My Mumpkins

So these are called mumpkins...I guess.

 Mums + pumpkins...get it?

I've seen them on Pinterest before.  I think they're kind of fun...pretty for fall.

I had some gift giving occasions coming up and so I thought I would experiment a little.

Wal Mart had some small mums for $2 and these little pie pumpkins for $3...the perfect size.

I was a bit apprehensive as I thought about the possible outcomes of this project so I also bought some loaves of Great Harvest bread (the BEST! in my opinion btw) as a 'just in case'.

They ended up being quite easy and fast...

It's quite self explanatory but I'll briefly walk you through the steps anyway.

Start by cutting off the top of your cute pumpkins.

Dig your hands in and clean out the insides...just as if you were doing a jack-o-lantern.

Then make bowling balls out of them...

just kidding...that's just what I think of when I look at this picture.

You want some holes in the bottom so the water can drain out when you hydrate your plants.

I just used the tip of my knife to bore the holes in.

Next, take your mum and pull it out of it's container and stuff it into the pumpkin.

They were a bit tight...I had to press quite firmly down on the soil to get it below the rim of the pumpkin but in the end it was just perfect!

Now, tie a cute bow around their middles and you are ready to display them.

I've never been very good at tying bows.  They always end up inside out and upside down...so hopefully yours look a bit better than mine.

 

 I made six and gave most of them away so as soon as I dropped the last one off at it's new home I headed straight back to Wal Mart to get more to make for myself.  Ha!

See?  Easy as {pumpkin} pie.  Needless to say, my family is enjoying the G.H. bread...I really want to put a smiley face here...have you noticed the lack thereof in this post...and the lack of that question mark that was supposed to be right there...and here.

Well, the far right quadrant of my keyboard is not working.  This post has taken much longer than it should since each time I need to type the letter p I have to literally pound on the key several times and then after much force, three or four appear at once.  There are a few keys like this and then others such as the colon, parentheses and question mark that just don't work no matter how hard or long I pound.

Sorry, long explanation...

So there ya go...Mumpkins!

p.s.  I'm a bit concerned about how long they will last.  I'm hoping they won't get mushy and moldy too soon.  I think I saw somewhere to spread vaseline on the inside of pumpkins to make them last longer...or something like that.  If anyone has any tricks or hints or suggestions in this department, please send them my way.

Time Out for Me!

This weekend (Fri. night and Sat.) I was blessed to be able to attend TOFW...Time Out for Women...a weekend full of spiritual speakers and musicians of the LDS faith.

I went with a good friend and her daughter (since this year they started doing a TOFG {time out for girls} next door).

We heard wonderful speakers such as Sherri Dew, Mary Ellen Edmunds, Brad Wilcox, Sandra Turley, Kris Belcher and Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt.

Hillary Weeks and the new Hudson Lights performed too.

 This is Sherri Dew and Hudson Lights.  Our seats weren't the best :)

It was amazing!

Along with all the laughing and crying, the spirit really spoke to my soul and I have a desire to do better.

One of the things I decided I really need to improve upon is my ability to ponder.  My mind wanders much too easily and whenever I try to just think I end up on the other side of the world.  I need to be deliberate with my pondering.

I gained some wonderful insights into my own life and what I need to be doing right now.

This picture makes me smile :)

 Hillary Weeks performed a song about Dancing in the Rain.

Well, this weekend was rather rainy and so many women had umbrellas with them.  During the song, one brave, yet clever lady opened up her umbrella and started swaying and bobbing it in the air to the music.  It didn't take long before many others popped up and soon there was a sea of dancing umbrellas.  It was a fun moment :)

The event was held at the university and while in line to participate in the service project I saw a display of pictures from Holland...I guess Holland has kind of become a thing for me now since this post, so I had to snap a few pictures.

 What a good time!  Again, my sweet husband was so willing to let me go and refill my bucket.

I think he understands how important that can be for me.

Now, I just need to implement what I have learned and think "Higher"!

Things I Wasn't Going to Blog About...

I haven't posted forever....and there have been a few things that have happened that people have said they thought I would blog about, that for some reason or another, I had chosen not to...so for my loyal readers :) here are those few small things...

Our Second Annual Swiss Days Extravaganza!

My cute SIL, Jenny, and I brought matching bags (unplanned) to haul all the goods in.

 Cute and colorful!

 We about bought out the Food Nanny of all of her cookbooks :)

 I love the fairy garden booth!

My sweet MIL is so generous and giving.  She was in a booth and the woman mentioned that her daughter had made this little doll so what was Nancy to do but buy it?  

It was much hotter this year than last but it was still great fun.  I ended up buying mostly clothes of all things (along with a few, fun little crafty things.)

Andy brought the kids down that night and we were able to enjoy the rest of the weekend together.

Thanks sweetie (and all of my babysitters :) for allowing me to have this fun time!

Mr. & Mrs. Pillowcases

I'm kind of embarrassed to post this next item since it didn't turn out the way I had hoped.

I have a good friend that is getting married and for her gift I wanted to try making some fun pillowcases.

I was rushed when I made them (my fault:) and I just wasn't happy with the final product, but what could I do?  I had to leave for the shower in minutes and so I wrapped them up and took them.

#1 Disappointment:  The markers bled.  I was hoping that these fabric markers I bought specifically for this project would not bleed.  Does anyone out there know of a brand of fabric markers that don't bleed at all?

#2 Disappointment:  I got into that ridiculous, vicious cycle of drawing too far off my first line and so I had to fill in to make it look like I meant it to be a thick line...etc. etc.

Next time (if there is one) I would definitely use stencils or something because I'm very frustrated with how my lettering turned out.

At least they were made with love right?!

PCMC - Diet Follow Up

Have I mentioned we've been on this diet for a year?!

I figured it was about time we saw the dietician again since it had been close to 10 months since we saw her last.

Andy was able to take part of the day off and go down with us.  That relieved much of my stress right there since I don't like to drive on the freeway.

Ben was kind of a pill in the office.  It's always sad to me when he is grumpy around other people because then they can't see what a sweetheart he usually is.  I guess we're all entitled to grumpiness every now and then right?

I had to make sure that my expectations of only being on the diet another 10 1/2 months was realistic.  I didn't want to plan on being done at the 2 year mark only to find out that they had something else in mind.

They said we could plan on trying to wean him off over the course of a few months next August.  Awesome!

According to her and the neurologist, everything looked good but they wanted to do labs and just make sure his blood was fine.

We had to take a detour to see the "Meemos" first in hopes to make him happy before they poked him.

Ben loves these fish that swim around in a big glass case on a little motorized belt.

The draw was traumatic as we had anticipated, but another visit to the fish and we were good :)

Sometimes it doesn't seem worth it to go all the way down to Salt Lake for such a short visit, especially since it seems we could do the exact same things with our pediatrician right here, but oh well.

Something good that came out of it though was that they have determined some substitutions for some of the expensive supplements that we have been having to order online.  Now we can just get a couple of them at the grocery store for much less money.  That will be nice:)

Ben, Ben, and more Ben

Ben had his first day of school this week.

The bus caught me off guard by coming sooner than expected so I forgot to get a picture before school.  

I had the presence of mind to get one (or more :) when he came home though.

Ignore the gigantic crack between the sidewalk and our steps because I'm too lazy to go back and crop it out :)

He came home happy as ever so I assumed he had a really good day.

I was worried about transitioning to a new school, new teachers and a new bus driver and aide but really, things have gone without a glitch.

Have I mentioned that all four of the kids are in the same school this year?  I love that!

Next year Josh will move on to middle school and Ben will be bussed to a different elementary school for the K-3 years...so I will cherish and enjoy this year :)

Looking back...

I found a few pictures from earlier this summer that I thought should make it into a post...

Ben makes an awfully cute doctor don't you think?

We had some fires on the mountainside near our home a couple of weeks ago.

It was quite smokey for several days.

Andy took these shots walking home from church with Ben while the rest of us stayed for choir practice.

Andy sent this one to me in a text with the following caption:

"Ben, happy in the Shire before his quest to destroy the ring in Mt Doom."

Ha!  Love that husband of mine :)

I had a few sweet family and friends call/email me today making sure I had seen this:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56788108-78/marijuana-utah-medical-stockton.html.csp
(I think it's kind of funny that the author made such a point of the family being LDS :) 
 

It's been such a hot topic of late.  We've read and heard other stories of kids with Dravet having miracle-like benefits from medical marijuana. It was fun to see a story about it from within our own state.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.

A Celebration of Many Purposes

We gathered at Andy's grandparents' home on Saturday for a combined celebration.

We celebrated his 87th birthday, her 90th birthday and their 70th wedding anniversary.

The kids certainly enjoyed themselves!

Uncle Johnny leading all the kids in singing "Happy Everything" to Grandpa and Grandma

The cute couple of honor

Bingo is always a part of Bryan family gatherings...

Ben had his eye on the giant Mickey Mouse from the very beginning!  Since Andy was feeding Ben inside when Bingo started I had three cards for us and the first one that won I jumped on the Mickey!

I think Ben just kind of assumed it was his since when we handed it to him he didn't seem much more excited than when he first saw it :)

(Why didn't I get a picture of Mickey?)

Sisters, Sisters in law, and niece and nephew.

Josh snagged all the leftover leis.

Abby and Ben and both of their monstrous prizes!  I tried to talk Abby into a smaller bingo prize but she insisted on this giant, pink chair.

Back to School

My 3rd grader, Abby

My 5th grader, Josh

My 1st grader and dual immersion/Spanish student, Matt

Love my cuties!

This is always such an exciting time...for all of us :)

I've never done it in past years, but I thought it would be nice of me to have some fresh out of the oven, chocolate chip cookies for the kids when they got home and they could tell me all about each of their days while we ate.

It was great and I think we need to make it a tradition!

Happy Schooling Everyone!