Jack's Prized Pumpkin and Jack'O'Lantern

One of my favorite memories from my childhood was a year where we kids participated in the garden. My mom split the garden into three parts and each kid got to plant whatever we wanted. We took radish seeds (since they grow the fastest) and planted them in the shape of our initials to label our plot. We were responsible for weeding and maintaining our garden. I remember I wanted to grow corn and peas and carrots. Everything grew well except for the carrots because in order to see if they were ready to be pulled, you had to pull one out so that by harvest time there were no carrots left to pull. We got special seeds from J&L that were to grow big pumpkins and we were entered in a contest for that fall. We each one a ribbon and my brother Robby won a little squirrel lawn gnome that still resides in my parents backyard, in the corner with the other tacky animal statues. Laura says its a part of our family because it's been there as long as she remembers. Anyway, I always wanted to participate in this tradition with my own children.

This year, Jack got a seed from Grandma Mushy and planted it in a little cup, way back in March or so. He stared at that dirt for 2 days waiting for it to sprout. Luckily it sprouted quickly and grew into a large plant. He named his pumpkin "Max." Jack would check on Max in the greenhouse every day and he compared it to my belly saying, "Baby brother is growing bigger bigger like my pumpkin." My parents went out of town for a few days and while they were gone, Jacks pumpkin died, but my Mom quickly replaced it and we all figured that what he doesn't know couldn't hurt him. We transplanted the pumpkin to our yard and Jack and I watered it every other day all summer long. It ended up growing two big pumpkins.

(Max weighed in at 52 pounds and 8th place)

We took the larger looking one down to J&L and entered it in the Great Pumpkin Contest. It was free and we thought Jack would have fun. He didn't quite understand though, so when I put his pumpkin down and the put a pin in it with his name on it and then we had to leave it, he started throwing a major fit. He cried and said he didn't want to leave his pumpkin. Embarrassing for me since I was trying to tell the J&L people, "Oh, yeah, this is his pumpkin and he totally wants to do this contest." I lost my keys and wandered around the parking lot for a half hour with him screaming that he wanted his pumpkin back. Every day he wanted to visit his pumpkin, but I was afraid of a repeat tantrum when we had to leave it, so we waited until the contest was over and we went to pick up Max. The only other pumpkins that were there were 2 grown by our neighbor, one that won the state record at 11 hundred pounds or something crazy like that, and one nearly that big grown by J&L. Jack's pumpkin had weighed in at 51 pounds and was given an 8th place ribbon. I doubt there was more than 8 pumpkins entered. I hadn't realized they would be judged on weight alone, I thought maybe Jack would win for "prettiest pumpkin" or "youngest pumpkin grower." The J&L people were very nice though, we won a drip system for watering pumpkins (or flower boxes) and a $10 gift certificate- pretty good for a free contest, even if it's not a squirrel gnome. Jack was happy with his pink ribbon and even consented to let us carve it into his JackO'lantern.

Michael Phelps stinks!

It all started a few weeks ago when my sister Laura came to stay with us for a few days while Adam was working a lot. Whenever I play with Laura, I have lots of fun and sometimes crazy things happen like painting new art for my wall, crazy expensive pedicures (we didn't realize they were charging per toe...), painting her dining set to resemble Cafe Rio chairs-that one turned out really cute. Anyway, we went to Petco in Sugarhouse to watch her roommate Summer's little hamster compete in the Hamster Olympics. She was actually grateful that we showed up with Jack so that she wasn't the only college student beating out a bunch of nine-year-olds for a little plastic trophy. We had so much fun cheering her hamster, named Michael Phelps, who ended up taking first place and winning his own hampster race track.

Summer and Laura told me that Jack absolutely needed a hamster of his own and that it would be so easy to take care of and Jack would learn responsibility... bla..blabbidy..bla..bla..bla... So I bought a cage, a miniature hamster, and some recycled fluff stuff for bedding. On our way home I texted Adam and asked how he felt about very small animals and he wrote back, "I hate them why??" We brought our hamster home and surprised him and, like the great Daddy that he is, he was an excellent sport.

When I asked Jack what our hamster should be named he said, "Michael Phelps." Since our hamster is a she, we tried to talk him into more appropriate names like Ginger, Suzie, Gidget, or Janet Evans but he wouldn't hear of it. So our hamster is Michael Phelps too, and I don't think that she minds all that much. In my mommy heart, I had envisioned that we would all hold our little hamster and he would crawl up our arms and we would hand feed him carrots, raisins, and apples, but it seems that our Michael Phelps thinks that anything that enters his cage is edible and must be nibbled- especially fingers. So that combined with the storekeeper putting Michael Phelps in Jack's hands and him getting scratched has made Jack terrified of Michael Phelps. Adam has been bit and now will only pick him up with a dish towel. I am trying to train him to go into his ball on his own so he can run and we can clean his cage. I hate cage cleaning! Summer said she cleans hers once a week, but Michael Phelps poops a lot! We call his wheel the "poop flinger." His whole corner of the room stinks and since Adam is claiming immunity because getting a hamster was not his idea, I get to clean it several times a week. Just what I needed, one more thing to take care of. What happened to my visions of a loving pet family? Maybe we are just not ready for pets- after all, before we had children, we practiced on fish and had a 75% mortality rate. Speaking of fish, you really need to read my sister Laura's narration on our other Petco purchase that day: Feeder Fish.

(Just for clarification, I don't think the real Michael Phelps stinks, I think he is an amazing athlete with big flipper feet,

and since we wanted our hamster to take the GOLD and be speedy speedy, we figured it a suitable name)

New reasons to blog

I have increased my blogging this month for two reasons:

1. I found out you can turn your blog into a book using sites like blurb which is way cool, because that was holding me back. I thought that if I was going to spend time writing about events and posting pictures, then I should scrapbook so I'd have a hard copy. By blogging about it and printing it into a book, I will be able to do way more journaling, and it will be like a journal and a scrapbook (both of which I have struggled to do regularly). So that is very motivating to me- and SO much easier than getting all the scrapbook stuff out.

2. My friends from my old ward in Bountiful found me and I started reading their blogs and found out about posting links as blogs rather than links, and then you can list what time friends post and the name of their post, which lets me see at a glance, who has something new to say, rather than randomly checking for updates. It also tells me the title of their post and i can guess if it's something that looks interesting to me... ;) I've been surprised how many people update almost daily and I've found that there really is something to say every day (like a journal) and it's just too addicting to find out all this fun stuff about my friends and family. (And I want to keep myself near the top so that's more motivation to keep posting).

So yeah, Adam says I'm addicted to blogging now, and maybe it's just a trend, but I'm having fun and for a semi-stay at home Mom, it helps me feel connected.

7 interesting things

#7 I like the Hannah Montana sitcoms- embarrassing but true. I think they are funny.

#6 About dating Adam: I don't consider our first two dates as dates because at the time my friend was "in-like" with Adam and I didn't want to hurt my friend. But, he ended up telling my friend that he wasn't ready to date anyone seriously, just to end up proposing to me five months later... :)

#5 On our first non-date-outing thing, Adam took me skiing and on our way to the lift for our first run, Adam ducked under a rail in his florescent 80's style snow-pants (he's from park City and doesn't like to look like a tourist, or apparently like he is from this decade.) As he was ducking under the rail, his pants totally split out! He asked the guy behind the counter if he had any duct tape which the guy handed to me saying he wasn't going there. So there I was on a first date-ish up close and personal taping up my dates behind...

#4 Epidurals hate me, which I didn't realize until my second child two months ago. Jackson was born via emergency c-section and was the worse pain I've ever felt in my life. As a therapist I ask people to label their pain on a scale of 1-10 and often wondered what was the worst pain I had ever felt. As they were cutting me open, the only thing going through my head was, "THIS IS A TEN!!!" With Charlie, I had a V-BAC and had more notice. One epidural failed and barely made my foot tingle and they gave me a second epidural which took all the meds they had and only lasted for about 45 minutes before it wore off and I felt everything again. So next time, I think I'll just do it natural and save my sanity.

#3 I love the color green and every time I buy a new shirt, it is either green or I have to go out of my comfort zone to specifically buy a non-green shirt. Actually this year, I've bought 3 orange shirts- maybe orange is this years green.

#2 I hate being home all day, I get cabin fever easily and just need to get out of my house!!

#1 I love Broadway musicals and try and go to New York at least every other year to catch what new shows are out. I can't listen to them without singing as loud as I can. My cell phone ring is "You can't stop the beat" from Hairspray. I've done shows at Rogers theatre but I've never been the star- that's on my to-do list, someday I'll find my perfect part.

I tag Jen F., Eileen S., Juliann, Sara, Cori, Carrie, and Moo