Camoflauge

Since we have returned from vacation, things have slowed down here. We are able to relax and get some stuff done around the house. because I couldn't bear to take care of the garden any longer (come on Frost!), I harvested the last of the tomatoes. When faced with a big pile of green tomatoes, I hit the internet. I made green tomato cake, fried green tomatoes and now green tomato chow chow. It turned out pretty good. Don't go looking for it in your stocking because my giant bowl of veggies turned into only 3 pints of relish.

In the backyard, the girls and the neighbor girls decided to camoflauge themselves so they could try to catch a squirrel. When asked what they were going to do with said squirrel, they didn't know. I suggested that they just observe squirrels in their natural habititat. Despite their best effort, I doubt that they sat still long enough to see a squirrel.

Wow, you can barely see them.

And some great news! Evie's cast came off today. her arm is very tender and she isn't moving it much. The Dr. said that she will probably be using it by this weekend, it just takes a while for kids to get their brain wrapped around not having a cast on. I can tell you this, that skin under the cast was so gross and dirty that I could barely wash it off without throwing up. Actually, just thinking about it makes me want to barf. The prescription for that is a nice warm bath with plenty of soap tonight.

Fun Fall Break

Yay, Fall break was last Thursday and Friday. For a change, we had no plans. The girls and I did some Master Gardener work and went to the Children's museum on Thursday with some friends. We had a fun time. I had no plans for Friday so it was just a putz around the house kind of day. I promised I would make sugar cookies for them to use the Halloween cookie cutters. For this occasion, I decided it was high time to break in my new mixer. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Taller! The mixer works great. It is quiet and I no longer fear that I will be electrocuted or the house will burn down.

Annalise is sporting some rarely seen pigtails. I told the girls we had to wear our hair out of our eyes when we are baking cookies. I have been having a big problem with hair in the mouth and we are one trip away from Grandma's beauty shop and getting a short haircut.

The Joy of Cooking is the best cookbook ever. I am a horrible sugar cookie maker. They never turn out for me. But using this recipe I had some great results. That cookbook also gave us the idea of rolling out the dough between 2 pieces of wax paper and then refrigerating it as to make the cutting out part cleaner and easier. It worked great. Way to go again, Joy.

Later that day, we joined some friends at Connor Prairie. It seems that all our friends in the neighborhood had the same idea because we saw a lot of people we know. Of course, our first stop was the barn to love on all the animals. We are really going to miss Connor Prairie next month when all the outside exhibits close.

In one of my very favorite places, the loom house, the girls assisted on weaving a bookmark.

And outside of the potter's shed, they spent lots of time grinding down clay.

Since Labor day, the kids have been asking for one more camping trip. The forcast on Friday night was clear, full moon and a low of 47. So everyone got their warm jammies on and loaded up their blankets and cows for a trip to the wild backyard.

Jim reports that everyone settled down quickly and fell asleep by 9. Annalise needed to come inside around midnight, but he and Evie stayed in the tent until 7 am. I made pumpkin pancakes to celebrate the last camping trip of the year.

After breakfast, we decorated our sugar cookies. Annalise did a pretty good job with the frosting.

Evie did really well with her left hand. The cast comes off on Wednesday. Cross your fingers that it is healed.

We all worked together to create some spooky looking cookies.

Good news on the costume front, we found a purple wig.

The hairstyle isn't ideal, but you can't be picky a week before Halloween.