TreasuresInTerraCotta

Yesterday the kids decorated a Haunted Gingerbread House. As you might expect, they were very excited about the candy. This is what we ended up with. I think it is appropriately creepy! We didn't have a theme this year amongst the cousins as we have in the past. They all were, however, traditional Halloween costumes. Andrew was a train engineer. Calvin was a rat, specifically the rat Templeton from Charlotte's Web. (Calvin got the idea from the character/costume of Templeton in theater production of Charlotte's Web.) Calvin's rat tail. Here you can see Calvin's rat ears attached to his cap. The cousins. A ghost. A princess. A rat. A train engineer. The baby cousin, who is almost 4 months old, was a dog. I didn't take my own advise and have a separate dress-up picture day prior to Halloween. Perhaps that's because I was working on Calvin's vest and tail last night at 11 and we rigged his ears as we were walking out the door for trick-or-treating. ...

As a contrast to October in Arizona , we got to spend last week near Boston. Here are a few highlights from the beautiful scenery. Philip J. Riley Park, South Lawrence, MA How do colors like that happen in nature? To this desert girl, it is amazing! Philip J. Riley Park, South Lawrence, MA We had beautiful weather the whole trip. Calvin "likes to be cold so I don't get too hot" so I only packed one long sleeved shirt for him and a sweatshirt. As you can see he usually preferred to be in short sleeves. Salem, MA Calvin could not resist shuffling through the leaves and throwing them over his head. The Chapel at West Parish, Andover, MA By the end of our trip, our rental van was full of leaves Andrew picked up. A park in Wellesley, MA To tell you the truth, I looked at every leaf and thought it was a masterpiece. I wanted to pick up and save every one too! Instead, I took a lot of pictures. A park in Wellesley, MA One of our highlights was getting a tour of Wellesley ...

I love Apple Annie's . We made the hour and 15 minute drive to Willcox on a sunny Tuesday morning. We arrived at Apple Annie's about 10:00 and after initially sharing the bathroom with a couple buses of elementary school field-trippers we had the place to ourselves. We skipped the hay-ride, which would have also been with all the field-trippers, and walked through the sunflower patch to the nearest pumpkin field with wagon in tow. Oh, and we had clippers too, as Calvin was proud to wield. We picked a pumpkin for each person in our family. And we picked some squash that were inexplicably growing along the path through the sunflowers. And we bought two loaves of Apple Annie's Apple Bread! YUM (I hear they export it to CostCo , so keep your eyes open when you're there. It's definitely worth the $6.) A sunny field with pumpkins all around makes for pretty good pictures. Maybe that's why Apple Annie's has quickly become one of my favorite places. An hour...

October 11! When Calvin asked to play on the Slip-and-Slide I had to resist the urge to say, "No, It's October!" or "No, it's not summer!" Because in reality it was still 95 degrees. Which, of course, is Slip-and-Slide weather to any kid. While we're at it, we might as well try to finish that box of Popsicles! How do you celebrate the last Hoo-Rah of summer? I guess if you don't live in Arizona, you might have waived good-bye to summer two months ago!

The second butterfly emerged on October 2nd. My sister came to rescue them from our empty house while we were camping. She captured a few great images. Here they are in the butterfly habitat. As you might expect the butterflies did not seem especially happy with this confinement. So after a couple days of observation they were set free! They know the good-stuff when they see it. This one immediately visited the Texas Ranger flowers. Look very closely at this picture. The butterfly is on the flowers on the right side of the picture. Entering on the left, near the green bush, is a hummingbird! Nature is amazing!

Later the same morning... Beautiful!

The first chrysalis that formed suddenly turned dark over night. That means it's getting close to emerging! But we're going camping, so I'm going to let my sister and her kids watch the butterflies. Maybe they will get some pictures!