Country First Jack-O-Laterns

We decided that our yard signs and bumper stickers we're enough support, so we added our McCain-Palin Jack-O-Lanterns to the mix. Matt did Governor Palin, Alyssa did McCain-Palin, and Michael did Senator McCain. I wasn't able to help much because I was too busy roasting pumpkin seeds, making caramel apples, and hot gluing my thumbs together in an attempt to make Emily some cheetah ears to go with her Halloween costume. But the political pumpkins were my idea and I did find the patterns and took all the pictures. Eli was so cute running around outside tonight saying "McCain-Palin" while I was trying to take the pictures. Happy voting!

Pickin' Pumpkins at Hunt's Orchard

We took advantage of the beautiful Saturday God blessed with us earlier this month and went to Hunt's Orchard, North of St. Joe. Here we are on the tractor pulled hay ride that took us from the general store up to the pumpkin patch.

Here is Eli in the middle of the patch. Too many pumpkins to choose from! This was one of the few times Eli wasn't on the run and I was able to snap a picture. After we choose our pumpkins we roasted hot dogs and marshmellows. The orchard volunteers put on a short skit about the Beverly Hillbillies, but none of our kids would do the hoe down with Granny.

There was also a hay maze that the kids loved to crawl through. At first Eli was scared to crawl in, but once he did, he didn't want to get out. We had to send Michael in to keep track of Eli. The picture of Emily was taken in the very center of the maze. After our hay ride back to the general store, the kids spent a little time in the petting zoo and Emily and Eli took a train ride before we headed home.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Eli Christian

Here's a picture of Eli with one of his presents. Don't you just love the shirt he's wearing? Since I'm the one who writes this blog, I get to point out such things. :) It's really hard to believe that Eli is already 3 years old. He is definitely all boy--loves tractors, bulldozers, monster trucks, dinosaurs, and is always getting hurt. His latest scare was shutting the automatic sliding van door on his hand by pushing the button. Nothing in his hand was broken and now the button is disabled whenever he is in the van. ;)

I gave Eli a few choices of what he wanted on his birthday cake and he chose bulldozers. Jen, the girl in town who makes the kids' cakes, didn't have a bulldozer pan, but she has one of the icing printers and she can put any picture on a cake. So, Eli and I went to the Catepillar website and picked out two pictures for his cake. After we printed off the pictures, he couldn't wait until morning, so he could take in his pictures to the cake shop. He proudly presented his paper to Jen and then asked me everyday for a week if it was time to go get his birthday cake yet.