Happy Halloween

I always loved this song when I was a kid.
Today I had was a kid with my eight year old,we sang this song
on our car ride to school.

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.
First one said, "Oh my, it's getting late."
Second one said, "There are witches in the air."
Third one said, "Oh, we don't care."
Fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run."
Fifth one said, "It's Halloween fun."

WOOOOOO! went the wind.
And out went the light!

The five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.






Have a happy and safe Halloween.

Common Since ?

On October 8Th our 15 year old was asked to go to the 2008 Homecoming dance.

When she asked us if she could go, my stomach decided to due a few cartwheels.
I responded with a quick "we will see" answer. This is a standard answer at least in my case.This buys me sometime to think and make sure I cover all the bases that I need to.

Nathan and I talked about it and we decided to surprise our 15 year old with a new dress, jewelery and I hair clip. We told her this was for us to go out for a family dinner on the 18Th. OK OK this is how we do things in the family(Nathan thinks it is so funny) she new it was her's to attend the dance.

We asked to me meet her dates parents. Not to mention I offered to drive them to the dance. Now for those who know me, this is completely out of my character.

Thew this whole process, I found out that things are just not as traditional as they used to be(I don't like that much). We found ourselves in the position of explaining to our 15 year old how a gentlemen should treat their date. She honestly thought we were crazy. Maybe we are....I just could not get it out of my head how she would not know this. To me, something like this I thought was common since. We will get back to this later.


So on October 18Th we all piled in the restroom to get ready for her first "BIG GIRL" dance. When I say we all piled in that means, the 28 year old, 8 year old, our dog's Joe and Tubby, the 15 years old and myself. The 28 years old and the 8 year old sat in a chair they haled in and we trying on her jewelery and asking all kinds of questions. I was helping her with her hair. The dogs well they just looked at us and thought we were all nuts(I can't disagree with the dog's that is for sure).
She was finally ready. She looked in the mirror tired up a bit. No words were said but you could tell she felt as beautiful on the inside as she look on the outside.






Now back to the traditional thing. We did not meet the parents, We did meet the date the day be for at the Homecoming football game. I took our beautiful young lady's photograph and took her to the dance. Let her out of the vehicle and she made her way to the front door to buy her ticket. While her date waited for her arrival inside. This just made me fell sad inside, this just was not the full experience that I wanted her to have.

As Nathan said that is OK then we don't have to call this a DATE.... I was OK with that, was she?

Nathan stayed awake to see how things went and this never happens. He is in bed at 8:30 every night. Not that night. I went and picked her up at 10:30. She came out all alone. I felt the funny feeling inside again, but she had a beaming smile on her face and she had a great time!





She got home and told us all about it and thanked us for allowing her to go and she was off to bed. She was happy that is all the mattered.

While we were going thew this process I realised this is not common since.

I only post this for all you wonderful gentleman out their that may read this.
Today I challenge you while you are out an about with your wife, girlfriend, mother, daughter lady friend whatever you call her, open the car door for her or pull out her chair, help her with her coat.

Maybe if we continue to do this this in public places this will help teach our younger generation.

Maybe one day it will be just common since.

Punkin Chuckin '08

In Morton, IL they love to throw pumpkins. This is a contest for distance. But they also have a lot of time to throw for fun. They have cars in the middle of a corn field to use for targets, and they pick about 500 pumpkins for the 2 days of throwing. Here is how it works.

On Friday teams may arrive and set up their machines, but most come on Saturday morning at 6 A.M. and begin put their machines together. About 8 am they begin to check in at registration and they can then choose their 3 pumpkins they need for their official distance tosses. The youth team’s pumpkins must weigh between 5 and 8 lbs. the adult teams must weigh between 8 and 10 lbs.




There machines are made with all different materials. Some are air driven, Some man powered.




Each team is given a color for their pumpkins to be spray painted so they can tell them apart in the field when they are in piece.

Starting at the youth end of the field and working toward the adult machines each takes 1 shot. Depending on how many machines they have, they will either go back to the front of the line and let everyone take another shot or take a short break so they can throw for fun. By the end of the day the youth machines will have thrown 3 competition shots and the adult machines will have thrown 3 as well.

Some of the pumpkins flew to the next county.... Some of them were pumpkin poop.


The Chuckin excitement went on. There was also great food, pumpkin chili, pumpkin funnel cakes, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin doughnuts.... it was all so good.




This was an experience that we will make a tradition.



Come join us next year .

Fall is here

Fall is here
Acorns gathered by the squirrels
Lovely red, yellow and orange trees
Leaves racked into a pile

I love fall
Sunflowers drooping down

Halloween is coming
Everything is changing
Ripe Pumpkins on the front porch
Every animal getting ready for the winter (Dam mice are in my garage...)

Fall is here and we just love it .
We had fun decorating the front of our perfect little palace.



Just wait for Christmas decorations.....

Yeah Yeah I know but it is only

69 Days

2 Hours

and

14 Minutes

But whos counting !

Take two & three of the big dunk.

You might remember on June 29th my good pal Ralph did a post about the Big Dunk.
(If you don't remember, you might check it out at homespunheadlines.blogspot.com under his archives in June 2009).

This was a great post, so good that I had to continue it on my blog.

I am honored to share with each and every one of you, that our daughter Shannel was baptized this pass Sunday.





Tears of joy filled the auditorium, I can't describe how peaceful I felt to witness this step in our daughters life.It was a day that will be remembered for a life time.We are so very honored that we have had the pleasure to walk this journey with her.


I am also honored to share with each and every one of you, that our son was dunked this pass Monday as well......





OK, maybe he is just practising for his big day!
He did start swimming lessons this pass week and he seems to be getting the dunk part down quite well.