Pumpkin Carving & House Decorating

Our house at night - Trying to top last year's 3rd place finish in the decorating contest. They still haven't announced the winners of this year's contest yet...totally lame! I wanted to take the boys on a drive to see all the winners, but I'm guessing that most people will take their decorations down tomorrow :(

The day time look

I finally carved one of my foam pumpkins this year...this is supposed to be the Joker from the latest Batman video game (not that I know anything about gaming lol, but I thought he looked sufficiently creepy!).

Mitch & Sawyer starting to carve our thickest pumpkin EVER. Seriously, this thing was over 3" thick in some places!

Sawyer carefully using the pumpkin carving saw to cut the top off his pumpkin. He had so much fun drawing his own design (which was supposed to be a spider) and then just randomly carving the hell out of this little pumpkin.

A couple of our quickly carved pumpkins from the first night of carving. Sadly, I didn't get an entire group shot of all the pumpkins when they were finished :( I learned my lesson this year - gone are my days of carving intricate designs for hours while sipping a glass of wine...welcome to the world of ten minute carving with preschoolers! Two and three-year-olds require instant results!

Mitch carving a spider into the side of a pumpkin on night #2. His handy trick for carving the thicker pumpkins...use a drywall saw!

This kiddo really didn't want anything to do with carving stinky pumpkins. He was much more content watching baseball and playing the matching game on his Fisher Price camera :)

Trunk or Treat BUST

[Since I have only five minutes to blog before picking up the kids from school, I'm literally stealing this entire verbage - with a few personal and relevant edits - directly from Holly's blog...hope you don't mind, Hols! XOXO]

We had such a great time at last year's Trunk or Treat, that we thought, hey, let's go again this year, but to the bigger one. Sounds like an awesome idea, right? WRONG!!!! Well, I will say this, the kids had a good time and that's all that matters.

This year's Trunk or Treat was put on by the Granite Bay Bayside church which is the MEGA MEGA church with like 4000-6000 members. I guess in the past their Trunk or Treats have been held in their parking lot and have done well so they decided to move it to the All American Speedway in Roseville. It sounded like fun since it was being held on the actual racetrack (and it was pretty cool to get to walk around the actual speedway track, I might add!).

Parking wasn't too bad once we got past the incredibly long line on the street (and thanks to Jessi and Erik who opened up a spot for us to cut in to at the front of the line since we had been waiting about 20 minutes while barely moving in stopped traffic!). Now we knew that a ton of people were going to be there, but not like this. There were just MASSES of people. My biggest concern of course was holding onto the kids since there were soooo many people. Luckily, they stayed close to us for most of the time.

I think the hardest part for everyone was waiting in line for the candy, but they all did really well for the most part. Instead of moving in one direction through the Trunk or Treat line, for some reason people were going in both directions which made it extremely difficult to navigate the kids in. There were TONS of big kids pushing in front of all the little kids, and it got to be too much after awhile - Sawyer wanted nothing to do with Trunk or Treating after about five or six cars, so Mitch took him to play a few games for awhile while Sutton and I hit up a few more cars. He came back with a carabiner that he had won as a prize - seems that the prizes were either a carabiner or a bible. Now, I understand that there will likely be religious prizes at a church event, which is completely fine, but really...a bible? I mean, he's three. He can't even read. Can he at least have a Noah's Ark coloring book, a WWJD bracelet or even an "Our God is Awesome" pencil?!?

It was definitely not the best planning on the church's part. This was not even organized chaos, it was just unorganized and chaotic. We made it through almost one side of the track and then called it a night. All the food, bounce houses, and games were in the middle field, but even those were packed with people and the lines were just as long. I feel really bad since I had convinced my sister to go to the big event with us, but as long as the kids had a good time dressing up and getting whatever candy they got, I guess that's what matters. We will definitely go back to Trunk or Treat again next year, but only to the SMALL Bayside Church branch one. Learned my lesson here that bigger is not better! Oh well!


Hattie (Yoda), Sutton (bumblebee), me and Sawyer (fireman) ready to fill up our treat bags


Sutton saying "Dis is NOT candy!" after he got an "Always wear your bike helmet" slip of paper from one of the booths. Nice.

Stella looked adorable in her fairy costume, but she wasn't all that excited to be there either lol. I think she was pretty overwhelmed with all those people.

See what I mean? This was at the very start of the event.

At least Holly and I managed to get in our mandatory self portrait at the event ;)

There were still tons of people coming in as we were leaving. It took us over an hour to trunk or treat at just a few cars. The boys both had about twenty pieces of candy in their bags when we left, so I guess we probably hit about fifteen cars, twenty tops (accounting for the fact that they both ate a couple of Now-N-Laters on the way to the car) :)

Hey, at least we got a lollipop, right? That's the best prize of all for these guys!

Sawyer-Mommy Morning

After weeks of relentless pestering frequent persuasive and persistent requests, I finally gave in this morning and let Sawyer empty an entire package of cotton fiberfill stuffing all over my bedroom floor. He's been dying to roll around in it, sqiuish it and throw it around like confetti, but I keep telling him "absolutely not" because I didn't want to end up getting stuck cleaning up the mess. But, since Sutton was spending this morning with my mom, I figured why not indulge him for once since I rarely have only one kiddo to clean up after (besides, with any luck, this guy might actually help me clean up a large portion of his mess).

I think it was even more fun than he thought it was going to be.

The best part...he cleaned up 90% of the mess all by himself :)

Then it was time to head off to a special Friday fundraiser event at his preschool - a Trike-a-Thon to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. It had been a foggy morning, but the sun broke through right as we started cycling around the school parking lot.

Sawyer and his buddy Josh

It was organized chaos at best, but it was fantastic!

Traffic jams were definitely an issue...

...but that didn't stop him from having a great time riding bikes with all his school friends!

Who Is That Big Boy...

...on the big kid bike? Amazing! He just hopped on and took off...leaving me to wonder who stole my baby away and sent this big kid to take his place.

By the way, at the end (for those of you who aren't fluent in Sutton-speak), he's saying "Ow! I'm stuck, I'm stuck, Mommy, I'm stuck!" Looks like he could still use a little practice in the getting-off-the-bike part :)

Puddle Jumping

We took advantage of the break in the storm yesterday to go seek out the perfect puddles for stomping. It was so quiet and peaceful on the walking trails, and it was nice to be reminded of this little slice of rural farm life lying right behind our new suburban development. Honestly, sometimes I forget it's even hidden back there, but it always calms me down and makes me appreciate all the simple and wonderful things in my life...obviously I need to get out there more often! The trail provided some perfect puddles for us, and the boys had fun splashing in them until we were all soaking wet and ready for dinner.

It looked like so much fun that I had to get in on the action too...I've never been happier that I impulsively bought myself those 75% off clearance rainboots at Target a couple of years ago!

Our last stop was a quick visit to one of the ponds to watch the birds and check out the amazing cloud reflections before heading home for dinner.

Conversations With Sawyer

It's so incredibly dark and stormy here today. We're catching what's left of Super Typhoon Melor after it hit Japan last week, and boy, it's still a doozy of a storm - tons and tons of rain along with heavy sustained 30 mph winds w/ gusts of up to 50 mph. The interstate is flooded (much like my backyard!), and people in a large part of the Sacramento area have been without power for over six hours now. Fortunately we haven't lost power...yet...but the lights have been flickering off and on all day long.

I picked up Sawyer from school, but since Sutton was still napping at 3:30, Mitch is going to pick him up later. I always love these little snippets of the day where I get to spend some one-on-one time with my boys. Sawyer & I were enjoying an afterschool snack when this conversation left me laughing my head off:

Me: "Sawyer, I need to run upstairs and switch the laundry for a minute. Are you going to be okay watching Rescue Rangers down here by yourself or do you want to come upstairs with me?"

Saw: "I'm just going to stay here, Mom. I'll be fine. [dramatic breath and pause] If you want to go ahead and clean up my room while you're up there, that would be just fine too."

Ha ha ha...nice try, kiddo! That mess is alllllll yours! Three-year-olds seriously crack me up.

Pumpkin-Apple-Streusel Muffins

I have to admit, the pumpkin-apple muffins that we bought at Bishop's today were the best muffins I've ever eaten. So much so that I was left with a ridiculous craving for more, more, more muffins. Dozens, at least. But since I'm not actually crazy enough to turn back around and drive back to the farm for more (though it would only take about 20 minutes!), I decided to whip up a batch of my own.

I think that with some farm-fresh apples (and not my Safeway-fresh ones) and some real canned pumpkin (all I had in the cupboard to use was canned pumpkin pie mix) this recipe would be off-the-charts good. For now, I'm going to give it a 9.0, mostly because Bishop's spoiled us this morning. I'm pretty sure you're still going to find this one amazingly moist and delicious though :)

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup applesauce
2 cups finely chopped peeled apples

TOPPING:
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter or margarine

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. Combine eggs, pumpkin and applesauce; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in apples. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full.

For topping, combine sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs; sprinkle over each muffin. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until muffins test done.


Apple-Pumpkin Heaven...Yummm.

Bishop's Pumpkin Farm

It was a beautiful day today, perfect for a trip to the pumpkin farm! We met up with Gigi, Granddad, Jessi, Erik & Stella for a day full of Fall family fun. Click HERE to see a slideshow of dozens more pictures from the farm (I'm still having fun playing with my new Pentax K2000 DSLR camera, so I was on photo-overkill mode today!). We came home with a bunch of new pumpkins, and now we need to start working on our exterior Halloween decorations for the community decorating contest. We're hoping to top last year's third place finish with a bigger prize this year!

Also, if you want a sneak peak at a few of the professional photos from Kari & Joe's wedding, click HERE.

Kari & Joe's Wedding

Congratulations to my sister, Kari, and her new hubby Joe! The wedding was absolutely beautiful, and my parent's yard was gorgeous all lit up by thousands of twinkle lights and over 150 candles - there were even submersible purple lights in their waterfall! I didn't get many pictures from the actual wedding since I was so busy running around, being a bridesmaid and helping out wherever I was needed, but here are a few highlights that we captured...






The bridesmaids & the bride: Krista, Jessica, me & Kari

My niece, Stella, at the rehearsal dinner...testing out the aisle and the archway :)