Here’s Chance painting his pumpkin WHITE… Apparently, the WHOLE base of the pumpkin needed to be white “because Daddy’s white.” — seriously… that’s what he said.

I think the whites of the eyes are always a bit freaky looking before I add the pupils.

I dunno what you think… but I think that’s a pretty happy looking pumpkin.

I was letting this dry and tending to Paxton for a couple minutes.  When I got back…

… I found THIS painted to the side.  I left it cuz it was so cute.

My sons are happy.  My husband is happy.  My family is happy.  This makes ME happy.

You see… we’re painting more than just pumpkins over here. We’re painting our future… one brushstroke at a time.  However, I can tell you I don’t paint so well, so I’m letting God guide my strokes.

Of course, I still fight for control over the paintbrush sometimes… but He is faithful and constant, ready to step back in whenever I invite Him to.

I can’t wait to see what the final product of our family is going to look like.

Don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

So cute!

Since it was just Chance and me, I wanted to make the most of it since he’s only going to be the only child for 19 more days… so this is what we did:

FRIDAY:

• Plumper Pumpkin Patch with some of Chance’s preschool friends: Grant, Kassidy, Lukas, (and Adelaine), and Emma.  They had such a blast and played together so well  Other than the moment Chance wanted to pet the pigs, I did well too… HA!  When you ask him his favorite thing about the pumpkin patch, he says: “riding in the hayride behind the tractor with all my friends and you, Mommy!”  I could die, he’s so sweet!
• Chance’s haircut (at Pigtails & Crewcuts), a little short, since I don’t know if we’ll get back in till the New Year.  
• Lunch
• Drive through carwash – Chance loves this.  What kid doesn’t???
• Nap – for Chance.  I vacuumed the rig… and almost went into labor doing it.  What was I thinking?  At least it looks bomb diggity now.
• After his nap, we went to Ceramicafe to use up the gift certificate from the Teague’s.  Chance picked to paint a mug for his Daddy’s upcoming birthday.  This amused him for an hour and a half.  He was SO concentrated on this project because he wanted his Daddy’s birthday mug to be PERFECT!  THAT amazed me
• Dinner
• Ice cream & board games at Toll House Cookies.
• Drive home and talk about Jesus being a Pirate.
• Bath & Bed.

The best part of the night for me was our “snuggle time” before bed.  This is the time I usually take to tell him what parts of the day he made me proud and happy.  When I asked him what were some of the favorite parts of his day.  He said, “Playing with you all day, Mommy!”

And that’s when my heart fell out of my chest.

It was a long day.  Chance was tired and slept well.

So did his Mom.  :)

What are some inexpensive things you do with your kids that let the know you are invested in them?

I got an email from Holly this morning that said “Want to see yourselves?” and to check out her Betty Crocker promo video.  CLICK HERE to see it.

It’s a cute promo… and I got 3 seconds of fame.  The best part is she got video and sound bites of a worship service we were leading onto a national website.  WAY TO GO, HOLS!!!  Oh… and it was before I was too pregnant, so I still look skinny minnie

WORD!!!

He saw our pumpkins on the porch and here was our exchange:

Chance: “Mommy… black paint and white paint makes Asian!”

Me: “Um… actually Chance, black and white make gray, not Asian.  Asians are people like you and me.”

C: “But the punkins are like you, me and Daddy… and we’re Asian.”

M: “Oh… I guess you’re right then.”

*pause as I open the front door*

C:  ”Well… maybe Daddy is not a punkin because he is white and I’m more Asian than him.”

That’s when I bent down and hugged my Asian child to try to muffle my laughter.

I do NOT make this stuff up.

But can I say that I’m glad he doesn’t say most of this in public… though I guess it’s public now that I blogged it.

It’s not waterproof… so only paint with this if you are going to put your pumpkins in a covered area.  It washes out, but it may be smart to cover your children in a garbage bag with the head and arms cut out or just have them paint in their undies.  Chance is pretty clean, but he DID get some on his shorts.  I’ll let you know if it doesn’t wash out… but I’m sure it’s fine.

I had Chance paint on top of his place mat, which actually took some time to scrub out because it’s not a totally smooth surface.  If I were to redo it, I would have either laid out newspaper or just let him do it on the table so it wiped off easily.

I also bought the cheap foam paint brushes (for $.33) so that we didn’t have to clean up too much.  I used one of my smaller regular paint brushes for the detail work on the big pumpkin, but kids don’t need that.  Just OCD perfectionists like me

Anyhoo… we’ll most likely wash the paint off the pumpkins in a couple weeks and carve them.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  Yikes.

Any other suggestions?