Yates Foursome

We went on a little outing to the local farm and pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago to pick out our Halloween pumpkins. This has become a tradition as this is the third year we have gone there. Every year they have this grow chart sign and we have taken a picture by it every year. It will be fun to put all the “How tall this Fall” pictures together in a few years to see how Micah & Caleb have grown.

It was warmer than we expected that day so we went to the open pumpkin patch first. The boys each picked out a small pumpkin for their own. They both chose ones with no stem this year, although they liked noticing the different kinds of stems, especially the twisted ones. Then we went to pick a big pumpkin for our Jack-o-lantern. After loading our pumpkins in our wagon, we went over to see the farm animals. They have pigs, horses, ducks, cows, alpacas, sheep, donkeys, rabbits, goats, a peacock, and other birds. We fed some of them with food pellets we bought there. We brought our own lunch so we had a picnic there too. Then the boys played in the playground area for a while before we headed home for nap time.

The day before Halloween we carved our pumpkin. Micah & Caleb didn’t want to help clean out the gooey stringy stuff inside. They just watched mom do it. We toasted the pumpkin seeds to have as a snack when we were done carving. We actually didn’t carve a face in our Jack-o-lantern. We had this kit with colored pegs, a little wooden hammer, and a battery-operated light. It kinda makes the pumpkin into something like a “Light-Bright” toy. We used the pattern to make a spider and marked the spots where the pegs should go. Then we hammered the pegs in, following the pattern. When we were done, we had a colorful spider on our Jack-o-lantern. The boys loved putting the light in it and taking it to a dark room to look at it glow. They love stuff that glows or lights up in the dark these days.

For Halloween our church has a Harvest Fest carnival and they usually have a theme too. This year the theme was sports, so Caleb wanted to be a Chargers football player and Micah chose to be a Padres baseball player. They were easy costumes because we already had a Chargers jersey (which Caleb would probably wear every day if I let him) and Micah just wore his T-ball uniform from this spring. In the morning we went to a little Halloween party at a friends house. Everyone brought yummy treats and there were fun games & activities for the kids like coloring mini pumpkins with markers, decorating Halloween cookies, a Jack-o-lantern beanbag toss, pumpkin bowling (using a little pumpkin as the ball), and funny fishing. The kids loved the fishing game best because they got candy. They even had pony rides. Micah & Caleb didn’t want to ride the pony though.

In the evening we went to the Harvest Fest. I think the boys liked jumping in the bouncy houses the best. They spent probably an hour doing that. Then we went and got hot dogs at the food court for dinner and had a piece of candy for dessert. Then we went back to play a couple more games (bean bag toss, ring toss, and ball toss) before heading home to get ready for bed. Micah also enjoyed handing out candy to a few trick-or-treaters that came to our house after we got back home. He was great at it; greeting the kids, passing out candy, and commenting on their costumes or accessories. Very cute.

We had a fun Halloween.

We are getting excited about our upcoming trip to Disney World so we whet our appetite by going to Disneyland this past Wednesday. It was a good day for it; middle of the week and not too crowded. We want to get a good value for our annual passes before Caleb turns 3 in January and needs a pass or ticket too. We left home right after lunch and the boys took a little nap in the car on the way. Of course Daddy couldn’t go in the middle of the week, but Mommy, Micah, & Caleb had a lot of fun.

I was surprised how into the characters they were and that it was Caleb even more than Micah who wanted to meet as many of them as we could. I know sometimes young kids are scared of the characters because they are so big or whatever. There were a bunch of them out just inside the front entrance and the train station. We first saw Goofy and they wanted to stop and look at him for a minute. I asked if they wanted to get in line to meet him and take a picture but Micah said no. Then we saw Mickey and I asked again and Micah said no. Caleb didn’t answer. Then I think Caleb said let’s go find some more, so we looked across the way and saw Pluto. We went over and I asked again about getting in line to meet him and MIcah said no but Caleb said yes. So we got in line (there were only 2 or 3 families ahead of us) and Caleb went up to Pluto and I took a picture. Then Micah decided he wanted to meet Pluto too so he went up and shook his paw and took a photo. Next we met Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, and Chip and Dale and they both went together and took pictures with each of them. (Last time we had been to Disneyland we saw a few characters from a distance but the lines were too long for us to want to wait to take pictures with them. Caleb was really upset when we passed by Tigger without going to meet him.) A little later in ToonTown we saw Goofy walking around, met Mickey in his house, and met Minnie again (in a different dress). This time only Caleb took a picture with Minnie; Micah didn’t want to.

They had lots of fun playing in ToonTown at Goofy’s and Mickey’s and Minnie’s houses and “driving” the cartoon cars. Then we went to the Tiki Room, which they loved. It was so cute how they danced along with the music and even sang along a little. I thought it was funny how, when talking about it later, Micah referred to it as the “Tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room” like they sing in the song. They wanted to go do it again, but I said maybe next trip. I like the Tiki Room fine, but I wanted to get over to the Pixar Play Parade in California Adventure because I knew they would love that.

They did. Lightning McQueen led the parade and they were excited to see him in real life and so big! They kept asking if there were any more cars; I’m sure they would love a parade of all the Cars characters life-size. But they did like the rest of the parade too. They have seen most of the Pixar movies except the Incredibles and Monsters Inc. I think. But they know the Monster’s Inc. characters (Mike and Sully) from the end of the Cars movie. So they liked seeing Lightning, Sully, Mike, Remy, Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Crush, Heimlich, Flik, Princess Atta, Dot, Walking Stick (I can’t recall if he has a name; is it Slim?), Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Woody, Buzz (I didn’t see Buzz but Micah said he was on top of the float), Rex, Slinky Dog, and Mater. Mater brought up the rear of the parade. They loved it, except for the music from the floats was a little too loud so they would cover their ears, especially Micah. And the “Play” part of the parade included squirting water at spectators from some of the floats which I don’t think Micah liked too much, but he didn’t really complain because he was too into looking at everything. CA Adventure was almost closing by the time the parade was done, but we went over to Flik’s Fun Fair for a few minutes and managed to squeeze in a ride on Tuck ‘N’ Roll’s Bumper Cars. Once we went out we took a few pictures with the giant letters that spell California. I wanted to get Caleb on the C for his name. Of course there’s no M for Micah but they both had fun posing on several letters.

Then we went back into Disneyland and did a few Fantasyland rides before heading home. We rode Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, which Micah thought was too loud and they both said afterwards was a little scary. Although when we fist stepped off it they said it was fun. Then we did Dumbo for Caleb because that was his favorite ride from our last trip. Then we rode Casey Jr. in the Monkey cage car. This was their new favorite ride from this trip. Finally we took a spin on the Carousel before heading out to home. We were following the last parade out so it was pretty crowded and took longer to get out and home than I had planned so it was a long day for the boys. Still, they were too excited to fall asleep in the car even though it was their normal bedtime by the time we were in the car leaving. We talked about Disneyland all the way home and told Daddy about some of it when we got home. I know they were tired because even Micah said he was and wanted to go right to bed without even reading a book and he’s the one that always fights going to sleep and tries to stall bedtime.

So we had a great time and now we are even more excited to go to Disney World. We’re leaving in only 8 more days! We’re praying for no hurricanes!

You may know that we have a lime tree in our backyard. I pretty much never bought or cooked with limes before we moved here. But since we had the tree I figured I should try to use at least some of the limes. So I found an easy recipe for lime pie, which I have made at least one almost every year since we’ve lived here. I have also used them for guacamole, salsa, pan fried chicken, flavored water, and limeade. They’re also good for grinding in the garbage disposal to make the kitchen smell nice and fresh. Micah & Caleb like to just eat wedges of lime straight. They also love limeade. This picture shows Micah using the juicer to squeeze the limes so we could make our first batch of limeade this year. The limes start ripening around August and we start bringing bagfuls to church or anywhere to share with anyone who can use some. We know Aunt Vanessa loves limes and try to make sure she gets some every year, even if we have to ship them to Belgium! The boys and I picked another big bagful yesterday so we’ll be making more limeade and pie and bringing fresh limes anywhere we go to share with friends. Here’s our recipe for
Limeade:
1/2 cup lime juice (about 10 limes)
3 cups cold water
3/4 cup sugar
Stir all ingredients together in a pitcher until the sugar dissolves. Garnish with lime slices if desired. Serve over ice.

Our friend found out about the Kidspace museum in Pasadena and asked us if we’d be interested in checking it out with them this summer. We went on August 12 and had a great time. I don’t think we saw half of the stuff there so we will probably go back sometime. Everything was hands-on. The kids could climb, explore, create, ride, and play. Micah and Caleb pretended to drive a jeep, felt and saw the effects of a small earthquake, climbed like a bug up a tree, saw lots of bugs in terrariums, watched the bees in a hive, painted with watercolors, and more. Then we went outside and rode tricycles and scooters for a while. Then we found some water play areas outside. Next time we will know to be prepared with water shoes, towels, and a change of clothes. There was a fun thing where kids could play drums by squirting water at them. The last thing we did was splash around in a shallow pool with a waterfall that rained down every so often. They got pretty wet; good thing we always keep extra clothes in the car. We had our picnic lunch, changed clothes, and then went home to take naps. It was a fun day.