Stay Puft Marshmallow Pumpkin

 

Maddie and I carved a few more pumpkins tonight because why not?  We didn't have church or taekwondo tonight, so we spent about an hour carving these ones you see above.  Maddie did a simple face that turned out pretty funny, and I did a more elaborate Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, complete with a hat that I made by printing out some graphics I made up.  It all turns out pretty well, and of course I used a white pumpkin for the design.  Here's the rest of our fireplace roster.

Saturday's pumpkins are hanging in there.  Bradley's Pumpkin farm really had some solid pumpkins this year, and this guy might make it to Halloween.  We lit up the four pumpkins and had them on the fireplace tonight as we watched a movie.

Tonight's feature was a new one:  "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice."  It was just a fun nostalgic trip back to a movie from thirty-five years ago, that's all.  These sequels are getting more and more distant from their original features.

The last ten minutes of this movie are the best, though I won't spoil it.  The last forty minutes or so are hilarious and weird, and so overall I'd say we enjoyed it.  It's obviously not the first movie, but it was a fun visit, and I cold see myself watching it again.  It was just great to visit with the cast, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman once again, my heroes from the nineties.

Today Maddie had a good day at school.  The government class has had a funny ongoing competition, one that puts US Presidents into brackets and pits them up against each other.  Different teams of students do presentations on each President, and they go head to head to determine a winner.  So we've been whittling down the Presidents, and the hilarious thing about this class is that presentation is part of the overall determination of who wins.  That being said, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln didn't crush the competition, as you'd expect.  Ronald Regan and Teddy Roosevelt were early casualties too.  Maddie had Lyndon Johnson, and that was a tough road.  So the big question you may be asking is what President made it to the finals?  What if I told you it was Jimmy Carter?  Yeah, Jimmy Carter has been voted one of the top two greatest Presidents of all time!  It's somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek vote mixed with a little bit of respect for the fact that our former President is still alive with a recent birthday, and of course the fun presentations.  We'll see if Jimmy Carter makes it to the top, but I'm betting on our 39th President.

Meanwhile, I was back at school, back at the elementary school for our weekly KidPak after school fun.  We just happened to arrive, however, on Minion Day!

Yeah, everyone was dressed up like a Minion today!  It was crazy.  All you had to do was say the word "banana," and suddenly there were many, many, many little Minions yelling it out:  "BANANA!"  

It was a fun day today.  We closed it out as always with some reading, and then prayers.  Afterwards, it was time to bring the Plush Entourage down the hall to get tucked in, and a good night's rest.

Shelob at the Chiropractor

We were at the chiropractor this morning, and of course they have it all decorated for Halloween.  Or perhaps they have it decorated for the Ephel Dúath Mountains of the border of Mordor, where lurks Shelob, the giant creepy evil spider.  Fortunately, the giant spider wasn't doing any creeping.  We made our way in for our adjustments, gawking at all the seasonal decor.  Lots of bones, as you might expect!

Afterwards, we were over at Cracker Barrel for a nice lunch date together.  Mom got a cowboy hat on sale for our upcoming Christmas party in December, and we had a good meal there.  The place was packed!

Maddie had a good day today meanwhile.  She's with an old-school camera now, learning about film and whatnot.  Remember those days where you had to load a roll of film into the camera, and then afterwards take it to a place to get it developed?  Yeah, those were the days.  Anyway, she's learning about that. 

Of course, tonight was taekwondo.  Afterwards, we picked up a few items at the grocery store, and headed home.  We saw "Beetlejuice" tonight, and pretty much in preparation for the sequel that we'll probably watch tomorrow night.  Love this old movie.  I saw it in theaters four times.  I was hooked on Tim Burton at a very early age.

We read tonight from "Wyrd Sisters," and said our prayers afterwards.  It was a good day today, a slower one compared to all the activity of recent.  And that's okay!

KidPak and a Restful Day

We had another solid day today at KidPak, although I must confess we were a bit tired.  Nothing a little Frog's Breath coffee won't help!  But seriously, we had a great morning with a good message about Night Vision and the Shield of Faith, a bit of the Job story.  The skit team was on point this morning, and Maddie was on hand to take pictures.  The great thing is that the music department and the social media team have used some of Maddie's pictures in their posts online, which is pretty cool.  Here are just a few of the pictures that Maddie has taken this morning:

It was a good morning.  Mom stayed home to rest, and that's good of course.  We brought home some rotisserie chicken and a few other things to put together for food for a lunch.  Mom had it all set up, including the romaine lettuce for a great salad.  Creamed corn too, which was really just perfect for a cold day like today.  Yes, it's chilly outside, and that's supposed to happen, isn't it?

Our day was restful today.  Certainly compared to the last week, so filled with ups and downs of activity.  We finished our "Back to the Future" trilogy tonight with a viewing of the third movie in the trilogy, and watched a video of the ride too, just because.  The collector's set that I got for my birthday in 2015 has so many extra features that I haven't seen them all yet, so many from the archive, plus the entire animated cartoon too.

We read tonight from "Wyrd Sisters," continuing another ongoing story too, with ghosts and witches and all kinds of seasonal fun.  We went to bed after prayers tonight, and got to sleep at a good hour.  It's been a very big week, and it was good to have a restful day.

Pumpkin Carving Party

We had our pumpkin carving party again tonight, and it was really nice today.  Friends started showing up around 3pm or so, and with them came all kinds of snacks and drinks and supplies and laughs and fun!

Here's my pumpkin later on tonight, the one we got from Bradley's Pumpkin farm a few weeks ago.  I went outside of my norm by making an actual face on it, and it turned out pretty well.  Throughout this entry, we'll see pictures of the final lineup, plus everyone together on the back deck leading up to the event.

Bonnie's first pumpkin carving party!  Everyone was super supportive of Mom.  Camille and her mother where here to help with Mom so she didn't work too hard.  The food was plentiful, and the weather outside was ideal beneath our canopy.  We had a few first-time carvers out there too, working away at their designs.

Here's Emma's design.  She actually bedazzled her pumpkin as well, making a simple face on it for fun.  Emma had a great time this afternoon.

Here she is with younger Camille, who also did a nice little pumpkin design too.  The event is BYOP, which means "bring your own pumpkin."  Earlier, Maddie set out all the carving tools on a table, so things were ready to go.

Ah, here's Josh and Pastor Lance working on a pumpkin for Lance's daughters, one with a Barbie face, or at least something close to that.

No, this isn't the Barbie face.  But it'd be pretty interesting to see this on a Barbie face!  This is Josh's usual creative face on a pumpkin, and I just love the size of the chin.

Josh continued to draw the face of the Barbie, and Pastor Lance would then carve out that face later on.  I think you can spot the girl's face on one of these pumpkins below in the final group shot.

This is one photo that highlights the villain Bill Cipher over at the right.  Foster, one of Dawn's children, carved that pyramid creation.  And here below is a pumpkin apartment complex, carved by the Keiffer family, complete with smaller pumpkin residents.

Ah, and here's a seasonal pumpkin of a different sort.  This is Diane, a good friend of ours who got us the entrance to the Pastor's summit and the rally on Wednesday.  She's been busy following around the campaign these past few weeks, and is actually on her way to Arizona.

And here's her sister, Elizabeth, carving away her Hershey's kiss pumpkin. Being that she's from Pennsylvania, she usually has a PA somewhere on her pumpkin.  You can see the Hershey's kiss in the photo above, at the top.

And you can see that large landscape too, carved by Camille and her husband Chris.  They brought in a huge pumpkin and got to work on it immediately.  This is Camille's first year carving without gloves, as once she had her daughter Bonnie, suddenly the pumpkin allergy is gone.  She's pretty psyched about that, and about enjoying pumpkin spice flavoring on things!  Here they are, working on their pumpkin below.

Ah, here's my pumpkin again, in the dark, and ready for mischief!  Below, it's the Keiffer family with their new family member Eleanor.  Beautiful day outside!  Here are few more pictures of everyone carving outside, and more pictures of the final products in different lighting.

Here's Ansley, our new intern working on her pumpkin.  It's taking a good while to do, but it came out really well!

This one is based on a meme, a character sitting amongst a fire saying, "This is fine."  Ironically, Maddie chose a meme as well, one you'll see in a bit.

There it is, top left.  Maddie's pumpkin is based on a meme of Elmo, the Sesame Street character... on fire. Or at least surrounded by fire.  Not sure why this is a meme, but lots of people caught it immediately.

She got a lot of laughs for this choice.  

You can see Mom is here amidst all the girls, just enjoying her day.  We woke up in the hospital yesterday, so this is quite a change of environment.  I was so glad to see her beautiful smile so much today.

It was such a great time.  It's always nice to line up all those pumpkins on the fireplace and put candles in them, just enjoying the sight of all the art on display.  Everyone does such a great job with this.  And we had a lot of people show up today.

One by one we said our goodbyes, and everyone was super helpful with the clean-up.  It was getting cooler outside, and we all have church in the morning.  Maddie and I watched "Coraline" tonight, with Mom joining us a little later after her bath.  Maddie and I placed our pumpkins on the fireplace, keeping them lit during the movie.  But we were tired at the end of the day - we had a big day! 

We read tonight, and then we said our prayers.  We've got church tonight, so off to sleep we went - and easy sleep.  It's been a wonderful day.