Tricky treats.

Juliana's class is planning a Halloween party for Monday.  She has volunteered to bring some food - juice boxes, a bag of chips, and 15 cupcakes.

Juice boxes?  I can do that.

A bag of chips?  No problem.

Fifteen cupcakes?  Whoa, baby.  This momma doesn't bake for crowds.  (And, wait, don't recipes make a dozen?  Now I've got to buy two boxes double the recipe?)

After some quick thinking, I told her that one kid shouldn't be responsible for all that food so I would only be sending juice and chips.

Cue the waterworks.

"But the cupcakes are the most important part of the party.  And you have to make them because a couple of the other kids are bringing some and there has to be one each."

I am beaten.  Fifteen cupcakes, it is.

Shall I just pick them up at the grocery store?  Nope.  Can't do that because she goes to school with the son of the woman who owns the cupcake store in town.  No kidding.  She makes cupcakes for a living.  Delicious cupcakes.  Gorgeous cupcakes.  Cupcakes with spooky, fun, Halloween names.

So now I'm trying to come up with ideas for easy, delicious, gorgeous, easy spooky, fun, easy, halloween toppings for cupcakes.

I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Could be scary.

Seems like yesterday.

Lately I've been going through my old photos trying to get them organized.  What a trip down memory lane!  Such a great trip, in fact, that I'll be sharing some of my finds.  

Like these.

Grandma's cupboard over the years:

Juliana and Jillian 

(circa 2003)

(circa 2005)

Juliana and Lucy 

(July 2011)

Swings.

It has probably been 9 years since we rented the rusty old trailer and drove, like the Clampetts, out to my friend Kim's house to pick up her boy's swing set.  It had been well loved at her home but her kids were growing and so it was passed to us.

In our backyard, we added a baby swing for Juliana and the fun began.

We've gone to the moon on the rocket rider seat.  We've flown through the air while sitting on the garden seat.  Sometimes we've flown through the air on the garden seat while standing on those seats.  We've jumped far while swinging high.  We've done flips on the side bars.  We've done pull-ups on the top bar.  And we've shimmied across the top of the swing set like monkeys.

To be fair, when I say 'we', I mean the little people.

But those little people are getting bigger.  For most of this summer those swings sat still.  We should get rid of them - it would make it easier to mow the lawn, give us more room for the badminton net, maybe even allow Peter to make the rink longer - but it feels like the end of an era.

Seriously, I'm the one who tried to turn the Little Tykes log cabin into a dog house just so that we (I) wouldn't have to face saying goodbye to it.  (Picture me crouched inside that thing with dog treats in my hand for Maggie.  Now picture Maggie sitting outside the cabin just staring at me.  Probably good that dogs can't talk...)

But back to the swings.

Juliana and Leah have spent hours trading secrets on those swings.  Sheldon has made movies using the swings.  That swing set has had a good life.  It's been loved by two families.  And now (I feel like I'm saying this about so many things these days) it's time to move on.

Thanks Michael and Jake for sharing your swings.  If you want to drop by for one last ride, we'd love to have you.

Celebrations and thanksgiving.

Look at that.  It's almost the weekend again and yet I'm still recovering from the last one.

It was the best kind of fall weekend - the colours were at their peak and the weather hit 28 degrees during the day and then only dropped to the mid-teens in the evenings.  We spent our Saturday off in the yard - cleaning out the gardens, dismantling the swing set, playing chase with the dogs, a little football, and stopping to bask in the sun with coffee.

Just before dinner we put on our jeans and grabbed our sweaters to take to the rink for Sheldon's hockey game.  Afterwards, we all cleaned up and headed out for dinner to celebrate.  You see, it was the same kind of beautiful day 17 years ago on Saturday that Peter and I got married - outside, overlooking gorgeous farmers fields, surrounded by the colours of the fall.

Bright and early the next morning we took off for my in-laws for Thanksgiving lunch.  Eight hours (total) in the car together just for lunch but what a great time we had!  It was a chance to visit with family that we hadn't seen since the kids were small.  A chance to listen to their stories which then become part of our family history.

It was amazing to see the grace and calm that my mother-in-law, Dawn, showed while putting together a turkey dinner for 11 people in her tiny kitchen.  I swear, she never showed a second of stress, instead she made sure that everyone had what they needed, including the extra raw veggies for the kids because they probably wouldn't eat the hot casseroles.  Smart woman.

Although, truth be told, turkey or not, it was all about the desserts - the chocolate birthday cake, the pumpkin pie, the apple pie, the fruit pie, and Juliana's bowl of whipping cream.  How to choose?  Don't.

Later, with company gone and stretchy pants put on, I took the kids swimming in the condo's pool and then fell into bed (or out of bed, since I was booted to the floor midway through the night) exhausted and (still) full.

Considering the weather was so beautiful, we fit a morning family walk in before we started off home.

Back on the road, we stopped a couple of times - once at the lodge where we were married.  All the buildings were closed up but we were able to take a walk around the property and show the kids where we got hitched.  Even re-lived a little of it for posterity.

Home again in time to pick up the dogs from their overnight at camp and to ready for the start of the week.

Really tired.  But the best kind of tired.  It was a busy, busy weekend with a lot of celebrating packed in.  A thanksgiving.  Three days to remind me how thankful I am.  For my husband, for my kids, and for a family that I was not born into but feel like I've been part of for a lifetime.

And those are reasons to celebrate.