carving our pumpkins

We carved our 3 pumpkins today. We started with Trey's pumpkin (which was the biggest of the 3)

He wanted to do a bat on his...

This was actually the last and smallest of our 3 pumpkins and since Talan was asleep when we carved the first 2, I wanted him to see what pumpkin carving was all about. By the way, this was supposed to be a Miami Hurricanes "U" pumpkin but after the way they played today, I guess everyone changed their minds on that design.

While I was resting, Javi carved the second pumpkin (sorry the pictures were a little out of sequence) he chose Miami Heat for his. It looks really good lit up!

Now the boys are all ready to go Trick-or-Treating tomorrow night!

Apple Annie's Pumpkin Patch

OK....I'm finally back!!!! My first blog in a long time...I know and I apologize to my loyal blog readers.

Today we took the boys to pick pumpkins at Apple Annie's in Wilcox. The boys went last year with Erica, Tio Frankie and Tia Hope but this was our first time.

The boys had fun walking through the pumpkin patch and picking their pumpkins.

Susan had fun too!

We tried to get a good family picture but the kids wouldn't cooperate at the same time....typical!We also picked lots of green chilies, bell peppers, jalapenos and green beans. The boys loved helping with this. Talan was picking off the leaves and putting them into the bags.

Here the boys are bringing back jalapenos that they picked with Daddy.
This is them out in the field searching....

They tried to pull the cart themselves....

The field of sunflowers was BEAUTIFUL!!! From the moment we walked in, I think Trey was more interested in picking sunflowers than he was picking pumpkins.

I didn't realize that the main reason they weren't cooperating with the pictures is because the sun was right in their eyes...that's why Trey's face looks like this. In all of the other pictures they have their eyes closed....oops!

Too bad sunflowers don't smell....

Finally....a happy Trey with his sunflower. These are hard to pick by way. As we were walking back we saw people carrying clippers...for the sunflowers and pumpkins...duh!

Here is a little of what we first picked. We didn't realize how cheap everything was until we payed....then we went back and got LOTS more (see photo at the bottom).

Trey and Susan went through the corn maze while Javi, Talan and I got food. It took them about 30-40 minutes to get through it.

And here is what we came home with. Javi wanted lots of green chilies. I hope I can find enough recipes to use all of them.

And here are our 3 pumpkins.

It was a beautiful day and we had a great time! Now I'm gonna spend the evening on the Internet looking for recipes.

Look what I can do!

Trey finally got the hang of swinging by himself this past weekend...now we can't keep him out of the backyard. Swinging is all that he wants to do. He even made me take my computer outside so Nana (my mom) could watch him on Skype.

Tonight he came running inside to tell us that he could do the monkey bars now also. He was so proud of himself!

While I was video recording Trey first starting to swing, Talan got mad I guess (I couldn't see him b/c I was watching Trey) and threw a handful of rocks at Trey. I shouldn't laugh and I was going to delete the video but then I thought it would be funny to show everyone what I deal with everyday with these two crazy boys! Luckily Trey was so into his swinging that getting pelted with rocks didn't upset him, usually its a full brawl with the two of them! By the way, Talan just got punished this weekend for throwing rocks (at the windows) by his Daddy! P.S. Talan is our child that does what Talan wants, when Talan wants, no matter what anyone says!!! He's a bit strong willed...to say the least!!!

Prickly Pear

I have been reading online about what desert tortoise like to eat. We have tried a few things but so far....prickly pear fruit is by far her favorite! We picked a few from the desert....and I got tons of little fine hair like thorns in my fingers. I was wondering if it was ok for Flash to eat the thorns....I asked Javi if he thought I should cut them open for her....his response was "are you serious? There's not a chef in the desert!" I did cut one open for her but she devoured the entire thing...so I guess it didn't matter anyway.Trey took this picture....

She looks so funny with her magenta lipstick on...by the way, she likes to hang out in the shade under the grapefruit tree.

Today while we in the kitchen making dinner, we had a little sun shower outside and I looked out the window and saw Flash chillin' on top of her house getting a shower in the rain. I took this picture from the kitchen window. Trey made us laugh bc when he saw her, he said "it's like she is saying "I'm the king of the world".....he is so funny!

meet the newest member of our gang....FLASH

So after Trey's tooth fell out, he decided that he wanted to buy a pet turtle. I almost took him to the pet store "just to look"...but decided that I better do a little research first so I know what I would be getting us into. I found out that the Desert Museum has a tortoise adoption program and I thought that would be kind of cool. So I called, and the lady told me what we needed to do to our yard to be able to "adopt" one of their turtles...it was REALLY overwhelming but she told me that once we got the yard all set up, it would be a really easy pet to maintain. So, I immediately got to work.....I had no idea at that time how hard of a project this would turn out to be....Javi just kept asking me "who's idea was this?" After you get the yard all set up, you call them out to do a "yard inspection" and you have to pass in order to be able to go get a tortoise.

we had to create an enclosure to keep the turtle out of the pool and our dog away from it. The area had to be 120 sq feet (ours ended up 90 sq feet). The enclosure had to have an area of grass (so the tortoise could graze and eat) so we had to lay sod....

The enclosure also had to have a specific burrow. They gave us 2 options and we chose the half trash can one. We had to cut a 20 gallon galvanized trash can in half and cover it with at least 8"of dirt for insulation from the heat and the cold.

Here it is after just 2 trips into the desert with my wheel barrow to "borrow" some dirt. It ended up taking me 5 trips and boy was that a workout! Not to mention, I'm sure I looked like a complete idiot to my neighbors!

Then we had to create a wall that had to be buried at least 8" b/c they can dig pretty deep I am told.

while Javi and I were working on burying the wall the boys were playing "dress up"

Talan likes to help water the grass

So here is the finished wall...which isn't buried 8" b/c we ran into roots of both trees and the irrigation line while we were digging. No project of ours goes without complications....

I was waiting for the lady I talked to from the desert museum to get back in town so she could come do our yard inspection. I was really nervous about the bricks not being deep enough and failing the inspection and feeling like we had done all of this work for nothing. I had a patient who knew I was looking to adopt a desert tortoise and she called yesterday to let me know that her partner had one and I could come Thursday and pick it up. I really liked the idea of being able to take Trey to the desert museum for him to pick out his tortoise but I was still really worried about the whole inspection thing...so we decided to just get the "for sure thing" tortoise.


The boys and us had already come up with the name Flash (thanks to Jody and Andy trying to find a name for their new little puppy) but today when I picked Flash up, I was informed that she is a female tortoise ( somewhere between 30-50 years old...they live to be 80-100) and she has been in this mans backyard with a male tortoise that was "very happy this spring" so she might have eggs inside of her.....NICE!!! What have I gotten us into?!?

Above is Trey seeing her for the first time....she was still a little scared from the car ride home in a box so she was kinda pulled into her shell, Trey said "this is my turtle? Where is it's head?"

Trey was SOOOO excited about his new pet! I couldn't keep him inside the house. Zoe wasn't real sure and she was going nuts around it!

I took this picture from the kitchen window while I came inside to make dinner.

Flash immediately opened up and walked all over her "desert resort" she wasn't scared of the boys at all...her favorite thing to do was climb up one side of the buried burrow and slide down the other side...she did it over and over again! It was really cute to watch her!

Trey loves to pick her up!

She would go all over the whole area but wouldn't go inside the burrow we built for her....then when it got dark, Trey went outside with the flashlight to check on her and she was sleeping inside the burrow! I guess she does like it....all of our hard work seems to have paid off...now lets just pray that she doesn't dig her way out of her little resort!