Did I mention that our pumpkins were traditional with a twist. The baby eating pumpkin received the most comments. Erica, if you still want me to, I would love to watch your children for you while you are in Paris. HEHEHE

It was an ambitious carving year. We carved six pumpkins all and all. The kids loved eating the pumpkin seeds. (Notice how Harry is standing in the prep sink in order to clean the pumpkin out.)

Well if you can't carry it, at least sit on it. Harry wore himself out running all over the pumpkin patch. He decided to take a rest while waiting for the hayride.

26th annual Olympic Marathon

Ok, sorry everyone for not adding to the cool blog, Erica, I can't believe you called me out! HAHA oh well. So I ran a 42Km/26Mi marathon today and did really well! I finished at 4 hours and 42 minutes! Not bad for 0 training! The furthest I had run before this was 6 miles! My knees and legs are pretty much shot right now! I must admit, it was probably the proudest moment in my life, next to Erica's birth. But we all know how that's turned out! Anyways, let me paint the scene for you all. We got on a bus at 0700, and rode out to the town of Marathon, Greece. 26 miles away from some of the origianl Greek stadiums, for Olympics. Once we arrived, I met up with a few other people from Sigonella, Italy. We all agreed on a time of 10 minute miles. That's a nice and easy pace, not to kill us. So we start off, the helicopter is trying to get everything it can on film, baloons are flying, and we were pretty much walking out of the gate since there was so many people! This walk lasted a good 2 Km! So yeah like 100 yards after the start point, there were already like 10 runners watering trees! It was priceless! I saw a man dressed up like a Roman soldier, a marathon superman costume, and a lot of Greek athletic dresses. They had water stations every 2-4 Km. We started off making a huge circle around some a tomb of the original Olympians of old. It was just this huge mount in this protected field. Then we started ou 89% uphill run towards the finish. Now 89% was not the actual grade, it was just a nice (not) uphill climb the whole way! We were 6 Americans stong, until 21Km. The half way point. Our pacer fell back, and 4 others stayed with him. Myself and another guy pushed on. I was doing great, giving kids high fives as they cheered us on. Shortly after i got the great idea to try to give some Police Officers the same gesture. Well census showed that the majority were too busy listening to Walkmans or smoking cigerettes to give me a high five, but I did get two! YAY!!! So yeah continuing on, I could not believe the amount of trash that we would throw on the streets after a water station. You're supposed to take a few swiggs of water and toss the bottle of water to the side, when you're done! It kinda turned into a game, to see who could make the biggest explonsion. So 32Km into this bad boy, I was nowhere close to being tired. However my legs were really starting to hurt! I was feeling a lot of pain in my knees and hammies! I stopped off at a few medical stations to get icy/hot put on my legs and wobble off. This was to be the longest 10 Km in my life! (6 more miles) I had to stop at one point, and almost fell out cause my leg went numb, and I didn't know if I was going to catch myself on the next impact. But I had to push on! When I got to the last 120 meters of the race we entered into the statium, to a lot of cheering people! At this point my adreniline kicked in and I spotted my friend Alex, who ran the 5K and was finished way before me. He snapped a picture and cheered me in. I got my medal, and hobbled right into the medical tent where they proceeded to ice my knees and then wrap them, free of charge. I limped all the way to a taxi, got in and returned to the hotel for a nap. So there you have it, that was my first ever marathon, with very little training. I almost cried when I finished, not from the pain, but from the sheer accomplishment, I had just finished THE origianl Olympic Marathon. After getting home to the hotel, I took off my bloody socks, fell into bed, and took a good 1 hour long nap. Now I'm sore as all can believe!

Ricky likes his new little brother. This was taken shortly after we came home with Blake.

Pumpkins smell gross

Deon's first pumpkin! She didn't want to put her hands in it like Jeff did... weird.. She did enjoy watching us carve it though and pull out the pieces.

Halloween

So we figured out how to download pictures!!yeah! So, if any of you come to visit, you can visit our 4 story, very fun childrens museam with us!!! The kids loved the curious george exhibit.

Hailey is obsessed with her unbrella...need I say more

We had a lot of fun for Halloween. Hailey decided to be sleeping beauty and a fairy, and Tyler decided to be Buzz Lightyear's lesser known twin, buzz lightyear pirate.

The dress Hailey is wearing was given to us from some nice sisters in our ward. It is very difficult getting her to take it off.

This was Hailey's disaster castle cake, that I helped make. (The disaster began when I started to help) I did not know you can not stack moist cakes...so for future reference do not use moist cake mixes when stacking a castle. Not too long after this picture, the whole backside of the cake fell! I am thinking about writing a cook book entitled "what not to do in the kitchen"

We had fun carving pumpkins.. Hailey and I lasted about 5 minutes, the boys spent a good hour and a half perfecting theirs.

Tyler got to bring the class pet home for the weekend. Unfortunately we kept forgetting we had her, so we didn't have much to write in the school journal..(lets just say she took a lot of cat naps). The first night we accidently closed her into the ball pit, thankfully we found her the next day after we tore Grandma Airplanes bed apart. (Our ball pit transitions into a bed (thanks to my handy husband)).