Trick or Treat - Kilpatrick style

Yesterday afteroon, Pressley and I picked Evan up from karate as we do every Friday afternoon. Only yesterday, instead of going straight home, we went to daddy's office for trick or treating. Evan had worn his karate Gi all day at school. The children had been invited to dress like their favorite book character at school on Friday. I was all, Evan likes Kung Fu Panda. We even have a Kung Fu Panda book. And, Evan has karate on Friday. Hey, Evan... Do you want to go to school dressed like Kung Fu Panda on Friday? You can wear your Gi ALL day. And he went for it. Easiest book character costume ever. A little lazy, yes. Mother of the year award, no. (I will have you know, though, that none of the other moms exactly went all out either. If I actually had gone to Michael's-as I contemplated-to get felt to make panda ears and face paint to make a panda spot around his eye, he would have been remarkably over-dressed. Whew! Glad we dodged that bullet!)

So, we headed on over to Kilpatrick. Evan still had on his Gi, but I had the teenage mutant ninja turtle costume in the bag just in case. He decided he wanted to be "karate guy" which turned into "ninja karate guy" because he did indeed want to wear his ninja swords that I bought to wear with the ninja turtle costume. Pressley agreed reluctantly to wear the Ariel costume she insisted on having but then decided she didn't like because it was itchy. We remedied the itchiness by putting her j'nastics leotard under it. (Though tonight, we'll also need to put some leggings under there since the sequins on the skirt rubbed a rash on the tops of her thighs.)

After all was said and done, they had a delightful time. They got more bang for their buck this year than ever before. We covered about 5 floors, which I'm thinking is a record for us. They racked up on candy, charmed and delighted some attorneys, paralegals and secretaries, took in some spooky displays (e.g., a "haunted office" and a pretty impressive set-up created by the ladies in word processing) and then were thrilled to find that the conference room that had the post-trick-or-treating snacks and drinks was also showing a scooby doo halloween special on two giant projector tv screens. The perfect end to the perfect trick or treating experience. Given today's forcast for rain, rain, and more rain, that might be the best we can do. I predict that Pressley will last exactly 90 seconds trick or treating in the rain.

Here are the little munchkins before they got started:

Here they are posing with a Cinderella we met along the way. The two princesses were very impressed with each other's costumes. It was quite the mutual admiration society....

This bowl of candy had a skeletal hand that clasped down over the candy triggered by a motion sensor. Pressley liked to taunt it. Also note the giant spider on the wall that dropped down when it sensed motion and had red beady eyes that lit up. Our Lil' P from last year's Halloween would have run screaming away in terror.

Finally, a shot of the fam in the KS lobby on our way out after a fun-filled afternoon.

There are more pictures in the October 2009 album. Stay tuned for a photo recap of tonight's rainy adventure.

The cupcake eating, I mean, pumpkin carving party

Warning: I am under the influence of some cold medicine, so this one is a bit rambly and stream of conscious. I realize this, but am too lazy - and currently mentally incapable - of going back and editing it to make it less so.

Last night was the neighborhood pumpkin carving party, though you may have figured out from the title above or the photos below, my kids were much more interested in eating Halloween cupcakes than any kind of pumpkin-related activities.

Just so you know, in addition to single-handedly polishing off about a half dozen cupcakes, my children also jumped a marathon on the trampoline in one of the adjoining backyards where the party took place. Oh, and Evan.... Evan somehow climbed to the top of one of the swingsets, and out onto the brace that holds the swing. As Corin and I yelled helplessly from a distance too great to do anything about it, the entire neighborhood watched as he moved out away from the platform he had used to access the brace, shimmied across and halfway down one of the swing chains to drop safely to the ground below. ER visit averted. But, sheesh. I heard one of the neighborhood dads exclaim, "Brave kid!" Really? Not so much brave as, well, not the most brilliant idea he's ever had.

I've been feeling kinda miserable these last couple of days (just a cold - no flu; swine or otherwise), so if I had it to do over again, I may have done a few things differently. We were invited to bring an appetizer or sweet to go with the couple-of-crock-pots-of-chili-type-dishes and drinks that were being provided. I would normally sign up for a sweet so that in the event of a busy week, I could just swing by the Publix and buy some cupcakes. I'm apparently not the only one who thinks this way because there were lots of cupcakes at this bash - at least until my children were unleashed on them.

Anyhoo, this time I signed up for an app instead. And decided that I would try to come up with something other than a dip and a chip to take. So I researched. I looked first at the Weight Watchers website because they have some surprisingly good recipes most of the time. I found a recipe for an artichoke tart that I found intriguing, so I printed it and then moved on to Rachel Ray's website. There were MANY many recipes there that involved something with some kind of "dipper" on the side. RR apparently loves her some dippers. And everything seemed pretty complicated.

So, I decided to go with the artichoke tarts and just not tell anybody they were from WW. I bought all the ingredients earlier in the week before The Cold hit, so I was kinda stuck with following through. Seriously, they were awesome. They were the hit of the party. Well, not with the kids. Even in my organic-buying, baby-wearing, CSA-belonging, hippie neighborhood, apparently the children will not experiment with an artichoke tart. My own child told me in no uncertain terms before we left the house that though she thought my tarts were pretty, she'd be having none of that. And she stuck to her guns.

But the moms and dads were fans. One mom said to me, "Oooh. These are incredible. I feel so fancy. Have you tried one of these?" To which I got to reply, "Oh, yeah, I brought those." Doesn't happen to me all that often. I even admitted in a separate conversation with some other moms that the tarts were a WW recipe that I had slightly modified since I was making it for a crowd (because, you know, Corin tells me that there is really never any good excuse to served fat-free anything to people you want to continue to call friends).

Sometime in the evening, after darkness fell, some of the dads did actually carve pumpkins. Let me tell you though, that was no place for a protective parent to be. Darkness, knives lying about, children running amuck. It's all fun and games until a toddler starts running around with a carving knife. I'm just sayin'.... I had to get out of there just for my own sanity. Plus, by then it was too late and dark to get any really good pictures, and that was really the only reason I dragged my sick self over there. That and to accept the compliments on the artichoke tarts.

Here's Matt - on of the party hosts - scooping the guts out of his pumpkin. Ick.

Here's Corin working on ours. Which turned out really cute. I'll try to get pics of the finished product tonight or tomorrow night. By the time Corin and the kids were back home with the finished product, I was in my jammies moaning about the fact that my sinuses just might explode. So, I didn't remember to go get the camera.

Just in case any of you want to try the Artichoke Tarts after all that build-up, I've provided the recipe below:

Artichoke Tarts:

Ingredients
6 spray(s) cooking spray
16 pieces wonton wrapper(s)
1/4 cup(s) low-fat shredded cheddar cheese (I used the real stuff)
4 oz fat-free cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat rather than FF)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp sweet red pepper(s), chopped
7 oz canned artichoke hearts, without oil, drained and chopped
1/4 cup(s) parsley, fresh, sprigs (I omitted, because, who am I? Martha Stewart?)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 16-hole miniature muffin pan with cooking spray.
Gently press 1 wonton wrapper into each muffin hole, allowing ends to extend above cups. Coat edges of wrappers with cooking spray and set aside.

Combine cheeses, cayenne pepper and mustard in a medium bowl; mix well. Stir in red pepper and artichoke hearts; spoon about 1 teaspoon of cheese mixture into each muffin cup.

Bake until cheese mixture is set and edges of wrappers are lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Garnish with parsley and serve. Yields 2 tarts per serving.

I doubled the recipe and the filling from the double recipe ended up filling 42 wontons. So, it filled up a pretty large platter. And, just so you know, it was pretty rich, so I'm thinking that the fat free cream cheese and 2% cheddar cheese would have worked just fine.

Tiny treasures

I've finally learned to blog from my iPhone. So there may be some more frequent, albeit much shorter, posts from time to time. 

Corin is making noise again about less tv for the kids. Which I totally agree with in theory. But rainy days are hard. 

Good grief they can be hard. 

Today the children were bouncing off the walls - both figuratively and sadly literally. With a trip to the ER a near certainty, I decided back the car out and to send them out into the garage to ride their bikes. That lasted a short while and then they found the boxes that I never unpacked after my last day of work -- nearly 2 years ago. They came in with my Piedmont Hospital mug that I used to drink my water out of, but that is now filled with all the little knick knacks that used to sit on the bookcases in my office. 

Pressley cradled them tenderly and said, "Mommy!  Where did you get all these treasures?!"  The treasures are an odd assortment of souveniers that co-workers brought back from their travels and client "souveniers" that I collected over time - like my Orkin man bobble head doll and my mini Air Products truck. Treasures indeed. 

Almost makes me miss working outside the home. Almost. Well, not really. But it did bring a smile. And made me miss some of my old co-workers. That's all.  

When did October become the busiest month of the year?

We have been insanely busy these last few weeks trying to drink up all the fall goodness around us. October is so awesome in Atlanta. The weather is great and there is so much to do, what with the hiking and the pumpkin patching (we have somehow started two different pumpkin patch traditions) and the fall festivals and the costumed Halloween festivities. It is enough to wear a young family slap out. And we're not even playing soccer this fall!

Two weekends ago we went out to Kennesaw Mountain on Sunday afternoon to "walk around." I should have known that meant "hike," but sometimes I still don't understand my hubby's lingo. It was a gorgeous day and a really nice setting. I had never been to Kennesaw Mountain before, but we'll definitely go back again. The kids had a ball and it was a nice way to spend a pretty fall day.

The kids and I have also enjoyed some beautiful fall days at the park.

Then, this past weekend was a marathon fall-fest. We headed up to Washington Farms in Watkinsville to enjoy some fall farm activities with some friends from our Sunday school class in the morning. We ate lunch with them in Watkinsville and then headed right back to the farm to meet up with some of Corin's law school friends for more fun activities for the afternoon. We watched pig races, slid down slides, took a hay ride, navigated a corn maze, the kids played in the corn crib, rode the "cow train," petted (pet?) bunnies and goats and pigs (not just any pigs....racing pigs), and sling-shotted mini-pumpkins (I'm sure that's the correct terminology) and shot corn cobs out of an air gun.

Did I cover everything?

I think so.

We actually got a decent photo of family as well. (It would've been better without the sunglasses and the nine year old windbreaker from my first summer associate summer at POGO, but it was bright. And cold.)

AND then, on Sunday after church and naps and the birthday party Evan attended, we made the last of the waning weekend hours by catching the tail-end of the Frazer Center fall festival. There were pony rides, bounce castles (or jumping beans as my kids call them), clowns, balloon swords, cookie decorating, trick-or-treat bag coloring, and a train ride. We did it all. No wonder I always feel like I need a nap by the time Monday rolls around.

There are many, many more pictures in the October 09 album.

Stay tuned for pictures of our neighborhood pumpkin carving party, trick-or-treating at Corin's office, and of course, Halloween itself. Bring on a slow November so we can recuperate before the Christmas festivities begin!

My nose can't breathe (and other things keeping me up at night)

I thought (mistakenly) that when my kids started sleeping through the night that it might, I don't know....stick. Little did I know that the sleeping through the night thing is made up of many different stages and steps. There is the infant sleeping through the night phase (when we reached it, I thought we had arrived!). That is the only one I was aware of. But, we have hit many others since then. Currently, we are experiencing the wearing-big-boy-underwear-and-panties-(respectively)-phase.

As a side note, I considered not blogging about this for fear that it would scar my children later in life to know that their potty habits had been the subject of such a public forum. I have made peace with that possibility.

Evan decided a couple of weeks ago that he was done with the overnight pull-up. We were very excited about that development. Given his VERY sound sleeping habits, we have not pushed the issue because seriously - the child does NOT wake up for anything once he has fallen asleep. He has done great with the sleeping through the night without accidents (for the most part). However, when Evan decided it was time for him to cast aside the night-time pull-up, Miss Monkey-See-Monkey-Do decided that she would take that developmental step as well. At first I thought it was a good idea. And this week has been better than last. (I can finally speak of it without weeping.) But last week - OH the wet sheets and and the amount of laundry. We finally reached the pinnacle of my frustration last weekend when the McCarthys were here for a visit.

See, whenever we have overnight guests, they get Pressley's bed. Pressley then gets a choice between sleeping with her brother or sleeping in the playroom/office on the twin bed with trundle. She always chooses the twin with trundle. Which means Evan always decides he will also sleep in the playroom/office with her. This time, we had World War III over who got to sleep on the bottom bed (the trundle). We flipped a coin. Pressley lost. Then she lost it. Melt down city. So Corin proposed a compromise: that they would both sleep on the trundle with their heads at opposite ends. I thought it sounded like a terrible idea. Just beggin' to have 17 trips up the stairs to settle the he's-kicking-me-she's-in-my-space kind of arguments. But, they went right to sleep. Hallelujah. Will wonders never cease?

However. Pressley managed to wet the trundle bed around 2 a.m. Which meant she got moved to Evan's bed, Evan got moved to the "top bed" and I got to go back to bed without changing sheets in the middle of the night. Oh, but wait. There's more. When we woke up the next morning, Pressley had wet Evan's bed and Evan had wet the twin. For those of you who are math-challenged, like me, that's 2 kids, 3 wet beds, 1 night. Yep. Enough to drive a mommy mad.

Like I said, the wetting has slowed down significantly this week (I would say stopped, but why would I tempt fate?). But Pressley has a stuffy nose. She's not sick. And during the day, she seems fine. But at night, she likes to wake up in the middle of the night crying and shouting for "Mommy....MOMMY!" When I go to her room to check on her, she says "Mommy....my nose can't breeeeathe!" I try to get her to blow. She refuses. I get cranky. And on it goes.

Now, you would think that I would have the utmost sympathy for this condition. After all, I am a person who once asked my mom (when I was in college) if you are supposed to be able to breathe out of both nostrils at the same time. Because to that point in my life, I had not experienced such a luxury. Once my mom stopped looking like she could just cry, she set about finding the ENT who would ultimately perform the sinus surgery (during my senior year spring break) that would change my life. Who knew so many smells existed and that one can, indeed, breathe out of both nostrils at once!!

I do have sympathy. Empathy even. But can't a woman catch a break? When your kids are 3-1/2 and 5-1/2, aren't you supposed to get an uninterrupted night's sleep every once in a while??

Oh, and last night? You know what woke me in the middle of the night? "Mommy, I'm afraid of Swiper." Yes. Swiper the fox. From her favorite cartoon. Dora. Dern you, Dora.

"Sweetie, Swiper is not real. He's just on Dora. Go to sleep."
"Will you sleep with me, Mommy?"
"Of course I will." Because really. Several hours of consecutive sleep are highly over-rated. Right?

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

A bloggy book

If you are my Facebook friend, you may recall that I was looking for a way to print/publish my blog so that the kids would always have access to it, long after Blogspot is a thing of the past. My original plan was to print each entry on our home printer and then, when the stack of paper got "big" I would trot down to Kinkos and have it bound with some velo binding or spiral binding or some such thing. But, then one day I decided to do a google search on "print your blog" or something similar.

That led me to a site called Blog2Print (I think). I thought I had struck paydirt because I was going to be able to print my first 6 months of blog posts for $35. The site was not terribly user friendly, though. For example, when it pulled the text and photos from my blog, it put the photos all at the beginning (or end - I can't remember) with no regard for the fact that the photo captions are embedded in the text and now made no sense whatsoever. Which would have been fine if I could have fixed it. But it could not be edited. At all.

So, I did what all fine researchers do...I changed my FB status to read that I was looking for tips for printing my blog and several people told me about Blurb.com. I checked it out and found it to be much more user friendly. It allowed me to drag and drop the text of each entry to a page format of my choosing and then drag each photo over and match it up to its caption. To the extent I couldn't get the photo to line up with its caption, well, I just moved its caption.

I was sure that for all this convenience I would surely have to pay through the nose. But, wonder of all wonders...this site was actually cheaper. They offer hard and soft cover books. I chose soft cover because I already print hard cover photo books for every six months of our lives and I didn't really think my bloggy thoughts were hard cover worthy, if you know what I mean. In the end, my first book (71 entries in 48 pages) was $24.99 and the second (with fewer entries and fewer pages) was only $19.99.

I am thrilled with the way they turned out. What do you think?

The photo quality is good. The paper quality is good. If I could change anything, it would be the soft cover itself. It already seems a little bent out of shape, but for these prices, who can complain? In conclusion, I would highly recommend the Blurb for any of you who are interested in preserving those blog memories for posterity. I fully understand that there will be a few years (you know, the adolescent years) when I will have to hide these treasures from the children, lest they be destroyed. But in the long run, I hope that they will find these books to be a lot of fun to read and very informative about their, well, formative years.

Photog mom badge

There are times when I feel that becoming a mom is a bit like becoming a girl scout. You can buy the uniform, but you it comes with this long empty sash that stays empty until you earn the badges to go on it. When browsing the catalog of badges, there are some that can be just immediately eliminated:

1603. Patient mom (ummm, yeah. Not even gonna try it. NEXT.)

1699. Soccer mom (Ordered trophies for team and delivered all but one. Some poor kid may never get his... but I consider that to be more his mom's apathy than my being a bad soccer mom. I might have to do extra credit for that one, but since Evan has decided not to play soccer this season, it will have to wait.)

1724. Crafty mom (SOOOO not gonna happen)

1766. and 1802. Babywearing and breast feeding mom (Does it count that I owned a Baby Bjorn and a hospital grade pump when my kids were infants? Never you mind that the Bjorn turned Evan's feet purple when he rode in it for too long. Who knew?)

1875. Karate mom (Sew ridiculously thick patch onto karate Gi. Check!)

1921. Photog mom

OK. Now that one seems like a no-brainer, right? Like taking senior math when your other choices are advanced trig or calculus. I was well on pace to earn my photog badge, but lately, I have been failing miserably. I keep forgetting to take my camera with me anywhere we go. I'm thinking having a camera with you is a pre-requisite for earning the badge. So, no badge for me in the foreseeable future. But I will continue to strive to achieve.

After that unusually long intro, I'll tell you about our trip to Burt's Pumpkin Farm and Amicolola Falls last weekend. There are some photos, but they were taken on the iPhone, so quality is questionable... Again.

We decided to make the trek up to Burt's and Amicolola on Sunday because October usually ends up being a crazy, busy month and we weren't sure when else we might go. So, after having lunch with our Sunday school class at the Varsity (yes, that makes twice in a month) we headed off to the mountains. Little did we know that everyone else in North Georgia had the same idea at the same time. HAVE mercy, there were a lot of cars.

Thanks to the navigation, we were able to skirt around some of the traffic, but eventually we came to a dead stop with no end in sight. Right after Corin looked down and realized that we were almost out of gas. So, we went back and forth and back and forth about whether we should bag it and go home (one or two miles from our destination). We decided to stick it out and battle the traffic and the crowds. It was not our most favorite memory-making trip, but we did get to buy some pumpkins and take some cute (albeit poor quality) photos.

When we left, we went to the gas station (and picked up some Hot Boiled P-nuts). Then we asked the kids if they still wanted to go hiking or if they were ready to call it a day. They were up for the hiking, so we turned around and headed back to the falls. We had not hiked very far up at all when Pressley received a call from nature. Corin decided to let her take care of it just off the trail, but everyone knows (except Corin, I guess) that girls are not nearly as good at that as boys are. Not for lack of skill, but for lack of proper equipment. So, Pressley soaked her undergarmets and when Corin pulled them back up, she came crying back onto the trail..."My bottom is WET!!! My bottom is WET!!" So, it was back to the car for Lil' P and me. Corin and Evan pressed on, but it was not the feat of wonder that it was last year.

I can't believe how fast the kids are growing up. I thought I'd show you a little then and now.

Burt's last year:


Burt's this year:

Amicolola last year:

Amicolola this year:

The other thing these pictures points out to me is how quickly I've lost control of what they wear. Not exactly festive, fall, pumpkin-picking outfits this year, but what-are-ya-gonna-do?

Far up in the hills of Georgia stands old Berry tried and true (something, something...the silver and the blue)

Last weekend, I got to head up to my alma mater in Rome, Georgia to celebrate 15 years of graduated bliss. Since Evan had a birthday party to attend Saturday afternoon, the boys stayed behind and the girls had a road trip. Pressley dutifully fell asleep in the car on the way up and got her nap in (a very good thing). We arrived just a few minutes late for registration, but in plenty of time for the pitiful class of 1994 reunion photo.

There were a few fun friends that I was excited to see, but two of them are in my regular Berry girls group that I see several times a year, and two I had just had dinner with about 3 months ago. But there were at least 2 others that I hadn't seen in several years. All in all, it was worth the trip. We had a good time catching up, but I'm hoping that we see many more friends at the 20 year. After we're all 40. Yikes. Let's not talk about that.

Here are P and I at the dinner.

After dinner, we were on our way to my friend Jan's house to have a little more girl time. P asked me if that was my college. Since the reunion was held across the street at Oak Hill (the Martha Berry museum), I told her no. So, we went across the street to campus so I could show her where mommy went to college. Then she said she wanted to see "the castle where I lived." So, we drove out to the mountain campus to see Friendship Hall (a.k.a., my castle). I don't know if she has seen pictures of Berry and that is where she is getting the castle association (because there are definitely some beautiful old stone buildings that are castle-like) or if she is just thinking that because mommy is such a princess, I must have lived in a castle...? :-)

Despite the fact that Friendship Hall doesn't look like much of a castle, she was not disappointed. She said, "OH, oh! Can we sleep there? Can I sleep there....with YOU?!" I explained that some other girls sleep there now, but that I hoped that she could sleep there someday if she wants to. So cute.

As a bonus, we saw scads of Berry deer, it being near dusk and all. We saw litterally hundreds of geese and even a swan and several ducks on Swan Lake. Ahhh, Berry in the fall. Nothing like it.

We did eventually make it to Jan's house and we had a great time catching up and having girl time while the two husbands who were present watched football and the kids played together. Well, Pressley played with Jan's kids and Ajae (April's daughter) entertained us just being so darn cute until she got so sleepy she couldn't stand herself. In fairness, she had told April "Go" a number of times, and at some point, even the paci doesn't help.

Here is one of the kids when Will and Katie were entertaining Pressley and Ajae had just plain had enough.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Corin was taking Evan camping. And when I say camping, I mean they had pitched a tent in the backyard after stopping at the Chick-Fil-A on the way home from the birthday party. They apparently played cards and backgammon until dark and then, when Evan fell asleep Corin came in to watch football until it was time for him to go back out and climb into his sleeping bag for the night. Roughing it. I tell you.

The tent was a big hit, both with Evan and with Pressley. P woke up from a dead sleep when we got home from Rome and immediately walked with purpose through the house announcing that she had to see the "tunnel." The tent, you mean? Yes, the tent. When she peeked in and Corin showed her where Evan was sleeping and where he would be sleeping later on, she inquired, "And where am I sleeping?" How about your bed? I suggested. At that, she turned on her heel and went upstairs to bed.

The next day, Evan and P had a grand time in and out of the tent until the rains threatened and Corin took it down.

More photos under the October 09 link.

The Flying Biscuit (or Flying Doughnut...whatever...)

It has been a while since I've updated about what we've been up to. There is a reason for that. I've been using most of my computer time to try to figure out the best way to print out my blog for posterity (a.k.a. for the kids to show their therapists when they get older to explain how it is I ruined them from an early age). I think I've about got it figured out, thanks to some extensive research on the subject (e.g., using my Facebook status update to solicit useful suggestions). More on that when I get the books in the mail.

Today's report is about my first foray into chaperoning a class field trip last Friday. Evan's class has apparently been learning about community workers in a unit during September. What better way to wrap it up than to go to the most well-known establishment in our little community and see people at work? So, on Friday morning at 8:30, 16 kindergartners, 5 adults, and Pressley set out from school to walk (skip, twirl, hop) down the street to the Flying Biscuit. Pressley has insisted on calling it the Flying Doughnut until yesterday when she finally switched the "The Fly Biscuit."

The kids got to walk back into the kitchen and "make" their own biscuits. Well, the dough was already made and rolled out, but they got to each use the biscuit cutter to cut out their own biscuit. In my mind, they surely, surely, surely threw out these "biscuits" and made a fresh, professional batch to put into the brown baggies that they sent home with each of us.

(Please, please, please.) I mean, there is a health code after all, right?

The kindergartners all handled it pretty well. Pressley, on the other hand, was probably the youngest biscuit cutter they'd ever had. She could barely reach the counter-top, couldn't get the cutter all the way through the dough, and then insisted on digging the "biscuit" out with her fingers to put it on the baking sheet with everyone elses. It was the most squished-up thing I've ever seen.

Then they got to go see where the dishes get washed, then they got to see one of the cooks flipping an egg in a skillet. Then, it was back around front to gather the jackets, the baggies full of biscuits (and apple butter jam) and head (walk, skip, jump, run, climb) back to the school. The round-trip walk was about a mile and a half. I was worried about Miss P, but she held her own and was very grown up about the whole thing most of the way. Whew!

Below: The kids line up outside the Flying Biscuit to go inside; One of our hosts demonstrates the biscuit cutting process; and Mrs. Appling's Apples get ready to head back off to school with their biscuits.

Caveat: the class photo is a little blurry because a) all of these pics were taken with my iPhone, which is much better quality than the blackberry camera, but nonetheless, not "real" camera quality; b) I somehow managed to make a video instead of a snapshot of the class and by the time I figured out how to get out of video mode, the 5 and 6 year olds had all done what 5 and 6 year olds do: they had all disbursed to go about doing their own thing. Sooo, I did figure out how to capture a still shot out of the video so you wouldn't have to watch the wobbly video of the class and then the inside of the purse of the woman next to me while I said, "Oh, shoot. I'm making a video. Giggle, giggle. How do you shut this thing o...?"

But the point is, it is a little blurry as a result. Maybe I should take a photography class. Or maybe just a common sense class. I'll put that on my to do list. For later.

Next post: watch for details on my [cough,cough] 15 year college reunion and Evan's camping trip in the yard with daddy. Lots of photos of the reunion, but none of the camping adventure given it was dark and Evan was out cold by the time the girls got back from Rome.