Punkin' Time

Thanks to the Great Pumpkin, my children always shout out, "I didn't know you were gonna kill it!  Ahhhhhhh"

Both kids were a bit grossed out by the guts...woosies.  Jayden can watch a deer get shot and gutted, but ask him to scoop out his pumpkin???  Apparently the pumpkin guts smell real bad.... :)

The children soon grew bored and ditched us with explicit instructions on how to carve their pumpkins.

While they ran up and down the road.  (check out how fast Jayden's legs were going...hehehe)

Willow vs. The Brick Wall

Willow ran face first into a brick wall last night while at a friend's house.  It was so sad.  She gave herself a bloody nose and a bloody lip, and then later when we got home she said her teeth hurt, so I check them, and the front 2 were a bit wiggly.  Thinking it might freak her out more, I don't say anything, but she says, "Are they loose?"  And when I answer, "just a bit", she breaks out in a huge smile and is all, "Yes!!!!!  Maybe I can lose 2 teeth!"  Really???  I'm totally hoping they tighten themselves back down.   :)
She really wanted a bandaid, so this was the best we could do - a bandaid mustache.  :)

This morning, her teeth are a bit tighter, but her lip is nice and fat and she has a little bruise on her nose!  She didn't want to go to school because she was embarrassed about it, but we eventually coaxed her into the classroom. 
"I want to do a sad picture"

Yarn Hoppity Hop Hop

This weekend was the Central Kansas Yarn Hop, and it was just as fantastic as last year!  And this year, I actually found someone to go with me, so I didn't have to drag the kids (well they did get dragged some) and Royal around on the long day.

Day 1 : We got 4 stores out of the way.  The 2 in Wichita and then one in Hutchinson and one in Newton.  My friend Corie came and picked me up and we piled my kids in her backseat with her cute daughter Annabelle (who's not in the picture and is facing backwards so it would of been really hard to get and kind of upside down....anyway...)

 My find of the day was this awesome skein of i-cord yarn, which in the store had been knit into a scarf.  It was way more than I ever pay for yarn, but this is what my tutoring money is for, right???  I mean, I could knit myself a huge i-cord, but that would take forever, and these ladies promised me a 45 minute project!

That evening, instead of sitting on the couch and falling asleep almost immediately, I made myself stay awake and knit the scarf.  I even told Royal to time me.  I got it done in 35 minutes!  (and then I fell asleep) It is so cute!  And here is a terrible picture of it.  :)

Day 2 : I only had 1 shop on my list for the day.  Jayden had an in-house day for eCademy and at first I figured Willow would be in school, and I thought I'd zip on down to Winfield by myself and avoid the whole "I don't want to goooooooooo" thing.  Well, turns out Willow didn't have school on Friday, so she got to be my riding buddy!

Since my ginormous truck is a total gas guzzler, I figured it would be cheaper to rent a car than pay for the tanks of gas driving the ole Dodge would cost.  Turns out, I was right!  $12 a day for a car??? I had no idea, and then when I went to fill the tank, it had 10 gallons.  10 gallons???  That's crazy talk.  The entire weekend cost me less than 1 tank of gas in the truck.  We're renting a car anytime we've got some distance to drive!

This is the car I got.  I couldn't believe it.  Can it get any smaller?  I was totally jerky when I started driving it and Willow kept getting mad at me because I'd totally pound the gas and stomp on the brake.  It took some getting used to.  :)  And then I'd be going down the highway and feel like "Oh, I'm going so fast, I need to slow down", then look at my speedometer and realize I was going 45 when I should of been going 60....ooops.  So much for pull-me-over red.  :)

I picked Jayden up from school in this car and he came out laughing and said, "Are you kidding me?  I'm bigger than that car!"  It's true, he practically is.  I mean the thing is so small, it only has 1 windshield wiper!

(notice Willow's sweater.  it's mine from when i was a kid....as if you couldn't guess)

Day 3 : Corie met me at my house for the final push of 5 yarn stores!  We got in the little red car and headed up to Wamego first, where I picked up a sweet new knitting book. Then down to Manahttan where one of the yarns stores with the best selection of yarn is, and we come to find out she's closing the store this year to work on more design work, but I found the best project to add to my already too big project list for Christmas.  But once I saw the pattern and felt the yarn (I wish you could feel thru your computer, the yarn is so soft it almost makes you catch your breath), I just knew I had to make these for my kids.  Bathrobes!  I am super excited!!!

Then, we headed to Abilene where there is a yarn store that has the very best prices of any of the shops and an entire basement full of discount yarn.  I found some of my favorite ruffling yarn for scarfs there for $1 a piece.  $1!  They normally sell for $24 a piece and I thought I was getting a steal last year when I found them for $10 a piece.  I love a good bargain!  So, I snagged all of them.

We then moved onto Salina where I managed to find some  yarn to make the kid's Christmas hats with, and a hot pink, sparkly, ruffling scarf yarn that I figured Willow would love.

Then we made it down to our last shop of the day in McPherson.  Got our final stamp on our passports and headed home.  It was a really fun day and I'm so glad I had a fellow yarn junkie to do it with!

Now, to start on all those projects.  I mean I already have 2 going at the moment that are live on needles, probably 5 sitting on my waiting list, so whats another 3 or 4???  :)

What Willow Wears :: vol 19

Willow has been rockin' some serious outfits lately.  Either Willow has toned down some of her crazy everyday outfits, or I've just grown immune to them.  But there have been a few outfit choices lately where even I can't ignore how awesome they are. :)

Outfit #1 : pink pattern alert!

 Outfit #2 :

And the grand finale!
Outfit #3 :  It was our first cold morning and she obviously wanted to wear just about all her favorite cold weather gear - she even switched out her hat a few times.  :)

 

Pumpkin Patchin' It

I got to go to the pumpkin patch twice this week.  That's right.  Two times.  The same patch and everything.  The same patch we've been going to for 5 years now.  I tried to convince Royal that he wanted to take up one of the trips to no avail.  So, lucky me, I got two trips within two days of each other.

Monday, we went with Willow's class.  I tried to convince Jayden that maybe he might not want to go since we would be going with his school later in the week, but he was just too excited, so he came too!

Then on Wednesday, Jayden and I headed back to the pumpkin patch.  His field trip was during the time Willow was in school, so it was just the two of us, which was fun.  We did a lot of the same stuff, and did some other things like the corn and milo maze that we didn't do with Willow.  But in the end Jayden was kind of bored, since he'd gone down the zip line 50 times on Monday, it just wasn't as fun anymore.  So we ended up leaving early and getting some tea and hot chocolate and just hanging out together while waiting for Willow to finish up with school.  It was a fun few hours, and even though we usually spend that time together everyday, it was nice to just be out together and not be working on school work.