The Halloween Party That Wasn't

Jayden REALLY wanted to have a Halloween party this year.

So, we've been planning it for weeks now.  Friends were invited, food menu was picked out, decorations had been put up.  Then last night happened.  In true Lovingfoss, well actually McComb, fashion, Jayden threw up all over the carpet.  I personally think it was a food issue, although I guess we'll find out for sure over the next couple of days to see if anyone else gets sick.  He had eaten a ton of junk over the past few days, and just thinking about what he ate gave me a stomach ache.   So, I really wasn't too surprised when last night he said that his stomach hurt, then a half an hour later he threw up the contents of his stomach that were stained a lovely blue from the ring pop he had ingested about an hour before. (tmi????)  Luckily Royal was around because I can kind of handle the upchuck while it's happening, but the minute I have to actually think about it and cleaning it up, I'm in the corner gagging.  So, while Royal figured out a way to get the blue out of the carpet, I got Jayden in the bath, cleaned up, in clean pj's and tucked in bed.  Half an hour later, Jayden was throwing up again.  And then every 10 minutes (I exaggerate not!) for the next 3 hours, Jayden was throwing up.   Every 10 minutes!  Finally Royal and I started switching off who got out of bed to help Jayden so the other person could get 20 minutes sleep instead of just 10.  It was brutal.  But finally around 3, it all stopped, Jayden finally went to sleep and so did we.  He woke up today saying he felt just fine, just a little tired.  He ate food and drank water and kept it all down, went with us to take Willow to swimming lessons, was acting pretty normal, just tired, and we seriously considered keeping the Halloween party on.  I prepared most of the food, but in the end, we decided to play it safe and canceled it.  I would feel so awful if Jayden really did have something contagious and we passed it on.

So, Jayden and Willow watched movies and pretty much did this all day

And these poor decorations will just have to stay up to have a It's Not Halloween Party with some friends.

And most of our party food will be taken to work with Royal tomorrow.  Mummy Dogs, Nutter Butter Ghosts, Baked Eyeballs, a Bowl of Bones, and a Candy Corn Cake.  (not shown - because once we canceled the party, I stopped working on making food into things and just left them normal - were the vampire (tomato) soup, apples with teeth, our veggies, and funeral punch with bat ice cubes)

We're still going out trick or treating though!  :)

Fall Festival

Our church planned a really fun fall festival this year and since our church is right next to our house, it makes it extra fantastic!  And I'm all for having more reasons for the kids to wear their costumes out in public without getting looked at funny.  Because let's face it, my kids are constantly putting on costumes and I just don't have the energy to fight them to put on normal clothes if I need to go somewhere.  :)

Jayden's girl from Pre-K, Pilar, had called last week begging for me to set up a play-date for her and Jayden, so I thought this fall fest would be the perfect thing!  After talking with her mom, I guess Pilar is still talking about Jayden all the time, so much, Pilar's teacher had to ask who this Jayden boy was she was always talking about at school.  And Pilar is also trying to figure out a plan for them to be neighbors so they can play together all the time.  Oh, Jayden, stringing along hearts all over the city.

It was so fun!  We played lots of games, won lots of prizes, got lots of candy, and the kids spent probably 3 hours climbing up and going down a big jumpy slide and jumping in a bouncy house that I'm hoping they used up enough energy to counteract all the candy and cupcakes they managed to ingest.

Jayden's Class Party

Jayden's class party for Halloween was this Friday.  I was able to drop Willow off at a friend's house, so I could be a part of Jayden's class without also having to chase after Willow.  It was fun, we had a snack, did a craft, and played some games.

Jayden is the batman on the far-right.  :)

Jayden's "friend" Olivia, was dressed as work-out Barbie.  My kinda girl!  :)

 I guess I didn't quite understand Olivia's feelings for Jayden until I got to witness them in action.  She insisted Jayden sit right next to her at every station.  Was was constantly professing her love for Jayden, and was always putting her arm around him.  "Oh, Jayden, I just love you!"  "I love you Jayden!"  Jayden is a pretty good sport and pretty much just sits there while she is gushing all over him.  And then after an intense game of pin the mouth on the ghost, Olivia just couldn't contain herself any longer.

Its pretty cute.

It was fun to get to see Jayden in his class with his friends.  :)

Pumpkin Patch...Round 2

This past Saturday Royal didn't have class, so we knew it was going to be his only day to do the pumpkin patch with the kids, and Royal's favorite holiday is Halloween so there was no way he was going to miss a pumpkin patch.  I wanted to try out a different patch since we had just been to the AppleJack patch a few days before with Jayden's class, but Jayden was adamant about going back because he didn't get to do the corn maze when he was there with school, and then I found a groupon that got all 4 of us in for $11!  So, we took a break from apples and back to Apple Jack Pumpkin Patch we went!

I thought about not even bothering with my camera since we were going to be doing the same stuff, and then when I brought it, I thought well, I just won't post about our 2nd trip here, but there were some darn hilarious pictures that I just couldn't not share.  So here we go.  Pumpkin Patch - round 2

There was of course the giant tricycle racing again....

And a little tractor tire crawling...

Then some teeter-tottering...

And Willow got bored with that and played in a teeter-totter airplane, but Jayden still wanting do to the real thing, so Royal helped him out, and I managed to snap these pictures and I haven't been able to stop laughing yet!

Then it was onto the giant air pillow for some jumping....

And finally to the corn maze, what Jayden had been waiting for!

Run, Kids, Run!!!!

Royal : Oh crap!  Where did they go????

And pretty little Willow in the milo maze...keep this sweet little thing in mind for what's to come...

Then it was onto the hayrack ride out to the pumpkin patch.

And the pumpkin patch....this is where Willow's story begins.  She decided she was thirsty and said she needed some water.  Since we had just got off the wagon ride, Royal and I said, 'Well, let's just pick some pumpkins real quick, then we'll go back and get you some water.'  This is not what Willow wanted to hear and stood her ground and stomped her feet, right next to the pumpkin patch, refusing to go find a pumpkin for herself, and yelled over and over, 'I WANT WATER!  Yelling.  At the top of her lungs.  It was all I could do to not start laughing.  People were staring.  I just kept taking pictures.  What else could I do?

Jayden went out and picked everyone out a pumpkin, well everyone besides me, I like to pick my own. :)

And then he gave them to Royal to carry.  It's a good thing Royal is so big and strong and loves to carve pumpkins.

Willow stood in her spot the whole time, looking like this.  So fierce!

And on that note, this concludes our second trip to the pumpkin patch.  Royal went off to pay for the pumpkins, I went and got the kids some WATER and lunch, then we went home and worked on apples.  :)  Ahhhhh, life with kids, so hilarious....

Moving Up!

Willow did it!  She completed level 2 of swimming today and is moving up to level 3, which means she gets to swim in the big pool now, something she has been begging to do for about a month.

She's pretty excited, if you couldn't tell.   Yay Willow!

Apples, Apples, Apples

The weather this spring and summer was so bad that the fruit trees around here really suffered.  There was a random late freeze in the spring that killed off the majority of the peach blossoms that had come out, so finding good peaches to freeze and can this year was a little difficult, and we only got enough for freezing into peach cobbler/pie filling.  Then I was crossing my fingers that the pears would turn out, because really, my kids love canned pears way more than peaches.  Well, the time to start finding pears came and we started calling around to the local orchards we knew, but nobody had pears because of how hot the summer was.  One orchard's pears started growing on the trees and were looking good, but never grew past the size of a small ball because the orchard's well ran dry and they couldn't water the trees anymore. The other orchard we called said they got a total of 6 pears off their trees.  6!  So, I guess we'll have to survive the winter with the few quarts of pears we have left over from last year and we crossed our fingers about apples.  Last week, we called up to Regier Orchard in Whitewater to see if they had apples ready to pick.  They told Royal that the apples were so small they weren't letting people come up and pick, but Royal persisted and said we wanted the apples for applesauce, so we didn't care how big they were or if some of them had hail damage, and they finally relented and said they would let us at least come take a look for ourselves and decide if we wanted them.

So, last Friday, Royal took the day off of work and after we picked Jayden up from school, we drove up to the orchard.  I love the owners of Regier orchard, they are the sweetest, old couple.  And the man was so embarrassed about the state of his apples he just kept apologizing for them.  Then once he found out we were from Washington - his mecca of apple growing - he about put the kabosh on us going out to the orchard because he didn't want us to see his trees.  But finally we talked him into it and went out to see what kind of apples we were going to be able to take home with us.

Jayden was a lot more help this year!  He picked lots of low hanging apples, you know the ones I can reach too, and then used the ladder to get up high in the trees.

Willow played in the truck the whole time.  :)

Once Jayden got bored with picking, he became more interested in trying to climb the trees and hang from the branches.

I got to ride in the back of the truck with the kids to and from the orchard.  I'm pretty sure they thought this was the funnest part!

We managed to pick almost 90 pounds of apples!  Pretty good for about 90 minutes of picking the kids let us do before they were begging for dinner!

And then we've spent that last 4 days finishing up our work.  Royal did all of the quartering and coring, and it probably took him a good 8 hours because 1) the apples were so small and 2) he had a new helper this year.

Then, after we cooked them up nice and soft, I did the majority of the milling.  I have to stand on a stool, so I have more leverage on the handle to squish all the apple meat out.  I also had lots of helpers for this part, for about 30 minutes until they got bored....

then they were more interested in doing this :

And finally yesterday I canned up the final batch of applesauce, and my shoulder can finally rest!

AppleJack 2011

Willow and I tagged along with Jayden's class to Apple Jack Pumpkin Patch today.  I totally am counting this year as way better than last year, because Jayden didn't throw up on anybody's shoes!

We did pretty much the same stuff we do every time we come to Apple Jack's, so I'm guessing this post might be a bit boring for a bunch of you out there, but the kids are bigger and I take pictures of everything, and I love being able to look back over the years and see what we've done and how much they've changed.   :)

Jayden and Willow selecting the perfect pumpkins :

Tricycle Racing :

The big slide : Willow did it this year and didn't even hesitate!  She ran up the hill and got in line and went right down.  So brave!

The zip line : Willow had no interest in this.  While Jayden was waiting his turn for the zip line, Willow kept going down the big slide.  Thankfully they were right next to each other!

The big bouncy jumpy thing that I wished I had in my backyard :

I asked Jayden if I could take a picture of his shirt.  They made little ghosts out of his footprints with googly eyes and bow ties.  They were so cute!  Jayden : "Fine...hurry up...."  Me : *sigh.....*

And the class picture. Look who made sure she was right next to Jayden.....little Olivia... :)