Pumpkin carving

Every year we host a pumpkin carving contest. This was our 3rd annual contest. Everyone brings an uncarved pumpkin and tries to create the most original design. You can use a pattern but only after you draw it freehand in front of everyone to make sure you don't cheat. At the end we hold a silent vote to decide who wins. This year Jeff and Heather are the winners. After we are done with the pumpkins we pig out (or at least I do) on all the treats. It is always a ton of fun. Let the carving begin!

Adam has just carved his first pumpkin. he did everything himself from drawing his outline, cleaning it and cutting it. Everyone was very proud of him L-R Shirley,Elayna, Ashlynn, Felicity

Greg

Beth and Richard

Jeff and Heather

Jay and Maranda

our Phoenix adventure

So we went up to Phoenix on Thursday night to attend my friends wedding Friday morning. It was just me and the kids as Greg had to work. Everything is fine and dandy on the drive up and then Shaunton watched the kids so I could go with Monique to see Owen. It was a good time and as far as I know the kids were good. Friday morning I woke up to hear/see Elayna chowing down on some tylenol and ibuprofen. I called Greg asking what I should do and he gave me the number to poison contol. I called them and they recommended I take her into the ER quickly just in case she overdosed. (it takes 17 ibuprofen 200mg. or 4 tylenol 500mg. to overdose) I spent the morning back and forth at the hospital and Moniques house. I missed the wedding and all the festivities. Elayna did not overdose but there was meds in her system. She was happy overall and slept quite a bit. I am very bummed I didn't get to go to the wedding. I do get to go to the reception tonight which I am excited about. Elayna is a lot happier today and back to her trouble-making self. We got home last night and just crashed. At least everyone is ok.

a new salt water tank

We recently got a saltwater tank. It had a couple fish in it. Nothing special. We added some rock and were planning on adding more fish later. Well we happened to walk into the pet store at just the right time one night. Their saltwater tank had completely crashed and they had finally decided to take it apart and start from the very beginning. Since they had all these fish and no place to keep them we quickly bought them and added them to our collection. Now our tank is looking very good and full. As it turns out we have a stinker of a fish that is picking on everyone else (yellow tailed damsel) so we decided we are going to take it out to save all the other fish. Easier said than done. We ended up pulling out most of the 70 lbs. of rock in the tank to get the little bugger. So we get the fish out and set the tank back up and all is well. So a couple of days later (last night) Elayna decides she is going to be helpful and feeds the fish....the entire, brand new bottle of fish flakes. This is very bad as it throws off the balance of the water and all that good stuff. Unfortunatley we didn't have any salt or good water ready. So Greg takes off to the store to get the stuff we need and I stay home and take all the rock back out of the tank and start cleaning the water. Easier said than done too cause the rock has to stay covered with water the entire time. By the time Greg got home the water was red and got very stinky. We spent 2 hours filtering water, doing treatments and getting the water balanced back out. We then put all the rock back into the tank followed by the fish. Now we have a nice, clean, semi-new saltwater tank and hopefully we don't lose any fish. Our fish now include 2 maroon clowns, a chromis, a bi-color, a 6 striped rass, a starynight goby (gramps), a butterfly and a watchman (gobi) with his living companion shrimp. We had some stars but they have been losing their limbs for odd reasons and then we can't find 2 of them anywhere, even when we took out all the rock. We are going to start our clocks over for another 4-6 weeks before we buy any corals. What an adventure! I just hope we don't go there for a long time to come!

kids say the darndest things

All of our kids have coined their own phrases that only that child will say. It is adorable to hear everything that comes out of their mouths.

Zach: I need a hug! (used almost every 2 minutes)
Adam: It matches! and How you doin?
Elayna: Don't whack me!

Zach and Adam use their phrases correctly and all the time. Elayna will share hers with anyone approaching her...don't know why other than Adam does run by spankings. We are very impressed to hear their conversations with each other too. Its like they have their own language.

scary words

Some of the most terrifying words are 'uh-oh mom. I made a mess'. They are scary for the mess it means can be anything. Especially when your little girl is newly potty trained. These were the very words Elayna came yelling to me. She was crying and very upset over it. She asked for help so I went to investigate expecting the worst. What I found was she had been drinking out of my cup of water and spilled it all over the floor. She quickly told me to get a towel and she helped clean up every bit of it. Then she said "all better!" Kids are great!

Elayna's recliner

I guess if you can't get comfortable in any thing you have you just have to make something yourself. We do have a recliner, although it is very incomfortable. We also have 2 couches in the living room to relax on. I guess Elayna just needed her own space for a moment. She stayed in the basket for a good hour or so just chillin.

Adam gets prepared

Adam had picture day at school a couple of days ago. He helped pick out his shirt and even requested a belt. We combed his hair and washed his face and then he says "ok mom, take my picture". So here is his pre picture for school. He told me he said cheeeeeeeeeeeeese!

our zoo day

Today we went to the zoo. I figured everyone had had a long week and this would be a nice treat for the kids. I loaded them all up and off we went. We had a great time. They ran everywhere. And if I wasn't running with them they were calling to me to catch up. Even Zach was getting in on the encouragement and told me to run. Amazingly we saw a couple animals during our 45 min. run. I thought for sure they would be slow (we don't take strollers anymore) but nope. I was exhausted by the time we got home ready for a nap and hoping the kids would rest too but again I was wrong. They weren't worn out enough I guess. Now at 5 in the afternoon they are begging to take a nap. It truly was a fun day filled with lots of high energy activities. I guess I was the only one that had a long day.

Aunt Princess

One of Elayna's favorite things to do is to look at the wall of family pictures. We have pictures of all family from all occasions. We got to one of my sister Chrissy's wedding. It was of all the girls surrounding Chrissy in her wedding dress. Elayna found me but was having trouble with everyone else. She pointed to Chrissy and I told her it was her aunt. She said No Mom!!! Not Chrissy...Aunt Princess! We looked at several other pictures and when we came back to that one she still insisted it was aunt princess...not Chrissy.

a sweet surprise

One of our friends called me this morning to ask if we lost our tortise. We don't have one but went to investigate anyway. What we found was a small desert tortise. It had been hiding out in my flower bed. It was very cute and friendly. The kids all got to say hi before we let it move on its way. We don't know where it came from or where it was going but it was great to see it on its journey.

a rude awakening

Apparently I wasn't watching the kids too well (I was doing laundry) and they opened the door to my bedroom and ran in. They hopped up on the bed and started jumping...all 5 of them. Little did anyone know Greg was still asleep. I don't know who was more scared: Greg or the kids. All the kids came running when Greg woke up and yelled 'what's going on!?!?!" I can't help but laugh. Sorry Greg---hope you still get sleep!

Another day, another story

Today has been another long day. Greg took another step of achieving a dream and got his salt water tank. It is looking really good. There are only 4 fish and 1 star fish and no corals so we still have a ways to go. I will post pictures once things settle down from all the movement.
The kids have been sick too. Even the kids I watch are sick which makes for a long day. They are all trying to be happy but just want to sit in front of the tv. It all works for me too. I haven't had a good nights sleep in a few days. Our kids seem to have trouble sleeping or thinking they need to sleep. Zach has always been one to wake up and wander around the house. I usually leave snacks out, a pillow and blanket on the couch and the tv set to a kids channel. Elayna has started following in this practice and it is killing me. She was up from 2-5am. Zach has settled down and I figured things would get better but no...little girl has to do it too. Sorry for the complaints. I am tired. Need sleep!!!
Overall today has been a good day. We did have a lot of excitement with the new things and now we are all going to bed...me first!

our zoo

Every year we go to the Tucson Reptile and Amphibian Show. It happened to be this past weekend and we had a great time. Anything you could possibly want is there from animals to supplies to jewelry honoring your special pet. You can also interact with some animals including snakes, tortises, monitors, alligators, frogs and lizards. We got ourselves some new frogs to fill our empty tanks. We have tinctorius cobalt morph, azureus, and costa rican auratus. We added leucomelas, pumilio bastimentos, and vittatus. Remember these are all posion dart frogs. Most average 1-2 inches in size, some are no bigger than your thumb nail. We feed them fruit flys and springtails. They are all seperated in different tanks with misting systems. Greg does all of the maintaining and I help out when he's out of town. Our kids enjoy them as much as we do. We can't wait until next year to add more to our collection.

our frogs

tinctorius cobalt morph

costa rican auratus

azureus

pumilio bastimentos aka strawberries

leucomelas

vittatus