Pumpkin Carving

It is also an October tradition to use the last Family Home Evening before Halloween to decorate our pumpkins. Most of the kids decorated their corn maze pumpkins with paint. Brendan wanted to help Jason with the big pumpkin. He was on gut scooping duty. When Eva was finished painting (two eyes and a mouth and she was done), she joined him. They were much less grossed out by it this year. Jason found an awesome but fairly easy design for the jack o'lantern. I think it turned out great! Spooky!

I sat at the table with the two littles and supervised painting while I made two of my own. I painted gourds white and made ghosts. I love them. Darby and Paige used lots of colors for theirs (very typical of these two).

When everyone else was done Paige started to paint other things, namely herself. Here is she is, caught red handed. :)

And here are our creations on the front steps.

Funny side note: When I asked Darby if she wanted to help with the jack o'lantern she said, "No, I'm watching my paint dry".

Amazing Sunset and Hockey Game

On our way to the Fayetteville FireAntz hockey game, we saw this dramatic sunset, one of the best I have seen while we have lived here. We stopped our car and take some pictures of Gods handiwork. Beautiful. 

We arrived at the game just in time for introductions and the national anthems. They played the Canadian national anthem because of the attacks at the capital. I am sure a lot of the Canadian hockey players appreciated it. I feel kinship with Canadians ever since I served there for 6 months on my mission. The game was okay. There was skating, pushing, shoving, a fist fight, drunk fans making fools of themselves, so, you know, it was your average hockey game. 

Here are our little nerds reading a book and writing during the game. 

Here are those drunk fans, probably guys from the 82nd, heckling the opposing goalie. They were never over the line, but they were loud, singing songs, dancing badly, and they generally looked to be having a great time. I am glad they were there. 

 

Like usual, we left after the second period. Maybe when the kiddos are older they will be able to handle an entire game. But it was fun and we got home at a reasonable hour. 

Fall Leaves

Every Fall we have wanted to go down Blue Ridge Parkway during the turning of the leaves. This year we wanted to as well but, due to residency time pressures, we settled for a closer area that was still supposed to show great fall colors, Uhwarrie National Park. It was only 2 hours away. When we arrived, we weren't quite sure where to go. We settled on Badin Lake. We hiked to a nice picnic spot and had lunch. The kids enjoyed throwing things into the lake. Jason tried to teach Brendan how to skip rocks too. 

Then we took a hike around the area. We stopped at a few fishing piers to get great views.

It was beautiful but I think we missed the most colorful part of autumn as many leaves had already fallen. Bummer.

All my cuties!

On the way home we drove through Pinehurst (pretty little town) and went to Camelot Park. It has a playground that is built like a castle and has the most fun play equipment - from a balance beam to a jumping bridge to a zipline.

Here is a picture of the "kids" on swings, Daddy included.

It was a fun little family outing. North Carolina is beautiful country.

Backyard Swing

Dad here again.

So the kids would spend their entire life on these two swings outside if we let them. Paige especially love, love, loves the swing. So we go outside, set a timer and take turns on the swing. Those not on the swing entertain themselves by throwing this large, partially deflated purple ball at those on the swing for them to kick. It's called "kickball" or "swingball" or something and they will play this for hours.

I am not really a fan of the game because like most kid games involving thrown objects they do not seem to understand the idea of proximity, i.e. that the closer you are, the less force you need to throw the object. I think I would rather play catch with Randy Johnson than Eva or Darby at five feet away. That ball, or whatever they are hurling at you, could end up anywhere from your feet to your middle parts to your face and it will do so at approximately 95 mph. 

And after they throw this ball at the person on the swing, and miss of course (because accuracy is an acquired skill as well, even if its from literally 3 feet away), the ball will land somewhere in the backswing path of either of the two swingers. And who ends up navigating these two pendulums of doom in their best Indiana Jones impression? Dad. 

Or the person makes contact with the said ball on a perfect upswing and the ball launches into the neighbor's yard. Mostly they just miss though and laugh hysterically and its good times to be had by all. 

A few random things from last week.

Jason here. So last week was pretty fun. 

After dinner Christine and I were putting some of the dishes away when we heard a bit of a commotion from the dinner table. We looked over to see Paige running off and the other kids laughing.

Someone just found out the hard way that cayenne red pepper is something to be enjoyed in small amounts. She didn't cry all that much but she walked around with her mouth open for the next few minutes. 

Friday is a day when the endo residents go to lunch. We went to Red Robin and they had a bacon-shake that just sounded good.

It was killer! Sweet and savory with cool and crunch. I'd have it again. 

Saturday was fun. I am training for a trail half marathon (mainly because I eat too many things like the bacon-shake) and this was my first long run. Brendan wanted to follow along the trails with his bike. It was some quality time that I think we both enjoyed. 

After the run, I studied for a few hours and then we went to my buddy Andre Ledoux's house for his annual dinner/BBQ party thing. He usually cooks a killer gumbo, but this year he roasted a pig. It was a fun get together.

That's the pig. When it was done cooking, we had to carve the thing up and serve it. A few of us tried with varying degrees of success until...

This guy showed up. Turns out he is the chief general surgery resident here at Womack Hospital and is pretty familiar with this kind of thing. He made short work of that pig. 

It was a good time, Christine and the kiddos had a blast, and its always good to catch up with old friends.

Smart Math Dessert

This is Brendan. FHE's dessert today was chocolate pastries. Are you thinking, "This is not what the title describes."? Well, I am getting to the smart part. I wanted two pastries. I went over to the pan and I was snitching. Dad then asked me some fraction questions. Soon he asked me to answer a question and if I answered correctly, I would get one part of two sliced pastries. I answered the question, "What is 2 divided by 6?", correctly! I answered, "1/3". Dad cut the two pastries into thirds. I got 1/3 of a pastry, my choice. Dad asked another fraction question, this time with Eva. She, too, was right! Dad gave the Eva same reward as I got. Then, Dad asked Darby a question. First, he wanted Darby to count the leftover 3 pastry pieces. Next, he asked Darby, "What is 3+3?" Darby was right by answering, "Six." Another 1/3 of pastry eaten. Then, Dad gave Paige, who missed dessert in her room, a whole pastry. Dad asked me another fraction question. Dad asked me, "What is 1 divided by 6?" I answered "1/6". Bye, bye, 1/6 of a pastry. Paige had a sad look on her face (a chocolate covered face), so Dad gave Paige a sixth of pastry. Then, I got another sixth of pastry. Question for you: if it's 8:00, and I had a pastry at 6:45, how long ago did I have the pastry?

Daddy Daughter Date, The Dad version

Christine did a great job telling about the daddy daughter date. I wrote about last years as well, and this was pretty much the same, except I had both Eva and Darby. Next year if we are still around I will bring Paige as well.

Maybe you are wondering what the daddy daughter ball is like. Well, I can explain it best like this: a bunch of dads dressed in their best uniforms taking their little girls dancing. Based on the guys decorations many of these guys have had significant combat experience, so its pretty cool to see these guys who probably wouldn't be caught dead dancing to Katy Perry or some other pop hit living it up to show their little girls a good time. Its just nice to see these guys being good dads.

And the girls LOVE it. You have never seen a happier group of little girls. Eva and Darby loved it, but trying to dance with both of them got a little cumbersome. And I got a bit winded actually. Residency has been harsh on my workouts which have dropped precipitously. Anyways, we had a great time and then we came home.

Corn Field Maze 2014

As has been written on previous years, we have a family tradition of visiting corn field mazes in October. This tradition started when we were dating and we have been lucky enough to live in places that had such mazes every year since. I will be sad if we ever move somewhere where there is not.

We arrived at opening time, met up with the Andersons (who were joining us) and headed right to the maze.

This year the corn did not grow well and so it was very short. The kids didn't care though, as it was still taller than the tallest child. At the Gillis Hill Maze there are two sets of questions (one for younger kids and one for older kids and adults). You use these clues to navigate the maze. There were quite a few times that the adult questions had me stumped and I "cheated" and answered the little kid ones. Although, we let the children make the final decisions anyway (it's more fun that way).

Paige made it part of the way walking on her own and then begged to be carried. When she grew too heavy Dad put her down. It resulted in this face.

At the end of the maze there was a play area. There was a sand area, a chalk pumpkin decorating station, bowling, bubbles and finally, the bin where each child got to pick their own pumpkin.

 

And, of course, the photo area for the obligatory and beloved fall shot. Such silly kiddos.

After solving the maze we went to the ice cream shoppe for farm fresh frozen treats. The peanut butter cup flavor was particularly good, as was the seasonal pumpkin. We sat outside on the porch chairs with the chickens and soaked up the wonderful fall weather.

I love this tradition!

Sad Face

Last Family Home Evening we decided to go to the store to get ice cream. Jason wanted to go in quickly so he only took the older two (they are in booster seats and can unbuckle themselves). I stayed in the car with Darby and Paige. Now, keep in mind, Paige is rear facing in the back seat with limited view of the front of the car. Sure enough, the McDaniel crew were back quickly. As they got into the car Paige asks from the back, "Daddy get me out?" All that time she was waiting for someone to get her out so she could go in the store too. She didn't know that they had already gone in. What a patient little girl she was being. Jason apologized to her but she still cried. When we got home she still had her sad face on. Awwwwww.