Pumpkin Festival

This year we actually managed to go to the Cedar City Pumpkin Festival for the first time. It was awesome! The weather suddenly improved and for $5 each, the kids got pumpkins and lots of games and crafts to do.

 Luke painted his pumpkin with smiley faces all over.

 Madelyn's "Girl jack-o-lantern"

 They both climbed the rock wall

 There's Luke's balloon that flew away :/

 

There were a ton of games, but since the lines were long we didn't get to all of them.

 A balloon sword and flower

 So glad that our fall weather returned! It was in the 40s for a couple of days last week...

Mark helped put together their Home Depot projects after we got home.

Fun day!

Luke is 4!

I can't believe Luke is 4!! My handsome little guy had a birthday two days ago, and it was completely nuts. Tiring, hectic, stressful, you name it! But I think he still had fun.

He climbed into my bed that morning (like he always does) and it happened to be exactly 6:32 am, which is the time he was born! Aww. It was early, though. I wish I could've gotten back to sleep.

We spent the whole morning having to go visiting teaching and run errands, and while we were out, we went to the store to get balloons. Turns out that a bouquet is $9 bucks (helium shortage), so no thanks. But we bought a package of polka dot balloons, and a little mylar balloon on a stick, which blew away as soon as we got outside and I had to chase it clear across the street.

It was blowing wind gusts up to 50mph all day, lucky us. Cedar City weather......

Luke also had us get some pumpkins and squash and helped me pick some out for our porch. I guess I can't deny that it's fall now.

Then I realized I still needed to bake his cake, and had to hurry and do it before Madelyn came home. (She likes to "help"....need I say more.)

 Madelyn gets home early on Wednesdays, so she came home and started playing...this is about 2 seconds before Luke kicked a balloon at her and she flew into a raging tantrum and got sent to her room, followed by being forced to do her homework, followed by rushing her back to the school so she could sign up for art club. She has been a royal grouch lately, is all I'm going to say.

 Then I took the kids to the Aquatic Center. Madelyn always has to go down the hall to see the picture of her and her cousin Nathan on the wall every time we go.

I tell you what, I must REALLY love Luke to take him to the pool, because I have to just follow him around the whole time to make sure he doesn't drown and it is so tiring and boring. This is the first time I've taken the kids without Mark there.

  

 We stayed at the pool for a couple of hours, got churros, and picked up some pizza on the way home. Madelyn was supposed to go to gymnastics, but we couldn't face driving out for one more thing! So we crashed and watched Avatar while waiting for Mark to get home.

Then I had to make the buttercream chocolate frosting. THEN we finally had cake and presents. By then it was nearly 9:00 pm.

Mark was on call and had been working since about 7:45 am till 8:00 pm, did I mention??? Great day!

 Luke finally got his chocolate cake he'd been talking about for days, and all sorts of candles to blow out!

 Madelyn doesn't like not being the center of attention.

Luke opened his first present and gasped, "It's a BOX!" and then, "Green bubbles!" haha.

 

Really, it was a vintage Fisher Price camper set (just like I had when I was a kid) that I got from ebay and it is so cute I was squealing with glee. He loved it!

He is obsessed with Mo Willems' Pigeon books.

He got a monster hooded towel, and I got a cat one for Madelyn so she could join in on the fun.

 The next day, he got some workbooks and BOB books (beginning reader series) and even though they are at a kindergarten/1st grade level, he has been reading them to me! I know he's actually reading, not just reciting memorized stories, because he's never seen these before. I'm so proud of him.

 The next day, we took cupcakes and these goody bags to preschool, and they were a big hit. Cute, huh? I got the bags at Walmart ages ago and the set of washi tape is from the Kid Made Modern line at Target.

 ♥♥♥♥

 "Mama, that's my root beer." (Swipes my cup and chugs it...)

 Root beer mustache.

 Thank heavens we have about 3 months until the next family birthday. But wait, that means it will also be Christmas!!!

CHRISTMAS.

I think I'll go lie down now.

What's up lately

Not much going on here, but I thought I'd post.

Madelyn's 3rd grade picture came back already, isn't she a doll? That is some shiny hair.

She made these cards for her grandparents with the little prints.

She's going to join the school art club this week. She is constantly drawing and coloring and doodling on everything. (I still doodle during church. I think she inherited this.)

She put up an art show in her room.

Most of her school work gets embellished.

We were watching The Big Bang Theory (she loves that show) and they were playing Pictionary, so she wanted to play with me. Her last picture was of Sheldon Cooper at his desk. LOL.

 

 This is a Halloween drawing she did the other day. Isn't it great?! It has moon craters, flying eyeballs, a skeleton, a witch making brew in the house, a witch and black cat on a broom, zombies saying "Braaaaaainsss!" and a vampire, turning into a bat, saying "Bloooood!"

 And here she is paging through the Oriental Trading Halloween catalog, circling everything she wants with pen, just like I used to do! Best catalog of the year. I love Halloween.

She smashed her finger in the bathroom door at school 10 days ago. The top left picture is from that day. It's gotten progressively darker and more colorful. It was really painful at first and she told us that she wouldn't be able to go to school or gymnastics for about 6 weeks...(she went to both three days later, since it happened on a Friday.) Oh the drama!

Luke's been keeping busy. Here he is practicing sign language letters. He likes to squint with one eye while he does things.

He is having a birthday in two days! I can't believe it! I'll post more on him then.

 

He added another Beatles shirt to his collection (he has three, I have zero right now). My friend Annie got it for him at Target, because everyone in high school knew me as The Beatlemaniac, along with my friend Jaki.

By the way, if you've never seen Yellow Submarine, it is a really trippy animated feature. Jaki and I used to watch it during our all nighter "bashes" we used to have.

Speaking of Jaki!

I got to go to her stepson's mission homecoming a couple weeks ago! (Her 2nd husband has grown kids and it's sort of weird.) She and I have been friends since the 4th grade, and were completely inseparable through middle school and high school. We don't see each other very often, even though she just lives in St. George. She's a 3rd grade school teacher and also is in a band with her husband. She plays half a dozen instruments and is so talented.

 

It was so good to be among the Richins clan, because they really feel like family to me. It was fun seeing her dad and her brothers Bart and Warrin again. Her sister Jen lives in Mississippi with 7 kids and we were all missing their mom Phyllis, who passed away from cancer several years ago.

Mark's latest: he is antsy to build a new and improved computer for us and has been buying parts. He got a fancy new case so far, but then he got distracted by his arcade again and started buying parts for that.

He finally redid the control panel and has been working hard at rewiring it and making the buttons light up and all sorts of other stuff. I will do a full post on it when it's all done.

Last week, he also decided to replace a wheel bearing on his car. He's had to do that several times over the years, but hopefully now it will run smoothly long enough for us to pay off my car so then he can get a new one.

So that about sums it up for now...I'm going to be spending tomorrow getting ready for Luke's birthday. He keeps talking about "apple cake" and "chocolate cake" and I have no idea what he means by apple cake, so we're going for chocolate. Can't argue with that.