Carving our Pumpkins!!

We also had a couple of store bought pumpkins that we wanted to carve. So, we all had fun with this! The girls helped clean out all the goop from inside the pumpkins and mommy and daddy helped carve the faces. Madeline drew out a pumpkin face and I carved it for her. Daddy made up a scary pumpkin face. Philip ended up falling asleep before it was all done but he did have fun watching for while.

Pumpkin Art

When we got home from the pumpkin patch I thought that a fun and safe way for the girls to decorate their pumpkins would be to paint them. They LOVED that idea. So we got our aprons, our paints and our brushes and created works of art!

The Local Pumpkin Patch

This past sunday I took the girls to the pumpkin patch at the church right around the corner from our house. We weren't able to make it to our favorite pumpkin patch, TGFarms this year. Seems like we just haven't been able to find a free time to go. So, rather than not just going to a patch we just went to one close to home. The girls really enjoyed it! Susanna stuck with the tiny pumpkins and Madeline chose one that was a perfect size for her! It was a VERY windy day, so that made it a little hard for me to take pictures. Here are a few that turned out okay...

Quartz Mountain Trip - October 2008

We took a family trip to Quartz Mountain this past weekend with my dad, my brother and his family. You can see Melissa's blog here. She has some of her own pictures posted from the trip. We left on saturday morning and got back home monday afternoon. We've been to this park (and stayed in the same cabin) twice in 2004 when Madeline was a baby. We had a lot of fun on this trip. The kids had a TON of fun. It was so neat to get to watch them experience new things. I have posted a BUNCH of pictures - if you want to look at them. :)

Here we are in front of our cabin...

Our destination - Lone Wolf, Okla by way of Cordell and Hobart.

They are ready for their adventure!!

We stopped along the way to show the girls a cotton field.
There are a ton of seeds inside a cotton ball - cotton picka!

Madeline must have been bored - she got in trouble for this!!! No more markers in the car!

Downtown Cordell - it's pretty unique.

This family of deer greeted us many times during our stay!

We were excited to finally get there!!

Papa and Philip. Philip had a bad poopy accident in Cordell and his clothes were packed away so tightly that he had to wear his cousin Rylee's shirt! (at least it was gray and not pink :)

Philip had fun too!!

Our "fancy" dinner ...not so yummy :(

An early morning fishing trip. Melissa and I stayed back at the cabin to cook breakfast for everyone.

We're ready!! Where are the fish?!?!?

Mike, Mel, Dylan, Matt and Madeline went on a mountain climb. I stayed back and watched Philip, Rylee and Susanna. This is the view of the mountain they climbed from our cabin. I took this from our porch.

This is how close my camera zoomed to take their picture standing on our front porch. It's amazing! You can see some of the pics that Mike and Mel took on top on her blog!

We found a park in the campground where the kids could play and Philip could watch.

Another try at fishing...I dont' think they caught anything!

Now it's time to make S'Mores!!

A morning view from our cabin...

One last swim before we pack up to go home...

A wind farm we passed on the way home. This wasn't here 4 years ago!!!

Madeline Hits a Milestone!!

Well, my Madeline has reached a childhood milestone...she has learned to ride her bike without training wheels!! I am SO PROUD of her and she is very proud of herself!! I took Philip to the doctor the other day and while I was gone, her daddy took the training wheels off of her bike, per her request. She told her daddy, "I know how to do it." And sure enough, she pretty much just took off. Matt said he held onto the back of her bike once and then she pretty much did it all herself. I came home to see her riding without any training wheels!! Her daddy didn't have her helmet on her, but I'm going to make her wear it when she rides :)

So, I took Philip to see a pediatric urologist at Children's. His primary care doctor made us an appt. becaus Philip has hydroceles. The doctor at Children's said that he has what is called "Communicating Hydroceles" and that I need to bring him back again is 3 months. If he still has them in 3 months, they said they will have to fix them with surgery. They said it is a very minor operation that usually just takes about an hour. They said that sometimes these things resolve on their own and sometimes they don't. So, I guess we just have to wait and see. Let's just pray that he doesn't have to have surgery!!