Carving Pumpkins

Every halloween as many families do, our family has a tradition of carving pumpkins!

Caleb was excited because this was his first year of carving his own pumpkin without dad's help.

The Knous family came over to carve pumpkins with us this year.

Logan had fun helping carve his, Jaxson is still a little young and didn't care much about the pumpkins yet.

Derek did much better this year about getting the "pumpkin guts" out of his pumpkin. In years past he has not liked this part at all!

In our family dad is the one who has the final say on the designs and he does all the carving for the younger kids.

My job is generally the picture taker and sometimes I help get the pumpkin guts out.

As you can see the kids got bored and were trying to make a pumpkin pie although there was nothing traditional about this pumpkin pie! :)

When Derek got bored he had fun playing with all the seeds and guts.

One of my favorite parts is seeing the pumpkin all lit up with a candle inside. You can really see the design that way.

All the boys lined up with their pumpkins!

Derek's was kind of a scary face this year. When dad gave him the option of a happy face or a scary face, of course he picked the scary face.

Levi went for a Storm Trooper from Star Wars.

Caleb did a nice happy face for his first solo attempt!

Sweet Prayers

We've recently been working more with Derek on how to pray. He's mastered saying a quick prayer before meals but now we've been focusing on teaching him how to pray at bedtime and not just Mom and Dad doing it.

So at mealtime and bedtime we say our prayers. We started out with simple prayers just to get him going, so a generic prayer might sound like this.

"I pray for Daddy, that you would keep him healthy, that he wouldn't get sick, that you would help him to come home from work safe..." 

He's gotten that down pretty good and can normally do it on his own without much prompting. 

Lately we have had a lot of animals milling around the front of our house that don't belong there....You may have seen THIS post about the wonderful snake on our front porch.

Theres also been a stray cat that likes to come sit on our porch at times and a few days ago the boys were telling me about a skunk that was in our driveway the other night as they were coming home with Dad.

Well a few nights ago, as I was putting Derek to bed we started saying our prayers.

He started his by praying for Daddy and tonight it was a little different, it went something like this....

"Dear Lord, I pray for Daddy, that he would be healthy and not get sick from the skunk..."

He then preceded to pray for everyone with those same words. No one was left out of the skunk prayer, Mommy, Grandma, Caleb and Levi and even Daisy our dog.

Then he decided God needed to know about all the animals that had been around our house lately, he said to Him...

 "There was a skunk in our driveway and a snake that was on our porch and a kitty cat, but I don't know where he went..." 

And he kept going on and on telling God in as many ways as he could think about all the animals that had been at our house.

I was trying so hard not to laugh. I really wish I had a tape recorder. 

What precious moments!

Pumpkin Farm Fun ~ Part 5

The PUMPKIN PATCH!!



This is probably one of the funnest parts of going to the Pumpkin Patch.

It's much different than going to the store and searching through piles of pumpkins they have in a bin at the front of the store.

You actually get to go out in the field and search for just the right pumpkin.

Then when you finally find the one you want you actually get to cut it straight from the vine!

The kids love searching through the rows and rows of pumpkins to find just that right one!

Then when they've FINALLY decided  on the ones they want they get to show them off!

Then the older boys get to lug them to the front stand to pay!

It was an exciting but long day and Derek was just plain tuckered out at the end of it!

He fell asleep just minutes after being in the car with his half green/half orange pumpkin in the seat next to him!

This is the last Pumpkin Farm post! Thanks for putting up with all of them! Hope you enjoyed it!

Pumpkin Farm Fun ~ Part 4!

The CAROUSEL,  PETTING ZOO and CORN on the COB!!

The Carousel was new this year at the farm.

It was just small one, but all the boys liked it. I think Caleb and Levi just had fun messing around the whole time!

Derek liked the Carousel best out of all the boys. What is it about Carousels that kids like so much?

Next we went to the petting zoo.

Derek was a little nervous around the animals at first but he eventually warmed up!

Caleb had fun watching this little guy sniffing this man's legs!

Next, corn on the cob!!!!!

YUM!!

The corn on the cob was SO good.

It came to you warm and you got to spray butter on it and sprinkle salt on it.

And boy was it yummy!!!

We didn't get corn on the cob last year, I don't know how we didn't! We were definitely missing out! There's just something about fresh corn on the cob!!

Part 5 and final post (I promise!) of the Pumpkin Farm coming soon. :)

Pumpkin Farm Fun ~ Part 3!

The TRAIN ride, HAYRIDE and PEDAL TRACTORS!!

The train was actually a lot different this year. It wasn't a very exciting journey as we just kind of went in a circle around this patch of corn stalks.

That's probably because last year the train went around by the corn maze and by the little lake and the petting zoo...

But halfway through as we were heading up a hill, the train wouldn't make it! So all the parents had to get out and walk while the "engineer" got the train up over the "hill"!

This year they did it a little different at the end, instead of just coming to a stop and everyone getting out, we stopped a ways before we were supposed to and all of a sudden these guys came waving their guns...

They said they wanted to rob us but really they ended up giving us candy...

Which of course all the kids loved! This little "robbery" at least made the boring train ride somewhat exciting at the end!

Next we did the hayride which was definitely nice and relaxing. We were driven all around the farm and shown the fields and tractors that are actually used in the day to day running of the farm. I love the hayride, it's a nice calming time amidst lots of hustle and bustle to and fro around the farm!

This was one of Derek's favorite things to do at the pumpkin farm.

Amazingly as we were walking up to the farm in the parking lot he started talking about wanting to ride "those little tractors", I was amazed that he remembered them from last year!

He rode on these a couple of times that day and would have stayed on them all day if we would have let him. Guess he should enjoy them while he can since they only go through age 5!

Part 4 will be up in a little bit!