Lent

A black box adorns our table during this season of Lent.  On the side of the box is this verse from Isaiah:  

He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. 

On the top of the the box is a small opening labeled "sins", and next to it, some slips of paper, pens and pencils for the ease of writing down our sins. 

We are just trying to be mindful during this season of Lent; mindful of the so-many times throughout each day that we sin.  (And then when Easter Sunday comes, we will take the box that is full of our scribbled confessions and burn it, celebrating that God took each and every one of those sins to the cross!)

I was late this year getting this set up and onto the table; our family was hit with influenza and we've been really sick for the past two weeks.  But no matter.  Late is better than not at all. 

One of my younger girls wanted to write something but didn't want to write it all out, and was worried about spelling everything correctly, so I reminded her that God knows her heart and exactly what she's thinking, and that it didn't matter at all if she had it all written out.  I encouraged her to write her name or initial on the piece of paper as she thought about her sin, and she could trust that God knew what was meant to go onto the slip of paper.  She was satisfied with that. 

~

Favorite Christmas Picture Books

Happy December 1st!

We got our Christmas tree last weekend in the pouring down rain.  We were all fairly soaked by the time we found the perfect tree, but it was a fun family adventure nonetheless!  

Christmas-decorating in process, later that day:

When Mark pulls out our Christmas decor bins from the storage room, the kids are always clamoring to locate two things: our nativity, and our Christmas books!  We have quite a collection of Christmas picture books and they only come out one month out of the whole year.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Great Joy | Kate DiCamillo
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey | Susan Wojciechowski
Christmas Day in the Morning | Pearl S. Buck
The Gift of the Magi | O. Henry

Celebrating NINETEEN

My Facebook status on our anniversary read:
Celebrating NINETEEN (!!!) years of marriage to Mark.  He loves me so well, and I am so thankful to God for him. He's the finest man I know and the most patient guy in the universe. He has integrity; he is faithful and thoughtful and he is a servant-leader. AND he's romantic, silly, kind-hearted, forgiving, and my best friend in the world. Loving you, Mark.  So thankful to be your wife!

There is so much more than can be posted in a status update or even a blog post.  I feel like I can never accurately express how thankful I am for Mark, or how happily married I am, but I just am.  I even hesitate slightly to say that- about being happily married-- because I know there are so many who are struggling in marriage.  And I don't want it to sound like we have no issues, either.  Because we do.  We're both sinful people and we know it.  He sees my failings very up close and I see his.  And yet we continue to pursue each other with intention and love because we covenanted before God to do so.  And because He strengthens us to do so.

Throughout these past nineteen years, we have walked through some valleys together-- we have felt the deep heartache of infertility, we struggled for years in an area of our intimacy, we have adopted children from hard places that come with their own (invisible-to-most) special needs, we have lost friends and family members and we have grieved the loss of two of our own babies.  These have been very dark seasons.  And yet: by the grace of God we have turned toward Him and toward one another.  He has held us; He has kept us.  I am so thankful.

And so much more than the difficulties, there has been joy, and blessings too numerous to count.  My heart is full.  I am daily grateful for the opportunity to continue to love this man of mine well.

We generally go away every year for a couple of nights-- to the ocean, to celebrate.  But this year we couldn't figure out childcare, so we packed all the kids along with us and had a family vacation instead.  (Hence, Audra in the photo below.) 

Valentine's Day buckets: a tradition

Yesterday morning I announced to the kids at the breakfast table that: Hooray! It's February (!) which means we're two weeks from Valentine's Day.

It's not that I particularly love Valentine's Day, but I do appreciate an excuse to celebrate.  And when the whole idea is to express love- and most often through cards and notes?  Well, that's right up our alley.  :)  Everyone at my house loves to make cards and notes.

These seven buckets--- one for each of us-- are now hanging on our fireplace mantel to be filled over the next couple of weeks with notes, cards, or treats (or any other such small thing that may fit in these buckets). 

I recently purchased a few sheets of Valentine's-Day-themed-paper at our local scrapbooking store-- (the large sheet beneath the bin in the photo above is my favorite-- all sorts of tiny messages that I cut out that the kids will love to get their hands on) and then just some other pink and red papers with hearts and sprinkled donuts. :)  I tucked some blue and yellow and white little scraps in there, too, just in case the boys are completely adverse to all the pink.  ;) 

I filled a little bin with some card-making supplies (scrapbook paper scraps, heart stickers, scissors and glue) and set it in the living room in a visible spot so that we all have easy access to make a card and slip it into someone's bucket. 

Hooray for cute bins all filled up with cheery notes to one another!  I love this kind of thing!  :)  

Any Valentine's Day traditions you do with your kids?

Previous Valentine's Day posts here on the blog: 

Valentine's Day, 2013- in which I get little gifts for the kids, bring Mark goodies on his route, and made heart-shaped pretzels.

Happy Valentine's Day (2011)- in which I make heart-shaped yogurt coffee cake for breakfast and we make treats.  :)

Valentine's Day recap (2008)- in which I make heart-shaped everything for the kids and plan a fancy dinner for just Mark and I.

Back to school after over a month off

The day before Thanksgiving, we closed the books and enjoyed the end of November, plus the whole month of December (!!!) and then some, and started back to school today.

It was a wonderful month, and I'm so thankful for it.  Taking the month off allows us to intentionally rest and try to stay healthy.  We slept in every single day that we could, which was positively dreamy.

We played lots of games, worked on several puzzles, and sat by the cozy fire.  We baked.  We decorated the house, inside and out.  We watched Christmas movies (this year: Miracle on 34th Street, The Nativity Story (which is my personal favorite) and The Muppets Christmas Carol).  We read lots of books- especially our Christmas picture books (out only for this one month of the year).  We were able to spend time with family and friends.

We joined many members of our church at a nearby nursing home to sing carols to one of our dear saints who was ailing.  Just a special performance for he and his wife, and any other residents who snuck in as we sang.  It was such a delight, and one of my favorite happenings of this season.

We visited my sweet grandpa, who turned 95 in December.  Grandpa and grandma had 8 children, 25 grandchildren, and 66 grandchildren.   I get teary thinking of the fruit of my grandparents' lives-- their tremendous faithfulness.  Loving God, passing on their knowledge of God to their children, who in turn passed it on to their children, who are faithfully handing it down to their children.  How blessed I am to be one of those grandchildren; to know and be a part of such a wonderful extended family.   

We celebrated Ella's 14th birthday.  We squeezed in many of our traditions: (a pajama ride where we got treats from DQ and drove around looking at Christmas lights), sleeping in the living room (all of us, by the Christmas tree), and many others.  Our two oldest (Ella and Isaac) had their first piano recital, and played beautifully.



We gave gifts and opened them.  We celebrated in so many ways and it was such a gift, the whole month.  Thanks be to God, who gave us the greatest gift in His son.

And today, back to school.  I woke early to snow falling-- something we've been praying for but haven't yet seen.  But early this morning there was about half an inch on the ground and it was falling and I was so happy.  I went walking early with my mom, greeting her with, "Well, if this snow isn't pure delight, I don't know what is!" 

Then I came back home to sneak in some quiet journaling time before the kids woke.  Isaias (our early riser), came into my room shortly afterward, holding a bird he'd rescued from our cat.  So we tended to it; the poor little thing was in such shock at first, so we warmed it, gave it some water, and made a little spot for it in the living room.  I thought to myself: Well, here's Science for the day.  And art.  As the kids woke-- giddy about the snow and instantly thrilled about our little bird visitor, I encouraged them to get out their sketchbooks and draw, and they all did, and wrote descriptions of what had happened; how the bird looked and how it was behaving.  We looked it up in our bird books.  (We think it's a Pine Siskin?  Or a juvenile Chipping Sparrow.)  We mostly left it alone and it fell asleep.  We weren't quite sure what to do.  We could see that one of its legs was mangled but couldn't see any wing damage and we weren't sure if there was any internal damage, so we just watched it, kept feeding it water and made one attempt to take him (her?) outside to see if it would take off, but that was unsuccessful.  We prayed that God would give us wisdom in knowing how to care for it, and not long after that, we watched it take a final breath and go still.

 Our morning time over breakfast (cinnamon rolls and bacon) consisted of Bible time, prayer, a hymn (How Great Thou Art), new poem (Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost)  (!!!  So timely!  So tickled this morning that we could look out the window and see snow while we were reading this poem!), and some new memory work.  We're learning Psalm 105, and reviewing our Family Ways.  We listened to our new composer, Brahams, after a quick bio.  The kids played outside, burying our bird and making a tiny snowman.  And the rest of the morning was spent on individual work.  The older kids worked on math, copywork, piano practice, and history/literature reading.  I read with the littler girls (Aesop, Burgess) and did narrations with them.  I did a reading lesson with Audra and helped the girls with their other work (math, copywork), and generally moved from room to room, helping with math, drill work, and typing out narrations as the kids were ready to give them. 

It was a great first day back, and I'm so thankful to GET to do this! 

Coming up in the next blog post... our favorite books, movies and music from this past year.  :)


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Weekly Meal Plan and Traditions

It's a beautiful fall day--- blue skies but brisk.  I've been wearing slippers around the house every day.  I can hear the heat kick on occasionally.  I had a conversation with some friends recently about heat-- and one of them said that she (and her now-grown children) try to see how long they can go into the fall without turning on the heat.  It's like a contest for them.  Not so, here.  I like a warm, cozy house and so our heat sits somewhere between 68-70.

Mark got paid yesterday-- hooray and thank you, God!-- so I did some meal planning and grocery shopping last night, and this is what we're eating this week:

Monday | Chicken in a Creamy Parmesan and Sundried Tomato Sauce (or, as the sheet on my fridge says: "Chicken & Yummy Sauce".  Because just click over to that picture and tell me if you can resist adding that to your meal plan sometime in the near future.  YUM.  I've actually never made it before but I'm thinking one cannot go wrong with those ingredients.  I think we'll do spaghetti squash with it, because I have one and need to use it.  Oh, and maybe some crusty bread so that we can sop up all that yummy sauce with it.  Mmm.

Tuesday | Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef (Pioneer Woman) because, slow cooker.  My favorite.  Because it's just there, cooking our food all day and smelling up the house so wonderfully.  With basmati rice.  Maybe salad if I have some greens handy.

Wednesday | Macaroni and Cheese* I use Heather's recipe (thank you, Heather!) because it's so forgiving-- whatever cheese and sour cream/cream cheese mixture we have on hand, toss it in and it always tastes great.  I have no idea what we'll have for sides.  I rarely think of sides (unless it's rice or potatoes) until the day of.  Something green.  Salad, asparagus.
*I just realized that I should note, here, that I triple the sauce from the recipe listed, and boil 7 cups of macaroni noodles for our family.  It makes a big dish.  ;)

This photo has nothing to do with this post, but seemed fitting for the season.  (These apple pies were actually Isaac's  birthday dessert request at the end of October).

 
Thursday | Thanksgiving!  (Hooray!)  For our big Thanksgiving meal hosted by my parents, I am bringing a green salad and making scrumptious sweet potatoes (which I don't personally love) but are oft-requested and generally well-loved by everyone in sight.  ;)  Mark and Ella, especially, oh! -- and my mom- DREAM of these sweet potatoes.  It's just a bunch of sliced sweet potatoes (from the produce department, the white ones) baked in a brown sugar/butter mixture and topped with marshmallows a few minutes before the timer goes off.  Mom will do the turkey, potatoes, gravy and stuffing and many desserts (bless her) and my siblings are bringing other sides.  I'm just now remembering that I may have volunteered to make some sort of apple dessert, too, so I'll have to double-check on that.

We'll have the big meal Thursday afternoon and then Thursday evening we just eat leftovers: turkey sandwiches, usually, on white dinner rolls, and chex mix and desserts.  My sister and her family will be here through the weekend, so the kids are thrilled to see their cousins that they rarely get to see.  My brother, his wife and their two kids will be there, too, and my other brother, and all of us packed into my parents' house.  We play games, sit around and talk and laugh and eat and generally have a wonderful time. I love it and so look forward to it.

Friday | White Chicken Chili and cornbread.  Quick and easy.  I have pre-cooked chicken and chicken broth in the freezer and I'll use cans of white beans instead of cooking up dry beans.  We'll (Mark included!  He has the whole weekend off this year!) all likely be at my moms most of the day but try to exit before dinner so that she doesn't have to feed us all... again.  

Saturday |  THIS IS THE DAY WE GO GET OUR CHRISTMAS TREE AND DECORATE OUR HOME FOR CHRISTMAS and I love everything about this day.  A couple of years ago we started a new tradition with my brother and his family (who live nearby) and my parents (who also live nearby).... we all go out and get our tree together (that's not new, we've been doing that for years, stopping to get peppermint mochas or eggnog lattes on the way out) and then we all go home to decorate our individual houses.  Then later that night, when all is decorated and alight, we do a neighborhood walk and tour everyone's decorated homes, then end up back here at our house for pigs-in-a-blankets, spinach and artichoke dip and bread, cider and eggnog and desserts.  Love it.

Sunday | Nachos. Another super easy recipe.  On purpose.  I think we'll all be exhausted.  Hopefully this will be a restful day after all the hubbub of the weekend.  I envision lots of lovely, cozy nights in front of our cheerily lit tree and a crackling fire. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! 

Our Handmade Christmas

We are just now getting over the hubbub of Christmastime.  I love it that we get to spend so much time with our extended family over the holidays-- we really love them all so much, and what a blessing it is for us to gather with our parents and each of our siblings and their spouses and their kids and laugh and eat and play games.  And then to get to see my grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins on both sides?-- so thankful.

Our own little handmade Christmas was a delight, as always.  Mark had Isaias' name, and made him a football card game.  He was delighted.

I had Audra's name, and made her this:

and these little books for her to use for drawing during church:

Ella had Isaac's name and made him a book of mazes and riddles and puzzles and games, and an empty jar with a treasure map inside.  He had to follow the map to find his treasures-- (candy, hidden throughout the house), to fill his jar.  It was a fun treasure hunt.  :)

Isaac had my name and is working on a shoe rack for our entryway, but didn't finish in time.  I can't wait to see it.  :)

Isaias had Adelia's name, and wrote and illustrated her a story, with all sorts of her favorite things in it and inside jokes.  It made her giggle so I think it was a success.  It was such a thoughtful gift.

I know this is a blurry photo, but this captured just how delighted she was as she was reading the book!

Adelia had Ella's name and made her some bookmarks, with a promise that she'd also "take her on a date". ;)

And finally, Audra had Mark's name.  We bought a white pillowcase and some fabric markers and she went to town on a new pillowcase for daddy.  He loved it.  :)

We also spent an evening going through the Samaritan's Purse gift catalog and giving gifts there, too.  (It's one of our favorite Christmas traditions!)

We are going to ease into school this week and be back full time next week.  I am thankful to be heading back into routine. 

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!  And blessings to you for a fresh new year.  :)  

Home

Last night Mark helped me rearrange the living room.  We pulled all the furniture in around the fireplace, in anticipation of upcoming cold nights with a crackling fire.  It was only last autumn that we got our chimney fixed, so we were able to light fires for the first time in the fifteen years we've lived here.  I am getting so anxious for the temperatures to drop so that we can have the warmth and coziness of a fire again!

(my apologies for the dim photos.  our living room doesn't get much light due to the trees in our neighborhood)

Tucked behind the couches is a table we've set up just for puzzles.  (There's also a puzzle board beneath one of our couches with another working puzzle on it, that we'll pull up and out onto the ottoman when Mark reads aloud at nights.)  It's one of our traditions during the fall/winter seasons.  

I love our home.  I am so thankful for it. 

Anniversary questions

Our anniversary is at the end of the month (17 years!) and we already went away to celebrate together. We went to the ocean-- and had a wonderful time.  It was restful and romantic.  We ate good food, played games (Arms & Legs and Scrabble), talked a LOT, listened to good music, walked on the beach for hours, watched a movie together and ate ice cream.  So pretty much perfect.  Oh.  And the weather was BEAUTIFUL.

I love time away with Mark, and especially all that time to communicate without five interrupters!  Many times when we go away together, I jot down some questions in my journal to ask him.  I try to look at each role in his life and ask questions around each one.  I take notes, too, as he answers, so that I know how to best pray for him or follow up with him.  Here are this year's questions:

{relationship with God}
What is one strength or praise this year in your relationship with God?
What is one weakness this year in your relationship with God?
In what areas would you like to grow this year?- think practically
Something you learned about God this year?
Verse or passage that was memorable to you this past year?

{us/our relationship}
What were our strengths this year/what did we do right?
What were our weaknesses/areas for growth?
What are our plans to make those things ^ happen?
Best memories (up to 3)?
Two hardest things we faced together?
How could I have/can I still love you better through those hard things?
One thing I did to make you happy?
Something I do that makes you feel respected?
One thing I did that makes you crabby?
If there was one thing you could change about our nighttime routine, what would it be?
If there was one thing you would add to our daily routine, what would it be?
Best thing about our sex life?
Growth area for sex?

{kids}
Favorite memory with.... (each child)
What are your current or ongoing challenges/frustrations with.... (each child)
If you had more time with.... (each child).... what would you do with him/her?
What area do you think.... (each child) needs to be affirmed/encouraged in?
What is our plan to do this?
What is one trip you'd like to take/thing you'd like to do together this year as a family?
What are some ways you see us serving as a family?

{work}
Most frustrating thing?
Most memorable moment?
Relationship(s) you'd like to invest in/plan for that to happen?
How can I pray for you?

{homeschool} I purposefully made this section short, because we have a homeschool planning day coming up together and we do a homeschool evaluation then.
First three words that come to mind when you hear the word "homeschool".
Two things you'd like to see happen this coming year.

{extended family/friends}
Name three couples/families you want to have over for dinner this year?
Any goals for time spent with your parents or siblings?  Plans to meet those goals:

{house}
What ONE project would you like to complete....
...indoors?
...outdoors?
What two areas of the house would you like to see cleaner?

{finances}
Name two things you would like us to in terms of our finances this next year.

{hobbies/misc}
Favorite song this year?
Favorite podcast?
Do you need more alone time?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I think this is the first year we have made little mailboxes for Valentine's Day.  We put them up yesterday and had exactly one day to fill them.  We all loved this so much that Ella and I have declared this a new tradition.  Simple envelopes decorated and taped up on the mantel.  Everyone made their own (Except for Mark.  He was at work so I made his.)

See that little CD tucked into my envelope?  That's Mark's gift to me, every year.  A mix of 14 songs reflecting our year together.  I love this.  He writes a note to go with each song- why he chose it; his favorite line from the song, etc.  Basically a nice long love letter.

***

We went to a little Valentine's Day tea party today with some dear friends, and that was a treat.  (Amy~  That should be a tradition, too!  I should have mentioned it to Ava today. ;))  We had tea and scones and little sandwiches (and yummy salads for the mamas), and some games and crafting, all with wonderful friends.

OH.  And my kids still love me even though we had a harried morning and I hollered at them.  That's true love.

Blessings to you all and Happy Balentime's Day, (as Audra says it. :))

~Stacy

A Handmade Christmas: 2014

Three years ago we stopped buying our kids a bunch of stuff for Christmas and started a new tradition: a handmade Christmas.  We trade names within our family and make that one person a gift, and stuff stockings as normal.

I love this tradition, and I'm so thankful we started it.  It's a little more work, but so much more meaningful, I think.  This year was a little crazy.  We realized a few days before we were going to do our Christmas exchange that a few of the kids hadn't even started.  Oh, they had grand ideas, but.... no work had been done.  So the Saturday before Christmas we spent ALL DAY working on handmade gifts.  It was actually quite fun and secretive around here.

I drew Mark, for the third year in a row.  I love that man but I'm running out of ideas for what to do for him.  Three years ago I made him a memory jar- 365 memories, one to draw for each day of the year.  Last year I made him a photo collage for his case at work.  This year I was stumped.  So at the last minute I came up with my own idea and made this for him:

I just went through my recipe book and listed twelve of his favorite desserts and then plugged them into the months of the year with a promise to make them.  Easy peasy.  And he loves dessert so he's looking forward to it.

Mark drew Ella's name and made her a garden bench- with room for tools to hang on the back and a little side space for seed packets and gloves.  She loved it.

My sweet Ella drew my name and stitched this for me:

I'm going to iron it and hang on my bedroom wall.  I love it.  She also wrote out a verse for me in her lovely cursive and framed it.  Also going on my wall.  Sweet girl.

Isaac had Adelia's name, and wrote her a book.  It was a silly book about a girl named Adelia who dropped a Cheeto and it grew into a tree.  He fastened this whole box for his story to fit into and tucked a Cheeto bag at the back of the box.  Cheetos are her favorite thing.  So creative and fun!

Adelia's idea for her name draw (Audra), was to make a "dollhouse set".  Great idea, as Audra loves to play with her dollhouse and accessories.  Mark and Adelia put their heads together and came up with the idea of a camping set, complete with a tent, a little fire, and roasting marshmallows! Audra LOVES it.

I helped by way of sewing up some little sleeping bags for their set.  They turned out great.  Here are two of the six I made:

Audra made three little bookmarks for Isaias- with her amazing artistic skills, and he really appreciated them.

Isaias drew Isaac's name, and he and Mark worked on making him a shelf for his Lego minifigures.  You can't tell in this picture but there are little white Lego pieces embedded into the shelf, so he can just affix his minfigures on there.  Very cool. 

Isaias also made him a coloring book:

I also did other bits of sewing for stockings.  Ella was determined to make a dress for Adelia's Barbie, so we worked on that together, using this tutorial, and came up with one:

I wanted to make dolly diapers for Audra's stocking, so I made some.  I loosely followed the instructions found here but drew my own pattern (using Audra's dolly) and instead of flannel, some white terry cloth I had.  They turned out really cute and were easy, too!

So that wraps up our handmade Christmas!
   

Catching up...

Things are so much quieter on the blog than they used to be, aren't they?  Some days I sit down to write, load up a photo or two and begin a post, and then get interrupted and set it aside only to forget about it.  Then by the time I do remember, it's old news.  Other days I think about writing and then think: are many people even reading here anymore? 

If you do read here, thank you.  I appreciate your patience when there are days and days and sometimes even weeks between posts.

Things have quieted down here on the school front (the whole month of December off!  YAY!) and I should have more time to write this month, and when the new year hits, I hope to carve out regular time in my schedule to write more faithfully here. 

I forget when we began this tradition of taking this whole month off, but I love it.  It's such a crazy time of year, and this affords us some quiet in the midst of a busy month.  There are gifts to make and our home to decorate and things to bake and- also, this is the perfect time of year to curl up on the couch with a good book-- when it's so chilly outside and the fire is cozy.

Before all that decorating took place, we made a Thanksgiving tree.  I cut out leaves of varying fall colors (from some scrap paper I have on hand) and sketched out a tree on a big piece of poster board and we all wrote things we were thankful for, then we colored in the tree and hung it up.

I don't think I've fully settled on the best way to document the things we're thankful for (here's a post on what we've done in the past), but I guess the important thing is that we're doing something to give thanks.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my mom's this year with my brothers and sister and their families.  It was so nice, and my kids always revel in all that time with their cousins.

My sweet Ella had a birthday.  She's now twelve.  I love her so much, not just because she's my daughter, but because I really like her, and I love the young woman she's becoming. What a sweet blessing she is to all of us.

 

These days I'm trying to sneak in some time on the couch myself to finish knitting Ella's sweater.  I'm using this pattern and so far I love it.  There are a couple of things on this pattern that will be new to me: knitting the sleeves on dpns and adding button bands to the front-- but I hope to figure those out when I come to them. 

Blessings to all of you for a wonderful day!
~Stacy

Fall!

I know fall isn't *officially* here- and the weather around these parts is decidedly more summer (except for the nights and early mornings) but I decided this morning that I'm officially declaring it fall and decorating accordingly.  Here's what I've done:

-The kids and I made this cute fall banner the other day and I hung it this morning.  I love it because it is fallish but also schoolish.  :)  So that's perfect since we're going to start school sometime this year.  *grin*

-I'm making a yarn wreath to hang on the window frame above the mantel.  I've never done this before and I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm giving it a go.  I'm envisioning something like this (scroll down to see the finished wreath) but I didn't exactly start with a round wreath.  Mine was definitely more flat.  So... we'll see how it turns out.

 
-I went out to the back garden early this morning and picked all of our gourds and whatever pumpkins I hoped Mark wouldn't notice were missing and decorated our window box.

That might be all.  I tried to convince the kids to make me a scarecrow:
 "Kids! {excited voice}  I have a great idea!  You can all make a SCARECROW!!"

And they all just stared at me like I'd gone bonkers.

I think it might be a little outside of their realm of something they want to tackle on their own.  Or maybe it's just that I'd interrupted their imaginary game and now just isn't the right time.  I'll go with that and try again another day.

Happy FALL!