Pumpkin Fun

Wow!! It has been forever since I have posted anything!!

We have been busy, busy working at Ms. Janice's house and finishing projects for her big open house. If you would like to catch any projects we have worked on or the finished project you can read all about them on my Mom's blog http://cowgurlsblessing.blogspot.com/.

We are getting ready for Halloween around our house. Weekend before we took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch (I will blog on this tomorrow) and this weekend we worked on our pumpkin. Austin is having SO much fun with all the decorations and holiday stuff he is starting to see. He likes to kiss the scarecrows I have up for decoration. As crazy and into everything he is I figured he would have a great time helping clean out the pumpkin. I knew Lauren would not be really excited about getting her hands all yucky but I knew she would help.

So we cut the top off and I dug in and showed them how to get the slimy stuff out...they were both pretty grossed out.

Austin thought the scoop looked fun.

Then he thought he'd try the spoon.

Lauren dug in and had stuff on her hands...EEEWWW!!

They did stop for a really cute picture.....(both of them have their hands out with sticky on them.)

Austin was not about putting his hand in the pumpkin at all...you can see his face looking at the stuff on the floor.

After a lot of convincing he finally put his hand in, we missed a picture of him pulling stuff out but with his first finger and his thumb he had one little string of stuff and said gross...it was so funny.

Lauren was pretty grossed out the whole time.


She finally got in there and got a big hand full of stuff...both of them just crack me up!!!

BLAH!!!! - that's what Austin is saying, he was really grossed out Lauren touched it.

I was so surprised at his reaction, he is a play in the dirt pick up everything kind of boy but apparently he draws the line at pumpkin guts.

After much discussion as to how we were going to decorate we decided that since both the kids LOVE Spongebob we would make a Spongebob pumpkin. So I looked up a template online and drew him on. Then the question was how well would this really work.

He looks good drawn on....

I finally got time to carve the pumpkin today....SUCCESS!!!

I am so happy with how it turned out!!

The kids think it is SO cool to have a Spongebob pumpkin. We did decide to keep him inside so we can enjoy it though so if you drive by you would have to knock and come in to see him. I do believe this is the first pumpkin I have ever had that has a name.

So now Austin stands and oh's and ah's at the Spongebob and then he goes over and kisses the scarecrow. Crazy Boy!!!

Christmas is going to be so much fun with him this year, Lauren has already taught him what Santa says and is telling him he can't cry when they go see him.

Tomorrow I will try to post on our Pumpkin Patch trip...until tomorrow...

Ms. Janice's backporch bed

I have recently been doing some projects for my Mom's friend Mrs. Janice for her backyard and I thought I would share some of my work. She has a wonderful back deck with lots of shade and she decided to give her furniture a face lift. So I have been working hard sanding and painting patio furniture. This one though is one of my favorites from her backyard though.
It is an old metal baby bed with the front removed to make it like a couch. I forgot to take a picture before I began sanding but this is in process. As you can see it was blue when I started (and whatever blue it was it was on there GOOD!!!)

You can kind of see how the paint is rough from weather and age....some of the roughness was actually the metal dented and banged up over the years.

After much work and LOTS of elbow grease you can see the paint is coming off and I am happy with the result.

My helper keeps touching my work and getting sanding guck on him.....Boo he says as he pokes his head through the bars.....

As I got to working lower on the bed I decided it would work much better if I could work on it as two pieces so I removed the spring part.

Once I removed the springs I could move the sides around to get to some hard to reach spots.

All done sanding I began the fun part...painting....Mrs. Janice decided to do all the furniture in a rusty brown color (the same as a fan she already has hanging out there)

Here you can see the color better....looks good...

In my excitement to begin painting I didn't think everything through and the feet are sitting in the grass...I will have to move it in the morning to finish but otherwise the base coat is done.

Once I finish painting this color I will spray Hammered metal paint on it for a texture and it will have some really cute red, white and blue pillows and a mattress that my Mom covered. I will post more pictures of the finished project next week.

Camping trip day 3

Day 3....Today we finally get our boat tour!!! We all got up had a good breakfast and are ready to go. Lauren is very curious as to what we will see and Austin seems not to sure.

We had a group of bikers on the boat with us (they were from all over and were all out riding together).

The guy standing in the back is our driver and those are the other two couples on the tour with us (they were from up North were they didn't have things like this).

We left from Uncertain, TX...the driver told us one theory as to how the name came to be...since most of the steamboat workers couldn't read they used playing cards to "name" the ports. They would put a card on the shipment that would tell them which port to deliver each box to...at the end of the run they would have boxes that the card had fallen off of, instead of taking them all the way back to New Orleans they would unload the "uncertain" boxes at their last stop...hence the name Uncertain, TX.

We learned a lot of history on the tour. The steamboat captains used to travel from New Orleans to Jefferson using the lake...this was one of the only inland ports.

This building was Dick & Charlie's Tea Room...the river was the county line for Marion and Harrison county. Harrison was dry and Marion was wet so for a nickle you could ride a boat across the river to the tea room and spent the evening drinking (just save a nickle to get back across or you would have to swim the river...scary). Dick and Charlie had three rules, 1. There ain't none, 2. There never was none, 3. There ain't gonna be none. This is the last of many of these kind of establishments still standing (they are trying to save it so it doesn't fall in the river).

This is the Graceful Ghost (it is the one for tours), steamboats like this traveled these waters for years.

Some of the trees we saw on the tour were over 150 years old.

On some of the trees we saw these...they are for ducks. The guide told us there are some duck blinds on the lake but the only way to get one is it has to be passed down from generation to generation....you can not build a duck blind on the lake and the one's that were there were grandfathered in.

We saw quite a few beaver dams along the way.

Lauren is enjoying the trip....

I was glad we had a guide for the boat ride...it was like a maze of river streets going different directions.

This is looking up what was called the government ditch.....the steamboat captains needed a straight path to help with the trip....because of the cost and time it was taking they asked the government to help...the government created a bail out and took over the project...by the time they completed the project the rail road had come through and instead of hundreds of steamboats on the river there were only about 5 using the ditch.

After the tour we had a picnic...

HHHMMM....

After lunch we explored some more...Lauren on her bike...

The view when you look up under the trees...Lauren said it's like it snowed and the ice or snow hanging on the trees just never went away.

Don't think we will be doing this at all...scary

We found this cool tree...of course Austin had no fear going in.

Boo...

After a little convincing Lauren got in...

Silly boy...

Lauren thinks there are bats in the tree (the exhibit we saw had bats in the tree they sat in yesterday).

No bats...this is looking up in the tree...

Lauren and her bike again.

After much exploring...dinner time...YUM!!!

Wonder what he sees......(notice the bubble wand).

Playing...

The trucks were much fun in the dirt...

Austin is snacking on Fritos before dinner (no hiding them from him).

End of the night....SMORES!!!! (It's not quite so late tonight so I could get a picture).

So another adventure filled day..we have had beautiful weather an a wonderful time so far. Camping is so relaxing....more fun tomorrow.