Jack-o-Lanterns 2009

We had a wonderful opportunity to carve a few jack-o-lanterns this year. David got a pumpkin seed from his Kindergarten class in the spring and that seed produced a couple small pumpkins. David was able to carve one of those pumpkins all by himself. Michelle acquired a couple more (larger) pumpkins that we worked on as a family.

Michelle took charge of the larger pumpkin. Michael was able to assist on the clean out, getting the pumpkins seeds out of the pumpkin.

Donovan took charge of the second pumpkin. I was able to assist on the clean out.

David took charge of his own pumpkin and did everything himself.

It was a fabulously messy experience and everyone had a good time. Michael was able to take charge of the smallest pumpkin so he could do some of his own carving.

Aleky did his best to be involved but we just didn't trust him with any carving equipment. But in spite of not carving he, along with the other boys, enjoyed lighting the jack-o-lanterns.

I hope everyone has a happy Halloween!

100th Post

I haven't been a blogger for very long so I'm still learning all the importants things you need to remember when blogging. This post marks 100 posts for us! It's hard to believe that we've had 100 experiences to record. The really cool thing that Michelle and I have found is that by writing down all these experiences, we've discovered that our family is really quite busy, we're doing a lot of things, our boys are the cutest boys in the world and we have an amazing family.

In some ways I feel sad that we didn't get started sooner. We've been married for over 6 years and now we have most of a summer and fall recorded with pictures and memories. What about the other 6 years!!!??? Better late than never. We do have some pictures from those 6 years but they are in the shoe box title "to be scrapebooked." So we may never see those pictures again.

But we're having a blast and I have to believe that the best is yet to come. I'm excited to see that we have some friends and family who check our blog from time to time and hopefully more of our friends and family will discover us as well. We're heading into the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons and this is truly a great time of the year to reflect on the many blessings that we have. I know that we're facing our own personal struggles and things aren't exactly the way we have pictured them in our minds, which sometimes brings discouragement and frustration. But we don't have to look very far before we find people who are a lot worse off than we are and we start to count our many blessings.

We always have things to be thankful for, even if it is just that the sun rose on another day. I hope we can join with our family and friends in making this a great holiday season.

Christmas Tree Permits on Sale (Today)

One of our favorite traditions is to go Christmas Tree hunting over the Thanksgiving weekend. It is fun to head out of town and get away from the city. We then spend hours walking through the trees looking for the one perfect tree still standing! Quite frequently we're walking through the snow, other times it's been windy. But regardless of the weather we always make it a fun time together with the family.

One of the biggest challenges to finding the perfect tree is to properly gauge the actual size of the tree. With nature as a back drop anything can appear small. We've had a couple of experience where we found a tree that was bigger than it first appeared! It can be a challenge to fit a large tree into a small living room.

The other big challenge is to find a perfect tree, one that is straight and tall, full (but not to full) and not loop-sided, with a single stem (many branch into multiple tops) for the star on top. Michelle has the eye for these trees and can spot one a mile away, as long as we can get inside of that mile radius! So we'll spend time driving through the wilderness enjoying the time together.

The final trick is that you need to have a Christmas Tree permit! This year there are only 400 permits being sold to the public (I'm not sure where the Christmas Tree wholesalers get permits). I just bought our permit and there are only about 80 left (and today is "opening" day for permit sales). If you're going to get a permit you need to be at the office in Spanish Fork first thing in the morning or you'll end up waiting until next year. The address is 44 W 400 N, Spanish Fork.