We were supposed to carve our pumpkins tonight. Instead two little kids decided to cry throughout the dinner process. The crying turned into hysterics for one little girl. But they were occasionally interrupted by huge yawns. I really wish she would take her nap. So now they're in bed and I've no idea when we're going to have time to carve pumpkins again. Oh well.
And posting may continue to be sporadic. We had the most exhausting weekend we've ever had and the house and our sleep are still recovering.
Yesterday was my husband's birthday. It was also the craziest day of the week. First scrapbooking friends come in the morning, then the neighborhood picnic in the park, then clean house/make cake/finish costumes/make dinner, then dinner and birthday fete, then ward Trunk-or-Treat/Fall Festival. Too much. Just too much.
But we got it done, with only a few minor glitches. Like the grass being soaked at the picnic and then the sprinklers turning on. And Handsome Face smearing chocolate chip cookie all over a fresh pile of laundry. And him squirting soap all over the bathroom and Cute Girl playing in it with her unfinished costume on.
We had to do cake and presents after the Halloween party cause there just wasn't time. Here are the pictures. Happy Birthday honey!
Cherry Cream Dessert took the place of cake this year. It was yummy.
Cute Girl showing her birthday cake picture to Daddy.
The kids gave Daddy this book and some A&W for root beer floats. I just gave him a bunch of boring ol' tools. On Saturday we went to an all natural farm to visit their pumpkin patch. The patch we went to last year was nice and clean and there were pumpkins visible everywhere. Here, a very aggressive weed marked the boundaries of the pumpkin patch. There were no pumpkins to be seen anywhere. We weren't quite prepared for that. The kids and I got stuck as the Rocket Scientist went off in search of the biggest pumpkin in the patch. I couldn't put Handsome Face down and Cute Girl couldn't move from her spot. They both got attacked by angry stickers and still have battle wounds to prove it. I finally managed to half carry/half drag them both out of the jungle to wait for their dad's return. And of course we couldn't get the stickers our of hair/socks/diaper bag and Handsome Face promptly dropped his cup in the dirt. But when the hay wagon finally went by again we had four nice pumpkins, ranging in size like the three bears chairs.
The only picture of me - which I took myself.
After paying and dumping the pumpkins we proceeded to the store where I bought the most delicious homemade raspberry syrup. Waffles, syrup, and real whipped cream on Sunday. Yum. Then we went to the petting zoo. Handsome Face kept calling the goats "dog" but by the end we had him saying "go!" He thought they were really cool. Cute Girl didn't want to touch any of them but she loved feeding hay to the donkey. Handsome Face tried too but as soon as her head would come near his hand he'd drop the hay and make a quick retreat. Apparently she was a little too big.
Then there was the obligatory stop at the tire swings.
I think they had a good time.
Today I got away from my kids for an entire day. It was great! Granted, we were an hour late getting home and I was practically jumping out of my skin to hurry up and get back to them but it was still nice to get away. The purpose in hiring a baby-sitter and driving hours to the north was to go to the Temple. We haven't been since Sheri's wedding in June, unless you count our trip to the Louisville Temple in July where we got there just to discover the Temple was closed for maintenance. Bummer.
It was so nice to be in the Temple. Life is so busy that I almost always feel some level of stress but in the Temple all is calm and quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. Cute Girl woke me up WELL before the crack of dawn and refused to go back to sleep or do anything but eat breakfast with her mama. So I kept finding myself snapping back to attention, not remembering having closed my eyes. The Rocket Scientist had no problem - but he did get TWO more hours of sleep than I did.
Afterwards it was almost two o'clock and we were starving. We ate at a little diner place and I had the biggest cheeseburger in the world. It was super yummy but a bit more than my usual pbj. I think I ate a quarter of it - maybe a third. And there were great fries (no trans fat!) and so much Oreo milkshake with real whipped cream that I couldn't even finish it. And that's a capital crime in our household.
And since we were already in debt to the babysitter for a year's worth of paychecks we decided we'd hit Ikea on the way home. I was looking for inspiration for Handsome Face's room (he's still in our permanent baby nursery). And I found this:
I am in love. I can't stop looking at it. It just makes me smile. You can't see them but there is a little blue bird and a bee on the other side of the shade. It's just so happy!
I've been having a really hard time deciding what to do with his room. My only inspiration previously was Handsome Face's sock monkey jack-in-the-box which has very similar colors to the shade. Greens, yellows, reds, and blues. What says "little boy" more?
So the real dilemma is what to do with the walls? I've thought about a shade of brick red with tan bead board, white with dark yellow-green, chair railing... Our other bedrooms consist of one entirely pink room and one room with three light green walls and one yellow. Those rooms were easy. This one's not. What would you do? I'm soliciting all opinions. Ready, set, go!
(This one focused on the microwave. Why did the camera think I wanted the microwave?)
After a bite or two this is what I got. This has happened before. And I could never figure out why a kid would cry while eating a cookie. He eventually got mad and angrily crumpled his cookie up. Slowly enlightenment began to dawn in my brain. I grabbed the chocolate chip bag and doled out a few. He wasn't thrilled but he took them better than the cookie. I tried hand feeding him bites after that. He took one and refused the next. 
Know what the problem was? He didn't want a cookie. He wanted the DOUGH!
I just found these pictures from last week. Isn't he just so cute? And enjoy the hair, for tomorrow you shall see that it's all gone!!!!
I love Google today.
I also love that it got below 40 last night. New record. But don't worry. It's going to be hot again in the desert this week.
I have officially started my Christmas shopping. I love the internet. I am now 1/3 of the way done shopping for my immediate family. I feel so on top of things!
And speaking of shopping, I found this wonderful little sight. Ten Thousand Villages. It's a fair trade merchant site. Love it. So many gorgeous things. I want to do all my Christmas shopping there but I can only find things that I would want. Funny how we tend to give things that we would want wrapped up for ourselves.
This is what I've been doing all afternoon. My back hurts.
This is the barrette his sister stuck in his hair.
Here's the sneaking into unfinished Halloween costume. Again.
Yesterday I told cute girl that we would have pancakes for breakfast today. Last night, I made biscuits to go with dinner. My inner pragmatist told me that it would make more sense to make sausage gravy for breakfast to use up the leftover biscuits, then have pancakes tomorrow.
Unfortunately, cute girl's inner pragmatist is broken this morning (or sleeping in) and she replied, "No, I want pancakes today. We can have biscuits and gravy tomorrow,"
Then the bribing started, "If we have biscuits and gravy today, you can have hot chocolate."
cute girl: "I just want pancakes."
me: "But if we wait 'till tommorrow, I'll make chocolate chip pancakes."
cute girl: "We can have chocolate chip pancakes tomorrow, but I want regular pancakes today."
I'll give you one guess who won.
"Come on, come on! It's pancake time!"
