Pumpkin Walk 2008

(Please sing the following song that I just now made up to the Dora tune of "We Did It!")
(I know you all know it...)

We did it! We did it! We did it!
YEA! Lo Hicimos!
We did it!
We picked 1000 pumpkins and somehow carved them all.
We did it! We did it! We did it! Yea!
We put them all on planks and set them up in the park.
Yeah, we did it! We did it! We did it!
11,000 people came along the way
Our backs got really sore.
What a BEAUTIFUL day!
Yea! Woo hoo! Yippe!
We did it!

The song says it all, or most of it anyway. The song wasn't long enough to add in a verse about all the pumpkin guts that were all over our clothes for two weeks straight, or all the pumpkin seeds sitting in the fridge waiting to be roasted, or all the meetings and coordinating, all the time away from our families, all the groups who came in and help carve, all the lifting and moving, all the hundreds and hundreds of pounds of pumpkin guts to be disposed of, all the sore lower backs (I officially call my lower back muscle my "pumpkin muscle" now since it always hurts in October). It's no wonder it's such a relief when it is all over and done with, and yet, like a good work out, it is such a feeling of accomplishment. One year I may actually take a picture of all of my committee members, but for now these two are a couple of my favorites. =) (My mom and sister) (I love my brothers that help too, but they are not as photogenic.)


Here are some highlights: Sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn (or pumpkin seeds), and enjoy!

Here's the line to get in. Not quite the 3 1/2 hour wait that was announced in Relief Society (*sigh*), but still lengthy. Thursday averaged 40 minutes, Friday was an 1.5-2 hours, and Saturday was 45 minutes to an hour. The line always stresses me out.
I hate to have people waiting that long.
Cold, tired, and living off of caffeine.
This picture was taken well after midnight on Saturday night.

The two who started it all in their backyard: Grandma and Grandpa. This was the fist year without Grandma (she passed away in February). I miss her most at this time of year. Thank you both for leaving us such a legacy to carry on.

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion."
~Henry David Thoreau

Confessions of a Mother of Five...

I have a confession to make. I have an addiction and it's probably time that I get it out of the closet and out in the open. Here it comes:

I love the D.I.!!!
Deseret Industries.

(Wow! I feel so much better getting that out!)

Call it what you may, but it's one of my favorite places to shop. If I need to get away, this is usually the first place that I go. (One time my friend Lisa called and asked if I would go to the DI with her. I was so excited until I found out she was just going to drop off some stuff and not even get out of the car! I mean, honestly. Why would you drive that far and not even go in?!) Anyway, it's like an adventure to me every time I walk through those doors. You just never know what's in store, what you're going to find or what treasures await. (As long as you can get past that first whif of "DI smell" when you first walk in...)

Being the good mother that I am (87.3% of the time) I have passed my love of the DI along to my children. Most all of Emma's Barbies have come from there, and almost every toy that belongs to Cam belonged to some other little boy named Gavin or AJ before it became a hidden treasure hidden on a shelf which we were lucky enough to find. (Thanks for your cars, AJ. And thanks, Gavin, for your dinosaurs.) So while the kids were home for UEA weekend I planned one of our family outings and decided to take them to the new DI. I couldn't help but notice how funny it sounded as I told them (repeatedly...over and over...) "You need to get your jobs done, or we're not going to the DI." And they jumped to it like we were going to Disneyland. I only had to remind them 7 times instead of the usual 12-15 times.

We finally got everything done, so we all packed up in the car and headed off together to check out the Grand Opening. When we got there I was not prepared to for what I saw. The entire parking lot was full. The entire parking lot of the OLD DI was full also, AND people were parking in Sam's Club parking lot and then crossing the street to the newly opened front doors. There were balloons everywhere, parking assistants in the parking lots, and even a clown in the corner tieing balloon animals. The families were streaming in right and left. I was in shock. I felt like a fisherman whose secret fishing spot had just been discovered. Who were all these people and why were they shopping in MY store!?!?!?!! Did they think that they were going to have a huge sale or something? Were they expecting door busters? I simply could not imagine why all these people had suddenly decided to show up this day, aside from the fact that it was the grand opening and all. I was a bit peeved, to say the least. I mean, I shopped the DI before the DI was cool with its new-fancy schmancy building, after all! Doesn't that mean that I should at least get some preferred customer parking or something? (The thought crossed my mind that we should have just gone to Lagoon because it would have been less crowded.)

The mayhem that was inside of the store was something I have not seen since that one time I was CRAZY and got up at 5 AM to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving with my mom and sisters at the local Wal*Mart and hovered over the sewing machines ready to grab one at the stroke of 6 AM or punch anyone who grabbed one before me. And just like then, the lines for checkout went half way to the back of the store and all the registers were beeping just as fast as they could. I really felt like turning around and going home right then. But then I thought of my kids, and how this was their reward for getting their jobs done, and this WAS our family field trip after all. So we braved the crowds, stuck together, and made our way through the store, all the while looking for treasures and trying to keep track of each other at the same time. Now THERE is a fun family field trip!

The conclusion? We made it. And we even managed to find some killer deals, including some snow boots for Em, and this very cool rug for the boys room. Isn't it just the cutest thing ever?! Cam LOVES it and will sit and play for hours. Okay, not really for hours, but for at least 5 minutes straight, which says a lot.

On a side note: Here is my current quest at the DI. Chevron Cars. I love these little dudes about as much as Cam does. I have acquired a dozen or so over the course of the past months, but I am ALWAYS looking for more of them, and consider my trip successful if just happen to find one. (One time Morgan and I found 4 in one trip! It was the best trip ever!!!) So if you happen to see one while you are there, please leave it for me, or better yet, buy it and I'll pay you for it!

p.s. I actually did take the kids to Lagoon a few days after and found that I was wrong. There were WAY more people at Lagoon!!! Holy freaking cow!!!!!

One of THOSE days!

Have you ever had one of those days? You know what I'm talking about. THOSE days where dishes clutter the kitchen (our dishwasher is out of order) (NOT fun), the family room floor is covered in shoes, socks, papers, toys, garbage, and crumbs (even though "no one" breaks the rule and eats in there), and the laundry has piled for too long and is scattered in a chaotic mess throughout your bedroom. Let me make it very clear that I am very good at laundry. I totally rock at getting it washed and even dried. And then...well...when it comes to actually getting it put away I'm not so hot. I am, however, very, very, good at getting it out of the dryer and into a vacant laundry basket, where I take it up upstairs to my room where I have every intention of folding it and putting it away. But that is pretty much where it ends. I have had to instruct Mike, "No, Hun, THAT laundry basket is full of CLEAN clothes, not dirty ones. Can you see the difference? The DIRTY basket is always over HERE, whereas the CLEAN laundry basket(s) are over HERE. Please do not confuse the two. Thank you. I love you."

It was one of these days that we had an appointment with the cable guy to come and fix the cable connection in our...you guessed it...bedroom. (The one with all those laundry baskets). He was supposed to come over between 1-5 in the afternoon. No problem, I thought. I will take the morning and put all that laundry away, clean the room, and make it look like I am one of those super women who are able to keep their home spotless, at all times, even with kids running around. So I started cooking me an egg for breakfast to ensure that I had plenty of energy for the upcoming task at hand.

Right as the egg was about done the phone rang.

"Hello."

"Hello, Mam. This is Comcast. We have an appointment with you for this afternoon."

"Yup, that's right. Between 1-5."

"Well, Mam, we were wondering if we might be able to come out to your home a little early."

"...Early?....uh.... sure, what time were you thinking? (Please don't say 'now!' Please don't say 'now!')"

"He's ready now if that's okay. He's about 15 minutes from your house."

"(HOLY CRAP!!!) Oh...(Crap!!!) uh... (Crap!) Yeah, (Crap crap crap!) I think that would work out just (crap!) fine."

Forget the egg and toast. Forget the shower. I cleaned as fast as I ever had in my life. Well, sort of. I have a confession. I cleaned like my kids clean: I shoved clothes under the bed, I threw laundry baskets in the closets and closed the doors, I kicked the wadded up rug that Cam dumped water on(a few days ago) into the bathroom with the toilet and shut the door, I dusted with my arm as I walked by, I closed my kids doors to their rooms, hid things behind the chairs, and then prayed that he would not need to go downstairs in view of the toy room (HOLY SCARY) to check the connectors in the furnace room. I was throwing the last laundry basket into the last closet when he knocked.

Ten minutes later my cable was working again and Cam had his cartoon channels back and I had fooled the cable guy that my house was clean. Sweet success!

And then I saw it. Right as I shut the door behind him. Lying there in plain sight in the living room right next to the front door was (Men, please plug your ears) a tampon. There. I said it. A TAMPON!

My sweet, SWEET, 2 year old had decided that he was going to open one up and see if there was candy inside or something. I don't know. I don't really care. His 2 year old reasoning doesn't really matter now. All that mattered was it was there in plain sight, in all of its sanitary glory, for Larry the Cable Guy to see, right as he walked into my spotless (**cough cough**) home. Did he see it? I really don't want to know. Really. I don't.

So there you have it. Just another ordinary day in the my life. The tampon has been removed from the entry way now, as have the 5 others of its friends that Cam also opened and played with sometime when I had by back turned. Apparently, they were having a party under the couch. Because, you know, if I were a tampon, that is TOTALLY where I would want to hang out.

(What's that all over his face, you ask? It's fingernail polish. Another story for another time.)

"Only a very exceptionally gifted mind could cope singly with all the problems which present themselves in the perfecting of a home."
~Arnold Bennett