A New Record

I guess November was pretty noneventful because this is the first time since starting my blog that I have gone an entire month without a post. I'll get back on track soon...

Trick-or-Treat

The first few pictures are from Ben's preschool Halloween party. He has a serious case of stage fright and wasn't too willing to participate in the songs or the parade. I loved Miss Amy's "Darma Initiative" costume.

Security

Ben can't get to sleep these days unless he's surrounded by all of his "friends". He's not as scared if they are all there to protect him.

Autumn Adventures

Our adventures this week included a visit to Gardner Village. Fall is just not the same without a trip there. The kids found a perfect spot of lawn to hang out on while they gorged on their candy from the candy store.

We also visited the pumpkin patch and picked out the perfect pumpkins.

I particulary like this little pumpkin.

Later that night the Stephenson kids joined us for a little carving party.

On a side note, we amateur gardeners actually did something right and our driveway strip has had color and different things blooming at different times all season. I especially love the Autumn Purple Ash trees that turn an amazing purple in the fall.

Sneaky Shot of the Day

Never Idle

We came back from Mike's grandparents' house with a bag full of green tomatoes and plums, so while listening to the morning session of conference, I made green tomato relish and plum jam, which will probably serve as plum syrup since I added the sugar at the wrong time. It has been the summer of canning for me: strawberry, raspberry, peach, and plum jam, pear sauce, and green tomato relish. I'm running out of room to store stuff.

We are sad to saygoodbye to Great Grandma Meredith. But we are grateful that she was able to live a long, independent, healthy life and she was taken quickly. We loved our visits to Clark Fork when the whole family would gather for Thanksgiving and she would spend 4 days cooking 3 fabulous meals a day for a large crowd in a small house. In more recent years we have visited in the summer and the kids enjoyed roaming the land and playing. I felt like I made up for the time I missed with my grandmothers by spending time with Fay. She taught me how to make jam which I had never done before and she shared with me many of her recipes including her incredible pie crust. She was a very self sufficient, strong, independent, humerous person with interesting stories to tell from her long life. We will miss her. And her chocolate chip cookies.

New Family Photos

Garden Treasures

Ben and his friend, Claire, were playing in the back yard very quietly for a very long time, so I went out to check on them and found that the little archaeologists were excavating trilobites from our pavers. They found at least 5 and now all the boys are on a mission to extract this large one from one of the pavers, but the poor thing is missing its head.

Is that cool or what?!

Not as exciting at trilobites, but still worth mentioning is all the great stuff growing in our yard, such as:

cherry tomatoes
pumpkins

Our north-side shade garden

basil Black-Eyed Susans, Aster, and beautiful feathery grasses on our driveway strip

Yellowstone