Leaves and Bees

Some bumblebees and some adults in gawky Halloween vests stopped this evening.

Wait! What is Grandpa doing!?

I am not sure what is going on!

Hey! Grandpa, you threw leaves on my Mommy! What would you do that?

It is ok? Really?

Oh! This could be fun!

The Butterfly and the Flower and Uncle Sam

Our first trick-or-treaters were the cutest!

Maria caught this sweet photo of their arrival at our house.

Notice that Elise is going for the leaf.

She often arrives carrying a leaf; they are one

of her favorite things.

What's cuter than a butterfly enjoying Smarties?

On a side note, when Sam was really little our friend Beth, who owned a grocery, often

gave him Smarties to enjoy while I shopped. He got to where he would start chanting for them by name as soon as we arrived at the store. The funny thing was, he couldn't yet say the "sm" sound but instead substituted the "f" sound.... Yep, I pushed a little 1 1/2 yr old around a store as he chanted, 

"Farties, Farties!"

I just thought you'd like to know that.

They were just as cute from the back side.

I love that little butterfly!

She was quite proud of her wings.

I don't know if Elise understood that she was a flower, but she certainly

understood that she was adorable.

See what I mean?

I got a good dimple shot.

Sam came up to take a look and got  sweet snuggles from the flower and the butterfly.

Be sure to check out Little Things are Big for some great photos!

The Ladies From the Beauty School

Last night (Halloween) was not quite as expected.  Read here if you want to know about Cordelia's trip to the ER.  Poor little girl!

Anyway, I'm running short on time (sometimes that work thing gets in the way of my blogging time!) so I'm going to leave you with this photograph I took at work yesterday.  These lovely ladies drove up in a convertible.  They were dressed as ladies getting beautiful at the beauty school.  They came to the surgical center and made lots of people smile.  I don't know most of these women.  One, however, is a physician that does surgery at our facility.  It was fun.  Hope you like it, too.

Carving the Turnip

I have been dabbling with geneology a bit.  Mostly I use ancestry.com because I can let other people do most of the work and then I swoop in and tap into their information.  That's not lazy; it is just smart.  With all this swooping I have definitely confirmed that I have plenty of Irish roots.  I like that, but I don't really know why.  I don't really know all that much about Ireland but I really do like Irish accents.  Of course, who doesn't?

Last night I was online looking up things about Halloween.  I'm not much of a Halloween enthusiast although I certainly did enjoy it as a child.  That was BACK IN THE DAY when people gave kids full-size candy bars!  It was always fun to me.  I think I was always a gypsy for Halloween.  It was easy, just borrow clothes and jewelry from my mom.  Since we moved a lot, the gypsy persona kind of fit for me.

I know;  I'm rambling.  I was going to tell you what I learned about Halloween.  I learned that the tradition of trick-or-treating was thought to have come over with the Irish.  They had a tradition of going door to door collecting yummy things for a community harvest feast or something.  If someone didn't cooperate, they played mean tricks on them.  That doesn't sound very nice but that's not the part that made me smile.

The site I was reading (I've forgotten where it was or I'd tell you) said that the Irish used to carve out turnips and set lit candles inside of them.  I guess it made the feast more festive or something.  

(photo from molempire.com )

When the Irish came to America they found the pumpkins here to be more fun to carve than turnips.

  This story may or may not be true. 

 Now you know.