Saturday, November 10, 2012

Pumpkin Fun!

Every year I have had good intentions of painting or carving pumpkins with Reed and it has never happen. I can't believe this is his fourth Halloween and we have never painted or carved pumpkins! So this year I was determined to make it happen no matter what.  I had it all planned out one night for us to have a pumpkin painting family night, but Josh got off work too late and Graham was already ready for bed.  So Reed and I just set up shop in the garage and Reed had a blast painting!  As with anything with a 3 year old it didn't last long, but the memories were made and we both had a lot of fun!

To my surprise, Reed insisted on painting a pumpkin for me and one for Daddy.  Sweet boy!  So this is my pink and purple pumpkin.


Reed wasn't to happy to be in one of my old t-shirts, but it was to cold to go without clothes.


"Cheese" 
These fake smiles, crack me up.


On to Daddy's pumpkin.  Mine was the small pumpkin and Daddy's was the big pumpkin.




Proud of his pumpkins!


The finished product, with Mommy colors and Daddy colors.


Then a few days before Halloween, I found this book pumpkin carving kit at Hobby Lobby and decided it would be fun to try.


Instead of buying new pumpkins, we just decided to recycle the painted pumpkin. 

Reed was excited to see what the inside of the pumpkin looked like.


This looks dangerous!


Yuck!


At first Reed was all about helping clean out the pumpkin....




But that quickly changed.  Can you tell he is saying ewe in this picture?  Luckily Daddy got it all cleaned up.


They were pretending of course....Josh's mouth makes me laugh.  Silly boys!


Then it was time for the pattern!  Reed surprised me and picked a random race car out of the book.  I thought for sure he would pick Mater and he didn't even pick Lightning McQueen.


Luckily we had these tools!  This book was only $5 and the tools were worth that alone.


In this picture you can tell that we have poked along the lines.  Then you take the pattern off and connect the dots.  It sounds easy, but imagine all those dots with no paper, it looked impossible.  Josh and I shared the poking process and then he took the boys for a bath and I started the actual carving.  I thought Josh would insist on having a turn at the carving, but he didn't.  I was trying my best to get it done before Reed went to bed, but it just couldn't happen.  I had to slowly take on section at a time studying the paper beside me and trying to make sense of the dots on the pumpkin.  It took a couple of hours, but I got it done, all by myself!


To my surprise it actually looked like a race car.


Even better in the dark!


Reed was so excited the next morning to see his race car pumpkin!


So now that we have started the pumpkin painting and carving traditions, hopefully they will continue for years to come! 

Sunday, November 4, 2012

State Fair

On October 20th, we headed out to enjoy a day at the State fair.  I knew Reed would love riding the rides, so I thought it was worth a try!  Let me just say it did not disappoint!  We had the BEST day, minus Daddy because he was in the deer woods.  I am going to apologize now for the major picture overload, but we literally had such a fun day I can't leave anything out.  The joy of seeing your child have so much fun is the absolute best!

Me and my Big Boy before the fun filled day started, he was so excited!  


Graham loved watching all the action!


And we were all super excited that Gigi got to come!  Hopefully, you weren't thinking I was going to attempt the fair by myself! :)

Let the rides begin!  They told me when I was deciding whether to buy tickets or a wristband that Reed could ride 21 rides by himself, so obviously I went with the wristband and he rode and rode and rode some more!

First ride with Gigi!




Up high in the elephant!


Ready to race!


Reed was so funny on this ride and many others that seem to bore him.  Anything that just went around in a circle and didn't have any thrill factor to it, you would see him standing up to look around at the other rides trying to decide which one he wanted to try next, it was too funny!  My little dare devil!  Josh and I both LOVE roller coasters so I guess it is in his blood.


Going on a little boat ride!



And a train ride....this one was also boring to him and I kept having to tell him to sit down.  He kept standing up and turning around to look over the wall of the cart to see the other rides.

Even a helicopter ride!  I got to ride this one with Reed.  We were in the back window!  You can't really tell, but it was pretty high and spun pretty fast.  One of the little girls even started crying on the ride because it scared her and Reed just couldn't understand why she would be scared.


The roller coaster was Reed's absolute favorite!  You can see us in the second cart with our hands up! :)  He wanted right back on it for a second ride when it stopped!  Unfortunately, I told him we would come back because I wanted him to have a chance to ride other rides, and then they shut it down for some reason.  He was sad we couldn't ride again!


Nemo  ride!  This ride he could control it going up and down, so he thought that was cool!


The jet ski ride had horns that you could push!  Can you tell in the picture that he was pushing the horn?  The sounds coming from this ride were so funny, because all of the horns were going off non-stop.  Reed of course loved every minute of it.


This was more of an obstacle course and this was probably Reed's second favorite!


They started off by squeezing through the swinging bags and up a cargo net.


Then across two draw bridges.


Down a huge slide


To a very bouncy landing! 
Reed didn't even ask, he just immediately ran back to get in line and do it again!


Crazy School Bus ride! 

This was another one that went pretty high in the air and another one we got to enjoy with a screaming child that was scared!  Not my Reed he loved every second of riding high, we even picked the front for a little more thrill! :)


The Ferris Wheel


Our view!


I had a very hard time keeping this little dare devil on his bottom!  This was the only time all day I got a  little nervous.  He kept trying to stand in the seat and I didn't want to jump to fast across from my seat in fear that I would rock us to hard.  My heart jumps a little now just thinking about it!



Taking a rest.....or maybe a little pouting because Mommy want let him stand up!


This wasn't even everything he rode, but I think you get the point!  Fun, fun, fun!!

Of course you can't go to the fair without having a corn dog and this little boy not only had one, but two!! 



And before I move on, I have to say that this little man was AMAZING all day!  He drank his bottle and even took a nap in the stroller.  He didn't fuss one time for over 3 hours!!  Did I mention we had the perfect day?!


We took a little break from all the riding fun to enjoy the petting zoo.  It was perfect!  Right in the middle of the kid rides and all the animals were so friendly.

Well we started off trying to get a little food from the machine, but the goats could practically eat the food right from the machine, they were swarming it! :)


We quickly moved on to feeding carrots.  You had to buy them, but it was well worth the fun!  Thanks Gigi for not 1 but 2 bags of carrots!


Reed loved petting the animals


Not sure what this is, but he was friendly.

Gotta love some miniature donkeys!


And probably our favorite was the soft camel!




Eating right out of Reed's hand


This bird also ate right out of Reed's hand!  Just a little unexpected that he could reach that far! :)


You can see the surprise and excitement even from the side of his face! You can really tell how far the bird had to reach in this picture....it was crazy!


Some crazy long haired, friendly Llama type animal


More goats


Some sheep


And even cows


And we ended the petting zoo experience with a overpriced pony ride....thanks again Gigi!


Once we were done with the petting zoo we were ready to wrap up the day with a carousel ride....


and one or slllliiiiidddddeeee!

This smile says it all!


And so does this!  This is what 5 hours at the fair will do to you!  Both boys were out before we could get to the highway!


What a fun day with my boys!!  I am so glad we went, it will definitely be a yearly tradition! 
Worth every penny!