PUMPKINS

Each year, Eric and the girls spend a half-day carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds. It is my job to clean up the mess at the end!

First they have to get the icky stuff out of the pumpkin.

Then scoop up the seeds to roast in the oven.

After the pumpkin is cleaned out, the pattern is applied. (You didn't think my engineer husband would cut into the pumpkin without a design, did you??)

Then the carving began . . .

Apparently the carving wasn't as fun as the rest of the job, so the girls decided to lay under the table and read the newspaper upside down. It must have been a funny news day :)

Voila! The finished products -- a orange cat pumpkin for Ella and a white ghost pumpkin for Avery.

P.S. We all agreed that the seeds from the white pumpkin tasted much better than the seeds from the orange pumpkin -- FYI!

BACK TO WORK

This is a picture of Eric seeing Ella off to school -- and Ella seeing Daddy off to work. Yes, that's right -- he's back to work -- yay! On Tuesday & Wednesday, Eric got the "okay" from both his surgeon and the GM doctor to resume normal activity. He has been out on disability since his back surgery on Sept. 23. Yesterday he left the house at 7:30 am to go to the doctor and I didn't hear from him again until 5:30 when he said he would be late getting home! Both girls went looking for him as soon as they got home from school and they were disappointed when I reminded them that Daddy isn't home anymore.

After a long day and an evening at community group, his back was hurting. But an hour's rest on the couch, followed by a good night's sleep was all that he needed. We are thanking God today for healing Eric's back and for a good transition back to work!

GLASS MUSEUM

Yesterday, the girls and I took a day trip with our good friends, Sheri & Maria. We went to the Glass Museum and had a ball. The girls started by drawing pictures to submit for the afternoon's Hot Glass Show. The selected drawing would be used as a pattern for a glass sculpture, to be created live later in the day.

We went to several cool demonstrations: "The Magic of Glass", "Glassbreaking Demo" and the "Flameworking Demo". This last one was especially cool as we watched a glass worker form molten glass into a tiny animal -- very intricate and amazing to watch her skill. We also got to experience many of the interactive exhibits around the museum, as well as some of the beautiful glasswork on display.

We rounded out the day at the Hot Glass Show, supposedly to see if one of the girls' drawings was selected to be sculpted. Unfortunately, the showtime we attended was a demo of making a clear, twisted-glass bowl, not the drawing sculpture. Still cool, but a little disappointing for the girls. I guess we will find out if they won when we get a $20 shipping bill to send their completed sculpture to our home!

Click on this link to see all of our fun pictures from the Glass Museum

P.S. The Glass Museum is FREE for kids and teenagers!

2008 PIG RACE

This is one of my favorite events to attend at Ella's school -- the pig race! It is so weird and funny -- a perfect event to appeal to our family :) Above you see a picture of Ella and Anna patiently waiting for the festivities to begin!

This is how it works: Each class (Pre-6th) has a wind-up pig. They can dress the pig, name the pig, practice with the pig. There are two "heats". The winner of each heat gets to go to the semi-finals. There is a grand prize and separate prizes for things like "Best Dressed", "Most Likely to Become Bacon", "Most Likely to Be the Next Presidential Candidate", etc.

There was some controversy this year, as the 2nd grade pig was attached to a remote control car. Of course they flew across the finish line before the other pigs did their first wiggle. The crowd was wildly shouting "Cheaters! Cheaters!" but the 2nd grade protested that there were no rules (there weren't!) I'm still not sure if they were disqualified . . . And of course Mr. Stuart's pig always wins his heat . . . hmmmm.

At the end, everyone gets icecream (right before lunch).

It's great fun for all and I love attending every year. Our little friend, Luke, had the perfect t-shirt:

PUMPKIN FARM

One of our favorite family traditions is our annual visit to one of the area's many choices for fun pumpkin farms. Okay, they're not really called "pumpkin farms" but that is what we always call them :) Since the girls and I visited one of the big farms towards the end of summer, we decided to go more low-key this year and visit a smaller (i.e. FREE!) farm that has just a few activities and, of course, pumpkins! This also worked well for Eric, as he is still on limited activity with his back recovery.

This is the second time we have visited this farm, and we were excited to go into the giant tee pees that we remember from our visit several years ago. The tee pees are very dark inside, lit only by the dozens of jack-o-lanterns (in the tallest tee pee) and funny skeletons & ghosts (in the smaller tee pee). Avery found a kid-size tunnel through the tee pees and she and Ella had a blast running through the tunnel while I "scared" them at openings throughout the tunnel.

We also really enjoyed the delicious donuts (pumpkin, chocolate, cinnamon & glazed) and fresh apple cider -- yum!

They had, what we assumed, to be the usual animals for petting, but then we ran across fluffy bright yellow and neon green hens and the girls fed fawns and deer. Very fun.

Just before we left, Avery & Ella roamed through the pumpkin patch to select their pumpkins for carving this year. Avery chose a non-traditional white pumpkin and Ella chose a large orange. I'm sure you'll see pictures of our jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin seeds on a later post.

FALL HELPERS

I never look forward to Fall . . . the girls go back to school, it starts getting dark way too early, and the leaves fall, and fall, and fall, and fall . . . maybe that's why they call it "fall". I much prefer Spring which closes out the cold Winter months and promises Summer days ahead. Anyway, I've already raked at least three times and I am thankful that we got our big maple tree trimmed A LOT this year so that we will have far fewer leaves to rake. To ward off my tendency to complain at this time of year, I try to think of things for which I am thankful. So today I am giving thanks for my two Fall helpers. Since they were little they have helped me bag leaves. Now they help rake too! As long as they can jump in the leaves before we bag them, they are [mostly] joyful about helping. Another thing that I am thankful for is the wonderful fall photos that we capture each year. It really is a beautiful time to celebrate God's creation.

MOPS@

Ella was 9 months old when I first became involved in MOPS. Now she is 6 1/2 and I am no longer a MOPS mom, but a MOPS mentor. I love it! In the last 5 years, our MOPS group has evolved from one large "classic" group of 45 + women meeting at the church, to several smaller MOPS@ groups that meet in homes around town. Our group this year has 12 women and I look forward to our time together every other week. Today was a sad day, as we were saying "goodbye" to Salli. Salli, Lindsi and I have been planning this group since last winter and it has been amazing to watch friendships grow so quickly as a result of our first 3 meetings. Here is a picture of most of our group, minus a few friends who were missing today. I am thankful for MOPS and the many blessings that God has brought to me, and other women, through this ministry.

SPARKS HIKE

This is Ella's second year to participate in the Awana Sparks Hike. Ella was very independent -- hiking ahead with Mrs. P and the kids.

She loved gathering treasures from the woods (moss, acorns, fall leaves, a shiny metal piece of something -- of course her favorite thing that is not even a natural part of the woods!)

Ella loved being with all of her friends and being outside -- what a great combination.

Plus it was a perfect fall day. Thank you, God, for beautiful woods, water and sunshine!