Frankenstein and Halloween

Hello. Meet Frank.

This little Frankenstein paper Halloween decoration is very old. My mom sent it to us when we lived in Hawaii and the kids were young ("Nigh unto twenty years ago...") . Really! Every year, I'd carefully fold him back up, accordian style, paper clip the arms and and body and legs in place so he wouldn't come unfurled until next year. And then we'd hang him up again. Thrifty? Cheap? I dunno. I just liked it. I don't have a ton of fall or Halloween decos (which is just fine with me), so something that's not a pumpkin or fall leaves is kind of nice.
Happy Halloween, Frank! Again.

Eric, posing with (or AS) Frank.
I think they must be close to the same age...


This is the extent of my Halloween costume on Monday. I put "crackle" top coat on my nails. It lasted all of two days, until I spent Wednesday evening bottling applesauce until midnight. Wasn't much left of them by then. But it was kind of fun while it lasted.

Happy 10th Birthday

I think Jonathan is scowling because he didn't get to blow out CAROLINE's candles. So Eric held him back.
Blow! Pretty cupcake tree made by Gail. Of course.
She's very busy. Speeding, here, speeding there. I can't even catch her on film, she's so fast. Oh, wait. That's the CAMERA settings I can never get right. But we had a nice Sunday dinner with Gail and family to celebrate Caroline's 10th birthday. Ten? Really? Gail is astounded that her child is in "double digits."
Mike and Jonathan wore color-coordinating shirts.
Opening presents.

Leafy fun

This little guy is FAST. Either that, or I don't know how to use my camera. (It's the latter.)
Thanks for raking up my leaves!!
This is blurry, but isn't he cute?
It was getting cold and dark when they came by on Thursday afternoon to play in the leaves. But that didn't stop us. It was twilight. There was plenty of light to see to play--just not for me to take good pictures.
So, they tried another day! Friday (yesterday) afternoon, Gail and the kids came by and they raked and raked and raked. Well, Gail did! The kids just played in them...which was the point, after all.
One pile from just one section of lawn. One of the two trees is totally bare, and the other is 3/4 done shedding.

While Gail was raking, she found a toy (an old, real one, actually) that belongs to Jonathan. Wasn't he thrilled to find this again. The boy loves his buttons and electronics. This one doesn't work, but he didn't seem to care. He just chats away on the phone anyway.


One cleared lawn, and one BIG pile o' leaves.

Oh, in other news, Eric painted an "accent wall" in his bedroom. It is green, lighter green, and gold. The heater duct is gold, as is the baseboard along this one wall.
He used the feather duster technique. It's unique and quite nice. I have fabric (from my stash) picked out to complement the colors for a bedspread/quilt top for that room. Know any simple quilt patterns I could use easily to piece it together?

Oh, lets see! One more picture of leaves, this time with ME in it. Yay for Fall and leaf piles to play in!!

First of Fall, or Fall Firsts

The calendar might say the Autumn "officially" beings on a certain date. I beg to differ.

I have a firm belief that Fall does not OFFICIALLY start until I have ridden my bike through crunchy leaves on the street. That was yesterday. Fall is now officially here in my book!

Happy Autumn!

October doing's

I'm always surprised at what order things show up as I load pictures onto this blog site. So I'll just narrate, and you can figure it out. :-)
Octobers are always wonderful, but especially when they begin with General Conference. Here's Tandy and Gail and Eric (above) on Sunday morning enjoying conference onTV.

Jonathan was illustrating things he heard on Conference, I believe. He's very intent.

Oh, yes. I know I already blogged about Eric's homecoming, but it was sweet. This picture is a little blurry. I had my camera on the wrong setting for much of the airport scenes, but I like this one.

OK, so you know we had a garden. Mike found a volunteer watermelon plant, it produced one good melon! Surprise. This is Mike's very first successfully grown to maturity back yard grown watermelon. And it tasted great! So, as Mikey said, "Check out my melons!" [ Oh, dear!]

oops. forgot to edit this one. Sorry.

Conference weekend was extra fun because it was ALSO Mike's birthday. Let's just say he's getting on up there in years. Yikes!! I got him the film, "17 Miracles." We watched it last night. It was really great. We'd wanted to see it in the theaters this summer, but missed it, so I was glad Deseret Book had it. And Cedar's Deseret Book store moved! They have a lovely new place further south, down closer to WalMart. I was so surprised to find them there. Mike's sister, Gayela, is sitting next to him in the photo below. She also came down to see Eric, among other things.

The next week turned very VERY cold. What's the ol' saying, "The frost is on the pumpkin"? Well, it certainly was! And the ice was on the water in the wheelbarrow that filled up from all the rain the previous nights, as well.
Now, contrast that icy chunk of dirty water to the lovely pool scene below.
Caroline, Eric, and Mike (sleeping on the loveseat waay in the back, just above where Caroline's head is). We went to St. George on Oct. 9 for a baby blessing. This is Tina and Stacey's home, and it's so lovely in the back yard! It was 70 degrees that afternoon in Dixie and oh-so-pleasant! It was Sunday, so we didn't swim, but just having the luncheon out there was nice. This was right before we came home and we let Caroline dangle her feet in the water for a bit.

We do live in a beautiful place. Red hills, blue skies. Gorgeous.

And then, there are the apples. Lots and lots of beautiful Jonathan Apples, fresh-picked off the tree. I think Eric picked all these, plus Pam picked 2 boxes the day previous. That's a lot of apples. I'm making applesauce, drying some, practicing my pie-making skills, baking cobblers, and giving a bunch more away. They are SOOOOooo yummy!!!

We tried saving some tomato plants from the frost, but after a couple of days of hard frosts, they are kind of not very healthy -looking. We tried.

He's BAAAaaack!!

Eric arrived home late on Wednesday night, September 28th, from the Washington DC North Mission. He was honorably released by our Stake President on Thursday morning, then Friday, he and Mike left for Salt Lake so Eric could attend a mission reunion with his first mission president. Mike and Nick met up to view the BYU football game on a TV in a sports grill restaurant and they ALL came home to Cedar that night late. Tandy and their kids were here from California, too! Gail and her family were here, too! Mike's sister, Gayela, came from Salt Lake on Saturday, so it was a very busy and active Conference Weekend at my house!

Welcome home, Eric!!! It's good to have you back.

He's getting registered for classes at SUU for the coming Spring Semester in January 2012, he's getting bicycle transportation arranged, he's trying to get things organized in his room. I think we moved his stuff around twice while he was gone, so it's kind of all over the place. He's adjusting well, I think. It's nice to hear the piano being played again. He is much improved. And he's still Eric. He is still singing all the time and is his happy self. And he's looking for work. If you have any suggestions, send them his way.