Jack-O-Lanterns

Friday night we carved jack-o-lanterns. I forget how much parental work it is and how little little girls like to help. Leah wouldn't touch the pumpkin "guts" and Abby touched them once and decided that was enough. But, between Dad and I, we managed to get two jack-o-lanterns carved. Leah got out paper and a pen and drew hers up EXACTLY how she wanted it and I did my best to replicate. Here are some of our fun pictures!

Autumn Leaves

The girls were outside, enjoying a sudden day of nice weather. I looked out and saw them in the leaves and HAD to grab my camera! I love how some of these pictures turned out. I just told Leah, "Throw the leaves at my camera!" Happy Fall!

Farmtastic Fall!

We met up with Brian, Rachel, Sela and Baby Graham at the American West Heritage Center for an evening of barnyard trick-or-treating. The girls LOVED playing together. They went down the giant slide, rode ponies, jumped in hay, ate LOTS of candy, went through the corn maze and rode the train. It was AWESOME!

What Fun Is

We went to Lagoon the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. I know, we're crazy. But it actually wasn't as deathly crowded as I thought it would be.

I was so excited, thinking about how much fun the kids would have. They went on a couple of rides this summer at Bear World and LOVED them. Turns out, Leah was a ride fiend and ran from ride to ride to ride and we paid $20 for Abby to run around with her cousin, Cadence. As long as she's happy, I guess. It didn't help anything that we arrived at Lagoon the same time nap time was scheduled to begin.

And after the kids had THEIR fun, we dropped them off with cousin Sela so Lenny and I could spend a couple hours riding the big rides. Double fun: family activity AND date night!

My favorite picture of the day: Abby and Cadence are SO funny together! Cadence is 3 weeks older than Abby and they adore each other. Instead of doing the "parallel play" so common with kids this age, they actually interact with each other. They look to the other for approval and teach each other new tricks, like how to climb up on furniture previously unexplored or open doors to escape from the house. This picture is the kind of thing you'd see in the slideshow of a well-traveled couple. "And this is us in Paris...." Cute kids.

Abby, showing off her neon blue hand stamp, proof of her right to ride.

My pretty daughter, Leah. From the moment she found out we were going to Lagoon she was saying, "I want to ride the ferris wheel." First thing when she woke up that morning, "I want to ride the ferris wheel." So the first thing we did... we rode the ferris wheel.

Leah and Dad

Abby and Cadence

Brownie Batter

I love making and eating brownies with my girls. They're the perfect "girlfriends"; they don't EVER turn down brownies, they tell me I'm "so pretty" and they never seem to worry about getting fat. I love hanging out with them!

Children IN the Corn

I am so proud of myself. I actually planted SOMETHING this year and it actually grew. Here is our small crop of corn. The ears are forming and it should be ready to eat within a week or two. We had a couple tomato plants that had tomatoes on them but I think someone stole them. :( Leah says it, "Someone was really, really hungry and they took our tomatoes." I hope that was the case.

I was a crazy mom and actually let my kids play in the mud. Afterward, I sort of regretted it because I was all ornery, having to clean up their mess. But they are very cute, don't you think?

Little Archers

I've sucked at blogging. Good love. I've decided to just copy and paste from the weekly letter I send to my brother on his mission. We'll see how long it lasts, if anybody even cares about my lowly little blog...

So we went to the renaissance faire here in town. We just wandered around and got the girls snow cones. But as we were leaving I noticed some archers and told Lenny that we HAD to let Leah try it. Ever since she watched Robin Hood she's been wanting to shoot a bow and arrow. The other day she came in and asked me for a carrot so she could pretend it was an arrow. So here are some pictures of my little archers!

Pollock Family Pictures

For Grandma Sharon's birthday I decided to organize a BIG family picture. We had wind, cold weather, poor light, and seven kids under the age of three. Considering all of that (and the fact that I was the photographer AND in the picture) I think we did okay!

Pollock Family Easter Picnic

The annual Pollock Family picnic and Easter egg hunt. We go out to the middle of nowhere, Tropic area, and let the kids run around crazy for the afternoon. They all played in, wore, and ingested so much dirt we were seeing it for days afterward.

The Easter egg hunt was fun, too. It was Abby's first *REAL* hunt so she didn't want to put the candy in the basket but she fared quite well. I guess she was unwilling to let Lenny help her carry her basket so she hauled it around even though it kept getting heavier and heavier.

Leah is a pro at the egg hunt thing. She collected a whole bunch of candy and was really good at spotting it, too. She didn't want to accept the possibility that maybe the candy was all gone so she was one of the last kids out hunting. The only difficulty she had was keeping her candy in her basket. She'd lean over to pick up another piece and dump out half of the basket in the process.

Once again, it was a wonderful Easter!

Leah