Pumpkin Carving, Etc.

Well, our beautiful pumpkin from Wheeler Farm sat on our table for over a week before we got around to carving it, but we had a good time playing with the pumpkin for FHE last night.
Here is Dane, admiring it's green veiny goodness before we removed its head.

A helpful boy. Please be so kind as to ignore all the clutter in the background.

Scooping out the guts.

We stripped him down to his diaper so he wouldn't get his clothes all messy, but we should have known from his birthday cake experience that he doesn't like to dive into messes. Oh well.
This is his favorite squatting pose:


He is very stable that way.
We tried to recreate last year's pumpkin shot, but it didn't quite work the same way:

Haha, he's such a big boy now!
Then we put Dane to bed, and I beautified the pumpkin while Joel read our voter information pamphlet out loud to me. We decided to vote by mail because there are a lot of things going on on election day and we didn't want to stand in line forever. So, we did a nice little Halloween activity and our civic duty in one fell swoop. Swish.
Here is the final creation:

Pumpkin House!
On its rightful place on the porch:

And then in glowing glory:

In other random news, last Friday we went to see Kenji play in the pit orchestra for BYU's production of Don Giovanni. It was a good show, and it was nice--though abrupt--to see the evil main character get his just desserts at the end. Afterward, we went to Chili's with Kenji and his friends. The server recognized us from Brand X, and we felt like celebrities. He even comped something on our bill. So we pretended we were celebrities and gave him a nice big tip. That was fun.
Then on Saturday, we had our ward Chili Cookoff. Some of you might recall that I was an award-winning chili chef last year with my entry of Chili Wonka. This year, I submitted Chili Sasquash and hoped to regain an award. Alas, it was not to be. However, we did win some stuff in the silent auction, and won some yummy chocolates and some fresh-pressed apple cider in the dessert auction. When I say "fresh-pressed", I mean it because it was literally pressed that day. It could quite possibly be the best tasting drink ever. It is so yummy. I can't get over it. Wow, it's good. I wish I could offer blog samples so you all could taste it.
So that's that. Stay tuned for Halloween costumes. I've been slaving away at Dane's costume, and I hope it turns out cute.
Happy Autumn!

Chili Cookoff!

Our ward had the Friends of Scouting Chili Cookoff tonight. It involved a silent auction of things the scouts had collected, a live auction of desserts, and a chili contest. I contributed some chili, and Joel and I hoped to win some cool stuff. Here is some of our bounty:

We won those sunglasses and the wooden peg game in the silent auction, and we won the castle cake and pumpkin dessert in the live auction. The pumpkin is yummy; we haven't tried the castle yet. For both of them, we felt bad because no one was bidding on them and we didn't want them to go for just a dollar, so Joel and I kept outbidding each other until they got to a respectable price. I think we confused the auctioneer.
As for the chili contest...

I won Most Traditional Chili! Which is actually funny because it had chorizo and cocoa powder in it. But I was still happy to win. I pumped my fists in the air and ran up to the stage to claim my prize; people laughed at me, but I think that's how prizes should always be received.
Also, here is the picture they took of me and Dane at the midwife clinic, now that we're officially done with all pregnancy/labor related checkups:

I'd like everyone to note that my face is not nearly as puffy as it was during pregnancy. Even though I'm not anywhere close to losing all my pregnancy weight, it's nice not to have a fat face anymore. Plus, you may have noticed that I have had my hair in a ponytail almost constantly for the past 10 months. While I was pregnant, I was just too hot to blowdry it or have it in my face, and now I keep it back while I'm nursing (which is all the time), plus I don't have much chance to do it. But soon I'll be sporting a new 'do because I also won a haircut and style at the silent auction. I'll keep you posted!