Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin Carving is one of my favorite family events.

I'm not exactly sure how it originated, but I distinctly remember taking it over. Seth I were married and living in our little studio in Santa Barbara and Miss Josiah was 6 months old. We sent out this invitation for all the family to join us for some seaside pumpkin carving. It was a blast! And I loved to be able to say that Pumpkin Carving was my family holiday to host.... it was perfect! Hard to mess up this one... no big elaborate meals to cook, just pumpkins!
Yes, that is Daddy and Uncle Jon carrying Josiah around in an enormous pumpkin.

A classic picture.

We've always been a family who knew how to have fun!

This was the 1st time we met Jen.... was it the Pumpkin Carving that reeled her in??

Back to the present...... Mimi invited us all back to the beach, this time Avila. And there we carved.

Adalie watching Mimi very closely.

Yeah I am pretty sure there is no way you are getting our clean little Adalie to dig into any pumpkin.

And it looks like Aunt Jen's gonna second that one with the pinkie!

Josiah and Daddy concentrating hard on their design, it's quite a competitive event.

Now that Adalie has confirmed Mimi survived the goo, we dug into a pumpkin of our own!

And this time she is brave enough to touch the stem and pull off the pumpkins lid. Watch our Uncle Taylor.

Everyone participates in this event..(Papa CT)

Uncle Jon and Aunt Jen relive the magic of their 1st Pumpkin Carving year by combining their efforts into one very precise pumpkin.

Josiah concentrating on her masterpiece.


For those of you who think that Josiah is my spitting image.... here she is looking alot like her Daddy.

Uncle Taylor needed some help with inspiration, which Adalie generously offered. She wanted a pirate pumpkin, so Uncle Taylor made her a pirate pumpkin.

Adalie putting the final touches on our pumpkin. Yes, she is using a knife, but they say they are safe even for the youngest pumpkin carvers (they were right).

The unveiling of Josiah's BOO masterpiece. Now that she can read she wanted her pumpkin to say BOO!


Another fabulous Pumpkin Carving day.

Fall Break

Well, Fall Break has officially come to an end. Josiah is back in school as of last week and our schedule is back in full swing. So here is a sampling of what we filled our days off with....

We watched football with friends....

who graciously entertained our children with fun crafts.

We went on a pine cone hunt..

We had lunch with Daddy at his work.

We carved pumpkins.

We went to the beach

And more.....

But my favorite part..... I took my watch off!! We did not have to be anywhere at any time. We were off our schedule. We did what we wanted when we wanted. And even better than that.... these 2 girls got to play together again. The 1st day off, I never saw them, they were too busy with one another. This is for me an answer to prayer. I have always wanted my girls, as different as they are, to love one another. And they do (most the time!)

Picking Pumpkins

It seems like these days, Pumpkin picking has grown to be more about the photo op than the actual pumpkin picking. Our family is no different, who doesn't love the great pictures you get?? But this year we went away from the mainstream a bit and picked pumpkins out of Gigi's adopted garden. I must say, although we didn't get the beautiful fall pumpkin patch shots, the pumpkins are beautiful, they were home grown, and free, there were no crowds, the girls had fun and each loved their pumpkins. So I say ... success!




This one grew outside the garden and sat perfectly on the wall right there like humpty dumpty.

Gipa helping the girls clip the pumpkin off the vine.

Daddy helping the girls carry a big one. Isn't it pretty all lacy green and orange!



Josiah carrying her catch.

Adalie in love with her "little baby Pumpkin" (unfortunately before she got a chance to carve it a "little bear cub" came along and ate it?)

The girls with their picks of the year.

Thank you Gigi for saving us the pretty pumpkins. It was fun.

A Mini Escape

It is Sunday afternoon and our family needs to escape, a few minutes away from the busyness of life, a few minutes to root ourselves once again, a few minutes to breathe, a few minutes to enjoy one another. So we headed up in elevation to the Shadow of the Giants.

After a little picnic lunch we skipped down the trail, stopping here and there for photo ops and oohs and aaahs.

Josiah is getting to be quite the little photographer. She posed us here and snapped the pic.

This was the Girls and my first time on this trail and it left us in awe of the majesty of these trees. They are beautifully enormous.

Just a little reminder that we do indeed have a very Big God.

A very big God that doesn't forget the smallest of details. The lady bug nests were so pretty. They looked like berries until you got close enough to see they were lady bugs.

I love when they look at one another this way. My prayer is that they will have a lifetime of smiles for one another.

Now its is Adalie's turn to tell Mommy and Daddy to say "cheese" Apparently we have a few photogs in the fam.


And just the breathe of fresh air our family needed. Thank you Mister for taking us away for a few hours. I am grateful.

Welcomed

One of the things I really appreciate about Josiah's teachers is that Adalie is welcome in the classroom. I would not be able to spend as much time as I do in the classroom if that were not the case. In fact most mornings Adalie asks if we are going to stay at Josiah's school. So here is just a taste of the privileges Adalie and I enjoy at North Fork School.
We get to check out all the books in the library.
About a dozen a week to be exact!
Adalie is quite the helper at our station.
At Josiah's request, she has gotten to help Josiah be the class leader, pointing to the song letters,
helping with the morning carpet time,
and sitting up front with Mrs. G.
She even once took her nap in the classroom. Talk about being welcomed!


(Thank you!)

Time for Tea

While the fellas were off gathering wood for the winter, us girls did the girliest of all girlie things..... we went to tea! It was the little girls' 1st tea and proved to be very fun.
All the girls had a myriad of questions; "Are we going to have real tea?? And real food?? Do we get to dress up?? Do you call it a tea party?? As you can see most tea parties are pretend, so this was a special treat!
Princesses Josiah and Adalie.
Julie and her tea princess Maddie.
Michaelle and her tea princess Haylie
Our dear friend Lana who taught the girls all about tea time.
Including the proper princess way of drinking tea.... with ones pinkie fingers out of course.




Although they loved the cutsie little sandwiches, the yummy scones, the pretty fruit and scrumptious appetizers....... Oh, how they loved the sugar dish....
These girls were quite the little ladies at our tea party!