Pumpkins, Parties, and Pudding

Happy October!  

We've been having fun, and as you'll see below, eating a lot of sugar.  

Ira has been obsessed with cars for months now, so I've been looking forward to making a car cake for his birthday in January.  That is, until he's broadened his horizons to include trains and trucks, both of which would also make really fun cakes.  So, I wanted to clear the car cake space in my brain so I could move on with other January plans.  Below is Ira's non-birthday cake: my second attempt at using fondant.

Ira was especially thrilled with the eyes.  When he ate the headlights he started calling the tires eyes and just sat at his high chair talking about them, not really eating anything. 

Ira helping Dad fix his bike.  Ant's bike has had a couple of run ins with the insane pot holes around here.

Dirt pudding!

We had lots of fun with our pumpkin carving party.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of our friends that came, but a couple from the ward and a friend from work showed up.

Jello Brain.  Maybe it's all those psychology classes in college, but I really look forward to making this thing every year.  When Ira's old enough I'll use it to lecture him about the difference between the prefrontal cortex and the occipital lobe. 

Cookies:  Ira seems to young to be spooked out by anything that's supposed to be spooky...fortunately.  He's recently kind of grasped the idea of monsters, loves the scary giant in Obiyoyo, and when strangers try to get him to smile and say hello, he usually responds with a little roar.  

Back to the party.  Here are three of the final products.  Left to Right: Anthony's, mine, then Maurice's.  My owl turned out kind of lame in comparison.  I even forgot the beak.  But in my defense I was putting Ira to bed and making sure everyone had enough cider.

Anthony's pumpkin not lit up.  I know, looks kind of crazy.  So cool when lit up though!  He found a way to take a photo on the computer and morph it into a pumpkin stencil.  He picked a kind of piggish picture of Ira and worked from there.  

Ira playing in the leaves after church.

In other news:

* We've been bowling every Tuesday night with Anthony's co-workers.  One of his teem-mates has never showed up, so I'm the sub.  Everyone's really nice despite my low average.  But this week I broke my record with 116!  Woohoo!  I think my average is 75, and somehow our team is in first place right now...out of maybe 15 teams?

*  Ant's project is moving along.  He has a big project that seems to be progressing.

* The pregnancy is going well.  I feel pretty great, just sleepy still.  We babysat a friend's 3 month old this week and Ira was really cute with him.  He spent most of his time bringing toys to him, blowing him kisses, and talking about his eyes.  Hopefully he'll be as excited when our baby comes.

*  Ira's cute as ever.  Not as excited about the potty lately, but saying a bunch of new words.  I'm worried I won't be able to get his Halloween Costume on.  Every time I whip it out, he runs away with an assertive "NOOOOOOO!"  Oh well.  Have a good week everyone!

Sharon

Fall Festival

Every place we move we try to get a feel for the community. Belleville had a family Fall Festival event yesterday and we decided to check it out. They had closed off the block where the Belleville history museum and library sit and people had set up a few little tables with activities and arts and crafts. They had a miniature old steam engine that looked like a tractor/train that was hooked up to a little corn husker or some sort of harvester. Ira really liked that. There was also a good showing from the local art community, which is amateur at best, but very expressive of the personality of the community.

Sharon and Ira at the Belleville Museum.

 They had some old chores for everyone to try out. I tried out the corn husker.

 Sharon took a stab at hand washing and ringing the clothes. It helped her appreciate our little and often less than stellar, but automatic washing and dryer.

 We even found a job Ira could do.

 The main street was lined with scarecrows that local businesses had created.

 The tin man - a little bit of irony in that one

 A weird moose thing

It was a classic small town America event, that made us want to go jump in a pile of leaves and go ask strangers for candy.  Ah, autumn. 

Wasem Fruit Farm and Talladay Farm

We returned to the Wasem Fruit Farm with a friend from work and his fiance. The homemade donuts are awesome, we need to get there earlier so we have more of a selection than cinnamon sugar. 

 There is always a line for the homemade donuts, apple cider, and fresh fruit. We can't resist it though.

 Ira in the miniature kids maze. He didn't quite get what to do, but we eventually made it through. 

We also found a great groupon for the farm next door, Talladay Farm, and their huge corn maze.

 Ira helped me navigate. I wanted to do it without the map, but I got out voted, so we did the challenge of finding all the 'hidden' posts.

Sharon, Beth, and John trying to figure out where we were.

It was a fun afternoon activity and Ira did really well. It made me feel very... Midwestern and got me in the fall mood.

Busy in the Beehive State

After Hawaii, I spent a couple weeks in Utah with the Quinns and was able to visit some of my favorite people.

 Ira and I met Rebecca (Erekson) Hansen in Provo for Thai.  

She's amazing as usual, a newlywed and finishing up law-school.

 Second cousins born a week apart.  They had a blast...probably because they were both up past bed time.

 Diane, Jonny and Dorothy!

 Uncle Robert

 Mary and Barney :)

I'm just a couple months along, but Mary was about to deliver.  Her new baby girl shares my b-day!

Don and Joan Wallace!  Ira didn't want to leave their place.

 The Proulxs: So good to catch up. We had a little Marietta reunion with scrapple and woopie pies. 

 Ira disco skinny dipping in the mountains.

 Ira wanted to do every thing his cousin Truman did.  

 Hehe.

 Mackay and the boys hanging out in the hammock. 

 We hiked Bald Mountain, which is only 2 miles, but gains about 1250 ft.  I thought I'd have permanent indents in my shoulders from the old backpack I used to haul Ira up and back.

 I think Ira has the music bug.  He not only loves the ukulele and the piano but was completely mesmerized by Dallin's trumpet playing. 

 Camping in the Uintas was really fun.  It made me want to camp more since Ira seemed to be in heaven and slept decently. 

 I love the head-wear, especially the pink pants on Jean's head to keep mosquitoes off. 

 Yum! 

 This is out of focus, but it kind of captures the moment.  Ira could not stop kissing his little cousins!  Hopefully he'll like baby's just as much in 6-ish months.

This would be a fun Ellsworth Family reunion activity.  We stayed up ridiculously late doing double.  

 exposures.  

Utah was happy, way more fun then hanging out in our new apartment all by myself + Ira for a month.  I think Ira went through withdrawals when we left, of course until Anthony got home from China. :)  We'll be back soon for Thanksgiving!

Applebee's Visit Minnesota

We had a blast with the Applebees here, and Ira is definitely going through withdrawals with them gone.  Here we are at the ComoZoo with a few of the Durants. 

This was Ira's first trip to the zoo, and he was almost as excited to see the monkeys, lions, and giraffes as he was to see the balls in their cages.  His brain is like a radar screen for the things these days.  "Ira look at the seal!" His response: "Ball Ball!!!"  Us passing an icecream stand with a tiny knobby ball hidden at the top of it's snack tent.  "Ball Ball!"  Later that night as Ira gazes into Anthony's eyes and points to Ant's pupils.  "Ball! Ball!" This last one was followed by an attempt to dribble Ant's head....only with minor success. 

Ira and I got a flat tire on the way to the zoo.  He was an angel during the whole two hour process, but when I got him out of the car seat, I realized that he kept himself entertained the entire time by slowly emptying his sippy cup all over his pants and onsie.  Poor kid.  He was a little cold while he dried out.  We have all new tires now.

Chillin' at the playground.

I love my sisters!

On her last night, Kristen and I went to the cannery.  It was my first time.  If I knew we were staying here for our next rotation I would have bought loads more!  Meanwhile it feels so good to have wheat to grind again.  We supposedly find out where we're going (or staying) next on Friday.  Woohoo!  Could it be St. Paul?  Chicago?  Detroit?...or most likely somewhere in Connecticut? 

Anthony and I gave talks in church today and got some nice compliments.  The topic was Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Nursery was heaven since we only had 13 instead of 19 kids, and any overly aggressive kids that we usually have were on vacation. 

Love you guys!

-sharon