Carving pumpkins '09

With both Dave and I in the middle of our busy seasons, we haven't had a lot of family together time...so when we can get it, WE TAKE IT! Thursday night we let Jax stay up a little late to carve a pumpkin. He was thrilled.

Earlier I had taken him to Fry's and let him pick out any pumpkin he wanted. It made me smile that he picked this warty thing. We have a book called The Bumpy Little Pumpkin where the moral is about being an individual and not looking only on the outside. When he saw this pumpkin he knew he had to have it...though we did get lots of strange looks in frys!

We let him use a marker to draw whatever face he wanted. Seeing as though he is 3, there was actually no face drawn, just a lot of intense scribbling. He was convinced though that he had drawn the scariest witch, and was ready to carve. He got to help scoop the guts, and also help hold Dave's hand as Dave held the knife. My addition to the whole thing? Taking pictures and festive Fall fashion!

PS- Jax woke up at 5:30 this morning so we again decided to take advantage of our family together time before Dave went to work (yes, work on Saturday, on Halloween ....remember ...Busy season???) And we went to IHOP. We spent a great hour together where Jaxon ate nothing but Bacon and Sausage, and I had some seriously delicious chocolate chip pumpkin Pancakes!

Step 1- Check out the goop...will he go for it?

#2- Of Course! If there is one thing Jaxon ISN'T afraid of...it's being messy!

#3- Show mom the guts! YUM!

#4- Diligently draw the perfect Witch's face!


#5 Carve away boys!

My addition- Awesome Fall fashion!

Ties are Ready to buy!!! ...just not online!

Okay, for anyone who knows what I've been up to this year (2 trips to China...) a few of my family members, me included, are starting a matching tie business...The Matching Tie Guy... Matching ties in EVERY size! So, think, cool fabrics in ties ranging from Newborn size all the way to adult. All the ties are here, and catagorized (22 styles) but the website is not up yet. A few of you have said that you wanted to get the ties for your family for Christmas, so here's the deal. You can email me and we can plan a time for you to come see them, and buy them from the house...($14.99 each +tax) but the website is taking longer than expected (something always does right?) so we aren't going online until Just after the first of the year! But hey...no shipping costs right???

Email me or leave me a message here if you want to come look! We have at least one in every color you can think of, and several in "Christmas colors" (ie red/white/black, and silver/white and silver/black)

We have 40 more fabrics being made as we speak, but they will not get here until around the first week of December!

Rawhide!

All week I've been stressed out of my mind, due largely in part to the guilt I feel about how little time I have been spending with Jaxon lately. I have booked too many shoots and made too many other obligations, and can't get out of them. I feel like I'm always dropping Jaxon off somewhere. So I decided that no matter how many other things needed to get done, we were having a FUN FAMILY NIGHT (gosh darn it!) on Friday. We picked up Dave from work and drove out to Rawhide. I have to say, it was probably one of the 2 most fun days/nights we have spent together (the 3 of us) all year....I know...it doesn't speak very highly of our year to date (it's been a rough year) but none-the-less, we had a spectacular time!

It was touch and go at first...Jaxon was crying and hysterically begging to go home after he saw all the scary guys roaming the streets when we first got there! And...the scary music being piped in even freaked me out! But we got past the escape convict and the headless horseman and headed for a little less scary side of town. There Jaxon got to ride a burro, we all went on a haunted train ride (that Jax swears he loved but hid his face for most of) saw a gunshow, watched Dave climb the rock wall, painted a pumpkin, roasted marshmallows, ate a hotdog, and what did Jaxon ask the facepainter to give him?? A MUSTACHE!! It was a hilarious handlebar mustache, and it was awesome!

I brought my camera with no on-camera flash, and I don't have an external flash, thus...no flash. It was very dark so I didn't really take too many pictures, and the ones I did take are super grainy. BUT I DON'T CARE! It was a fantastic stress free night together, and come Thanksgiving day, I think Im going to plan at least one family outing a week for the rest of the year. It just reminded me how great it is to be with my boys!

This is Jaxon with the super-scary scarecrow. The guy talked to Jaxon normally and told him he was just playing dress up...but notice how Jaxon is still pointing his "cowboy gun" at him!

The burro ride begins...



Oh Dave! You're so dreamy!!!

We really are THAT LAME...

I have been finding this "situation" both hilarious and pitiful for a while now, so I thought I would share-

Behold...Jaxon's TUB TOYS!

1. An old sand toys bucket

2. A toy alligator with the tail broken off

3. An empty shampoo bottle

4. An empty sunflower seed tube

5. 2 toys from McDonalds Happy Meals

6. The end cap to his electric toothbrush that stopped working

7. A cup

8. A measuring cup

9. And the CROWN JEWELS of his collection- his sponge dinosaurs.

I felt so bad about his crappy toys that I bought one of those $2.49 packages at Frys of the "Dinosaur pills" the kind that disolves in water and has a sponge dino inside. He gets to use ONE everytime he takes a bath, which has exponentially increased his bathing!

So, for Christmas he is getting a cool pirate ship that is made for the bathtub...

Tacos

Tonight I made tacos for dinner.
Dave ate 6.
Maybe I should make dinner more often.
...there's a novel idea.

True story...

Yesterday I was talking to a friend on the phone and I was describing the difference between my taste in ties and my father's taste in ties..
Here are my exact words...

"I mean- A 22 year-old mom, versus a 65 year old grandpa!"

...let me highlight for you the part that I think is hilarious, and also slightly disturbing...

"I mean- A 22 year-old mom, versus a 65 year old grandpa!"

Only after the sentence came out and Lindsay started cracking up did I realize what I flowed right from my lips.

Turns out in my mind, I am still 22... I ROCK!!!

Models Needed!

Hi People!
I need at least 5, and preferably 7 TALL, HANDSOME, and FIT male models for a shoot for our tie website. It will be staged like a groom and his groomsmen, so the guys need to be between 20 and 30, and preferably with most of their hair!

I will most likely shoot on a late Sunday afternoon.

The model will need a black suit with a jacket.

What will the model get out of this?? The satisfaction of knowing that they are so good-looking that they got to be a model in a picture on a commercial website! Also, a fantastic looking Yellow striped tie!

If you are interested...Let's be serious...if you would like your husband or a friend of your husband...or BOTH... to be considered, please email me, and send me a picture. Then I will let people know!
(Donnie- I am counting on Brett as #1!!!)

Thanks Wives of Hot Husbands!!!

The Aftermath...

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!
SLOW DOWN! MOM! SLOW DOWN! MOM! WE'RE GOING TO FAST! MOM! SLOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW DOWN!!!"

(all this while doing 15 in the neighborhood...)

AWESOME/ NOT AWESOME

Time for another installment of Awesome/Not Awesome, but today we will start with "NOT AWESOME" (there may seem like a lot of unrelated "not-awesomes" but bear with me and you will see them all come together quite nicely...)

NOT AWESOME:
~Jaxon hasn't napped in 5 days (Jaxon needs naps!)
~I needed to take my parents to the airport today during naptime
~Jaxon was hungry
~Jaxon screamed/yelled/whined/cried pretty much the whole way there, and HALF the way home
~I was driving my mom's Lexus...which is WAAAAYYY quieter at 80 MPH than my Honda. (normally, that would be in the "Awesome" catagory, but you may see where I'm going with this...)
~On the way home, the louder Jaxon screamed...the faster I drove...

~I got pulled over on the ramp from the 202 to the 101...

~Going 85...

~In a construction zone...

~oops.

AWESOME:
~I apologized to the officer and blamed the whole thing on Jaxon's screaming (At this point he was dead silent but did have tears in his eyes) (probably thought I was selling him out and sending HIM To jail...poor kid!) And also on the fact that I was driving my moms nice quiet car...
~Officer QuackenBush (Not a joke...) gave me a warning, and told me...
"When I was a kid, if I misbehaved, my dad said, "Keep screaming and I'm gonna pull over, take off my belt, and use it on you. It always worked for me...."
~Officer QuackenBush leaned in the back window and gave Jaxon a stern lecture about yelling while mommy is driving!
~Jaxon was silent almost the whole way home...
~When he started crying I reminded him about what Officer Quackenbush said and he zipped right up and asked, "Otherwise I would be breaking the law mom? And they would pull ME over?" "Yep. That's right Jaxon!"
~Silence the rest of the ride home!

If I can get some good milage from Officer Quackenbush's threat to Jaxon, this whole experience was WELL WORTH IT!!!

PS- this is my second time getting pulled over...on the freeway...this year...and only getting a warning!

Purple Day!

At Preschool...or should I say, "Early Childhood Education and development Lab" (In case any of you never need to drop off/pick up Jaxon) they are learning the colors of the rainbow as one of their activities. Every day for 6 days they have had a color a day, starting with red etc etc. where they wear that color, and all their crafts and snacks have to do with that color. We have had a lot of fun with it...until today... PURPLE DAY! Jaxon doesn't own any purple clothes. I went shopping several places and couldn't find any purple boy clothes. So, we were going to have to skip "dressing up" all together...but...

DA, DA, DA....GRANDMA SAVES THE DAY!!!

Grandma Ferrell just couldn't bear the thought of Jaxon not wearing something purple, so she shopped, and shopped and finally found 2 things. I purple polo that was slightly too big, and a sleeveless jersey in the old school D-Backs colors. Jaxon chose the polo, because even though it was a "girl color" it was a "boy shirt" (because it had a collar) The Jersey he deemed a girl shirt, 1. Because it was purple, and 2. Because it was sleeveless!

As an added bonus, Grandma also got Jaxon some purple Halloween socks (which I held my tongue about, even though they were girl socks...because Jaxon LOVED them!) So today after preschool Ms. Rochelle said that Jaxon had a great day, and LOVED being the only boy who wore purple, and the ONLY PERSON to have purple socks. Ms. Rochelle and the other teachers made a big deal out of it, and Jaxon was on cloud 9.

PS- Jaxon is having quiet time in his room, but just knocked on his door for me to come in, then asked me "Can I please read my scriptures to my dinosaurs if Im very careful?"

MELT MY HEART!!

This is us- picture review!

Grandma and Grandpa Rogers came down for conference weekend! Jaxon really loves his grandparents!...I mean, what's not to love? But Jaxon REALLY has a love for his grandpas...he wants to be their shadow when they are around...and I'm pretty sure they LOVE IT TOO!!

We've been playing outside a lot because the weather is so gorgeous (uncharectoristically cool for this time in October) so we are taking advantage. Sometimes when we don't want to go far (I don't want to go far) Jaxon plays in the driveway and is often joined by our little neighbor.

Dude, why is the driveway SO DIRTY??? (yup, I sure did let him eat those pretzels!)

In the bathtub...yet still filthy...


Oh yes, and just still has only one speed...

I'm obsessed...

...with my GARDEN! Seriously, it is absolutely amazing me. Yesterday I got home after dark, after being gone most of the day, and the first thing I did was search the house for a working flashlight, and then batteries, so I could go out and check it's progress. Just yesterday morning when I posted I only had 2 little shoots up...now I have 15 or 20 and it is seriously a miracle to watch these little tiny seeds sprout and change so quicky...(I know. I know. Clearly I need to get pregnant as soon as possible so that some of this weird fixation could be transfered to a baby where it wouldn't be So weird...) Anyways... I am so excited and awed that soon we are actually going to be able to pick and eat vegetables that I GREW! Maybe I am a horticulturist at heart...but let's be serious, I don't need another hobby.
(Pictures to come!)