Primary Program and Halloween

Hi Family!  Gabe's very first primary program was last Sunday.  I was super excited!  Unfortunately, Gabe was pretty sure he didn't like the whole situation.  Being in front of everyone for that long is very hard for a sunbeam.  He came down to talk to us two or three times during sacrament meeting, and that was a huge improvement to the practice.  He sang on the first couple of songs whenever I gave him thumbs up.  Later I mouthed "sing!" and he came down to say, "what did you say, Mom?"  Oops.  That one may have been my fault.  It was really cute though.  He got to say his part with his class.  They said, "I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus love me."  I was able to get a few pictures of him before we left.

 

He has his cat because he was scared to be in the primary program, and he wanted to have someone to hug to if he got too nervous. Unfortunately ALL of the sunbeams wanted to play with the cat.  Haha, oh well.  At least I got him up there.

 

I realized I never posted Halloween pictures anywhere, so here they are.

 

Gabe was trying out a silly face.  Can you see it?

He was pretty upset that the guts were so slimy.  He didn't want to touch it. "It's too messy!"  We wouldn't do it for him. This was his reaction:

 

Henry, on the other hand, LOVED the pumpkin guts.  He was throwing seeds everywhere.  It was pretty fun how much he got into it. :)

 

 Evan, being goofy. :)

Henry was very satisfied about the whole experience.

 

 

This was the only picture I got on my camera Halloween night.  I know, it's sad.

 

We were in Rexburg the weekend of Halloween, visiting James and Alivia.  We had a murder mystery dinner at 7, so we had to be back from trick-or-treating by that time.  We were rushing around, getting the boys ready.  We were a little short on time anyway.  We were finally ready, and we went down the stairs toward the car.  Gabe was so excited he was running down the sidewalk, and he just ran too fast.  He tried to catch himself, but his face took all the force of his fall.  He had blood all over his face and nose, and it was starting to swell up a little bit.  He cried really hard, and we went back inside to clean him up.  By the time I convinced him to still go trick-or-treating, we only had about 20 minutes.  Gabe was sad and couldn't really talk very well because of a swollen lip, and Henry was having costume issues.  His helmet was blocking vision, his breastplate was getting of the way of arm movement, and his shield made it hard for him to hold a candy bag.  It was a rough night.  They looked pretty cute though.  James took a couple pictures of the boys in their costumes the next day, and if he ever sends them to me, I'll be sure to post them here.

We love you all, and hope you're doing well!

Potato Tower Update

Hi All! 

I thought I would give a brief update on my 

potato tower experiment.

Grandma has been dying for me to tear it open the

entire summer. She could seriously not wait until the

Fall was here. I prevailed, though, and waited until October.

There were parsnips on top, then layers of red and white potatoes

underneath. I learned that I need to use hardware cloth or at

least something that doesn't stretch, because my layers settled

and settled and settled. What should have been a tall cylinder ended

up being a short, fat blob.

I love this picture of Grandma being Vanna White to the potato tower. Google her. =D

I was also concerned because there was so much green growth.

I was afraid all the growing energy had gone to the plant and

that were no potatoes in there at all.

Surprise! There were potatoes.

Not as many as I hoped, but about 25 pounds none the less.

Grandma and I dug all that we could, but were both too

 wimpy to dig the bottom layer.

That's where about half of the potatoes were hiding.

I got about double what you see here.

In all, I consider my experiment a success.

I will do it again, taking what I learned this year.

I will use hardware cloth and probably do two

towers: one for white, one for red, and put a crop on top

of each.

So there you are- the saga of the potato tower.

Hope you are well! 'Love you tons!

Mom

Pumpkins and an Artist.

Here is a video of Henry.  I loved seeing how much fine motor skills he was using, and I also enjoyed the focus on getting it just right at the end. :)  Sorry it is sideways.  I took it on my phone and couldn't figure out how to turn it the right way.

A piece of artwork

The focus :)

Here are some pictures of the pumpkin patch.  We went today, and it was really fun.  They're not really in order of what happened.

My favorite!

   

A carrot from our garden.