We did our traditional Family Home Evening night carving pumpkins while listening to Flying Purple People Eater, Thriller, and the Monster Mash on the Halloween Pandora station. James helped me make some pumpkin-shaped Rice Krispie treats for dessert. The boys each designed their own pumpkin, including Asher, who showed Shane what face he wanted the pumpkin to make. Landon carved most of his pumpkin by himself for the first time. I love carving pumpkins – definitely my favorite part of Halloween. Maybe next year I’ll get time to carve one of my own after helping four others carve theirs!
Friday afternoon, it was dry and sunny, so we decided to go to the pumpkin patch with all the kids after Shane got home from work. We normally go to a different pumpkin patch, but this year they were charging an admission, and Landon wanted to try the corn maze that was at this one, so we decided to try Baggenstos instead. We checked out the hay maze and playground before heading out on the hay ride to the pumpkins.
When we took the picture of all the boys below, Asher was disappointed that he wasn’t the one holding Madeleine. He insisted he get a picture holding her before we got back on the hay ride.
After the hayride to the pumpkins, we went through the corn maze. Landon has been asking to go through a corn maze for quite awhile now. They gave us a map of an aerial photo of the corn maze, so we put Landon in charge to lead us through. He did a great job, and we ended up at the exit without having to help him out at all. We even passed several adults lost in the maze, using the same map Landon had.
When we got back to the pumpkin patch, the boys wanted to play for just a few more minutes on the hay. It was getting dark, but they ran around for a little bit longer before we had to take off. James got it in his head that he wanted to jump up onto this hale bale, so he kept backing up for a running start, then running and jumping up onto the hay bale. After four or five unsuccessful attempts, he went super far back to get some good momentum, but still couldn’t quite make it. He stood for a second, then finally decided to try it up from close up – and he finally made it up there.
It was going to be an unusually warm October day, so Stacey and I decided to meet up at Baggenstos Thursday morning with our non-school kiddos. The weather was even warmer than promised, and we almost wished we were wearing shorts! Maggie, Asher, and Annie had fun playing on the playground, running through the straw-bale maze, digging for potatoes in the dirt, and saying hello to the chickens and goats. (Thanks to Stacey for all the great photos!)
Once we had finished all those activities, we rode the hay ride out to the pumpkins. They had fun running around in the pumpkins and finding good ones to sit on. While we were out there, the wind blew, and thousands of little helicopter seeds came flying down through the air. It was amazing! It looked like a flock of mini birds spinning over our heads.
Right as Stacey took the bottom picture of us, the helicopters all started flying through the air, so we were looking up to see them all spin to the ground.
I can’t believe Madeleine is already one month old. In some ways though, it seems like a lifetime ago when she wasn’t a part of our family. She is still a popular girl around the house, with many admirers. She has started to smile, and all the boys (including her dad) love to get her to smile. She has several moments throughout the day where she is quite alert, looking around the room, especially at any lights or fans that she can see. She has been going a few nights for six and even seven hours between feedings, so I don’t feel quite as exhausted as I did a couple of weeks ago. She is one sweet girl and we feel so blessed every day to have her in our family!
The rest of the month, we spent a lot of time doing this:
Even Stacey, Annie, and Maggie wanted to get in on the action:
We had a few other fun things going on, with Asher wearing letter earrings, and James and his buddies running around the neighborhood in their costumes (James is on the bottom).
Landon had his Raingutter Regatta for cub scouts. He did pretty good except for one time when his boat tipped over.
Camille came to town for the weekend while all the men went to Chicago and to Michigan for the BYU game. We didn’t get to see Camille much because she spent most of the weekend in the hospital with Dallin and a case of insusseption, but we did get to have Avery around to hang out with! Asher was born around a bunch of girl cousins on the Morris side.
But mostly, we just spent a lot of time staring at and admiring cute Madeleine.
On the 27th of October, we said goodbye to my mom. It’s always pretty sad to see her go after she’s been here helping us for a couple of weeks. I don’t know how I’d survive those first couple of weeks without her, or how the rest of the boys would survive either!
