Pumpkin Carving

Tonight was our pumpkin carving night.  We had a small pumpkin for each of the three oldest kids.  Nate even came home from work early to join in the fun.

Step One:  Getting out the pumpkin guts.  Natalie is a hand scooper.  Kelton used a spoon, but at one point decided to try his hand.  I think I feel the same way about it as he did.

Here they are with their carved pumpkins behind them.  Have I ever mentioned that my kids are crazy?

Here's Natalie's creation.  It's Nightmare Moon.  (bonus points to anyone who actually knows who that is)  It doesn't quite look like her, but it was the best Natalie could come up with after I explained why her detailed drawing wouldn't work carved into a pumpkin.

Here's Kelton's.  We told him he could draw anything he wanted, but he wanted it to look like his Halloween costume.  More on that tomorrow...

Here's Damon's.  For a three year old, he has mad pumpkin carving skills.

A week or two ago, I gave the kids a bunch of random materials and some glue to make a picture.  I didn't help them at all.  They did a really great job.  I thought it was funny how Natalie and Kelton's ideas for their pictures and their pumpkins were about the same.

Kelton's picture. 

Natalie's picture.  (My Little Pony)

Damon's picture.  Notice all the D's he drew on the picture.  :)

And during our pumpkin carving, Arie found a Dum Dum sucker and got it open.  We let her keep it, but since she walks around everywhere, we confined her to her chair.

She couldn't decide which end she liked better.

Oh, it goes this way!  Silly girl.

Grandpa Burgess

This post is a little late in coming, but my grandpa, George Dale Burgess, passed away on September 14th, at 94 years old.  He had a stroke, and then got pneumonia and was never able to recover.  My whole family made the trip to Lehi, Utah for the funeral.  The funeral was on Saturday, the 21st.  So we left on Wednesday night after school and work and drove part way to Flagstaff.  The motel we stayed in was a Super 8 and was way better than the previous motels we've stayed at there.  We will have to remember that for future reference.  Doing that took about four hours off our trip, but we still had a lot of driving to do on Thursday.  We found a vacation rental house in the Lehi area, and stayed there with Christy, Rob, Chad and Melanie's families.  It ended up being cheaper than a hotel and much more convenient for everyone.  We spent the day on Friday with family and at the fun center we visited a few months ago when we were in Utah.  The funeral on Saturday was very nice.  It made me a little sad to see my grandma.  I can only imagine how hard it would be to be separated from someone you've spent the last 70 or so years with.  I have such great memories of visiting my grandparents.  I will miss my grandpa, but I am happy that he has been able to move on to something far better.

My Mom and Dad with all of their children.

 

My family

My grandpa was an officer in the Navy during World War II.  So he had military honors at his burial.  After we were done at the grave side, I overheard someone behind me say that everyone should experience a military burial at least once.  I would have to agree.  It was very neat experience.  You feel a sense of pride in the person who served, and also for your country.  We should have prepared the little kids for the guns though.  But I'm not sure I realized that the several men with guns about twenty yards away were going to actually fire shots.  Not real shots... but the kids didn't know that and they were plenty loud and pointed at us.  The kids were pretty scared and very hesitant to uncover their ears afterwards.

Giving the precisely folded flag to my grandma, with Aunt Deonne and Dad at her sides.

On Sunday we woke up and headed out and drove the whole way back home without stopping overnight.  It was a long, all day trip that took about 12 hours, not including stops.  But the kids were really good and it didn't end up being too bad.  It was a quick trip to Utah, but it was worth going.

Here's grandpa's obituary, though I've already mentioned some of the info in it.  I wanted it posted here so it ends up printed in my blog book.

My baby is one!

Arie's first birthday was yesterday.  It is hard to believe it's been a whole year since she was born.  It even makes me a little bit sad.  Sometimes you just want your kids to stay little!

Arie had fun ripping some of the paper off her presents.  I just love this cute little face.

We gave Arie a Fisher Price Ballapalooza and a sippy cup.  (The toy wasn't something we planned on buying, but when I found that $60 toy in the store on clearance for $25, I couldn't leave it there.  Plus, we had no idea what to get for Arie's birthday, so we figured this would work.)  Arie got a really cute outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Burgess and a bouncing elephant toy from Grandma and Grandpa Webb.  And she liked her cards from her grandparents.  I had to rescue them so she wouldn't destroy them.

After Arie opened her presents, she figured she would try to get away with things that she's not allowed to do on a normal day.  Unfortunately, it didn't last for long.  Also, notice the open cupboard... Arie will not leave my cupboards, and their contents, alone.  As soon as Nate gets a spare minute, the baby locks are coming out. 

Of all the presents, I think this one is Arie's favorite.  Should have known that babies are not too hard to impress.  She thinks this sippy cup idea is the coolest thing ever.  If you need to take it away, you have to pry it out of her hands, which results in a lot of angry screaming.

Later in the day, after the older kids got home from school, we all headed out to the park to play.  Poor Arie doesn't get to play outside very often because, #1--she can't walk yet and we live in the land of dirt and rocks, and #2--she still puts everything in her mouth, including dirt and rocks.  So she enjoyed being outside on her birthday.  She loved the baby swing, once she realized it wasn't scary. 

She was not really interested in being restrained for a picture with her sister and brothers.

Here's a little sidetrack from the birthday action.   I've known this before, but in going through my pictures from the day, I noticed that I have a compulsive photo bomber.

Sometimes he is a little more sneaky...

And sometimes he is very much... well... not.  And yes, this was supposed to be a picture of Arie.  Do you see her?

I had no idea what to do for Arie's cake, and since I couldn't ask Arie what she wanted, I asked the other kids.  They decided that a butterfly would be good and I thought it was a great idea.  It turned out cute, though I wasn't overly excited about it.  The butterfly was cute, but I don't really like how I decorated it.  I should have used different colors.  I don't really like yellow.  So why did I use so much yellow?  I have no idea. 

Here's the birthday girl with her cake.  You can see from this picture that the cake looks really big.  It looked big in person too.  Shockingly, it is made from one cake mix in a 9X13 pan, cut into pieces. 

I call this the "what are you doing to my cake, dad?!" picture.  Kind of a fun side note... this same "1" candle has been put on each of our kids first birthday cakes.

This is while we were singing "Happy Birthday" to her.  We sang it throughout the day, and she loved it every time.  And she would always open her mouth, like in this picture.  I think she wanted to sing along, but didn't know how.

Instead of attempting to get the one year old to blow out the candle, we let the other kids do it for her.

Mom and Dad with Arie.  She is mad though, because I had already given her that piece of cake you see in my hand, and she had tasted the frosting.  But then I took it away because Nate wanted to video her eating it.  She was not happy.  Honestly, I can't blame her.  I would have been pretty mad myself.

Messy baby!  But she loved it.

And then she got a bath.  She loves baths.  Her favorite thing to do is sit by the running water and methodically try to grab the stream of water with her hands, though she knows she can't actually grab it.  She enjoys trying and it's cute to watch.  This happy little girl is very much loved by everyone in our family.  Happy birthday to our sweet one year old!