Can you name this mystery food? A friend of my parent's here is a cotton farmer. They also grow all kinds of veggies, and some fruits. Three times a week, Mrs. S sells her goods at the farmer's market. Often, she drops off her leftovers at my mom's house (just a couple of blocks from the market). 2 weeks ago, she dropped these off at my mom's house. Since my mother was busy with a garage sale, she gave them to me and said, "They make great cakes and cookies." I've never seen these. Ever. Had to look up how to eat them. The ripe ones are really s-w-e-e-t! The rest are ripening in a paper sack on my counter. Do you know what they are?

PERSIMMONS!

The settlers of Jamestown described persimmons as "very sweet and pleasant to the taste, and yields on distillation, after fermentation, a quality of spirits." When Captain John Smith was not busy with Pocahontas, he is quoted as saying, "If it be not ripe it will drawe a mans mouth awrie with much torment; but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as an Apricock."

**Update, I should have mentioned that the above information about Jamestown and Capt Smith was from my research on how to cook persimmons.

What happens when your children and your camera disappear?

I love Texas in November! The weather has been great. In the 70s during the day. Nights have progressively gotten cold and we finally turned the heat on 2 days ago. We seem to need it for just a couple of hours, though. Tonight will go down to 30! Funny thing is that Emma's Morning Glories from this spring are still blooming! And I still have tomatoes! Better go throw a sheet over them before I forget.

Elisha just discovered the sandbox last week. I don't think he has put any in his mouth. He saves crayons for that LOL.

Not much to report, besides the regular crazy schedule of school, ballet and basketball. And that Nutcracker schedule keeps us on our toes! Opening night is just 15 days away!

I was interviewed by our local newspaper yesterday as part of an article on families involved in the production. The paper will be doing a series of stories over the next 2 weeks. The interviewer, "I have down here that you have five children. What's with everyone having five children?!" She had just interviewed another Nutcracker family. That homeschools. That has five children. Close to half the cast are homeschool families ;-) One of many perks to 'small' town living.

Thanksgiving preparations are underway. We're hosting again. I think it will just be the 7 of us, with my mom, Tom, Ponda (Tom's sister), Jason (Tom's oldest son, just out of the Marines this spring), and perhaps one of Tom's daughters. So a small group, compared to the 11 guests from last year.

Life has been busy over the past week...I think I'm still recovering from the weekend.

Saturday's schedule:
9:30-10 Ellie Nutcracker rehearsal
11:30-8:00 Emma Nutcracker rehearsal then to Stephanie's house
12:00 drop off Doug and Erik to caravan to basketball tournament
4:00 take Ellie to birthday party, little boys to the mall to get shoes for Elisha
5:30 Little Caesars for dinner
6:00 eat and watch The Jungle Book with younger set

I realized that the day was hard on me, not because of the running around but because my 3 helpers were gone!

Emma has been feeling under the weather for the past few days {I still haven't had one of my helpers!} Today she seems to be back to herself. Good thing, too. Today's lineup is crazy! I'm so glad I have 2 stay home days to recover from the crazy days.

The basketball tournament was hosted by a homeschool group. Doug's team played 2 games. Erik got a lot of play. And he didn't get hurt! No shots, but he did a great job setting screens for the bigger kids on the team. This was HUGE, as most of the players were 12-14 years old! MY 9 year old son played basketball with 12-14 year olds, didn't get hurt and held his own! They won a game and were crushed in another. All in all it was a good experience. They have a game tonight...if I have my act together, I'll have some pictures!

"Dad! Everson just hit me with his Barbie!" yelled Emma this morning.

Am I the only one, or is that just a hoot?! A few days ago, my mom came over with a Ken-like doll for Everson to use when playing with Ellie. The guy had an earring. Doug wanted to toss it. I managed to cut off the earring and give the doll a stay of execution... Never have Ellie and Everson played so well and so long with eachother. Something happened this morning in the girls room which caused Everson to strike Emma. With his Barbie...

Everson loves to pretend to be someone else. Indiana Jones. An NBA player. A soccer player. A boy named Toby. A boy named Nathan. A dog. A knight. Luke Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker (before he went to The Dark Side). Obi Wan Kenobi. A regular jedi. Here, he's being a cowboy. Not one to shy from the camera...Everson has a million expressions just for the camera! I can't believe he'll be FIVE in a month!

What do you do when you see this?

"I" grabbed the camera, because I knew that he was serious about something. You see, he had already emptied the entire lower part of this cabinet...and was in hot pursuit of something...Remember my comment a few days ago that he liked things with cords...

My blender base was in the middle cabinet...so he had to climb in and get it. I let Elisha play with it, until he tried to pick it up and carry it around. I was worried about his little toesies.

Stay Home Day

School. Housework. Mirrors cleaned (Emma). Dusting (Ellie). Sheets changed in boys room (big boys and mom). Swept kitchen floor 3 or 4 times (mom). Played with kiddos outside. Watered Cherry Trees. Visited with my mom for a few minutes outside while she dropped off some baskets and ginger. Watched as Elisha tried to climb into the just-discovered sandbox. I helped him in and he played and played and played...until I brought him in for a nap. I think it must have been somewhere in the 70s this afternoon! Just beautiful!

Made a pan of granola bars and a pan of granola for breakfast (yummy over yogurt!).

What's left of the pan of granola bars...

Made a double batch of Hawaiian Pineapple Chicken...one for dinner tonight, and one for the freezer. I'm trying to make double batches of as many dinners as I can, because the next 4-5 weeks are crazy with basketball, Thanksgiving and The Nutcracker.

Doug and Erik will be gone all day Saturday at a Homeschool Basketball Tournament 90 miles away...and I'll be home with 4 kids...schlepping to Nutcracker rehearsal, taking in the Veterans Day Parade, taking Ellie to a birthday party and feeding them all...I think Doug will have the easier day ;-)

BAPTISM!

What an exciting day for us to have Emma, Erik and Ellie baptized. They met with our Pastor last week, and were all ready for this morning. We had some good friends come for the service, as well as my Mom and Stepfather, and my 97-year-old Grannie. Grannie has been waiting and waiting to see the kids get baptized and actually left her house to witness it. She is basically housebound, so we knew how serious witnessing the kids' baptism was to her. The water in the baptistry was up to Ellie's shoulders. She's standing on a cinder block!

I think Emma was happy to be in the warm water and out of the cold hallway.

Erik actually went first, but the pictures loaded in reverse order.

Ice Cream Election

Yesterday, while picking up our weekly produce from the coop, the 4 kids participated in an election...for their favorite flavor of ice cream.

Their good friends, Arielle and Nolan were doing the election for school, and, you know, because there IS a bit of election coverage going on.

Arielle was quite the shutterbug during the collecting of votes and managed to capture all 5 of my kiddos in the election process.

Okay, Elisha was just an onlooker, since he can't articulate his favorite flavor of ice cream...yet. But if he could, I'm sure he'd say Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip...don't ask me how I know.

Anyhow, my friend De'Etta (Arielle and Nolan's mom), has a blog...with my kids pics on it. Thought you might want so stop by her blog and see kids placing their votes. Scroll down to Friday 10/31.

It was exciting, since we had just calculated WHEN the kids will actually be able to vote for a president...Emma: 2016, Erik and Ellie in 2020.