Jack-O-Lanterns!

After Jeff got back into town, for Family Home Evening the Monday before Halloween, we carved Jack-O-Lanterns out of the pumpkins we so excitedly picked from the pumpkin patch the week or so before. Unfortunately, pictures were an afterthought of the evening, so I only got a couple of the actual carving process. But I did get plenty of the finished products.

Here's Jeff creating his masterpiece.

Can you guess what his is going to be?

Sarah's friend, Katie and her older sister Ellie came with their family to join in the fun and create their own masterpieces with us. Here is Ellie helping Sarah trace out a design for her Jack-O-Lantern. She was so excited to help, and was so nice with Sarah. She's eight, and very outgoing. She even suggested the design for my pumpkin.

Here's Alex's (Left) and Lucas's (Right)

Ellie and Katie's dad did this one. I really wanted to get a picture of it lit from the inside, but my camera sucks at night pictures. So here's the flash version. It was pretty cool. Same design as Sarah's, only skinned instead of carved. You really can see the light through it when there's a candle. I guess you'll just have to take my word for how cool it really was...

Here's mine.


Here's the finished, lit product for Lucas (top), Sarah (middle) and Alex (bottom).

Here's a closeup of Sarah's. I carved it while Sarah watched. She said her favorite wolf is the one on the right side. And mine can be the one howling at the moon. She chose the wolf design for hers. Actually, she more insisted that be what goes on her pumpkin. She's been kind of into wolves lately because of the Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess (Nintendo game)

Here's Jeff's finished product.

Did you notice the "U"? We have very enthusiastic BYU fans for neighbors. They were quite appalled that Jeff would have the audacity to carve a "U" in his pumpkin with a guy scoring an extra point after a touchdown! Of course, they'll still be friends. But Jeff's been banned from their house for any and all BYU football games...

Audrey's pumpkin got painted with neon paint pens instead of carved. Partly because there were nine big pumpkins carved that night, and partly because we needed a little something more to glow in our blacklight lit porch at night. This was the perfect solution for both.

Here it is a glowin'

It was a fun Family Home Evening night that night. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and I had about seven batches of pumpkin seeds to roast! No pictures of those, sorry. But they turned out pretty well in my opinion. I made five flavors: Salt, Pumpkin Pie, Italian, Mexican and Curry. Mmmm...

Pre-Halloween Fun

Okay. It's been a fun, busy week. Rather than post a million pictures at once, I'll recap the week over the next few blog entries. First, when Jeff was out of town for the entire week, he ordered a flower arrangement and scheduled it to be delivered midway through his trip. Here's what came to my door. It was a very thoughtful and meaningful surprise that arrived at just the right moment on a very stressful day. Who am I kidding... Every day was stressful that week! But I loved it and I really appreciate him for thinking of me while he was gone. Isn't it pretty? The nice thing is that when the flowers all die, I can keep the little pumpkin bowl. It even has a lid.

The boys have been working on potty training lately. Earlier this week, we dug out Sarah's favorite potty training movie "Elmo's Potty Time" and let them watch it at the computer...

...in their Dinosaur Underwear! They thought it was so cool.

The Sunday before Halloween, the girls got to wear their Easter dresses again. Only this time, they were more Halloween flavored. Here they are after church looking for a snack.

Audrey found her favorite Snoopy fruit snacks.

Pumpkin Patch!

It's been almost two weeks since I posted last! Wow. A lot has happened in two weeks, and an entire week of those two was my time to play "single mom." Jeff was out of town from last Saturday to yesterday afternoon. It was a sad time, indeed. We all missed him terribly, and are SO incredibly happy to have him back. And I am so incredibly less stressed out! The night before he left, we all got to visit the pumpkin patch down the street from our house. It wasn't a spectacular event. Just a large patch of pumpkins in someone's front yard (about an acre of pumpkin patch - not too small...). We had planned on visiting a larger one with activities, a corn maze, kiddie games and other festivities, but opted for the closer, smaller one because Sarah had not been feeling well for the few days before, and we wanted to make sure to be back home early enough for her to get some rest. Here are some of the fun memories from the kids' first pumpkin patch! I'll post pictures of the cool jack-o-lanterns these pumpkins will turn into once we carve them for Family Home Evening on Monday.

Pickin' out mine.

That pumpkin's as big as me!

Apparently, they all thought that when they found the one they wanted, they were supposed to sit on it!



Trying to figure out how to sit on it.

Sarah's pick.

Some other fun pics from the outing.

Sarah, What's Your Favorite Color?

This is the question Jeff asked Sarah tonight. She responded as follows:

"My favorite color is a lot of colors. I can't tell you. It's pink." Only it sounded a lot more like this: "My favorite color is a lot of colors I can't tell you it's pink." She didn't pause a millisecond between sentences. It made Jeff and I both laugh out loud. The humor of the situation was lost on poor Sarah, though. But it was definitely cute. Had we asked her a few months ago, her response would most definitely have been "Red, Blue and Green." Lately she has become quite the girly girl. She loves her pink, purple, red, white, and wearing skirts, dresses and sunday shoes practically everywhere. She's a cutie!

In other randomness for the week:

Here's Audrey trying her latest to be like her older siblings. Can you imagine where she learned this neat trick from? All the other kids get in trouble for trying to climb the stairs on the outside of the rail. But for Audrey? "Hurry! Get the camera!"


Alex decided he was going to take a "nap" the other day. He went and got his blankets and passie from his room and laid down on the floor in the kitchen. He covered himself all up and said "night night!" with a huge grin.

And here's Lucas, so graciously sharing his chair at the table with his brother. They were very accommodating of each other that day. They shared and played and got along nicely. If only every day were so pleasant...

And that's what's been going on the last week with my little kiddos! Stay tuned for "A Week In The Life..." coming Monday, October 13, 2008. (or as close to that date as possible... we'll see how diligent I am this week in keeping up with the photographs...)

I'm Famous!

Well... not really. But I did make the news on Saturday, sort of. We went to the grand opening of the Utah Transit Authority's new Pleasant View Frontrunner station on Saturday morning. Fox 13 News was there covering the event, and they asked if I wanted to talk to them. I said I would and they used clips from my interview on the news broadcast that afternoon. The story can be viewed on their website at http://www.myfoxutah.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7529300&version=5&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

If you watch closely, you'll see our entire family walking up to board the train. We took it to Ogden and back with all the kiddos. They really enjoyed seeing and riding a real train. It was fun!

Happy Birthday Jeff!

I know, it's a little late. But Jeff Turned 31 on Monday, and we had a ton of fun preparing for a Family Home Evening birthday celebration that day and I wanted to share.

After baths, it was time to get out the Halloween decorations. Sarah has
been asking for weeks when Halloween is, and Jeff kept telling her that
it would come after his birthday. So his birthday comes, we eat, sing,
have cake, and Sarah says, "Can we get out the Halloween stuff now?"
So that's what we did for Family Home Evening.






Alex and Lucas found this little witch toy that dances and sings
when you push the button on her hand. They excitedly set it in
front of them and pushed the button to watch.


Lucas wasn't quite sure what to think of it, so he hurried
away to find a better "safer" vantage point.


Then he timidly watched from a distance.

Look Who's All Grown Up!

Audrey has been leaping through her milestones in the last month. She's finally cut two teeth (bottom left, then right). She's walking all of a sudden. See, we told you she could do it! She finally decided to try it out on her own, and she's getting pretty proficient at it. She can make it down the stairs by herself. We still have yet to see how she does it because we keep finding her in the basement when the last place we saw her was upstairs in the kitchen. She's about to move into her forward facing carseat. Hooray for looking out the windows instead of at the sky!

She's sleeping in a twin bed on the floor now instead of in her crib.

And she loves it, I might add. She loves the freedom of getting up and playing with toys in the morning instead of being caged.

Here she is just waking up from a nap.

She feeds herself.

She's talking, too. She's said Mama, Papa, Dada, and lots of coos and other baby talk for a while now. But she definitely means what she says nowadays. She also grunts and groans in affirmation or disapproval just like her older brothers. She can communicate rather efficiently with her limited vocabulary. She's officially a big girl now. Of course, she's still my little baby girl. She'll always be that. But she's definitely growing up. She even enjoys playing with friends!
She's our little cutie!
Also, don't forget to check out my Impressions blog. I've posted some new ones lately. (http://ashleigh-impressions.blogspot.com)

To Whom Does This Pile Belong?

It's a big mess of hair, right? You'll never guess whose head it fell off of. Well, not "fell" so much as "was cut off" of. About a week and a half ago, I decided it was time to cut Alex's and Lucas' hair. I said something about it to Sarah around midday. She informed me that she wanted her hair cut, too. I asked her how short, and she said she wanted it short like the boys'. I said no. I told her I would trim it a little, but not cut it short like the boys'. Friday night, I did indeed trim her hair a little, then began working on Lucas' hair. I did Sarah's with scissors, and used the clippers on Lucas. Sarah climbed up on the counter where my box of "tools" was to watch me. Can you guess where this is headed? She was absolutely insistent that I cut her hair short, and since I wouldn't cut it shorter, she decided she would do it herself! Well... part of it anyway. She cut about 50 strands about six inches shorter on the right side of her head. Then another 50 strands or so a few inches behind the first set. I went to get another clipper guard out of the box, and noticed this six inch long bunch of hair lying on the counter. I FREAKED. I was NOT happy. Sarah's hair had gotten so long and was so pretty! I just wasn't ready to cut it short. But, alas, It's not MY head. Nor my hair. Sarah really REALLY wanted a short do. So I finally gave in and obliged. She LOVES it. And she does look cute. But how could she not, right? It's Sarah!

Here's her old do. (Not the best picture, but you get how long it was)

Here's her new do.