Pumpkins!!

So this is the haul of pumpkins for carving fun this year! This has become an absolute must for the Halloween season at our house. John really enjoys it ( obviously it provides yet another creative outlet for him!) and so the kids have naturally followed suit. The pumpkins seem to be getting bigger every year.....

The cleaning out begins!



These are somewhat out of order(whoops) but this is John helping Cam get ready to poke out his outline.

Of course, half of the fun is just getting messy!

Kian joined in the messy fun too!

Here is Kian trying to put a picture on his pumpkin like he has seen the other kids doing and Mom is busy taking pics so she is not helping yet!
Tori showing us some pumpkin guts!

Here are the older kids punching out their patterns with dad's expert assistance!
I was lucky enough to get to "finish" removing the insides of most of the pumpkins! So now I will reveal the finished products! The kids pumpkins required adult help once they realized they had been a little ambitious in choosing their designs. They all gave it a really good effort though!


John did this one which was appropriately titled "Come Unto Me"
This was also Johns displaying the motto emblem for "Choose The Right"
This was Braxtons'(with some help!)

This was Victorias'(once again, with help!)
JJ completed his all on his own but there was some sadness when he accidentally cut out some areas that were supposed to remain intact. Not bad for doing it all on his own though!!
This was Camerons'(or Johns work, really, but Cam did pick out the pattern!
And this was Ashlees'! We never actually got around to carving Kians' pumpkin!


These are last years pumpkins I thought I would include in this post just for fun since we didn't have a blog last year to display them!





Looking forward to next year already!

Seriously???

I am going to preface this by saying that I wish these were unlikely occurrences at our house, but the truth of the matter is I was just finally so fed up that I decided I needed to take pictures for documentation. These two particular events that I have pictures for happened three days apart. I remember that JJ, Tori and Braxton went through a stage where they used to get all the boxes of wipes in the house and get on their top bunk and and pull them apart one by one and throw them to the ground below or go to the playroom where I had efficiently organized their toys into bins( cars w/cars, barbies and acc., puzzles w/ all there pieces, Etc.) and dump them all together into the middle of the room and then leave,as if that was the end of the game. Apparently it was. Annoying! It seems as though the younger group are trying their hand at this phase now and I just feel like I can not keep up. I'm not really sure what the answer is. Yes, they had to sit in time out and Yes, they had to help to clean up the mess. They even lost an opportunity to go to the Park for the second occurrence and we had a talk about what are other things that we can do if we are bored and need something to do. Cameron actually said to me when questioned about why they made that huge mess, " Well, we could not find you and so we decided to dump everything." Seriously???? For the record I was dealing with a an issue with ALL of my older children in the basement that took longer than expected. I guess it was to be expected, although I would really like to think that it is possible for them to do activities that are not destructive when left alone for 15 minutes. Is that an unrealistic expectation? O.K. at this point I am clearly rambling on about my frustrations so I will post the evidence. Unfortunately these pictures can not completely show the scope of the damage.
This is actually the second event but it posted first. The contents of the pile include,to name a few things, clean laundry( about 3 loads) dirty laundry ( yes I had to rewash some of the previously clean stuff since some of the dirty laundry was wet-enough said-?)random dishes, shoes, blankets, toys, and what you may not be able to clearly see is that an entire bag of fruit loops was thrown all over the room.

Ironically,or maybe not, I had cleaned the main level that afternoon.

Event #2 occurred in the girls bedroom just a few days before. Once again,ironically, or not, I had been doing a "mom" clean of the upstairs and was in my room finishing up when this happened. It is just not nearly as satisfying to organize bins and drawers the second time in the same day. UUUUGGGGHHHH!!

May I never have a post like this again. (Yeah, right!)

He still impresses me....

These are the latest of Johns' paintings.

It is interesting to me that it took this long for him to discover this beautiful talent of his! He's always been artistic, but his level of ability with oil painting for someone whose never done it before is pretty amazing in my opinion!

Many more to come..........

I am very behind on my blogging so I am hoping to make up for it by frequently blogging throughout the next week or so! We'll see how that goes!

Cams' Preschool ( and other happenings!)

Today Cameron joined the world of preschool. He had been very excited and had asked most every day of the 3 1/2 weeks that the older kids have been in school if it was his turn to start school yet. There had been lots of smiles and jumping and squeal's of delight from him in preparation for this event. Then today arrived. I had to wake him up this morning at 8, which was strange since he usually is awake between 6:30 and 7. I reminded him that this was the day he would get to start as he was opening his eyes. Things got very serious from that point on. " I need to get dressed now.", he says to me. So we get him dressed and then he explains that he doesn't feel like eating breakfast. I told him he needed " brain food" for preschool and that we can't go until he eats something, so he agrees to eat a banana. I wanted to get some pictures before we left and He was unable to smile very much for those as well. This preschool stuff was serious business to him, like a right of passage, placing him in the "big kids" group at home! The above picture really captures these feelings. Check out the body language!

Here is Cam entering the building, still no smiles.....

...entering the classroom without even a "Hello" to the teachers or goodbye to Kian and I( It's a good thing we were following him in!)

and sitting on the rug ready for things to get started( too bad he was the first one there!)

Now he is listening to the teacher greet him. I asked for a hug before I go and he runs at me like a football player in attack mode and just about Knocks me over! I receive a very aggressive bear hug and kiss and then it's back to business. So Funny!

And here he is right after coming out of the classroom eager to show me the paper he is to give me. Very Serious stuff!


In other news, we spent 3 days in the hospital last week with Kian. He caught a virus that went to his lungs and he was having great difficulty breathing. That was quite an adventure figuring out what to do with the kids while John was at work and I was at the hospital. We are grateful to some wonderful friends who came to the rescue (Thanks Kelly and Stacy!) Cameron even got to go to work with Dad on Thursday which he very much enjoyed!

Kian getting a breathing treatment one morning after we were home.

On Labor Day we were sitting around trying to think of a way to entertain the kids. John decided that since so many of them had been asking to paint, we should just do it, and do it BIG!

This is the kids painting in the garage. I love this picture for how much it shows. We have Ashlee in the background who has already painted on both sides of the paper and is just staring to stick her hands in the paint ( more on that to come), Cameron who is actually catching a bug on the cement, Kian is painting on the garage floor, Tori is giving out some kind of directions or command to Braxton who is paying her no attention, and JJ has a look on his face that tells you exactly what he thinks about whatever Tori is saying ( i know it is sort of hard to see when the pic is so small.)

Tori takes artwork very seriously as you can tell. She took her time and drew a beautiful , distinguishable, picture.

Braxton and Kian were very quiet most of the time and had lots of fun together.

JJ seemed to find it hard to sit even though he was enjoying himself. I love that he made himself a "palette" with all those colors, and then pretty much only used black.

And then there is Cam and Ashlee who exhibited what preschool painting is all about... hands (and feet) on messiness!!

This is about when the real fun started!

Cam about to dip his foot in Braxtons' paint.

Ashlee making hand prints.....

and footprints....

And the finished product!!! ( notice that Tori is still painting her sweet little picture despite the chaos around her!

Ashlee after the fun! We got out the hose to clean off the participants and a water fight began between John and the boys. It was a great way to finish the activity!