Ghostie

Today Benny and I made a ghost for the front porch.  A very inexpensive sheet, a black magic marker, and some string, and there you go!  Benny is VERY proud and he was very good at helping.

We took some great pics of the ghost-making process, but then they got deleted by accident.  So this is all that remains. (Get it?  Remains.....)

Happy Spooky Season!

Scarecrows and Pumpkins

Driving through our small town square today, I noticed all the stores had decorated with their annual display of scarecrows.

The scarecrows are mostly homedmade and reflect the store they sit in front of.  

Everything looks so pretty and fall-ish.

 It was a pretty day today, and the town is getting ready for this weekend's Apple Festival; our biggest event of the year.

Lots of people were out walking and shopping and eating.  Our small town square consists of nearly all "antique" shops and places to eat, but they attract a good sized crowd on the weekends.

 This scarecrow was made by the bead-shop lady...see the beaded necklace and bracelets, and the beads for eyes?

The cooking store has a chef scarecrow.

 Creative use of gourds....

 These two had too much to eat at the Cornerstone Cafe.

I thought these shiny red apples were a nice touch.

The windows are full of Halloween things....

Cute sign!

Plenty to eat everyhere you look....

Happy Autumn!

A Win!

After two months of practice and games, Benny's team enjoyed their first win of the season last night.

The kids played very hard and very smart.  And Benny stopped about a million goals!

The coach singled him out after the game for doing such a GOOD JOB.

Yey!!!

I am so impressed about how unafraid Benny is.  He runs and jumps on that ball amidst a flurry of hard-kicking, agressive kids.  Imagine all those feet aimed at your face?  But he just GOES FOR IT.  He's a good kicker and thrower, too.





By the end of the game, the coach's had screamed themselves hoarse, and the parents were biting their nails, watching the time and praying the ref would blow that whistle and end the game while the kids were ahead!!  And they did---the final score was three to one.

The kids have worked hard this year and it was great to see them so happy after winning a game.

Three more games to go and then we wrap it up until Spring.  That is, unless Benny is selected for the Allstar team, at which point we'll have a few more practices and at least one more game.

Way to go Benny and the Bobcats!!

Team Photos

We sure like getting action shots of the boys when they play soccer.

Marty covered their game last week and got a lot of great pictures.

       But this time of year we also do the team photo shoot.  This is the mainstay of our photography business.  This is when the kids line up and have individual portraits done, and parents order their photo packages and buttons and other photo products.  Last week we did the team and individual photos for Sam's team, for the third year running.

We like to use a backdrop for individual photos, but this year the parents requested we take a full body shot with a natural background and the foot on the ball.  So we did.

Doesn't he look great? And what a fantastic photo!  (Taken by Marty!)

The team poses for their standard formal portrait.

Then the FAVORITE part for every team, every sport that we do: The jump up in the air picture. 



Always accompanied with a "YEY!!!"

Don't you love the energy on those faces?  (And this was after one hour of running around the soccer field in extremely HOT hot sunshine and the kids were getting tired.

YEY for team photos!

Chocolate Mice

Benny came home from the school book fair with a new, very exciting object. He got a light-up moon.  But wait, that's not all.  The moon comes with a remote control.  But wait, there's more.  It shows all the phases of the moon!

He was very excited about it because they are studying that very thing in school.  So he was able to walk me through the waxing and waning and quarters and such with an outstanding visual model.  It's very nice.

After we played with that a while we got busy on a much anticipated project:  Chocolate Mice.

Gram sent us a Halloween cookbook and chocolate mice are one of the creations inside.  The boys chose that for their first recipe.  But wouldn't you know it, I could NOT find the string licorice required for mouse tails. I also could not find the tiny red candies needed for eyes or ears.

So we decided to make chocolate hamsters.

Of course we have an adorable model right here at home:

And the reason we made chocolate hamsters if because I had some Good and Plenty candies for use for the tails.  We planned to use pink for the tails and white for the eyes.  Okay, it sounded a little flimsy, but we hoped it would work.

We got busy melting and stirring.  We shaped, we burned our fingers, we worked and made a giant mess. 

And we ended up with....

Imagine the chocolate squares are eyes...and the white things the ears.....

Okay, they were sort of a disaster.  But they tasted great!  And the kids were happy. And that's really the only end result required in a situation like that.

 

Goalie On The Job

As promised, Benny gets his turn with an entry all his own.  Benny had his third game of the season this past weekend.  He played great.

It turns out that Benny is a wonderful goalie.  Very brave, very quick, very tough.

The coach's have let him know how much they value what he does.

We watched his game this weekend and Marty took these pictures.

He's got it all under control, no worries...........

Good job, Benny!