Pumpkins and Punkins

When Shan and I visited the pumpkin patch I picked up a couple of pie pumpkins which I subsequently cooked, pureed, and froze to be used for pumpkin pies later this season. Out of two medium sized pie pumpkins I was able to get 7 1/2 cups of pumpkin which should be enough for 5 pumpkin pies. Yes, I love pumpkin and thus I begin planning for pumpkin recipes early in the year! I have already baked two pies, and shared them with friends one evening last week- along with apples with homemade caramel dip and hot apple cider. Yummm! 

The pumpkins also gave us the opportunity to enjoy one of our favorite treats of the harvest season..... toasted pumpkin seeds! They are so good. You just clean the seeds out of the pumpkin (don't wash them), put them directly into a pyrex pan, mix in some good olive oil and plenty of salt. Toast them until they are golden brown and enjoy! 

Here is Lilah enjoying a preview of some homemade sweetened whipped cream!

I thought these pictures of Vance reading were really sweet. He loves books and can often be found sitting by the bookshelf quietly reading to himself. 

".......... And will you succeed?" 

".......Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)"

Just Being Themselves

I really wanted a photo of all four kids. (I know, I'm crazy!) We tried twice over two days, and this was the best we could get- no one wanted to cooperate! At least you can get a real idea of all their different personalities from it!

Crying in Italian

For some odd reason, whenever Vance is crying and fussing, he repeatedly cries "Mommy Miiiaaaa!". It just cracks me up! I have no idea if he got that somewhere, or if it just sounds good to him, but it's awfully funny!

Imagination

Tonight Vance was bugging Ellie by stealing her doll's shoes. He hid them in the kitchen, and then this conversation occurred.



Vance: Here Ellie, here's your shoes! (handing her an imaginary shoe)

Ellie: That's not a shoe! (angrily throwing the imaginary shoe across the room)



It reminds me of my sister's kids crying over who spilled the imaginary soup!

Happy Birthday to our Little Princess

Today our little girly turns 5! I can hardly believe she's so big already. She's growing up so fast!

My pregnancy with her had been stressful, with two visits to the ER and a stint on bed rest. When we finally hit her due date, she decided she wasn't ready to enter the world. The Doctor finally induced me after a week of being overdue. I had gotten wiser, and got the good drugs as soon as I could, so the birth was wonderfully comfortable and I was able to enjoy the whole experience. We welcomed our little baby girl into the world that afternoon.

She's such a unique, fun, smart, great little girl! She keeps us on our toes and keeps us laughing. She is such a huge help to me with the baby. She feeds Lilah her meals, picks out her clothes, helps to dress her and rocks her when she's fussy.

We are so proud of her! Happy Birthday Ellie Ray! We love you so much!

Revelation Song

I wanted to share with you all an amazing worship song that we've been singing in church lately. What an awesome song of Praise!

Pumpkin Pickin'

Shan and I took the kids to the local U-pick farm to pick some pie pumpkins and some pretty gourds for fall decorating. 

We picked our produce, and then we let the kids go through what was probably the lamest "corn maze" I've ever seen. It was basically a corn patch, that they said was a maze..... Oh well, the kids thought it was great!  

I love Harvest time, the smell of the pumpkins as they cook and the beautiful fall days!

After the pumpkin picking Marcus surprised Shannon at our house and took her on a birthday date while I watched the kids. Then they came back to our house for birthday dinner and homemade apple pie with icecream and coffee..... it was delicious, if I do say so myself! 

We had to come up with a lot of elaborate lies in order to keep the whole thing a secret from Shannon, and we were pretty proud of our covertness! Who knew we were such good liars? Kinda scary, isn't it?

Indian Summer, Odds and Ends

Last Sunday we had a bit of Indian Summer around here... so we decided to take advantage of it! Janelle and Brady and I took all the kids and we went to the lake to walk and see the pretty view. The kids had a lot of fun in one particular tree and we got lots of really cute pictures of them.



 

After the lake we took them to the park and just let them run free for a while. Brady spun all the kids around on the tire swing until Jaxson and Taylor were sick to their stomaches. Good times.... 

Today the weather is changing and fall is in the air. It's so beautiful, I absolutely love fall. Look for some fall pictures soon, we have plans to visit a great picture park as soon as the leaves start to turn and drop!

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Big news.... Vance was dry all day yesterday! Not a single accident. We've been potty training for maybe 4 weeks now and he does great if you remind him to go.... but usually he has at least one accident during the day. I'm not as consistent as I should be and it shows- it's taken longer to train him than the other kids.  But we had a dry day yesterday so that's a great sign! 

Way to go Pooky!

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Today is normally my early morning shopping trip but Brady had an early meeting so I got to sleep in (I am in awe of how 7:30 is now sleeping in) and I'll go to the grocery store this afternoon. I hate the grocery store on a friday afternoon... At 6 AM it's so clean and empty and freshly stocked! No running into other shopper's carts, no standing in line for 15 minutes, no crawling down a crowded aisle at a snail's pace while an inconsiderate shopper browses, oblivious to anyone behind them..... 

At least I don't have to haul the Fabulous Four with me. Now that's a challenge. It's not that they're naughty in the store, in fact they're pretty well behaved, usually a rousing game of "Grocery Store Bingo" keeps them occupied. But it's the logistics of trying to push a shopping cart with four kids literally hanging off of the cart. 

It's actually kind of funny, I get three different reactions. 

I get the looks of empathy from other mom's who have "been there done that" and understand. They usually say something sweet like "your kids are so well behaved" or "I remember those days, just enjoy them now". I like those people. 

Then I get the looks of annoyance from single men and women who have no children and can't believe you have the gall to not get out of their way immediately, or to even be in their way in the first place. 

Then there's the reaction that's less common here, but that I got constantly in San Diego. That's the look of complete shock and dismay at the number of children I have! These people either gasp out "how many kids do you have?" or "are they all yours?" or they just glare at you with a glare that reads "evil over-populaters!"  Less common here, but I still get it.

 It's odd, because I really don't think of four kids as a large family. Maybe it's because growing up we knew a few truly large families. I don't think you really get "large family" status until you have at least 6 kids!

And now it's time to feed my hooligans breakfast, and get started on my weekly deep clean of the house so that I'm ready to tackle the store... 

Cheerio! 

Drumroll Please.....

We have a tooth!

She's Off!

It's amazing how quickly babies can figure things out when they decide they're ready. Lilah started crawling yesterday- on her 7 month birthday! She's been trying to figure it out for a week or two. I was at GG and Papa's house yesterday and they were playing with her on the floor, when she decided to crawl over and get a toy she wanted. Then when I got home last night Brady put her on the floor and she crawled clear across the living room to get to him! So now that she's got the hang of it, she's all over the place... Time to go get baby gates for the stairs and to do a once over on the house to make sure it's baby proofed!
Here she is showing off her mad new skills...

Here I come, Daddy!

Mama's...(Achoo!)....sick....(sniffle)...

It inevitably happens when I'm running myself ragged, day in and day out. School, House, Kids, Husband, Meals, Laundry, Baby.... Week in and week out. The baby hasn't been sleeping well; as always happens when they are learning so many new things at once! Right now she's so close to crawling! She can get from her bottom, to her knees, to her belly and back again. As soon as she figures out how to use her legs right, she'll be all over the place. She already scootches really well. 

So now I'm down with a nasty, flu-like cold. Really nasty. I've been down for 2 days now and I HAVE to be better by tomorrow so I can get the weekly shopping done and the house's weekly deep clean accomplished. I already put it off a day, and it can't be postponed any longer. That is if we want to eat this week!

I'm prostrate on the couch, feeling guilty because the kids are watching PBS- but there's no other way for me to get any rest. 

I may amuse myself today by doing Mandy's Tag that I haven't gotten around to. We'll see. :>P Probably I'll take the opportunity to read. 

Wish me luck on getting up tomorrow!

Business as usual

I haven't been blogging much lately, because there just hasn't been much going on. Don't get me wrong- I'm terribly busy. However, not with anything exciting. My days are pretty much business as usual.

 School is taking up my time. Both the kids are doing very well in school and we are enjoying it. Jaxson is learning to work well on his own and is doing excellently in all of his subjects. He's aced his spelling tests three weeks in a row! Ellie has already completed one of her two math books for the year, I will be purchasing her the next set- and as I posted before she is reading already. 

Vance pretty much just makes a mess of the house while we do school, but he sometimes sits down with a paper and marker and proudly announces that he is "doing school too". 

Lilah will be crawling before we know it.  She's growing so fast. 

Brady and I are taking the 101 membership class at our church and looking for more ways to be feasibly involved (with four kids). Brady is doing the children's small group program with Jaxson. He will be leading Jaxson and Alex's small group. They start next week and are really looking forward to it. We LOVE our church- it's unlike any congregation we've ever been a part of in so many ways! It's incredibly refreshing. 

Well, I'm off to lesson plan for next week, and menu plan as well so that I can shop tomorrow morning. If you happen to be at the grocery store at 6 am- I'll probably see you there, Starbucks in hand!

Another Campbell Discovers the Joy of Reading...

We've only been doing school for three weeks.  She's not supposed to read her first word for at least another three weeks. We've only just begun blending. And yet, yesterday, Ellie picked up a book and read it to me. Granted, she already knew her letter sounds. But still, she's only four years old, and I'm so proud of her! Way to go, girl!

Bodily functions... and other more appropriate topics

I try to teach my kids manners. Really, I do. But those of you who have boys know that they have a natural aversion to manners, and a natural affinity for... well, bodily function jokes. I say natural because it isn't something that's taught- no, they are born doing these things. 

Point in case: Vance has taken to letting out an extremely loud "belch" every time he takes a drink of something. No matter where we are. Or who's around. 

You may have to pause my awesome music (at the bottom left of the page) to hear this....

Seriously. Whose kid is that anyway? I had to video tape it because I knew that none of you would believe that my sweet, little Vancey could do such a thing! Sometimes he'll even stand up and hold out both of his arms before he does it. Now, I realize that laughing is just encouraging it, but come on, I dare you not to laugh. 

Ellie is going to be a stylist when she grows up! How do I know this? Because, she gave herself her SECOND self haircut! So my little pixie fairy now has cute, pixie fairy hair. I think it really suits her, what do you think? 

And Lilah is showing off her newest skill... sitting up on her own! Another month gone by, another milestone reached, another baby of mine growing up far too quickly. 

I'm getting the urge....

To change my blog design....

I know, I just can't help it. 

So don't be too surprised if we look a bit different soon.