How to carve a pumpkin

First, do no one's hair or makeup.  Seriously, pumpkin carving makes such a mess anyway.  It's not like you're taking pictures and recording this for posterity or anything.

 

 Second, the harder you squint at your pumpkin, the better the end result will be.

Third, the bigger your smile, the more awesome your pumpkin "Weirdo-Guy" will be.

 Fourth, try to look as scary as your carved pumpkin, but fail since you are just so cute anyway.

 Fifth, smile in the first picture with your finished pumpkin, because...

There's a one in three possibility you won't enjoy it later. Seriously, this picture makes me so sad for her.   I was busy getting the pumpkin seeds ready for roasting...so I don't know what that sad face is for.  But there isn't a picture of all three happy with their pumpkins, so that's what you get.

 

We had lots of fun getting our pumpkins ready for Halloween!

Russell's 3rd cast

Russell got his 3rd cast on Oct 25.  We were able to get his curve down to 18*, with a 0* RVAD, which is awesome. 

He's doing pretty good in this cast.  He gets really tired, because he has to get used to it all over again after having it off for 6 weeks.  But his arms and legs are building strength again, slowly.  He's finally been able to go up and down the stairs again, and it only took him about a week to relearn how to do that this time.  He's frustrated sometimes because he can't do some of the things he could do without the cast.  It must be because he's older and can remember those things better now.  But he's still mostly a smiley guy.  Just need to skip mealtime, bedtime, and later in the day when he's tired.  Those are tantrum throwing times.  But it's getting better every day.  I'm amazed at how quickly he's adjusting.  He's a strong little boy.

This is the look he's giving when he's trying to figure out something, i.e. the camera.  The toy keys he's holding, I gave to him right after he woke up from the anesthesia.  He's LOVED them!

 

First snow of Fall

It snowed Oct 25, when I was down in UT wiht Russell getting his new cast put on.  I found these pictures that Scott had taken of the kids playing out in the snow,  and I LOVE some of these poses!

Our GQ Tyler posing with the base of the snowman they were building.

I often see the kids doing this when I look out in the backyard.  We have dogs in the yard behind us, and the kids love them.

 

Krysta and Emalyn working on their part of the snowman. SOMETHING was really funny to Krysta...

And the finished snowman, and Emalyn.  I love his nose.

Russell is TWO!

Russell turned TWO a couple of weeks ago...

 

We started the party by giving him a bath. I love watching how much fun he has in the bathtub.  Six weeks ago, he was terrified of the water, and now he splashes and smiles the whole time.

The rest of the day, until the time when Daddy came home, went pretty much normal. 

 

For dinner we had some of his favorite foods: macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and beets.  Yummy!  Then, we decided to forgo the cake and candles.  He doesn't like cake, and most two-yr olds can't blow out candles anyway.  So we made him frosted sugar cookies and sang "Happy Birthday" to him.  He really enjoyed the cookies.

 

Krysta looked at the cookie "boy" and asked who it was supposed to be.  When I said "Russell", she replied, "It looks more like Harry Potter."  She's right, ha ha.  But I didn't have any vanilla chips for the hair. 

 

Enjoying the cookies.

 

We had everyone else decorate a cookie and eat it too.  The rest of the cookies were in shapes of things that Russell likes: truck, car, fire truck, hand, foot, etc.  We have practically every shape of cookie cutter you could possibly want, or need, whethere you knew it existed or not.  That's thanks to my mom for sending me a bucket of 50 cookie cutters.  Thanks Mom!

Unwrapping the presents.

As you can see, he had a lot of helpers.  Nothing gets a family to gather around faster than handing the youngest a present to unwrap.

Emalyn gave him a pumpkin, Tyler and Krysta each gave him a toy car, and we also gave him 2-lb balls, and a weighted stay-ball, and clothes.  As you can tell, we used his birthday to give him much needed exercise equipment.  Just what every two-yr old wants.  The pumpkin is his favorite weight to carry around.

 

 

I can't believe two years have already gone by!  I've noticed though that the kids and I still call him baby Russell sometimes.  He's had a challenging start to life, but his determination and persistence have carried him through.  We love his sweet spirit and the love that he has brought into our home.  He's a very quick learner-already recognizes numbers 1-5, can count to 7, recognizes shapes, letters, and loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Alphabet song.  He has a very strong spirit, and has changed my life and the life of our family for good.  We love you Russell!

The Harvest...aaahhh, it was good while it lasted.

About two weeks ago, during breakfast, I happened to look outside at our garden, and this is what I saw:

It was our first hard frost, and we'd left the timer for the garden sprinkler turned ON. 
Kinda pretty.

Unfortunately, this meant the END of eating and preserving the bounty of our garden this year.

It was really sad to me. 
But I had known it was coming, so we didn't actually lose anything.  Except for those watermelons, ears of corn, and bell peppers that had not ripened yet.  Other than those, we really got a ton from our garden this year: green beans, peas, carrots, bell peppers, onions, garlic, corn, pumpkins, broccoli, beets, lettuce, zucchini, yellow summer squash, and tomatoes.  It was awesome. 

I went on a canning frenzy this fall.  I canned peaches, pears, spaghetti sauce, green beans, and navy beans.  Forgive the bragging, but I'm super proud of myself.  I've never done this much canning before.  I always do some, but this was a lot for me.  Growing up, I never helped my mom with the canning (that I can remember anyway) (sorry Mom!) and I never thought I would enjoy it, but I do!

13 jars of spaghetti sauce!

Our most recent trip to Utah!

We went down to Utah Sept 27-30.  We were supposed to be getting a new cast for Russell, but due to a cold, the surgery was postponed until Oct 25.  We debated on still going down, then realized we'd already made plans with both sides of the family, we were really excited about going down there, and this would be our first trip in a while without any doctors involved (other than family reunions).  When we realized all of that, we decided we definitely wanted to go.  And we had a lot of fun with everyone. 

Funny thing though, I didn't take any pictures during our time with Grandma and Grandpa K, Megan and Weston, and Lisa and Scott.  We had so much fun with all of them.  We got to see Megan and Weston and Wyatt's new house and huge yard (that we're not jealous of AT ALL), and hint that the new baby should come while we were down there...(it didn't-which was probably a good thing since we got to see them more that way :) ).  We got to see Lisa and Scott, and their kids, whom we hadn't seen in about a YEAR.  It was really good to catch up with them, and be amazed at the people they are and what they've come through.

 

And then we went to meet Grandma and Grandpa J at Nunn's Park (near Bridal Veil Falls), along with the rest of the Jensen clan, for a picnic lunch.  I love that place.  It holds so many memories of biking there with my family and feeding the ducks there.  I'm so glad we get new memories of being there with Grandma and Grandpa and some of our cousins.  We missed Jason and Christy and their kids, and Jesika and Chris and their kids!

So first, we ate lunch near the park, and the kids all played for a while.  Some of the Dads (and grandpa too!) had cartwheel and backflip competitions.  Then we all went for a hike (a walk really) up to Bridal Veil Falls.  Took us about 10 min to get there.  At a very leisure pace, along a paved pathway.  And at the end, this is what we did:

 

Feeding the fish with Grandpa!

It was so beautiful, with the leaves changing to fall colors.  Thanks for the fun everyone!

 

Then we got to go and tour Craig and Lauren's new house, and see all the new space they get to enjoy.  And then we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  That evening, those who lived close came over and I got to watch the General Relief Society meeting with Nancy, and my sisters-in-law.  It was a great meeting. The leaders of the Relief Society had great messages for us.

 

I loved this trip.  It's always so good to be with family, and be surrounded by so much love and friendship.  I love our families!

All about a 10 year old boy

 Tyler's actual birthday was the same as Cub Scout Pack night, so we waited to celebrate until the next day.  He was not sad at all that Pack meeting was on his birthday.  That was a birthday present in and of itself!

He earned 9 arrow points (total) with his bear, and his Whittling Chip badge that night.

This was a game to do with "cooperation".  Tyler's friend (whose name is also Tyler!) had to feed Tyler chocolate pudding by dropping spoonfuls from way above where Tyler was laying.  Ha ha.  It was awesome.  The girls did it too, but we didn't get any pictures of them.

 

So the next day, we celebrated Tyler's birthday.  He got birthday money from both sets of grandparents, and picked out a star wars lego set with that money.  Here he is, opening that present, in the next few pictures:

 

For his party, he wanted a Harry Potter cake.  He was very specific about what he wanted it to look like.  After I decorated it, his only complaint was that Harry is supposed to have green eyes, no blue.  I was just happy that I thought of cutting out eyes from airheads; I forgot to even think about what color they should be.  Tyler was nice about it though, and said it was an awesome cake anyway. 

 Then we hosted a party for Tyler.  ***Note: Ten 10-yr olds is ALOT of boys, energy, hunger, and enthusiasm!!!

Opening presents

Blowing out the candles!

Tyler is the best son you could ever ask for.  He is just so so good! And so so so much fun.  And so full of knowledge about EVERYTHING.  If he's read it, he remembers it.  And then he's telling his mom ALL about it.  He adds so much to our family.  He is a great big brother to his sisters and brother.  He loves to help them and watch out for them. 
Tyler-we're so thankful you are a part of our family.  We love you, and we are so proud of you!