Pumpkin Carving Time

Pumpkin carving is one of those things my kids love, and so we do it....like it or not.

It is a tradition. It must be done. In fact, this year we were carving pumpkins the night before Halloween, well after bedtime.

I will say, however, that this year was much better than last year as far as pumpkin carving goes. Last year, Ben was a week and a half old, and Brek was in China. I was on my own. (You see what I mean abut pumpkin carving being a must?)

This year I had Brek. Thank heavens.

We both cleaned out pumpkins (Brek saved the seeds), and we both helped carve. And this year, for the first time ever, three of our children carved their own pumpkins all by themselves! Poor Luke could barely keep his eyes open by the time we were done. But he perked up when we lit the pumpkins and turned off the lights!

If I was fun like my sister, we would have watched a fun Halloween movie by the light of the jack-0-lantern's glow. But sadly, I am not that fun. Plus, I don't really love Halloween or Halloween movies. Now Christmas....that's a different story.

Any-who....we carved, we conquered, and the pumpkins glowed their little hearts out on Halloween night!



Madelyn wanted to be a dinosaur for Halloween. A dinosaur?? We have a pretty Cinderella costume, or a fun cheerleader costume, but she would have none of that. So a dinosaur she was. And she wore the costume for a good 3 days....at least!

Pumpkin patch time once again

Last Monday we finally made it to the pumpkin patch, after a couple of failed attempts. The pumpkin patch has become a tradition in our family. Halloween just wouldn't be Halloween without a trip to the pumpkin patch.

In case you're wondering if the pumpkins get picked over, the answer is yes. We weren't able to find the usual huge pumpkins we find, but the kids each found a favorite.

As we arrived, we discovered Luke had no shoes (or socks) on. So Luke and Ben rode in the wheelbarrow with the pumpkins. I was the wheelbarrow pusher/photographer, and Brek helped locate pumpkins. Along with the usual pumpkins, we also came home with a few mini pumpkins....Madelyn's favorite. Maddy loves all things small. They are treasures to her.

We topped off the night with pizza, eaten at Brek's work while he finished up a few things. What fun!

A Few Words from Luke

Hi. My name is Luke. And I love, love, love to take baths!

As a matter of fact, this could possibly be my third bath of the day. I usually get in at least two. Whenever I hear the bath water running, I run to the bathroom, take off all my clothes and hop in before anybody can stop me. Sometimes it's my sister's bath, sometimes it's Ben's, and sometimes it's my mom's. But, no matter. We're all one big happy family, right?!

This is my little brother Ben. He loves taking baths, too. He would play in there for hours. But sometimes he cries and wants mom to get him out. Do you think it's because I keep dumping water all over his head? Naaahhhh. That couldn't be it.


Oh, and Ben also loves the dishwasher. He drives my mom crazy, because he tries to pull all the dishes out while she's loading. She tells him no, but he doesn't really listen. He thinks he's pretty funny.

Actually, I think he's pretty funny, too!

A Typical Saturday? I don't think so.

What did I do today???
(I'll give you 3 guesses)

Go to a football game? No.

Clean my house? No.

Run a half marathon? Yes!!!

It's true. I ran a half marathon today, and I am so very proud of myself! I am also very tired and have very tired legs. But, I finished. And I did it in 2 hours. So, three cheers for me!

What am I going to do tomorrow?

Go to church, of course, then hopefully catch up on all those posts I meant to write last week. The pictures are building up. They are calling out to me. I must record all the good times! It was a full week.

What am I going to do right now?

Absolutely nothing!

Chalk One Up for Mom

This year I have moved on to a new stage of life. I feel like I have stepped over the threshold of young mom into whatever the next step is! I know, I know, you are probably thinking....What do you mean you still thought you were a young mom?! Six kids? You lost young mom status long ago!

However, contrary to what anyone may have thought, until this year, I still felt a bit young momish.

So, what happened this year to change everything? Two words. Junior High.

This year, Scott started Junior High. In many ways, this year hasn't been much different than any other. Scott still rarely has homework. He loves some teachers, and others...well, not so much. He still comes home after school with lots to talk about. But in two ways (so far), it is quite different.

The first is the morning drop-off. Instead of hitting two schools, I now have to hit three. And, Scott's school starts 5 min. earlier than last year. AND, he gets in trouble if he's late. Thank heavens Brek can drive them most of the time. So far so good on the whole tardy issue.

The second took place this week. Three words. Parent Teacher Conference.

Enter here the whole 3 school issue once again. Three schools to visit for parent teacher conference! And do you have any idea how many teachers Scott has?! About a bazillion.

Thursday night was CRAZY for me, so all I could squeeze in was a quick visit to Syd and Maddy's teachers. Wait, did I say quick visit? Oh, excuse me. Is there any such thing? It seems the people in front of me typically have a LOT to talk about. Oh well. Such is life.

Anyway, back to my story. Last night was crazy....I only got to one school, leaving two schools for Friday morning. I arrived at Burley Junior High at 9:15 am, leaving myself plenty of time to hit both schools. I had until 11:00, or so I thought. I quickly realized something was up when I entered Scott's school and saw tables labeled 7th grade and 8th grade, with nothing on them. Hmmm, odd, I thought to myself. And how strange it seemed that there was nobody to direct me. I was new to this whole junior high scene, you know. And stranger still, as I entered the gym, I found several small tables, labeled with teachers names, but....no teachers!

Apparently the junior high parent teacher conferences ended at 9:00. OOPS!

My first parent teacher conference at the junior high was a huge success, don't you think? Hopefully next time things will work out a bit better!

HELP

I want to print my blog. You know, have it made into a book. You see, this is my new form of scrapbooking/journaling. Hence, all the daily going-ons that I write about. Sorry if they bore you.

Here's where you come in. Does anyone know a good place to get this done? I found a great site--blurb.com, but now they don't print blogspot blogs. Arghh! Any other ideas???

Guess What?

If you spill krazy glue on your hands, you should NOT try to rinse it off with water. This does NOT work. Instead of the water rinsing away the glue, it has the reverse effect. It makes the glue instantly dry!

How do I know this? Oh, you know. Just a little tid bit of info I picked up today.

By the way. Does anyone know how to get krazy glue off skin?!

One Year Older

Last year, this was me. Plump and round through the midsection.


And here we are a year later.



Yep, that's right. It was birthday weekend around here. And we had not one, but two birthdays! Ben was a mere hour and a half away from sharing a birthday with his dad.

It amazes me how fast time flies. And the busier life gets, the faster time goes by. I want to freeze my little Ben in time, but yet I want to see him grow. Oh, how I will miss his snuggling when he does grow! I have never had a baby quite like Ben....one who loves to snuggle up to me, and does it frequently.

Ben is such a joy in our home. He makes us all smile with his cute little personality. That cute personality, however, can turn awfully fiesty when things don't go his way. He is already learning how to express his disapproval by throwing himself on the ground. Let me just say, I don't think he is going to be a push-over! He has a bit of that Pilling determination in him.

And to celebrate turning one, Ben took his first step yesterday. Hooray for Ben! We love you!

Here's how the party went down.
There was cake and ice cream. (Ben's favorite part)


There were presents.




And cousins.


There was help from his brothers and sisters in the unwrapping department.


And,there were new fleece pajamas, which made Ben want to snuggle up and suck his thumb.


The End.


Then there was birthday number 2, which belonged to none other than my better half.


Let me share with you a few of the many reasons why I love this guy so much. I love his determination. Brek is such a hard worker. He doesn't know the meaning of the word quit. When confronted with a problem, he will work until he finds a solution.

I love the way Brek loves music. He really loves it. It touches his soul. Often times at night, he will grab his guitar and head up the stairs to sing the kids to sleep. It has become somewhat of a tradition in our home.... a special treat for the kids.

I love Brek's generosity. He is such a giving person. Most people probably don't know the extent of his generosity....not even me. He would much rather go without in order to help another.

Brek is a doer. We have so much fun together. He is one good-looking, waterskiing, basketball playing, coaching, canning, hiking, snow-skiing guy!

I love the way Brek treats me. He is my "biggest fan". He never speaks bad about me, and I know he would do anything for me (except let me turn the A/C down low!) He notices the good and overlooks the bad. He says such kind things like, "I am so lucky that you married me."

But, you know what? I am the lucky one!!!

Love you Brek!

What have we been doing this week?

Food storage, food storage, and more food storage. I checked out the sealer from the church cannery, brought it home, and we went to work.

At the end of the day, this is what we had to show for our work.

No, this will not feed our family for a whole year, and yes, my kids eat a lot of food!

I left the kitchen unattended for a moment, and returned to find this. Luke had taken over where I left off.

He had the general idea....just overdid it a bit! Everything was coated in flour.



Ben crawled underneath Luke's "work space" and was dusted.

Ben loves to suck his thumb, especially when he has a blanket or something soft to hold. When he can't find a blanket handy, he gets creative. Often times a sock or a shoelace will make do.

"All done Mom!"

This turned out to be a great family project. All the kids wanted to join in the fun. Scott and I did what we could, then headed off to mutual. When I got home, this is what I found.

Brek, the scooper. Otherwise known as the filler of cans.

Josh, the sealer....the guy in charge of manning the machine.

Sydney, the labeler....the gal in charge of the permanent marker.

And then there was Maddy. Maddy was in charge of creating forts out of all the big boxes lying around our kitchen.

What a team!
It is such a great feeling to see your kids working together....happily.
And happy they were. Wouldn't you agree?

Winter Already?

Early Saturday morning I heard the pitter patter of little feet running up and down the stairs. I groaned. It was way too early for a Saturday morning!

I went to see what was going on, and instruct whoever belonged to those little feet to be quiet and not wake everyone else up. I found not one, but three owners of little feet. Sydney, Madelyn, and Luke were all staring out the kitchen window. When they noticed me, they exclaimed, "It snowed!!!"

I thought I would see a little skiff of snow when I looked out. After all, it is only early October. Boy was I wrong! There was a few inches of snow on the ground and it was still coming down hard.

Thus began the blizzard of October.

The kids could hardly contain their excitement, gathering cups of snow to make "snow cones". They couldn't wait to get outside!



There's nothing like a big snowstorm to motivate kids to get their work done fast! Soon they headed out to play (this time bundled up!)




Ben had a great view of all the fun. He was cozy and warm on his side of the glass.

There were lots of hot chocolate breaks throughout the day, often accompanied by chocolate chip cookies and chicken noodle soup.

The boys took a break from all the snow to watch the BYU game, but the girls were still going strong.....


building the best snowman ever. Oh, excuse me...the best snow woman ever. (Notice the hair.)

Ben was a great help, cleaning up the floor after the kids would come tromping through. He gobbled up clumps of snow whenever he would spot them. He managed to get a lot of snow into his mouth before I discovered what he was up to!


We here in the Pilling household LOVE snow, so we were all excited. The kids played until well after dark, then collapsed. What a fun day!