Pumpkin Walk

Every year, down in North Logan, there is a Pumkin Walk. Community members, schools, and church groups put together scenes using pumpkins and various squash. I didn't capture some of my favorites on camera. There were easily 50 different scenes: under water, sports heroes, army men, firefighters, etc. This one was funny: the "man" on the operating table is cut open, with pumpkin guts all over! The Doctor on the left is administering a shot in the pumpkins rear end (which if you can't tell, is two pumpkins side by side!!) It was well done!

Recently, a friend of ours lent us The Incredibles so Brendan was super excited to see one patterned after the movie!!!

The theme this year was Everyday Heroes. This is by far my favorite! The caption was "Fathers, every day heroes". The Pumkins formed a fountain, there was even a pump that circulated water through the top pumpkin. The father and son have a fishing pole. Perhaps it's just close to my heart because Brendan and Derek have been fishing together; and perhaps because my kids are so blessed to have an incredible Daddy, who makes the effort to be their hero every day!

Of course, this time of year, there has to be some mockery of the Presidential election! Certainly brought a few chuckles!

Hide & seek

Brendan loves to play hide and seek. Derek was so excited he came up with this hidding spot. Brendan thought it was hilarious that Daddy was in the cupboard! (and yes, Daddy had a little trouble getting back out!!!)

My turn Daddy!

My Cake

So Jess, the one time I don't actually bake from scratch :) That's right, I cheated and used a cake mix. Duncan Hines has come out and tried to make the majority of their cake mixes dairy, egg, and nut free. I applaud them for taking the step, especially when it makes my life easier! However, the cake mix doesn't work well with my egg substitution so I am still playing with it! I was in the middle of canning, and didn't want to take the time to make a cake from scratch. I started with two round cake pans, and was going to do the race track in a figure 8. My cake didn't turn out as I had hoped, without the egg they are much too moist and fall apart! So, what you see, is all the crumbled cake lovingly forced into one little round circle. I piped frosting on the oreos, and stuck them around the side for "tires". I used crushed oreos for the dirt on the track, and frosted over oreos for the green grass in the middle. I couldn't frost the cake because it was just a mess! The lines on the road are actually marshmallows. The end result looks okay, but I was almost in tears trying to get it to come together! Thanks for making me relive my shining moment in the kitchen!! Just be grateful you don't have to adapt everything-it flops half the time before I can get anything to turn out right!!!

Happy Birthday

Well, here are a few pictures of Brendan's little birthday bash. He had a Lightning McQueen birthday cake, which he was a big help making!

It was warm enough to do water balloons. The kids took turns using the sling shot and shooting them in the back yard. Brendan kept throwing them at our friend Sherice, but luckily none broke on her!

Brendan wanted a school bus pinata, so we had fun concocting this one! It wouldn't break though, and we ended up just ripping the top open and dumping out the treats. The kids didn't care, as long as there was candy as the end result!

My little Brynlee Jo has a bit of a sweet tooth! Brendan set his cake down, and she found it right away and enjoyed it all too much~

Fishing

There are a million fishing places around here! We headed up to a Reservoir about 5 miles from our home to take Brendan fishing. He enjoyed throwing mud balls into the water, and a few stray ones at Derek!

Once Derek got a good cast out, Brendan would come reel it in for him. They sure looked cute together! We didn't catch anything, but ran into a friend with several fish that Brendan got to hold. He didn't like them; they were too cold and slippery!

Derek sat Brynlee into the trunk as he was putting things away. Of course, a little boy had to join her :)

Slow down!

This week has been busy, and I have had trouble keeping up! The beginning of the week consisted of canning pears as quickly as I could with two little kiddos underfoot, creating a pinata for Brendan's party, planning a party, and making/delivering invites to friends, making a cake/cupcakes for the party, and trying to clean up my canning mess! It was more work than it sounds like! Thursday the kids and I went and picked about 4 boxes of apples (which were free of course-is there any other way!?!) I have been trying to get those canned & dehydrated, but we have plumbing issues, and I don't have a kitchen sink, so they have been put on the back burner! Hopefully that will be rectified on Monday, and I can get these babies done! I am planning to do apple slices, pie filling, and apple sauce, in addition to the dehydrated ones! We will see how they turn out! Well, Derek is using the computer to watch his team (the Cubbies) lose their last game of the year (maybe they will pull out of it though!) so I best go! I will update pics of Brendan's birthday when I can!