Jack-o-Lantern, a first for us

So we suck. We have never carved a pumpkin as a family before. I've often bought pumkins, but we always set them out whole as fall decorations. This year, Gracie asked about 100 times to make a jack-o-lantern, so we did it.

Gracie was very active in the whole process (Bradley, not so much). She spent quite a bit of time digging out the innards.


And she told Doug exactly how she wanted the face to look.


Here is the drawn on face, before carving began.


Bradley watches. That's about all he did.

Gracie cleaning the seeds...

and getting them ready to roast.

Sorry, I didn't take a finished picture. I'll take one on Halloween when it's lit up and post it with costume pics later.

The payoff

The summer heat and humidity nearly killed us all after being away from it for almost two years. The cooler fall temps are the payoff. If we were in Calgary right now, we'd already have had several snowfalls and need winter coats already. Here, we're still in shorts with an occasional jacket needed. We've been taking full advantage of the weather with trips to the park as often as we can go. These pics are from Saturday's park excursion.

Gracie climbing the 'volcano'.


Doug doing the zip line.


Bradley loves to sit up in this thing, but won't climb up or down, so we have to lift him in and out.


Gracie loves it too, and has multiple ways of climbing in.

Driving the fire truck.

Doug loves this jumpy thing.

Gracie going across the monkey bars all by herself!

Sliding down 'the Bradley sized slide'.

Doug and Gracie swinging.

Ultrasound update

The ultrasound was on Monday at 11. So I dropped Bradley at school and then Doug and I met for breakfast near the hospital. We got into the room at a few minutes after 11 and then Doug was escorted out to the waiting room. The hospital has changed their policy (thanks to one dad who screwed up during an ultrasound) and husbands are not allowed in the room while measurements are taken anymore. So Doug sat in the hall alone while I laid on a table unable to see the screen or the baby. :(

After she had all her measurements, the tech went and got Doug and turned the screen toward me and showed us the baby for about 10 minutes. She took 11 pictures for us, most of which were terrible. Overall, it was very disappointing. But we did see the baby moving around a lot and sucking it's thumb. We won't get a report on everything until I see the doc on Monday, but the tech estimated the baby at about 19 weeks (I was 18 weeks, 4 days) and 11 oz.

I was on the fence about finding out gender when I walked in the room. Doug and I had talked about it and he left it up to me. I was very torn. But as soon as she escorted Doug out, I knew I couldn't find out while he wasn't there. So we are waiting for the birth again. And I feel totally ok with it and Doug does too. He said we shouldn't mess with tradition. :)

So, here are the best of the crappy pics:

profile:


See the foot at the top? You can see all 5 little toes:


Scary alien baby:

She's growing up... sniff, sniff

Gracie has made a decision all on her own. She has decided to go by Gracelyn at school now. She started out as Gracie, so the kids seem to still call her that. But she's writing Gracelyn on her papers and that's what her teachers are calling her. Such a grown-up name for my little girl.

Like mother, like daughter

Gracie loves to read. Just like her mama. Last night, she and I sat side by side and read our books. :)





And to be fair, here are a couple of pics of Bradley doing a puzzle.

A visit with the cousins

A couple weeks ago, we went to Dallas for cousin Julia's baptism. The kids had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.

Here are a few pics of all four of them together. None of them are really good, but I thought the expressions on the faces were worth posting them all. (Bradley was very grumpy and didn't want to take any pics, so that explains the look on his face through it all.)