Loves O' My Life

Pumpkin Carving

There are SO many fantastic pictures of our first family pumpkin carving experience that I also sent them out on snapfish. They were taken by the superb Dubya Green. She came with my sister for fun, but she ended up taking pictures AND being conned into carving one of the pumpkins. The winking pumpkin, in fact. Here are some of my faves. We had a great time, even salting and roasting the seeds like my mama used to do. I now know why pumpkin carving is a tradition for so many families.

Watching intently...


So interesting.


The photographer at work.


Halloween 2008




Glowing in the night.


Gimmie kiss goodbye Gigi.


I love you.

Tricycle Parade

The kids had the tricycle "parade" today at school. They LOVED it! Especially H-Dubya. Syd rode a tricycle and H-Dub rode a little fire engine around. His teacher said that he insisted on riding it all the way to the gym, then once he got there he jumped off and ran around the entire time. You can see the glee in his face. There was some dancing, and running in the same straight line again and again going on. It was a big day. Tonight we will close out Halloween with a bang. Here are some pics of the parade:

H-Dub's Great Day

H-Dub hasn't cried at school since the last time I posted about his big boy behavior. We are so proud of him.

The teacher told me today that he had a great day, even participating in the craft, which as we all know he never does at home. She said she made noises the whole time they did it as worked, sound effects if you will. She was so proud of him. What a sweet woman. He still refuses to eat lunch and all I send is cheese and crackers or some fruit with milk.

Halloween Sneak Peek

We went to a carnival at my old elementary school that is a block from my mama's house on Friday. Syd brought a friend and we had a great time. Syd and her friend were very well behaved. H-Dub was a little too excited, and wore me out. My mother and I took them. Here are some pics Brokeback took before the carnival of our little cat and mouse.

Mini Chocolate Cake

This recipe was emailed to me by my Aunt DinaBee, who I think got it from my Aunt Missy. It looked quite fun so Syd and I tried it out after nap yesterday. It was so very good.

Recipe:

MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

1 Coffee Mug
4 tablespoons flour (that's plain flour, not self-rising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)This wasn't optional in my opinion. It made the cake!
Small splash of vanilla We were out so we didn't use vanilla and it was still great.

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!
Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to share!)

The ingredients.


Mix it on up.


I know it doesn't look pretty. But it was really good. Really.


Syd enjoying the fruits of her labor.

The Fabulous Visit

One of my life long best buddies came from New York a few weeks ago. I am just now downloading the pics off the camera. The lack of good ones is unforgivable. There somehow aren't any of the precious baby boy, but there are some of his sister. Syd quite enjoyed having Ms. A around. She was disappointed that A couldn't spend the night with her every night, but due to some large hairy cats and and a serious cat hair allergy that wasn't going to happen.

We had a fabulous time. So much fun. Now it is my turn for a visit. I will start watching for specials and Syd and I will make her first trip to NYC!!

Dance Gallery Watch Day

I have to admit I didn't attend watch day. Brokeback did, and he took all the pics his very own self. H-Dubya and I went to a little Halloween themed meet and greet for my friend Kari's precious and beautiful baby boy. They live on the Texas coast and I had not had a chance to meet him so that took priority. It helps that there is a watch day every month. Brokeback said that when Syd chooses to really pay attention and focus she is at the top of the class! Here are some pics of Syd in action. All comments are just my speculation because, again, I was not in attendance.

Stretching it out.


Really giving 100%. Does it bother anyone else that the other girls seem to be doing something different?


"This is my left foot, this is my left foot..."




Finally doing what everyone else is.

Spider Craft

I think this is the cutest thing! I was quite pumped about it today when I found out we weren't going to set up for MOPS this morning and we are spending the FULL day at home! I would love to go for a walk later but the West Texas winds are in full force so that might not be an option. I saw this craft here:

http://blissfullydomestic.com/blissful-kids/hanging-spider-treat-pocket/

Hayden wasn't interested. Shocker. Syd was, but not as much as usual. We are going on the West Texas Polar Express in December, like every other family in town. We are already talking about it, and Gigi brought the movie by last night and enjoyed some of my homemade chicken and dumplings. Does it count as homemade if you used refrigerated biscuits for the dough? I think so. Anywho, we watched it last night, Syd asked to watch it again this morning and refused to craft until it was over. Then while we were enjoying the music that is on the credits in automatically went to play again. So they are sitting through round 2. I can't believe how still they are while it is on.

Back to the craft:

100 Classic Novels

Edited to 16. How did I skip the Lovely Bones.
*Edited to 20 on 7/6/09. Considering I read a book a week I have not focused on this list as much as possible. If I still want to read 15 more I better get with it. Only 4ish months to go and I start a new job in August.

So here is a list of 100 of the greatest novels of all time. Notice I didn't say THE greatest I said 100 OF the greatest. I plan on digging right in. I bolded the ones I have read and actually remember. Supposedly the average American has read 6 of the 100. I am proud and happy to ring in with 15. I hope to have read 15 more of them by the end of the year. I read about a book a week, but I read religious books, popcorn fiction, books on parenting, etc. also so I don't know that I will get in more than 15. Let me know how many you have read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 nineteen eighty four- george orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Pweauaion- Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe- CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoris of a Geisha- Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm- George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code- Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies- William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi- Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Sad Story

Does anyone remember this post? Where I mentioned Syd's special squirrel that lived with us and her other squirrely partners for a year?

I forgot to mention that about a month ago I went to lunch with friends and on my way out the door I saw Suzy dead in front of our tree. As in really dead. As in rigor mortis had set in. Thankfully the kids were at Mother's Day Out and Brokeback rushed right out and took care of her. Don't know if he buried her, put her in a garbage bag and threw her in the dumpster or what. I don't want to know.

Syd is continuously disappointed in the lack of squirrel friends as of late. She asks Brokeback about Suzy often. He just tells her the squirrels will come back as it gets colder. I hope he is right and it isn't just a random answer he made up.

All Hallow's Eve

How cute is this! Read the book All Hallow's Eve to your kids before Halloween (a few times is better, of course). It is about Eve the fairy who has her birthday on Halloween. Her favorite thing is candy, so she ends up going to houses of children the night of Halloween and trading their candy for a toy! Such a cute story. You can buy the book on Amazon and read it to your kids every year OR you can have it read to you online here . The book also says why you dress up, why you trick or treat, etc.

This is a great way not to over do on candy consumption, as long as the "fairy" doesn't eat it all themselves, and this way the kids won't go overboard on HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP and PROCESSED SUGAR!!

Enjoy!

Punkin Day at School

It has been awhile. My bestest buddy was in town for a few nights with her two kids, and we had a great time. It took me a full day to recover, and then I had some weekend plans and this week has been a busy one. I wanted to get these posted. They were taken by Sydney's teacher Holly.

Hayden's class picture. Why is he the only child who won't sit down?


Syd's class.


How cute is this? What a perfect photo-op.


Brokeback told her she looks like she is hatching an egg in this one. That is the pumpkin she picked. I could barely carry it to the car. She obviously feels bigger is better.


Hayden solo. He looks tired to me.

Three Cheers for H-Dub!

H-Dubya didn't cry when I dropped him off at KDO this morning! Woot! I am so thrilled. Sometimes he cries as soon as we pull into the parking lot and throws a terrible fit when I leave. Today he walked in and got his milk, sat down to color, and I left. I hope this isn't a one time thing!!

Sunday Craft Day

I was out of town for a couple of days so Syd expected a large amount of attention. I gave her a pedicure, read her the new book I brought her I'd say, six times, made a chain to count down the days til Halloween, made brownies, etc. etc. We stayed in our pajamas all day due to the rain and just had a great time.

Here is the first craft, which H-Dubya refused to participate in, even though it involved paint. I got it off this blog . It is made off of her foot and palm prints and finger prints. So cute.




We then did this craft, from notimeforflashcards.com . I think it turned out very well, though I think I enjoyed it more than she did.