Pumpkin Carving

We've been anticipating carving our perfect pumpkins for days. The girls were so excited until I cut off the tops and they saw all the "goo" inside! I have 2 children too squeemish to stick their hands inside a pumpkin or touch the sticky seeds. They gave me their input for the scary faces and quickly lost interest...

They enjoyed the cinnamon-sugar pumpkin seeds and The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown special that was on TV!

Spooky Trails

I heard a great story tonight.

Joe is out of town and I am working all weekend, so Grandma and Auntie Leslie agreed to keep our children. Being the fabulous child care providers they are, they planned some activities to keep everyone entertained during what I'm sure was a very long weekend for the adults! Ali's school had sent home a flier advertising a "Spooky Trails" attraction at a local park. The flier listed admission prices for children under 12 years old and was sent home with Kindergartners, so we assumed the "haunts" would be appropriate for the younger crowd...
The kids were dressed in their Halloween costumes as an Enchanted Mermaid, Elmo and a Dinosaur. When the admission fees were paid, the ticket-taker helpfully asked "You know there are guys with chainsaws in there, right?" So down the trail headed Grandma holding a trembling Elmo, yelling "we have really little kids here!" while being chased by dead guys with chainsaws, ghosts dripping fake blood, bodies hanging from trees and other demons. She dragged the bug-eyed Mermaid by the hand explaining over and over "it's just pretend Ali, keep walking!" while Auntie ran along behind her holding Scared-A-Saurus Rex. Then they got to the hayrack ride which was not as advertised. It was actually an F-150 pulling a picnic table bolted to a flat-bed trailer and it dragged them up a moderately busy street at 45MPH.

So thanks Grandma and Auntie for the supreme babysitting! It certainly made for an entertaining phone call! Maybe next weekend we can take them to see The Strangers or something!!

The Results Are In!!

We've had a terrific family day! Ali stayed home from school to go to our appointments with us. She was really excited to see our baby on "TV". The sonographer was great - she explained to all of us what parts of the baby we were looking at. The girls were interested for about 5 seconds and then Mia said "Baby Monster!" It did look a little scary I suppose. Before we got started we all shared whether we thought it was a baby boy or baby girl. Mia said girl, Daddy and Ali said boy. When the sonographer said we had another baby girl, Joe and I said, "Are you sure? Keep looking... " Mia was happy. Ali was not. "AWWW! I already HAVE a sister!" So, it was a little quiet on the car ride home - but everyone is coming around. We're thrilled our baby appears healthy and that she's half way done "cooking"! As for Daddy - all I can say is that he was meant to be surrounded by beautifull women his entire life. God knows what He's doing!

Recipe For Disaster

Nap time is sacred. Being a night shift worker, I really count on nap time during the week to ward off exhaustion. Mia and I snuggle up for a nice 1.5 hour nap almost every afternoon. Ali's not so into nap time anymore. She usually has "quiet time" followed by a movie or crafts and stays out of trouble. Not today. In her own words....

"Brownie Chocolate Cookie Faker Maker"

3 drops honey

4 spoon scoops chocolate powder

3 dumps flour

2 peanut butter cookies

1 small dump baking soda

1 large dump water

Bake for 31 minutes under the sink in the bathroom so Mom doesn't see it. (Forgets to put ingredients back in pantry which clues Mom into looking for large mess somewhere in house.)