Carving Craze

Well, the kids honestly thought that Sunday would never come and we would never carve our pumpkins, but God is good and Sunday did come! After church, lunch and short rest we headed out to the deck with uncle Trevor and soon-to-be-auntie Jen to carve our pumpkins. Having looked at the pictures my dad took from the day I decide that the day can best be told by his pictures! Also I just have to say that we had a great family fun weekend! Saturday we were all over the board but Saturday night our good friend's the Long's had us down to their house's for fight night and then today we spent the day together and just had a great time. I love weekends like theses! Anyways, with no further ado's our pumpkin carving adventures:

The pumpkins get set up.

Let the mucking out begin...

Serafina decides to taste an uncooked pumpkin seed....

yuck....bad idea!

Sam is equally unimpressed by the mucking out of the pumpkins

Everyone getting their hands in.

Ok...Dad I will help get this stuff out.

Really what is so funny?

Hey Matt, where did Sam go?

Hey Tracy, where did Serafina go?

No really where did the kids go?

Forget carving permanent markers work better, thanks Nana!

Matteo helping Trevor with his masterpiece.

Pump-caso!!
(Serafina's pumpkin, with the help of Lynn)


And now for what you all have been waiting for..why did Matteo need a 45lb pumpkin?!? Well if you remember 3yrs ago on Serafina's first Halloween we spontaneously decide to put her in a pumpkin as we were craving and she was smiling and happy as could be:


So we decide for Matteo first Halloween that he needed to be put inside a pumpkin. Sadly it didn't go as well as it did with Serafina, he was not as happy. Here is Matteo inside his pumpkin:

It is hard to see in the picture but the word carved in the pumpkin says Jail and the lines represent jail bars, the idea came from his Uncle Trevor!

Then the big kids wanted to try to fit inside the pumpkin!

The carvers with a few of the masterpieces!

This was Jens happy pumpkin.

Pumpkin Pi!
Trevor's Pumpkin

Sam choice a very complicate pattern for his pumpkin and therefore it is not yet finished. It will have to be added later. That does it for our carving adventures! Hope your Sunday was as blessed as ours.

Annual Pumpkin Picture

In my last post I made reference to our annual pumpkin picture that we take, therefore I thought it would be fun to go back and post all the past years. Sadly I am unable to post our first year of pumpkin pictures (2005) as I did not have a digital camera then and it is not one of the pictures I have scanned into the computer. So here they are:

2006

2007

2008

Pumpkin Patch

Here on the central coast it is hard to mark the changing of the seasons! We pretty much stay within the same 10 degrees year around give or take a few here and there. However, we do manage to celebrate the fall, along with ever other central coast family, by heading out to Avila Valley Barn to pick out our pumpkins for Halloween. Down at the Barn, they do a great job at bring the Fall feeling to our 75 degree weather with their pile of pumpkins, hay rides, farm animals, roasted corn, hay maze and well just fall time decoration and spirit. In order to avoid the crowds that the barn draws during the month of October we took yesterday off and headed out to the barn to pick out our pumpkins!


What a great day. We started our day off with pumpkin pancakes, Serafina decided she did not like these. Matteo thought they were the bested thing he had ever tasted, and Sam decided not try!! To funny. Then of course we had to stop at Starbucks and pick up Auntie Jenn. It was important we brought Jenn for two reasons, one an extra set of hands for when we had the pumpkins and kids, and also because we had to borrow her camera (mine is still not working). Then it was out the Barn. First on the agenda was a few trips through the maze. I must note here how brave my kids are. I absolutely refuse to go through this maze, it makes me claustrophobic, I tried once to suck it up for my kids sake, be the bigger person, and about had a panic attack. So here is my six-year-old and my three-year-old (again 3-year-old) who go through this maze by themselves over and over again!! And after strict instructions not to leave Serafina behind or alone of course Sam does, but did it scare her? NO, not a bit!! And their mother won't even go in!! Can we get a shout out for my two darling children!!

Then it was off to look at the animals! Which is always exciting. Before picking out our pumpkins I did make the children all get together for a group shot, we have to take the annual pumpkin picture, very important!!


They of course were highly annoyed with that. Matteo had great fun sitting with the pumpkins and tasting the hay, as we all searched for the perfect pumpkin. Sam and Serafina helped me find the biggest pumpkin we could find to be Matteo's pumpkin. Hopefully on Monday after we carve them I can blog why. They did a great job! Matteo's pumpkin weighted twice as much as him 45lbs!

After loading the pumpkins, we decided that a little ice cream would cool us all down, because it was really hot!! Sam had a little moose tracks, Serafina had chocolate chip and Matteo got to try a little vanilla!! What a great day. Hope you all are enjoy your fall!

Trying to get everyone to look and smile just cracks me up and frustrates me to no end all at the same time!!

Matteo helping load the pumpkins!

Jen's Shower

The bridal shower for Jen was wonderful! Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. Like I has mentioned in my previous post my camera is out of commission so my friend Jeannett was in charge of pictures. She is on top of things and has all ready post pictures on her blog. So just click here to enjoy pictures from the beautiful bridal shower!

Long Time

Oh my, I think this is the longest I have gone without updating my blog!! To my faithful readers I am sorry. Needless to say it has been crazy around these parts. I could go on with excuse after excuse to as why the blog has not been updated but instead I thought I would just list the many activities we have been busy doing. There are not many pictures to go along with our activities because my camera has been acting a little crazy lately!!

To start off with, 1st grade has been a huge adjustment for us all. Public school is crazy, it's big, there is homework, and the hours are just not conducive to a babies nap schedule!! However Sam does seem to love his class and being with his friends. Recess is still his favorite part of school.

For those for you who don't know my brother is getting married Dec 6th to my friend Jennifer. I have the joy of being the Maid-of-honor. (Jen was my Maid-of-Honor) Which means, I also get to throw the Bridal Shower. The best thing is that her other bridesmaid Jeannett is co-hosting with me so we have been able to split up the work. The shower is this weekend and I am very excited however, very busy. For the last few weeks ever spare minute has been spent doing little things. I can not explain much now because Jen does read my blog and I want her to be somewhat in the dark. She does know it is a Tiffany themed shower and that everyone has been asked to wear their favorite little black dress!! Oh how fun!! Maybe if I have time I will post more after this weekend.

Which leads into my next time sucker- because of the wedding- and the fact I am in the wedding, my mom and I decided to join this workout thing called "Team Fit". It is a 12wk fitness program where you compete against other teams to see who can loss the highest percentage of weight (think biggest loser on a smaller scale). Basically my mom and I have now become gym rats, every spare moment we have you can find us at the gym sweating up a storm, it is pretty sick!! We are also eating salads!! You gotta love it! The big question is, do you have a piece of cake at the bridal shower?!

About 2 wks after my mom and I joined team fit my husband (who has always has been a political guy) decide that if he was going to see a change in our country he needed to get involved. *****HUGE DISCLAIMER NOT INTERESTED IN POLITICAL DEBATE JUST LETTING PEOPLE KNOW WHY I HAVE NO TIME CURRENTLY****** So he decide to volunteer for the republican party to try and help McCain get elected President. The party was so impressed by his resume they basically asked him to run an office, my husband's head swelled up is so huge he could not say no and well I have not seen him since!! Good Luck McCain, Matt is working hard for you!!

Then to top it all off I decide to start researching homeschooling options! Which I am sure will become the topics of many post to comes. There are a ton of reason to why I am considering this option. Again the reasons along could be a blog post themselves. I thought I would throw this out here right now for fellow blogger Brianna, if your reading. After looking into homeschooling and talking with parents whom have successfully home schooled multiple children (in multiple families and situations) these are two outstanding curriculum options, i thought you might be interested in looking at. The first one is Calvert School, they have what looks like an awesome Pre-K program if you wanted to try it with Anna to see if you liked homeschooling before Kindergarten!! Just a thought. And the other one is called Tapestry of Grace, I have not explored this curriculum as much, because it seems like it is for much older kids. But it comes highly recommended!


Then there are all the other little things in life, swimming, dinner, hanging out, watching uncle Mario play football. My friend Mary had her baby, Tobin. I have been trying like mad to finish his baby quilt, he is now 7wks old and it is still not done!! We have had school Bar-B-Que and both kids schools, we celebrate my parents anniversary, our anniversary (again), Mario and Karlee birthday. Of course we have also fit in a couple girls nights, and I have had a few minor melt downs! All in all in has been a wild begin to the fall and who knows when the coaster might end.

Last but not least a Matteo update: at our last doctor appointment he weighed 19lbs, I forget how long he was. He was in the 50% for weight 75% for height. He now has 3 teeth. One tooth is only there because he feel so hard on his gums that it caused the tooth to prematurely break through the gums! Oh well, boys will be boys.

Hope you all are doing well.