Pumpkin patch

the last day of October

"The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide.
The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf.
The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills...
Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay; ... its time of
flowers and even of fruit was over."  -Charlotte Bronte

Monday afternoon with Erin and the kids to the pumpkin patch.



We got the kids to sit for pictures before they got running around. Cute! It's a little breezy and Sarah, baby girl, where's your sockies?



"Big" fixation.



A big ole one picked out and Grandpa carts it around.



Abbie hefts and props



and Noah's all over going um... um... um...



Not another one Lando! Noah at the back um... um... um... this one.



Done and done! Big for Landon and dad. Middle-sized for mom and Abbie. Noah's pick: just right.


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Dad's home from work and now the real fun: carving the pumpkins for Family Home Evening.

Because you're the dad and your wife is making chicken and dumplings from scratch (which is amazing and she's really glad to do it, she just doesn't like her picture taken, not even)



and you're good with a scalpel knife, and there's three pumpkins on the kitchen table facing you and three excited children... you're in charge. You draw a ring around the top of your big ole pumpkin with a Sharpie.



And help your daughter do the same with her pumpkin at the other end of the table and carve the top right off with a kitchen knife. Ew!



Grandpa's having a go at your pumpkin with a tiny tinny blade with teeth that comes in your pumpkin carving kit and making dang little progress. You come back with the knife already.



Abbie goes in with the scoop! Ew! Noah, who's gone to bed with a runny nose and glassy eyes, now needs you to carve the top off his pumpkin; since mom is cooking and Nana's taking pictures and Landon's afraid of knives and is only seven, and Grandpa's busy.



Back to yours.



and hers



and hers



and hers. Help!



Now yours... topped, scooped, thinned, pinned,



punched and sawed...



is done!



Both on the front porch alight with a candle each



and the flash on Nana's camera. Which takes pretty good close-ups in the spooky black night.

Baby Sarah

We're driving home today. Here's some cuteness from yesterday.



Now Erin bless her pointed little head says Sarah has droopy little hound dog cheeks and got online yesterday figuring out what cartoon dog it is she looks just like.

Who does this baby look like? she called to me. After a while she said, come see, what'da'ya think?

Yup, I say, it's her!

And for darn sure this baby has Droopy Dog's fat little belly!

Sugar high

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY DAN! You weren't my biggest baby (that was Jenda), but your birth is probably the most memorable. Like two of the other kids you were born six days early, but that's not it. You were my only baby born in Utah. And I said he looks just like the others! (What a dumb thing to say as you were handed to me but you can't believe how familiar you already were to me. And so darn cute!!!) That's the deal!

Because you and I were still in the hospital on Halloween, Dad had to get the other kids dressed up and go out trick-or-treating. I got to rest. That was nice. Have a Happy Birthday, son!

So we colored cream cheese frosting yesterday after church and got the sprinkles out of the cupboard - thank you Erin for having plenty'o sprinkles - and frosted sugar cookies.


And munched 'em. Mm, the cookies were soft



except for the crunchy ones... Erin's oven cooks fast and um that would be the whole first batch. A coupl'a brown bottoms.



It's Halloween week and the kids're gonna be on a sugar high anyway.

(Noah at his favorite thing way in the background. Always.)


Why not start already?

Stuff to do

So right after family prayer yesterday morning and before we started doing stuff we had a family meeting. Abbie ran for paper and a pen because she likes to write things down and we went around the circle starting with Abbie and moving to Grandpa suggesting things we wanted to do today. You can see what everybody said. ↓

I said let's put a time on each thing, so Abbie wrote while we decided the times. Going to Lori's was for 6:00; and you can see a walk or baking cookies was questionable, but we thought, well, about 3:00 for getting out to the park.



While the big kids got situated downstairs for a second round of Home Alone 3 (we watched it last night with movie candy), Noah took up his favorite quiet thing to do.



Kent hunkered down about then for SEC football, South Carolina v. Tennessee - which went badly for Tennessee and super badly for Lattimore on the SC team. Out for the season.

Coach Steve Spurrier gave few details on Lattimore's damaged right leg, which flopped to the turf like a rag doll's might after a hit in the second quarter of No. 17 South Carolina's 38-35 win over Tennessee on Saturday. Lattimore was taken to the hospital for further evaluation.

Followed by BYU v. Georgia Tech. This is where Erin and Mike have been today - our coming here and their going there for this big win by BYU.



During the game I mixed up sugar cookie dough. These kids were upstairs wrestling on the bed, pretty quietly actually. I've begged explained that my nerves are not as good as their mother's and I need them to not yell and laugh so loud. Poor kids... but, really. A weekend holding it down won't kill them.

We got outside about... what'd'ya know, three o'clock. Funny how that worked out. You say it, visualize it, even write it down and the universe may hand it to you. I believe in that. I was kind of surprised it was 3:00 straight up when I looked at my watch!



At the park the main attraction was what'd'ya think?



Snowballs!



There are a bunch more snow pics but there was more to go... Noah running to keep up with the kids on their scooters and me at a dog trot behind.



A second park (I'm freezing to death so we had to keep moving) and another round of snow play.



Check, check and check... and what's not pictured here is the two hours we spent at Lori's and Sam's last night with the cousins. Our three and their oldest three sent up a ruckus from the basement enough to launch a missile and, yes, once Sam and I each had to run downstairs and lower the boom. Landon and Joseph together are dynamite! The girls had a blast too, Abbie was soooo sad to leave - sorry baby girl. Lori and I talked a mile a minute over cookies and hot chocolate and I had to confess while she listened wide-eyed and happy we've had a blessed day and the flow's been amazing... after all, like clockwork, didn't we pull into the driveway at exactly at 6:00?



Oh, and we had lunch at Burger King and Landon got an Icee and Abbie a Cinnabon.