Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns

A couple weeks ago my sister-in-law Cathy invited us to go to a pumpkin patch in Farmington. Levi had a ton of fun running around with his cousin Logan and seeing his Grandma Cook and aunts, uncles and cousins.

We got to wheel carts around and pick out our favorite pumpkins. Then at the place to weigh and pay, there was a spooky farmer sitting on a hay bale with pumpkins around him. Over in the corner behind the kids backs there was a guy with a microphone who would talk to the kids and say their names. They thought that was pretty cool and would talk back to him.

The boys weren't very cooperative at my picture taking efforts.

Last week for family night we set to the task of carving the pumpkins. I'd forgotten how messy pumpkin carving is. Levi tried to help a little but ended up supervising us more than anything.

All in all, I think that they turned out pretty good. I'm looking forward to roasting pumpkin seeds tomorrow for family home evening.

Old Friends and Information Overload

The past couple weeks have been busy for us. I finished my canning for the year!!! Last week I was able to add 16 pints of chicken and 17 quarts of grape juice to our food storage. I have yet to go down and get it all organized... but I'm excited that we have been able to accumulate some things to have during the next year. I've cleaned the equipment, and now just have to get it all put away. That is, unless I decide to do apple juice, hmmmmm.
The boys also keep me busy. Rick's newest theory as to why kids have so much energy is that they suck all the energy out of you to use.
This last weekend I went to the APTA (American Physical Therapy Association) conference for the state of UT. It was good to see old colleges, meet new ones and get a whole lot of good information. The orthopedic presenter was Todd Ellenbecker a physical therapy in AZ who specializes in shoulders. I learned a lot from him over the 2 day span and got some new ideas for treating shoulder patients. There were about 7 classmates of my graduating class there so it was fun to catch up with them too. It was a good two days but mentally fatiguing.

Three!!!

Wednesday was Levi's birthday. But in all actuality, he's basically had a party all week long. It started with his friend party on Tuesday night, a last minute change in the date due to the storm that was to blow in on Wed. It rained and dropped 40 degrees so I was glad we had made the switch. We had his friends from the neighborhood come over for a "terrrrr"ific time to play, eat cupcakes, do a pinata and then have icecream. I made T-rex masks for each of them and cupcakes that had a little dinosaur on each of them.

As I said before they played and then had cupcakes. When it was time for the pinata all the kids ran over, except Levi. He was over at the picnic table hoarding all the little dinosaurs from the cupcakes that the kids had left on the table. Once I convinced him that he could have them later (ha,ha) he had fun taking a whack at the dinosaur pinata.

I also made a dinosaur cake, it ended up looking more like a alligator, oh well, I tried. I should have gone with my first instinct to cover the cake with coconut to look like grass and stick plastic dinosaurs on it. That would have been a lot easier (and not looked like an alligator).

Wednesday we had the grandparents over for dinner and dessert. They brought fun toys for him and he has been playing with them ever since. Jace likes to play with them too, Levi doesn't like that so much but he also confiscated Jace's b-day toys, turn-a-bout is fair play.

This is how dinosaurs eat cake. Levi was pretty mad that we wouldn't let him eat the whole cake this way.

He continues to thrill us, infuriate us, make us laugh and make our hearts melt.