The Best of Halloween '08: Family Pumpkin Carving

Another one of our yearly family traditions is to carve the pumpkins we choose from Bert's Pumpkin Patch. Last year, Tyler had a smaller one that we carved in addition to the large family one. But since he chose a green one this year, he opted not to carve it so that it will last longer. When it comes to pumpkin templates, I am more in favor of the traditional pumpkin faces. Tyler, however, was very persistant about doing a spider this year for some reason. Since I am not a big fan of spiders, I wasn't so excited about the choice. I had already talked him out of a spider template at the Pumpkin Carving party we attended, because our pumpkin wasn't the right shape for the particular one he wanted. I told him we could save the spider one to do on our other pumpkin, hoping he would want something different by then. No such luck...he was dead set on a spider! I have to admit that it turned out looking pretty cool!

Billy and Tyler opened up the pumpkin and scooped it out.

Allison wasn't too enthusiastic about the opportunity to experiment with the top of the pumpkin. After touching it once, she made a "this is disgusting" face and pushed it away!

The inside of the hollowed out pumpkin seemed to be very interesting!

Tyler helped me with the carving.

I must say that this just wasn't my year for carving pumpkins! I completely butchered the bat template that we chose to do at the Pumpkin Carving party by cutting a line that I shouldn't have. As a result, the large bat came out with the moon, leaving a huge hole instead. That's the reason I didn't post a picture of the finished product in my last post. I ended up letting Tyler decorate the back of it with plastic pumpkin face pieces! So after this mishap, I was determined not to make the same mistake twice. Tyler even reminded me ahead of time. "Don't mess this one up like the bat one!" Well I didn't cut in the wrong spot this time, but I still managed to "mess it up." The design was supposed to have the spider holding on to a small Jack-o-Lantern (hence the big hole in that spot in the picture above). Things were going great - even with the skinny spider legs - up until I reached the little Jack-Lantern. When I tried to pull the pieces out from around the Jack-o-Lantern, he broke right in half and I had to cut him completely out! In my defense, it was a very thick pumpkin, but I was disappointed nonetheless! The spider looked pretty neat on his own, but I just wasn't satisfied. So the next morning, I cut out a new pumpkin from the back of our messed up bat pumpkin and attached it with toothpicks. This is the way it was intended to look...

Now that's better! (The cat is the Quan family pumpkin.)

The Best of Halloween '08: Costume and Pumpkin Carving Party

We were invited to a friend's house this year for a Halloween Costume and Pumpkin Carving Party. Tyler eargerly awaited this party, since it was one more opportunity to wear his beloved T. Rex costume! He was also very excited for the pumpkin carving and asked each and every day leading up to the party if it was time to go and carve our pumpkin.

On the day of the party I went down to my parents' house to rummage around for some old costumes I had, in hopes of convincing Billy to join me in dressing up for the occasion. I found Pinnochio, a Scarecrow, and a Pirate. Of the 3, I figured he would be most willing to go as a pirate (he would at least get to carry a sword, right?!). On my way home, I called and told him I found a pirate costume for him to wear and I think I got a chuckle or something. To make a long story short, I have proof that he actually wore the costume! He made a pretty good looking pirate if you ask me. He even won 2nd place for the Best Male Costume award!

Billy added the gun (unloaded, of course!) accessory himself - go figure!

Hard at work, scooping out the pumpkin!

On to the best part - carving!

The Best of Halloween '08: Trunk-or-Treat

Despite the cold and rainy weather conditions on the day of our Trunk-or-Treat at church, there was still a great turn-out! We had a chili cook-off and pie contest, and the lines to get dinner wrapped all the way around one side of the gym! It was decided to go ahead and do the Trunk-or-Treat outside even though it was still quite cold and misty. The water spots on my lens in all the pictures show proof of this! Our scary, roaring T. Rex and sassy Black Cat still had a blast and collected quite the stash of candy!

Favorite moments from the night:

• Even though Tyler had been wearing his costume since the beginning of October, he acted as though this night was the first time he had seen it and eagerly put in on with excitment and anticipation!
• After remembering to say "Trick-or-Treat," Tyler found it necessary to ROAR at each and every unsuspecting candy-passer-outer! (And he came up with this all on his own!)
• Many cars had fun music playing and Allison just couldn't resist the urge to dance!
• Upon receiving a pack of M&M's - one of Allison's most favorite types of candy - she exclaimed, "WOWWW!" and then was given a 2nd pack just for being so cute!
• Allison was very enthralled and excited about the fact that every person she came in contact with freely offered her candy and other goodies. So much so, in fact, that she kept both hands full of candy and if we so much as layed a hand on her pumpkin she began to scream and wail!

The dynamic duo! And they both decided to look in the right direction and smile at the same time!

Allison collecting another one of her favorites - "pops"

"Alright, filler up!"

This was one of the cars with music playing and Allison was bustin' a move! Also, notice what's in her hands - M&M's and a "pop!"

Tyler showing off his loot!

There will be several more "Best of Halloween '08" entries, so stay tuned!

A laugh a day...

My day isn't complete until Tyler has made a comment that gives me a good chuckle. He certainly hasn't disappointed me the last couple of days!
So we are at the doctor's office yesterday (I suspect Allison may have a Urinary Tract Infection, and I'm waiting for results from the urine sample) and after we had been waiting for a little while, Tyler informs me that he needs to "go poop." Of course it always comes at the most inconvenient times, but when you gotta go, you gotta go! So we get our business done, and we meet Dr. Colon coming up the hallway. Everyone exchanges hellos and as we enter the room the following dialouge takes place:

Tyler: Guess what?!
Dr. Colon: What?!
Tyler: I POOPED!
Dr. Colon: Oh good, did everything go okay?
Tyler: what?
Dr. Colon: In the bathroom...did everything go well?
Tyler: Oh...yeah.

So yeah, very imformative. But wait, it gets better! For you to get the full humor, you must know that Tyler is the Bad Word Patrol around our house these days. We aren't allowed to say stupid, dumb, hate, idiot, shut up and so on and so forth. Anyone heard saying one of these words will most certainly be put in their place. Billy and I have even resorted to spelling a couple of these words a time or two to avoid any unpleasant encounters from Officer Hadley.
Now back to the story. As Dr. Colon is giving me all the options of how we can go about collecting a urine sample from Allison, this dialogue transpires:

Dr. Colon: I'd hate to have to do a catheter if we don't need to.......
Tyler: But we don't say "hate."
Me: I'm sorry, he's totally the Bad Word Patrol lately.
Dr. Colon: Oh my son is the same way. "Stupid" is the bad word in our house. (Now speaking to Tyler.) I'm sorry. I would RATHER NOT have to do a catheter if we don't have to. (Smiling) How's that?
Me: (Also smiling) Is that better Tylerman?
Tyler: Yes.

Then tonight Tyler inquired about a potential "bad word."

Tyler: Is "hideous" a bad word?
Me: (wondering where this is going) No, it's really not too bad.
Tyler: But sometimes is it a bad word?
Me: Well, it just means ugly. Who said that word?
Tyler: Wish Bear says it when she loses her tummy symbol. (On the movie Big Wish.)
Me: Oh, you're right. So Wish Bear was just saying that she looked ugly without her tummy symbol.
Tyler: Yeah, and when Princess Fiona is big she is ugly.

It's all about perspective!

Fall Family Traditions

Fall has always been a season full of traditions for my family. These traditions included the North Georgia State Fair, trips up to the North Georgia mountains and to our cabin in North Carolina, apples, pumpkins, and Trick-or-Treating. For several years, we enjoyed the tradition of going to the Ellijay Apple Festival to enjoy homemade root beer, apple dumplins, kettle corn and fudge. However, as the Apple Festival grew more and more crowded with each passing year, we realized that the word about this small town festival was getting out! We no longer enjoyed it the way we had in past years, so we decided to alter our tradition and spend more time at other stops, such as Bert's Pumpkin Patch and Hillcrest Orchards. (Although, I am discovering that the secrets to these places have spread like wildfire too!) Despite the growing crowds, these still continue to be our two favorite places to visit in the fall!

Hillcrest Orchards is our most favorite of the many apple houses (as we like to call them). They have the MOST amazing fresh apple fritters, apple cider and apple cider doughnuts! I haven't tried the pumpkin pie there yet, but Vanessa says they are also out of this world. I'm getting hungry just thinking about all these delicious treats! At Bert's, you can find just about any size or variety of pumpkin that you want - including green ones for Tyler! Here are pictures from last weekend's trip. And since everyone always adds a disclaimer, here's mine: MANY pictures to follow! :)

Pumpkin Discovery

"Is this thing for real?!"


"I just love big pumpkins!"

Allison busy at work. She loved picking up the wood chips and putting them on top of the pumpkins.

Having so much fun!

Tyler loved leaning over on the HUGE pumpkins!

Pausing in the sun for another quick picture.

My little "Love Bugs" again!

Taking a ride in the wheel barrow!

I honestly didn't know green pumpkins existed! Everytime Tyler wants to color a pumpkin green, I say "I really don't think pumpkins are green Tylerman." Guess I was wrong!

Loaded up and ready to go!

And finally, our pumpkins on display!

Cowboy Tyler

I have a couple stories to preface the story this post is actually about. I know that sounds a bit confusing and yeah, it will be long, but just hang with me for a few minutes! The first story is to explain why I chose "Cowboy Tyler" as the title of the post. On one of our trips up to our family cabin in North Carolina last summer, Tyler and Lana located a couple of Pawpaw's hats that he wears when he's out in the sun mowing grass or whatever.
After putting one of the hats on, Tyler declares, "I'm Coyboy Tyler!" He got this from a Backyardigans episode he watched where they were cowboys (Cowboy Austin, Cowboy Tyrone, Cowgirl Uniqua, etc.) So that's how Cowboy Tyler came to be!

Now on to the next preface story, which has nothing to do with cowboys, but I'll get back to that. Back at the end of September, we went to the North Georgia State Fair. We go every year for the Beautiful Baby Contest, Petting Zoo, and RIDES of course! If you want to see pictures of this event, you can visit Tyler and Allison's websites. When we decided to call it a night, Billy headed out to the car with Tyler to pull it around and pick Allison and me up at the gate. After waiting patiently for what seemed like longer than enough time to get the car and pull it around, I started to wonder what problem they might have ran into. Come to find out, the delay was due to the fact that our socialite Tyler decided to approach the traffic cops in the parking lot to make friends. He started out by showing off his frog he won in the duck pond game and before his chat was over, he had earned the right to play with the sirens and lights on one of the police cars and got his very own police badge sticker! Too bad I missed the whole thing and wasn't able to take pictures! He made a great impression on one police officer in particular, who offered to let Tyler ride one of the police mounted horses if we would bring him back down to the fair Friday or Saturday night.

So of course, Satuday night we headed back to the fair and enjoyed feeding the animals, racing on a HUGE inflated slide, and eating kettle corn and candy apples. After killing as much time as we possibly could (it was getting pretty late) we realized that Tyler's friend wasn't going to get a break from the relentless parking traffic. Sadly, we had to leave without the much anticipated horse ride. We were able to briefly chat with Sergeant Mark on the way out and he was apologetic and offered to have us come back the next night. Since we had already spent money on gas to drive there twice (you all know that's not cheap right now) AND it would be Sunday, we decided against going back.

On Monday, Billy got a call from Sergeant Mark who told him that he felt horrible and that it wasn't sitting well with him that he wasn't able to get Tyler on a horse that night. He also told Billy that they see SO many kids while working at the fair, but none had left an impression on him the way Tyler had. So in an effort to make it up to Tyler, he wanted all of us to come out to the rodeo, courtesy of the Cobb County Sherriff's office! And FINALLY, he would get Tyler his horse ride.

So now here's the story this post was dedicated to...our rodeo adventure!

Upon arriving, we met up with Sergeant Mark who presented Tyler with his very own cowboy hat! He and a couple other "guys" from the office went in together to get it for Tyler. Upon becoming official, Tyler got on the horse and rode proudly...and in style! He had a blast and even got to "drive" the horse on his own!

Allison wanted in on the action too. She's going to do whatever she sees Tyler doing! She got up there and after observing the situation for a couple minutes, decided she wasn't going for a ride. She looked so cute sitting up on that big horse and it was definitely picture worthy!

When Sergeant Mark had to leave, we headed down to claim some seats for the "radio" (Tyler's name for the rodeo)....YEE HAW!!! Tyler loved watching the "big bulls" and Allison loved dancing to the music (of course!).

We decided to leave after most of the exciting parts had passed, but grabbed some ice cream on our way out. As we walked to the car I said to Tyler, "Wow Tyler, we had a great night! You got a cowboy hat, you got to ride a horse, get a balloon, watch the rodeo, and get ice cream. What was your favorite part?" Without hesitation he responded, "THE ICE CREAM! I LOVE CHOCOLATE!" However, I think his answer was a bit biased at the time. His response now is "the big bulls knocking the cowboys off and riding the horse!"

My Love Bugs

It makes a mother feel so happy to see her children love and care for one another! I especially love to watch Tyler and Allison as they give "loves" (hugs and kisses) to each other.

Ever since Allison entered this world, Tyler has adored her...

...and Tyler is Allison's idol in every sense of the word!

How innocent and simple the love expressed by a child is! They love so unconditionally, the way our Heavenly Father intended. I am so blessed to be a mother and be reminded of these simple truths from day to day!