Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and More Pumpkins!

I love this time of year! Fall is just the best - okay, well maybe not as great as Christmas time, but it's definitely a close second! :) I just love fall weather, the leaves changing colors, and pumpkins! It's just a fun time of year! Unfortunately though, we haven't really done anything fun for Halloween the past couple of years. On Gavin's first Halloween, I wasn't even home - I went to Thriller with my best friend Kyla and her husband! And then last year, Gavin didn't want to go trick-or-treating, let alone even get in his costume, so once again, we did nothing but pass out candy. In fact, we didn't even buy pumpkins last year! Sad... I know. So this year, now that Gavin is older and really into Halloween, we decided we'd better get with it and make it a fun time for him! :) So here's what we've been up to...

Of course, we went to the Dinosaur Park last Friday (if you didn't see our last blog, it will tell you all about it), and we had a great time there. Then, on Saturday, we went up to Greg's parent's house for the weekend. We haven't been up there since the cruise, so we thought it was about time! Well, every year, they go to the local pumpkin patch up there and pick out their own pumpkins. Now, growing up in the city (compared to Greg who grew up in a town with a population of 5,000), this was a very new thing to me. My dad just always grew ours in the garden or we bought them at the store! And honestly, I only remember carving pumpkins once or twice as a young girl and the rest of the time, we just colored them with markers. (I never knew why this was, but I've learned this year (don't ask me why I never knew it before...) that we never carved them because Lindsay is allergic to pumpkins! ) Anyway, I thought it was so much fun to go pick your own! All of them were so perfectly round (I swear the farmers were out there turning them everyday...) and Gavin loved picking out his own. So once again, I want to start this as a tradition (if there are even pumpkin patches around here) because I just thought it was a lot of fun! Plus, once we got home and got comparing the 2 pumpkins we got up there with the 2 more expensive ones we bought a while ago at Harmons, I realized that they were just much better pumpkins all around...

Well, now that we had 4 pumpkins - one for every member of the family - we decided we obviously needed to carve them! Now, Greg is all about getting down and dirty and having his hands be a complete mess (which can probably be attributed to his rural Idaho upbringing...), but Gavin and I... well, let's just say we like to stay clean! :) So the second Gavin put his hand in the first pumpkin to help Greg clean it out, he pulled it right back out and started crying, saying it was yucky! Ha ha. I, on the other hand, cleaned out an entire pumpkin by myself and was extremely proud! Granted, I stopped after that... but hey, at least I faced my fear. :) I just decided that washing and cooking pumpkin seeds sounded like a much better idea to me! So we let Greg get to work designing all of them and carving them (yes, the poor guy, he did them all by himself, but at least he enjoyed it). On his pumpkin, he did what would be expected - a VW sign! On mine, we did an A. I was originally meaning for it to be an A for Aggies, but I guess it could be A for Ashlee too. Gavin and Ty's are typical pumpkin faces, but Ty's is a little bit happier and smilier since that's just how he is all the time! In the end, we had a really great time, even though Greg did most of the work! :)

Now that we are one day away from Halloween, Gavin is getting more excited by the minute for trick-or-treating (and I am getting more nervous about running out of candy again since we ran out after 30 minutes last year!). It just hit me today how bummed he is going to be when Halloween is over this year! So I guess we better keep enjoying it right up until the second it is over. And we will! Until next time! -Ash (Check out the other pictures below.)

Gavin, the little cheeser... This was about 10 minutes into walking around the pumpkin patch. I think he enjoyed walking around it more than he did picking his own pumpkin!

Greg, working hard...

Me, working hard...

And Gavin... not working at all!

And here they are... the finished product! Good job, Greg!

A Spooky Night at the Dinosaur Park

We went to the Eccles Dinosaur Park in Ogden tonight for their "Halloween Night" and had a great time! We went with our neighbors, Paul and Dana Bendel, who live across the street from us. Gavin and their little boy Nicholas are the best of friends, and seriously, it is torture to take either one of them on outings without the other one, because they won't stop asking about where the other one is and why they aren't together! It's as if they were long lost brothers... Actually, I am convinced Gavin was supposed to be put in their family and not ours. He is always asking to go to Nicholas's house, go in Nicholas's van, and hold Dana's hand instead of mine! I may have to grow brown hair and get a mini van just for my child to like me! So sad...

But anyway, we really had a great time! All the boys, including Tyler, dressed up in their Halloween costumes. As you saw in my previous post, Gavin wore his dragon costume, Tyler was Tigger, and Nicholas was Spiderman. The park was decorated really cute for Halloween and they had employees all along the way giving candy and cheap little toys to the kids. This was definitely the best part for the boys. Eventually, they started chanting, "Candy! Candy! Candy!" (Just a prediction - Trick-or-Treating on Halloween night is going to be great fun...) The best part was that the boys were so busy looking for the next person with candy that I think they completely ignored the scary parts - the skeletons, bats, and scary noises all around. I, however, was the laughing stock of the group when a 7-year-old jumped out right in front of me and scared me half to death. All the kids were fine and didn't get scared, but I - the 24-year-old adult - about peed my pants! Ha ha. (Now you understand why I never did haunted houses...)

Overall, we had a great time and decided on the way home that we need to make this a yearly tradition. Even though it was a little cold, it was something fun for the kids to do and it wasn't nearly as scary as other Halloween events usually are. I stuck some pictures below, but let me apologize up front if they are a bit blurry. We were experimenting with the twilight setting on our camera... Until next time! -Ash

Gavin and Nicholas, what a pair!

Gavin and I in front of all the well-carved pumpkins. I can assure you that unfortunately, the pumpkins we are carving on Monday will look nothing like these...

Tyler, perfectly content and cozy in his stroller. He was so good the whole time!

Gavin, the vampire. He loved these teeth and was very disappointed once we got home and realized he had left them in the Bendel's van (yep... he didn't even ride home with us! Wow... I guess I really need a van...)

Three Blogs in Three Days? Wow, What's Wrong with Me?!

I know, I know, I have been writing a lot this week, which has never happened before! But I guess this time around, I am writing for my own benefit because I use this blog not only as a way to communicate with family, but to also keep an electronic journal of our family for my own use (since I am terrible at writing in my real journal). So if you'd rather not read it, that's fine with me! But if you do read it, my apologies firsthand if it's cheesy! :)

Last night was one of those nights when you simultaneously love and loathe being a mom. Greg and I went to bed around 11:45 and were woken up at 12:30 by Gavin screaming for us. I nudged Greg out of bed, telling him it was his turn (Gavin still wakes up every so often, so this was nothing out of the ordinary for us). Well, Greg came back in moments later to tell me Gavin had thrown up all over his bed. Now, we've dealt with the stomach flu before, but the last time was 18 months ago, so it's been a while! (And honestly, since it has been such a long time, I have been expecting it to come any day... I just figured that regardless of my obsessive hand washing, Gavin was going to get it somehow.) So, I took over my normal duties (cleaning up because Greg can't handle it), and Greg got Gavin into the bathtub. Now don't worry! I'm not telling you this just to gross you out... It was just the next few things Gavin did that really left an impression on me and made me realize how much I love being the mom of this little boy!

I had just come back upstairs from the laundry room, and Gavin said he wanted me to get him out of the tub. So I started draining his water and went to get him out when he stopped me and said, "No, I need to clean up my toys!" (We have a ton of bath toys that Gavin loves to play with everyday. I'm fine with him getting all of them out, but my only stipulation is that he has to clean them up when he's done.) I told him it was okay, that he was sick, and that I would do it. But he demanded on doing it, saying, "No, I want to clean up my toys!" So he did, with me helping of course, but that whole situation made me realize just what a sweet boy Gavin is. I know he didn't feel good, but I think he understands that he has responsibilities as a member of our family (cleaning up his bath boys is one of the few extremely minor chores I have him do each day), and he willingly does them. This just really impressed me.

Then, once he was dressed in new pajamas and had new sheets on his bed, we went to go tuck him in and as part of his normal bedtime routine, one parent always tells him a story while the other one goes and gets him a drink. Well, when Greg finished telling him a story, Gavin automatically looked at me standing there without a drink and asked if I would go get him one. Of course I couldn't, because I knew it would only make him start throwing up again, so I explained to him that a drink would make his tummy sick and that he would have to wait until morning. Obviously, I was waiting for a complete meltdown because doesn't everybody want a drink after they've been throwing up? But Gavin didn't at all, he just said, "I have to wait until morning?" When I said "yes," he just said, "Okay, good night." Obviously, I was shocked, but told him goodnight and closed his door. Seconds later, I heard, "Mommy?" So I went back in and he said, "I just need a kiss." At this point, I was almost in tears. I know, it must just be a mom thing. But the whole night, he was just being so sweet about having the stomach flu (which I never am!), and it really proved to me just how lucky I am to have such a sweet little boy in my life. Seriously, I don't know what I'd do without him.

Anyway, the rest of the night was fine - no more throwing up! And he is back to his normal self today, happy as can be. It's hard to believe that even last night, before I went to bed, I was struggling so much with being a stay-at-home mom. And today I just feel lucky to have such great kids that mean the world to me. Until next time! -Ash

Tagged Again?

Well, I have been tagged again. You guys will be SO sick of hearing about me after this, so I promise this will be the last one! Here goes...

The rules: Player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves. At the end of the post, player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and posts a comment letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read our blog for the rules. (I figure the people I will tag will read my blog and see it, so I'm not going to leave a comment for you guys, but I still love ya!)

#1 - I am so terrified of flying. It gets worse everytime I fly! When we flew back from Seattle this past summer, I literally thought I was going to pass out. I was such a nervous wreck.

#2 - I am an extremely avid Bill O'Reilly fan! I record it everynight on our DVR and watch it when I get into bed (pretty romantic, huh?). He is my hero! Ha ha. (I think I've even converted Greg too, he really likes him now.)

#3 - Speaking of TV, I still love to watch all the old TGIF re-runs on ABC Family (Family Matters, Full House, Boy Meets World, and Step by Step). They totally take me back to being a kid and I love it!

#4 - I am a kind of psycho wife in the sense that I hate having Greg gone at work more than his normal 40 hours a week. Seriously, if he isn't home between 5:00 and 5:30 (he usually gets home around 4:45), I text or call him to see when he's coming home! Now don't worry, I'm not a total control freak. I just get way lonely being at home all day, so I love it when he comes home.

#5 - My family does not call me Ashlee, they call me Sosha. Seriously, I don't remember the last time my family called me by my real name! And if you're a little confused as to how Ashlee became Sosha, just know it's a long story and that my little sister Kristin made it up. :)

#6 - I hate the summer and I love the winter! No joke! I just hate the heat and do not deal with it very well. I feel like I can never cool down, but in the winter, I can always warm up with blankets, sweaters, and all that kind of stuff. Plus, I love to be in my nice, warm house with hot chocolate when it is snowing outside! That's the best!

I am going to tag: Kyla Stevens, Mallory Steele, Lara Izant, Lindsay Storrs, Chad Huntsman... and that's all I've got! Sorry, no #6. (Unless Kristin, of course, wants to start her much anticipated blog! HINT HINT!)

Until next time! -Ash

A Random Update on All of Us!

Once again, I really don't have anything great to write about this week. I guess our family life is just incredibly boring! :) But we do have little random things going on that I thought I should update everybody on...

Greg, well... he's probably the most boring of our family right now cuz his life is the exact same as it always is! ;) His time basically consists of work, school, work, school, scouts, and more work and school! Fortunately though, this semester is going great for him. His classes are all online and even though he is taking 13 credits (as opposed to 9 in the summer), he is doing great. He has straight A's and I hope he keeps it up! We also found out that he will graduate next December so that was great news.

Gavin is growing up so fast, I can hardly handle it! He has a best friend who lives across the street and they play together all the time, which has been really weird to me because I still think of Gavin as my little baby! However, while he is extremely grown up in a social sense, he is still acting a little young when it comes to potty training. He absolutely refuses to go to the bathroom in the potty and it is getting extremely frustrating! I just bought him pull-ups the other day (Cars pull-ups, no less...) and he will have nothing to do with them. I try to put them on and he screams and cries for a diaper! I always joke that he is going to be my druggie chid when he grows up because he is such a follower, not a leader. But I don't know... I am reconsidering my position on this now because all of his little friends are potty trained, and he acts like the toilet is the plague!

Tyler is also growing up so fast! He army crawls really well these days, and is so close to normal crawling. He gets himself up on all fours and just rocks back and forth (see picture), so I am expecting him to crawl anyday now. Baby proofing, here I come... :( He is also loving eating normal food. With Gavin, I was so worried about allergies and all that, but with Ty, I haven't been nearly as strict. He eats cereal, bread, crackers, and anything else he can get his hands on, and he loves it!

As for me, I just started teaching piano lessons again last week. We decided last month (after Greg's store only hit 70% of their quota) that we needed some extra money. So I currently have 3 students, but am hoping for more. Other than that, I am just waiting (very impatiently, I must say) for October and November to be over so that Christmas time will be here! Seriously, you have no idea how much I thrive off of the month of December! You would think once Christmas is over that I would be glad and ready to move on to January (with our 2 birthdays, Christmas, and our anniversary in December), but no - not even close! In January, I just start looking forward to Christmas all over again! :)

We hope all of you are doing well! I am so excited that so many more of my friends have started blogs! It is so fun to read your guys', so keep updating them. Until next time! -Ash

A Reason to Blog...

My sister Lindsay posted this on her blog and tagged me to do it. If this were an email, I would typically read through it, and even if I was tagged to do it again, I would delete it cuz I think they are stupid! (No offense, Linz!) However, this one actually isn't too bad and I thought it would provide some fun information about me. Plus, I figured it would be an easy blog for me to do, and I am all about that since sometimes I have a hard time deciding what to write about! (And I have to make sure this is updated at least once a week for my Dad who checks our blog daily!) So here goes...

A~Attached or Single: Attached

B~Best Friend: I have a lots! Ha ha. My best BEST friend would definitely be Greg. He is always there for me, even during my crazy depressed moments when he probably wants to run away! Then there's my best girl friends which includes my mom (the best mom in the WORLD!), my cute fun sisters, and Kyla Stevens. And then there's our best couple friends, which would include Kyla and Dan, and Mallory and Nate (when are you guys going to move back?!) :)

C~Cake or Pie: Definitely cake. Unlike most people, I don't really like pie crust.

D~Day of Choice: Friday! I always loved it as a kid because it meant school was out for the weekend, and I guess it just stuck. (Most people would probably say Saturday, but most of my Saturdays are spent sitting at home by myself while Greg is at work, so they suck!)

E~Essential Item: Oreos

F~Favorite Color: Red, of course! I'm a Skousen girl after all...

G~Gummi Bears or Worms: Gummi worms

H~Hometown: Orem, Utah

I~Indulgences: Anything with chocolate in it!

J~January or July: Believe it or not, I don't like either of these months! (The weather is miserable in both of them - on opposite sides of the spectrum, of course.) But I guess I would say July because of the 4th, which is always fun!

K~Kids: 2 Boys. Gavin will be 3 on December 17th, and Tyler will be 1 on December 12th.

L~Life is Incomplete Without: Family

M~Marriage Date: December 27th, 2002

N~Number of Siblings: 2 sisters

O~Oranges or Apples: Oranges

P~Phobias or Fears: I have lots! Hillary Clinton becoming president definitely comes to mind! :) But on a more serious note, the thought of ANYTHING bad happening to my family is my absolute greatest fear. Just thinking about it makes me cry... no joke.

Q~Quotes: Nothing really comes to mind, but I typically like funny political quotes (as you can tell from my Funny Quote of the Week section).

R~Reason to Smile: Tyler's instant and contageous smile!

S~Season: Definitely Fall! I love it!

T~Tag Three: Kyla Stevens, Mallory Steele, and Kristin Skousen (maybe this will convince her to start a blog!)

U~Unknown Fact: I absolutely hate flying. I get so nervous, I about pass out...

V~Vehicle You Drive: '06 GMC Envoy

W~Worst Habit: Going to bed late.

X~X-Rays or Ultrasound: Um, ultrasounds I guess? What kind of a question is that?!

Y~Your Favorite Food: Italian... Mmmm, Olive Garden...

Z~Zodiac: Taurus, also known as the most hideous car ever manufactured (No offense if you own one - but I do feel a little sorry for you!) :)

Well, now wasn't that fun? Ha ha, maybe not, but hey, like I said... it was a great reason to blog! Until next time! -Ash

Family Pictures... Why Do We Even Try?

This past weekend, we went down to my parents for General Conference. We had a really fun time hanging out with the family (as always!)... but not such a fun time taking family pictures, which I really wanted to do while we were down there! Since the weather was so miserable on Saturday, we decided to do it in between sessions on Sunday. So we headed up Provo Canyon at about 12:00, found an area where my dad had found some good scenery, parked, and got out of our cars only to be blasted with freezing cold wind! Greg and I had on sweaters but the boys only had on long sleeved shirts, and they were cold! Poor little Gavin was crying and saying, "Mommy, it's so cold!" I felt so bad and told him we would hurry, but you can tell in our first pictures (in the train car) that he was not happy! It definitely took him a long time to warm up to the camera. Poor Dan (Kristin's boyfriend) was even throwing little rocks into the air and letting them fall on himself to get Gavin to smile. After a couple different shots in the canyon, we finally decided it was just way too cold, and we were right - by the time we got back to our cars, it was snowing!!! So we went to Riverwoods in Provo and took the rest where it was at least 10 degrees warmer and the wind wasn't blowing! In the end though, we came out of it with some pretty crazy pictures, but also some good ones, so we hope you enjoy them! And a huge thanks again to my Dad for his willingness to take them and his patience! :) Until next time! -Ash

Don't let this picture deceive you, it really was COLD!

Gavin sure looks happy, doesn't he? We had just finished wiping tears off his face right before this picture.

There's that bitter cold wind, blowing through my hair, and Gavin with a completely confused look on his face. I actually think we took this picture when Dan was throwing rocks on himself!

Almost every time we were posed and ready for a picture, Tyler would throw his arms up in the air like this, and it was a struggle to get them down and keep them down!

I actually really like this one, even though I don't think Tyler looks like himself - he looks like a much pudgier version!

This one was pretty good too, especially because we got both boys smiling at the same time! It was a miracle!

A Night at the Circus

On Saturday night, we went to the Circus with Kristin and Dan (Lindsay and her family, along with my mom and dad were in Moab) and it was an interesting, but fun, experience! When we told Gavin a week before that we were going to go, he was so excited and kept asking about it everyday, so you can imagine his excitement when Saturday actually came! However, when we actually got there, he decided he wasn't so excited anymore and wanted to go home! (Our tickets were in the upper bowl and we think the height scared him.) So literally, for the first 15 minutes of the show, he was crying and latching on to us like he hasn't done in a long time! But when the elephants came out, all of that stopped and he got excited again and enjoyed the rest of the show.

Everything else we saw was typical of a circus - tigers, acrobats, clowns, human canonballs, and even horses and zebras (which I was a bit surprised by). I was a little bothered by the way they whipped the animals though, especially the tigers. Trust me, I am by no means a huge animal rights activits or anything like that! I like my meat! :) But it did seem a little abusive. And after seeing that, I have to admit I felt a little guilty because as we were walking in earlier, there were some PETA protestors outside with their signs saying that Barnum and Bailey abuses their animals. I looked at the protestor closest to us and said, "Wow" really sarcastically. He turned around and yelled at me, "Animal abuse is NOT a laughing matter!" I still don't completely agree with him, and I do still laugh when I think about how mad he was at me, but I guess I see his point now. :)

Overall though, we had a great time! Sorry there aren't many pictures - we were so busy taking care of kids that we didn't have time to take many. :) Until next time! -Ash