Pumpkin Hunting!

As we did last year we went out to Watson's Sunnyslope Farm in Marsing. It is always so much fun going there. They do a wonderful job sharing the farm experience with us city folks. They have hay rides, a straw bale maze, three corn mazes, petting zoo, helicopter rides, pumpkin picking, and local produce for sale. Needless to say it is easy to have a good time.

Here are the highlights...

After the corn maze, animal petting, and straw bale maze we get down to business finding that perfect carving pumpkin.

Thad on the hunt for his perfect pumpkin. After many inspections he finally finds it!

Ashton on the hunt for his. After helping Thad with various inspections.

Daddy finds a great one!

My sweet pumpkins with their pumpkins.

Which one will I choose? The biggest one of course!Daddy and the boys with their pumpkins.

The boys and I with our pumpkins.

The Carving Party

Thad did his own design again this year. It is nice seeing him use his artistic ability. He is so creative. You can see his design was bolder this year with the mouth of his pumpkin having many turns. He did a great job and didn't ask either of us to help him at all. From start to finish it was all Thad's hard work.

Ashton gets started on his pumpkin. This is the first year he would even touch the pumpkin insides. As you can see from his face he was pretty grossed out. I was laughing so hard. Ashton also used the carving tools by him self this year for the first time. It was exciting to see him want to work on the project and see his fine motor skills in action.

Here is the video Daddy took of the pumpkin carving. Thank you Daddy for capturing the moment!

Here are the finished pumpkins. I think they both did a nice job. Mommy and Daddy still need to carve ours. We'll add pictures of our creations later.

Hope everyone has as much fun as we did carving this year!

Sweet Soccer Skills

Ashton and Thaddaeus have been playing soccer this season to their great excitement. I thought I would highlight some recent pictures and videos of their last few games. Steven and I have really enjoyed watching them on the field.

Here are the highlights...

Here is Thad's sweet soccer moves video. Check out his three best moves! Sorry it is sideways, I wasn't thinking about format when I took the video.

Can you believe they played in snow? We can we got over an inch the day before. The foothills look amazing though!

Getting some passing practice.

Warming up and staying in line with your team.

Here is some video of one of Ashton's games. It is actually really exciting to watch the little guys. You'll hear us cheering them on!

Now that is some intensity mister!

The joy of running around after a ball!

Snow in October?

We had the earliest snow fall on record, more than an 1" before Columbus Day! Wow! So of course being the snow bunny that I am I went out in it and enjoyed as much as possible! As my personal moto goes, "Drink tea and think snow!"

Here are the highlights...

Who doesn't like catching snowflakes on their tongues?

Steven humoring me in the snow! I love him so much.

Ashton enjoying the wild weather.

Even Bailey came out.

Here is the video I took of all the snow. Can you believe how much we got? The flakes where huge. I was in heaven!

Pioneer Days Hobbit Style!

Well the time finally came for Steven and I to get the wood split and garden beds tilled before Winter sets in.

What an exhausting, but satisfying job this was. As the saying goes "Wood heats you twice".
We experienced this first hand and were thankful for the cool weather over the weekend as we spent all day outside working.

Here are the highlights...

Lets Get Splitting!

The equipment was delivered just after 9:00 a.m. After the delivery persons showed us how to operate the equipment the work began.

Here is where the process began that brought us to this point of needing to rent a splitter. Idaho Power downed two large Locust trees that were interfering with the power lines.

Here is Steven in our wood filled back yard just after we moved in this April.

We started splitting the wood by hand after a handyman and Steven got some of the wood down to more manageable pieces. We attempted to do it pioneer style, but there was just too much to do by hand and that is when we decided to rent a splitter to get it finished before winter.

Let the hauling begin! We moved all the wood up front to be split.

Hobbits truly are amazing creatures!

Steven starting the splitting process.

I took a video of the splitting process. Steven did a full 6 hours by himself while I worked on the Garden. He is so amazing!

Ashton was a great help stacking, cleaning, and keeping track of the kindling pieces.

After 8 hours we finally finished! Go team Lawrence! All in all we ended up with 6 rows of wood a car width wide under our car port to burn over the winter. That doesn't include all the wood we had previously split by hand earlier in the summer. I don't think we'll be the least bit chilly this winter!


The Victory Garden!

Victory as in WWI, not the Garden show. I started with the Garden project in hopes of finishing first and then helping Steven finish splitting the wood.

I am very glad I didn't get a bigger tiller as I would not have been able to control it. Here is what I started with. What a mess!

A minor delay as we had to deal with a visitor. This was the first black widow I have ever seen.

After a few passes with the tiller, things started to take shape.

The back part of the Garden. I am so excited to start composting!

Here I am plugging along. As I like to say... "I am strong like bull"!

I started the hard scape as well. No where near done, but a good start nonetheless.

As you can see we had a full and productive weekend. We are plenty sore to remind us of our efforts!