Pumpkinning

Happy Halloween!

Let’s start off with some scary things:

Halloween art! The classic q-tip skeleton. Ours are dancing. [I make Jay write his name on all of our projects. He’s getting there]

My post-lunch nightmare, almost a daily occurrence.

Ok, now on to the pumpkin-y stuff!

It was pouring rain and cold on Saturday when we wanted to get our pumpkins and apples, so this year we didn’t do any cute pumpkin patch or cider squeezing. We went to the Prosser Farmer’s Market and scored 50 pounds of Fuji apples for $15, and got pumpkins for $1 each. Then we swung by Bill’s for a quick bag of hot pumpkin donuts, which we ate in the car on the way home.

Normally we all carve our pumpkins together for family home evening, but Jeff had parent teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday (late nights). SO Jay, Rose, and I carved them up last night without Daddy. I definitely missed his helping hands.

I thought my food-finger-painting children would LOVE getting their hands all pumpkin slimy. But alas, I ended up having to scoop out and carve 3 pumpkins. It was hard!

We did this project in the afternoon after Rose’s nap, and we were all tired. Sadly it was kind of an ordeal this year…I’ll blame my impossible pumpkin.

My awesome warty pumpkin turned out to be made of solid wood or possibly titanium. Our kitchen knife would not even dent the thing. So I got out the hand saw.

Even the saw barely scratched the surface, but luckily it made enough of an impression for me to jab my knife through the pumpkin’s protective armor. I’m not in top form right now by any means, but this was still the toughest pumpkin I’ve ever tried to carve. My arms were all shaky and I was winded and hot when I was done. And the pumpkin face wasn’t really worth the trouble—it had to be simple because of the darn thing’s thick skull!

Mr. Warty totally deserved his unibrow.

 

Our homemade Halloween porch. We did our best.

Now we’re hoping the rain stays away for trick-or-treating tonight!

My Zen Garden

It doesn’t fit on my desk.

It’s a little bit scary how DEEPLY satisfying clean floors are to me. Especially freshly vacuumed carpet that still has the vacuum lines on it. Ahhhhhhh. Lovely. Today I swept and mopped the kitchen AND vacuumed the whole house before 10am (I clean best in my PJs). I gave the kids lunch out on the porch to prolong the clean.

It never lasts for long…

Cut, Chop, Slice…Whack

In honor of a certain upcoming spooky holiday, we’ve been wielding lots of sharp objects around here lately.

First up, haircuts! On Thursday I coerced Jay and Rose under the knife (well, scissors) with descriptions of a long, deep bath.

Rose was first. All she needed was her habitual mullet removed. A few snips in the back an she was on her way to bathtub heaven!

Next came Jay. I only have a before picture of him because I had to use the buzzer on him, and he hates it. Then I had to clean up around his ears with the scissors, and he hated it even more. He gets so scared and sweaty when I cut his hair! And he cries most of the time. He sure earned that bath!

Now, a short story: At dinner on Wednesday night, Jeff was using our cheese cutter to get Rose a piece of cheese. Well, it slipped and he sliced off half of his pinkie fingernail! I’m cringing while I type this. We swathed his damaged little finger in an Always pad and secured it with some tape. It was pretty gory. The next day I decided it was perfect timing to make our favorite Halloween cookies…

Witch fingers! Aren’t they SICK? We love them.

Last year Jay watched me make them, but this time around he was ready to pitch in.

I would not want to meet Jay’s witch.

He’s a vampire for witch’s blood (we improvised and used melted white chocolate chips with red food coloring—I’m a vampire for it too!)

We made a special witch finger without any fingernail for Jeff. He decided to replace his own damaged finger with this lovely replica.

And last but not least, THE GHOSTS! Our city does not provide a recycle pick-up. So if I want to save the planet, I have to store all of our recyclables in the garage and drive them 45 minutes in to the tri-cities. Usually that’s no big deal if I do it every month, but I haven’t managed to take our recycling in since July. So we have about 4 months’ worth of recyclables in our garage. It stresses me out every now and then. But it sure came in handy for this little craft!

My first visit to Pinterest in months and months yielded this fun little ghosty idea: Milk carton ghosts with Christmas lights shoved inside. Cutting holes in all the cartons and cramming a floppy string of lights through them sure scraped up my fingers (the sharp plastic edge and all).

Jay liked painting on the faces. The website with this craft idea had perfect, un-crushed cartons for their ghosts. Our milk jugs needed a little…perking up before they were fit to paint. The good thing about Halloween is that if something is mangled, it’s even more Halloweeny.

We put them on our front porch. During the daytime it looks like a bunch of trash, but at night…they become little ghosties! Would you believe that our 1979 house does not have a single plug outside? I had to shut the lights’ cord in our front door and run a long, UGLY orange extension cord downstairs to the nearest plug in the basement for these little guys. At least we don’t have to go outside in the cold to plug ’em in.

Oh, I have one more knife encounter for you:

On our last trip to Costco, I was pleased to find this 3 pound box of cream cheese for $5.89. Right now our other stores are selling this version of heaven for just over $2 per 8oz box! Yikes. So that’s why I was stoked about this giant cream cheese—it’s almost time for my birthday cheesecake! When I opened the box, however, I noticed that the stuff is all in one piece. A LOAF of cream cheese. Woah.

Enter: The Knife. Luckily the plastic was easy to cut through and it didn’t squish all over the place when I sliced off a hunk. And there are those convenient 8oz dotted lines to cut on. Bring on the cheesecake.

BOO

  

Second Run

Problem A: rain

Problem B: cold

Problem C: 100 lb stroller

Problem D: already sore legs

Problem E: out of shape lungs, arms, legs—ok, BODY

Solution: insanity!

BEFORE: In our warm, dry garage—happy and rarin’ to go with their makeshift waterproofing and banana bread baggie breakfast.

AFTER (20 minutes and 30 seconds later): Poor cold red noses and hands! Rose was crying because she ran out of banana bread. 

Oh, running. The things we do for you.

Kids in boxes

Jay and Rose play so well with each other [when Jay isn’t tackling or stealing toys]. I have been ambushing them with my camera all month because I think they are pretty cute when they play together. Sometimes I get to join in on the fun too. This is a jumble of home-y pictures from the last few weeks.

They have made this box-train every day for a week. They load it up with blankets and “kids” (stuffed animals), and drive to different imaginary places.

This is Jay’s landspeeder (like Luke Skywalker’s): the couch full softies. Jay loves being surrounded by soft things. He works very hard to transport his stash of kids and blankets to various locations throughout the house. It’s so funny to hear him panting and grunting to heave-ho a bundle of animals around.

Art project! I gave them some kid scissors and paper scraps and a glue stick one day.

 

That box.

Poor little sister gets stuck with her big brother’s old coat this winter. At least it has yellow inside! Kids in poofy coats are so squeezably cute.

One day during Rose’s nap, Jay and I sat at the kitchen table while I drew him a new car-town on a big piece of felt. It took 2 hours! That paper town I drew for him a few months ago finally got ripped one too many times. But it’s ok, because I like doodling. (did you notice the track?)

Two hours of Sharpie-fumes gave me a headache! Jay and Rose crawled all over the felt car-town playing with it before it was all the way dry, and Rose’s knees got stained.

Jay and Rose love “patella” sandwiches for lunch (“peanutella,” or peanut butter Nutella sandwiches). It looks like I just fed Rose pure chocolate for lunch. I only spread a very thin layer of Nutella, I promise! Rose just goes for her favorite part first, so it gets smeared onto her cheeks.

It was SUPER windy one evening so we made plastic bag kites: yarn tied to the handles of a shopping bag. I made one of these when I was in elementary school. They make running even more fun!

It was the end of a long day so Rose was feeling too tired and whimpery to keep up with speedster Jay. She ended up just handing her kite off to me and watching Jay run back and forth across the field.

Have I mentioned how convenient it is to live right behind the high school soccer field? We just go out our back gate and poof, we have a giant field to run around in!

Last Sunday night, Jay, Rose, and I went out to the Gibbons homestead with Steph and Jasen (it’s Jasen’s family’s farm). All of the kids had matching skeleton jammies from their Aunt Steph. This is a great bunch of cousins-in-law.

Don’t tell my Dad (ha), but Rose had her first 4-wheeler ride with Uncle Jasen while we were out there. Jay and Rose love riding around on the 4 wheeler! I wish I had gotten a picture (as if this post needs any more) of the way Rose  reached her arms waaaay out wide to grip the handle bars on the 4 wheeler. She looked so macho.

This morning while waiting to go on a walk, Jay got in some exercise of his own. Rose loved it.

Here’s a video of them on their “walk.” Jay cracks me up with the things he says!

Speaking of exercise, I went on my first run in 3 months yesterday! It burned. I felt like I was breathing through a straw. My stamina is down. My muscles are miniscule. But I ran 2.5 miles! Jogged may be the better word, but I didn’t stop. It wasn’t exactly enjoyable, but I still felt that relaxed satisfaction that only running brings. Look out, turkey trot! I’m going to destroy you!

     

Conclusion: kids are FUN. I have been doing lots of cleaning projects around the house, and Jay and Rose always want to help and be a part of the action. It’s so easy to get exasperated with them underfoot while I’m trying to scrub out a shower or vacuum the stairs. Everything is so interesting and fun and new to them. They remind me not to get caught up in my mountain of 3 month old housework and just take time to PLAY every day.