Pumpkin Day

A week before Halloween is always Pumpkin Day. The boys look forward to it with great excitement, naturally. This year the boys all decided to paint, again. I really missed having a lit up pumpkin last year so I decided to carve mine. I'm glad I did. Nathaniel noticed that we had some pumpkin outlines and he thought maybe he could try one next year. I hope so, that way I won't be the only carver.


Brigham was sick last year so I was happy to see him get into it this year. I tried to get him to smile but apparently smiling and looking at the camera at the same time was an impossibility that day.


Jonathan decorated his pumpkin with the planets. A favorite motif of his.


Nathaniel always does a good job, and as I mentioned, he's excited to try carving a design next year.


Jaaromy's pumpkin provides a window into his soul with his usual scarred and angry face.


I carved a traditional pumpkin face with triangle eyes and toothy grin. But I decided to outline it will some black paint and I'm glad I did, I think it looks cool.


The boys were very proud of their work. I didn't finish my pumpkin until after Brigham was in bed because I carved mine and also because I was helping everyone else with their pumpkin. So that's why Brigham isn't in the picture.


So after all the boys were in bed I went back out to experiment with my camera. I'm really happy with these pictures I took. I have a small tripod that I mounted my camera on and then left the shutter open for 15 seconds. I think it looks awesome.


So, painting is fun and easy and all, but I don't think it compares to carving and lighting up pumpkins. I don't think I can ever go back.

Another New Holiday Tradition

So for several holidays the last year or so I've been buying pre-cut sugar cookies from Macey's that come with frosting pouches and sprinkles. The boys have had fun doing them and it makes a great family activity. Unfortunately, they're not super tasty. So, last Easter I tried a form pan that had Easter shapes and I just put cookie dough into it. They were a little too thick, so that wasn't going to work either. I like to use the Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix and after that last attempt I noticed that they had separate instructions for cut out cookies. So, this Halloween I bought some Halloween cookie cutters and made some cookies using the cut out recipe. They turned out great.

I bought some vanilla frosting and divided a small amount into three bowls and colored them Halloween-ish colors. The frosting was really good. I also got some frosting cans in black and white for borders and things. That frosting wasn't very good, but it wasn't used as much as the other frosting so it was okay.


The boys would decorate a cookie and then immediately eat it. So after one or two cookies they started to wander away. Once they realized that they didn't have to eat them all now and that we could save them for later they got into it and had fun.


I think they turned out great and they were so tasty!

The Pumpkin Patch

So this is the second year in a row that we have gone to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. Already I can't believe that we ever did it any other way. It's such a fun tradition. It's also easy, quick, and low key which makes it even better. There's no planning involved other than Step 1: Go to pumpkin patch. Step 2: Pick out pumpkins. That's the kind of simplicity that I love.

We went a little later in the month than I would have liked but that's okay, it all worked out.


We managed to get a wheel barrow from another departing family. I let Brigham hop in since he wasn't feeling well. Seeing him getting rolled around reminded me of getting rides in my dad's wheel barrow growing up. Good times!


Nathaniel found his pumpkin first. He liked that it had some green marks on it. He thought he could make something scary with it when we paint them.


Jonathan picked a huge pumpkin. He had trouble carrying it and we had to help him. I was a little worried that one wrong move would shatter his hopes and dreams of a happy halloween.


I love this picture of everyone running down the lane trying to find the perfect pumpkin for Jaaromy and Brigham. I had already found my perfect pumpkin but I never think to get a picture of myself.


Here is Jaaromy's perfect pumpkin. It's even bigger than Jonathan's!


Here is Brigham's perfect pumpkin. Bigger than Nathaniel's but smaller than everyone else's. We couldn't get him to look at the camera. Like I mentioned, he isn't feeling well. Although he wasn't as down as he looks in this picture. Also, this is the closest I am to being in a picture. Woo Hoo!


Going to the pumpkin patch is becoming one of our favorite traditions. It's a great way to spend an Autumn evening.


Here are our awesome pumpkins all lined up in front of our house. Also pictured: my new spooky cat stake since my witch was stolen last year. I love it.


The pumpkin patch also had these adorable little pumpkins and I was too weak to resist them. The larger pumpkin is Jonathan's. He brought it home from school earlier that week.

Apparently, I love pumpkins. I didn't take a picture, but my house was all decorated with pumpkins on the outside. Other than my spooky cat stake, all pumpkins. They're just so cute!

Jonathan gets stapled

So a little over a month ago there was an incident at our house. We were going through our usual bedtime ritual which, of course, involves Jaaromy chasing Jonathan and Brigham down the hallway to me in Brigham's room several times. Things were going fine until on one of the trips down the hall I hear a horrible smack and Jonathan yell "OW! OW!". So when he reached me in Brigham's room I gave him a hug to help him feel better and I felt something wet on my had but didn't really look closely. Jaaromy came in to make sure he was okay and took a look at his head and said "Oh my Gosh, OH MY GOSH!" He had smacked his head on a wall corner and now blood was dripping all down the side of his head. We cleaned him up and by then the bleeding had stopped but we could tell that it was too deep to just leave alone so we decided to take him to the emergency room.

Unfortunately, Nathaniel was still at Kyuki Do and in our usual routine we put Jonathan and Brigham to bed first and then Jaaromy picks up Nathaniel. So we had to adjust a little. Jaaromy took Jonathan to the emergency room and I took Brigham with me to pick up Nathaniel. Brigham seemed fine with it but when we got home he went right up to bed to pick up where we left off in our routine.

Nathaniel was upset when I told him about Jonathan. He totally imagined the worst and his imagination was allowed to continue to get worse because Jaaromy and Jonathan were gone for a long time. I think they were gone for at least an hour and a half.

Jaaromy called me when they were finishing up and told me that they were going to put in two staples to hold it together. Weird. I told Nathaniel and he thought that sounded terrible and was really nervous to see them when Jonathan got home.


This is what he looked like when he got home. He was in really good spirits and he loved his bandage. In fact he wanted to wear it to bed and he even wore it to the Primary activity the next day. He wore it the day after that too, until bath time. I managed to convince him to leave it off until after church the next day. By then the novelty had worn off and he didn't really wear it again. Whew!

It was weird seeing the staples coming out of his head. Nathaniel had built it up in his mind to something so terrible that he couldn't even look at Jonathan and we had to force him to look at the staples to show him that it wasn't as bad as he had feared. He was happy to discover that it wasn't as bad as he thought and he was able to look at Jonathan again.

I'm a little sorry I didn't take a picture but at the time it seemed a little too gross. He wore the staples for a week and then Jaaromy took him back to the ER to have them removed. It's healing up pretty well although I'm sure he'll always have a scar.

He took it so well. He's a brave boy, my Jonathan.

Random Moments

I totally forgot to post last week. With Halloween coming I have to make sure I'm all caught up. I will try and be better.

I just have some random pictures to share that I thought were kind of cool.


I was experimenting with my camera again and I was trying to get a long exposure picture of the moon and use a flashlight to light up the trees. It didn't work, the flashlight just wasn't bright enough. But I did manage to catch a car driving by.

Since I had my camera out, I caught some of Brigham's exploits.



I'm not sure Jaaromy would approve of what's being done to his sunglasses.


Jonathan and I decided to spell Brigham's name with blocks. Unfortunately, it was bedtime, but the creative spirit must be free.


Another picture of the moon. It came up so big and yellow that night that I couldn't resist.


I don't think I need to explain why I wanted to post this picture. I love my boys! And my boys love Wendy's.

Thanks for watching!

Jared did not come marching home, having never left in the first place.

So my brother Jared is not going to be deployed to Iraq so what was supposed to be his farewell party turned into his sticking around party. Jared has thrown Labor Day parties before and had a Slip'n'Slide. Since this was the same time of year, he kept with that tradition.


Jaaromy gave in to.....something and decided to take a trip down the slide despite not being dressed for it.


His clothes kept him from slipping as advertised and on his first head-first run he barely made it halfway down.


He pushed himself to the limit on his next try and got better results.


Good fun was had by all. I actually grabbed these pictures from the video. I think they capture the moment pretty well. Unfortunately, you can't hear my hysterical laughter in the pictures. I guess you'll just have to imagine it.

Later in the afternoon Brigham got bold and wanted to step in the water. Aunt Kristy was nice enough to help him.


After he got comfortable, he decided to take it to the next level:


Thanks Kristy!

If you're wondering why we didn't come prepared for a water party, notice that it's not sunny. It wasn't terribly warm and it even rained a little bit. I didn't think anyone would want to get in the water. Apparently I underestimated a little bit.

Everyone had a good time at the party. Sydney, as usual, had Nathaniel wrapped around her little finger.



We're so glad that Jared will be able to stick around. It looks like he'll be able to put up my Christmas lights after all.

Trying new things

Shopko has these wall stickers that you can use to decorate...well, walls and I had considered getting one of them for quite some time. I had spent at least five minutes each of the last several trips to Shopko staring at them and wondering if I had the courage to try something so bold. Well, bold for me anyway.

One day they were on sale(they had been on sale in the past but I still chickened out) and I decided to just do it. Even then, they sat in my living room unopened for a few more weeks. I recruited Heather and her keen sense of style to help me make the plunge. With her help we put them all up in my living room.

Here are some examples:

This one is my favorite. I've always wanted to have something in this space.


Likewise, these also filled empty space nicely.


This one,


and this one, however, I'm not as sure about. The space didn't really need to be filled but, well, I had them so I figured I'd use them. They were too short to use behind the couch.

We'll see how they go. A couple of them aren't sticking super great and the tall one behind the couch seems determined to tilt to the right so maybe this will be short lived anyway. Either way, it's fun to try something new. Thanks Heather!

This exercise in Home Decorating helped me try something else new. Jaaromy and I went to an astrophotography class a few weeks ago and I now have a renewed interest in experimenting with my camera. I wanted to make a panorama and stitch the pictures together. My camera has a stitch-assist function but I've never used it.

Until now...


There you have it. A panorama of all my wall stickers so you can get the feel of just how awesome they are.

It was a lot of fun to make even though I had no idea what I was doing with the photo stitching software. I definitely want to try it again.

Hill Aerospace Museum

I didn't know we had such an awesome museum so close to us. Jaaromy and I went to the Museum of Flight in Seattle and it's collection is comparable to this one. So much to see. The same friend who inspired us to go to the Copper Mine earlier in the summer also inspired us to go to this museum. I'm so glad we did.


We used this trip as an incentive for the boys to clean their rooms. Unfortunately, they still took a long time and so we didn't have as much time as I would have liked to go see everything.


There are several huge planes outside to look at. It was hot, but super cool. Don't worry, we didn't loose Brigham, he's just standing next to me.


There are several hangars filled with all kinds of aircraft. There's also some sort of hands-on type kids area but since it was close to closing time, it was already closed.


We kept leaving Jaaromy behind because he wanted to read about all the planes. The boys were anxious because they were already starting to close off the furthest hangars.

I know I'm totally geeking out on this but it really was fun and interesting and we will definitely have to go back. Plus, it's FREE! Although they recommend a donation. I put in a dollar because that was all I had. If/when we go back I will donate more. So worth it.

First Day of School

I think I was ready for school to start this year. Thankfully, Nathaniel was ready for school to start too. Long summer vacations make it easier to want to go back to the regular school schedule. I know I was counting down the days when I could go grocery shopping all by myself again.


Nathaniel is in 6th grade this year! He had a good summer and I think this will be a good year to prepare him for Junior High.


Jonathan is in 2nd grade this year. He seemed excited to go back to school too.


I'm so exited for them to start school. Since neither I or Jaaromy would be able to walk with them to school to make sure everyone knew where to go, I took them down to the school the night before to show Nathaniel where to drop Jonathan off and pick him up. I'm glad I did.


This will be the last year they are at the same school together, ever. That has always been my biggest disappointment with their age difference. But, I'm painfully aware that these matters are out of my hands. We will all enjoy it while we can.

I had always looked forward to this year as the one year that all my boys would be at the same school, but that didn't happen either.


Brigham started Kindergarten a week later at another school in the district. I really really really wanted him in the afternoon class but it just wasn't possible. Luckily, we've been really diligent in getting him in bed on time and so it hasn't been as hard as I feared. It's still not my favorite, but he seems to be taking to it just fine and that helps a lot.


As in the previous two years he takes the bus. He's getting so big I don't even have to help him up the stairs anymore. I'm really excited to see how he does in school. I was really worried about him over the summer because he just didn't seem to be improving at all. So I'm looking forward to seeing some progress.

I'm so excited to see the boys learning and growing, I'm sure they'll have a great year.

The Copper Mind

I've wanted to take the boys to see the Copper Mine for a long time and, thanks to a blog post of a friend of mine, I finally decided to just do it.

Nathaniel had already been to the mine with the scouts so we decided to go while he was at Discovery Gateway with a friend. Jonathan was super excited to go and kept talking about going to the "Copper Mind".


Yep, I'm an awesome photographer. It's hard to imagine just how big those trucks are, but the tire helps a little.


We told Jonathan to bring some quarters from his piggy bank so he'd be able to look through the telescopes. He brought five quarters and so he looked...


and looked...


and looked. He also let the rest of us look a little bit too.


We went inside the visitor's center too and looked at all the displays.



We even watched a movie telling us all about how awesome copper is. It was fun and interesting, or "funducation" as I like to call it.

I remember hearing about how the mine was so big you could see it from space. That sounds pretty big, right? Well, now that we have Google Earth, that's not so impressive.


This is our house "from space" and you can even see the big pile of yard waste in our back yard "from space". So yeah, the mine is big, but saying you can see it from space just doesn't mean what it used to.

Either way, I'm glad we finally went and I think we just might have to go back sometime, if for no other reason than it only cost us $5 to get in. Good times!