Potato Head Pumpkins

 So goes our family tradition!  We decided to wait to do our pumpkins since we literally went through 3 or 4 rounds of pumpkins last year-they kept going moldy!  So we pulled out all the pegs tonight and got it rolling-making a face and front and a face on the back.  Jackson LOVES pumpkins, so he was totally in it this year!  Karianna seems like she is a little past this tradition, but still participated.  I just love seeing the creativity and the joy in such a simple activity!  Today was a hard, stressful day, and part of me didn't want to attempt anything like this that might make me lose my cool.....this was actually the perfect thing for me today.  Focusing on the kids and forgetting about the other stuff usually works wonders!

JD's creation-he took the close-ups himself!

 The final products!  Two pictures for each side of the pumpkin!

 And now, everyone tries to give themselves pumpkin-heads!  Even Jackson attempted this one!

 Ah, our lovely pumpkin table!  We do have some big pumpkins that I am planning on carving this year-we rarely carve pumpkins, but I thought it would be a fun project for the kids to experience.  For now, their pumpkin-heads look amazing!

I Do Miss It!

I decided to spend a bit of money today and took the boys to the zoo.  It was a good reminder of why we don't go to the zoo often unless we have a family pass!  Expensive!  Since this was a one-time thing, we ended up staying for about 5 hours and walked all the paths except part of the desert trail-and only because we had to get back to Mesa to pick up the school kids.  The boys did great-Jackson walked pretty much the entire thing, and we really enjoyed seeing all the animals minus the tigers, who were off exhibit while their new habitat is being finished.  I have written so much about zoo trips in this blog, so I'll just post pictures. Needless to say, we really, really enjoyed our sojourn to the Zoo and reminding ourselves of lots of good memories here!  

He stared straight at Jackson for a loooong time!

Ugh....taking turns kissing what I am sure is a very dirty statue!

Albeit, from a distance, but we watched the Andean bear swim across the little pond multiple times.

At the farm area, we discovered a little kid play room that I am sure has never been here before!  It had toys, tables (where we ate our lunch), computers, puzzles, bean bag pads, and a movie playing....and it was air conditioned.  It was super nice, and we spent about 40 minutes in here, by ourselves, just playing, eating and cooling off.

Another thing we rarely do-climbing the spider web!

This was the Tiger area-it is now the Lion area!  So much nicer than where the lions used to be.

More orangutan pics!

cooling off by the big fans near the elephant exhibit-two times, this one that is pictured is right before we headed to the exit.

Ah, fun stuff!  We will go back in a few months to see the new tiger exhibit, I am sure.  Hopefully the culture passes for the zoo come back at that point.