The Definition of Autumn

The definition of autumn is walking out in the yard wearing a green
sweater because of the breeze and chomping on a juicy red apple while
clutching four crookneck squash just picked from the garden, and looking
lovingly at the walnut leaf that stuck to your shoe. Ahhh.

Word Puzzle

This is a very fun word puzzle we just discovered. Enjoy! There are 30 books of the Bible in the following paragraph, can you find them?

This is a most remarkable puzzle. It was found by a gentleman in an airplane seat pocket on a flight from Los Angles to Honolulu keeping him busy for hours. He enjoyed it so much; he passed it on to some friends. One friend studied it while fishing on his john boat. Another worked on it while playing his banjo. Elaine Taylor, a columnist friend, was so intrigued by it, she mentioned it in her weekly newspaper column. Another friend, Joe Schmotz, while he judges the job of solving this puzzle finds it so involving that he brews a pot of tea to help his nerves. There will be some names that are easy to spot, and that is a fact. Some people however, will soon find themselves in a jam especially since the book names are not necessarily capitalized. Truthfully, from answers we get we are forced to admit it usually takes a minister to see some of them at the worst. Research has shown that something in our genes is responsible for the difficulty we have, seeing some of these books. During a recent fun raising event which featured this puzzle, the Alpha Beta Phi Lemonade stand set the record. The local news paper, The Chronicle surveyed over 200 patrons who reported that this puzzle was one of the most difficult they had ever seen. As Daniel Humana humbly puts it; the books are there in plain view hidden from sight. Those able to find them all will hear great lamintations from those who have to be shown.One revelation that may help is that books like Timothy and Samuel may occur without their numbers. Also keep in mind that punctuation and spaces between words are normal. A chipper attitude may help you compete really well against those who claim to know the anwsers. Remember there is no reason to make a mad exodus, there really are 30 books lurking somewhere in this paragraph... just waiting to be found.
Did you find them? : )

Cinnamon, Cinnamon, Cinnamon

Did you know that it is very hard to sing the word cinnamon to the tune of "The William Tell Overture"? I discovered the fact while making spiced shortbread with my four-year-old sister. We were having fun. : )

Adventures in Dollhouse Land

In our new school schedule each of us older kids has a scheduled time to play with Emma and/or Betsy Bea. Betsy Bea's hands-down favorite thing to play is dollhouse. Although I keep branching out to other games for us to play, we always return there. I thought I'd share some funny things that have happened while we are playing.

Betsy Bea insists on always using a certain dollhouse Daddy and when I asked her about it she said, "He looks like Tyler."

Any other dollhouse daddy was declared to look like "Goob from Meet the Robinsons." : )

Yesterday, I threw her doll a birthday party with real miniature books I had made as the presents. One of the books was called "Christy Hunt". Her doll replied, "Oh, thanks, I'm sure my dad will read the hunting one."

Today, she was looking through a bag of accessories before our dolls went camping. She discovered an interesting hinge that was in the bag for some reason and the 'wheels' starting turning. "I can use this for a tortilla press," she decided.

Whenever our dolls would go places, my daddy doll would open and shut the door for the mommy doll. Her people used to always explode out of their separate doors and get to business. Now her daddy opens the door and the mommy politely thanks him.

We played dollhouse dentist one day, (BTW-the dentists were always washing their hands in a bird fountain rigged up for the job), and the boy doll named Avery had a cavity. A few days later I was talking to Anna about a story I was writing with a character named Avery in it and Betsy Bea pipes up with, "Avery had a cavity." That took me a little while to make the connection.

So, it's been fun and she even sings me a Josh Groban love song while we play. I asked if she liked the song and she said, "No." "Then why do you sing it?" "Because it is dumb."

SCORE!

Praise God for an awesome, profitable thrift-shopping day! My finds
included adorable brown shoes for $1.50 (instead of the regular $20), two
Lamplighter books in perfect condition for $1 each (instead of $24
each!!!), and a really cute, wrought iron, multi votive holder that just
so happened to fit into the three dollar bag sale! : ) Happy day!

Happy Autumn!!!

"Spring is the morning of the year,
And summer is the noontide bright,
The autumn is the evening clear,
That comes before the winter's night."
~Frank Dempster Sherman

The season has finally changed and it has rained so much lately that the
grass is a brighter, happier green than it was for a lot of the summer.
The giant maple trees that flank our driveway have turned to a brilliant,
golden orange and there are leaves everywhere. This morning there was an
amazingly beautiful amount of fog that was enough to be worthy of Ireland
itself. Our garden is almost too cold to grow anything, but the apples
will soon be ripe. The other day we had to use our fireplace for the
first time this season and the house had a wonderful, cozy feel. This is
an old house, though, so the cozy feel was only in a few rooms. In the
other rooms you have to wear a wonderful sweater. It is the perfect time
for devouring books and Mom read a few chapters to us yesterday while we
snapped a bounty of green beans. (I got to blanch those the other day).
She is also reading an older kid book to Aimee, Paul, and I so the
evenings are filled with reading and projects--a lovely mixture.
I suppose you already know that this is my favorite season, so I think
the only improvement would be if we had managed to grow some pumpkins.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Today we picked up a really fun game called "Peanut Butter and Jelly".
Basically, the goal is to build a complete sandwich first, but just like
with "Hi-Ho Cherrio" there are disasters that can happen. You should see
the glee in the eyes of a four-year-old when she finds out she can steal
someone else's peanut butter! We changed that rule later to make the game
more friendly and even made the whole thing more fun by cheering for
everyone whenever they got a new ingredient. It's very fun to have games
that the big kids can play with the little kids and I'm sure this one
will be on the list of favorites! : )