Pumpkin Patch Overload!!!

Hey! Look what I found under the front passenger seat of my car! Hello camera!!! (It pays to vacuum out the car after a road trip! Lots of fun surprises.) And I think I took a total of 5 pictures the whole time we were in California. Go me.



The only time we'll ever get Ella on The Matterhorn:


Standing in Line:

There you go.

No one can accuse us of avoiding Halloween. We have officially had our fill of the pumpkin patch. There are 9 pumpkins residing in our 860 square food apartment. Here's some pics from our last trip (really kids, that's the LAST TIME we go this year. REALLY.) We took all the kids in the corn maze. It was better than our first corn maze attempt, on the field trip with Ella's class. That time it took us over 35 minutes to get through (which is better than the kindergartners, who had to be rescued when they didn't come out after 90 minutes... Isn't it fun being able to pinpoint the EXACT moment you've psychologically scarred your child?) It was also better than when Jaime took Gretchen & her son a few weeks ago, and half way through the maze Gretchen started screaming, "I don't want this corn maze! I want a DIFFERENT CORN MAZE!!!"



Good thing she's cute.



Even when she makes this face:



Ella left her vampire cape in Jaime's car, so she was a witch last night for the Trunk Or Treat (which is when all the cars in the parking lot hand out candy to the kids instead of going door to door). But here's Gretchen in all her Garden Gnome Glory.



There were only about 20 cars at the Trunk or Treat, so the rest of the time was spent in the back of the Party Van with John John. And apparently the best way to ensure a peaceful playdate is to give each child a bag of candy to eat.


For Ella's class I went in & helped decorate the pumpkin for the PUMPKIN DECORATING CONTEST. But they haven't announced the winner. We totally deserve the prize though, right? The kids all contributed, either dabbing on the black paint or cutting up black felt to glue on the spider legs. Oh for cute.


Gretchen got in on the pumpkin decorating action. I gave her a marker and she went to town on her baby pumpkin patch pumpkins. Look at how cute this little face is!



And here's some more friends, drawn on the back....



And she had me stick in these eyes and she drew the nose & mouth. OH FOR CUTE, GRETCHEN!!! (Ella painted that amazing witch pumpkin with the cop 'stash. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the mouth, but I prefer to think of it as a cop 'stash.)


And Grandpa Dennis asked me for a picture of our wedding, so I thought I'd throw this in too. Remember this? Yeah, I barely do. That was a long time ago. It's on a NEGATIVE. Remember those?



Nothing much else happening here. Ella's completed level one on her Star Wars game (so her video game skillz have now surpassed mine). Gretchen only shows an interest in potty training when she's in bed and supposed to be going to sleep, or in a public restroom. What's going on with you?

It Can Never Be Easy....

Hello Dear Friends And Family!!!

How y'all doin? I can't find my camera, so you'll have to use your imagination while I tell you some stuff.

Pretend you're looking at the girls in their Halloween Costumes. Ella is a vampire and Gretchen is a Lawn Gnome. And yes, they both look fantastic. But Ella has a big scratch across her nose! And under her nose! And on her chin! Why??? Oh that's because within the first few waking hours of our trip to California last weekend she FELL OFF A TRICYCLE AND HAD TO GET FIVE STITCHES. Poor Uncle Aaron felt so bad (it being their tricycle and their park). (Uncle Aaron! It's not your fault!) So that was a nice introduction to the weekend. (How do you fall off a tricycle and need 5 stitches? You go as fast as you can down a hill with no brakes except your red cowgirl boots, panic, and pull the handlebars in an futile attempt to stop.)

Now pretend you're looking at us at the family BBQ on Saturday night. (You'll really have to pretend because I didn't take any pictures. I was too busy eating delicious sweet-potato fries dipped in fantastic BBQ sauce. Oh my word. Drool.)

Here's an invisible picture of Ella holding her Pillow Pet Puppy. Does anyone you know and love watch Saturday Morning TV? I'm not sure my girls are even watching the crappy cartoons. They focus purely on THE AWESOME COMMERCIALS. Ella has been asking for a Pillow Pet for MOOOOOOOOOOONTHS. And now her dream has come true! Look at that smile on her face! Thanks Aunt B & Uncle Aaron! Also on their list of "Must Haves" is:
Shoes Under!
Sketchers! (For Gretchen)
Moon Sand (NOOOOOOOOO. Never. Absolutely NOT!)

Now pretend we're meeting up with the Grandparents Stott and Cousins for a fun pizza party. Which is cut short when Ella falls AGAIN and busts open the cut on her hand. After drowning their hotel room in ear piercing shrieks while I washed and re-bandaged it, we headed home to get some rest before our trip to the Magical Kingdom. And possibly bang our heads on the wall in frustration.

Now here's the obligatory million shots of us at Disneyland. Oh! Look how much fun we're having! Nothing like looking at other people's vacation photos, right? Whoooeeeee!

We really did have a fun time at Disneyland. And it's all thanks to Anita the Super Mother In Law. She make about 30 baby blankets to get us all free tickets. (We "contributed". I think I sewed the border on one. I know, I'm super helpful like that.) It was Anita's first time, and she got to go with all her grandkids. And about 50,000 other-people's-grandkids (who knew October would be so busy!?!?) The girls got to drive the Autopia cars TWICE, so it was a good day for them. And Gretchen joined to conga line during the parade. Good times. Maybe next time we can keep all the kids out of the ER (Britton, how's your head dude? We were worried about you!)

And just because it's cute and I don't want to forget, here's two cute things the girls did.

Ella wants to know if ancestors that are boys are called "An-brothers". Get it? "AnSisters" and "AnBrothers"? Awwwwww. (This came after the discussion that she is a 14th generation descendant of William Bradford, first governor of the colonies. She got a little pilgrim doll from Nana Joy that she'd gotten on a trip with Grandma JoEllen.)

Gretchen now says, "I hurt my feelings!" whenever she's upset. Except it's more like this, "I HURT MY FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELINGS!!!!!!!" (said with huge crocodile tears and huge mouth. Also, if she can look in the mirror while she cries it's an added bonus...)

That's what we've been up to. What about you?

6 Years Older and Wiser Too

Let's start this post off right. With a fabulous picture of Gretchen Working It. The church has a multi-purpose room with a stage on it (because that makes perfect sense, right?) We have a playdate there every few weeks. They kids spent about an hour dancing. With no music. Next time we're bringing costumes & seeing if we can hook up the AV system. DANCE PARTAY!!!!



Remember how last post I was complaining how much stuff I had to do? Yeah. I wasn't kidding. I'm finally starting to wrap up the big projects (the biggest one was delivered last night to their FTP site at about 11:45 pm. WOO HOOO!!!!!!) And it's not just work keeping us busy, oh no! We also had a SUPER FUN BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION!!! Congratulations bestowed upon my wonderful, smart, amazing child. To honor the special day we:

-Brought special rainbow cupcakes to 1st grade topped with gummy bears....



-Went to the pet store and got a replacement fish. (A navy blue Beta named "Dorothy"...)



-And met Krista, Dan & Amber for a dinner of Very Fancy Hamburgers (notice that they stuck us far away from all the other patrons. What tipped them off that we might be a little crazy???) (Ella's been wanting to patronize the new hamburger place in town since they opened a year ago. They have fake palm trees outside. She was so happy to have her dreams come true.) (You'll notice that Gretchen was indeed wearing a tiger suit to the pet store, and then meta-morphed into a butterfly princess for dinner...)



(Nothing creepy about this picture, right?)


Remember how our dear friend Jaime is the Queen of all hookups? She came through again. Free dinner at Claim Jumper!!! (Seriously, you all need a Jaime.) ICE CREAM SUNDAES!!!!



It's now officially Autumn. We had a ton of crazy lightning and hail storms.



We hosted preschool for "D" day. We didn't talk about WWII at all. Instead we talked about dinosaurs, doctors, donuts, dancing, and dogs.

(Midway through "D" day)
ME: Today we're learning about the letter "D"! "D" makes the "duh-duh" sound. Gretchen, what letter are we learning about today?
GRETCHEN: R!!!!
ME: No! We're learning about the letter "D"! What sound does it make?
GRETCHEN: SSSS-ssssss! "D"!!!!
ME: No! "D" makes the "duh-duh" sound.
GRETCHEN: NO!
(Clearly she knows something we don't....)


And finally, today was the annual Primary Presentation at church. All the kids did a program of songs and talks for Sacrament Meeting. Here's MOST of Ella's (we ran out of memory on the camera!) Enjoy!



xoxo