PUMPkin Patch

Last week we went to FOUR pumpkin patches in five days! I must have lost my mind. First, we took the whole family on Tuesday for a delayed family night. The second time, I went with the boys on Thursday morning-ish for a poorly attended ward play-date. Finally, on Saturday Henry, Wallace and I met up with my parents to check two more patches off the list while Tyler and Mack were off hiking Mt. Pilchuck with the scouts. Henry was cranky on Tuesday and Saturday, but overall they were good times. Like any mother, I forced my children to take an insane number of pictures, and find myself unable to edit it down to just one or two. Enjoy.

Wallace is like this ALL the time! We lucked out with this boy.

Henry's favorite pumpkin.

Mack's favorite pumpkin.

Henry's general attitude towards having his photo taken. I've got a bunch of pictures where his face looks like this.

The wagon was just for the kids. We'd already bought our pumpkins at the grocery store, sorry.

These photos are from the second patch. Henry was in a great mood this time. I cannot get over our cute little Wally! One of these is going in a frame.

Mack and Henry love trying to hold the pumpkins up over their heads to show me their super strength.

Try as I might, I completely failed at getting the boys to look at me while sitting on some bales of hay. They were much more interested in who had the better pumpkin. I learned that Mack is partial to the green, and Henry likes the ones that are "broken".

BOMM-SHAKA-LAKA!

Who just put up TWO blog posts in one week? ME! That's who! Enjoy these pictures please.

Batman and Super Gnome arriving home from a super hero themed birthday party.

Brothers.

And the award for 'World's Most Piercing Blue Eyes' goes to... Wally. Just ask anyone.

This is how my boys entertain themselves when Mommy is working out, making dinner, nursing, checking her email...Basically every chance they get they play in the garage.

Now Here's a Shocker

This is our Ward Building. Shocking. Shocking.
No one was hurt so it's really not a HUGE deal, but it is very inconvenient, surprising and a little teensy tiny ittie bittie bit scary. We went to a different building yesterday (they were having stake conference, so the building was empty), and will find out what the more "permanent" solution will be later this week --permanent meaning until they rebuild. On the plus side, I know Tyler is looking forward to the new building hopefully having a full size gym.


You will not find our family anywhere near any of the news crews. I'm much too embarrassed to ever be on TV again after those I made silly comments I made about The Bachelor were aired two years ago. :)

Why My Back is Sore

I don't even know how to start this.

I locked myself out of the house today.
I was about to leave for Mack's Spanish class this morning and I had Mack and Henry with me down in the garage. I had just buckled Henry into to his car seat and told Mack to hurry up and get his shoes on. I was feeling good about everything, we were about five minutes ahead of schedule and I even had lunches packed for everyone to eat on our way home afterward. I went to go back inside to get Wallace up from his nap -- he was still sleeping in his crib -- and the DOOR WAS LOCKED.
My mind started going to a million miles a minute. I could not believe it. My phone and my keys were sitting inside in the kitchen next to our lunch. I ran out to the front door. Locked. I checked the back door. Locked. I went to all the windows and took the screens down and tried to pry them open, which I knew was hopeless. I went back to my car and found a clothes pin, took it over to the garage door, started praying and tried to unlock it like in the movies. I had no idea what I was doing. I tried the same thing on the front door. About this time I started thinking about which would be cheaper to break, a window or a door. I decided a door. I knew we had various hammers and saws and what-have-you in the garage, but I couldn't think of how any of these things were going to help me since the door is made of metal and the hinges are on the inside. I couldn't really call anyone, Tyler had some very important meetings scheduled today and besides, what could my parents or anyone else do that I couldn't. I did what any desperate mother would do and started throwing my shoulder into the door police-style. I probably tried this about 10 times until, finally, magically, the door swung open! I couldn't believe it! I ran upstairs, got Wallace and our lunches and headed out the door to Mack's class. What a rush! It's taken me nearly all day to calm down and stop shaking. What an ordeal.
Let me tell you, it will NEVER happen again.

Cereal

We don't eat much cold cereal at our house. Breakfast (for Mack and Henry) is typically one of the following:

• Oatmeal -straight up with nothin' in it!
• Zoom -cracked wheat cereal mixed with applesauce, a little brown sugar and a ton of cinnamon
• Scrambled Eggs -2 per boy with cheese if we've got it
• Waffles -with peanut butter
• Pancakes -with peanut butter
• Leftover Scones -with peanut butter
• English Muffins -the Multigrain kind from Costco also with peanut butter :)

Breakfast is always consumed with a big glass of whole milk and the occasional banana on the side. If he's home, Tyler will usually make french toast. Yum. I really didn't think our breakfast menu was very diverse until I just typed out that list. However, it's all carbs and grains, so maybe I'm not doing that great after all. My kids love peanut butter, and we switched to the simple stuff with no sugar, just peanuts. I figure its better for them than jam. Right? At least everyone has a full tummy at the end.  Overall, I think we do alright. We try to keep Cheerios or puffed wheat and corn in the pantry for snacks or to take to church in little baggies, sometimes we run out.
But my point is we don't usually eat cereal for breakfast. I don't have anything against eating it, I just kinda forget about it mostly. BUT, right now we're staying at my folks and when we are here the boys LOVE to eat cereal! I noticed this morning as I was asking Henry what kind he wanted for breakfast, that we've made up our own cereal language. The list sounded like this, "Do you want Baseballs?…Chocolate?… Pillows?…"  Baseballs are Kix. Chocolate is Cherrios. Pillows are Life, or Chex, whichever is available. I'm sure lots of other families do this sort of thing, but I just wanted to write it down (or type it out).

By the way, he chose the Baseballs, with no milk and "no fork".