be there at 9:30 to give time for all the late folks to get there by 10:00.  So we stood outside waiting for 30 minutes before we got started.  Why do I have to suffer for being responsible?  Then we piled into some sort of tractor garage and an employee told us about the things they grow on the farm.  Then we jumped on a wagon/tractor ride to the pumpkin patch.  Now, I don't think there were actually any pumpkins in the patch.  Just small gourds.  So we all picked out a greenish, bumpy gourd and then got back on the wagon.  Mind you all this time the wind is blowing us over and blowing dirt in our eyes.  And Caleb literally cried from the minute we exited the car.  He was miserable.  We were then on our way to the farm/play area.  They had some animals to see and kid activities.  We scarfed down some animal crackers that actually quieted Caleb down, but then Haley started crying about being cold.  We glanced at the animals on our way out.  I load the kids in the car and realize I have forgotten our wagon back at where we got on the big wagon/tractor.  So, a friend watches the kids while I run back and find that the wagon is gone.  I find an employee and she tells me they moved it over to the farm/play area so we would have it when we got off the wagon/tractor!  Thanks for telling me!  Now I have to go back there, grab the wagon and then go all the way back to the car.  Despite the frigid weather, I was sweating when I got back.  I brought the camera but never had a second to take a picture.  All my time was spent holding a bawling 1 year old and wiping his nose with my gloves because my kleenex blew away. 

Butterflies!

We have a giant, wild, and unruly bush in front of our house.  We also have one in the back, but it is a little more tame.  I don't even know what kind of bush it is.  It is very common here with the desert landscaping theme that most people have.  Anyway, I really don't like this bush, but it blossoms in the early fall and attracts butterflies like crazy.  This bush literally had 50 butterflies on it.  We went outside to hang bird feeders that Haley and Maya had made at Haley's fall party at school and the butterflies swarmed us.  It was pretty cool.  And slightly scary.  I should have put in my previous post that I do have a totally ridiculous fear of butterflies.

6 random things about me - I've been tagged!

My friend Rachel tagged me.  How exciting.  The first time I have been tagged.  So, here we go.

1.  I have a really bad memory.  I love to read but forget the plots and details about books very soon after I read them.  I often don't even remember if I've read the book period.  Reading is like an escape for me.  I do it to get away from my real life of diaper, dishes, and dirty clothes.  I'm not reading to write a book report or discuss it.  

2.  I had 4 different jobs while I was at BYU.  My first job was at the Cannon Center, the cafeteria for Helaman Halls.  I served food and then cleaned up.  My least glamorous job ever.  Then I worked as a janitor at the HFAC (Harris Fine Arts Center).  Vacuumed,  emptied trash cans, cleaned chalk boards, dusted.  At least I didn't have to do bathrooms.  This job also began at 4:30 AM and went until 7:30 AM.  Second least glamorous job ever.  Then I got a job as a teacher's aide in an elementary school in Provo (can't for the life of me remember the name of the school, darn memory).  I worked in the special ed room and had kids of my own that I taught.  I even had my name on a plaque outside the door.  Pretty cool for a kid still in college.  A lot of the kids there spoke Spanish as their first language.  My most memorable moment was when one little boy told me "Miss Harvey, you drive a cool car, man."  Imagine that said with a spanish accent.  My maiden name was Hardy and I drove a Saturn.  My last job was for the telefund.  I got to call alumni and ask them for money.  It was actually a really fun job and we had the best boss who would take us to Wendy's for Frostys if we met our goal that night.  I even got promoted to assistant supervisor!  Which meant I got to listen into other people's calls and tell them what they were doing right and wrong.  So, now when I get those calls as a BYU alumni, I always pledge.

3.  I don't have a lot of simple addition and subtraction math facts memorized.  Like 6 + 8, hmm, I'd have to think about it.  In elementary school I was taught to imagine dots on the numbers and then count them to add or subtract.  We were never required to memorize.  So, I am a 29 year old who doesn't know what 6 + 8 is without imagining it in my head with dots on it and counting them up.

4.  I bought a car before my sophomore year at BYU with the help of my parents.  It was that cool Saturn I talked about before.  The funny thing is that it was a manual transmission, and I had no idea how to drive a stick.  Isn't that a great idea, to buy a car you don't know how to drive?  I think my parents have some great video of me learning.

5.  I got married when I was ....... 19!  

6.  For the past year, I have been craving anything with pumpkin in it.  It all started when Caleb was born.  My friend Rachel brought me some pumpkin bread with chocolate chips.  I ate 3/4 of the loaf.  My mom, while she was staying with us when Caleb was born, made pumpkin cheesecake.  Since then, about once a month I've got to make something with pumpkin, whether its bread, cookies, or bars.  Man, I love it.  

Okay, now is the part where I'm supposed to tag other people.  Seeing that I've been blogging for like 1 month, and I think 3 people read my blog, this might be interesting.  Here it goes, Libby, Amy Simiskey, Amy Fish, Janna, Tracy, and Kara.

We'll see how that goes.