Cornbellys

Well, there is a lot more of October that we can talk about besides carving pumpkins! So let's do the time warp again.... (come on, you know you just sang that in your mind as you read it). This is a little post that I started doing when it was appropriate so I'll finish it. The pictures have been uploaded for over a month now waiting for text. Of course, they are a 1,000 words each...

This post represents the end of a semi-Halloween tradition. "Semi" because we didn't do it every year even when we wanted to and it's over because the chances of us being in Utah for another October are slim at this point.

It turned out that we went to Cornbelly's on the perfect day. The weather was supposed to be HORRIBLE and everyone knew it, but it turned out to be perfectly fine overcast fall weather. We had the place almost completely to ourselves.

We were joined this year by cousin Haley and Ben's friend who has no name because his own mother doesn't type his name on her blog but everybody who reads this post knows exactly who it is (and especially after they see the pictures). One of the highlights of this year's trip: we won a contest. Tucked back behind Cinderella's pumpkin carriage Katie spied two guys in cowboy gear manning an empty table. Sooooooo since we are trying to teach our children by example not to talk to strangers, Katie went up to see what they were doing. Turns out they were hosting a costume contest on account of a country radio station and the contest was in 20 minutes and no one had signed up yet. (I don't think their advertising was very good). Anyway, since we were headed to Grandma's Halloween party right after my costume just happened to be in the car. And like that I was in my very first costume contest ever. Two more people showed up right before the contest (I'm positive one of them came expressly for the costume contest) and suddenly I was guaranteed at least 3rd place. Well, as it turns out, I won first place. I don't know how great my costume was but I can tell you my competition consisted of a guy wearing a ten year old's satan costume and a woman with cereal boxes glued all over her and she was carrying a bowl and a wooden spoon. I think she was going to make chex mix if she won...

The little girl cousins of course had a blast running all over the place together. It was fun watching them dare each other into the scary stuff. Kallie made it through the haunted monster while Hailey chickened out and then Kallie hung out side the 3-d house while Hailey braved it with the boys.

Of course, the best part of Cornbelly's every year always seems to be the jumping pillows. We probably spent two thirds of our time in this area of Cornbelly's. However, we also made it through the hay bale tunnels, the corn mazes, the haunted hay rides, the bike-carts, and even though it was too cold for the pigs to race we got a special tour of the animals and their home by the owner. Awesome.

Carving Pumpkins

So, on Monday we held possibly our last annual Halloween tradition at Grandma's house. It's crazy, but we are entering the period now where possibly everything we do might be our "last".

Grandma had set up the "pumpkin patch" outside in the yard and the kids got to go pick out there pumpkins. As I was walking to the pumpkin I wanted Lisa ran ahead of me and started to pick it up. So I promptly began pointing out to her all the defects in that particular pumpkin. She was so convinced that she set it down, and I picked it up. By the time she realized that maybe that pumpkin wasn't really such a bad pick it was safely sequested as Andrew's future jack-0-lantern. A good start to the night.

Dinner was, as always, excellent and festive. Grandma had decked out the table with ideas from her new website partiesandpatterns.com (check it out... it's awesome), and I bored people with physics updates while Andrew ate off of my plate even though I had put the same exact food on his. We topped dinner off with homemade chocolate donut holes as we dove into the pumpkins.

Andrew in particular coul not stop exploring the ins and outs of a newly carved jack-o-lantern. It was a lot of fun to watch him and the other two. Kallie made me particularly nervous this year because she was very insistent on holding the carving knife herself this year and she doesn't listen to/follow instruction very well at all. And do you think we would use the dull-bladed orange-handled typical pumpkin knives? Oh, no. WE use the sharpest serrated steak knifes Grandma can find. It was a miracle that we didn't end up with a bloody pumpkin. Andrew of course has to be like the big kids.... good thing he can't tell a plastic knife from a sharp one! I can't wait for next year...

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Once upon a time...

He needed me to do this for him. Now he just takes his stroller for a walk by himself. Where does time go?

5 Worst Words + I've Been Looking for That!

Katie: Do you want to know the five worst words in the WHOLE world?

Me: Um.... in any language?

Katie: In any language.

Me: Sure.

Katie: When you walk by the bathroom after your son has been in there for 45 minutes and he says, "Mom? I need some help..." Yeah, there's a story behind that.

She still hasn't told me the story.

Earlier today, we were driving to the open house for Kallie's preschool and the CD player kept making a funny noise. Upon hitting eject, Katie's debit card popped out of the player. "Oh! I've been looking for that!" she exclaimed. I don't even want to know...

Chocolate What?

So Kallie asked Katie for some chocolate milk today. It seemed innocent enough. Katie obliged, but when she came back downstairs Kallie wasn't holding a cup of chocolate milk..... she had a cup full of Nestle Quik.... and nothing else. And because Kallie is such a sweet little girl she made sure to give some to her little brother. Enjoy the pics.

BYU vs. Colorado State

So last Saturday the most amazing woman in the world was out doing errands when she heard on the radio that the radio station was giving out free tickets to the football game an hour before kickoff. That happened to be five minutes away. So, she completely reversed direction, ran up to the radio station's trailer and asked if she was too late. Apparently, while the station had pages and pages of people who'd signed up to get the tickets nobody had shown up in person for the drawing, which was a requirement. And like that, Katie had two tickets to the football game.

So like the amazing woman she is, she MADE me take Ben while she stayed home with the other two. Ben and I biked down to the stadium super excited. We walked almost completely around the stadium looking for will call. Then will call claimed to not have the tickets... this eventually ended up with a phone call to the radio station where we found out that they had completely botched the whole process involving procural of the tickets. Somehow we got through the gates with a receipt printed off the internet that had the seat numbers on it.

Unfortunately, that receipt had the wrong portal number on it, which resulted in another trip around nearly the whole stadium. By the time we got to our seats BYU had already scored the first touchdown, but it was still awesome.