Pumpkin Carving

Last night we carved pumpkins. It's been a few years since we've actually carved them. We've decorated them with foam stickers that make monsters faces and with the plastic push in pieces. Andrew was the most excited about the pumpkins because he doesn't ever remember doing it.

We got the tops cut off, then it was time to dig for guts!

This is the inside of Andrew's pumpkin (he said it looked like it had ribs inside).


They look so thrilled. The pumpkins had been sitting outside for almost 2 days, so they were a might chilly inside.


Aaron had to show Abbie that it was okay to stick her hand inside.


She got the hand of it pretty quickly.






I love the look of disgust on Ashley's face!


After the pumpkins were all gutted, it was time to carve!




The finished artwork:



"Ouch! Ew, boogers! Ouch! Boogers!" Yes, the pumpkin is eating her hand and she does have a finger in it's nose too.


We had lots of fun carving pumpkins! It was fun to do something together as a family without the fighting/complaining. Tonight we roast pumpkin seeds!!

Crazy Hair Day

This week is Red Ribbon Week at the school. Each day the kids are encouraged to take part in this by wearing red, wearing their clothes backwards, etc. The most fun day is crazy hair day, which is today. We were at the store last night and Andrew picked out some red hair spray to use.

Austin got his hair done first. The first spray revealed that the red hair spray was really more on the pinkish side. I was originally going to do stripes on the side of his head, but that didn't work out. So, he ended up with this look.




Andrew's hair is a bit longer than Austin's, so I was thinking I could spike it and spray it. Then Andrew said he only wanted half his hair sticking up. Great idea!




I think this hairdo perfectly represents his dual personality. He can be a cute, sweet boy when he wants, but more often than not, he's a little devil who drives me crazy. You can see it in his eyes, can't ya?! He only smiled because I told him not to.

CurlyQ

I love Abbie's curly, blonde hair. She's has this one huge curl on the back that I finally took a picture of. It's so boingy!

I just love this goofy, little girl!

Ashley's Birthday

Ashley turned 14 on July 17. Crazy! When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she said she wanted minion cupcakes. I thought that was a funny request from her, but was excited to make them (we had found some online a few weeks before her birthday).

They turned out really cute!

She got a bumblebee pillow pet from Aunt Vicky. It was her favorite present (of course, it's exactly what she asked for).

We had the family over for dinner and cupcakes. It's always fun when we all get together! The adults get to visit and the cousins have a blast playing together.

Next year, Ashley gets her driving permit. YIKES!!

Aaron's Birthday

Aaron turned 35 on May 19. I got a bunch of cake pans from my mom, so I thought I'd try making him a frog cake. Aaron thought that was a good idea, but only if I made a red velvet cake. So, that's what I did.

My mom always made cool cakes when we were a kid. I didn't realize then how much work went into them. My hand was so sore by the time I was done making all the little green stars that covered the frog part of the cake. I definately need more practice if I decide to try something like this again. The cake turned out ok, but I forgot to save some white frosting for the eyes. Oh well.


Aaron was happy with it and that's all that matters. The kids loved that it was red when we cut into it (cuz it looked like blood).

Sara took some goofy kid pictures while I was cutting up the cake.

All Aaron wanted for his birthday was a set of golf clubs. He even told his family he just wanted money so he could buy some.

He got some balls and tees and finally some golf clubs from Sara! They weren't what he was hoping for, but the kids thought they were cool.

I had bought golf clubs a couple weeks before this and has left them at Sara's. She brought them over the night of his party and left them in her trunk. After the presents were opened and the kids were playing, I told Aaron he needed to get a small bookshelf out of Sara's trunk that she was giving to us. He grudgingly went outside to get them and got a surprise!

Now he was finally smiling! Hopefully he'll be able to find some time to play. We're going to be pretty busy fixing up the house the next couple of months.