pumkin chunkin

The second annual Stoney Creek Circle Punkin Chunk happened the Saturday after Halloween.  After all, you have to do something with all those jack o lanterns and they are going to end up as compost anyways.

This year, instead of just throwing them around in the street, Evie and Jim constructed this contraption.  This allowed the girls to get some air under those pumpkins

Taylor could really make it fly.

Paige's whole pumpkin took a flight.

And then Dad sent one soaring.  Stand back everyone!

Don't know why this picture loaded so big, but it is a very good shot of Glen busting up our simple machine.   Fortunately, we had extra lumber.  After this shot, Jim broke a board too.  Man is more powerful than pumpkin.

Evie's cute pumpkin before it hits it's fate

Evie sends her pumpkin flying we all had a great time watching them get smashed up.  Then they threw them all into the wheelbarrel to be compost for next year's garden.

Halloween

I am bound and determined to get caught up on this blog without skipping anything.  We've had some big stuff go on lately, but now things are settling down before the holidays.  Want to catch everyone up.

We returned home after CeCe's baptism and the girls wanted to carve their pumpkins.  Remember, this was back on Oct 30.   We threatened that they had to clean out all the junk in car before they started.  It took them 5 seconds and they were ready to go.

The spooky finished projects.

Then they decided that they wanted to make these spooky cupcakes.  Since we had everything on hand, I gave in and helped them.

Evie stirred the cobwebs.

annalise stirred the brownie.  They didn't look as good as the picture but they tasted awesome.

Finally Halloween was here and it was a beautiful night to trick or treat.  Another year without winter coats.  that's a success in anyone's book.

Who ever heard of a spooky fairy?  The ghost was spooky enough.  They collected a nice full pumpkin of candy which we gorged on right away.  There is still a good amount left, but Jim and i have already eaten all the good stuff.

It's a real bomb

inspired by the kid in the Indianapolis newspaper last week,   Evie and JIm set out to create ther own bomb in the basement




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Here's her first trial run.  It was pretty exciting and held promise for things to come.

This was the big one that she and Jim worked on for about 45 minutes.  They said that once you get weaving, it goes pretty fast.

And then they wastched more youtube videos and learned a different technique to make this one up the slide

Meeting Baby Cecelia

We finally got everyone healthy in the family and Jim returned from many business trips so we could take a trip up to Ohio and meet our new little cousin, Cecelia--or CeCe or C4 as she was called this weekend.

I made her this cupcake hat.  It is newborn sized, but she is so tiny that it could come down to her chin.  She will have to grow into it.  When we met her, she weighed just 7-6.  That is smaller than Evie and Annalise were when they were born and this kid was a month old at the time.  Tiny.

We met up with the Seibert family at a firestation for a benefit pancake breakfast.  When we got back to their house, the men all went out to pick up C's cake.  The girls all posed for the picture.  Can you believe how big they are getting?  All except for the shrimp in the middle.

Another cupcake hat.  No wait, that's Aunt Jenni's pumpkin muffin from Langes (it tasted awesome, Aunt Becky).  That muffin is as big as her head!

Out at Sauder's farm, it was the woodcarver's show and also Butchering weekend.  What kid doesn't want to go stand out in the cold to see a hog butchered? 

C4 was all bundled up inside of her mama's coat and she slept right through the toenails getting pulled off the pig and handed out to kids. 

Our kids were  in the front row when the pig's head was cut off.  It was a really sharp knife that sliced easily through all the meat.  When he got to the spine, the head butcher just rammed his fingers into the pig snout, grabbed ahold and twisted the head right off.  And then plopped it into a rubbermaid tote.  So our kids can't make it through a Disney movie without an emotional breakdown, but they can watch a pig head get twisted off.  Circle of life I guess. They like their hot dogs.

This was the last we saw of the hog.  All of the exciting stuff was over then.  Does this bring back good memories of FHS, Miss Erica?

We stopped by the Potter's barn and watched him finish some vases on his wheel.  A technological leap in comparision to our friends at Connor Prairie.

As if pancake breakfasts, giant muffins, and hog butchering weren't enough, Cecelia Ann was baptised this weekend too!

Proud Mom and Dad.

The Seibert Family.  Zoom in on Oliver--it's worth it.  I suspect that the next few years may be a little hectic around their house.

Cousins.  This one is for you, AB.  We missed you.

Cecelia and her pround parents, grandparents and great grandma.

While we were snapping pictures, there was a choir of angels up in the choir loft.  That big one is kind of funny looking.

This was probably the only time all day that Cecelia wasn't being held.  I tried to get a nice picture of her in her baptismal gown.  But, she didn't like be put down so someone scooped her up right away.

Four Generations.

Cecelia's godfather is Nick Meyer.  He's everyone's favorite jungle gym.

Boo-ing

Once, a couple of years ago, a pumpkin filled with candy appeared on our doorstep before Halloween.  We were "Boo-ed" by a neighbor.  A letter inside told us to share the spirit and boo someone else on the street.

The kids were remembering that year and we decided to start the Boo Bag for our street.  They made signs that said "We've Been Boo-ed" for the front door and decorated the explaination letter.

Here's what our letter said.

And they didn't even wait until the cloak of darkness to drop to Boo a neighbor.  They snuck up and rang the doorbell and ran as fast as they could.  Another day, we were Boo-ed.  I asked Evie what she thought was more fun and she said she like to boo the neighbors best.

Massive update

You know that you are behind on updating your blog when even Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth are up to date.  They even have 4 rugrats running around now!  So I guess we better get moving on what we have been doing the last few weeks.  Annalise tried to wear my boots to the Indiana State Museum over fall break.  She succeeded in looking like Julia Roberts in Pretty woman.

We went to the Indiana State Museum specifically because there was an event called GeoFest going on.  All about fossils, gems and minerals.  This is right up the girls' alley.  There were lots of stations with activies they could do.  In all the stations, they received a rock.  Mom's purse got heavy after a while.  In this station, Annalise is finding microfossils.

She took her micro fossils home in the form of a magnet.  Cool.

Evie brought what she thought may have been a dinasour bone that she found in the pool parking lot.  We asked around and found out that it was just a type of limestone that is pretty common in Indiana. In fact, here's a display of 36 differnt specimens.

They also had the chance to make their own geodes by wrapping a crystal in cement.  They brought it home and when it was dry, they busted it open.

Also a special display was all about CORN!  Indiana.

The girls with Mother Maize.  We learned lots about corn (stuff we didn't already know).  By this time, we were wrapping up 6 hours of Indiana history and the were just about worn out.  We headed to the car.

Somebody fell asleep.

We rounded out a beautiful evening with a fire and watching the stars come out.  We also finished the last bag of marshmellows for the year.

It was cold so we kept our laps warm with kids.

Prairie Tykes

Last week, Annalise and I went to our favorite living history museum, Conner Prairie, for a preschool program. 

It was all about pumpkins.  We were supposed to go a month ago.  The plan was to visit the Dr. for her 5 year old check up, then picinic at Connor Prairie and hit a class about farm animals.  Instead, Annalise's body had a reaction to the 5 immunizations and she passed out. Don't worry, she was fine, but spent the afternoon cuddling on the couch.  I think it just scared her.

Mom and Annalise time.  One more year till kindergarten. Then what am I going to do with all my time? (Jim says "Get a job").

The kids played games and sang songs about pumpkins

Then we got to go hunt for a pumpkin in the patch. Except that it rained for 3 days prior so the garden was really muddy.  They just put the pumpkins in the grass.

Annalise finds one that will be a good jack o lantern.

It was a fun day.  I think she just liked doing something on her day off of school that wasn't grocery shopping.