Perkins Pumpkin Carving Party 2013!

We had our annual Perkins Family Pumpkin Carving Party a little early this year. I had fun making lots of Halloween treats like caramel apples, "witches wands", "candy mice", "severed fingers", ghost cookies, white chocolate skulls, orange candied popcorn,  and oranges dressed as jack-o-lanterns! Fred and Jill sent us lots of fun paper goods, goody bags, glow in the dark toys for the kids, and Halloween ice cube trays! Thanks again for adding more fun to our party!

We also had Navajo Tacos for dinner and wassail to drink. I LOVE the smell of wassail! Of course the kids all by passed dinner and went straight to the treat table. That's what Halloween is all about.

Baby Max...I want to eat his cheeks! And I'm so envious of his smooth unblemished skin!

 Lauren and Cache! He was such a happy chubs despite his raging battle with an ear infection.

Poppy!

We were privileged to have Luke and Andrea's friend, Sumedha, attend our party to find out what all of this crazy American holiday entails! She is from India, and we all enjoyed talking to her about her home and some of her traditions. When you have to explain some of this ridiculous stuff to an adult who has never experienced Halloween before, it just sounds, well...ridiculous :) She did seem to enjoy carving a pumpkin and seeing it lit up, and of course enjoyed the treats! I don't know if I would be brave enough to leave my entire family and come to such a different place to study like she has. Someone asked her if she will be going home during Christmas break, but she said she'd like to stay and see what Christmas here is all about.

We have a tradition of doing a pie eating contest - who ever finished first is the biggest pig, and the winner! Caleb won this year, by a landslide. Andrew got an up close video with his phone, and it was not the most flattering few minutes of Caleb's life :) The kids really love getting to do this...I just really love watching!

Andrew decided to smash a pie in Blaze's face, but for some reason he didn't really like it. So, Andrew let Blaze throw a pie in his face...and that was priceless! I've got a video of it that we just watched about 10 times in a row. At the end of the video, Andrew kissed Blaze and wiped some of the pie on his face again. He quickly went from laughing hysterically to jumping up and down, waving his hands, and screaming for us to get the pie off of his face!

Jackson really looks like Harry Potter!

Luke is working on carving a bunch of pumpkins for his friend's restaurant. They will be eating ribs and other items from the restaurant's menu. Can't wait to see them...he is so talented!

Paul is claiming this pumpkin that Andrew carved for him.

 

This is as far as we got with the pumpkins. Some of us were poopers and didn't attempt to carve a pumpkin! It was still such a fun night, and I can't wait until Max and Cache get a little older so they can enjoy all of the activities too!

Pumpkin Patch 2013!

It wouldn't be Halloween time if we didn't go to this particular pumpkin patch to get pumpkins like we have for the past 6 years! It was a beautiful sunny day to be out running through the kiddie corn maze, "driving" the tractors, and jumping in the abundant piles of hay. The kids also love to push around the wheelbarrows, the adult ones as well as the kid ones. They were each on the look out for the perfect pumpkin for our Perkins Pumpkin Carving Party later that evening.

 

Jackson was VERY excited to choose a pumpkin and try to compete with the skills of his uncles. Paul really enjoyed pushing around an adult sized wheelbarrow with his siblings pumpkins in it. I took Alanna shoe shopping this week, and she found these boots all on her own and loves them. I love them too, and I love that she will wear them without complaining! Blaze seemed to be amazed by so seeing the rows and rows of pumpkins. He wanted to touch each one and call my attention to the differences he saw between them. I love the expressions on his face in these pictures...such a little clown!

Playgroup...



These kids returned from playgroup the other day looking like they had eaten dirt...or Oreos! These pictures don't look as messy as they did in person. I asked Alanna how many Oreos they had eaten, and she said "maybe the whole bag of them!" Looked like it! And I have a confession...I let Alanna miss her 1/2, 1/2 day of kindergarten so she could go to playgroup. That's right...a 1/2 , 1/2 day of school. They only go to school for "1/2" the day, and then this day (and every Friday) they have early out day. Pretty ridiculous! I didn't mind her missing some cartoons at school in order to play with good friends :)

I LOVE our neighborhood and our playgroup. It's so great to know that if I ever had an emergency or last minute change in plans and need help, I have at least 2 dozen people who would help me out in a heart beat! I often think back to when Jackson and Paul were babies and we lived in VA. My car was about the only one in the parking lot in front of our town home. We had a great ward, but people came and went often and we had to drive 5-15 minutes to get together with them. I love being in close proximity to friends here who share our same values and who are so willing to serve others!

Cornbelly's 2013!!

We love our tradition of going to Cornbelly's  every fall. This was our 7th trip there, and it gets bigger and better every year :)

 

 

 

 

 Blaze was completely mesmerized by all of the wooden trains. He had to explore every one of them. I don't have to be sad about him growing out of this though...Jackson and Paul were equally entertained by "driving" the trains too!

Lots of bouncy slides and castles!

Every year the corn maze has a different theme. This year is was "BYU vs. University of Utah, Rivals Forever!" Of course we chose the BYU maze, much to Paul's dismay. James took the lead since I was stalled by Blaze picking up every ear of corn he saw, and we just kept going in circles. After coming to post #3 for the third time, we decided to take the emergency exit and move on to something more fun! We got our exercise in for the night though.

 This spider web is one of our kids' favorite attractions...the little ones sit on the "web" while the older kids bounce them around.

We had quite the collection of popcorn kernels in shoes and jacket pockets when we got home :)

Alanna was really into the dress ups this year. I was surprised that she chose Snow White...she usually goes for Tinkerbell or Cinderella.

 

We also enjoyed dinner at one of our favorite restaurants - the Thanksgiving Point Deli. The boys (and James) tried to make off with a bunch of ketchup packets since I won't buy ketchup anymore. But I think I got most of them back before we left the restaurant and explained that would be stealing! We ended the night getting toasty warm by the campfire there. Instead of buying the $6 bag of Kettle Corn from Cornbelly's, we were mean parents and made our kids wait until we got home so we could make our own for 50 cents :) Just trying to teach them to be wise with their money.