Monday, October 31, 2011

...Third Grade Bibles...


...yesterday was Reformation Sunday...Most Protestant Christians observe Reformation Day in honor of Martin Luther and other Christians who worked to remove false doctrine and destructive practices from the Christian church...

...and one of the things that we always do on Reformation Sunday is give Bibles to the parents of our Third Graders...who then place them in the hands of their children as they promised they would when they had their child baptized...

...the Bibles are engraved with their names and have a beautiful presentation label in the front...copied from the Bible that my parents gave me as a child...

...it's so much fun to watch the joy of these young ones...and to remember our own joy when our first Bible was placed in our hands...

Saturday, October 29, 2011

...another Nerf War...


...there was another 3 hour Nerf war this afternoon...

...followed by a snack on the deck...

...it was a chilly fall day...notice the difference in the tree from last week to this...

...hope you're having a lovely weekend...

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Operation Christmas Child gets underway...


...the LYO met last night to make up the boxes for Operation Christmas Child...

...they had a race...girls against guys...

...guess who won...

...that's right...the girls team won...

...they usually do for some reason...

...the boys tried an assembly line process...while the girls worked fast and furiously on one box at a time...

...some boxes were 'stolen'...

...and then the other side had to retaliate...

...and the race wasn't over until all of the boxes were stacked neatly in the Narthex...

...it was a lot of fun!

...on Sunday they'll make an announcement at Church...they're all going to stand up front...with one spokesperson...who will give the congregation all of the information they need...and then read a list of some of the items you can fill the box with...and then each confirmand will hold up a placard with that item on it...it should be cute...and then they'll encourage everyone to take a box or two or five and fill them up...

...we all have a lot of fun with this project...the youth love going through the boxes at the end and making sure everything is just right...then separting them by age and gender for shipment...

...do you do Operation Christmas Child?...I encourage you to find a location to drop off a couple of shoeboxes...

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

...Prairie Fire...


...this is not a wildfire...but a carefully watched ditch burning fire...all of the roadsides and ditches have to be really well cleaned up to prevent drifts...even a small patch of tall grass will cause the snow to pile up on the road...

...we had a little bit of snow mixed with rain last night...so you know it's time to get ready for winter...

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

...so...what are we doing with all that butternut squash...

...I sort of feel like it's a turnip and squash week around here...but as I love turnips and squash I'm OK with that...

...this was my super simple breakfast...leftover jasmine rice and some plain butternut squash...and by plain I really mean plain...just roasted squash...no salt or anything...oh...and I had some tea too...of course...

...then because we all wanted pumpkin pie for dessert last night...

...I made Susan Voisin's Impossible Pumpkin Pie...except I made it with Butternut squash instead of pumpkin...

...I've made it before...many times...and I've used pumpkin of course...but I've also used Hubbard and Buttercup and Butternut squashes too...

...you can't tell any difference really I don't think...it's just delicious...

...so how are you using up all your fall produce?...

Monday, October 24, 2011

...Polka Sunday...

...We celebrated worship yesterday with the annual Polka Sunday...

...We love Polka Sunday...but it was something we'd never even heard of before we moved to ND...I think very few people still polka in the south...at least I'd never heard of it... ...but it's a big deal up here...and there are often polka dances at the Elks and KC halls on Friday or Saturday evenings...

...I've even learned to Polka...but we don't dance in Church...but I've even heard of some who do on Polka Sunday...

...the band that played at our Church is booked a year in advance...we usually have Polka Sunday on Reformation Sunday (next week) but we couldn't get our traditional day this year...

...it's a fun service...with all of the liturgical music replaced by Polkas...the words are the same...just the tunes are different...

...followed by a potluck dinner of course...

Saturday, October 22, 2011

...the BIG Nerf War...

...today...was the big day...the day the Nerf War started...

...Scout invited some friends over to shoot and be shot at...

...they dressed appropriately...

...and the games...ooops...I mean war... began...

...there was lots of running and hiding...and I mean lots...

...followed by brief periods of truce when everyone ran out of ammo...

...these periods of truce involved lots of bending over to pick up spent ammo and reload...

...there were some ambushes as well...

...but mostly just a lot of Nerf fun as these boys ran around non-stop for about 3 1/2 hours this afternoon...

Friday, October 21, 2011

...butternut...

...remember how I said that it was such a great year for butternut squash...

...we've been feasting on this fall treat...

...my favorite way to fix butternut squash is just to slice it...

...and put it cut side down on a baking sheet...

...until it's tender...this takes a while...probably a couple of hours for a big one like this...

...and then just flip it over and scoop the soft squash out of the skin...

...my favorite part is that lightly browned slightly carmelized top...YUM...

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Busy Boy Scouts...

...October is just cram-packed with Boy Scout events...

...the scouts bussed the tables for the Men's Supper at their charter organization...

...they always seem to have a lot of fun even when they're working...

...wishing you a lovely day...

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

...prairie sunset...


...this is what we came home to last night as we walked Jack...

...the vistas here are truly amazing...it's just so vast...I love to stand out in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere and look all around 360°...and this is what you see...and you're just a speck on the planet...in the wind...

...reminds me of this song...and I love the corny video...

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

...the end of the garden...

...we've been to the garden...one last time this year...to dig up all the root vegetables...and gather the last of the winter squash...

...the potatoes are safely stored in their flats in the unheated laundry room as always...

...the carrots have had their tops removed, been scrubbed and are filling one entire vegetable bin in the fridge...

...the greens from the tops of the turnips are all simmering away on the stovetop right now...stinking up the house really...

...I know Scout will come home from school today...and say...'what is that awful smell?'...the second he walks in the front door...HA!

...and it was such a good year for the butternut squash...they practically took over the garden...I've already taken several nice ones from that first fall harvest to church to give away...and I've got more than enough to last us all winter...I'm going to store them and the potatoes in the laundry room for a while...if I think they're starting to go bad...I'll bake them and put them into the freezer...I can't do that right now as the freezer is full to the brim...

...and believe it or not...I found some more tomatoes...what a lovely surprise...

...and I'm soaking up all this gorgeous fall sunshine...

...how about you?...is your garden finished for the year...or do you have some fall gardening still to do?...

Monday, October 17, 2011

...the little red plane...


...I just had to share this with you...I love all of the knitted goodies in this little video...and my family of pilots will love the theme...the knitted planets are my faves...

Saturday, October 15, 2011

...Instant gratification...

...right after I paid Scout for washing the car...he asked if he could go to Stuff-mart...so we did...

...and he bought his Nerf Gun...and worked on it all evening...

...he's also planning a big Nerf Gun war with his friends...and he wants to have his special gun finished for that...

...I love that he used my contact paper stenciling technique to make a Gears of War symbol for his gun...he doesn't play that game...in fact this was the first time I had heard of it...maybe he just thought the symbol was cool...I'd much rather he play with a Nerf gun outside running around with his friends than play a war game on the computer...

Friday, October 14, 2011

...earning money...

...There was no school today and Scout asked what he could do to earn a little bit of extra money...I talked a little bit about that here...

...guess what for...Right!...another Nerf gun...he has big plans for painting and adding more power to another one...so funny...

...so I said...my car really does need a bath...would you like to wash it for me...

...his answer...Yep!...can I back it out of the garage...

...ummmm...No....

...in other news our twenty mile hike for this weekend has been cancelled...Boo...

Have a lovely weekend...

Thursday, October 13, 2011

...a self portrait...

...not of me...

...but Scout...I love it so much...

...still, I'm perplexed about the hat...Scout never wears a hat...

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

...Super slow sock progress...

...these are the socks that I started on vaction down south...and I'm still not finished...

...I pretty much only knit on these socks at Scout's Karate class and we've been so busy these past couple of months mostly with Boy Scout stuff that I've hardly had any time to knit...

...they're knit in Comfort Sock...in the Fruit Cocktail colourway...and I'm doing the Princess sole again too...so if they ever get finished...they'll be super comfy...

...Oh well...slow and steady wins the race...right?...