Where Did I go Wrong?

It seems like just yesterday, my boy's desire was to be his sister's Knight in shining armor, and she the fair maiden....

Or a brave pirate, showing chivalry to the fair maiden.... kind of, anyway...

Or a Ninja, rescuing the... fair maiden, of course..

Or even his future career, with a fair maiden cheering him on.

But not this year. Nope. This year he went in a slightly different direction...

Lord, help me. He wanted to be Ozzy Osbourne for Halloween. Now, mind you, not the Ozzy of my youth. Not the bat-head lovin', Jesus cursin' , crazy train-wreck psycho of years gone by. No, no, no.

The more subdued, very confused, hard to understand, Samsung commercial-making Ozzy Osbourne. 'Cause THAT makes it better.

Of course, I'm not sure how I'm feelin' about this either....

Next year, I think we are going to go away for Halloween. Maybe on a nice little church retreat somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains. But for right now, I'm going to get the bowl of Halloween candy and sit in the closet. A few Reese's products and many prayers and maybe I'll start feeling better...

but he was still hungry...

Any ideas what this is?

I'll give you a hint.... look behind it in this picture...

Do you see what is in that "capsule" behind the "green gem"?

Do you know now?

That green gem is actually the chrysilis of a Monarch Butterfly. Did you know that they look like that? I sure didn't!

This is a Swallowtail butterfly chrysilis - the colors of it change depending on what it is attached to - and this one crawled out of the nets and attached to a clothes pin...

This one escaped, crawled the full length of the classroom, and made it's resting spot against this green tub...

And this one made it's home under the table...

This was my science lesson on a day I went into Noah's science class to take some pictures. His science teacher is just a little bit of a butterfly fan. The class released close to 100 butterflies, I believe.

After years of reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle to my preschool classes, and feeding caterpillars and watching them metamorphisis into butterflies, I was amazed to learn that different caterpillars make different kinds of chrysilises (forgive my spelling if this is not the plural).

As an aside, did you know that Eric Carle has his own blog? I am a fan of his books, and in particular, his art work in his books. His blog is very cute, sometimes written like a letter to the reader, sometimes just an update on what he's been doing. Of recent entries, I particularly liked his September 3rd entry. You can check out his blog here.

Okay, that's today's lesson. Just thought I'd share some of God's amazing work!

National Cookie Month!

My friend, Lori, informed me via her blog , that October is National Cookie Month! She has posted a few yummy cookie recipes, and I told her that I would play along on my blog, too. That was back on October 3rd, I think... Well, better late than never to get started!

Here are some of my favorite cookies to make (and eat!) in October: Pumkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Walnut Icing. I make an exception for these as there is no chocolate in them (although mini chips might be yummy, hmmmm...) because they are THAT good anyway! Thankfully, the majority of these went to a Fall Harvest Party we attended on Saturday night cause I really need to stop eating like I'm still on the Cruise...

Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Walnut Frosting

2 sticks unsalted butter (1 cup) softened,

2/3 c. firmly packed brown sugar

1/3 c. sugar

1 c. (8 oz.) canned pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)

1 egg

1 tspn. vanilla

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tspn. pumpkin pie spice

1 tspn. baking powder

1 tspn. baking soda

1/4 tspn. salt

Frosting:

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 c. unsalted butter, softened

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 tspn. vanilla

1/4 tspn. pumpkin pie spice

Walnut pieces

Heat ove to 350F. Combine butter, brown sugar, and sugar in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often til creamy. Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla. Continue beating until well mixed. Add flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and soda, and salt. Beat until well mixed.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. (I use a melon baller) Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool Completely.

Combine all frosting ingredients except walnut pieces in medium bowl Beat at low speed until smooth. Frost cooled cookies and garnish with walnuts.

Makes about 5 dozen cookies depending on how much batter you eat....

Enjoy!

M.I.A.

Someone stole September right from under my nose. Have you seen it? Seems to have disappeared overnight. Between schoolwork and soccer and leading Brownies and volunteering at the school, I lost September somewhere. Oh wait - HERE are some bits and pieces of it:

No, we didn't all take off for another cruise, but we did get together around the dining table again, this time to celebrate this lady...

on her 65th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom!! And of course, Miss Emily is always ready for a party!

Oh, and then there was this day, when I got together with Maria to lament the end of summer and our sweet cherubs' return to school. You'll never guess where we went....

Yeah, we went to Terrain - AGAIN. Really, I can't get enough of this place. And we hadn't been there since June. Whole different season.

How cool is this gazillion dollar piece of furniture?

And this is sweet Maria. It's probably time you met one of my partners in stimulating the economy ...

And we did eat there again, but alas, no pictures this time. We were too busy catching up with each other's summers and before I knew it the blueberry tangerine spritzer and the grilled scallops with polenta rounds were gone.

And then there was the weekend we got to reminisce with some old friends at Lisa's 40th. I hadn't seen some of them since we graduated from college! It was so nice to catch up, meet Lisa's precious children and have fun like in the 'ol days! And Keith and I got to have a little "getaway" time, while the kids spent the night with Aunt Cathy and Uncle Sam!

And then there have been our weekly trips around the world. Each week Noah and Emmy are learning about a different country on days there isn't much homework. From the library, I get books and CD's about the country we are studying and then on Fridays, we have a dinner from that country and the kids share with Keith what they have learned.... First we went to China:

For our dinner, we made Egg Drop Soup and then Keith picked up Sweet and Sour Chicken, Beef and Broccoli, eggrolls, rice and fortune cookies. We drank tea in my favorite expresso cups. This was my "fortune":

All of them?! Gosh, I hope not! How far back in my youth am I supposed to go? 'Cause I'm thinking Donny Osmond is a little too busy with Dancing With The Stars to marry me right now! And uh, not so sure how Keith would feel about that.

The next week the kids picked out Mexico from our basket of countries...

We made Chicken Mole, refried beans, rice, corn and guacamole. Yum. For dessert, we made a Flan.

This week, the kids picked out of the basket: The Southern USA. (I divided the USA into 4 parts). So we could go alot of different ways with our menu. Ribs, grits, andouille sausage, red beans and rice, pecan pie, butter... We could even do Mexican again! Since I have plans tomorrow night with my mom and sisters (part of mom's birthday present) we won't be having our Southern USA dinner til Sunday. So I've still got time to plan. Of course, my other "fortune" on our first week of "travelling" said:

Yeah, I never was a big fan of fortune cookies.