Thank you, Jack

for putting an enormous Mag-lite flashlight in my car.

I know it's there so I can hit someone over the head with it if I'm attacked, but I never thought I'd need it for wild animals.

Tonight when I came home from buying candy for the ward Fall Festival, I parked and looked up to see two foxes hanging out around my front porch. I know I'm a wimp, but I sat there for several minutes watching them checking out the bushes and walking on and off the porch. I called Jack from the parking lot to tell him to open the door so I could turn off the headlights and come inside without being attacked by foxes (long shot, I know). I even honked the horn, and they ran away, but came right back.

Then I remembered the flashlight, turned it on, turned off the car, turned off the headlights, gathered up my bags of candy and proceeded to the front door. By this time Jack had come out to see what was going on.

You can imagine the conversation between this city girl and my East Texas country boy husband.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a cat?"
Please.

But thanks for the flashlight. You were right. It did come in handy.

You, too, can be amazing.

I was telling a friend today about making my kids' Halloween costumes (which I once loudly proclaimed I would never do), and she said, "you're amazing!"

To that I would like to reply.

With the Internet and Wal-mart, anyone can be amazing.

Pictures to come; stay tuned.

Happy Magic Birthday!!

September:

August:

July:

April:

February:

2008:

2007:

2006:


Today is my little sister's magic birthday. I hope it was magical.

The corn maze

Our trip to "The Maize" this year was an event.

Pumpkin portraits:



Rose riding backpack-style:


Jack found marker number 9! We're almost through.


The whole (older) gang:


On top of the bridge:


We are waaaay up there:


Down the steps on the other side:


We're so high!


This is the clue sheet to help us make the right turns:


Nothing like wide, hard-packed paths in high corn stalks to bring on running in children. We made it through in record time. It's a good thing they almost always chose the right way the first time.


It was windy, chilly, and a welcome departure from the 90-degree weather of the week before.


Also fun -- the hay bale maze for tots.


The animals: sheep, hens, ducks, goats, a gigantic pig


This is a particularly cute animal:


This one is a climber:


Almost free! (Or about to jump in with the goats.)


Ellen wanted to end it all up with her own pumpkin portrait:


Happy fall fun!

Leaves are falling all around

Happy fall. We've updated our spring popcorn tree to a fall leaf tree. Many fun preschool activities revolve around this tree on our front door.

Caen las hojas
Caen las hojas alrededor
En los techos, en la flor
Caen las hojas en mi nariz
Manos, pies, y soy feliz.

Leaves are falling

Leaves are falling all around
On the housetops, on the ground
Leaves are falling on my nose
On my head and hands and toes.

32 candles

There's nothing like a pan full of blazing cupcakes to get every child's attention.

They're all hoping that this blaze of glory is for them.

Or that at the very least they'll all get to blow.

Yep. It took 5 kids and one birthday boy to get all those candles extinguished.

Happy Birthday, Uncle David!

Picking flowers for preschool

One of our recent preschool field trips took us to Foxland Growers, a farm just outside of Lubbock that grows flowers and some vegetables that you can pick yourself.

We caught the tail end of the season, but the kids loved walking the rows and finding flowers to take home.

I asked Ellen if she wanted me to help her put her jacket on. Her answer? "No mom, because this is how scarecrows do it." Of course.


Hey there, Jack Jack.


Hiding out in the tomatoes.

The South Plains Fair

We went to the fair! We ate corn dogs, cotton candy, caramel apples, roasted corn on the cob, and huge baked potatoes.

We walked through the petting zoo, but my kids refused to touch any animals (typical, to my germophobe, flu-fearing relief).

No trip to the fair would be complete without a trip around the carousel. Ellen wanted to go with Daddy. Jack Jack cried when he thought we were going to make him go. He was adamantly opposed to brightly colored moving ponies. I asked him several times if he was sure, and did he want to go on the carousel? NOOOO!

Ellen loved it.



She had a body guard.

Preschool with the boys

We've been having "boy" preschool with some friends twice a week. On my day to host, we made peanut butter play dough. Then we played!

Okay, so Ellen's not one of the boys, but she loves having school.

Hard to get anything but an action shot of Mr. T.

Mr. B, what is that face?

Jack Jack worked with his heart cookie cutters and the rolling pin for probably 30 minutes. Wow.

Peanut butter play dough:
1 3/4 cup peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 3/4 cup honey
2 cups powdered milk

Mix all ingredients well. I used my Kitchen Aid mixer and the dough hook. It took several minutes, but it really beats trying to get everything well incorporated by hand. I found the recipe I used on allrecipes.com and halved it.

In addition to rolling pins and cookie cutters, I made a leaf pattern and let the kids make leaf shapes. Just to experiment, I baked one shape for each of the kids to take home and gave them each a bag of play dough to take home.

Of course it's completely edible. My kids really, really, really like when we get to make peanut butter play dough!