Halloween !

This year we celebrated Halloween officially for four days! And two weeks before that, too. These pictures are from the downtown trick-or-treat, called "Scaramie", on Saturday morning.

It was pretty cool. We saw everybody in the entire town AND we got to ring the bell on a real firetruck! (picture not included)

Me and the fam.

EEW, Sean!

This picture is from this morning - right after they got to Spring Creek Elementary there was an all-school parade! Happy Halloween!

Conversations

Driving home in the dark after Margaret's gymnastics class:

DrHF: Everything looks so different at night, doesn't it Margaret?

Margaret: Well, not the trees or the houses or the stop signs or the cars.

DrHF: Are you saying you disagree?

Margaret: Well, the only thing different about the night is that the sun has set. Everything else stays the same.

DrHF: I guess you're right. :)

Margaret: I see the big dipper! I see the big dipper!

Friend: What is that?

Margaret: It's a series of seven stars that looks like a soup ladle!

William: MAMA! We are missing the most important thing on earth!!!

DrHF: What's that? Love?

William: no

DrHF: food?

William: no

DrHF: shelter?

William: No. We are missing an authentic Cowboys helmet replica!

DrHF: Gotcha.

For Ginny Only

Dear Ginny,

Most of the time I am talking to you, I am standing in the kitchen cooking, doing dishes, or doing weird dance routines with the children. Okay, I usually hang up before the weird dancing begins. You wanted to see the whole room but got only a taste from the last post. Ginny likes details - so if you don't like details, this is not the post for you. I won't be offended! Here is my kitchen in all of its angles! This view is facing the half-bath where Eric potty trained. There is a skinny closet right by the half-bath which borders the garage and is uninsulated - perfect for cold drinks and to keep weird farm share veggies fresh all winter long! Just part of the way down the stairs to the basement is the door to the garage, or "bike storage area". We keep our cars outside - no room in a 1953 single car garage for a 2010 ginormo-minivan. The stairs are carpeted, a beige medium-length shag, so pretty fun to slide down on your butt! Just sayin'.

Okay, turning to the left you can see that when they remodeled the house, they took out part of the wall of the kitchen so it was more open to the stairway. When we first bought the house, we thought it would be a good thing that we could hear the children better as they played in the basement with this design. We have now learned our lesson! The ledge is useful to put things on, like this flashlight that eats batteries and our pile of random scratched up DVDs that are designed for a German player. See also, laundry basket, place where we keep our laptop, and the pile of framed pictures not hung yet - a couple water colors of the Tetons and a couple prints Sean brought back from Sweden. The big painting on the wall is from Holland. Maus, the roommate of Sean's Godmother painted it and a couple other pieces we hang proudly in our house.

Turning left again, you see the dining room in it's naural state. We cleaned up a bit for the last picture! In this picture, we 've got some homework, some junk mail, some pumpkins, etc ! The card that you sent recently is on the counter I am pretty sure! Thank you.

Turning left again, you see our beautiful cabinets, a halloween tree from Beeba, a framed picture from our honeymoon in Canada, a couple bags of Halloween stuff ready to make "Boo bags", etc! Just over the sink is the best feature ever designed: a window overlooking the back yard! Why is it such a delight to do dishes while watching your children play as if they were a TV show?

Turning left again you see the toaster with a piece of toast Margaret toasted and then forgot about, the cutting board Matt gave us for our wedding, a white tray from Sweden, a couple bowls full of farm share fruit, random utensils in a flower pot ( plants died anyway!), quilted potholders from mom's buddies hanging on hooks by Glenn. As I am typing, I realize that somebody special gave or made for us nearly all of the things in our house ! I am one lucky person!

And finishing the circle, back to the fridge! Oh, you might think those drawers in the corner are cool - that's where I keep utensils, ice cream scoops...and the bottom drawer is partially decomposed potatoes. I'll get to them after the hubbard squash!

Welcome to my kitchen, Ginny! Have a seat and let me pour you a cup of tea.

Love you, Katy

Home Decorating

To all of you blog readers who seem to have an endless interest in the daily escapades of our children and who also have expressed an interest in even more mundane things like how we have painted our kitchen, bless you! But here it is. Glenn, Ineke, and Sean went crazy with a paintbrush the week I was in Orlando...and when I got back, the kitchen was "brandy" and the dining room was, oh, I forget. Some sort of sage! Just what the doctor ordered! Here is our Glenn-designed- and-handcrafted cherry table, surrounded by friends -it easily seats about a million!

From this angle, you can see Mom's beautiful quilt, in just the perfect colors, hanging on the wall in the living room and our new photograph in the dining room!

This is the photographer, http://www.brettdeacon.com/ ! It is a SPRING Wyoming scene, the perfect thing to get us through the winter!

And here are the blinds we ordered and Sean and Glenn hung. Do not look closely at my basil plant or you will see that my talent with plants remains static. Come visit Chez McCrea - you will be well fed, well-entertained, comfortably-seated...but I'll buy my fresh herbs at the store.

Halloween Costumes!

Today was reserved for preparation and the pre-celebration of Halloween, a holiday that we now try to drag out as long as fasnacht. Margaret rocks Mini-Mouse!

William is a frightening clone trooper! He chooses his costumes each year based on how cool the weapon props are.

And our very own Batman - saving my day nearly every day!

Not Brushing Teeth for a Good Cause

William: I don't brush my teeth in the morning because my bad breath is my last line of self defense! The girls at school can't resist my short hair. But if they get too close, I just go, " HAAAAAA" with my bad breath and they run away screaming. It works really well.

Knock it off!

Eric: Knock knock!
Dada: Who's there?
Eric: Moose!
Dada: Moose who?
Eric: Elk!!

Eric: Knock knock!
Dada: Who's there?
Eric: Moose!
Dada: Moose who?
Eric: SOCK!

Dr HF receives her just rewards at dinner time.

William: Mama, get me some milk!
DrHF: William, the milk is in the fridge! Go get it yourself!
William: But that will take * forever*!
DrHF: Well, you could wait until you are a grown up, get a job, earn money, buy a cow, milk it, and put it in a glass...
Wiliam: But MAMA! How could I fit a COW in a glass? I'd go back to the farmer and say, "How do I get this cow into my glass? Should I put it in butt first? Or head first? HAHAHA!"
Mama: I meant, you put the MILK in the glass!
William: I'd be like, "Squish up, cow! Get in my glass!" And the cow would be like, "moo! moo!" HAHAHA! HAHAHAHA!

Mama: (rocking back and forth) "What have I done? What have I done?"

William: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Unanswered Questions

Marga: How did the first person get on Earth? Did it come from God?
DrHF: That's what a lot of people think.
Marga: But that doesn't make sense! Because before you get a baby you have to have a Mama and before you get the Mama, she has to have a Mama, and before you get her, she has a Mama, and before that, she has to have a Mama (this went on for 5 minutes).
William: Maybe the first person came from a caveman who came from a dinosaur! But where did the first dinosaur come from?
William and Marga: *wide-eyed pause of the boggled minds*