Carving The Pumpkin

Happy Halloween! A couple of weeks ago we carved our Jack-O-Lantern. I have always loved carving pumpkins, but the older I get, the less I enjoy getting my hands dirty. Shaun did most of the work this time.


Spencer was excited!


And Ethan was too, but this is one of I think two times he stuck his hand in the pumpkin. He doesn't love getting his hands dirty either. He spent most of the time "mixing" the seeds that were on the table with a spoon.


Spencer enjoyed playing with...


and tasting the leftover pumpkin. (And, yes, he does wear that shirt a lot.)



And here's the final product. Ethan designed the eyes. I designed the nose. Shaun designed the mouth and tweaked my nose design (it was supposed to be an oval). Isn't he cute?

Lately

I have gotten behind on by blogging so I am playing catch up today. Here are some pictures of what's been happening in our house lately.
Ethan tried to take Spencer's shirt off again. He didn't seem to mind...



But Daddy didn't like that Ethan was undressing Spencer, so he showed Ethan how it felt. He wasn't so happy with that.


The weather is cooling so it is finally time for Spencer to strut the Carhartt's that he got for his birthday. I think he looks pretty cute in them, but I need to find a shirt that matches better.


Shaun bought some Pop Rocks a while ago and shared them with the boys. I know this is way too many pictures of boys eating Pop Rocks, but they turned out so well.
As you can see, Ethan was pretty excited to try them.


Here's Spencer's first go at them. I love how happy Ethan is to watch him.



I think it's hilarious that Ethan is opening his mouth here while Spencer is being fed. Why do people do that (like while feeding a baby)?


The Pop Rocks were definitely enjoyed...


Even by Daddy.


Edit: Oh, yeah. Ethan's favorite word to yell out at random (even in public) since he started potty training last week is the name of a part of the male anatomy. And it's not Adam's apple!

St. George/Mesquite Trip

We spent October 3-12 in St. George and Mesquite to visit with family. Grandpa and Krista were visiting from Canada and it was fun to see them. We even surprised them and went down a week before we told them we were going to. We were so busy having fun that we forgot to take very many pictures, so there aren't many to share.
One of the reasons we went to St. George was to see Aunt Kayla run in the marathon. She did great and looked much better than I would have after running just 1 mile. Here she is with Grandpa after the race.


And here are Spencer, Krista, and Grandpa after the race.


Ethan and Addie were inseparable. They really love playing together. Here they are holding hands while riding on their Daddy's shoulders. It was pretty cute.


One day we spent some time playing in the park with Journey and Addison. Spencer was a very brave climber. He went all the way to the top of the playground.


After some convincing and examples from his cousins Ethan finally decided to go down the slide all by himself. It was hard to get him to stop once he started.


These are just random pictures I liked from the park.



The ice cream truck came by while we were there. Yum!


We also spent some time at the pool and made our first bowling trip as a family. I actually got second place under Krista, so the girls totally dominated! We had a great time on our trip. We love hanging out with family and the weather was so nice down south.

Tales Of The Potty

Note: This post is mostly for me. If you don't want to know almost every detail of Ethan's first few days of potty training, I suggest you stop reading now.
It looks like we are truly potty training now. This has been a long time coming. Not only because Ethan is almost 3 1/2 years old, but also because we started talking about the potty with him almost a year and a half ago. He has shown some interest before now, but he has only gone pee in the potty once before this week, and it was sort of an accident then. Since Wednesday (when he first decided to wear underwear) he has only worn a diaper twice. The first time was Wednesday night because I was afraid to let him sleep without one. The second time was Friday evening because he was refusing to go potty after holding it all day and he wanted a diaper. We had to go to the grocery store so I gave in. That night, though, he went potty twice before bed and asked to sleep in underwear. He stayed dry ALL NIGHT! On Saturday he went potty in the morning then held it all in (except a few drop here and there) for almost 10 hours until he finally went potty at about 7:00 pm. He wet his bed last night, but he is getting more and more used to going on the potty. I still have to coax him most of the time. Sometimes he sits and sits and doesn't go and other times it happens pretty quickly (like after holding it for 10 hours). Pooping on the potty will be a whole new fight, but at least we are getting somewhere. I have been giving him Hot Wheels cars (that I got for this purpose at Christmas time last year for really cheap) every time he goes, and I only have one left. I hope he doesn't lose all motivation after we run out!

Spelling

This morning Ethan and I were lying in my bed and I asked him to spell a word for me. He didn't want to. Instead, he decided to turn the tables on me. He asked me to spell words for him to repeat. This is how it went:

Ethan: Spell door.

Me: D

E: D

M: O

E: O...

and so on.

After Ethan searched around the room for several things to spell, he turned to names. The first name was Spencer.

E: Spell "Usher" (Spencer)

M: Ok, S

E: S

M: P

E: P

M: E

E: No, Mommy, U!

M: Oh, you want to spell Usher?

E: Yeah, Usher.

I guess if you can't say a name correctly there's no reason to spell it correctly either.


Oh, and by the way. He's wearing underwear right now because he wanted to (to get a car). Yay! He has also sat on the potty twice today. No pee in the potty yet, but I now have some hope.

Show And Tell

I have been thinking lately about all the things I like about my computer time. I figured there might be some of you out there that are new to the blogging world or that just don't take the time to search for the great things of the World Wide Web, so I am going to share some of my favorite things on the internet. Check them out if you want to, or don't.

Google Reader - A site where you can put all of the blogs that you read (except the private ones) in one place. This is how I keep on top of the 50+ (is that too many?) blogs that I follow.

Kids-In-Mind - A site to check out all of the questionable content that is in most of the movies you want to watch. This is meant to help parents decide whether to let their kids watch a movie, but I mostly use it for myself. It is especially useful for those PG-13 movies you just aren't sure about.

My family's blogs - You can check some of those out using the links on my sidebar.

Diapers and Divinity Blog - This is one that's on my sidebar, but I have to mention it separately. My cousin is the author of this blog and I love it. It is great for any mother who could use a little bit of humor and a lot of inspiration.

Cake Wrecks - This is an extremely popular site that showcases really bad professional cakes. It's good for a giggle or a shake of the head.

Initially Speaking - Actually, this isn't one you'd want to read every day, but it's a new business that my sister started and you should all check it out at least once. She does a great job! The site is still under construction, so pardon her dust. :)

Surf The Channel - My friend told me about this one recently and I love it. It has tons of TV shows on it that you can watch whenever you want. It's like having On Demand or TiVo for free! My favorite things about it are that I can watch cable shows that I don't get and I can watch past episodes (or seasons) of shows that I missed. Of course the quality's not great, but for me it's better than nothing.

I realize a lot of you probably already know about most of these, but I thought I'd share the love just in case.

Ideas Please...And Hurry!

I am not a big Halloween person. I am not very creative when it comes to costumes and I don't really like the idea of going out in the cold and asking strangers for candy. Nevertheless, I must participate for the sake of the children. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a good costume for Ethan (I have Ethan's costume from two years ago for Spencer, although I'm not sure if it fits him). I took him to the store last night to look for a costume, but because of his lack of understanding of the holiday, he didn't want to make a purchase. He didn't even want to be Thomas, which was going to be my fallback since I was sure he wouldn't mind being a train even though I thought the costume was ugly. Actually, he would have allowed me to buy a Tinkerbell costume because it looked like a butterfly and Princess P was a butterfly on the Halloween episode of Super Why the other day. I don't think I want him to be a butterfly. If anybody has any ideas, I would appreciate them. I think even if Ethan likes a costume it might be hard to get him to wear it, so masks are out of the question. If it's something I need to make it must be super easy. If you have an idea that involves Ethan and Spencer that would be fine too since I don't really care if Spencer wears the costume that might not even fit him anyway. Please make a suggestion if you read this, anything is better than what my mind could think up.

An Expert

With all of the time I have spent on vacation (and with my family while they've been on vacation) lately, it has been hard to stay on any sort of schedule. With this lack of schedule comes a lack of meal planning (not to mention sleep!). Also, for some reason, I tend to eat more junk food while family is around and, of course, we eat out a lot more often. While I had family visiting from out of state a few months ago I gained 5 pounds. I was disappointed, but lost it soon after I returned to my regular eating habits. It also took me about 3 weeks to gain the 5 pounds, so that wasn't too bad. This last week, though, while spending time with Shaun's family and my parents I gained SEVEN pounds. In one week! I guess this proves that I need to exercise more (although I didn't really need any further proof). I have been wanting to lose a few pounds and this definitely doesn't help. I have decided that I am an expert in the art of gaining large amounts of body weight in short amounts of time. I hereby offer my services for a small fee to anyone who would like to know the secret to gaining 7 pounds in one week. I could probably even make you gain more, actually. Do I have any takers?... Anyone?... No? Oh, well. I guess I'm not the first to figure out how to do it. Maybe I could get some celebrities that have to play a "fat" person in their next movie to hire me. I wonder how much they would pay me?

A Thankless Job?

Overheard at our house yesterday:

Ethan: What are you doing, Mommy?

Me: Just doing the dishes.

E: Thank you, Mommy.

M: For what?

E: For helping clean up.


And then today, about an hour after I gave the boys haircuts and baths and while Ethan was playing on the computer:

E: Thank you...Mommy, thank you!

M: For what?

E: A haircut.


It is so wonderful to have my son thank me for doing something that is "my job" without me telling him to. I hope this is the beginning of many thank you's to come. It is nice that I can now say with certainty that mine is not a thankless job!