Pumpkin Carving

It's that time of year! We've gone to the pumpkin patch and it was time to carve the pumpkins. Now, it's been a super long time since I've carved, the last few years we've either painted or did the "Potato Head" pokers for faces. We picked up the carving party pack from Walmart and were on our way. We had high hopes for our pumpkins, picking out pirate faces and such, but most of our pumpkins were a little on the small side, so we made it work.

Opening Cody's monster pumpkin, EWWW!

Tyler digging at one of his.

Cody finally getting into it, once I found him some gloves that were way to big.

Our carving was done over 3 days, first being the cleaning of the two. Then the next night, Keith was home and helped to clean out the other three and start getting pictures carved.

Tyler happy with the face he picked out.

Concentrating

Cody's ghost.

Tyler getting into carving on his 2nd pumpkin.

Tyler carving another face on his monster pumpkin.

"Take a picture of my pumpkins!"

Finished face, he did the eyes and nose, I helped with the mouth.

4 of 5...

Candle testing

3rd day was today, I finished carving my pumpkin. Had to get all fancy with it of course.

As some of you know, the boys now have a computer set up in the living room. They love it! FIL built it from a couple he had, and an extra monitor we had. It's set up so that I can surf on it on my own user, then the boys have their users so we aren't messing with each other's things!

Training: last week and this week...

Well in less than a week, I'll be jogging around Apple Hill!

The last couple of weeks have been slow on the training. I wrote my last post just after getting home from a 3.5 mile run, feeling good and working out my normal aches and pains post run. Well, one stuck around. Seams like everytime I get something going, something like this happens. But pushing through, hopefully it won't keep me out for long.

So Tues was a resting day because I couldn't walk without significant pain in my foot.

Thur I eased back in and ran 2 miles before going to school with Ty. It was fine while running, but after, and the few days after, were not the best. Paced back down to 19:22, but some of that is pushing Ty up hills, curbs and guiding him along a couple of street areas.

This weekend brought more rest, planned on running on Sunday, but it crept away. So today, Ty and I put down 3 miles after dropping Cody off at school. It felt good, but my foot hurts this evening, but pace was back down to 18:35 so improving and loving it!

The plan for the week is to take it easy, no more running until Sunday, but getting a little more time on my bike to keep endurance up.

I feel confident for Sunday, I'm not going to be speedy, but I'm going to finish.

So things are set and almost ready. Any suggestions a good running belt for storing my phone, keys, ID & cash? Need to pick one up for the race as I think the rest of the family is meeting me there.

Mom and Ty at the Pumpkin patch, Jog-A-thon...

So for the second time in two weeks, Tyler's pumpkin patch field trip had to be postponed, then canceled because of the rain. He was bummed, so trying to make the 3 year old happy, we found another patch close to the house and went on an adventure on Wed. (Pumpkin Hill on Kenneth)

Petting the llama, then it stood up and we promptly left him alone.

little bunny...

Aarrr, Tyler the pirate!

We hopped on the hay ride and went out to the fields, pretty scarce, but Ty found a nice pumpkin in this mix.

"Huh, a little tiny pumpkin"

On the way back on the hay ride, cheesy.

Really, it wasn't that painful.

Then we made our way to the bounce houses, Ty's shoes guarded our pumpkin.

Boing!

Aahhh!

He lapped around about 20 times on this thing.

On our way out we hit the rope swing.

It's a cute little pumpkin patch, if you are needing to hit one last minute. While we were there, two small preschool groups were there, so not very busy. He had fun and that's what counts.

Thurs was Cody's Jog-A-Thon at school, supposed to be last week, but the rains got in the way.

Waiting with the Kindergarten classes

Lined up, tally sheets in hand.

Working hard, he ran 8 laps in 15 minutes!

At the end, all the runners had a treat of juice popsicles, yum! It's fun to go to these sort of special events, can't wait for more.

Family Pumpkin Patch trip...

Have I mentioned how much I love this time of year? Really I do, I LOVE going to the pumpkin patch, all the fall colors and the fun that comes with Halloween. Sunday we were up bright and early, loaded up Virginia and Eli and pointed the van towards Bishops. This place get better every year, except that it's so well known it's usually packed. We got there early though, so we breezed through and were out by the time the places was super packed.

Tyler

Cody

The Barn slide

Aunt Virginia helping Ty with the scoopers.

How can you walk past without playing? Come on!
Even the adults have fun here.

Feeding the goats

Much improved from last year, Ty didn't run away screaming!

Showing of his bravery

They hay jump, mattresses under the hay

riding the train

Giant pumpkins

Virginia and Eli

The pig races, official NASPIG sanctioned race.

Don't remember them jumping last year?

When did they get so tall?

Ahh...

On the hay ride to the pumpkin fields.
Ty said it was his favorite part.

On the hunt

Found it!

The most glorious find in the fields, the official butt pumpkin..

Oh butt pumpkin, how we wish we could take you home. Alas, none of us could come up with anything that wasn't wildly inappropriate to do with said pumpkin. So it was left for someone else. 10 years and we'll be on that hunt again.

Finally, Cody settled on a pumpkin, he looks so thrilled.

All of our pumpkins

Tyler was supposed to go with his class today to a different patch in town, but the rains came and they cancelled. So we may or may not have more pumpkin fun to come!

PJ night at Barnes and Noble

A couple of Fridays ago we went to Barnes and Noble for a PJ night to benefit Cody's school. Way fun to go out in your pjs!

Highlight of the trip: the train table of course.

Excited to listen to stories.

They read "Where the Wild Things Are" so they are all showing off their monster faces.

Listening...

They topped off the night with hot chocolate, the good kind from Starbucks. Fun!

Training 10/12-10/17

Side note: I've been a very bad blogger, hope to get better about that this week. Look for another post later about the PJ party last Fri and hopefully some new shots from soccer today.

Ugh, bad training week. The rain through me for a loop and I've felt like crap most of the week. You know, scratchy/sore throat, voice in and out, feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest, and by the end of the week it was topped of with congestion. YAY!!
So Tues I popped in my dance workout DVD before Ty went to school and we danced for about 1/2 an hour. Thur I really started feeling crappy, so I didn't do anything. So bad this week, we didn't ride our bikes once to school.

But today, Saturday, I got my booty out of bed and hit the road. 3.5 miles around the hood, running most with a couple 15 sec walking breaks to stretch and boost my attitude. The kicker in all this, by taking the week off, I told myself to push and it worked. My average mile time this morning was 18:48, finishing the 3.5 in 1 hour 5.5 minutes.
Last week's 3 mile run averaged out to 19:23 per mile.
Holy time shaving, Batman!

So, this is it, I'm going to sign up for the race this afternoon. I know I can finish it and have two more weeks to get stronger.

Holy cow, gonna go freak out in the shower now.

****Update****
I did it, I signed up for the race, sent my money. Nov 1st, 2 weeks to go!

Training week 10/5-10/10

Miles people, it's all about the miles...

Tues was the first of the beastly days of millage, starting out with 2 miles of jogging. It went well, only had two small stints of needing to do some long step, leg stretches, so I can't complain. Have mentioned how hilly our neighborhood is, um wow. So I did it, painfully slow at a whopping 40:04 for 2 miles, yep that's would be 20 min miles. But I did it!

Thur was upped to 2.5 miles, same hilly neighborhood, but with a goal to shave some seconds, and it was accomplished. Mile 1 was 19:20, the last 1.5 miles were 29:38, total of 48:58, shaving just over a minute from Tues. Yay, slow but Yay!

Saturday was the big 3 mile day. It went well and seconds were shaved, 1st mile was 19:08 (12 seconds!) the last 2.09 miles were done in 41:02 averaging out to 19:50ish, not quite 20 min.

So I now know that I can put down the mileage needed for the harvest run in a few weeks, hopefully next weekend I can get things together and enter. It's gonna be a slow race, taking over an hour to complete, but I'm excited to start and finish.

After this weeks running, I've set a new goal. I'm still going to keep training, and hit some races in the spring, but I really want to get my mile time down to a respectable time. Not exactly sure what the time is quite yet, probably around 15-16 min, then resume training for longer races, like a 1/2 marathon sometime in the late spring/early summer. I'm going to start searching out a new training program to start in January, and spend Nov/Dec getting a little faster, and hopefully a little lighter.

Landscaping and 12 weeks until Christmas!

So Sunday brought some impromptu landscaping. Not really sure why but the rocks were moved and are now all in a cluster. Next move is to put a border around them and fill the area with small landscaping rocks. There are so many roots around the trees that have surfaced that the grass just won't grow, even with the sprinklers worked. After that we'll plan to do some digging and fix the sprinklers, till the lawn up and spread some seed down.

You can see to the right where the rocks were, the bare patches.

The crater left in the front corner from the smaller rock.

Newly clustered.

In other news, it's October which means there are only 12 weeks until Christmas! Last night I pulled out a sewing project that was back shelved last year, due to me trying to chop my finger off with my rotary cutter. I'm getting back on track, making the boys floor pillows for the front room. It's a pieced together top that is a pattern meant as a dog bed, but it's cute and the boys will love them. I'm also thinking they need some super hero capes and maybe eye masks to go with them (I'll have to shop my fabric now while all the costume things are on sale!).

I've also been able to start a small amount of shopping, getting a couple of books for the boys from the 1st book order at school. This year the boys are asking Santa for cameras and scooters, making me a wee bit scared for the financials, but it's working out. With Keith's grandmother passing last month, his mom gave us her camera. It's only about 3 years old and hardly used, super simple and perfect for Cody. Then I was cruising Ebay and found the kids camera for Tyler, one I had looked for at Toys R Us for $50, found a brand new one for $20 including shipping. Score! So half of the major wish list is taken care of.

Hopefully if we can spread it out over the next few months, it will all come together.

Training week 9/28-10/3

Well, another week down and more confident each day!

Tue and Thur were the same; 36 minutes switching between 8 min run and 1 min walk. It felt good and by the 2nd time I felt as though I could go further. Tues was fun because we had Ty's field trip, so as soon as we dropped Cody off he rode his bike and I ran with him, not an easy thing. Thur was back to solo and went much smoother.
For today I was to run for 20 min without walking, then finish off the training with 10 more minutes of running and occasional walking if needed. I knew this was coming and every time I've seen it, I got a little scared and discourage Run for 20 min straight, are they nuts? But today was the day and it went fine! I ran for 20 min, then walked about 45 second as a boost and got back at it, ran some more and took another 45 second break after a couple of hills. Go me!
Starting next week, there are no longer times on my training calendar, just miles, yep, miles in the plural form. I checked and today's run was 1.5 miles, don't do the math because yes, I'm really that slow. So I will have to revise my route and start Tues with a 2 mile jog. Then, step it up to 2.25 on Thur and go from there.
The harvest run is in 4 week and it finally seams like an obtainable goal, it's only 3.5 miles, although hilly, but I run with hills now. I guess I should get off my butt and sign up already!

Now the scale, it's not on my good side at all. When I weighed on Tues it had gone down .5, alright, finally moving in the right direction! Thur it was down another 1.2 lbs, okay, that's a good thing. Then today it's back up 2 lbs, well crap! So, nothing is holding at this point, but at least it's not the 5 lbs swing it took a couple of weeks ago.