Carving Pumpkins

I was really (really, really) hoping to have a relaxing, slow pace weekend, just because I've had a crazy few weeks and felt like I needed a little down time at home. So far, I think we're doing a pretty good job at accomplishing that. Although, our idea of relaxing and uneventful is probably drastically different from your typical person, or... someone without two 2 year olds running around the house. There was actually a Halloween party tonight that we thought about going to, but earlier in the week when Andrew asked me to make a decision on whether we were going to go or not (because we would have to line up a babysitter, do the whole costume thing, etc...) I was having a busy day at work, had not slept the previous 2 nights and had extreme back spasms to point that it hurt to breath; truth be told, I just thought a quiet* (again, a relative term) night at home with the kids, in pajamas, going to bed early sounded absolutely wonderful.
We carved the kids pumpkins tonight. I think holidays are so much more fun when you have little kids around. Especially Halloween. This is a really fun age also, because they are really starting to understand the concept of things - and it's especially hilarious (and SO cute) to listen to them explain it to one another.

These are the pumpkins they each picked out at the pumpkin patch a few weekends ago... but we decided to hold off on carving them until closer to Halloween (from a 'we didn't have time anyway, even if we wanted to' perspective and, if you do it too soon and you have a few warms days, Yuck. You are then left with a pumpkin that has shriveled up features. And that's not cute at all.

We gave them each a marker to design their pumpkins face.... (Washable markers - which wound up really coming in handy considering what they had drawn would have been pretty much impossible for Andrew to carve.)

So they had fun drawing on their pumpkins, and then once they were all emptied out and cleaned up they told me what kind of face they wanted and I drew the faces for daddy to cut. Drew wanted a ghost and Emma wanted a vampire. Let me tell you, those little pumpkins are not easy to work with. First of all, they are pretty thick to cut through but it was difficult for me to actually fit 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth on such a small pumpkin. Luckily Drew's 'ghost' only required eyes and a mouth. So that was good.

(See what I mean about the scribbles - it would not have been the easiest to have to follow for carving....)

 Emma doing some supervising when Daddy was cutting out the face on her pumpkin. If he angled it a different way for cutting and she couldn't see what he was cutting, she definitely let it be known that she HAD to see the face as he was cutting it.

Drew's turn!

And.... Drumroll... our finished product!

(Not a great picture at all - - we had all of the lights off in the kitchen to light up the pumpkins and check them out and my camera freaked out and didn't know what to do because I didn't want to use the flash.) But whatever, you get the general idea. A ghost, and a vampire. Sort of.....

 We moved the pumpkins outside and Drew wanted to sit in a picture with them =)

(Actually, I think he was stalling because he didn't want to go back inside. He is not usually my picture boy. I have to sneak up on him to snap pictures otherwise he doesn't allow it.)

Drew caught a cold earlier this week and we spent a few days trying to keep him comfortable and get him better. It was the congestion, runny nose, scratchy cough, etc... So he was pretty much miserable. Honey acts as a natural cough syrup, so we were using that and a little bit of Tylenol and the vaporizer at night while he was sleeping. He's doing MUCH better now, it was a quick one. But of course he had to share the love with his sister. She came down with it last night, and she does not hesitate to express how unhappy she is if she doesn't feel well. So now I'm working on getting her all better.

Earlier today she was watching a movie in her room and I found her asleep on the floor. It was only a few hours after she had woken up this morning, and she napped for quite a while.

This is who I have sleeping next to me at the moment. Cutie pie.

Halloween weekend last year we were all hit with the worst stomach flu any of us have ever had in our entire lives. So I will gladly take this cold over that any day.

Goodnight... (I think I'm going  to join my little sleeping beauty and get some rest myself.)

Sunday Funday: Football, Family Dinner & Playing in the leaves

I'm trying to do a little catching up here. It hasn't been too easy since making a promise to myself to really try to limit the time on my computer and/or phone while the kids are awake. And.... since it usually (sadly) happens to turn out that when the kids fall asleep, I fall asleep, that puts a little bit more of a limit on the time I have to get pictures uploaded and the blog updated. But it's ok - I am trying to focus more on being in the moment, than trying to capture the moment in a picture. It's more fun that way. I also want to have as many pictures for my kids as my mom took of us while we were growing up. So, I'll find a balance. I think it's fun to look back at old pictures... My mom was really good at taking pictures (getting them developed... which seems so ancient) and keeping them all organized in albums. God help me if that was still the case, I would have zero pictures of my kids. It's much easier uploading them onto the computer and keeping them there until the day I've been talking about since they were born, when I will actually have time do something with them. When Em & Drew were born, my mother in law stayed with us for a few weeks and she absolutely insisted on me getting everything updated in their baby books that I would want in there from that crazy week after they were born because I would never have time to again, and she was definitely right about that. Since then I have been throwing things into the book (between the front cover and the first page) - to make sure I save it, but again, waiting for that day when I actually have time to update them.
For me, this seems to be the easiest way of keeping an 'up to date' journal of our activities and the highlight pictures for the week or month. There are companies that will transform your blog into a memory book, so that may just be the way to go.
Ok, I will stop rambling.
These pics are from last weekend - - We had a family weekend (my aunt & uncle were in town) we did the pumpkin patch, and had a big family dinner Sunday, the kids played around in my parents yard and jumped around in the fallen leaves and of course, football.
Andrew is in charge of the kids clothes for Sundays during football season.One football Sunday last year I forgot, and I was definitely questioned about why they were not wearing their Bears gear. As Drew would say 'Ticago Bears.'

The Bears Boys

(Now that I'm looking at this, I had NO business being in pictures that day. Yuck.)

Peg & Emma - Emma was most likely cooking her something at her little kitchen. That is one of her favorite things to do these days. The kitchen has become a semi-permanent addition to my parents family room... Very classy. (And it is also home to several of Drew's trucks, cars and trains.) But, anything goes for those two kiddos.

Drew & Peg hanging out.

I love this next one:

He's such a sweet boy, when he wants to be.

He is either a rough and tough little boy, or a big snuggle bug. Depends on his mood. But I love the snuggle boy. I definitely take advantage of those times... which is usually when he is way too tired to be anything else!

Emma and Drew spent a lot of time running around my parents front yard, chasing the dogs around.

Drew, being a boy.

They can just run around together forever... and never get tired, and it never gets old.

And what's a big family dinner without cake?!

Miss Emma, probably bossing someone around... =)

Uncle John & Andrew

Em & Peg

I liked this one of the girls... but to be fair to John (Since I'm not quite sure what he's doing here) - here's another one:

Emma already has a fake smile... Can you tell?

My Little Bakers: Halloween Cookies

I've been falling a little behind on the blog... I have a few things back logged that I want to get on here.
So, I'll start with this one...
I thought it would be a fun idea to make Halloween cookies with the kids, so I got all of the ingredients, cookie cutters shaped like pumpkins, bats and ghosts - and of course the fun Halloween sprinkles. They love making cookies anyway, so I thought this would just add a fun twist to it.

(Despite my efforts to keep it as 'clean' of an activity as possible, we made a HUGE mess.) Any time loose flour is involved, it's just a disaster. (which was needed to get the dough the right consistency and non-sticky for the cutters)

Andrew is not too fond of messy activities, which is one of the reasons we did this while he wasn't home, but when I decided to give him fair warning before he came home, he was totally fine with it. Surprised me! I thought he may have been responding to an earlier text of mine or something?

And THEN, it was decorating time!

I gave them each a lid from the sprinkles shakers full of sprinkles, and they began one sprinkle at a time, but they both wound up just dumping a mound of sprinkles onto their cookies. So thankfully they only had a controlled amount!

Here's their finished product - (After we attempted to spread the sprinkles out a little bit)

Once they were bored with it, I was left to finish decorating about 20 more cookies.... (While they were sleeping)

Tuckered out little Baker.

All in all, it was a success - and we ate lots of cookies over the course of the weekend!

'Shades of Autumn': Pumpkins, Pony Rides & Playing on the Farm

We went to the Pumpkin Patch last weekend. We wound up going to the same one we went to last year. It has a lot for the kids to do, and they had fun so we figured we would stick with that one. It is on a farm in northern IL and the pumpkin patch & all of it's activities is called 'Shades of Autumn.' They had a blast - but it could not have been any more windy, which made it feel much colder than it actually was. My aunt was in town, so she came with us, my sister (aunt ChaCha) came, and my mom (Mimi.) It was a full group! My dad was on a golf trip for the weekend.. so he wasn't able to join us.
They have these huge bins full of corn kernels that you can jump around in. Seriously, it's probably at least 18 inches deep with kernels. (Last year, I was finding corn kernels in the washer and dryer (and in shoes and pockets) for days. This year really didn't end up being all that different. They continue to turn up in the most random places.

They had a blast on this little ride -

I love Drew's face in this picture - he was laughing SO hard!

We went on a hay ride, which takes you out to the pumpkin fields, with thousands of pumpkins that you pick off the vine.

Drew was loving the tractor and it's big tires. (He has a thing for tires. He takes all of the tiny little tires off of his toy cars and puts them back on. Or not.... I usually find little tires around the house.)

Emma found her pumpkin! She was absolutely certain that this was her pumpkin - from the second she saw it. I'm not sure what it was, but she was very attached to this thing.

The boys picking out a pumpkin.

They visited the animals in the petting zoo, went on pony rides, sat on some big tractors, and ended the day sharing a warm funnel cake.

I also bought some of the jelly and honey made on the farm - which is really yummy.

A glimpse of this time last year:

Clearly the temperature was slightly different from our trip this year!!

(They were so hot their little faces were bright red!)

And... Some of the pictures from jumping in the corn kernel bin last year:

We haven't carved the pumpkins yet.... So that's coming soon!!