Pumpkin Carve-Off 2015

We have carved more pumpkins this year than any year before! We both went with a multi-pumpkin design this year with one stacked version and the other working as a set. We look forward to your vote to let us know who will be the winner in 2015! The voting will be in the top right corner of the blog and we will keep it up for a week! As always, you won't know who carved what until the winner is announced. Happy voting!

**If you are on a mobile device the sidebar doesn't show up. You need to scroll down and choose "view web version" at the bottom of the screen. Then at the top right corner there is a poll that says choose your favorite pumpkin and you can vote.  It doesn't let me put the poll into the post. I will try to figure out how to do that next year.


Pumpkin A

 Pumpkin B

As always here are some links to years past pumpkin carve-off competition!
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008

Hair-Ties and Babies

Jaxson decided he wanted to learn how to brush and use hairties so he can do Alice's hair before school when the time comes. I found this hilarious as neither of them will want to do or have their hair done when the time comes. But Jaxson did take the lesson very serious and finally got the hang of it!

Soccer!

Jaxson and the teams in his division are just starting to get the hang of things and passing the ball to move it downfield rather than all just chasing the ball around in a giant swarm of kids. Jaxson definitely enjoys soccer. He seems to really understand passing and the different footwork when he is in pracitice and at home. During games it moves so quickly he doesn't get to use all his skills as often as he is concentrating so hard on keeping the ball away from the other team. I am sure every year it will get even more obvious as the teams start to defend one on one much more!

Mover

She is determined to learn to crawl! Sooner than later....

Attack of the Silly Putty

Asher's blanket had an attack of silly putty. I knew it was a bad idea when he found a little ball of silly putty in his room and all he wanted was to put the putty on his bedside table but he wasn't going to play with it. I like trust my boys but sometimes I know temptation just is too much. In the morning I picked up his blanket and it wouldn't fall open. It was stuck into a little ball. Then I see silly putty everywhere on his bed. He definitely played with it. Then fell asleep and got all hsi sheets tangled with silly putty. Awesome.

On the crayola website it gives way to get silly putty out. WD40 or alcohol. If it wasn't his special blanket I would have used the third option which was to act like the blanket never was. It was a week of constant smell of WD40 in our kitchen as I soaked and rinsed and scrubbed and soaked more. Once I had all the putty out as good as I could I needed to get the WD smell out. So I let it soak in some Oxyclean and hot water. Questionable choice as I put it in the mix and it started to fume. Too many chemicals happening. Rather than taking the blanket out I just grabbed Alice and exited the house. I wasn't sure what was happening. After a safe time away (7hours) I carfeully took the blanket out with tongs expecting it to be a holey, disenegrated mess. But to my surprise it was just really, really clean. Any old stains or dingy color was gone! I soaked and rinsed it again in Dawn a few times and finally washed it in the washer tonight. And they were reunited. Finally.

PSA. Never buy my kids silly putty! You will be disowned by me!

The IA City Meeting

Jaxson was supposed to go to Tate's birthday party and plans got changed and we weren't able to make the trip. To make up for it we decided to meet them for an afternoon in Iowa City. I found a neat little arcade near campus and the boys ate pizza, played games for a QUARTER each (that was the best part) and ate cupcakes before we headed back in opposite directions. The boys had so much fun and it was the perfect spot for these two gamers!

6 Months Later

 Our baby girl has been making us smile for over 6 months now! It is always surprising how fast little ones grow even if it is the third time around. She is sitting up unassisted and playing with toys. She is all smiles if you talk to her, especially her brothers. He loves her dolls or stuffed animals. She 'talks' to them as if they are her friends. She gets on her hands and knees and is rocking back and forth and has pulled herself across a small area to reach for a toy but mostly just scooches backwards on the wood floor. Her last weigh in she was 18lbs of pure Mommy milk with one spoonful of squash that she absolutely hated.