Pumpkin Time

We declared the Friday before Halloween to be Pumpkin Day. We started the day off with pumpkin pancakes, using chocolate chips for the faces.

Then we went to pick out our pumpkins. Barry and the kids picked out six BIG pumpkins this year.

We made pumpkin dump cake.
Everyone helped clean the guts out of their pumpkin. Barry is the resident carver in our family, so while we were waiting for him to carve we got out the silly faces.

There's definitely not room in the house for six BIG pumpkins, so they went out on the front step.

We always toast the seeds from our pumpkins, and had a lot this year. (I soak in water to clean, drain, pat dry, melt about a tablespoon of butter on a sheet pan, add a single layer of seeds, sprinkle with seasoning salt and bake at 325 until crispy.)

For Halloween, we had candy corn veggies, swamp monster meatloat and ghostly potatoes. My parents were up visiting, and it was fun to spend a holiday with them.

Finally, here are my little "pumpkins" ready to go trick or treating:

Season's Greetings

Halloween is over and retailers nationwide are already switching gears and getting ready for the holidays. I'm not ready yet to put up the tree, decorate the house, or bake our favorite Christmas cookies, but I am thinking about our family's Christmas card.

In the past, I've used Shutterfly to make photo cards to send out to friends and family, like this photo from Christmas 2009. I picked this design for the traditional Christmas colors and the word joy that not only reflects the joy in my kids' faces, but the joy we feel at Christmas remembering the birth of Jesus.

Shutterfly has new card designs for 2010 with colors and styles to fit everyone's personal taste, from traditional red and green to hip and modern blue and brown. You can include one picture of your entire family, or if you can't get all the kids to cooperate in one photo, pick the best individual picture for each family member.

Matching address labels are also available to coordinate with your card.

Ready to order? Shutterfly is offering 20% off holiday cards. Have fun picking out the perfect on for your family!

Disclosure: Shutterfly is offering 50 free cards for this post. All opinions are mine only.

What We've Been Up To

Walking on the ATV trail behind our house:

Arts and Crafts:

Projects:
Mom found a free dresser for Jackson last year that is structurally sound but wasn't much to look at. I painted it red with black trim. It already has some scratches and imperfections, and someday I'll replace the handles as there's always been one missing, but it's a big improvement.

An old frame I found at a thrift shop for $2. I took out the old "artwork," painted the mat and frame black and added some postage stamp art.

Hiking in the school forest:

At the end of last school year, the kids' school made some improvements to the school forest on the outskirts of town. Jackson's class worked on this sign at the beginning of a trail. Jackson helped to write one of the articles posted along the way. His class also helped put up signs that point out the trails.
Raina has a picture on the top of K2 Observation Outlook. Her class visited the forest last week and looked for animal homes, so she pointed out all the little caves and crevices where animals may make their homes.

Back to School

Jackson and Raina have been back to school for two weeks now, and have made the transition from carefree summer days to the routine of school. Sixth grade looks to be a busy year as Jackson has already gone on an overnight school field trip to Wolf Ridge, has joined the School Patrol, and is looking into starting band.
The school board voted to have a four day school week to save money, so they're going to school Monday through Thursday most weeks. I'm not letting them slack on Fridays, though, and we're doing music lessons (piano for both and guitar for Jackson), math enrichment, and other fun learning activities together.
Ollie takes a good afternoon nap every day which gives me time to do things with just Remy. Last week we painted with apples. Raina had a little fit when she found out Remy got to paint and she didn't, and I had to explain that she does lots of fun things at school that Remy doesn't get to do.


When I see the kids day to day, I don't always see realize how much they grow in a year. Here's how they've each changed in the past year:

Ollie, 8 1/2 months

Ollie, 20 1/2 months

Ollie would not stand still, he kept running away or crouching down, so I made him sit instead

Remy, 2 1/2

Remy, 3 1/2

Raina, Kindergarten

Raina, First Grade

Jackson, Fifth Grade

Jackson, Sixth Grade

Summer Recap

Here we are at the last weekend of summer. The kids go back to school on Tuesday, and I'm sure we'll quickly settle back into that routine again. Here's some of what we've been up to since I last posted in July:

Running through the sprinkler on a hot day

The sand table has been an endless source of entertainment

At a rest stop off I-35--I guess no one wanted their picture taken

After eating pizza at Do North in Two Harbors, we watched a ship come in

Sometimes we split the kids up--Raina and Remy had breakfast with me at Betty's Pies, we went on a little hike along the lake, and then we went grocery shopping

The garden looked like this early in the summer, but flourished enough to produce plenty of veggies to go with our summer grilling:

Peas, which the kids ate raw straight from the garden

Green beans, lettuce and more peas

Roma tomatoes
and also some stubby carrots and round cucumbers

I made freezer jam for the first time out of raspberries from my mom and blueberries (I bought a case)

Remy has been attached to Woody most of the summer after seeing Toy Story 3

And my buddy Ollie