Boo!gus

Tonight was Chris' birthday so we decided to kick off the Halloween festivities early with some pumpkin fun!! First of all Maddy and I made pumpkin cobbler for Chris' birthday 'cake'. I have never made cobbler before but it was fairly easy and incredibly delicious! While we were waiting for the cobbler to cool down to eat, we started carving our pumpkins. Chris put on our favorite Halloween movie: Ghostbusters. Liam sat in his highchair and played with a Halloween balloon. Maddy designed and carved her own pumpkin all by herself! It is seriously SO cute. She gave it freckles everywhere. I ran out of creative juices so I just did a simple face. Nothing fancy. Chris always takes carving pumpkins seriously so he took a lot of time and effort making his pumpkin into an angler fish! It is really well done. He used the stem from the pumpkin as the fishes antenna. He also made Liam's pumpkin to look like Liam. He even made one of the eyes a little droopy like Liam's. It kinda made me laugh. While Chris and Maddy were finishing off their pumpkins I gathered up all the seeds. I cleaned, buttered, salted, and finally roasted them. That is my favorite thing when we carve pumpkins. I LOVE the smell of buttery pumpkin seeds roasting in the oven. It makes fall even more real. We love fall in this household and this was a perfect way to celebrate! All in all  it was a wonderful night! Happy Birthday Christopher...

Yanking out the guts

Liam liked his pumpkin

He loved this balloon and it kept him occupied : )

Silly faces!

Yummy yummy pumpkin seeds!

We had a hard time getting them to look at the camera

Chris' is the toothy angler fish, mine is the big smiley one, Maddy's has the pretty star eyes, and Liam's is the glowing one (notice the two teeth on the bottom row and the slightly smaller left eye). Chris thinks he's hilarious...

Pumpkin cobbler

Happenings Happenings

Well I certainly have been slacking off on the blogging lately! A TON of stuff has happened since Chris' last post! First of all: Liam swam for his first time!!! He was so cute about the whole thing. Very quiet and curious at first and then wild and crazy soon followed. He kept trying to grab the water which was hilarious to watch. We put him in a baby floaty and just let him go wild. Maddy LOVES the water and was so excited to have her baby brother in the pool with her finally!

We started giving Liam non baby food little by little. Some things he has enjoyed and other he spits right out. His favorite so far has been watermelon.

Lastly, Chris and I took the kids up to Snowbird to celebrate Oktoberfest with Chris' family. We stayed overnight and then spent the whole day playing on all of the rides....well, Chris and Maddy did. Liam and I walked around and enjoyed the fresh cool air. Maddy wanted to do everything not once but twice and sometimes three times. Chris did everything as well and wore his poor little body out. Maddy's favorite thing was the bungee trampoline. She was so good at it. Made it look effortless really. She was doing backflips  and front flips over and over again. When it was Chris' turn he got up and could barely do any of it. He was successful in doing a double flip though and was very proud of himself. There was no frickin' way I was ever gonna be able to do that so I just stood on the side and took millions of pics. After the trampoline they did the Alpine slide a few times, then Maddy was brave enough to do the mechanical bull and rope course. She was seriously fearless and surprised me. She is such a daredevil. Then Chris and I wanted to try out the German food tent. I think we got one of everything! My favorites were the potato pancakes and the German chocolate cake : ) After trying to eat it all we got tired and poor Li was exhausted but couldn't sleep from all of the noise so we left. It was a really fun day and I think we will most definitely do it again next year!