HighTech Pumpkin Carving

Everyone was too excited to wait another day to carve pumpkins.  Grandma and Grandpa Jolley offered to come and help after Spencer's insistence (from Kuwait) that I would cut off a finger trying to carve pumpkins.   I guess he's aware that I'm not that skilled with a knife. 

First off, Grandma Jolley tried to coax the kids into helping scoop out the pumpkins' "guts."  As you can probably guess by their faces, she was not successful.

After GRANDMA scooped out all the guts herself, the kids practiced drawing their faces, deciding what they wanted them to look like.

Grandma and I helped the kids draw their faces on with a marker.

 Now here's where it gets pretty fancy.  Grandpa fired up his skill saw and expertly cut out the faces we had drawn.  The girls, of course, had to leave the room because of the noise.  It worked really well though.

And after some candles were added, everyone was happy with the results!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Our Lady Lauren

There are very few things the kids get as excited for as seeing their cousing Lauren.  Lacey let us watch her the other night and the kids were in heaven.  They kept her entertained (probably more so than she wanted to be) throughout the evening.  This first game was "Ready, Set,....GO!" and spin Lauren around.   After countless times, Lauren was even saying "Ready, Set, Go."

Next was dress up and putting on a show.  Lauren, you're dressed up whether you like it or not.  :)

Um...I don't think she's so sure about it.

Even Kysar got to get dressed up for the show (sorry Spencer). 

Life Is Good

We had Spencer home on leave for two weeks in September. To sum up how things went when he was here, I'll repeat what Kysar said driving away from the airport immediately after picking Spencer up..."Life is good." The four-year old summed up what we were all feeling.
While he was here we put work, school, and everything else on the back-burner
As you can see from the pictures below, Kysar wouldn't let his Dad out of his sight.


The girls reported to my friend Kirsten that Kysar was "hogging Dad so our mom doesn't even get a chance." That was pretty much true. Spencer got lots of kisses from all of us, and I have to admit that I sometimes had to wriggle between Kysar and Spencer to get my share :)

We spent 4 nights up in the camper over Labor Day. The weather was beautiful and my parents and Spencer's family camped with us. It was lots of fun (except for the part when Kaya, my dad, and I got the stomach flu...yuck!). Spencer was in heaven with the cool weather. He was not missing the 130 degree weather he'd left behind!

Spencer was able to eat lunch at the school with the girls one day. Surprisingly he was met with two giggly, shy girls in the cafeteria. He said all the girls' friends wanted to talk to him, but the girls were quiet. Later on the week, we were told by many staff at the school that the girls were in heaven about lunch with Dad and bounced through the rest of the day telling everyone about it.

The girls also got to go on a "date" with Dad one morning. They skipped school and he took them to McDonald's for breakfast, then the park to play, Linton's for a toy, and Chinese for lunch. Quite a date, huh!!

I also got a dinner and a movie date and lots of time just hanging out with my favorite guy.

It was hard to say goodbye again.