Halloween 2011

Luke was Mario.

Evan was Luigi.

Maiya was a frog.

Mario Bros.

Maiya did trick or treating the lazy way. She got pulled in the wagon and when she was given candy, she ate it. When she ran out of candy, she got more from the next house. There is just so much candy!

Pumpkins!

The kids really don't enjoy carving pumpkins. Luke things they smell bad. Evan says they are yucky. Maiya says, "Ewwwwww."

Daddy basically cleans and carves the pumpkin and we all tell him what a good job he does.

This was my contribution to the pumpkin decorating.

Church Carnival

Our church had their Halloween carnival on Sunday evening.

Luke played "Minute to Win It" and had to keep 2 balloons in the air for 1 minute.

Evan only had to keep 1 balloon in the air.

Bobbing for doughnuts!

Halloween Party

We had a fun night with friends tonight! The kids (and, some grown ups!) dressed up and we had fun playing on the two giant bouncy houses that our neighbors brought over! It's good to know cool people!

We had a peacock, supergirl, a flower, a bear, Luigi, Mario, an astronaut, a frog, a karate kid, and a butterfly visiting our house tonight!

We also had some strange adults at the house. We aren't quite sure who these people are!

Pumpkin Patch

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch last weekend. Here are a few of the highlights.

Maiya barely poked her eyes out of the bus "window."

The boys rode on some plastic animals.

Maiya discovered the silo slides and loved them. She climbed up all by herself and slid down giggling the whole time.

Everyone enjoyed the tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch.

Maiya is cute.

Annual "sitting on pumpkins" pictures.

We searched high and low to find the right pumpkin. Everyone had their own opinion about which pumpkin was the best.

It was a beautiful fall day and we had fun picking out our pumpkin! Now we'll just have to get Daddy to carve it for us!

Benson

Our beloved dog, Benson, passed away yesterday, Tuesday, October 18th.

He had stopped eating late last week and that's when we knew something was wrong. We took him to the vet on Saturday morning and they did an x-ray and found a tumor on his spleen. We took him back on Monday morning and they confirmed the very large tumor on the spleen and also tumors on his liver. The recommendation of our vet was that we couldn't do surgery because the cancer was too far spread. That led Dan and I to make one of the most difficult decisions we have ever had to make.

We spent Monday afternoon and evening spending time with Benson. Taking pictures. Cuddling him. Taking him on a short walk. Feeding him all kinds of junk food - including ice cream.

Being with Benson in his last moments was extreamly heartbreaking and sad. Dan and I were glad that we were able to be with him until the end and we are still missing his presense around the house.

Rest in peace, Benson. We love you.

Pumpkin Patch with friends

The stay at home parent group from my church had a get togteher at a local pumpkin farm this week. Since Luke was out of school, we all got to enjoy the day together. We took a wagon ride back to see a dairy cow, got to feed some goats and sheep, and then they each got to pick out a small pumpkin to take home. It was a lot of fun!

Cute baby pig.

Korea Clock

I have had a vision in my mind that I have had a hard time making a reality. I have looked all over the internet and haven't ever seen something quite like what I had imagined (at least nothing in my price range).

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

First, I found a high resolution image of South Korea on good old Go*gle Images. I printed it at the UPS Store on an 11x17 paper (cost: $1).

I cut it out, leaving in as many islands and pointy parts as I could handle.

Then I traced it onto a piece of white foam board (cost: $2).

I used a box cutter to go around my traced design. This part was tedious and made my arm hurt.

Next I painted the front and back with black spray paint (cost: $0, we already had it).

Then, I used a spray mount that I already had to mount the map onto the black foam board cut out.

I spray painted the hands of this clock kit (cost: $8) and then my handy hubby put it all together for me.  

Luke's suggestion was to set it to Korea time (which I love!), so that's what we did!