Halloween Dance at the Caldees' place

Witches fingers (breadsticks with almond fingernails . . . I stole this creepy idea from the fun party we went to last week).Winners: "The Best Tights Couple"
We were delighted that Sarah Palin joined our party.
The Asian crew wearing real kimonos, Thai shirts, authentic fisherman pants and special hats (including an upturned rice steamer basket hat).
Josh's delicious clam chowder.
Ursula, the bad sea witch from "The Little Mermaid". Appropriate costume for Granna Leslie considering Mavis dressed as Ariel.
Grandma Helen grew some extra legs too!
Becky's cute ghosties.
Tall & tasty breadsticks. Josh also made two trays of the best focaccia.
More witches fingers. Jennifer crafted these from carrots. Creepy.

Cutest Halloween Costumes

These are my nieces, and I just couldn't resist posting these pics of them in their Halloween Costumes. They are sooo adorable!! Hopefully Erin doesn't mind me showing off her kids (she took these lovely photos).

A nice girl pumpkin

Mavis wanted me to make her pumpkin a "nice, girl one." So I complied.

Visiting Great Grandma

We certainly don't visit Great-grandma Virginia Irons enough. She lives in Nephi. She's in her late nineties. She patted our hands a lot, and rubbed them as we held her hands. She couldn't hear us very well, and didn't speak at all. We woke her from her nap. Jack kept trying to jump around and climb on Grandma. We had to be vigilant in restraining him so as not to leaver her injured from our visit. Mavis wore her Halloween costume, although she had to remove the wig to eat her snack (yams) before we left.

Dinglehoppers for the Ariel Princesses

Today the girls (Mavis and her friend Sophia) got to wear costumes to preschool (even the teacher dressed up). They were lucky enough to both be Ariel, the adored, complete with astounding and beautiful red wigs (I don't know if Pantone makes such a vibrant color as this neon red! I didn't know anyone could, but a somewhat close match is pms red 032). They were also supplied with dinglehoppers to comb their lovely locks.

Spooky Halloween Party with Friends

Witches FingersGhostie-berries

Scary Little Monsters

An Alien Witch

Wearing the head of Jack Skellington
(from the piñata)

The Rush for Piñata Candy

These pics are from a party at Jonathan & Maira's place. Maira made the sweet piñata (one of the best I've ever seen!!) and all the spooky treats. I just wish I had a better picture of the Jack Skellington piñata and a picture of the amazing chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles, including disgustingly realistic eyeball noodles. I tasted one and although it tasted as good as the rest of the noodles, I still couldn't eat any more because they looked too real—SICKening!

Foodie Training

Relatively speaking, Mavis is a great eater. She eats all kinds of things that other kids wouldn't touch. I like to flatter myself that it's because I've taught her well, although it's very likely that her palate naturally tolerates a broader range of flavors than that of most other kids. There are, however, times when I just cannot get her to eat what I'm serving. On one such occasion she hoped I wouldn't notice the two bowls she'd stacked to form a little hiding place for some undesirables.



Although she wouldn't eat her green beens and cukes that day (strange too because cukes are one of her all-time favorite foods) I did convince her to partake of this delicious goulash I invented.

The Witches

'jama boy and blankie girl

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Collage

Here we see the progression of the family tree collage honoring the women of my mother's family, both past and present. My cousin Lindsey initiated a "Ladies Lunch" at which we gathered to hear stories about our female ancestors, share a delicious spread of soup and sandwiches (perfected on the George, of course), and collaborate on an artistic representation of the stories we heard, as well as our own stories. What a delightful day! Hopefully the collage will be able to travel to different homes of sisters in our family over the years. We've left room for more details to be added by those who couldn't attend, or those may become part of our family in the future. Also, there are quite a few details I still need to add to elaborate on the stories of our female ancestors pictured in the collage. I shall post the finished artwork eventually for all to see. I hope to bring the canvas to our Thanksgiving feast to solicit a bit of help in finishing up some of the details. Thanks for all who were there and helped make the Ladies Lunch such a success.

colorstrology again

I just realized that the illustration of me at the top of my blog employs, more than any other color, MY color from the colorstrology site. Notice the greenish-bluish color of my skirt, and the left side of my shirt, and the hair barrette, and the top of my glasses? That is my color!! I knew it felt good when I read and saw my color, but I hadn't realized that I'd actually used it to depict myself in the blog masthead illustration. Very telling.

An amber glow

I took all of these without a flash, which means longer exposures, less clarity, more movement. I've been trying it a lot lately and the blurred images, with their amber glow from the incandescent light bulbs, appeal to me. There's something soft, warm, sensuous about it. I feel closer to the subject, and in a kind of dream land. Enchanting & appropriate for the setting — Amber & Keith's wedding reception.