The Week in Review

I know it's not the end of the week yet, but it's been a long, rainy one and am looking forward to next. Or maybe I have just eaten too many cat cookies and it's catching up to me. Either way, this is the scene yesterday while the kids were working. The males and females in our house switch roles and always have. Collin is the dresser - up in our house and couldn't wait for our Fall Festival last night. He could have spent hours at the store choosing which costume and accessories to get. Grace on the other hand, didn't want a costume this year.

Me and Sister Shoener, representing the RS Presidency at the Witches Brew last night. I forgot to buy a hat, and that's a decoration behind me. Since I was here the whole night and Jon had the camera, we have no pictures of the kids dressed up.

Yesterday Grace and I made our new traditional Cat Cookies. When we were picking up the Candy Corn for the eyes, I saw they had caramel flavored, so we got those and it made them extra delish. (I also made some "turtle" cookies with 2 pecan halves and 2 caramel candy corns pressed into the top - yum.) Grace is getting to be a professional with these cookies!

Our little "school" Halloween Party.

Gearing up for the festivities in a couple of nights. We are trying something new this year and hope it's as good as I want it to be. Have a great weekend!! Don't eat too much candy!!

Collins new Addition

New glasses . . . same ol' boy. Can't get him to sit still if there are insects flying outside!!

Pink Necks

So, what do you do on a Saturday afternoon if you're a good Texan???? Head to the shootin' range, that's what!! I loved the cross street names at the range:

Gracie was a little nervous and said, "I only want to shoot once or twice", unlike Jon, who turned into a 7 year old!!

Collin shootin' the .22. These two are all boy.

Midgie Moodles ended up loving the gun and we couldn't keep her away!

This is my shoulder getting blown out of it's socket by the . . . . well, the BIG shotgun (sorry Jon, I can't remember what it is!!). My arm hurt for days. Needless to say, we need a recoil pad.

We headed out to the sticks later to check out some MORE guns where we stuck out like a a sore thumb. I wish I had taken a picture of our little Mini stuck in between all the huge Pick-ups in the parking lot, but we were already getting so many weird looks, I decided not to bring anymore attention to ourselves.

Jons candy store. I had NO idea he liked guns so much. I also couldn't believe how many guns there were here. This is only ONE of the walls. I had to keep wiping the drool off Jons shirt. I also loved the misspelled "y'all". I never knew having an English Professor for a dad and getting corrected on my speech growing up would make life so much more interesting later in life!

Refer to the statement above about misspelling fun. This place is "country cookin' at it's best". They even say it on their sign, so it must be true! Let's just say that Jon had liver and onions and leave it at that. They are famous for throwing fresh, hot rolls to you (those were delish!).

But I was excited to finally get to taste some real, southern Fried Green Tomatoes!! They, along with fried okra, were our complimentary appetizer. They were really yummy and I could tell would be GREAT if cooked a little differently.

We're going campin' this weekend to McKinney Falls out by Austin. We've never been there before, so we're excited. Have a GREAT weekend. And Ya'll come back!

Recent Randoms

I went to our local cannery and canned 11 cases of all different foods. When you don't have a friend with you and you're alone in the room, you have to entertain yourself some how. How often do you get to wear hair nets???

I made some delish strawberry jam out of freeze-dried strawberries . . .

Collin is taking a cake decorating class at our homeschool Co-op and while practicing, showed Grace the ropes . . .

The finished cake. . .

Dallas/Ft. Worth

We've had a few recent adventures that I thought I'd share. Jon wanted to go to a Tradeshow up in Fort Worth and we had never been up there, so we decided to tag along. It was fun to watch the scenery change from pine trees to other unknown types and we saw REAL cotton growing - we didn't realize what it was till it was too late to get out the camera. But we did get a picture of this town . . .

We stopped for gas and ta DA! We came across the Collin Street Bakery!!

With a name like that, it MUST be good!

We got some sandwiches on Pecan bread that were really good!

Jons Tradeshow happened to be right next to the Fort Worth Water Gardens, thankfully for us because I'll take this opportunity to say, I want to know WHO coined the term "Dallas/Ft. Worth area"!! That is like saying the Salt Lake/Provo area - it's about the same distance away! I had Googled Dallas and had a list of things for us to do while Jon was busy but when we found out how far away they were, I had to scrap my plans.

The Water Garden ended up being really pretty

There were different areas in a maze of concrete.

But the BEST was the Active Area. It sounded like you were under a roaring waterfall and you could "hike" down in it etc.

Even though I had to scrap most of my plans, there was one that Jon (bless this man) would not let me give up. We drove the 45 minutes back to Dallas through bad traffic to go here. . . Recognize it anyone?

Oh yeah. SPRINKLES!!! Their strawberry cupcakes are "the bomb" (Collins new favorite phrase), although they do have to come in second to the Nutella in my opinion. MMMmmmmmmm.

That's it for now folks. I gotta go wipe the drool from my mouth.