Pumpkins

Two days before Halloween, we realized that we still had not carved our pumpkins. Not only that, but we were very busy for those next two days, and weren't sure how we were going to fit it in. So Luis decided he only had one choice - he had to call work and tell them he would be an hour late. In that one move, he effectively doubled his time with us that day, and gave us the time to carve pumpkins (though he, unfortunately, had to leave before the cleaning up pumpkin guts part - he was devastated, I'm sure). We all decided that having a husband/daddy who would call in for pumpkins was a pretty good thing. It was very exciting.



We got everything set up on the dining room table (just ignore the child endangerment going on in the background).

After we scooped all the guts out, the boys drew on the faces they wanted us to cut out.

Somewhere along the way, carrots got involved, though I can't remember how exactly.

Once the carving was finished, we headed outside to display them. The whole family:


The kids (and puppy) played in the leaves while Luis got the clothes ready...

for the scarecrow:

Sadly I don't have a picture of Mom's dead flowers to prove it, but fall has definitely arrived.

Apple Fest '09

On Sunday we went to Apple Fest with Nana and Jim. I'll say at the start, that I feel like a bad mother because pretty much every picture here is of Taye. Darius was in a funk and didn't want to do anything, and Mya slept 90% of the time. So, it's not that I don't love them, it's just that they're boring. :o)

The first thing we saw when we escaped the crowded indoors was the giant inflatable slide. You may remember the photo-op from two years ago when Emma came with us. Taye jumped right in line. Somehow he went from this:



to this:

to this:

in the span of about 4 seconds. When he reached the bottom (by which time he had completely flipped over) he popped right up, and said "I'm OK!" before anyone could even ask. A mother standing next to us seemed very relieved, we knew he was fine before he could even speak. He's Taye.

We walked around and checked out the outside vendors. Taye, Luis, and I all played a ring toss game at the Hannaford's booth, and "won" pity-prizes. We found the pony rides at the other side of the park. Somehow we avoided a line, and Taye got right on. If only we had thought to bring his cowboy hat.


We stopped to watch Juggling John juggle some fire, how could we resist?

After some more wandering, and an all-apple snack break (cider donuts, apple turnovers, and cider - yum), we met back up with Nana and Jim for the skyride. Darius was excited about that, but since he rode with Nana and Jim, I don't have any pictures of him on the ride either. The view from the top was amazing, but the real entertainment was in watching Taye.

He was completely beside himself excited the entire time. We would point something out - "Look at the water, Taye!" and he would start laughing and yelling, "WATER!! hahaha LOOK! MORE WATER!" At some point he noticed that some of the chairs coming down on the other side were empty. He asked us if there were invisible people riding on them. He apparently didn't believe us when we said no, because he started yelling, "HELLO INVISIBLE PEOPLE!!" every time one went by. Then, whenever we passed a chair with people in it, he yelled, "HELLO REGULAR PEOPLE!!" He also kept yelling, "HEY DARIUS, ARE YOU HAVING FUN?" to which Darius would yell "YEAH!" If he wasn't yelling, he was laughing. He brought a smile to everyone's face, Luis and I couldn't stop laughing.

At the bottom of the skyride they had a rock climbing set-up. Taye decided he wanted to try that too.

We all figured he would be at the top in under a minute, but he didn't quite get that far. More like this far:

That really was enough exictement for one day!

Girl's Best Friend

Daddy thinks he's okay too ('cause, you know - he needed another wrestling buddy).

Frog

Yes, I know. I can't believe it either. I have officially lost my mind. I must be crazy, what was I thinking? Have we got that out of our system? OK, then, moving on...

Meet Frog, or Frog the Dog as we like to call him. He is the result of months of debating about when to get a puppy/dog, combined with a visit from the paranoid schizophrenic, heavy drug & alcohol using, potentially violent, former resident of our house, which left me thinking a) call the locksmith, and b) maybe having a big dog around wouldn't be such a bad idea. :o) He is admittedly lacking on the "big" part, but he'll get there.

We found him through a rescue on Petfinder, and went to meet him (and his brother and sisters - he was the best of the bunch) today. While we were driving home, I asked the boys what they wanted to name him, and Frog was the first thing out of Taye's mouth. Darius immediately agreed, and it stuck. He is officially harder to photograph than Taye, but here are a few.

Happy to Me

We celebrated my birthday a day early this weekend. I got to sleep in until 11am (ok, I didn't actually go to bed until 6am, but it was still nice!) Then I was woken up to balloons, cake, and presents in bed. Beats breakfast in bed by a mile!

The kids were possibly more excited about it than I was, they were so cute to see. After cake breakfast, we went to the movie theatre. They were showing a double feature of Toy Story and Toy Story 2. The boys all had a good time, Mya and I had to leave early into the movie and she slept in the car through the rest of both. All in all in was a good day.

Fun at the Dorseys

The other day we took the trip down to visit the Dorsey's. As usual, it was good times. We didn't just spend the day hanging around and doing nothing. Well, not the whole day anyway. We were very busy with projects.



First there were Halloween decorations to be made. Construction paper littered the floor, awesome creations littered the windows and door. When that was all done, Jean made Oobleck (or Ew-bleck, as I like to call it). Oobleck is very cool...it's like a liquid and a solid. It gives me chills just thinking about touching it. I am, apparently, the only one. The kids all loved it.



But that was not all, oh no, that was not all. The kids and I brought molds to make Halloween chocolate covered Oreo's (because what Oreos really need is a chocolate coating). We had planned to make them to bring to the Halloween party, but since we blew that off, we decided to make them with the Dorsey's instead.



Here you can see Mya attempting to use the power of telekinesis to will the chocolate covered spoon away from Taye.

It didn't work.

What-What?

Darius has taken to naming a lot of the toy animals around. There are several that he plays with often, and he remembers the names of each. We have noticed a theme with his names. So far he has:

Pin-Pin the rabbit
Pan-Pan the bear
Cup-Cup the ladybug
Circle-Circle the dolphin
Straw-Straw the lizard
I'm sure I am forgetting one or two more.

He also has:
Crush the turtle
Cinnamon Toast Croonch (not crunch) the bat

and I'm not sure who named these, but the pumpkins they picked out now have names as well.

Taye's is Georgie the Giant, and Darius' is Blue-Blue the Baby Giant.

Here is Pin-Pin, who seems to be Darius' favorite, going sledding on the couch.