happily random

Pumpkin Torture

Grandma brought home three lonely pumpkins from the store. Unfortunately they did not find a good home with us. Shortly after they arrived we scalped them, pulled out their guts and carved into their faces. Messy, goopy fun!

I must say that we haven't done a lot of pumpkin carving in our home. The pumpkins that usually make their way through our doors are safe from the usual torture... that is until I steam them and make them into pie or bread. That procedure is quick and painless by comparison to the torment we inflicted upon them today.

Sam and Ty have never carved pumpkins before, which explains Samantha's expression when she stuck her spoon in and pulled out a blob of pumpkin guts. "Yuuuuck! Goop!" she hollered. Classic!

For the most part, Grandma and I did most of the gut-scooping as it was a little challenging for the the younger two. Tyler was completely unwilling to stick his hands inside to pull out the mess. Luke, on the other hand, scooped out all the insides of his pumpkin all by himself and separated out each and every pumpkin seed into a bag. Future surgeon? He is determined that we cook up the seeds so that we can eat them.

For the face designs, Grandma drew out a sample on a piece of paper for the kids to choose from before we began carving. Samantha and Tyler picked out a similar design for their pumpkins face carving, but Luke came up with a design all his own that he decided to demonstrate on his own face.

Each of the children were not to be separated from their newly tortured friends at bedtime and took their mutilated pumpkins to their rooms with them. We got battery-operated candles to put inside them, so no safety issues there. I drew the line at letting them actually sleep with their pumpkins, having to put my foot down that they were to stay on their dressers.

Where is Rebekah in all this you wonder? Rebekah is on a warm California vacation with her dad, missing out on all the pumpkin torture here at home.

 

Another Milestone

Tyler lost his first tooth yesterday. It's been loose for weeks, as are all four of his front teeth. Last night when he went to spit after I brushed his teeth, apparently I brushed the tooth loose and he spit it out into the sink, not realizing what it was. Before we knew it, it was down the drain. Joel pull the trap, but it was gone for good. Amazingly enough, he wasn't overly upset about it, especially after we wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining what happened. He was very pleased with the $1 bill that was left under his pillow that is now burning a hole in his pocket.

Fixing and selling

Is there anything fun about getting a house ready to go on the market? It always irks me to paint, clean up and prepare the house for someone else to enjoy. This is our third home since we have sold (or attempted to) since we've been married and I still hate doing it as much as the first time.

It's not just prep work involved such as finishing unfinished projects, but saying goodbye as well. Maybe it's that growing up, my family never owned a home? I feel each time that we sell a home that I am leaving behind the memories we made there.

For example, my first house was... well, my first house. Joel and I bought that house in Fallbrook, California, just a year after we were married at 23 years old. We were the very first among our friends to buy a house. Our first few years there we had no furniture in two of the three bedrooms. And it was also to that home that we brought our first and second children.

Our second home was still in Fallbrook, but this one was a total fixer-upper. It was toothpaste green on the outside and looked like you had stepped back into the 70s on the inside. But we had the know-how to fix it up and so we got that house on a half acre for a song. We put in hardwood floors, painted inside & out and brought it into the new century. We brought our third child home to that house.

This house we are in now pretty close to our dream home. On eight acres of land in the mountains of North Idaho. Who knew that we would outgrow this 3 bedroom house with our fourth child. Now that the kids are nine, seven, five and nearly four, and only getting bigger, we have realized that we might need to have a bit more space for them all. That, and we need to simplify our lives a bit. How are we going to get more room yet simplify? Only God knows that. But that is the Word on High is for us: simplify.

So once again we are putting our house on the market. We don't know even if it will sell in this market for what we are asking for it, but only know that we have to obedient to what God has asked of us. As we work on this and that, painting rooms, recarpeting, I am sad at the thought at once again having to say goodbye to one of our homes. But I guess on the upside, if it doesn't sell, every little project that we haven't finished will be complete. Maybe that's God's 'simplify' by having us done with all the house? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

A Day at the Farm

I took a breather from my hectic schedule to go on a field trip with Tyler's class. We went to Carver Farms to pick pumpkins and popcorn. Although there was certainly a nip in the air, the day was bright and sunny, and most importantly dry. I have been on this trip in the past where we stomped through the mud the whole time we were there. Fun for the kids, not fun for moms!

We started out the day on a hike through a corn maze. This was quite an adventure for the little ones as many of the stalks had been blown down in the wind storm we had last week. This made for easy tripping. I will reiterate here my pleasure in the dry weather.

The biggest thrill for the kids was the hay ride in the back of a tractor to the pumpkin fields. Each of the kids got to pick two mini pumpkins, two gourds and one pumpkin. Of course, Mom ended up carrying all the pumpkins. Luckily we didn't have a long walk back to the cars!

Our final treat before we went home was to sit under a tree and eat popcorn. When it seems like life is just out-of-control busy, it is very good to take a minute to enjoy each other and a simple day of being together. Ten years from now I will never remember all the little tasks I had to accomplish today, but I will always remember the time I spent tromping through the fields with my two youngest.

Oh I just had to mention, Tyler always wears his hood up because he's a jedi.

It's the little things...

I just love these shoes from Merrell. Not only are they comfy, but they're cute too... at least I think they are. This is the first time that I have bought this particular style though and I have one problem with them: they always give me a blister on my pinky toe! I have had these shoes for about 6 months and even though they should be broken in by now, they always rub my toe raw. A Band-Aid over the affected toes seems to make the problem worse, not better. Not good.

But... yesterday while I was a Target I came across these foot wraps on sale for just 99 cents (regularly $4). They are made of nylon, like panty hose, and just slip on your foot. They have them in all different shapes depending on your shoes. What's better is with the shoes on, I can't even feed that I'm wearing it. Since I think these shoes look a little silly with socks, these are perfect to shield my poor little toe but yet maintain the uber-cool look I'm going for.

I know, everybody else probaby knows about these, but it was an 'ah-ha' moment for me, so I thought I would pass it along...