Halloween

Here are some pictures from today. The boys went out with Peter and Reveille trick-or-treating. They were all ready to go at about 4p.m. They all had fun and only went to a few streets. They were all in a good mood when they got home, so it seems that was enough.


Here we have a Love Bug. This was last night a friends party. They had a haunted house in their upstairs. It didn't go over very well with Micah and Samuel.



We have Peter and Edmund Pevensie and Harry Potter to see us. They are all currently watching Looney Tunes. Who knew English book characters would like slap-stick comedy?

They are all ready to fight their respective bad guys. Harry is having a hard time figuring out which weapon to use.

Ah, looks like he chose the wand and is just keeping the sword handy. Where is Fawkes? Nice of him to drop the sword by so that Harry can battle "he who must not be named" as Abraham says.

We've only had a couple of trick-or-treaters so far. Hope we get some more.

Making Apple Cider

On Sunday we went to a Peter's mentor's house/orchard to make apple cider. We all had a fun, but the boys had the most fun. They got to help in the making of the cider. Paul Yorty and his wife Lois have been making apple cider for years and have refined the process to make it safe for kids to help.


Here's the general idea.

You throw washed, brown spots removed apples into the grinder. Notice the grinder has that nifty, homemade hand-not-getting-ground protector. You can see the ground apples down below.


And then you smile at each other because everybody still has their hands and you are making yummy apple cider.

Next you spin the press that squeezes the ground up apples into yummy apple cider. I forgot to get a picture of it, but see the orange bucket at the edge of the fore ground. While the apples are getting pressed, you put the bucket on the ground under the press and the cider just comes flowing out.

Paul and Lois have a large orchard and sell their apples, gourds, pears and grapes. Samuel had fun looking at all the different kinds of fruit they had in available.

Of course they sell what boys don't eat. I think each boy had four or five pears.

Here is a corner of their orchard. Do you see the red thing? That's a swing. They planted all the trees along the side when they moved there 30 years ago. Isn't it just beautiful? It makes me want to live in the country kind of. They live down the road from a dairy, not the smell I want in the morning. Oh, and the diaries around here aren't small dairies. Big, 3,000 cow diaries.

Here's the horse next door. I couldn't get much closer without incuring too much sun so I kept taking pictures of it's rear. It's looking at me thinking I'm some crazy horse-rear loving person.

We made three and a half gallons just from one pressing. We been invited every year so far. If we are invited again I will get better pictures. Including, his homemade pushing the apples down device.

Being unhappy

Proverbs 13:20 He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.

This starts with my childhood. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to live an exciting life! I wanted to be able to dream and make them real. I, however, did not want to be a pianist. I am now an adult and that hasn't happened. I am not, nor will I ever be Col. Samantha Carter. Woe is me! I will never be fulfilled in life. I will never live my life on a RV (yes, I still think about that stuff, check out walk slowly live wildly). I knew that living in Houston forever was not for me, I needed to get out and far away. Call it rebelliousness, whatever you want, but I didn't want what my family wanted for me--to be boring, stay-at-home housewifey person. Doh! Can you hear the anger, the frustration? I blame it on MacGyver, that's it it's RDA's fault!

So there I was watching tons of TV to try and drown out the frustrations. I eventually decided that this wasn't good, so I said "be gone with you" to the TV. I found that soon after not watching TV anymore that I started to feel happier. The TV even looked longingly at me and said how can you be so without heart? I started blogging and that gave me hope. I, of course, was reading blogs of ladies who are satisfied with their lives and talk about what makes them happy. I thought to myself, what, for the love of ice cream, is wrong with me?

I was taking a shower this morning and realized that FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME I am someone to four people. I am in fact, still the most important person to them. Talk about a slow learning curve! About three minutes ago they were all in my room clamoring for my attention.

I have been unsatisfied, or maybe dissatified, the last day or so. I haven't figured that one out. I did more thinking about my underlying anger and then realized I was slowly involving my mind in something that makes me angry, but I couldn't do much about, like post. What, you say? Well, I'll tell you! I have been reading at Blogher. Oh, the shame! Let's get all the angry women and give them a place to argue, but it can't be on TV or it would be The View. (Hehe!) That's what Blogher is, at least in the politics area. So I have been subjecting myself to another way that makes me unhappy. Whoa, I just realized I have been harming myself with this stuff. Again, talk about a slow learning curve!

I realize that I need to confine myself to areas that have edifying ideas. And be around women who are happy to be at home or where they are in life. Thanks for the ear, I'll give it back eventually.

First Playdate

Today Samuel had his first playdate that was all for him. He is by far my most introverted child. Esther is already showing more interest in being with other people. I think that he has had it the worst with all of our moves in the last four years. We moved four times in the last four years. That's alot! So it's understandable that he hasn't had a best friend until now. The boys run towards each other every day when they get to school. And according to Alex's mom(and me), both have spent the entire weekend talking about this playdate. As Alex was walking out the door he asked his mom when they could play again. I am so happy that Samuel has been blessed with this friend.


I just love the way boys work so hard at playing!

Getting ready for winter

We have been getting ready for winter here, at least we have been outside.



Yesterday I dug up my dahlia bulbs.




Here in Idaho they have to be dug up and stored over winter at a cool temperature. I have never done this before, so I am learning. In learning about this I have discovered a wonderful thing about living in the desert, it's dry. Yes, I know that goes without saying. But when it comes to storing dahlia bulbs dryness makes everything easier. I read about how to do this online. It says that you have to be very careful not to damage the bulbs when digging them up. As usual for me, I read about this after digging them up.

Here in this picture you can see that I damaged a few. The internet page said that I did a bad thing. It berated me. It said that they would now all die from fungus. I was sad, so I talked to Peter about this since he is all knowing in the area of plants. He laughed (not at me, but at the internet) and said that it's good that we in Idaho since fungus won't grow. So now all I have to do is find vermiculite, wood shaving, or sand to store them in once they are done drying.

Next spring I will plant the bulbs again and see if they survived my manhandling of them. Peter thinks they will.

What no TV will bring

We have been without TV for almost a month. For quite awhile before we canceled cable I was not interested in reading. My usual books did not inspire me in the least. I believe that I got lazy. Not pretty, but that's what too much TV will do. It makes ones mind lazy. I was fighting my kids to do the reading required by their teachers.

So after a month I have found myself in the middle of one of my readfests.(Not a word, however I have no other word for it.) I realized that I was reading at a stop light the other day. No, it was not a good idea and it was definitely unsafe, but I was happy to have that feeling again. The one where you can't get yourself out of the story and it would be a tragedy of unknown proportions if you can't finish the book before moving onto other tasks, yeah that's the one!

Interesting things have been happening around my house the last couple of days. We have all been reading. Yesterday after church while reading and holding a sleeping Esther on the couch I looked up and all three boys were sitting in front of the fireplace reading. Sorry, I didn't get a picture, because I was too busy reading. It was such a cozy atmoshpere. We had the fire on (we have gas fireplace) the dog was curled up in front of the fireplace on her pillow and the boys were all reading. Peter was reading his birthday book.

So, what book inspired this about face? Alexander McCall Smith's The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It is a nice happy mystery novel with no violence and no sex. It's not hard, but it's delightful. I have since read up to number 5 in the series. I plan to read the rest before testing my brain more with more difficult fare, which is in of it.

Some interesting quotes

We get God's World News Early Edition (for kids). It had a quote from each President. All of the kids have been enjoying this part, as have Peter and I. There are some that we haven't agreed with but there are others that are surprising relevant for today.

"About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends."
-Herbert Hoover

"Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people."
-Grover Cleveland(Democrat)

"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything."
-Theodore Roosevelt

"There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress...than I had any conception of."
-James Polk

"Philosophy is common sense with big words."
-James Monroe

There are many more, maybe I will list more another time. In the mean time I am taking care of a sick little girl. She is in the middle of her first cold and I am stuck at home as it has become windy and cool here.

I am adding a picture. I like the way the water is shown in the middle of the splash. And Peter's smile is great. He didn't know I would be including any of him in the picture, he's just smiling his lovely smile at his daughter. Do you think that's how God smiles at us?

Being Emphatic

I been thinking lately about the being emphatic. I am quite disgusted with myself and the boringness(yes, I know this isn't a word, but that's what this post is all about) that my language has become. I have recently been thinking about how to be more emphatic without being boring. I was reading a post at Amy's Humble Musings and got distracted with how I would comment. In order to be emphatic without saying "really" or "quite" I thought how about toe stubbing hard. That is very descriptive, right?! Peter "edited" my recent post about Hiding and Seeking. His constructive criticism was the same as Mr. Witcoff's in 7th grade, "elaaboorate" (with wild eyes and hair, Mr. Witcoff not Peter). He was extremely good at getting his point across! I tend to get straight to the point without alot of fluff. It is not on purpose, I just have so many thoughts circling around in my head, not unlike those penny donations recepticles at malls. They go around and around and I am sure that they will go down the hole if I don't put it on paper quickly.

So all this is to "put it out there" that I am going to try to be more descriptive and bring the points I have to fruition with details and fluff included. I mean I like fluffy things, like fuzzy inside UGG boots.

An here is Esther's first "real" food. (why is this gruel called food? It's totally blech, I mean look at her face.)