The Final Pumpkin Product

E and her grandpa grew pumpkins this year. E had lots of fun planting, watering and tending the pumpkins as they grew. We watched them all summer grow and change. She and Grandpa always checked and tended the pumpkins each time that we visited their house. Grandpa sent them home with her last weekend and she had been anxious to turn them into jack o' lanterns all week. On Tuesday, we cleaned them all out and Jut carved 2 of them. Tonight, Jut finished carving the last 2, under E's direction, of course.

Cleaning the pumpkins on Tuesday night. She used a spoon to scoop out the innards.

E's big pumpkins waiting to be cleaned out.

E took more of a supervisors role for the majority of the evening...lounging in her chair.
Feeding the jack o' lanterns pumpkin seeds was good fun too!

The pumpkins were lots of fun to climb on...

E and Jut showing off their creations

Glowing jack o' lanterns

E chose the design of all but the one on the left...
it is supposedly Punisher

Didn't E choose great designs...and didn't Jut do a great job carving them?!

We did have a great time with the pumpkins through the planting and carving process. I still have a couple more batches of seeds to roast...those pumpkins were huge!

"Its okay Daddy . . . "

Well Chris has been blogging for over a year now and I have always threatened that I would guest write a blog or two. Well it was bound to happen sometime, sooner or later and today is the day. What makes me the guest blogger this evening? Read on!

So the city is coming around tomorrow to suck up leaves in their nifty little machine that does that job, so Chris started raking the yard yesterday. (yes 39+ weeks prego and she is raking half the yard!) So, like a good Husband, I take Elizabeth out after dinner tonight to rake the rest of the back yard. Chris was still inside chatting with her mom about her OB appointment today.

Elizabeth and I had been outside for a good ten minutes, raking the back half of our lawn. I am not sure what caught my attention with Elizabeth, I think it was the fact that she was standing still. She has seemed to just be this ball of energy lately and it is funny when she pauses, because it is out of the ordinary for her. She had a funny look on her face and it took me only about half a second to connect two and two.

"Honey, do you need to go potty?" I asked.

My question was met with silence and I did not even get a look. I paused for just another few seconds and when she started moving again I thought to myself: "Well okay, back to raking."

I do not think even another three seconds went by and I caught a quick glimpse of motion. It was my daughter pulling her pants and undies down and squatting all in one motion!

"Oh honey! Don't go potty! Lets go inside!"

I am not sure where in those three very short sentences that it started, but there was a very respectable stream of urine flying out the backside of my daughter's behind. From my angle I was sure she was saturating her pants. I could not believe it!

"Honey no, no, no, no; lets go inside." I am pleading with her as I am making my way over to her as fast as possible.

Elizabeth looks up at me, super calm expression on her face, even held up one hand towards me, as if to shoo me away. And simply says:

"Its okay daddy. Its just pee."

This was repeated to me probably about six or seven times and when I realized that she had somehow only manage to hit just a small portion of the hem of one of her pant legs, I started to relax. And like any good father, seeing that we did not have a ton of urine stained clothes, I pulled up her undies and pants, moved the rake she had been using away from the scene and we continued to rake.

I am still shaking my head hours later as I think about the simple pronouncement:

"It's okay daddy. It's just pee."




-Jut

A chance to go outside...

Today was a beautiful day, and E and I got outside and certainly enjoyed it. After I raked some leaves (Yes, I am TRYING to go into labor by raking!!!), E found the wonderful treasure of a worm to investigate. She spent a lot of time studying it and running through my pile of leaves.

No worries, Momma!

E doesn't take naps much anymore...I'm very lucky if I can get her to take two a week. But, I insist that she 'rests' for an hour or so in her room. At 39 weeks pregnant, I need the nap and downtime!

A couple days ago, I was dozing when I heard her door open. The next thing I heard was, "No worries, Momma. I wash my undies out in the toilet!" She proceeded to go into the bathroom. As I hoisted myself out of bed, I could hear her swishing her undies in the toilet. Needless to say, I was not thrilled that she had an accident, but she did have the majority of the mess in her undies cleaned out when I got into the bathroom. After cleaning her up, I got her back into her room to finish her rest time and I found that she had gotten most of the bm into the little potty in her room. It must have been a juicy toot that ended up in her undies.

But, now I cringe whenever I hear, "No worries, Momma!"...it usually means some sort of mess awaits me. I never realized that I said, "No worries" to her...but I must because she's saying it an awful lot these days.

Falling off the Blogging Bandwagon

Wow! Its been more than a month since I've blogged anything. It certainly isn't because we are sitting around the house doing nothing! Well, the weather turned colder and rainy a couple weeks ago and E and I have been around the house more...but we are keeping busy doing this and that!

Baby will be here any time. I hit the 38-week mark tomorrow. E came within that week...so I'm trying to get everything ready. Last night I got my 'E sub sheet' done for E's grandparents that will be watching her while I'm in the hospital. I also finally got our birth plan typed up ready to give to the doctor. We've been taking Bradley method classes since August prepping for this birth...I'm hoping to avoid another C-section. We'll see how that goes shortly.

I also finally finished E's first year scrapbook last night. So, I can finally finish cleaning all of my scrappin' stuff out of the baby's room and finish getting that ready and organized.

E is getting more articulate all the time. She says the funniest things. Her imagination is really taking off too. It is fun to listen to her play with her dollhouse and Little people.

She just said, "You want to take pictures of me on the TV, please?" as she crawled up on my lap and said, "I need you!" She loves kissing my belly and talking to her baby 'sister'...I'm a bit worried that if baby comes out as a boy that she's going to want to send it back for a sister. Hopefully, she'll make that adjustment. I think she'll be a great big sister. I'm a bit concerned that she will be overly helpful and bossy. But, I'm sure she'll do fine. However, she does LOVE to boss the cat around. Hmmm...she definitely exhibits first-born characteristics!

Potty-training is basically completed. She has a few accidents now and again but generally, she's figured it all out. We even spent the day shopping on Tuesday and came home dry. She's growing up so fast!


E helping to get the car seat ready for 'baby sister'. I can't believe how big she's gotten and how little a newborn is going to be!!!

E's first haircut

E is 27.5 months old and was finally ready for her first haircut today. Well, maybe I was ready to get her hair cut today. We will be seeing all Jut's family tomorrow and I thought that she might look a bit better with a touch of a trim. She was looking a tad bit shaggy these days. So, I called Penney's and they could fit her in this afternoon. I made a big deal about talking the experience up and getting her excited for it (the same strategy that I used for the 1st dentist visit)...and she did very well.

Arriving and getting settled into her chair


Discussing the options

Look I have bangs! I can see again!!!

Bye-bye mullet!

Random Photo Shoot

The weather has been beautiful this week to send all the teachers in the state back to work. E and I enjoyed it by having an impromptu photo shoot on Monday. It reminded me why I'm glad to be home enjoying my time with her instead of heading back to work!

We ended our shoot with these final words...Gotta' love potty training! (We are almost at the end of that journey! Yipee for E!!!)