Cortney's Crew

Almost two weeks ago we went to the pumpkin patch with my friend Beth and her kids. Beth took some awesome photos for me! And the girls picked great pumpkins. Then yesterday we carved our pumpkins. I was lazy this year and just looked up free stencils on the internet. Alexandra picked: And had Dean carve it for her. Riley picked: And she carved it all by herself (and mostly cleaned it by herself.) And I thought I'd try something a little bit more difficult: I had to glue part of the "O" back in! We had a huge scare though when we went to light the candles. Dean started on Alexandra's pumpkin and apparently the lighter had a fluid leak so when he pulled the lighter out it started a huge fireball around his hand. Luckily only the fluid burned up. Dean is okay (other then a few singed arm hairs) and the carpet where he dropped the lighter didn't get burned at all. So Dean has learned if you feel the fluid coming out stop lighting it!! We found another li...

When we first bought the house we were "warned" by the previous owners that we would have a lot of leaves to rake....little did we know.... The first year we thought - How beautiful! How fun! We spent hours raking the leaves into piles and then let the girls jump in them. Because we were tired from the hours of raking we unfortunately left the piles on the lawn and it snowed....which resulted in several dead spots of grass when spring came. Needless to say we learned our lesson. The next year we were very tempted to take up the little kid who knocked on the door when he offered to rake our lawn for $10. Unfortunately I didn't have any cash, plus I would have felt horrible making him rake it all for only $10. Eventually it either got raked or mowed up, I don't remember. Plus I have avoided the leaves since I learned my lesson the first year. Last year I had my mom get Dean a leaf blower (I'm pretty sure it was his birthday present). So last year he vacuumed...

Scarlett can now say "I love you!" It's super cute even when she's screaming it because she's upset. I tried to get some video of it. The first she's just being super cute, but I get her to say it in the 2nd video! In fact as I was sitting here looking through the videos on the computer she keeps saying it, but I know if I get the camera out she'll clam up!

The last week in October is Red Ribbon Week. This is a week that schools promote being drug free in remembrance of a DEA agent who was tortured and killed while undercover in Mexico investigating drug cartels. Last year I was in charge of the weeks activities and handouts. I had heard about this assembly that the CO National Guard would do for schools, but it was past the deadline for us to sign up. I asked the principal if I could try for it this year and he told me yes. So during September I contacted the CO National Guard and got the application and sent it back in. Luckily we have a big field so we were able to pick having a helicopter come to the school. If you can't have a helicopter you can get a Humvee instead. The entire school gathered on the field while we waited. At first the helicopter flew over. And then the two National Guard members who were on the ground held the radio up to the PA system and the kids got to hear the pilot say he was lost and ask if the kid...

So time to play catch up again. Although from now on I'm not going to say anything about catching up...it makes me feel like a slacker. Our school does field day at the beginning of the year. Because the girls are far enough apart grade-wise I end up being at the school all day long. Riley's was in the morning. I loved watching the Omnikin. So did Scarlett. She kept trying to crawl down to get the "BALL!" Then we ate lunch in Alexandra's classroom and got to watch her in the afternoon. She loved the hurdles. She was so proud of herself for not knocking any down at all. They played Omnikin too, but with a much smaller ball. By this point in the afternoon Scarlett was beyond exhausted but I couldn't get her to take a nap. Every time the kids would jump she would laugh hysterically at them. Some of the kids loved it and then others were trying to figure out why she was laughing at them. It was a very long day, but I always love to watch the girls particip...