My Scarecrow

Yikes, there's a scarecrow in my car!
A scarecrow at home

With friend Gabby, a chicken farmer

and again by her pumpkin....

So, farm day at Evelyne's school happens in the fall and means everyone dresses like a farm animal or farmer....so, Evelyne picked a Scarecrow. Well, a scarecrow is kind of like an animal, I mean it scares birds and farmers create them so technically we figured we'd be alright....

I hadn't an outfit or anything.. just had to throw it together in the morning...it turned out pretty good....some raffia I'd saved from some craft I'd purchased at michaels craft store a while ago for hair ribbons, some tights from last year's snake costume, some hula skirt cut up from a hawaiian outfit for straw, some brown eyeliner, blush, and an old handmade 70's sack that once held doll clothes was cut up to make a skirt held together with a belt...very quickly...
whew...pays to procrastinate and be a pack rat....

here are the results.

Gnocchi Birthday

Potato Gnocchi
Ryan rolling out the dough

Gabe making the butternut dough

Mom doing the sauces

Sadie creating the finished product...yummmmmm

We celebrated Sadie's birthday with a Gnocchi party at my mom's house. For those of you who have never experienced this marvelous dish, I'm sorry. It is FABULOUS and not difficult to make, but is time consuming and tastes like heaven. Basically, the Italian version of potato dumplings...you make a dough and slather it in sauce and freshly grated parmesean cheese. My mom made a few sauces; marinara, mushroom gorgonzola, and an italian meat sauce. We had a new gnocchi thanks to sunset magazine and a few tries by me, mom, Sarah, and Gabe and Sadie...we've adopted it...Butternut Squash gnocchi. Gabe and sadie came up with a butter, sage and cheese sauce which was to die for. Anyway, Sadie had a great birthday, we all had fun making and eating the creations!

Pumpkin Patch 08

All the kids off the busEvelyne and her friend, Anna
Evelyne and Gilbert watching animals
Evelyne and her teacher, Lynda picking a pumpkin together
Watching the goats

Another year of pumpkin patch mayhem is now behind us. This year, Gilbert was oh so glad to join in the festivities with Evelyne and her friends at school. The highlights of the trip were of course selecting pumpkins, riding the tractor, and jumping in the "nut house" which was a small shack filled with hazlenuts.

We went with Evelyne's preschool and parents were allowed to bring siblings along. Gilbert even got to ride the bus on the way back to school without mom! Evelyne and her friend, Kianna took good care of him on the bus and informed me afterwards the "he only stood up on the seats a couple of times."

"a dream is a wish your heart makes"

the mickey mouse ears for gilbertolivia, evelyne, and vanessa having fun on the tea cups dianne & kids at the castle
our princesses all ready to have lunch with the REAL princesses
our boys, gilbert and cole loving the cars as seen by their shirts

...when you're fast asleep. In dreams you will lose your heart aches, whatever you wish for you keep.....or something like that..oh Disneyland where you remember being a kid and often times wish you were there again. The best part about it is watching your own kids enjoy it as much as you did! We had a BLAST on our first official family vacation to the "happiest place on earth." Aside from being in the midst of a Hannah Montana sweet sixteen soiree, and suffering 90 degree weather we survived, thrived, and lived to tell the tale.

Highlights for me were the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, love it as much as I ever did, and the Indiana Jones ride which makes you feel like you're part of the movie. Nathan loved the California Adventure side of Disneyland. (For those of you who haven't been in a while, it's a new theme park where the parking lot used to be). They have the typical "thrill" rides, a large roller coaster and something called the "maliboomer" which shoots you straight up in the air and then drops you. We both were impressed with the Hollywood Tower of Terror which is a 30's style haunted hotel straight out of the Twilight Zone. You ride in an elevator that continually goes up and down at alarming speeds. It freaked me out.

Evelyne loved the Pirates, haunted house, seeing the princesses at lunch and all the disney characters. Daddy stuffed her shoes with socks to make her tall enough to ride on Splash Mountain and Thundermountain Railroad which she loved. She also liked the Matterhorn even with the scary snow monster! She's a brave soul like her dad.

Gilbert loved any train or car we went on and HATED waiting in lines. So, we would alternate often. He was scared of the characters and didn't want them to get too close but liked admiring them from afar and would call out "Goopy" for Goofy and "Chickmunk" for Chip and Dale. He really loved Autopia where you can drive a car yourself; he was so in heaven doing that.

We all enjoyed the company of our friends, Danelle, Tim, Olivia, Vanessa, and Cole VanWinkle. They are Disneyland pros and were very helpful telling us where to go and when. We all survived kid meltdowns and elations which made for a lot of fun memories for our family.