It's the most wonderful time of the year ...

with cool nights and brisk mornings; it's time for Christmas music and footed jammies. I know it's not past Halloween yet, but I don't really like Halloween that much anyway. The candy is good, but that's about it. ;) Anyway, I digress. The point is that we don't ever know if it will actually be cool when it is "time" for Christmas music, so I have decided to play it whenever I feel like it. I have a good friend who taught me that I could actually do that, so now I do. However, I do wait for cool weather to share this music with the boys in the van.

As for the jammies, Evan has been asking when it would be time for the "pajamas where you can't see your feet". His wonderful dad was getting them ready for bed last night and asked me what the weather was supposed to be. I wondered why he was asking about the weather at this particular point in time, but I just went with it. I gave him the overnight low, and he decided it was time. The cries from the boys were just too precious! They were very excited. Apparently Evan has grown too much though, because his were a little too tight. We went in after he was asleep and found that he had actually taken them off. Guess it's time to go shopping, too! (By the way, I was not in on the pj selection, so don't blame the Christmas pj's on me.)

Young love

And at the ages of 5 and 6, I do mean young. I heard that one of Evan's classmates told her grandmother that Evan was her boyfriend. After school today I had to ask Evan about it. He kind of grinned and said, "She said that at school today." I asked what he did when she said it and this was his answer.

(Okay, so the picture is not quite as dramatic as his expression was. I will try to get a better pic.)

I asked if she was his girlfriend and he said yes.

Tonight we were telling Dad and he said that she was not his best girlfriend. Apparently there's a difference between best girlfriend and girlfriend. He doesn't talk about the other girls in his class much, though, so I think she might really be, and he was getting a little embarrassed by the discussion. I also don't think that he has a clue what these words mean other than she is a friend who is a girl. I hope he keeps this innocence a while longer! (And I do mean a long while!)

Kids Karnival

Tonight was our church's annual carnival, and it was our first time to attend. It was really neat and we had a lot of fun. It took a lot of work to pull this event off and we are grateful for the people who did it!

The boys got to wear their Halloween costumes tonight, but Steve and I just went as ourselves. The boys are boxers which is quite appropriate given their behavior to each other lately. They weren't quite sure about wearing their costumes before Halloween, but they decided to go with it to get candy. They know how to make good decisions! ;)

Pumpkin Day!

Today was "Pumpkin Day" for Evan's class at school. This was a first for us, so I didn't know what to expect. There were 5 stations set up in different rooms, and the kids rotated through them in groups of 3. I was in the Senses Station. The kids looked at, touched and smelled a pumpkin (inside and out) and then described it. Some of the kids didn't really want to touch the insides of the pumpkin. Evan was one of those. This didn't really surprise me since he hasn't wanted to help his dad with that in previous years. After that we played candy corn bingo (where candy corn was the marker). Some of the other stations involved reading the pumpkin parable, estimating and counting pumpkin seeds, painting and decorating mini-pumpkins, and eating pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie. (There might have been more, but that is all Evan remembers.) The kids were fun, and it was good to get to know them a little better. Joel wanted to join in, so we did let him play bingo with the first group. After that he mostly ate candy corn. He did play bingo with the last group, too.
I got to bring the pumpkin home and cook it up. This was my first attempt at cooking my own pumpkin, and I can see why canned is just fine. It was fun, but it took most of the afternoon and my fingertips are kind of burned now. This picture is the final result. But we have lots of pumpkin to use (and freeze) now! I think tomorrow will be a pumpkin-bread-baking-day.

Conversations with Joel

1. While we were driving around after Bible study today, Joel randomly asked, "Where's that other kid?" Puzzled, I asked, "What other kid?" He said, "Evan." Not sure when Evan became "that other kid", but now I know in case it comes up again.

2. The library parking lot was full today because of early voting, so we had to park on the street. On our way back to the van I asked Joel if he wanted to race across the grass. He said no because it would hurt his booty. I asked how racing could possibly hurt his booty, and he said it was because there were ants in his booty. Hmmm. I asked him if he needed a new diaper and he said yes. He wasn't dirty, so I didn't change him. We went immediately to get Evan from school. One of the first things Joel told Evan was that he had ants in his booty. I guess we need a new pest control service.

More fall activities

And there will be even more to come! But this is a recap of last weekend.

















On Saturday we went to a local nursery to get some ideas for landscaping, but more importantly, to enjoy their fall festival. It was a really neat event with a petting zoo, face painting, hay maze, hay ride, a fire engine tour, flower pot decorating and pansy plating for the kids, popcorn, drinks, food coupons, a visit from the Chick-Fil-A cow, and a "guess how much the pumpkin weighs" station. The best part is that it was all free! Joel loved the petting zoo and asked today when he could go to it again. (Evan wouldn't even go in the petting zoo.) Evan wanted to get his face painted, but the line was too long and too slow-moving. (There was only one lady doing the painting, and her work was very intricate. It was beautiful, but very time-consuming.) I think that Evan's favorite part was the hay maze or the hay ride. He also enjoyed getting a new plant. (Joel wouldn't do that one.) It was fun, but very tiring for the old folks (Steve and me).

After the festival we went to the library's Spooktacular to vote for the pumpkins. (We will go to the library later this week to see the results.) The Spooktacular was set up in the conference room at the library and it was a little too scary for Joel. Evan was a little scared by one part, but he handled it pretty well.

Sunday afternoon Evan went to a carnival-themed birthday party for a little girl in his class. It was really cute and set up with a bunch of carnival games for the kids to play. Costumes were optional, but Evan wanted to wear one. I didn't have this year's ready, so he wore an old one and went as Batman. It was in the high 70's or low 80's, but he never complained about the turtleneck and sweatpants. Anything for Batman, apparently.

Meet the pumpkins ... and Marvin!

Joel's mean spider pumpkin

Joel likes playing with his pumpkin. He doesn't understand that it is not a toy. He likes it so much that he decided to not enter it into the decorated pumpkin contest at the library, because we would have to leave it there.

Evan's pink alien pumpkin, with Marvin

Evan brought Marvin home from school for the weekend. Marvin gets to do what Evan does and we get to journal about it. Marvin helped Evan decide how to decorate his pumpkin for the contest. Evan considered keeping his pumpkin at home, too, but I told him we could pick it back up next week so he decided to enter it. He seems to be motivated by the prospect of receiving a prize for his pumpkin.

My pumpkin

It's hard to see the hair from the first picture, and the second picture isn't much better. It's cool hair made from a funky type of yarn. I am not into witches, but we kept seeing an animated witch at Wal-Mart, and it completely captivated Joel. He doesn't know that it is a witch, though. He calls her "the purple woman". So I decided that the stem would make a wonderful purple woman nose. I almost made it into an elephant, but I asked Joel which he wanted me to make and he chose the purple woman.