Fire House Pumpkin Carving!

I just LOVE when my family comes to visit me, when I am on shift! :) They came up (the night before Halloween) for pizza and pumpkin carving. I get off shift Halloween morning and with a crazy week, we didn't have a chance to get pumpkins done before I went to work! Bless my wonderful husbands heart...he picked up the pumpkins yesterday (thanks Gorgie...for ALL the wonderful pumpkins...you ROCK :)'...) and then hauled the pumpkins and the kids up to the station for a fun evening! :) So we started with cleaning them out...


Mati was so interested in the "goop & seeds"!

She was cracking up and was very curious about this whole pumpkin thing...


The boys always find something fun and cool to do and explore when they come to the station. So in between cleaning out pumpkins...Tod and the boys decided to explore our 3 story hose tower...they climbed all the way to the top!


OH MY...look at that cute tush! How did this picture get in here?? This is a family blog...G rated! ;) I couldn't resist taking this pic...as Tod was climbing up the tower ladder!

Then the boys found some "fun-noodles" and began a "fun-noodle" fight! I joined in for a bit...but then decided to just take pic's...because, it was a losing battle against Tod and Anthony. Gabe was so funny...he was trying to tackle Tod the whole time! :)



"Fun-noodle" fights are a favorite -after dinner...after chores game- on my shift, while we wait for the freshly mopped floors to dry in the station.

Mati had a good time watching all of us being silly and having fun!

So enough playing...we had business to take care of...there were pumpkins to be carved!

The kids and their pumpkins...all done!

Now for the final test. We needed to see them in the dark, all lit up, with candles! Here are all the pumpkins we did...my shift joined our family the whole evening...so they did pumpkins too!

And these four are our family pumkins...they turned out AWESOME...it was such a nice evening!
"HAPPY HALLOWEEN"...I will post pic's of the kids costumes soon! :)

The Many Hair-Do's Of Mati !

Mati's hair has been a handful from day one! We are constantly trying to keep it out of her face and under control. It is such a chore at times...but I just love having a girl, to be able to do her hair! :) So, one morning I caught "Miss Mati" trying to get into the dishwasher. Crazy haired girl! Her hair usually looks like this til we brush it and pull it out of her face with clips.

I decided that night, that I was going to try doing what my mom used to always do with us girls in the bath...although I didn't think that I would be doing this with her at the age of "1" ! :) First, during bath time, we always begged our mom to give us a feather on top of our heads. If she used enough shampoo our hair would stand straight up! ;)' We just loved it when she did this! Here is Mati's first feather...

Then after bath we would sit on the bathroom floor, huddled in our towels, waiting for our turn, while she blew dry our hair til it wasn't wet and then lastly braided it! Every night the same routine. She always braided our hair, because it was always long and if she didn't it would be a mess in the morning. So after Mati's bath, I tried to braid it. I was trying to find a way to stop the crazy hair-do in the morning. This didn't go very well...she cried the whole time I was braiding her hair...

But we finally got the braids in...


Off to bed she went! I couldn't wait to see how the "do" held up overnight. I was hoping this would help with the crazy hair in the morning. This is what I found when I opened her door the next morning...Oh my...


I give up for now...we aren't braiding her hair at night...it looks just as crazy in the morning, as it did when we didn't do anything to it! :)

Soccer Is In Full Swing!

I have been so behind with posting Anthony's soccer pic's on the family blog this year...I just haven't done it! ;) But, I set up a soccer blog at the beginning of the fall soccer season for the team (sorry...no blog pic's posted from summer soccer season:)'...at least not yet). It has been great for the team and their families. We are now almost half way through the season and the boys are doing AWESOME...they haven't lost a game yet! Here is the link for the blog...we are "The Sharks"! Hope you guys like the pic's...this year has been a lot of fun and so far very exciting! Anthony's team has been playing together, the same boys, for 2 years now and are now old enough to really understand positions and are really playing "the game of soccer"! GO SHARKS!!!
www.thepgsharks.blogspot.com

Last Camping Trip For The Season!

I have been meaning to get this post out...but, due to getting sick last week, the pic's have been sitting in the computer for almost 2 weeks! We decided to go camping for my mom's birthday and to also finish out the camping season with one last trip! Our kids LOVE camping...and we do too...but man it is a lot of work! :) This trip was their first time sleeping in a tent, instead of the trailer. They were so excited to have a "camping slumber party" with Grammie. Our good friends, from down the road, Bryan and Wendy and their daughter Sydney joined us too! It was a great time...with great family and friends!

We were packed to the max...as usual! :) Our little trailer has been so good to us and has been an awesome place for us to lay our heads...on our many family adventures!

Dad and Mati making "MARGARITA'S"...yummy, yummy! ;)

The night of my mom's birthday, we did cake and of course sang "Happy Birthday" to her!

Tod, Mati and Bryan watching the kids swim and play in the river lagoon!



The mornings were cool and crisp for breakfast...then warming up to hot by the afternoon. The weather was awesome all weekend!


One afternoon, Wendy, I and the kids rode our bikes to "old town" Coloma, to visit the local blacksmith! We all liked hearing him talk about all the neat things that have been made in this shop, since the gold rush. There is so much history in this little town...it is so neat to hear about how things used to be back in those days.







We had a great time and the kids did too...this trip was a good ending to the camping season!