Monday's FHE

As most Mormon families did, I'm sure, we carved our pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns. It's a tradition in our home that the kids absolutely love. Truth be told, we love it too. Notice the tablecloth in the pictures. It was one I picked up years ago as a decorative touch to hide my AWFUL table. Little did I know, that it would become a tool to necessitate our tradition along. As soon as Stephen and Sebastian saw it, they immediately picked out which design they wanted to pattern their jack-o-lanterns after. Thus beginning the tradition of the tablecloth. WELL, much to our chagrin, we discovered that the tablecloth doesn't fit our new table (thank goodness our new one isn't as small as our old one). I've looked the stores over in hopes of finding a newer, larger tablecloth, but alas.....no tablecloth. We had to settle for spiderwebs. Oh well. Growing pains. LOL. ANYWAY, you can see that it was still an integral part of our carving evening. But funny how that works....only one jack-o-lantern was copied. Oh well. You can also see how our new and not necessarily improved tablecloth had it's influences on one of the large orange gourds. They are lined up in reverse order starting from the left. The olders are getting very good at doing theirs on their own. The littles still need a lot of help from Mom and Dad. All in all, it's always a fun night.










One last picture for your viewing pleasure. When Brandon cut the pumpkins open to gut them, he discovered that some of our pumpkins were going to have baby pumpkins. We've never seen this before.....

I was enlightened and now you can be too

I picked Spencer up from school today and as we were pulling away from the carpool line, I told him to hurry up and get buckled. He was trying to get his bag off his back and then his coat was stuck or something so it was taking him forever. I had already left the parking lot and has at the stop sign. I looked up and there was a cop in front of us. I said to Spencer to sit down and get buckled right now there is a cop and if you're not buckled I can get a ticket. He then asks me if a ticket will make you go to jail. I said that if you get a ticket and don't pay it, then you can go to jail. He said, if I go to jail, how will I go pee? I said, you would just use the bathroom. He said, but how will I go pee? I then said, in the toilet. He said, Oh good. OK.

He is such a nut.

Then about an hour ago he and Sterling were sitting on the couch and this was their conversation:

Sterling: It stinks.

Spencer: I farted.

Sterling: No, I farted.

Spencer: No, I did.

Sterling: We both did.

Yeah. The joys of motherhood. There ain't nothin' like it!

Life is quiet right now

I hate that I don't have anything really exciting to blog about right now, but I'm tired of seeing the same thing when I come here to check out my favorite blogs. So it's time to update.

Brandon is in Arkansas this week at the rifle range. It's good practice for next year when he's gone for three and a half months I suppose. Oh wait. I forgot. You really can't practice that. It really doesn't get easier. In fact, I think it's getting more difficult. We only had three kids when he went to Iraq for seven months. AND we lived FOUR miles from my parents. Now we have five and live no where near any family. At least it's only school and not war. That helps.

We went to Deanna Rose Farmstead again this past weekend. As always, the kids loved it and it was a lot of fun watching them enjoy it. Here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment:




Here is Brandon with a little friend that hopped over to see him:



Here are our little scholars hard at work:



Stephen can be such a DUNCE sometimes. I don't know how we deal with it:







He's such a goof sometimes. I was helping Spencer draw a ghost on his board and looked up and saw Stephen sitting there in the corner with that scowl on his face, as if someone had actually sent him there. It was really funny. He loves acting. Someone please call Hollywood for me!

Here are a few more, but I've gotta run get Spencer from school, so I'm just going to post them. Sorry, no exciting narration....

Oh, I forgot to add...

We've officially entered the large family realm. You know, the level where you start doing head counts and such. Judging by the number in our family, you would have thought we were already there. Nah. Not until our camping trip, when we left Sebastian at the campsite. We didn't even realize he wasn't with us. We were packed and headed home. Sebastian has Spencer to thank though. As we pulled out and started driving away, Spencer says "What about Sebastian?" I just look at him. He says it again and I look back to the back seat where Sebs sits and realize he's not there. Brandon looks out the side mirror and sees poor sweet(loud and obnoxious) Sebastian crying his little eyes out. You see, he had been told to go sit at the picnic table due to his loud and obnoxious behavior and apparently we appreciated the silence that came with his little time out a little too much. Sorry Sebs.

Nothing like getting back to nature

Here are some pictures of a recent camping trip we took. We drove up to Lake Jacomo and stayed a couple of nights. It was a lot of fun. The boys had a great time fishing. The only thing they caught was a bunch of moss, but apparently, that's almost as fun as catching fish. Notice in the picture of Sebastian that his moss looks just like a fish. We weren't sure if it was mossy fish or fishy moss. You decide. The birds in the picture are turkey vultures. You may have to click on the picture to make it bigger so you can actually see the birds. There were five of them and I swear they followed us the whole time. They even followed us home. I've not seen them around here before and I saw one in the back yard the day we got home. Stephen, being the "turkey" that he is, laid down in the road to see if they would think he was dead. Nice try big guy. Oh, and on a side note, you really shouldn't leave your trash out at night. APPARENTLY rodents like it.









We didn't see any bugs or snakes. I guess it was a little too cold for them. That having been said, I guess our house isn't. I was online checking my email in the living room, and this is what Seth brought me:



He picked it up by the tail and literally brought it to me. Being the wonderful mother that I am, I threw the keyboard(it's wireless so it was in my lap) causing him to drop the snake, screamed and kicked him out of the way. It was quite the sight. Thank goodness Brandon was standing right there to save the day. It was a harmless snake, but IT WAS IN OUR HOUSE AND MY ONE YEAR OLD PICKED IT UP. We of course wanted the boys to see it, so we put it on the floor in the kitchen and called them all in from outside. Sterling, being the loving brute that he is stomped on it as soon as he saw it. Needless to say, the harmless snake is most definitely harmless now.

I suppose camping and snake excitement are too much for my redheads to handle in one day. Here they are dead to the world:



Brandon fell asleep first, and when Spencer saw him lying there, I guess it was too much to pass up so he joined him. Sweet dreams boys!