2009 Christmas Card ~ Take 1

Russell Maynard.  I was trying to get a picture of the kids for this years Christmas card.  As you can see Russ proved to be an easier subject...

Jeeps came over to see what was going on and she is certainly not fast enough to out run me, so I got a couple of her too.  None of the kids though, imagine that....

All Hallow's Eve....

TRick o' TReaT

SmELL MY FeeT....

Happy Halloween!

Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, YEA!! It made for a nice relaxing weekend with plenty of time to enjoy the holiday and recuperate before the Monday morning grind. Mom's Club had a Halloween costume party for the kiddos at Lori's house....It was warm, but they had a blast anyway. Abi went as a bumblebee and Billy went as a shark. The bee was hilarious because it was way too small. I was worried the entire time it might actually come busting off and sting someone. A size 2T. Billy's shark costume was also a 2T. It was plenty big on him.... note he is nearly 4 years old at the time of this post....

Lori even had a pumpkin pinata for the kids. Billy took his best swing at it and for all he cares he busted that thing right out of the ballpark. Jen actually had to intervene or we could have been there all day....All's well that ends well though!

CANDY!! The first of the season! Yum. Billy scooped up all the Skittles and Abi went after the DumDums. I'm pretty sure she had powered right through seven or eight of them while we were taking a group shot....All I found were wrappers.

For the official trick o' treating we went to the Howell's house with the Rugen's and some of James and Denise's neighbors. I was worried our neighborhood would be too quiet this year and we had thought about going to Prescott, but believe it or not, it was kind of chilly up there. As it turns out the Howell's "hood" was off the hook (pardon the pun)! There were so many trick o' treater's and parents and dogs and everyone had their houses decorated and.... too many and's? I am just so excited! Everyone was social, sitting out in front of their houses with the baseball playoffs graciously tuned in so all the Dad's out doing their fatherly duty could keep score. I tried to get pictures, but nighttime is hard without the proper flash. It really did feel like we were walking in a Disney movie, swear! It was perfect!

Emily and Abi were cute little witches this year and Billy was.....drum roll please....BUZZ LIGHTYEAR, again. Ugh. He had about six choices and Buzz won out at the last minute. Brooklynn and Kaylie were cowgirls and Kassidy was a cheerleader, Brooke was a princess. They were all adorable.

Trying to get some of the delicious (sugar-free) dinner the guys were grilling down their throats before the gluttony begins.

One of the only pictures I have that even resembles one of the kids from trick o' treating. Emi had a blast and has hardly touched her candy, still. Billy was better this year than last. He walked the whole stretch (almost) and only asked to be done a few times. Abi had a master plan this year. A perfect plan if you ask me...because it made my post Halloween life easy. She knocked on a door, said her mumbo-jumbo, got her candy, sat down in the stroller, ate said candy til it was gone, jumped out of the stroller and did it all over again! She seriously made it home with just wrappers in her bucket. I figure she hit about every fourth house. Seems like perfect plan to me! BOO!

Bates Nut Farm!

Bates Nut Farm. Quite possibly (I know I probably say this about everything) my new most favorite place!! We discovered it on a fluke over Fall Break while Megan, all the kids and I were at the Beatsch House (which for the record is also on my most favorite place list). As I said before we had a cloudy cool day and still had the Farmer's Market high on our minds...seemed like a perfect day to find a pumpkin patch. So, after a little sleuthing we found San Diego County's oldest pumpkin patch. Only about 20 miles away. We all piled in the car in our warm cozy clothes and with the wagon and we were off. Worth a try anyway, right? The oldest pumpkin patch around. Seems right up my alley, Megan's too. After winding through the mountains (hills) east of Escondido and past a lake on a narrow two lane road we found it. The greatest pumpkin patch EVER!!! Totally not prepared for the mass crowds and the much warmer weather we piled out of the car and proceeded to wander around like kids in a candy store. We were also completely not prepared to find that all the pumpkins were what we Arizonians would classify as ginormous. Huge, beautiful, orange monsters! So excited! I made the kids climb all over the place just so I could take pictures of pumpkins. It was more than we were prepared for...we had to leave. We needed to get some realistic ideas about how much space we actually had available so we could come back on our way home with all our stuff crammed in the car -6 kids, 2 adults and our luggage with just enough space leftover to fit a few gigantic beauties! I LOVE FALL.

We also came across a persimmon tree. It was covered in fruit. Pretty exciting, I had never seen one before...

Is this not a fairytale looking pumpkin? Cinderella's carriage and Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater come to mind. Some creature made a perfect house out of this huge pumpkin. I tried to get the kids to look inside because I was too chicken...They are apparently wiser than I give them credit because no one was having any part of that idea. What if it was still there?!

I left off the best part of the story! When we came back on our way home (of course prepared for warm weather, after the day before) it was freezing cold, why wouldn't it be. Not to worry though because we had all our luggage strapped to the back of the car. We also did not have the wagon to haul our precious pumpkins in. We had to use wheelbarrows. It's comical. They say the farm is over 100 acres. Here we all are searching for just the perfect pumpkin in the misty cold weather with half a dozen kids and wheelbarrows. The pumpkins HAD to be perfect too...They had to fit several requirements just to be considered: size- not too big or they wouldn't fit in the very limited space we had available, stem- gotta have a stem, color and overall health. It's a lot of pressure to judge this kind of beauty contest. Not to mention the race to find the winner first. Megan won. Here she is with her wheelbarrow full of winners!

I chose to park my wheelbarrow, locate the perfect pumpkin and then push the wobbly thing through the fields. I made the kids stake out my winner so I didn't lose it in the crowd of monster sized pumpkins.

The Pezzelle's beast, tipping the scale at 83 lbs.! For an amazing price tag of $33.

The Deatsch pumpkin, weighing in at 67 lbs. For a grand total of $27. Abi was shocked at what a steal it was. Haha.

Our very packed car. We had to take it out into a vacant field in order to completely unpack and then repack it. We packed a lunch for the kids to eat while we configured a plan.

Happy little sardines ready for the drive home! We cannot wait for next years trip!!