Pumpkin Carvin

Another item on the Fall To-Do List is pumpkin carving. Last year James painted his but this year he wanted his pumpkin carved. He and Lynnlee cleaned out their pumpkins first. Lynnlee kept putting the spoon in her mouth. At least pumpkin is edible even if it doesn't actually taste good raw.

Cam and Brooke joined us. I think their pumpkin turned out awesome.

When Marshall asked James what he wanted his pumpkin's face to look like James would show Marshall with his face.

James and Lynnlee after.

Heart Baby

Lynnlee had a heart cath on Friday. It was so nice to get it over with. We were anticipating it for the last month and didn't know how she would do since she's getting older. Even though she's older and knows more what is going on, she is also getting easier to reason with so everything went pretty smooth. It also helped that they gave her Versed to keep her calm when it came time to hand her to the nurse. It made her really loopy and giggly so when we handed her to the nurse she didn't have a care in the world.

This is Lynnlee before.

After she had to lay down for 6 hours. I was worried about that because how do you make a 19 month old lay down for 6 hours during the day. It was kind of tricky but with a lot of bribing she did pretty good. She was still sleepy too so she slept through some of it.

Right before we left she went down to radiology for one more x-ray. She got to ride in style in this wagon.

The Cardiologist was really happy with how everything went. Now we just wait to see when her final surgery will be.

Thriller

I have wanted to see Thriller for a really long time. This year we actually went. We celebrated our 6th anniversary this month so going to Thriller was a fun way to celebrate.


We went with our friends the Tibbs who also celebrated their anniversary this month. (Marshall thought we were all making scary faces or something)

Thriller lived up to my expectations and I'm really glad I finally got to go!

Pumpkin Land

A few weeks ago James's preschool class went on their first field trip to Pumpkinland. They had so much fun and the rain held up while we were there.

Me and all the other preschool Moms: Jacie, Chelsea, Amy, Rose, Jen, and Carissa.

James, London, and Benson.

London and James.

James, Grace, Benson, London, Carter, Chloe, and Grandin.

I'm excited for all the other field trips we'll take this year!

Cornbellys

Fall isn't complete without a trip to Cornbellys at Thanksgiving Point! I'm always amazed at how many things there are to do there. When we got there the pig races were just getting started so we went there first.

James and Camden focusing very hard on which pig they want to win :)

There are lots of new playgrounds this year. My kids loved playing on the boat.

Who doesn't love a good bounce house?

Lynnlee and Marshall on the jumping pillow.

James didn't jump too much on the jumping pillow. He mostly just ran back and forth from end to end.

The Cow Train with James, Lilly, and Camden.

Lynnlee and I were at the beginning of the Cow Train.

Who needs a sand box when you can have a corn box. James was pretending to swim in it.

Then make snow angels. I mean corn angels.

Lynnlee, James and Lilly.

Beckie, Anthony and Lilly.

Lowry family.

It was a successful night. We can mark that off the checklist of things to do this Fall.

Paint Project

We got this cabinet from my in-laws. They are remodeling their kitchen. It fits perfectly in our kitchen and gives us more storage and counter space. The only down side was the dark color of the wood so Marshall helped me paint it on Saturday. It was a fun project to work on while we listened to General Conference. It seems like I get more out of conference anyways when my hands are busy.

Before:

After:

18 months and funny quotes

Lynnlee is 18 months. It has gone by so fast but at the same time I can't believe everything that's happened since she joined our family.

She is growing and doing pretty well. She will have a procedure next month to help some problems in her heart but then she should be good for awhile.

Lynnlee is shy around others but really happy and energetic at home.

She loves when Marshall gets home from work and does tricks with her.

She and James are buddies and they miss each other when they are apart.

Kids say funny things and now that James is talking a lot he says a lot of funny things.

When James and Lynnlee were in the stroller on our morning run yesterday James saw the moon and said, "When I'm superman I am going to fly to the moon and touch it."

Another morning he said, "When I get older I want to drive a school bus."

I was pumping up the stroller tire this one morning and James asked what I was doing and I told him I was pumping up the tire. Then my arms got tired because it was taking so long to fill up so I took a rest. James asked what I was doing and I told him my arms were tired. Then he said, "do they need to go to sleep?"

Figs

If you saw the post before this then you will understand why I'm posting about Figs. Figs are the mystery fruit that I got in my Bountiful Basket. Thank you for all the comments on the last post! I googled fig recipes to try and figure out what I was going to do with them. There were lots of dessert recipes but we've had so many cookies lately that I wasn't too excited about making fig cookies. There were various fig sauces that go along with pork tenderloin. I got really excited about that but after looking closely at the ingredients I decided I wasn't about to go by some bourbon to go along with the recipe. Then I came across a website called "Simplyrecipes." That is my kind of site. I'm all about simple recipes. The recipe was for Spicy Fig Orange Jam. It is a microwave jam recipe so I was really excited to try it because of it's simplicity. I won't go into detail all of the steps to make (you can click here to get to the recipe and steps.) it but I did make it and it turned out great! Now my house smells like Christmas because of the strong aroma of the figs.

My second cooking accomplishment for the day is this dish. I also had lots of sweet potatoes in my basket this week. I like sweet potatoes but don't love them. I mostly only have them at Thanksgiving. I'm not a huge fan of sweet potato fries. I looked in some cook books and found a recipe for Roasted Vegetables. It is also a simple recipe that involved cutting up potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and a red onion. Mix it with some olive oil and other spices and roast them in the oven. I was really happy with how it turned out and the sweet potatoes were really good. If you are interested in the recipe I will email it to you. It's from The Essential Mormon Cookbook.

I definitely recommend Bountiful Baskets. We eat more fruits and vegetables because we have so many around. It has also improved my cooking skills and forced me out of my comfort zone.