Pumpkin Party

Tonight we hosted a pumpkin carving/painting party. I had so much fun decorating. I made candy corn cupcakes...

and dressed up the drink table with jack-o-lantern garland and my giant pumpkin drink cooler. I even made signs on my cricut for the cherry limeade and tea. :)
Brian's grandmother made this tablecloth many years ago and it turned out perfect for this party.
First, we went out to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins (our crop wasn't great this year, so we had to buy some to fill the patch out, but the kids didn't care - they just thought it was awesome to run around and pick out their very own pumpkin!) Here is Reed looking for the best one...

We found a winner!

Hudson also found the best one!

They were pretty proud of their pumpkins. :)

While the younger ones painted, the bigger kids got to carving...

and Reed dove right in.

I thought he did a great job!

After everyone finished their handywork, we chowed down on hot dogs.

Here is our table of pumpkins... notice the painted ones on the back side of the table. We have some true artists among us... :)

And I couldn't resist this picture of Brian and sweet Walt. :)

Here are Reed and Hudson's pumpkins...

The kids (and adults) all had so much fun. It was a nice, laid back evening. I think we're going to have to make it an annual event! :)

Camping

Our class had our annual camping trip this weekend. Last year at this time, Brian was laying on the floor with his back hurting 24/7, so Reed and I went and took a tent. It rained. A lot. I was not impressed with the tent camping. So this year we rented a trailer and we had a blast. We also wanted to rent a trailer to see if it would be something that we would want to do more often. I grew up camping in a trailer so I knew I'd like to go, but I wasn't sure if it would be Brian's thing. (Brian has actually done a little on-line shopping since we got home this afternoon- very exciting!!) Anyway, he went and picked up our rental trailer on Friday morning and I went about loading it up. My friend Alisha that organizes the trip takes care of buying all the food, plates, etc., so all we needed were the basics. We got loaded up, picked up Reed from school and were ready to go.

The boys were SO excited! They couldn't wait to get there (the 45 minute trip was almost too much for Reed to handle)! ;)


I really didn't take many pictures, and I need to be more diligent about it next time. This was a dry creek bed that the kids LOVED playing in- they found a tree with huge exposed roots and called it their 'fort' all weekend.


Some of the boys- Reed, Ty, Heston and Hudson



Hudson, Em, Avery and Livy


Hudson playing with sweet Walt. He lives babies (and their toys). :)


Walt ate a little bit of dirt. What's camping without a little bit of dirt in your diet?


Setting up for dinner...



This morning we had a quick church service. The kids got a quick skit together about the good Samaritan.


This is the Samaritan riding through on her 'donkey'. :)


Hudson got a laugh out of it...


The rest of our service...








The four Blevins on our first camping trip


Looking forward to many more trips!!!

Just a few more California pics

This last one was after we left the zoo. Hudson was just totally pooped.

Brian and Reed ALWAYS mess with Hudson when he's asleep...

First day of school

Today Reed started 2nd grade. I can't believe it. Here is our trademark first day of school pictures..

Brian and I dropped him off at his class table in the cafeteria. He seemed happy to be there and ready for us to go, so we said our goodbye's and left. It's still a little heart wrenching, but it gets easier to leave him on his first day every year. I feel confident because he is at a school that he knows, he's with great people and he's been blessed with an awesome teacher each year. While he was at school, Hudson and I went to Wal-mart and got some stuff to make our annual first day of school treats (here's Kindergarten and first grade).
I divided up the cupcake batter and colored it so they would be rainbow. Reed thought it was great. :)
I was also privaledged to pick up sweet Em on her first day of school and treat her to a fun cupcake too. :)
Reed had a great day and I am looking forward to a great year.

Beach Day

On Wednesday we had a bit of a rest day. We slept in and headed out to play on the beach. The water was so cold, but the boys didn't seem to care. :)

Playing in the sand in front of the house.



Me probably trying to convince Brian to get in the freezing cold water. :)












We cleaned up for lunch at Ruby's Diner at the end of the pier by our house. It was neat. A cool view and the burgers were yummy.






We got these cool cars to fold and make into a car and trailer. It was pretty cute!





I don't know what we were doing to Reed here, but I love the expression on his face.


After lunch, they wanted to go play on the beach for a couple of hours. This next picture is how you can tell my kids are from Texas. They told me they were surfing.








We got cleaned up again and headed to Legoland for one last hurrah.


We rode rides very quickly- it was chilly and hardly anybody was there. We got some last minute souvenirs and headed out.

What a great trip- it was a full vacation, but we had a lot of fun and I think Reed will remember it forever.

Also, it's good to be home.

Disneyland

Tuesday we headed to Disneyland and California Adventure.. Gammy rode Dumbo with Hudson and Reed rode with DadDad - I couldn't get a picture of them because Reed was too short. :)

We saw a Jedi training school and stopped to eat lunch by itso we could get Reed in. They only picked a handful of kids and imstarted to think Reed was out of luck, the picked him. He was so excited.






I have some video that I will try to upload later. It was a really neat experience for him.
Over at California adventure, Hudson spotted "Queen and Mader".





We decided to ride this ferris wheel and as we were headed over to it, I noticed that a lot of the buckets were moving on those little oval tracks. As e wheel went around, gravity would make these thing slide down the line until it go to the curve and then they would just swing wildly back and forth. For every non- moving bucket (the ones around the perimeter), there were two moving buckets. Me and my motion sickness decided that as long as I was on a non-moving one, I should be fine. As we got to the from of the line for non-moving ones, they had someone cleaning puke out of one of the buckets. Ewwwwww. It was a neat ride, nut I don't know how those people could do all that rocking.





Here we are in our non-mover. :)





Before the bugs life 3-d show...





I didn't take many pictures and i'm not sure why. Anyway, we headed home that night exhausted from too much fun. :)