Pumpkins for Home...

So this weekend Brandon and Austin finally got around to trying to carve a pumpkin.  And I use the word try loosely because the one pumpkin they carved didn't turn out too great!  First off we used smaller pumpkins because we couldn't find a decent looking big pumpkin at our Wal-Mart and then the patterns we had were big so I shrunk them down on the scanner to make it fit.  And after all that Brandon decided to freehand a spider because that's what Austin wanted.  Let's just say we're NOT pumpkin carvers in our family.  So they carved the one pumpkin and I let Austin paint the second one.  What a mess that was, but he enjoyed it.

The result is this most pitiful looking spider.  I have no idea why Brandon made its legs so little.  I'm not an artist so I can't judge, but it really looks awful.  And of course this green pumpkin that we have was about 10 different colors before it ended up looking like this.  It was so wet and messy when he was done.

And Pumpkins for School...

The next pictures are paper bag pumpkins. I painted and stuffed 13 paper sacks for Austin's preschool party that is going to be on Friday. I'm going to let the kids draw faces on their pumpkins. There's only so many crafts that you can do with a class full of 3 year olds and this one will be easy and not so messy.

This is the bags prior to stuffing.  I had to paint one side at a time and let them dry before going to the other side. 

And after stuffing them and tieing them up with rubberbands and wrapping a pipe cleaner around the rubberband.  I also cut part of the top off to make the stems shorter.

I thought they turned out cute.

And a couple pics of my little man outside playing.  He's sporting his camo rubber boots.  It's very rare that you'll see him in anything other than John Deere boots or his rubber boots.  He's just a little redneck, what can I say!?!

You can't see it in the picture but the winch cable is actually attached to the 4 wheeler.  This is our old non-running 4 wheeler and Brandon is pulling it with the other 4 wheeler while Austin is "driving"!  You know we have to move our junk around to other places in the yard so that I can gripe about something else. Ha! Ha!

Like Father...

Like son.  Sunday was Austin's first official time to go deer hunting with his Daddy.  They were both so excited and of course the little man was dressed to match the big man!

And here they go headed to the woods.  I just can't believe my baby is getting to be such a big boy!  It makes me happy and sad all at the same time.

And here are a few extra pics that we took.

We had taken several pictures and at this point he was tired of it.  I thought it was cute!

And here Austin is with Frankenstein.  He "caught" him and tied him to the tree!  He tells us that when Halloween is over that he'll untie him and let him go!  Gotta love that imagination he's got.

I Can Skin a Buck, I Can Run a Trotline...

(or in this case a doe), but a country boy can survive. Austin was helping his daddy grind up deer meat last night. Glad he doesn't mind helping because me and the smell of raw deer meat...well let's just say it's not good!

Simple Simon Was A Pieman...

Or in this case Austin was making pies.  Pumpkin and Chocolate pies to be exact.  He's been asking for pumpkin pie for a few days so we made one today.  Not that he's actually going to eat any of it because he generally doesn't eat many sweets except suckers and birthday cake, but none the less we made pumpkin pie.  So here is our Sunday in pictures.  Enjoy!

Getting his "Science Guy" gear on for the pie making.  Not sure why he chose to be "Science Guy", but whatever!

Our finished product.

Working on the chocolate pie.  Ayla is stirring and Austin is getting the butter unwrapped.

And putting the butter in...he was so excited.

And now the pet milk.  If nothing else my child will no how to cook.  Just in case he gets a wife that can't!

Our chocolate pie.  This was the 1st time I've made meringue and it just wasn't pretty and fluffy like my Nanny used to make.  It tasted good, but just not pretty.

And for our 3rd sweet for the day it was cupcakes for his class at school.

Can you tell I had help with the sprinkles?  They were everywhere.

It's Popeye the Sailor Man!

And here is Austin's cupcake.  Do you think he likes sprinkles?

Let's not miss this one black one left in the lid!

Fall Is In the Air...

Or at least at the Pumpkin Patch.  On Saturday I loaded up Austin, Ayla & Scooter and headed to Mottley's Pumpkin Patch in Little Rock.  It's a smaller patch, but they still have plenty to do for the little ones that it's not too overwhelming.  After a couple of hours at the pumpkin patch we headed to Chuck E. Cheese for a little pizza and a whole lot of game playing.  I'll have to admit that I kinda like playing the games too.  Skee Ball is by far my favorite and I did play a little of that.  We had a bunch of coins so they got to play for a while.  So here are a few photos from our day!  Thanks Mamaw and Papaw for sending us to the pumpkin patch...we sure had a good time!

Yee-Haw!  Ridin' the Horsey!

Checking out the Gourds

I had the hardest time getting him to pose for pictures so I only got a couple of decent ones

Riding the Cow Train

Austin, Ayla & Scooter (cousins)

Counting his pumpkins.  He only wanted little pumpkins.

My sweet little man!

Scooter & Austin

You Are Not Willy Wonka....

And we certainly don't live at the chocolate factory, but tonight it looked we did!  Apparently while Austin was supposed to be playing and watching TV in his room he was having fun with the chocolate and strawberry syrup!  He had got the syrups out of the fridge without us knowing and when he was done and came to me this is what he looked like.

He had chocolate all over him!!  It was caked in his hair.  Oh what a mess it was!!  So then he said "mama come look at my room" and honestly I didn't even want to go look because I knew it was gonna be bad...and it was.

Just look at that mess.  So after a spanking and a 2nd trip to the bathtub for Austin, Brandon and me spent the next 1 1/2 hours cleaning up this mess.  It was all over his toys, his chalkboard, his bed, pillows, his chair...EVERYTHING!!!  We had to just throw away his area rug because there was just no cleaning that mess.  The toys all got a bath in the tub and the washer was full of sticky sheets, stuffed animals and even a sticky comforter.  I have never seen such a mess in all my life.

Here is his bed

And his table

And these two bottles caused it all...along with a little help from a 3 year old!

While we were cleaning up I found the two empty bottles hid in the corner.  Not sure why he did that because it's not like we didn't know that he made the mess.  Brandon and I had to laugh about it just a little because he was so proud of what he had done.  Of course we didn't laugh in front of him about it because we DO NOT want a repeat performance!!

Everybody Put Your Seatbelt On

This is just random, but I thought it was funny.  As we were headed down the driveway one day Austin asked if we all had our seatbelts on.  After finding out that we did he decided that Woody needed to be in a seatbelt too, because after all "it's the safety thing to do" he says!  So when I looked back this is what I found...

He wanted to make sure that Woody was safe too.  I'm really surprised that Buzz wasn't stuffed in on the other side!

Crusin' the Dunes...

Or better known to us as riding around DeGray Lake in the boat!  We went camping at DeGray for the July 4th holiday.  Austin, me, and my niece Ayla went up on Tuesday night and Brandon didn't come til Friday night.  We had a really good time just relaxing and doing nothing but swimming, playing on the playground and swimming some more!  I forgot my camera at home so I've only got a couple of pics from my phone.  Brandon brought the boat up with him so on Saturday while we were out riding Austin wanted to know if we were cruising the dunes...I'd say he watches too much of the Backyardigans!  So here are a couple of pics from one of the boat rides.