Long Time No Post

Life has been so crazy lately! Morgan has been gone so much, and when he is not here I go into "survival mode" which unfortunately can't always include blogging. As much as I love keeping up with my family and friends through their blogs, I normally read them while nursing the baby. Which makes it difficult to comment or write my own posts. But Morgan is home (in the kitchen making homemade cranberry sauce with Braden and Lydia), Liam is napping, and Grayson has a full tummy and is happily playing in his exersaucer. It seems that the planets are in alignment, and I actually have both hands to myself to post! So I am going to post several pictures and try to catch you all up on our lives.

Halloween

This year we decided to do a family theme for our costumes. I have been wanting to become a better seamstress, and was hoping to make some of the costumes. Unfortunately, the only theme we could all agree on was Star Wars, and I am just not that ambitious yet. Morgan was going to grow his beard out and be Obi Wan Kenobi and I was going to be Princess Leia. Something you may not know about me is my strong desire to dress up as Princess Leia. It all started in 1979, when my kindergarten class was preparing to put on a Star Wars themed play for our parents, and I was cast as Princess Leia (probably because I was the only one with long enough hair to do the side buns). I was thrilled. But to my disappointment, a sting which I still feel some 29 years later, my class was naughty, and was punished by not being allowed to do our play.

So this year, was going to be my year. Then we found out that Morgan would be gone for our church party, and I decided to be a Halloween Scrooge and not dress up. Bah Humbug! But Lydia made a beautiful Leia. Her costume actually came with a wig, but she was scared of it, so I did the buns with her own hair. I didn't realize Lydia was so afraid of wigs. I knew that Braden has a face paint phobia, but I didn't know about Lydia's fear of fake hair. My childhood would have been a nightmare for them. I was constantly dressing up with my mom and grandma's old wigs, make-up, etc.

Here is Liam (aka C3PO) trick-or-treating. He was so cute, and actually said "trick or treat" and "thank you" at most houses. He was thrilled with his haul. Braden was Commander Cody, and Grayson was the cutest little R2D2 ever. On Halloween night we met our friends on base for trick or treating, then came back to our house for "Halloweenies" (hot dogs), apple cider, baked beans, veggies, chips and dip. We (well the kids) watched Charlie Brown. I also made "Ghost toast" -- ghost shaped pieces of white bread with cream cheese. Instead of just giving the ghosts eyes with the craisins, I put them all over so they would be Charlie Brown ghosts. Thank goodness we didn't get any rocks in our buckets (although they may have the same effect on their teeth as all of the candy we have been consuming).
Cooking Fun
The kids had a day off from school a couple of weeks ago, so we had fun making a special lunch together. We had seen these snacks in a magazine recently, and they were anxious to try it out. Hummus is one of our favorite snacks. We always make our own with canned chick peas, garlic, olive oil and tahini. I had these flower pots from a "dirt" dessert that I made a while ago. Lydia ran out to our herb garden (which sounds much more impressive than it really is) and harvested a handful of parsley. I let them poke holes into baby carrots with toothpicks, and insert the parsley into the ends of the carrots. We then put the carrots into the "soil". It was really fun and tasty.I have a few more posts in the works for this week, so come back! I am planning a virtual "tour" of our house here in Germany. I also need to warn you that we will be going private soon. I will invite as many of my readers as I have addresses for. If for some reason you don't get an invitation, please let me know at melodiehanners@msn.com. I may not have your correct address.

I have hesitated about going private for quite a while now. I don't want to make it difficult for any of you to access our blog. I have also enjoyed finding old friends through their blogs, and being found, as well. I love the internet for this reason. But Morgan would prefer that we make our blog private. I hope you will all still visit us here in cyberspace after the change. As incentive, I am going to announce some big news (no, I'm not pregnant) after the change, so please come back!