Here is to the end of Fall!

  

It is almost the wonderful and magical season of winter. But before we dive into Thanksgiving and onward to Christmas, let us look back at the past few weeks. I was totally planning on catching up with my posts and journal, but because of another family tragedy it was put on hold. Now here is another 'larger than it should be' post. 

Jake's birthday, oh yes ... I am sure you thought that would be over. But I was not finished. Jake had a friend party! All of his neighborhood friends and cousins came. And because Jake has a current love for sea creatures it was an " oceans are awesome " theme. Jake actually blew out the candles twice. He blew them out before the song even started, and those candles where not the easiest to light. My Dad and Dan thought it was hilarious watching me light the candles. It was making me a bit frustrated. My opinion is that candles should be easy to light... unless they are trick candles. We then did our little crafts! The kids had fun making their masks, even Derek made one with the help of Grandma Astin. Thanks to my wonderful niece Taylor ( she came over to help assist me with the party games) everything went smoothly. After making the masks we did the activity that any self respecting ocean party would have... that is fishing for candy!!! Taylor hid behind the blanket. Dan and I took turns with Derek and helping the kids reel in their catch. It actually went extremely well. The kids had fun. But the fun didn't stop there! Oh yes, it was pinata time! Because nowhere in the area had a whale pinata we settled for a pirate ship. That thing was completely stuffed with non-peanut candy and little toys. First up was Jake, he had fun whacking at it, then all the other kids had a turn. after three rounds of them beating this pirate ship it became evident we needed a professional. That pirate ship was made to last!!!!

Because Dan was busy being the Dad and holding the pinata, it was up to Steve to do the honors. He had to hit it a handful of times and then it started to pour candy!!! Now as a cautious mother who did not want any of the kids hurt, I warned the children not to run after any of the candy. They where to stay on the sidewalk until I gave the signal it was safe. I forgot to tell Noreen this rule, and she almost got hit in the head. Tootsie rolls are tasty, but she almost gave me a heart attack going for it while Steve was swinging away.

 After the candy started coming out, and the bat was no longer being swung, It was time for candy!!!

 Thanks to everyone that came to his party, He had a blast. I had fun putting it together and am glad it went so well. Till next year... we will see what theme he comes up with then.

Now that we have covered Jacob's birthday. Lets discuss Fall. With fall comes the wonderful corn maze of The Vineyard. I have been going to this fall favorite for as long as I can remember. My parents and Heather came with us. Jacob and Derek had a blast! 

 All through the maze there where little Halloween things to look at. A favorite was the wood cut-out boards.

 We where on the search for the tunnel of gourds but couldn't find it anywhere. I blame the fact that we where following the four year old and going in circles. So we decided to take a short cut.....

 We crawled through the corn, yes I realize this breaks all the rules to corn mazes, but we where not going to be denied!!! We wanted to see the slightly deformed, unique gourds hanging all around a vine tunnel!!!

 Look, we are still in the corn maze.

 We had a ton of fun and will defiantly keep going every year. This is one of my favorite activities around Halloween.

 We also had a Halloween themed dinner. Complete with eye ball manicotti, spooky tree bread sticks and intestine soup ( chili )

 I think the favorite thing we had was the homemade rootbeer. The kids had a blast ( okay, everyone had fun with the ice) Dry ice is SO much fun!!! My kids have never experienced dry ice and the smoke it creates.

 We also got the kids to sit on Grandpa's Giant Pumpkin!! then we tried to get a picture of me with the kids. This is the best one we got. Oh well, I tried.

 Here is the Glassford cousins all done up in Halloween garb!

 On Halloween we started trick or treating early be stopping by my parent's house, then we went to my Aunt Anne's house and hung out with my Auntie and Cousin Karin. I am always amazed at their front yard! We then headed over to my In-Laws house for some trunk-or-treating. That was super fun. Nothing like getting a bucket of candy on one street and before dark! After we got home I took Jake out for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood while Dan had candy duty. Jake loved it and had a blast running up to every door. The holidays are getting to be so much fun the older they get. Love it!!

I told you it was a long post!

The Start of the Birthday Celebrations!

 Jacob's birthday week started off last Sunday. We went over to my parents house for Sunday dinner and a little birthday celebration for my four year old! As many people know Jake loves animals, his favorite being the whale-shark. Yes I get that it is weird. So Sunday morning I got up and made a simple sheet cake, hoping it would turn out decently. I love cooking, but my baking skills are still a bit iffy. Okay, so cakes and bread are my homemade-arch-nemesis, but I am trying. After cooking it, and it not sinking or burning I proudly show Jake. " Look, I made you a birthday cake, you are such a lucky boy! " What is his response you might ask. Was he wanting to eat it, excited about his birthday, wanting to help frost it. Oh no, that would be to simple for my life. He informed me he wanted a whale-shark cake. After taking a moment to comprehend his request I grabbed a knife and started to cut out a whale. Then Jake started to inform me exactly what the specifications of this whale-shark needed. He grabbed his book and said" Mom, the whale shark needs spots and stripes, a white belly, a blow whole and live in warm water." At this point I was determined to make this thing look half decent, My well-made 8x11 sheetcake must be a whale shark... then it will look like a whale-shark. I now know ( thanks to the advice after-the-fact from my husband) that I could have piped a whale-shark onto the top of the cake instead of carving it out. I blame lack of sleep on the fact I didn't think of that. I think it turned out decent, and frankly it doesn't matter what I thought, because Jacob was elated.
here is Jacob blowing the four candles out. He is getting so big!
While we where getting ready to open presents, Derek thought he was being clever and was about to open some of Jacob's presents. This is his " oh me" face. I love that he gets this cute innocent face whenever he gets caught doing something. It is either the innocent face or he takes off running. And he can run fast!!

Here is Jacob with his Aunt Heather. I am so lucky I have family living so close and my kids get to hang out with their aunts and uncles! It is also amazing how well Jake knows his aunts and uncles that live out of town, thank you internet!

Jacob opening his presents, nothing like a good book! It had some of my favorites when I was growing up . Now if only I could find the childrens book about the farmer with an over-sized beet....

Happy Birthday Jacob, We love you the whale-shark mostest!

Time for Halloween!

We decided to get the season of Halloween kicked off early by going to the haunted dinosaur museum. Oh yes, tons of bones, small children running around, and people handing them wooden sticks while calling them "magic wands". See... terrifying! It was actually really fun, and besides the wooden wands it was a rather pleasant outing ( I was a mean Mom and took them away after awhile because I was afraid they would poke their eyes out). They had a face painting booth and Jake excitedly informed the master painter he wanted a Dragon. After he was finished, Jake informed the man that Dragons have wings and that he should redo it. I could see the offense the dude took from it and quickly explained to Jake that some dragons don't need wings to fly. They are so awesome and are the most powerful dragons with super incredible magic that allowed them to fly with no wings plus they can blow orange, yellow and purple fire! He seemed content with the explanation. Then it was Derek's turn. But he wanted nothing to do with it, so we decided to go into the sorcerers tower, we actually went in twice, Jake is a sucker for a good story.

 That is right, and actual sorcerer has taken up shop in a dinosaur museum, and you have to go through a creepy tunnel to get to his "layer" . Here is Derek posing next to a spooky garbage bag wall covered in spider bags, nothing but terrifying!

 Then we reached the sorcerer, who turned out to be rather nice. He showed us a few magic tricks and told some stories about nice but misunderstood witches and monsters. We then went to play in the museum.

 We made our own Dinosaurs, We named Jake's the Dragonsoraus. and Derek's was whataisasourus. Jake came up with his own name, because he thought that dinosaurs and dragons lived together since they don't live here anymore ( I have decided to let him believe this and yes, I am a mom who encourages his belief in leprechauns, Easter bunnies and Santa) Jake made me name Derek's. My first name was Idontknow - asaurus, but Jake said that wasn't right. So my extremely imaginative mind came up with whataisasourus.

 They had fun like always at the museum. Jake wanted to know the name of every dinosaur and Derek would just point and say "roarrr".

Derek being himself... just kidding ;)

Grandpa's Giant Pumpkins!

It has been almost a month since my last post, and we have done many fun family activities! Sorry about not posting anything and then the onslaught of posts that will happen this week.

My parents have been on the quest of a giant pumpkin for years. Every year they try different techniques and different seeds. This year my Dad, Grandpa, Brother Richie and Brother-in-law Jim all grew their own pumpkins. They joined the giant pumpkin organization in Utah and showed off this years labor of love at Thanksgiving Points Giant Pumpkin Extravaganza. Here is a Picture of Jake and Derek with my Dad's pumpkin, I am still amazed they got it out of their garden and to pumpkin gathering.

Grandpa would take Jake out to see the pumpkins every time we would go over to his house. Now besides the giant sunflowers, strawberries, grapes and lemon tree Jake has informed me we need to grow in our yard, Jake added a huge pumpkin JUST like Grandpa and his Uncles. They had fun looking at the huge pumpkins and hanging out with their Grandparents and Richie. Good luck to you guys next year, may they be even bigger!