The Non-candy store

I don’t want my kids to miss out on the fun of getting a big bag of candy on October 31st. But I don’t want all of that candy to become part of their bodies and brains either.

^{Beatrix discovered the wonders of candy last year.}

^{And knows what she’s after this year.}

^{But how do you get those darn tootsie rolls open?!}

Maybe you just eat the paper…. hey Mom!

I guess pretzels are good too.

Acadia and Lily are not happy with only eating the pretzels. So we’ve come up with a happy solution all around…

The non-candy store.

In this store the goods are good for you and the candy is the cash!

Here’s last year’s store:

^{Strawberries, pistachios, spritzer, toys, games and art supplies}

And here’s this year’s store:

^{Organic fruit sour gummy worms and bears, peanut and almond butter squeeze packs, sparkling cider, art and school supplies, socks, hair things, cups, and the coolest thing: window climbing ninjas.}

They still had some candy left after buying all the stuff I had, (my prices weren’t high enough!) so they portioned out the rest for the next few days. But this is all the stuff I kept OUT of their tummies and off their teeth:

I know there’s other creative methods of cutting back on candy. What are your ideas?

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How to get a really strong iced coffee for $1.05 (and rip off DD)

Yeah. I'm pretty pleased. I just got this really robust iced coffee for really cheap.

It's because I married a Java Genius. When I'm at home my JG just makes me an iced coffee with espresso, ice and half 'n half. But he figured out a way to get this same Beautiful Beverage when we're on the road, without paying a lot of money for it.

And although I'm not willing to share my JG, I will share this fantastic secret with all of my Dear Readers. Here's whatcha do.

Go to Dunkin Donuts and ask for: a double espresso, on ice, with cream (and sugar, if that's how you take it). But hold on, it's not quite that simple. Now comes the hard part. You must wait while the teller is momentarily befuddled. "Can you repeat that?" he says. And you do. "That will be a dollar five," he says. And yes, that's $1.05 for a BB at DD without even having your own JG!

So, DR, are you curious why it costs so much less than a regular iced coffee? It's because you're not paying for water. A double espresso (also known as a turbo shot at DD) is only $1.05, and they don't charge extra for cream or ice. If you make the mistake of ordering an iced coffee with a turbo shot you're going to pay somewhere around $3 which is just too much to shell out very often.

And if you don't drink coffee and you still want a novel way to cool off you can try Lily's method:

Let me know if you try either of these hot tips, I'd love to know what the tellers tell YOU!

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A few of my favorite things

The beautiful shape of these mangos. What a fantastic Designer!

Blue sky in the background, chubby cheeks in the foreground.

Morning sun making shadow masks, jammies stained with that one little sip of Dad's coffee.

Bair piggy toes peeking out from blue jeans, gripping the floor with all their might.

This bright yellow vintage highchair, it makes me happy when I look at it.

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Beatrix LIVE!

Bea the Biter

Bea and the Barnyard

Bea and the Basket

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Get out and play in it!

'Bout time for a blog post with family pictures eh? I thought so too. When it snows, my family has a tendency to be gloomy about it. But once you get out there and start playing in it together, it is kind of fun. That is, if you can find your boots, and mittens, and your ski pants feel just right.

Beatrix, waiting for a snowflake

Lily, on the slide

Mom thinks I can't possible move in this snowsuit,
but the bathroom door is open and now is my chance.

Seals do it, and so can I. Slap-swish, slap-swish.

Bub-bye.

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Blackberry Summer

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Miracle Kid

She played her first softball game, hit two singles, slid into a base, and ran home twice! I am marveling at the miracle of what it took her for her to do something other kids wouldn't think twice about. Since we found out a month late that softball had started, she missed all the practices and ended up starting the night of their first game. She was shy, but did fine socially, and played well for her first game. The game went from 5:30 to 8:00 and she stayed with her team, in batting order, and payed attention really well. She has been having a hard time lately, very intense, agitated and easily frustrated, and we also found out that her thyroid is now UNDER active and she has to start a new medication for that. If you didn't know, you'd just have thought she was the shy new kid on the team, not the miracle kid she is to have overcome so many obstacles just to be able to PLAY! Pin It

Reformation Day Faire October 31, 2007

We went all out celebrating the Grace of God at our Reformation Day Faire this year. It was a lot of work but I do love to throw myself into a big creative project, and it was great to watch the kids having so much fun! They played games related to the life of Martin Luther and earned coins to trade for candy at the marketplace.
Some of us dressed up in medieval costumes, but we had some fairies and spider(men?) too. Acadia was an archer, and Lily was a princess. Unfortunately I erased the pictures I took of my girls in their costumes. Arggh! Sometimes our memories have to come from something other than pictures, right?

Celebrating Reformation Day is so much different than trying to ignore Halloween, or having a "harvest party" instead. We are not saying "Yeah, everyone else is doing something fun tonight, but were not doing anything because it would be evil". Instead we are telling our children "We have something important to celebrate tonight, and it's different from what the world is celebrating. The Grace of God is so important that people gave their lives to make sure that you could know and understand it."
The Bible and Jewish culture are full of feasts and celebrations and the Lord wants to celebrate with us! I think it is no coincidence that Reformation Day has been hidden behind Halloween for so long. October 31st was the day that Luther posted the 95 theses on the Wittenberg door. The ring of that hammer has echoed through history as the reformation was born. But as Christians we tend to focus too much on the evil we want to avoid, and not enough on the fullness of all that we have in Christ. "The just shall live by FAITH" was the simple truth that changed Luther's life and then the whole world. And it's a very good reason to PARTY! Whoohoo!






The little bumble bee was fascinated with the "fire".



























No, it's not Snow White's wicked stepmother. She doesn't have that evil white complexion. It's a medieval queen of course!


















This was the guy you were supposed to avoid. John Tetzel. He went around selling "indulgences" which were pieces of paper that said your sins were forgiven. Yep, you could pay your hard earned coins to BUY God's forgiveness. Sound kind of twisted to you? Good! Martin Luther thought so too and this was one of the things he spoke against in his 95 theses. Of course you can't BUY God's forgiveness, but many people in Luther's time did. And I'm sorry to say that many of our kids fell for it too! We had to start warning them not to buy anything from that man with the papers! ( I drilled my own kids at home later, "No Mommy, we didn't buy any!") Pin It

My kid's the one in color

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Lily's first taste of field hockey

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Leaves

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