Pumpkin Carving

Our newest pumpkin carver had a great time digging into the the pumpkin and hammering in colored pegs.

Now, this guy couldn't handle touching any of the pumpkin guts.  Even looking at the seeds seemed to make his tummy turn.  In the end he ended up being more an observer than participant in the carving activity.

These guys are old pros these days.

Here they are with their creations.

I especially loved these guys in the dark.  You can see that Jason had quite a bit of help from Daddy.   The process involved a drill or something crazy from the garage.

I thought that Ethan's pumpkin was pretty clever and spooky.

Alaina's mummy and and Austin's lone wolf were pretty awesome as well.

Boo!

I love the Fall.  Even if we only have a fake fall in Vegas, I still love it.  Fall here consists of warm days and green plants.  It looks suspiciously like summer, but we know that Thanksgiving is just around the corner and that most people are looking at the leaves changing colors and eating soup.  So, to show my solidarity with the rest of the world, I make my kids sweat it out while they eat hot soup at the end of hot days and I dress up little boys up in Fall weather clothes.  I can't help it.  I have a problem.

Still.  Aren't they cute?  Don't they look like they are enjoying fall weather (I think the temperature was only low 80's)  Before you get on my case for overheating my babes, remember, they always keep it cool at church.  So, my little loves let me take a few quick pics before we got back into our shorts and t-shirts.

Emmett was my winner with the smiles.

Jason wasn't feeling it.  I'm not gong to say that we told him he could only go inside after he smiled once...because that wouldn't be nice at all.  And we all know that I'm only ever nice to my kids. 

But for some strange reason, he tried really hard to get a smile out.  (it helped when I took the sweater off...so weird)

And we did get a brotherly hug.  (Also not forced.  This was just a completely organic moment between two loving brother.  Naturally.) 

Ah.  Don't cha just love the Fall?

Ethan is 13 1/2.  Don't forget that 1/2!  He knows everything right now.  I know, you might think that isn't anything new for our sweet boy, and I guess he has always known everything.  The only real difference is that now he treats whatever we say with the self-assured smugness that only a teenager can express.  It is pretty infuriating.

He is also on the cusp of not caring what we say and needing to know what we think.  It's a funny place for my boy to be in.  All week he will tell us he doesn't need us and that he doesn't care what we want to say but then on Sunday, when he sits next to me at church, I find him putting my hand on his back and his head so that I can rub his back and scratch his hair.  He'll lean on my shoulder so I can rub his face.  I find myself squished between by big teenager and my small two year old, both wanting the same attention.  I don't mind being a part of that sandwich, but it makes me smile at the irony of it.

Last Saturday Ethan went to his first, real, teenager party.  We allowed him to stay out until 11:30...a first.  We haven't even let the kids do sleepovers, so this was a real big deal.  We knew the kids were watching 'the watcher in the woods.' and playing games, which sounded pretty harmless.  So off he went.  When he came home, he burst through the door and the first thing he said, in a very excited voice was, "Mom!  I kissed a girl!"  He was practically skipping around the house.  Having a child with low impulse control is hard in many ways.  One way it isn't so bad is that when Ethan had something inside of him that he can't contain, you get all the details...immediately.

So, it appears that the ol' game, spin the bottle has been upgraded.  Yeah, there's an app for that.  All you got to do now is press a button and you get to kiss the girl sitting across from you.  It really is a time-saver.  :)  Well, we got all the dirt.  The girl's name.  Just how long of a kiss it was.  Before the party, Ethan had a major crush on a girl in his class.  "We are together." he had told me before.  "Together?  What does that mean?"  I had asked.  All I got was a "huh.  Together...it means we are together!  She's my girlfriend."  I hadn't pushed it.  It's not like Ethan has a phone or email nor is he allowed to go on dates, so this girlfriend seemed pretty harmless.   And short-lived, it seemed.  Because once Ethan kissed a different girl, his previous girlfriend informed him that they were not, in fact, together anymore.  Ahh.  The complexities of young love.