Different Personalities

I love it that both of my children have their own unique and individual personalities. We have so much fun watching our little Morgan grow up and change everyday, and we often hear ourselves saying "Did Ian do that?" "I don't remember Ian saying or doing that?" Of course he could have done some of the things Morgan is doing and it's just because it's been a long time ago that he went through some of the things that she is currently going through. For instance I remember Ian being a fairly clean eater, hardly ever dropping any food on the floor and very minimal cleanup required. Morgan is another story, I learned only after my 3rd plate broke that I shouldn't give her food on a "normal people" plate. I know your probably thinking, duh? But, I honestly didn't think that she'd throw her plates on the floor on purpose. She also loves to dump food off of her plate onto her tray and then throw her plate onto the floor. Forget the cute plastic plates with compartments to keep her food separated. She'd rather dump it all onto her tray and smoosh it all around. And then there's her "nini" (binky), we only let her have it at nap time or bed time, but toward the end of the day she gets really whiny and starts asking for it. I remember Ian liking his binky but not nearly as much as she does. We took it away at 18 months and had only a few nights of crying at bedtime for it. We are almost afraid to take Morgan's "nini" away because of her love of it. Morgan throws a tantrum easier than Ian ever did. Morgan is a big tease and likes to hide things and say "where did it go" although it's not that clear it's more of a "wherego". Ian cuddled, and Morgan scratches and hits and pulls hair (really hard), and only cuddles when she's sick, sad or tired. Morgan likes to undress herself and hates wearing her shoes, Ian always kept his clothes on. Morgan likes to yell really LOUD. Some of that comes from Ian's taunting.

I love that we are all unique sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father and that he loves us all individually. I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for trusting me to be the mother of two adorable wonderful children. It's truly an awesome responsibility.

Pumpkins

So what do you do when you have an afternoon off of work? I did this:

Baked my pumpkins that we grew in the garden this year. I'm always in the mood to bake with pumpkin in the fall, and I've never pureed my own pumpkin before, so I thought what the heck, I'll give it a try.

After an hour and a half of baking

I scooped it out of the shell and pured it all in several batches

this was after I squeezed all the water out of it

I was left with two quart sized bags.

Later that night we made these:

Pumpkin Smoothies - unfortunately they didn't taste all that great, so I won't post the recipe.
And the next day I did it all over again with the second pumpkin and skipped the smoothie part! Now I'm in the mood to bake something pumpkiny. Pumpkin chocolate chip bread or cookies anyone?

Toys 4 Sale

Ian has been bugging me for years to have a garage sale. It's a daunting tasks to me to go through ALL of our stuff and to decide what to sell, and belive me we have or I guess I should say Jeff has WAY too much stuff. So when the neighbor kids had a garage sale to sell some toys, Ian got really excited at the thought of having his own garage sale. He took the whole week to go through all of his old toys and books and mark everything with prices. Jeff made him a sign and he set up a card table and waited patiently for kids to come by. He made about $5.50 in about an hour (thanks to the neighbor kids and a parent who he got the garage sale idea from).

She's 18 Months Already?

Our little Miss Morgan turned 18 months old. I have been really anxious for her to go to nursery because it's so hard to sit through a class when they are that age. We've been going in a few times here and there just to make the transition a little easier. Her first Sunday went without a hitch, and hopefully it will last. I know that some kids do o.k. at first and then not so good later on, so I'll continue to hold my breath. I can't belive that she's old enough to go to nursery, oh how the time flies by WAY TOO FAST.

Halloween

We had a fabulous Halloween. I had the privlage of feeding this historical figure:

A hearty breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with apple cider syrup:

Then we went to Ian's school for the Halloween parade. Morgan enjoyed listening to the fun halloween music and watching all the kids parade around the school gym in their costumes. Jeff worked on his halloween spook house all day. We usually set it up at the church for the trunk-or treat but due to the wind that day he needed something to tie it down to, so he decided that our house would be the best bet.

I took the kids to our ward trunk or treat and around to a few houses in the neighborhood, and we were home before it was completly dark. It was a great day!