after a very easy sunday evening meal (rotisserie chicken from giant eagle with mashed potatoes and fresh tomatoes and pickles, both from the garden!), we headed outside before the threat of a thunderstorm. kenny and i were able to throw the aerobie around for about half an hour while the kids ran circles around us and their jungle gym.

half an hour of frisbee is quite enough for me, especially after an afternoon of bike-riding, so we decided to sit and watch the boys run circles around us. within seconds of sitting, kenny spotted something that looked like a bee's nest hanging from one of the fruit trees just passed his hives. it turned out it wasn't a nest, but a ball of bees, or a bee swarm. and unfortunately, they were our honeybees. a swarm can happen at any time to any hive, and there are theories on why it happens, and you can try to keep your hive from becoming a hive that swarms, but sometimes they just happen and you can't stop it. fortunately, we were able to spot it before they flew off somewhere else to create another colony. kenny has a few empty bee boxes stored in our barn...we are learning that this is essential for any bee-keeper since emergencies such as bear-attacks and bee swarms can happen at any time, and you need to "save" the bees somehow. so he ran to get one immediately, stopping off at the house to get the cameras, a ladder, and his bee suit (just his veil and gloves).

i kept the boys at a safe-enough distance (apparently the bees don't want to fly too far away from their precious queen, so they were safe about 30 feet from the tree) while i filmed and snapped some pictures.

we have no idea if the hive will survive, but at least they're safe inside a bee box, inside our electric fence, with plenty of room to roam and waggle-dance and keep their queen happy. if this survives, then we've just added to our bee colonies, and hopefully this will produce more honey in a year or two (so far, we're not sure if we'll be getting any honey this year since we may need to keep what they've produced in the hive for their winter survival).

here's a video of our evening adventure, complete with me hollering "be careful!" every 3.4 seconds, and the boys playing and singing in the background. and kenny getting stung only 3 or 4 times!

since knowing kenny, he has introduced me to some of the better musicals out there, and i know i've mentioned this before, but this story has a different point, i promise.

one by-product of knowing a lot of musicals is the constant singing in our house. from kenny to me, to the boys...there is always humming, singing, wannabe belting (on my part, of course!). there is one song from Side Show that i sang to the boys a year ago and found a video of the song for them on youtube. within a day, they knew the chorus by heart:

...for leaving this blog home to many crickets over the past few weeks...but i've been literally experiencing blog-writers-block. i have no idea what to write about.

my online time these days has been focused on scheduling our semester and reading others' blogs and who was it who got me hooked onto facebook back in november? ugh! at least i'm reconnecting with people i haven't talked to in years, and that's been fun for this very lonely-out-in-the-country mama! :)

any way, here are images that encompass the majority of our summer evenings. i hope to be back to blogging more frequently soon enough!

soccer with daddy:

ice cream!

not that it's been horribly hot at all - it's been fabulously warm for a few weeks now. but today we have a very comfortable, sunny day. it's nice for a change, but a summer day does not go well with goosebumps, and that's what i have everytime i step outside into the coolish breeze today.

we are having a fabulous summer. our vacation to cedar point was just the beginning. i can't wait for the upcoming fun we have planned! here's a sneak peak:

• a visit to our family in Michigan, where we will, no doubt, have fun with water parks, camp out on front porches, cookouts and icecream. because what summer-family gathering is complete without a grill and ice cream????
• a visit to a cabin out east with the smith side of the family. this is still in the planning stages, so i forgot to add it to the list. i can't wait to post pictures of our gathering.
  
• the greater pittsburgh renaissance festival! the boys are still into all things dragons- and knights- and castle-related. i think a live joust just might be the coolest thing they've seen all summer!
  
• a trip to a close-by lake beach, complete with sand-building, swimming, winery-touring, and family sunset photos by the water.
• sawyer's birthday celebration! we're starting school after his birthday so we can concentrate on celebrating him before diving into school stuff. but...
• ...right as school starts, we're going to a local sheep farm (that mom and i recently visited!) to tour the barn, the spinnery, and stay in their guest house! i'm obsessed with raising sheep someday. and they have a bed and breakfast to boot! this place is heaven on earth, in my opinion.

in the meantime, i am spending a lot of time gathering information for our unit studies, organizing my teaching supplies, and then rowan and i get to go "school supply shopping!" i started a separate homeschool blog, and for the future, my homeschool-related blog entries will be posted there in full. this blog will continue to be what it's been for the past 4 years: pictures and stories from the house of smith. if you're interested, our school blog is smithically schooled.

we've returned, quite tired, from a whirlwind trip to the family-friendly Cedar Point where we stayed at the even more family-friendly Castaway Bay. the trip was chock full of twists and turns from our original plans, but it wasn't void of fun, activities and thrills for the boys. it was their favorite vacation yet.

Cedar Point was a popular park when i was a teenager, and that is the last time i was there. the park was fortunately full of activities and rides for the little kids to ride...except for kids adam's age/size. he was stuck with the space ship round-about and the merry-go-round.

the hotel we stayed in had an indoor water park attached to it which was perfect for our kids' ages. they all found a favorite part of the park and eventually got over some small fears of deeper water, or waterfalls and just had fun. our hotel had a private balcony that was completely screened in (with a gate to support the screen), so it was a great place for the boys to eat snacks or lunches (pictured below). it was also nice to have a place to drink our coffee when we woke up earlier than the boys did both mornings.

Pros and Cons of the Trip.
Cedar Point is definitely a great place to take a family for a short vacation. Even for kids ages 5 and under. I think it will be the perfect location in 5-10 years for boys who can swim on their own. I was mildly neurotic about all the water and way too many people at the outdoor water park attached to Cedar Point we visited the second day. If our kids were older, couldn't wander away, and could swim on their own, I'd have been able to let my guard down a little.

Pros

• the boys were never bored.
• the boys had a BLAST.
• they loved the rides and the lines were relatively short inside Camp Snoopy.
• TGI Fridays (attached to our hotel) was really good. Their menu has improved and their prices weren't high like the rest of the hotel.
• the awesome indoor water park

Cons

• even though it was a family-friendly resort, it was more expensive than it should have been.
• we love the beach, and the beach at Cedar Point wasn't all that great. We spent only 15 minutes there.
• we lost Rowan for 10 minutes inside the outdoor water park at Cedar Point. I have bad memories of that outdoor waterpark because of it. it was horrifying.
• no family picture on the beach coast during a gorgeous sunset.
  

Lessons Learned

• always take more cash than you originally planned to take.
• if a public pool looks and feels too crowded, it's not a good place for a family with three young kids.
• Snoopy is so much less frightening than Charlie Brown. It must be that big, round, bald head.
• apply your own sunscreen in the hotel room and not in the parking lot or near the outdoor pool/gate to the amusement park where the kids can wander and you have no time to apply it properly. kenny and i both got burned because we were slapping it on while the kids were way too excited to sit still until we were done!
  

we are keeping very busy being outside. depsite the recent raindrops, we've had some great weather days and have been enjoying some play and outside yardwork. we're FINALLY getting to the front door area that i can't stand. i hope to have before and after pictures eventually, but the work we're doing is minimal since i have big plans to add a big country front porch eventually.

i've been doing a bit of sewing. remember how i got into sewing just a year ago with these fun pants (that's three diffferent links) for our trip to the beach? i found a great tutorial online (thanks to polka dot creations) for bandana pants and i just had to try them out for rowan and sawyer. here is the finished product:

rowan and sawyer had their first, ever outside-the-home-without-mom-or-dad-hovering (well, sort of) learning experience last week in the form of a local Vacation Bible School program.

our church is too small and, well, let's just keep it at that...too small to have a VBS and the older two are finally old enough to attend, so i signed them up at the local church and i can't tell you how much they (and we!) enjoyed it.

i don't remember much about VBS, but i attended it as a student and a helper in my (Orthodox Presbyterian) church growing up. i feel as though i liked it because i couldn't wait for our boys to get involved in one. and i think VBS has changed quite a bit since i was a kid. the church used a VBS package curriculum that really (REALLY!) resonated with the kids. the church was packed with nearly 100 kids every day, and roughly 25-30 adult helpers. the church was barely bigger than our house, but it was doing big things for the families of our little town. i nearly choked up when i saw rowan and sawyer doing all the motions to all the songs the first few times i dropped them off. i think i was the only parent who didn't really drop off my kids: i walked them in and stayed for every opening, and got there early enough to attend the closing "ceremony" each day (like the geek that i am!). I couldn't wait for bible school. and the boys were giddy each morning as we drove the country road to the church. we have a cd of all the songs they sang throughout the week and it's playing nonstop in the house and in the car.

even though we plan to start homeschooling in the fall (with curriculum...a lot of homeschoolers say that they homeschool from the child's day of birth, so i feel the need to clarify), i love how much they loved this experience.  i loved how it changed their "God conversations" just slightly. the theme of the week was God's power, so they were all about how much power and strength God had. i have their daily papers hung up in the kitchen and i plan to go over their daily lessons from last week. am i a homeschooler or what??? :)

one thing i didn't groove on was how much i actually missed them! no doubt the first day was nice as adam and i had lots of quality time together, but by the second day we were both bored. next year, all three boys will attend. if adam ever decides he's not a baby. :)

here's a fun little project that rowan, sawyer, and i did over the past week. homemade (washable!) placemats!

i found this project idea in amanda soule's the creative family and it turned out to be ideal for rainy summer days (of which we've had plenty over the past few weeks, along with those few days in the 90s). we were goign to do it when ramona was visiting, but were having too much fun outside! instead we made one for her after she left and we'll send it to her.

our friends just bought a new house, so to help make it a home for their 1- and 2-year-old boys, we made them their own placemats for their kitchen table. the material is canvas and i just bought a cheap canvas drop cloth from lowes for $9. i'll probably get several placemats out of the amount of canvas the drop cloth provides. it's inexpensive (much more so than buying it by the yard at a fabric store) and i love the feel of the canvas for the finished placemat.

you need a sewing machine to finish, but if your kids like to color or paint, this is an ideal proejct. we used fabric markers, but you can use fabric or acrylic paint as well. i'll venture into that when i have the patience and energy for a big clean up! :)

happy birthday, little adam!

you are the first smith boy to have a second birthday and NOT have a younger brother in the house. your big brothers adore you, look after you, include you, and can't remember life in the house without you. even if sawyer wasn't so sure about you at first:

we are very possessive of our sunny days here in western pennsylvania. we squeeze in as much outside time as we possibly can, until that last bit of daylight slips under the horizon. and it's been sunny for 8 or 9 days straight!

we were also having too much fun with two of my brothers and their families AND my grandparents in town (we missed you GR guys!). so i collapsed into bed each night and my laptop was unopened all week long. we were far too busy, cooking, birdwatching, tree identifying, tree planting, vegetable garden planting, tractor riding, fort building, bike riding, eating, museum going, icecream eating, hockey watching, beer drinking, more eating, wading pool swimming (the littles, not the adults), plant buying, pie baking, more hockey watching, more bird watching, obstacle course building (kenny) and running (the littles), treasure hunting (the littles), cookie-baking, more eating and we found time to sleep in between.

pictures to follow. some day. i'm still recuperating!

i missed yesterday's t-ball festivities, since i was at home waiting for the game commission to drop off a big old bear trap, but more on that later...

sawyer's three-year-old t-ball team meets indoors. thank goodness for that as it was cold and rainy again yesterday. i sent kenny and dad away with camera in hand and told him not return without a good set of pictures. i look at these pictures and want to just squeeze the little guy. how cute is he????
the three-year-olds did a lot of obstacle courses and running around. and of course sitting in circles and waiting. he learned to step with his left foot and throw with the right arm. they didn't do any catching or even hitting the ball off the tee. and he still came home saying how much fun he had.


i'm excited to join him next week. so far it's been too cold to hang out outside and "practice" with them. but i'm sure the weather is bound to break eventually and we'll be outside throwing grounders, pop-ups and hitting off our target-bought t soon enough. and...in a week, two of the boys' uncles and aunts and cousins will be in town for a week. there's bound to be lots of "uncle daniel! uncle andrew! aunt laura! aunt kara! please can you play tball with me?" 

i might even get their great grampy to throw a ball or two with them. :)

when rowan was born, kenny and i sat up at night staring at our sleeping newborn dreaming about all the adventures we'd get to take with him. we dreamed of his baptism, his first steps, meeting his future sibling, "going off to kindergarten," and all the fun sports, or arts teams he'd be a part of (his parents are of the artsy persuasion but we do know the importance and fun of being involved in sports. i was a cheerleader, afterall, so i know all about team S-P-I-R-I-T!).

tonight, rowan had his first t-ball practice. (sawyer's first practice is this saturday - stay tuned!) i thought for sure it would be canceled because it was cold and rainy. and his team is comprised of 4-5-year olds. we showed up, the rained slowed to a steady spit, and the wind kicked up a bit. the kids were all split up into teams (rowan is a marlin!) and practice started. the rain got heavier and steadier and the wind got stronger, so sawyer, adam, my mom and i headed to the car only after 10 minutes. kenny stayed with rowan who was oblivious to the rain and the cold:

the boys have been asking about visiting their grandma and grandpa lately. so a few weeks ago, rowan called them up and told them that they were on their way. fortunately, he made the plans to visit on the same weekend that our state's homeschooling convention was taking place just half an hour away from grandma and grandpa's house, so we all drove out there last week, dropped the kids off with grandma and grandpa and had ourselves a mini-vacation!

the morning we left for the convention, the weather turned cold and raining. we got lost on the way, but eventually made our way into the exhibit hall, only 20 minutes later than we had intended. we were wet and cold, but excited to get our hands on the curriculum we've been looking at online for the past several months, and find some more fun gadgets to use as teaching tools. for the two days we were there, we walked up and down the aisles several times, chatted to countless moms and dads who are currently home-educating their children, found some really great stuff, walked out of some really bad presentations, but were overall encouraged, overwhelmed, and excited. we've toured a local montessori school and will look into the public kindergarten, and another private one for comparison. so far, homeschooling has been our favorite option (it's FUN!), but we're exhausting all our options while we still can.

here we are filling out the evaluation form:

please join me in wishing our beloved chickens a happy birthday today! a year ago on this date, it was frigid...20 degrees and windy and we bundled up and headed west to pick up a small box of squeaky chicks. today, not one of those chickens would be able to fit into that small little box.

we've lost only two chickens in one year, and that is remarkable. the other day, rowan asked me, "will the 14th and the 15th chicken that got taken by the hawk and run over by the car turn one this week too?" and then sawyer asked if we stay with jesus forever in heaven when we die, and then the conversation got way too complicated and difficult for me to continue on a 3- and 4-year-old level, so i quickly changed the subject and decided it was lunchtime at 10:30.

any way...

we celebrated today with homemade BBQ sauce over baked chicken (ha! get it?!), rice, and green beans. we have cupcakes to eat and share with the chickens tomorrow. they love leftovers, those chickens!

we recently got ourselves into a lot of trouble, kenny and i. we made the big mistake of purchasing two packages of playmobil knights and swords for rowan and sawyer's easter baskets. 

it was a bit of an embarrassment when they kept calling the swords, "pokey things" and kept asking what to do with the shields, and wondering just why they needed "metal" armor on top of their clothes. we made an even bigger mistake by then getting the take-along playmobil castle complete with 84 more knights, 115 swords and shields, and one horse.  when they opened this up, the questions kept coming: "what does this pokey thing do?" "why does this man have a feather in his helmet?" "is it cold out? is that why they need these big hats to cover their faces?" "why do they have to protect the castle?" "what princess?" "what bad guy?"

i think it's time to introduce our 3- and 4-year-old boys to knights in shining armors, princesses-in-distress, and real-life heros like st. george. fortunately, we celebrate this day on the 23rd of this month. i just found a half price copy of St. George and the Dragon (even though it's a fictitious story of the actual St. George, who I'm learning is not actually British!), but i'm hoping it will enhance their castle-play at the very least.

are there any other recommendations for knights and castle and medieval stories for young children who don't know that a sword isn't really an inch tall and made of plastic?

i've been neglecting this blog. the boys (and kenny) have been fighting small colds over the past 3-4 weeks...and i seem to have developed a knack for getting sinus troubles for the first time ever. not fun at all. it's a good thing i only have a handful of blog readers and i'm not paid for blog advertising. because once life gets busy, or filled with sick days, the blog is the first thing to be neglected.

is anyone else finding this st.-patrick's-day-during-holy-week a bit...well, off? this week is so full of big things...st. patrick's day today, the first day of spring on thursday, and then all of this smack dab in the middle of Holy Week! if it were up to me, st. patty's day would be a celebration in its own week, a few weeks later, we could celebrate the first day of spring (like we did last year) and then a few weeks after that, celebrate easter. it seems weird to have spring and st. patrick's day celebration during the somber Holy Week.

even though it is a holy week, we will still observe all of it:

• today is all about st. patrick! i'm making traditional corned beef (a recipe from my friend amy), boiled potatoes, carrots, and whiskey cake for dessert. the boys will have pistachio pudding (green!) with whipped cream and green sprinkles since the whiskey isn't cooked off on the cake (it's poured all over with melted butter!). i was just reading this interesting fact about the color of st. patrick. i prefer blue as none of us really have any green clothes. or orange clothes, if you're protestant. or conservative. or...dad? jonathan? help me out. why orange?

• thursday is the first day of spring and last year we made a big bunny cake (see link above). it took over the kitchen, and we're hosting an easter dinner on sunday, so i think something on a smaller scale would be better. i'm thinking easter-egg cupcakes or these cute birds nests?

• there are several church services this week, and it's nearly impossible to take 3 boys under the age of 4 to all of them without upsetting their sleeping schedules. especially since we're still recovering from daylight savings last week! i made the realization this week that our boys have never done an easter egg hunt. and...I have never done an easter egg hunt as a child. it's not my parents' fault. i think my church thought easter egg hunts were of the devil or something, so there was never an opportunity for us. my parents did hide our easter baskets on easter morning, though! and there is one at our church this week after the easter service, so they'll finally participate. here's the problem: i have a tendancy to be very competitive, and i'll want to dive into the church lawn and gather up as many eggs as i can possibly find and give them all to my boys. but the cute little kids in our church are their friends, and those kids' parents are our friends. so i'm not allowed to be competitive during this easter egg hunt. something about losing friends and minding my manners...you know. what adults are supposed to be like. i'm a little worried about my participation in our boys' involvement in organized sports.

happy st. patty's day! happy first day of spring. but most importantly...a blessed Easter to all of you!

i've got some great jokes for you. so next time you're in a joke-telling situation around the water cooler, at a playdate, or where-have-you, you'll be all set.

it all started last night at the dinner table:

----------------
rowan: mommy, can you tell me a joke?
me: (i didn't even know he knew what a joke was) um....um..
kenny: i've got one! why did the skunk go to church?
rowan: (laughs hysterically)
kenny: i haven't gotten to the funny part yet.
rowan: oh. (still laughing)
kenny: to sit in his own pew!
rowan: (stops laughing...) (gotta love a 4-year-old's sense of humor). i've got a joke! why did the hurt bird go to church? to sit in a pew! (more laughter)
me: how about this one - why did the chicken cross the road?
rowan and sawyer: (laughs hysterically)
me: to get to the other side!
(no laughter)
sawyer: why did the bird cross the road? ha ha ha ha ha!
-------------------

so there you go...jokes to impress all your friends!

i'm really enjoying all the resolution and non-resolution promises i'm reading in blogland today. so much so that i feel as though i don't have to do my own list. (whew!)

we spent the eve of the new year with friends. today, we spend it in our pjs (still! it's 2:00 pm!), with family, over a grilled pork loin and traditional saurkraut (and mashed potatoes and applesauce - a very bland looking but delicious meal!). it's snowing outside - we're supposed to get a few inches by tomorrow. i resolve to be more happy about the snow. because it makes the boys so happy and excited.

the house has been used so much since thanksgiving. it needs a total spa treatment. although yesterday, after a quick vacuum of only two of our rooms (as opposed to a deep clean vacuum of all of the rooms), i was a sneezy, wheezy mess from 4:00 until 10:30. i had 1.5 benedryl early in the evening and was out cold by 10:45. it was almost worth missing the new year just for the relief (i also learned to snort salt water!). i guess i have a slight allergy to dust. that's a great excuse to get rid of all the carpet and go to hardwood, right? i guess i should resolve to start a regular cleaning schedule, and not just a clean-when-we-have-guests schedule.

favorite smithical posts from 2007
a re-blog of the i am from "essay" i did. hey - do your own now if you haven't already! blog it!
helping hands (and feet!)
a birthday surprise from my hsuband!
my first (and only?) works-for-me-wednesday contribution
cute easter sunday pictures
i'm already longing for spring as i re-read this one
the beginning of my new-found love of sewing
ahhhh...relaxing!
i think i really am going to miss these "baby" days!
the beach!
my niece sadie guest-blogs

happy new year, everyone. may 2008 be chock-full of goodness, comfort, and joy for all of you!

snowplay is not one of my favorite things. but it's something the boys love to do. every once in a while, you'll hear rowan say, "i LOVE the grass! where's the grass? i miss the grass!" and i couldn't agree more. but they are all over running around making tracks in the snow, eating the snow, packing the snow into snowballs, eating the snow, throwing snowballs, making snowmen and EATING the snow.

if i had my act togehter, this would be our christmas card picture this year. they all climbed up on the table without me asking. i grabbed the camera and snapped this. sawyer looks like quite the ringleader in this photo!

this year, we're really going to observe advent. we talk about it every year and last year we got somewhere with some of our traditions, but this year, we're really going to observe advent, and celebrate christmas on the twelve days after christmas, culminating in a 12th night celebration.

i am noticing a lot more talk of "getting presents" between rowan and sawyer this year. they're getting more and more excited about christmas, and while i don't want to steal their excitement in the giddiness of receiving, i want them to also begin to get excited about giving. i know they have it in them. this year, i made a raggedy ann doll for my niece ramona, and the boys fell in love with her as she grew from fabric in a bag to torso with a face to doll with hair and clothes. they constantly asked to play with her and did everything they could to keep raggedy ann a secret from ramona until we opened gifts on thanksgiving night. i think it was sawyer who just couldn't wait any longer and told laura (ramona's mom) about the doll the day before thanksgiving. but when it was time to give the doll to ramona, as she opeend the present, sawyer stood over her dancing from one foot to another, totally giddy to see raggedy ann in her new owner's arms. when she opened the present sawyer scooped up the doll and held it up high for her parents to see and then finally gave it to ramona.

so in advent, we will prepare our hearts from the coming of the chirist child and His return. i am looking into some celebrations for the different days in advent (the four sundays, st. nicholas day, st. lucia day, etc..). i'll share what we find and what works and flops this year. i have a feeling it will take us a few advents to figure out what traditions are good for our family. but i can't wait to see what takes shape as we learn how to prepare our hearts for the coming of the King.

every night, we are asked the same question by rowan: "how many sleeps until ramona gets here, and then how many sleeps until sadie and gabe get here?"

today, ramona and astrid and their parents (my brother andrew and his wife, laura) arrived safely here in our little neck of the woods. we enjoyed a big dinner at mom and dad's house across the street while sawyer found his wrestling match in ramona. the girl can body-slam like hulk hogan. they wrestled and played, giggled and ran around. tomorrow, the rest of the cousins arrive. sadie and gabe have a little baby brother, charlie...but last time rowan and sawyer saw him he was merely a baby blob. they probably won't remember him until he's old enough to wrestle either.

as i type, our three boys are snuggled up sleeping soundly ready for the big day before thanksgiving: when everyone is here, we get our turkey, and the house fills with smells of apple and pumpkin pies.

this evening, my mom and i shopped for all the ingredients for our thanksgiving meal (except for the turkey...we pick up the bird tomorrow or wednesday).

earlier in the day, i watched a segment on some news program about how to cut back the calories in your thanksgiving meal...something that i'm not too concerned about with the thanksgiving meal since it's only once a year that we get to eat it.  any way, from this segment i learned that the typical caloric intake in one thanksgiving meal is around 2100 calories. per plate. including dessert. then they gave some pointers on how to cut the calories. for instance:

• eat only white meat. if you insist on eating dark meat, don't eat the skin (i can't stand dark meat)
• give yourself only 1-2 tablespoons of gravy on your potatoes (i normally skip the gravy, but i'm going to try it this year, since it'll be made from a fresh bird)

there were others, but i got distracted and was gloating in my ability to only eat a 1400 calorie thanksgiving-day plate already instead of a 2100 calorie plate.

now, i'm off to make some butter and shortening crusts for the pumpkin and apple pies. and i'll leave you with the simplest recipe ever for something our family calls, "stained glass window cookies" (although it's a candy, and not a cookie!), my brother andrew's favorite (so it's always included in holiday get-togethers). The original recipe calls for sprinkles of coconut on top, but we're not coconut fans.

Stained Glass Window Cookies
1 12 oz. bag semi sweet chocolate chips
1 bag of colored marshmallows
1 stick of butter

Melt butter and chocolate chips together over low heat (or double boiler) until melted and blended. Remove from heat and let stand five minutes. Add entire bag of marshmallows and stir until completely covered.

Pour everything onto a large sheet of waxed paper. Using sides of the waxed paper, shape into a log. Tape waxed paper over top to hold shape and refrigerate until hardened (several hours).

kenny and i are hosting thanksgiving this year. i am very excited about this as i've only hosted the big turkey meal a few times in my short life, so i'm not jaded about how much work it involves. yet.

the majority of my remaining november daily blogs will be about preparations for the big day. this means that if you are coming (and you know who you are) there should be no surprises when you get here. you'll know the meals you'll be eating, the rooms you'll be staying in, the projects i have planned for our kids.  those of you who aren't coming (and that makes the majority of you, my blog readers) can join in on the fun online. i might even get to post "during" and "after" pictures..

so...be prepared for lists and menus, shopping excursion stories, craft-project-trials, and pictures of preparations in the coming days. i might even share a family recipe or two!

by the way, this week, my brother andrew and his wife and one of my InRealLife friends both had babies. andrew and laura had a second daughter, named astrid millay and serina and jason had their third, a son (they have two daughters), named asher jase. a lovely fall week to birth a baby! and i never did announce the birth just over a month ago, of our new niece, jada. she lives all the way in seattle and i'm going to bug her parents (ahem...wayne!) for more pictures since she's all of 5 weeks old now and we've only seen birth pictures! i'm so impatient.

to add to the baby excitement, two of our friends have announced new pregnancies to us this week! it's an exciting time to be birthing and growing babies. except for me...this post is not a foreshadowing nor does it in any way mean that we are pregnant. i'm just really excited for my family and friends!!!

i leave you with one more halloween picture of the only one that would smile for the camera! after looking at this photo, i am not surprised that he is mistaken for a girl more often than not. must.cut.his.hair. :)

today is All Saint's Day, the day after Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve. We have a strong pull towards anything liturgical, so we acknowledge these days as well as have fun with some of the other, mostly commercial, holidays.

i'm happy to say that we spent $0.00 on the boys' costumes this year - and all of them dressed up! so we didn't fall for the commercial aspect of the day. except for the hording and hiding of candy from the boys. we were able to walk faster this year, which means we hit more houses, which means we have more candy than we've ever had. i pulled the bowl out of the cupboard from last year and noticed one lone piece of bubble gum from last year's stash. we got bad candy last year - lots of dum dums and bubble gum and hugs drinks. this year, we got chocolate - peanut butter cups, M&Ms, and snickers.

i will be so sad the day when the boys trade in their adorable and cuddly costumes for the death and grisly ax-murder ones that we saw all over last night. that biggest head-scratcher for me was seeing a barely-13-year-old girl in an extremely provocative costume all the while smoking a cigarette. i'm such a mom. if she came to my door, i'd give her nothing but a lecture!

after returning from our trick or treating walk through the local (three miles away) neighborhood, we had a quick bute of dinner (chicken sandwiches this year), and it was past everyone's bedtime. but the boys needed to wind down. normally this means snuggling up with books and a soothing voice to read them. but last night, we snuggled in the guest room and watched the Peanuts Halloween special. something i always looked forward to as a kid. and now my kids laugh at all the silly snoopy parts. and kenny and i snicker at them giggling away.

this year's quicky costumes...a tiger! a bear! a bob-the-builder! (one is blurry, one isn't...)

i've been a few-and-far-between blogger these past few weeks. but take heart! that will change in just a few short days as i will, again, be participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). which means that I will have to come up with fun and interesting thigns to write about at least ONCE A DAY. that's a bit daunting. but i'm giving it another shot.

if you're interested, you can find my month of november 2006 postings here.

for today, i leave you with a list of good things. and if you're reading, i tag beth (a mama's musings and meditations), april (salt for the spirit), and heather (daley ponderings) to do the same in their blogs! (no pressure! in your own time...)

Liz's current Good Things

• one-on-one time with the boys: it's weird. they're completely different boys when i'm with them alone. rowan usually carries the conversation when they're together. but get sawyer alone and he'll talk your ear off! he's super sweet, despite being the dare devil in the bunch. and rowan is at an age where he's constantly questioning why things happen or why they work. it makes for interesting topics of conversation! adam is snuggly and lovey all alone. and he's found the art of wrestling, AND he's discovering books! all of these traits make for fun times.
  

• a campfire anytime: yesterday was gorgeous. sunny skies and in the high 50s. we were running around outside with the boys and rowan asked for marshmallows over the fire. ahhhh...a fire to keep us warm. the fire was roring in less than 5 minutes, and we sat around with hot chocolate and roasted marshamllows. then we went back to running around, all smelling like campfire.
  

• crafting. making. knitting: i can't get enough of it! i finisehd a par of slippers for kenny last week, and i'm already alsmot done with a hat for him. also, i have 3 sewing projects lined up (i can't display them as they may be gifts...if they're done in time for thanksgiving and christmas!) and a few others brewing in my head.
  

• home-delivered milk: every monday morning, we get three gallons of milk delivered to our door. it's nice not to have to lug three gallons in from the store every week! and...i needed buttermilk today for a recipe, and the milkman always has extra "goods" in his truck...so i just asked him for a quart and nw i don't have to run ot the store with the boys just for buttermilk!
  

• the few hours kenny and i have together after the kids go to bed, and sometimes before they wake up: uninterupted conversation or just plain silence. it's golden. especially over a cup of morning coffee, or a fire in the fireplace with my knitting in my hands. we love spending time with our kids, and we love "family time" which is the majority of each of our days. but this time is also precious.
  

adam's favorite spot on tractor rides is up front. he's a bit spoiled that way. he always gets the front. he chatters throughout the ride, talking, chirping, clapping. he is 100% pure country boy. he knows exactly where we keep the tractor and if we're outside walking around the yard, he makes a mad dash for the barn. he's happy enough just sitting on the yellow seat (and now he's discovered the tractors at lowes...just as his older brothers grew out of their fascination with them!).

our life with chickens seems to stay so similar from day to day until something exciting happens - like a blue-green egg! and then i'm reminded just how fortunate we are to be living with these fowl.  i discovered today, that it is our beloved araucana, bettis (named for her thick neck, like the beloved, retired steeler, jerome bettis), that is producing the blue-green egg. both my mom and i discovered her in the nest box today, around the time the egg appeared. here she is in all her thick-neck glory:

when beginning our research into raising chickens, kenny and i fell in love with all the characteristics of the Buff Orpington. So far, our Buffs won't let us near them, and we are not sure if they're laying yet - two opposites of what we were expecting of them (very friendly, and good layers). But they sure are beautiful!

now, when i refer to our chickens as beautiful, i know that some of you are rolling your eyes or laughing thinking, "beautiful? i think NOT!" i know i'm in the minority. and this is a picture that doesn't flatter our Golden Buffs...and i agree, these chickens aren't necessarily beautiful. but they're our current fabulous egg-layers, and we're thankful for our eggs!

here's another beauty. am i the only one who is reminded of george washington upon looking at these silver laced wyandottes?

every evening, our boys love running around with the chickens. a few of them usually hang out with us when we're outside at the jungle gym in the evenings. rowan usually ends up picking a few of them up, while sawyer tries to, but freaks out at the last minute. adam is also very fond of them - as they are of him. they walk right up to him and peck his hand, his fingers, his feet.... he laughs and "yells" at them.

on one of my first visits to kenny's parents' home (when we were dating or engaged...i can't remember which), i remember spotting something hanging on their basement wall that caught my eye. when i asked kenny about it, he told me it was an embroidered version of a painting he did when he was about 5 years old. his grandmother recreated one of his paintings with yarn. i fell in love with the idea and tucked it in the back of my mind.

a year or so ago, kenny's mom gave him a thick envelope filled with paintings and report cards, drawings and notes that he had done as s child. i think he was ready to throw it out, but being the nostaligc type, i opened it and examined each picture, read each note that he had written to his parents or grandparents, and put the envelope on a shelf so he couldn't throw it away. why throw away such treasures?

it wasn't until early this summer that i put two and two together and realized that in that envelope was the original "kenny smith painting" that his grandmother reproduced. and i'm now honored to have both!