it's 7:56 a.m. and the house is full of the smells of a smoker at full-force.

on sunday, kenny assembled his charcoal smoker. for the past two evenings, he's studied the owner's manual and this morning, he was dressed by 6:30, gathering equipment to get the smoker started. for the past two days, an 11 lb. turkey has been thawing in our refrigerator, and last night i cleaned it out, patted it dry, pulled out the pop-up thermometer and put it back in the fridge for the night.

my side of the family will exchange christmas gifts at thanksgiving this year. so i'm busy thinking up crafting goodness for gifts for the littles - the nieces and the nephews. i don't know if any of them will be successes, but pictures will be taken once the projects have been gifted (or finished and decided not to gift...).

so today's thanksgiving preparations are fabric and yarn purchases!  i am looking forward to an excursion out to joann's and michael's this evening with my mom to look for yarns and fabrics. we don't have good yarn/knitting and fabric stores here. there is a quilt store nearby, but it closes at 5:00 and we won't get out much earlier than 5:30 or 6:00 (depending on when we're done with dinner).

yesterday's breadmaking was disasterous. as it was rising, i was going to blog about how wonderful it smelled (even raw bread smells yeasty-delicious!). but i think it needed a few more hours to rise - either the yeast or the flour was old. it called for bread flour and i'm not used to baking with anything other than whole wheat and all-purpose flours. so it was dense and raw in the middle when pulled out of the oven. it smelled great, but the chickens enjoyed both loaves this morning as no sane person enjoys raw bread with dinner. if the recipe turned out, i was going to use it for the stuffing and thanksgiving. we'll try again another time. on a day when it feels like a bread-making day again.

kenny has been very busy over the past few months preparing for something that began last night, and that we hope continues and grows on into the future.

with the help of friends and other church members, we started a saturday evening service for church members and anyone outside the church who wants to check it out to worship. the service is based on "an order of worship for the evening" so communion is not included. however, the service concludes with a free meal for everyone, so communion happens, just not Holy Communion.

we honestly had no idea if anyone would come, but we were pleasantly surprised to see the faithful worshipers from a typical sunday morning service come, and a few others.

i can't describe the service any better than kenny already has at the service's web site. please check it out. and if you're local, come visit! and if you think of it, keep this service in your prayers.

i leave you with an image of my favorite poster we've hung up in stores in the area.

it's been a long day, and we are turning the clocks back tonight (don't forget!!!). when you have small children, they don't know to stay in bed for an extra hour, so we're off to bed to get our extra hour tonight.

i know this post isn't much....but it'll have to do.

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...)

if the devil were ever a true part of halloween, it was today.

it started off great...the boys awoke in good moods and we were dressed and out the door by 9:30. we drove to Lowe's to pick up kenny's birthday present (which would still be a surprise had it not been for the rest of the days' events). the boys were excited talking about and planning his birthday events...but to them, it's all about the cake.

when we got home, kenny had an errand to run, and i jumped at the chance to run it for him. adam and i took off around noon to a Kinkos (the closest one is 45 minutes away!) to pick up a poster for something i'll blog about in the future...but it was important that we pick it up today. adam fell asleep about 20 minutes into the drive. i noticed that we were getting low on gas, but wondered whether or not i should just fill the tank once i reached the Kinkos since it was around more gas stations. at the very last minute before passing up the last gas station before getting onto the highway, i decided to fill the tank then. so i get out quietly (as not to wake a just-fallen-asleep-adam) and start to fill the tank. around $5.45, i noticed something leaking from under our car. i peer underneath and surely, a pinkish liquid was POURING out of the front section of the car. i stopped pumping immediately and got back into the car and pulled it around to the station. i checked again under the car and it was still pouring out. in fact, i noticed that there was a line of liquid on the ground from the road and into the gas station, so it had started to leak before i actually got to the station.

to make a long story semi-short, i had a guy from within the shell station look at the car and he said that it seems one of my heating lines rusted through and anti-freeze and water was draining out of the engine. he recommended not driving it. i called AAA, and told them i was stranded with a 16-monht-old (by the way...if you are ever stranded with young children, you should mention that to the AAA folks as they make an extra effort to get their faster. apparently.). they were there within 40 minutes.

the tow-truck driver was a hoot. he had a double cab, so i felt comfortable putting adam face-front for this one trip (even though he's just over 20#, he's still rear-facing and i'm not really in a hurry to switch him around yet). adam had a great time watching out the windows all around him and sitting next to me. we had the van towed to the neighborhood mechanic: you gotta love the country. this guy lives next ot his garage and has a few goats penned up in a small shed a few feet away...and it's not junky. he's in an "upscale" section of the neighborhood - a newer build area (well, newer-build as in 1970s instead of 1890s!) who fixed the line for us in less than two hours. i think he heard kenny and i trying to figure out how to get the kids trick or treating tonight without the family car (and three car seats!). once again, gotta love the country - you have to drive to get anywhere to trick or treat!). i had to pull kenny's gift out of the back of the van and put it in the truck to take home - so he got his brithday present early!

all in all, it was a HUGE pain in the butt, but we see God's hand of protection in so many parts of the day:

1. i thank God i stopped when i did, otherwise the car could have overheated and done more damage.
2. i considered canceling our AAA membership back in april. thank God i didn't.
3. the mechanic is usually backed up with a lot of work (we recently waited over two weeks for our truck to be inspected). today, he turned our van around in a few hours.
4. adam, who has been on the cranky side lately, was a pure delight to hang out with at a gas station today. he laughed, played with my cell phone, said "hi" to strangers and didn't fuss once.
5. the boys didn't miss out on trick or treating - something they've been talking about since last january (they still talk about how fun it was to trick or treat with uncle wayne and aunt amanda last year!)
6. when we got home from dropping the van off at the mechanic, i was able to run back out in kenny's car to pick up the much-needed poster while adam napped the entire time i was gone.

i'll post pictures and a play-by-play of our trick or treating events later.

tomorrow is the start of National Blog Posting Month. see you back here tomorrow!

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.
  

recently, my mom brought us up a 1/2 a peck of apples. cortland apples - perfect for eating, baking, and applesauce-making. i've made enough applesauce, i think (unless i decide to can some), but it's time to bake. i made this last night and it's just perfect for days like today: cold, rainy, orange and red leaves all over the wet road. i'm enjoying my second piece of the day with a cup of constant comment tea. oh, how i've missed my constant comment tea (it's just not something you drink in sumertime!). enjoy!

(for those of you non-pittsburghers out there, "n'at" is the only proper way to end a sentence here in western pennsylvania.)

sunday morning, we woke up to one of our garbage bags strewn across the front lawn. kenny noticed rather large teeth holes in some pieces of garbage. we weren't sure, but we considered that it was was one very large raccoon.

until today. we came across this:

would you believe that we had another trip to the ER this week? it was sawyer this time, with a minor head injury. and it all happened right outside the trader joe's.

i drove the boys down to pittsburgh for the night yesterday, and i thought i'd stop in at trader joes to get some coveted kefir (you can't get it up here), full-fat yogurt (another thing you can't find in stores here - they're all low-fat) and yummy snacks for our day.

so the three boys and i piled out of the car, as we always do...rowan first, then sawyer, and then adam. as we stepped onto the sidewalk, rowan began running towards the door, and as usual, sawyer followed. at which point he fell and his forehead met the pavement for the very first time (please, let it be the last???). screaming ensued...a nice woman gave me a tissue and then left...and then i didn't know what to do.

immediately, the nice man from one of TJ's registers came outside and asked if there was anything he could do...at which point another patron of the store offered me her cell phone. i called kenny who was only a few blocks away at work and told him that we'd be making another trip to the ER. another TJ employee came out and asked if there was anything sawyer would want to make him happy...the only thing that came to mind was chocolate milk - a favorite rare treat for them these days. she came back out a few minutes later with four containers of amazingly yummy chocolate milk...sawyer rejected it. sawyer rejected chocolate milk! but rowan got his own and he was done with it in 2 mintues flat.

at this point, the bleeding was stopping, so i though i'd pile them all back into the car, pick up kenny and head to Children's Hospital (thank God we were so close to Children's!) if he thought it needed a stitch or two. another patron came over and told me that she had three (or was it two?) boys of her own, now grown, and she'd been through this a few times in her day. she offered sawyer a brand new container of chocolate peanut butter cups...he rejected those as well! he just kept crying and saying, "but it HURTS, mama!" poor, sweet thing. it must have hurt for my little sugar-addict to reject two chocolatley treats. just an hour previous to this incident, on our way down in the car, he was looking at a book that had a picture of jelly beans in it and told me he wanted a jelly bean pie. (how's that for a sugar high?).

the hospital stay was much more brief than rowan's, and kenny got the honors while i hung out with adam and rowan at the nearby (BIG!) library. he was all smiles when i picked them up a few hours later, sporting a bright yellow (green, maybe?) bandaid on his forehead. no stitches needed - just a cleansing and glued shut (two deep holes, not wide enough for stitches or staples, but deep enough to keep closed). he then downed the entire container of chocolate milk he was given by the nice people of Trader Joes. they didn't even charge me for them...and they lost my business that day since i never stopped foot into their store!

have i mentioned how nice the employees of Trader Joes are, yet?