Picking Out Pumpkins

Two weeks ago for our Family Home Evening activity we wanted to go pick out pumpkins – Kolby and Eli each needed to bring a small pumpkin in to paint at preschool the week of Halloween, and we wanted to pick out a big one to carve as a family. We looked online, but couldn’t find any real pumpkin patches nearby that were open after dinner time, so we drove down to Redwood Road where Michael had seen some pumpkins for sale earlier in the week. We got there, and it was just perfect for our little family outing. It was just a little set-up in a parking lot, but it was all fenced in, there were hay bales and hay was spread all over the ground. There were corn stalks all over and a large Indian tee-pee that the kids could go inside. There were little Halloween decorations all around and the woman at the checkout stand was dressed as a witch. After taking lots of fun pictures of the boys, they picked out their pumpkins and we headed home. That was a nice little activity – just the right amount of time that we all enjoyed it, but it wasn’t too long to keep the kids’ attention.

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Disclaimer

Just to explain the post below, I didn’t write that. My dad asked me to show him how to make blog posts, and I had him do a test post on my blog. When I showed him how to post photos, he posted a few from his computer from their trip to Europe. Then he got the idea to make it a joke. So, for those of you who were confused, that’s what all that was about.

Art Work

So, here’s a fun little project that I have gotten all caught up on lately. At an enrichment meeting about organization at Sonia Cole’s house last year someone made the suggestion of scanning children’s art work, and then making a computer screensaver out of it. I liked the idea of scanning the artwork, and so I decided to make art books for each of the boys. I was glad to come up with a good way to keep their artwork organized and to have it accessible for them to look at anytime they want. Plus, this way we won’t end up with a cardboard box of old frail falling-apart art projects that lose little pieces of paper and glitter every time they are touched because the glue has dried out or the tape has stopped sticking. Also, I don’t have to try to figure out how to fold up a painting done on an oversized piece of construction paper – I can just scan the picture and print it out in the size to fit their books. So, whenever the kids have a fun picture or project that I like, I put it in a pile in my computer desk, and then every once in a while I take a little time to scan all of the pictures in the pile (or, if it is something that won’t fit into the scanner I just take a picture of it). I add the date and a description, if needed, and then print the pictures out and slip them into plastic page protectors in each child’s art book. That way they can flip through anytime they like and see the pictures they did when we first traced around their little hands as babies up through their most recent masterpieces. The boys like to sit down with each of their books and compare the pictures that are similar (from when they were in the same preschool or art classes), and then show each other the ones that are different because they did them on their own. It’s fun for them to see that I value their work enough to make a nice book out of it, and for me to see them enjoying the books that I took the time to put together. Here are some of their masterpieces:

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New Decorations

This Christmas I asked Michael for some nice frames with a big picture of each boy in them, and I found what I was looking for after going to several different frame places (we waited to get this Christmas gift until we were back in Milwaukee because it would have been a pain to try to pack the frames while out of town). I found these frames and had the pictures printed for them, and I love how they turned out. I also used some birthday money to get some candles to go in one of the candle chimneys that my Grandpa Carl made for centerpieces at my wedding reception -- it is really nice to have something of his displayed in our home now. You can also see in one of the pictures my Christmas gift to Michael: I framed a copy of an important church document, The Living Christ, and made a matt with pictures of Jesus all around it for him. And the last one is of the flowers that Michael got for Valentine's Day -- they ended up lasting for over a month before they started to wilt, which was really nice to have something bright and summery in our house while it was so cold out.