leaving fall behind...

Everyone is already in a tizzy over Christmas, but we're not ready for that... quite yet. Yes, I'm thinking about gifts and crafts... watch for a whole series on "Homemade Christmas," coming up. :-)

We're enjoying this one day at a time. I'm not leaving fall behind yet!!

The weather has been so uncharacteristically warm. I think it was about 75 degrees yesterday (and today!!) so Fred and I took the kids to the park for the afternoon. Little Lad preferred the leaves to the play equipment.
Fred is out watching football right now, and then I'll go out with my girlfriends tonight for Game Night. Can't ask for more perfect days!

Yoda~ may the force be with you

If you keep up with me on Facebook, you already know that we got an adorable little bolognese dog. Yes, click on that link and read all the fantastic stuff about this little guy. He's great with kids, hypoallergenic, house-trained, doesn't shed or bark... this is my kinda dog!!

We all love Yoda.

(I realize I've been skipping my daily-blog-therapy-sessions. It's not because I have nothing to say or show; on the contrary, there's simply too much of everything: news, crafts, school, field trips, you name it. So much to say and share, yet so little time...
Still, I do need my bloggie-sanity time. More tomorrow!)

update on Amers

Quick update on my little sis:

Amy will be having surgery to remove the cancerous kidney next Monday, the 9th. They expect a 3-5 day hospital stay and about 2 months of recovery. Keep her in your prayers.

The Artist child demonstrates where a kidney is. Ouch. She just had hers removed, too, apparently. ;-)

Love ya, Ames.

What do we teach pirates in school?

The 3 AAARRRs ...

This Halloween, we had two pirates, one Darth Vader, and one dinosaur (who became a jester later in the night.)
We took them to my parents house, several church functions, and two neighborhoods. It was the perfect night for trick-or-treating!

(Julie already posted this, so I'm stealing hers rather than doing my own...)
On Friday, we went to a Murder-Mystery Party called "A Taste For Wine and Murder." It was really fun! We all got dressed up as our assigned characters and showed up at the "Rottingrape Mansion" with our assigned food items and beverage of choice. We all really got into playing our parts; it was great.



Who killed Barry Underwood?

Was it....


Or perhaps...?



Or could it be...?


Or, possibly....?


That's what Detective Wizer (who hates mine but is quite fond of beer, or in this case Mt. Dew disguised as beer) and Bonny Lass, a novelist who's too curious for her own good, are trying to find out...





The plot thickens...are these people really what they seem?












One thing's for sure: someone here is the murderer



And I wouldn't put it past any of them...






But I'm not telling who....


I'm hooked! I want to do another one!

Me, too, Julie!!

Live Performances

Yesterday I was able to go in to Isabelle's ballet class to take some pictures of the girls practicing. I left my camera in Julie's car on Wednesday, so Mom loaned me hers for these shots. I didn't realize until after the fact that she has it set to compress, hence the low quality shots. sigh. Oh, well.
You can still see Isabelle's graceful little moves. She certainly has the right body for ballet.

Aren't the girls just darling??

Then Sherrill and I took the Artist with us to "God's Favorite" play. The content was a bit much for my darling, but she enjoyed watching our sweet friend Rochelle perform.
Below, some of the cast, after the play.

Rochelle, you were awesome!~!!! The accent especially just blew me away.

Soaring to new heights

It rained again yesterday. I could never live in Forks, I'm tellin' ya.
Sunshine is sustaining, like food. I need it. On beautiful days, we go outside after school (if we haven't been outside working already.) On the yucky nasty dreary days, I have to distract myself with fun things indoors. Yes, I said I'm distracting myself, not the kids. I think they handle the gloom better than I do.
So, we created a Greek mosaic using plaster of paris. Pictures soon.
And we did a mini photo shoot using a blue sheet, white cut-out clouds, and stars.

Nature Man soars through the air, determined to rescue the world yet again from the forces of darkness.

Dash zooms along, following his big brother. He is the ultimate sidekick.

The cloud fairy merely hovers, aiding airplanes through perilous weather.

Yes, these kids shower me with smiles and stars on the gloomiest of days.
The sun starts shining right from the house. :-)

Nature Man is quick to offer aid when the rain comes...

Fire Department Field Trip

Yeah, we're still quarantined, although we're feeling much better. Tomorrow we will be "released."

We cheated just a bit today, though, and drove over to see Papa at the fire department, so the kids could get out of the house, and take some energy out on the truck.

Posing for Mommy

In Papa's seat

Wearing Papa's clothes

Climbing on Papa's truck

Taking turns wearing Papa's helmet

What a sweet Papa, posing with four sweet kids and their amazingly sweet Daddy.

And one family shot to boot!

This "field trip" featured on About.com's Homeschool Links, here.