Baby, It's cold Outside! (So I'm staying in)

October has been cold, rainy and blustery and sometimes between all that we have had a few clear but cold days.  For the past few weeks, Alan has been working on pulling off our old metal roof and putting on a new one - one that hopefully won't leak.  Ever since we moved into this house, and before that, the roof leaked causing those huge unsightly stains on the ceiling, and ruining furniture from dripping water.  Now, our new roof with the new underlining, will keep our roof and ceiling drip free.
This morning, at 6:45 (Saturday), I picked up my Bountiful Basket that I ordered on Tuesday.  In it I found, two cabbages, one Romaine lettuce, eight pale pink tomatoes, two nice long cucumbers, three pomegranates, eight Gala apples, a large bag of fresh green beans, a quart of strawberries, a pint of mushrooms, an eggplant, two zuchinnis, four avocados, four onions, one garlic, a bunch of basil, a bunch of parsley, and I can't remember anymore.  I appreciate getting nice vegetables this time of year.  However, I could have done without the cabbage, as I have two sitting outside and a half of one in my refrigerator already.  I need to make me some of that delicious coleslaw I made at harvest time.  Everybody kept telling me how good it was.  Yep, I guess I need to do that today.  And I didn't need the onions either.  I have a potato basket full of onions that I cleared out of my garden weeks ago and they won't store very well, so I have to use them fast.  Anyone need any onions?
The past few days I have been in a mood that I get every fall that goes on through December,  I want to make things, it doesn't matter if I'm cooking or sewing,  I just want to do something.creative. So, I gathered most of my soon to be gone roses and brought them inside.  They look like early July roses don't they?  And the white ones are so fragrant they really gave the frontroom a smell of a floral shop.

It was great to see everyone on Tuesday night when they got home from California.   While they had been gone I crocheted this cute little poncho for Leah but when I tried it on Lily I think it fit a little better,  I will make another one for Leah.

The pom poms are so cute, but I didn't make them very well.  Yesterday when Lily came over I saw that she had already removed one from the tie.  She had it in her pocket, I think her mom put it in there to save so I could put it back on.  Later, after her nap I found little pieces of it on the floor upstairs where she had been napping.  She went to  sleep with it in her hand and for some reason decided to pick it a part when she woke up.  If you didn't know already, Lily is a picker.  Darn it, I need to know how mom used to make those hard little pom poms with a fork.  Yes, I said a fork.

On Wednesday this week, Leah and Morgan had Preschool at their house, so Lily got to come over in the morning and be with me for a few hours. I decided to make sugar cookies with her help.  She wasn't very helpful when it came to mixing the dough, but she was great at rolling and cutting out the shapes.  What a little baker!

As you can see, she had dough and flour all the way up to her elbows.  I should have put an apron on her, but I wasn't thinking.  she was very bossy and would push my hand away when i tried to help.  She would say, " No, Gama, my do it!"  She was pretty good, but don't be fooled, I made most of those cookies.  She got a little tired after the cookie cutting process and wandered off to have a nap, and then Leah came with her mom and they helped bake and decorate the cookies.
 Leah also wanted to be in charge of her own space and decorating.  She was determined to squeeze little dots of black, orange and yellow on to her little cookies that she had frosted all by herself.  She did very well with her strong little hands. 

Then Lily woke up and we showed her the newly decorated cookies. 

 We had a lot of fun, and we produced many delightful and tasty halloween cookies.  On Thursday, Morgan brought the girls over to carve their pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns.  I was not involved in the carving; it wears me out.

Instead while they were carving I made hard butterscotch suckers. They aren't as fast as I remember, in fact my suckers took longer than the jack-o-lanterns. But no knives or slimy goop was involved, just sugar, flavoring and a lot of checking the thermometer.

                                                                My finished product!

                                                                 Their finished product!

Tonight Morgan, Andrew and Zack are all going to Rigby to a Halloween party given by Andrew's sister Lisa and her husband Bryan. Zack is going as Indiana Jones and actually has a very good costume.  I'm not sure what Morgan and Andrew are going as.  Our ward Primary program is tomorrow and we are all happily anticipating Leah's first moment at the microphone.  She is to say, "We should all feast upon the words of Jesus Christ."  There was a practice yesterday and Morgan said she did very well, and has the highest sweetest voice of anyone in the primary.  That's because she is the youngest one in the primary.

HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A HAPPY AND SPOOKY HALLOWEEN!

Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo!

Since Thursday last week I have been working on a project (well, two really) that is near and dear to my heart.  Making my granddaughters happy.  No, we haven;t had any tea parties in October, but I have been doing something that is very Octobery.  Making costumes.  Last month I was looking up little witch costumes, in fact, I had been dreaming of one and designing one for Lily since I was in England with Sara.  Or was I in Logan with Lizzy?  I think it was in England and I was trying to explain to Sara this cute little witchey costume that I had in mind for Lily for Halloween.  Well, there I was getting it all designed in my head and even had a couple of pictures to help me turn it into a reality when Morgan told me that Leah and Lily wanted to be princesses for Halloween.  I should have realized the impact Disney has on my little sweethearts.  So, I shelved my witch plans and decided to do what they want and make princess costumes for them this year.  I got the pattern a couple of weeks ago and on Thursday and Friday last week I sewed Leah's beautiful dress, which she has told me is her Sleeping Beauty dress. 

 When I first started Leah's dress, she was ecstatic and couldn't wait to try it on.  She would whirl and twirl all over the basement and cried when the fittings were done and she had to take it off.  Now it is all done, and we couldn't get her to smile for anything when we took these pictures tonight.  I guess Sleeping Beauty was really sleepy and needed to get home and have her beauty rest.  But you can see why she would love this dress.  It's pink and pretty poofy!
I got a good rest on Sunday and then on Monday and Tuesday I tackled Lily's dress.  I wanted something different from Leah's dress, but cute and charming to match Lily's cute and charming personality.  Her's was to be the Cinderella dress, according to Leah.  So blue was the color for Lily, and this is what I came up with.  Here she is posing with her pumpkin.   How do you like it?

When they come over to my house and I'm doing something downstairs, all they want to watch on the TV is Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella.  I've heard them both about five times each this last week.  I did the poofy tutu underskirts today and now the dresses are cute as can be.  I just need to take each of the tutu elastics in a couple of inches because they work their way down and are soon showing below the hem of the skirts. 
The girls, M & A, Zack and Sara are all headed to Disneyland next week.  The dresses are going with them and Leah and Lily will be able to wear them on one of their days in the Magic Kingdom.  How fun is that going to be?  I told Morgan that she can't let the girls eat in them, so she's going to pack shorts and T-shirts along to change into for lunch and when they get tired of wearing the costumes.  I'm sure they will want to wear them when they get to meet the Disney Princesses and get pictures taken. 

Pretty fun to be the Fairy godmother this week and make all their dreams come true.  As far as dresses, that is. 
On a totally different note.  We picked apples last week.  We must have picked a total of two or three bushels which I juiced two days later.  I did six batches of apples at 80 minutes each and I got 18 quarts!  YUM!  I don't think it's really worth my time to juice all of the apples, but when they are just hanging there on the tree and you know they're going to go to waste if you don't use them, it makes me feel guilty, so I do it. 

On a sad note.  I snowed a week ago and many of the branches on our trees cracked under the weight and fell off the trees.  We woke up Friday morning to a terrible mess all over our lawn.  The weeping willow and Box Elder in back both lost major branches too.  I felt terrible about the early storm.  Later Alan reported to me that our raspberries were hit really hard.   And below is the picture of how I felt when I heard that bad news.

I had just been over cleaning out the dead canes and was going to get them tied up the next day.  It looks like almost two-thirds of the canes were broken off because they had full foliage and the weight of the snow was too much for them.  Darn it!  I just can't win with my raspberries. And as Scarlett would say, "I can't think about it anymore. There will be berries next year.  After all, tomorrow is another day!" 
And that is the way my last week has gone,  busy busy busy! 

Order in the Court! Please, Control your Laughter!

Because I have an IPad, I just find it so much easier reading books, articles, etc. on it rather than cracking a book open.  Books are heavy and cumbersome, but I found myself the other day really wanting to hold a book in my hands, turn the pages and smell the paper.  I love reading books, and I missed it!  When I was in town on Monday, I stopped in at the library and checked out three books I thought looked good – all law and order types,  you know,  John Grisham and Kate Wilhelm books. 

I finished  The Confession,  by John Grisham, last night and I have to say it was a pretty good book.  Kate Wilhelm is much better at the court scenes.  Sometimes when I read a book, I wonder if it has any foundation in the truth, so today I was googling a little about courts and laws and found these quotes.   These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the ...torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.  Pretty funny, hope you enjoy them as much as I did. 

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning? ... WITNESS: He said , 'Where am I, Cathy?' ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you? WITNESS: My name is Susan!

 ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact? WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks. 

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? WITNESS: I forget.. ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot? 

ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo? WITNESS: We both do. ATTORNEY: Voodoo? WITNESS: We do.. ATTORNEY: You do? WITNESS: Yes , voodoo. 

ATTORNEY: Now doctor , isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep , he doesn't know about it until the next morning? WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam? 

ATTORNEY: The youngest son , the 20-year-old , how old is he? WITNESS: He's 20 , much like your IQ. 

 ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken? WITNESS: Are you kidding me? 

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time? WITNESS: Ummmm. 

ATTORNEY: She had three children , right? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: How many were boys? WITNESS: None. ATTORNEY: Were there any girls? WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney? 

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated? WITNESS: By death.. ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated? WITNESS: Take a guess. 

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual? WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female? WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male. 

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people? WITNESS: All of them.. The live ones put up too much of a fight. 

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral , OK? What school did you go to? WITNESS: Oral... 

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body? WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time? WITNESS: If not , he was by the time I finished.

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question? 

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing? WITNESS: No.. ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor? WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar. ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless? WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

OK, I thought they were really funny, especially when the attorney said, “All your responses Must be oral!”