Non-conformity, sort of.

I'm not going to use this blog to express my philosophy of Halloween, mostly 'cause I don't have one that's pinned down. I tend to find that a lot of my life is sort-of middle-of-the-road. While I buy all-natural peanut butter, I also occasionally but Dreyer's ice cream and other not-so-healthy things. While I home school, I use a self-taught curriculum and am happy to send them off to Sunday school. While I use home medical remedies sometimes, I still get my kids vaccinated against most things (flu is excluded and chicken pox until they're at least 4 or 5). While my kids don't believe in Santa, we still do presents and mine and the kids' all-time favorite Christmas movie is Elf. Anyway, so we're kind of the same for Halloween: we don't do all the scary stuff or trick-or-treating, but we enjoy carving into a pumpkin and dressing up. So here are a few pictures of our friend Jack (who we are going to cook up and eat tomorrow) as well as the kids dressed up for a neighborhood picnic at our park we went to yesterday (I think they were the only kids dressed up, but they didn't notice). So enjoy the pics!

Leeks and Looks

I haven't really updated this mostly because I haven't been taking pictures! Also life has been just a little crazy trying to keep my head above water just in trying to keep up with daily life. I'm ignoring the twins pulling DVDs out of my DVD book as I type... But last night I made a REALLY yummy potato/leek soup, using some leeks from our garden. It was so easy and SO good that immediately after dinner I made another batch of it for lunches (and a bowl for dessert for me, while the others had cake!). So here's the recipe, just for the heck of it: 

Melt 2 T of butter (or equivalent) in a med/large pot. Cook one chopped onion and 2 large chopped leeks in the butter till soft. Add 2 T flour and cook about 2 minutes. Slowly add 4 cups chicken stock (or water/chicken bouillon) and 3 med. diced/peeled potatoes. Cook until potatoes are soft- 20-30 minutes. Add one cup of milk, salt and pepper. Eat it now if you like it chunky, or puree it if you like it smooth. I just use my hand plunger mixer; a blender would do a good job though makes a bigger mess. Anyway. It's SO good.

Here are a few pictures that I finally took this morning!

 Tirzah

 They look relatively happy, but looks are deceiving...

 Not so happy after all.

 Berea has started climbing EVERYwhere- up onto the dining room table, in and out of her high chair... Training twins is a lot of work!

 Practicing some computer programming...

I had to bribe the twins with crackers just so they wouldn't scream about having to sit still, but here they all are!

Oh yes! And for Anne's 6th birthday we decided to get Anne's ears pierced!

Twister in the Trees

One of Christian's jobs took him out past an area of the forest that was affected by the tornadoes the week before last. Here are a few of the pictures- they have confirmed that there were actually a total of 8 tornadoes that day- a record for the state!

Fun With The Fish Eye

A friend lent a fish-eye lens to Christian yesterday with the idea of Christian experimenting with landscape shots, but then he busted it out on humanity and we had so much fun with it! I think I can pretty much guarantee you that you will never see more unattractive, creepy, but oh-so-silly pictures of our family! Our house was practically bursting with giggles last night, it was such great fun! Enjoy! We won't be sending these out for Christmas this year.... ;)

Oh, just tornadoes. And stuff.

Tornadoes? Really? Craziness. Yesterday's storms brought at least 4 confirmed touchdowns in a town close to us as well as tornado warnings all day long. http://www.azdailysun.com/news/local/article_5572745f-2d40-5bd4-bcc3-b52f678a90c4.html. At one point there were two large storms with "strong rotation" heading our direction, so we headed toward the hall bathroom- the safest place in our house. We hung out for about half an hour, eating crackers, singing Jingle Bells and reading Charlotte's Web. The storms both passed by us fortunately, so on with life (and a bit of paranoia of storms).
Anyway, last Friday was our last really warm day, and Christian took some pictures of the kids, including some of Anne and Elijah who are both riding the bike without training wheels now! So here's a video (very rudimentary) slide show of our last day of "Summer" (until we get hit with and Indian Summer, of course). The song we dedicate to Auntie Grace- may she feel better soon and someday find out the answer... :)

The new cool weather has brought a nasty cold/cough for me, which I think I'm finally seeing the end of- I've been feeling pretty rotten for a week now, but was actually up for a light workout this morning. We'll see if that kills me. It's been pretty amusing seeing what a hypochondriac I really am. The first day I thought I was getting tonsillitis or strep. Then it moved up and I was sure I was getting a sinus infection. Then it moved back down and I was sure I was getting pneumonia. Hahaha! Oh well. The Lord is gracious and compassionate. :) While feeling rotten I managed to do "The Grand Clothes Sort". Almost. I've got all the kids' clothes changed out for Fall clothes, keeping a few Summer things out for good measure. Now I've just got to sort my clothes. To distract us during the tornado scariness yesterday I made tomato paste (never again) and a "pumpkin" pie, made out of our Buttercup squash. Of course it wasn't ready when the recipe said it should be, so we couldn't eat it last night, but we are looking forward with great anticipation to trying it tonight! Here are a few pics for the road...

 The twins in their amazingly bright clothes, picked out by their big sister

Good thing those drawer slides are tough! They've been known to be discovered both sitting in one drawer, looking at books. 

Red hot chili peppers anyone?