Pumpkin Carving

 7 Pumpkins--Thankfully we didn't have to gut all of them.

 And grateful the older 3 could gut their own.

 Yum, yum--pumpkin guts.

 Benjamin thought Brienna was really going to eat it--he's saying, "gross, gross!"

 I love the poke-in-parts for the younger kids.

 witch on one side...

 Dog with mustache on the other.

 Ben picked the eyes, nose & mouth for his pumpkin.

 And had to make his face like his pumpkin's.

 Showing all of his teeth--just like his pumpkin.

 Zane's batman pumpkin.

 Almost done!

 Brienna's (and Ben's)--frowny face.  Even when she frowns she beautiful :)

 Emmalee and Brienna

 Rusty's "Parry the Pumpkin-pus"  (Parry the Platypus is a character in "Phinneus & Ferb" tv show)

 Callum's 1-eyed pumpkin

 Zane trying hard not to smile (this teen-aged boy doesn't like to smile for the camera)

 The painted pumpkin was a project from school--painted by Emmalee.

Spooktacular & Pumpkins

 We had Spooktacular after the football game.  Emmalee was a princess, Callum wore his jammies, and I was a quarterback.....

 I had a giant quarter taped to my back :)

 Things were a bit crazy at first because some of my helpers were late so I tried to get others to cover the games at first.  And then Ben had a fit, took off his costume and refused to do anything--until the last 15 minutes or so.  And this year I had the most help with cleaning up then I'd ever had before.  

 For school, Emmalee had to write a book report on her favorite book and decorate a pumpkin representing a character from the book.  She chose "Do Not Open this Book!"  And she did the pig by herself except for the hat.

 Sunday we got ready to decorate our pumpkins (all of us weren't going to be home on Monday).  We were looking at past years' pumpkins and saw a picture of Ben sleeping on the bench (because he was too tired) so he wanted to "pretend" again this year.  (Click here to see the past post)

 And here's another "pretend" sleeping picture.

And one last picture of Emmalee's pig from her book.

Last Football Game--Oct. 26, 2012

Friday was the last football game of the season--the boys had to win to make it to the play-offs.  

Our band wrapped up and kept their mouth-pieces in their pockets (to keep them warm).  It was a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold day!

Brienna playing her flute (and Karina Gonzales next to her)

We had rain, hail, snow and wind--the clouds just lingered (and lowered onto our town) from morning and stayed all day.  We were socked in and so was the cold.

We played Carey and unfortunately lost (0-50 mercy rule in effect).  They had a lot of boys and one "giant" that according to Zane, just picked them up and moved them out of his way.  It seems that there really weren't any "evenly-matched" teams this season--either we stomped other teams, or they stomped us. 

Emmalee's mini snowman.

Most people didn't stay in the stands, but instead were in their cars, on the sidelines, or walking around trying to stay warm.   Pamela is in the yellow coat in the stands.

Rusty wore his insulated overalls.

The boys played the best they could, but since we couldn't keep their line back (they kept breaking all of our tackles & defensive line), we just didn't make much progress.  And the cold didn't help--Zane came home before the game to get extra layers on and still froze.

Emmalee wore her snow pants.

Zane after the game.

Ben giving Zane a hug for playing football (hut, hut!!)

Zane, Ben & Emmalee.

Earlier on Friday I had to take Zane to an orthodontist appointment and Brienna to see the back doctor.  Just after we left, we had fog--all the way to the IF airport.  At times I had to slow to about 50 mph because of the low visibility.  But right after the airport, it was sunny!  We could look back & see like a wall of fog.

And good news for Brienna--she has been out of her brace for 6 months & has improved again!!  Last time the degrees of her curves in her back were 16 degrees and 20 degrees.  This time they were 14 degrees and 16 degrees.  (10 degrees is "normal")

First Snow Play

 Ben wanted the kids to hurry and get home from school so they could play in the snow with him!

 Not a lot of snow, but he wanted to build a "big, big" snowman.

 So with Emmalee's & Brienna's help,

 They built this "huge" baby snowman.

Benjamin is honking the carrot nose. 

 Emmalee used one of her sunflowers as a crown.

 Emmalee, Brienna and Benjamin with their snowman.

the end of last week and the weekend was very, very cold--it's nice to have a couple of "warm" autumn days so far this week and even nicer that it will be a "decent" evening for trick-or-treating.

Leaf Fun

 Last week Zane took Ben and Emmalee outside to play in the leaves.

 Our yard only had a few leaves (the leaves on our tree haven't changed colors and fallen yet) so the kids went to Grandpa's yard.

 They raked a pile of leaves taller than Ben.

 And then they ran and jumped in it!

 "Cheese!"

 Emmalee buried in leaves

 And Ben buried in leaves.

 silly face for Benjamin

 And silly face for Emmalee.

I'm glad they were able to play in the leaves, because we now have snow :(