The Basketball Patch

Adam's sister, Annie, lives in Ohio.  Each year she and her girls go to a pumpkin patch and post about it on her blog.  Every year we whine that we don't have cool stuff like that in Wyoming.  Well, eat your heart out Annie, because this year we found a patch!!  A lot of people have told us the local pumpkin patch is very fun and amazing.  Grady has thus far thoroughly enjoyed pumpkins.  However, he generally refers to them as basketballs (the kid is obsessed with balls).  When we got him out of the car he sat and stared at the sea of pumpkins for about ten minutes whispering "basketball". 

Grady would love to run to each pile of pumpkins and pick them up.  They were a bit heavy, but he would moan and grunt and try.

 Finally, he found a couple that were his size.  He would not let them go and carried them everywhere for the rest of the trip.

 What's a pumpkin patch without a horse ride?  Grady loved the horses, but got a little freaked out when we got close.  The patch also had corn mazes, one lasted two hours and the other about a half hour.  We did not do any of the corn mazes.

 We did wonder through the enormous patch for about two hours seeking out the perfect pumpkin.  Adam was sure he was going to stumble upon the Great Pumpkin, but had no luck.

 Grady was a good little helper.  If Adam was pulling the wagon, Grady had to be pushing.  If there was any pulling of the wagon without Grady's help, he would cry and throw himself on the ground...it was parenting at its finest.

 HELP...HELP...Grady don't need no stinkin help...Grady then decided that he could push the wagon all by himself.  He pushed it right into a rut.

 The excitement was high!!  Grady had his excited face on all day long.  Everything deserved a gasp and a point.  Dad even got in on the action.

 Adam's work friends and their kids also went with us.  They had a lot more energy than us and longer legs than Grady.  They covered the patch a couple of times to find the biggest pumpkins they could.

 Grady was happy with the pumpkins he could pick up and throw.

 The horse ride was advertised as "well worth the money."  Adam was pumped, Grady was thirsty, and Camille was hungry...the ride was not worth the two bucks, but Grady loved the horses.

 The patch itself was impressive.  It covered over 300 yards and had every gourd you could imagine.  It literally was a sea of orange.

 We totally forgot to get our friends to take a family pic of us.  So Adam attempted a self-held pic.  We look good, but Grady would never look up...something about the sun being in his eyes...he was being a baby!  It really was a gorgeous day and a lot of fun.  We loved the basketball patch and would definitely go back.

Falling Forward

It seems as though each day Grady is doing lots of new tricks.  Some are fun, some are naughty, and some just make us laugh.  Recently Grady has loved to do a few things:  Wear hats, read on his own, and climb on EVERYTHING.  Last week Camille heard silence, which is rarely a good thing when you have little boys.  She went into Grady's room to find him sitting in a basket full of blankets with a Mickey Mouse hat on and reading a book about his most favorite thing in the world:  A BALL.

 So, Camille got him down off the basket and gave him some crayons to color, which is also a new passion.  Note:  You can tell Grady's dad has been helping Grady color...if you look closely you will see Adam's favorite sports team somewhere on the paper. 

 Of course the most annoying new trick for parents is climbing.  Grady will attempt to climb anything that he can.  Usually his Mickey hat is on the very top of his book shelf, but, he was able to scale the shelf, grab his hat, a book, and a stuffed bear, all before his mother could find him.  On a more dangerous note, also last week, during a moment of silence, we found Grady standing on a chair in the middle of the room with one leg hanging off.  We do not know how he or the chair got to the middle of the room.

 Despite Grady's young age, he is thrilled about Halloween.  We put him down for a nap last Sunday so we could decorate.  When he woke up he just stared at the decorations for about ten minutes.  He was so happy...then he destroyed every single one of them...including the trick or treat cauldrons.

 A precious moment...Adam was working on the computer (translation:  trying to see if BYU will join the Big 12).  Grady would not be without, so he went and got a stepping stool out of the kitchen and got right in the action.

 Our Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom moment of the month came last Sunday.  Adam is in the Young Men's and one of them shot an elk.  Camille said her dad would cook the heart when she was little and loved it...so, an elk heart was donated to the Phillips family.  Note:  Adam tried to get Camille to take a bite of the raw heart, like in Dances With Wolves.  Camille was not amused.



Cahleemah - cahleemah - shuktooday.  Imagine Camille saying that as she rips this heart out of someone...just like the movie.

Or, just imagine her as a her as a happy psycho in a horror movie.

After Camille chopped it up, we cooked it in gravy.  We didn't quite cook it long enough so the meat was a little spongy, but still tasted decent.  Only in Wyoming would we be eating elk heart.

 A preview of Halloween...we thought the little bum and tail were a nice touch.

 Over conference weekend we met up with Adam's brother and family and went out to the sand dunes called Boar's Tusk (Note:  if you look back in the history of our blog, we have been there before).  Adam and his brother Eric almost always seem to revert  back to being 8 year old boys.  They had to jump off the side of the dunes.  Adam is the one in the air, Eric is about to jump.  Eric's extremely pregnant wife is at the bottom. Note:  She had twins ten days after this pic was taken. 

 After their landing they would see who could get up to the top first without being tackled by the other.  Note:  You cannot see Adam's rippling calf muscles in this picture, but he assures you they are there.

 Grady was unsure of the sand, but loved being outside.

 We had a little picnic off the side of the road.  Grady loved eating with his cousin Max.