I Love October!

There's something about the crisp air in October that I just love. And pumpkins and scarecrows, and wagon rides, and the smell of burning leaves, and Oktoberfests, and the crunching of the fallen leaves. My favorite thing of all is a nice fire in the backyard, with a mug of coffee or tea or hot cocoa in my hands, a chal on my lap and Brian by my side. Only our firepit really was too old and we had to get rid of it, and we haven't had a chance to go get another one :(

But I still love October. Wish it lasted longer.

I just can't help being in love with this kid. He is so much like his dad. He's just funny and all boy-weird (since you are probably a girl reading, I know you totally understand). I love him to pieces!

Noni came one day with this frozen turkey. I attempted to make turkey once, but even though it looked golden and pretty, it was completely raw inside. AND, I didn't know that turkeys have these little bags with UGLY YUCKY ICKY stuff inside... I learned that after the fact.

ANYWAYS... two weeks ago I had taken the bird out of the freezer, and was thinking of giving it a try, when my back went bananas on me, and I could barely move from the pain. SO, I asked Brian to give it a try. Noni emailed him a recipe, and this was his bird on his FIRST attempt...

I hated that he is better than me at turkey cooking, but I TOTALLY loved the YUMMINESS!!! This was d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s!!! I've been trying to convince Brian that he should be the official cook of the family, but he won't budge.

Brian had to go to Panama on business. Now, if you ask me, Panama DOESN'T count as business. Any trip to a foreign country should have to be counted as a VACATION trip, and the other spouse should get a nice beautiful present like LOTS of scrapbooking goodies from the offending spouse (I know Brian reads my blog, I'm trying to guilt-trip him, blink, blink). Anyways, when he's not here, I just go insane. I LOVE having kids over at the house. It's always a blast. But this past Friday, I thought it's a good thing that Brian was coming back on Saturday, because I was just losing it. This is the crew I had over by the end of the day...

The older kids are too cool for pots and pans, so they were playing with the Playstation. But us, the insane, were on the kitchen floor... These kids were making soooo much noise. It went on for quite a while, until Connor broke the maracas as he was banging them against the pots. I think it was too much chocolate milk...

And then... here's little old me. Last night, as I was sitting here with my good friend Linda, all of a sudden, I get a call from a friend of mine I haven't seen since 1992! WOWSERS! Daniel is a missionary priest, and he went back to Mexico after 13 years working in Cuba. He's been looking for me for a couple of months, but it wasn't until my other friend Ricardo (another missionary priest!) came back from Kenya that they saw each other and exchanged info, and he was able to call me. It is sooo good to hear from my friends! Made me realize that a LOT of my friends are priests now! (long story but it goes like this: dad was going to be a missionary priest -was two years short- so I grew up around boys that were going to the seminary all my life. I met Ricardo, my best friend, when I was 7; and Daniel when I was 13). I thought for a long time that I would be a missionary in Kenya, but life had other surprises for me.

Anyways, Daniel is coming to Philly next week, and he's trying to get things going to come and visit... I'm so excited! He was asking if I had a picture, so this morning I took one. You would think I would AT LEAST comb my hair or wash my face... but anyways, this is me today.

Have a great October! I promise to come and update more often!