Pumpkin Carving!

Ok, time for one more and then it's off to bed for me!!

Oh, I forgot to put on here....instructions for our pumpkins in case inquiring minds want to know what's up with them in the pics.

So I found a website that gave some tips on pumpkin carving. It says when you print out your patterns you should get them a little damp and stick it to your pumpkin. Then take a push pin and basically make yourself a dot to dot pattern of what to cut. Once you are finished with that you take off the pattern and then rub flour over the surface so it fills in your holes, making it easier to see. So, you can see that in some of the pictures and now you know!

Pumpkin Fun

We love this time of year! I love the fall season and Jake loves Halloween! The kids love the candy! Every year we go to the same place to get pumpkins and I take pictures in the same exact place. Jake laughs at me for it, but hey! I say its fun to see how they've changed! (Oh and look at the difference from my old digital to my new one! Thanks again babe, good present!)

Here's an example:

Gwynie October 2007 & 2008

Brady October 2007 & 2008

Here a couple cute little ones from carving pumpkins. Oh and yay, they are wearing the shirts Mom sent! I'll try getting all the rest of pics up by Sunday! :) Gwynie carved hers all by herself and Jake helped Brady with his. I did the gutting...

All of our pumpkins! Top to bottom: Jake (Grim Reaper), Me (Witch stirring cauldron), Gwynie (Skull) and Brady (Black Widow)

Look at my gourds!!

Mr. Brady (whoa check out how cool my flash is...oops!)

Miss Gwynie

This is Brady with his mini pumpkin. He named it Little John and has been taking it everywhere. We had to put our feet (yes that's both from both of us so 4 feet!) down and say "No!" to taking Little John into stores with us over the weekend. Brady assured us that Little John really liked the car ride though, but he was sad he couldn't go in the store.

Ok, one more thing! My slideshow of the Pumpkin Patch finished, so here you go!

Life's Little Mysteries...

Having kids is like having a walking, talking, 20 questions machine in your back pocket. It's rare the day that I don't get a wondering type question from the kids. Really, I have to admit, I love it. I love hearing their questions because I know they are questioning the world around them and using their brains.

Gwynie doesn't ask as many questions as Brady though, she just seems to piece together her own answers by observation. For example, when she was 2 she asked my father in law if pigeons have belly buttons. He thought about the best way to answer the question and she just answered herself by saying, "Well of course they do, they get it from their umbilical cords!" Seriously people, my daughter thought of this at 2. She made the connection to a belly button and an umbilical cord and reasoned that all animals had some form of cord and so therefore must have some residual effects from said cord. Now, I've never really looked to see if that's correct, but all the same it just shows the power of a kids mind.

Brady however loves to question everything, but its not the typical kids question of "Why is the sky blue?" or "Why is the grass green?". Yes these are very good questions, but his questions though are somewhat unique like, "Why is the engine of a car in the front and not the back?" or "What are the ingredients in cement?". The most recent questions I've had I just didn't know the best way to explain them so I gave my paltry answer and then followed it up with a "Let's Google it when we get home".

So here are some of Brady's recent questions, and an answer to one of them:

"Why does the moon sometimes look like a banana?"

"Why does it only snow when it's cold?" followed by "What is snow made out of?"

And my favorite:

Brady: What are snakes made out of?
Me: Uh...snake skin?
Jake: *smacks head with hand* You mean scales.....

Now, I must not be giving great answers because the other day Brady asked me a question and as I opened my mouth to speak he held up his hands and said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait.....I'll just go Google it" and proceeded to the computer room. Hmm...

So which brings me to my next thing, the kids love using the computer (under our supervision of course!). We have Gwynie go to this Math website and practice her times tables and division each day for 15 minutes. It's setup that you do 5 minutes of times tables three times in row which they say helps the kids retain it better because its strictly memorization, not problem solving. So Brady thinks that he has to do his "homework" each day, which consists of visiting the Thomas the Train website and doing the puzzles and coloring pages. Somedays I just giggle and he cracks me up that he is so serious about it, but I let him do it because I know that will help him when he is older. If I can teach them now to do their homework right after school, and actually DO IT, then I think we won't have homework issues in the future.

Ok so this is getting really long, but I just wanted to jot this down so that I can remember this for later. My kids really are just so amazing and wonderful. I know you all are like, well duh she thinks that they are her kids, but really they are just so freaking awesome. They are just two of the most easy going kids you will ever meet.

Frightmares!

Weekend Update!

I decided to share some stuff Jake and I have been up to and not just what the kids or the family have been doing. Most of this is pulled from my personal journal and is just a bunch of writing! But if you are curious about our weekend, here you go!!

Thursday Jake called me and told me a guy at his work had these marketing tickets for the Rock Bands Live concert. It was so amazing! The opener was the group called The Cab and we were like wtf? Who are these guys? They were pretty ok.

Then it was The Plain White T's. I love them and they did so many songs from their new cd. Which, we ended up buying off iTunes because it's so damn good. So....they did do our favorite songs, Hey There Delilah and Hate and then off their new cd they did Big Bad World, 1,2,3,4, and Natural Disaster. They did some others, but of course I can't remember now.

Then it was Dashboard Confessional, which again another band I just love. Ok I loved all three of the big name ones....So these guys were my favorites of the night. They put on such an awesome show! They did Hands Down, Vindicated (of course!), Widow's Peak, Thick As Theives, Stolen and I think they did Rooftops and Invitations, but I can't remember. Then they did the coolest thing....they brought out The Cab guys and they all played Pink's "So What" together!!! Before they started playing it he was saying, "You know how you get a song stuck in your head and you just want to listed to it from 9am-9pm and then only way to get it out is just to sing it?" So then they played it!! That is one of my current fav songs right now, the kids know all the words because I listen to it so much, and its even my ring tone right now. Anyways, they were freaking amazing and I just can't even tell you how awesome they just WERE....you know? Like they just loved being there, and I was just blown away.

So then it was Panic at the Disco. I was actually pretty bummed with them a bit. I love their music, but they were kinda boring. Or, maybe I was just so damn tired, it was only about 10:30 but I was wiped! So after they played Nine in the Afternoon and I Write Sins Not Tragedies, we left. It was a way fun night and was so fun for Jake and I to have a night out together.

So Bodyworlds was so incredible. DON'T READ ANYMORE IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH!!! They didn't allow any photography there. I was worried about how the kids would take it, but everything was done so tastefully that you didn't realize you were looking at an actual cadaver. They do this process called Plastination so all the parts are there and they removed some sections of muscle so you could look right into the organs, etc. Go check out the website I linked, it is so amazing.

The most interesting part was the fetal development. All of the fetuses from this area were retrieved before 1920 and were babies that couldn't have been saved. I was really glad to know that, instead of them being abortion babies or something. They had these little tubes that had the embryos (? Feteuses?) in them and at 12 weeks it was the size of a peanut (or thereabouts) but you could clearly see its toes and fingers and the umbilical cord. Then they had cases with the fetuses from like 15 weeks up to 36 weeks. But they looked like they were sleeping they way they were so it wasn't weird or gross. It was so incredible, I just can't even tell you. To see how fragile the human body is, and to so how truly freaking awesome we are is just...wow...I take for granted the miracle of life, but looking at those fetuses and then at my own kids and to know I created them and nourished them and supported them...it's just again wow...just no words, but its such an emotion that I can't believe how precious life is.

I'm just in awe right now of how we are made and how different we all are. They even had an area that they showed an artificial heart valve and a pacemaker. Jake's Mom has both of those. As a child she had Rhuematic Fever, so when Jake was a kid she had those things done. So we are showing them to the kids and explaining how they work to save people and keep them alive. Which that blew me away too, just all of the advances of medicine and how far we have come, yet how far we still can go.

Then they had a camel. YES A FREAKING CAMEL!! That was awesome. Something that really was good, but was crazy were the lungs they displayed. They had a healthy lung set and then lungs of a smoker. The smokers lungs were black, like severly black. I'm so glad neither Jake or I smoke, but it makes me worry about those that I know that do, and my family members that do. They even had lungs that were affected by emphysema. I never really knew much about that disease, but what it does is it destroys the lung sacs so it leaves empty sacs in the lungs. That was just crazy seeing these empty pockets, it looked all crispy in those parts and well I can't think of the words to describe it, but it was awful. Both the kids have always known how bad smoking was for them and I think this will help remind them when they are older.

So, this was such an awesome experience, I know I'll never forget it and I'll never forget how priceless life is, and how my kids really are little miracles. We couldn't take pics in there, but I took a few outside. Once Blogger isn't being idiotic I'll load those pics up.

Afterwards we went to The Cheesecake Factory. Let me say, I wasn't really impressed. The last couple times I wanted to go there the wait was 1+ long so I was really happy that we got right in. First, the way they did the seating was asinine. They have some booths and tables, but in the center of the restuarant they had this long strip of a bench with little tables and chairs on the other side. Um...hello...McDonalds? Yeah, that's what it reminded me of. So this guy sitting next to us kept hitting me or elbowing me because it was so cramped. Then, and this is a big one, they didn't have a kids menu!! Yes, they didn't have a kids menu!!!!! Plus the menu is freaking huge because of all their stupid advertising in the middle. And the prices are pretty high too. So Jake and I were like, um ok this better just be a place for the two of us. No kids menu and what they do have is pretty expensive. So he decides on a Kobe Burger (kobe is a type of meat...not named after the ball player, lol), I get a Renee's Special that had a ceasar salad, turkey sandwich and soup, and we got Gwynie a grilled cheese and Brady a side of Mac N Cheese. So the kids food was ok, but my ceasar salad was way over garlicked (is that a word?). It was so garlicky (I think I like making up words!) that my mouth was on fire so I barely touched it. The bread on my turkey sandwich was hard as a rock so I had to break it apart to eat it. Then Jake's burger, which he requested medium well, was practically mooing. He didn't realize it till a few bites in and lost his appetite. They asked if he wanted anything else, but he really didn't so they just credited that for us. So yeah, don't think I'll be going back there anytime soon!

Sunday we went to Lagoon for Frightmares...you can check out all the pics in my slideshow!

CARD and an Update

Ok, if you didn't know, tomorrow is my youngest sister Shae's birthday! It's her big 21, so I made a pretty cool card (if I do say so myself!) so you need to go check it out!

Here is her card! Now the problem is mailing it! I have this genetic aversion to the Post Office...thanks Mom!

And in other family related news...

• The kids are off track for a few weeks...wooo?
• We are going to Body Worlds on Saturday (sadly no cameras allowed!)
• And on Sunday going to Lagoon for Frightmares (weather permitting)
• Buying costumes somewhere in that mix
• Putting off getting pumpkins until next weekend...
• Got a Halloween package from Mom...will take pics this week of the kids in their shirts!
  

Update!

I can never seem to go to bed at a decent hour on Sunday nights...too true tonight as well. So since I can't sleep, I'm updating!

It's been reeeeaaaalllllly cold here! Friday it stared to get chilly and they forecasted it to snow Saturday night. So Saturday afternoon we decided we better get the kids' new winter coats! These are what we ended up with after 4 stores!

Gwynie's coat is so cute on her! It's a long style that is cinched at the waist. It has this awesome hot pink lining and a furry hood. She loves the hood, but I'm sure she'll have static-y (? is that even a word?) hair forever!

Cute cute!!

And here is Brady! Of course he got a blue one! He loves his coat because it's blue and has so many pockets in it!

After buying coats we took the kids for haircuts. Gwynie has been driving me crazy asking to get bangs...I really liked her haircut but gave in to this shorter, choppier version. It works, but I can't wait to see what it looks like when I actually style it.

She was so serious, lol. This is the side view, this is a little more choppy looking than I wanted, but I figure in a couple weeks it will be blended in pretty well. The other side isn't even trimmed up like this so I'll have to see how it looks later and maybe get it trimmed up to match. She likes it so that's all that matters!

Brady just needed a trim, but he still wanted a picture. His hair grows so fast! Nothin special, no gel or anything today, just plain clean hair!

Somehow Gwynie got Brady to give her a foot rub and a massage tonight!

So we made her give him one too!

Friday night was Brady's very first sleepover! His friend from daycare isn't in his same class, but they see each other at the playground and at daycare everyday. When Jake picked them up from school Friday the boys told him what they wanted for dinner. Apparently they thought it up at recess. They decided on ravioli's, spinach, and fruit! Taylor cleared his spinach, but Brady and Gwynie ate just enough to get the Mom and Dad approval that they were done. They had a blast!

This was about 5 or 6 tonight. The snow really was coming down! Glad we bought their coats yesterday!

U of U Game!

Last month I asked Jake to see about getting us tickets to a U of U Football game. He called me on a Wednesday and told me he had good news and bad news. He asked what I wanted to hear first. I opted for the bad news, (I always ask for the bad first) and he said he couldn't get all of us tickets for the Saturday (the 27th) game. So I said what was the good news? He told me that he had a guy at work that got him two sideline tickets and he and Brady were going. Of course I was a little bummed, but I was so excited for him and Brady to go! Turns out I had a stamp party to go to that day so it worked out ok afterall!

We bought Brady a jersey at Fanz and Jake a polo and visor. Brady was so excited!

They did some tailgating with Jake's work buddy.

At the tailgating lot Brady met Swoop the team mascot.

And then they got to Rice Eccles Stadium and watched the team warm up.

They were watching the team warm up and one of the Weber State Cheerleaders gave Brady a foam claw. Sean Smith kept pointing to Jake like "What's up a U fan with a Weber claw?" and then came over to chat with them. Jake got a pic of Brady and Sean after that.

Brady in the South End Zone.

Brady with the cheerleaders who thought he was so cute! What a ladies man!

Jake's work friend John that got them the passes, his daughter, Brady and coach Ron McBride who used to be the U coach, now he coaches Weber.

Not sure who these two are, but Brady got a pic with them! Everyone kept telling Jake what a cute/cool kid Brady is. They all commented on his big brown eyes and his cool spikey hair!

After the game! Brady was given an ACTUAL game ball! It has the U logo on it and everything! Posing in the End Zone!