Pictures From FTC, Spooktacular, and Trunk or Treat

On Friday Hannah and I went to Gainesville with 12 other teens and a few other moms for the Florida Theatre Conference. Grace and Joe got to spend the day with Aunt Harriet and Uncle Billy. They had a great day--they even made snake bread to go with their dinner of eyeballs and spaghetti. Before dinner though they went downtown for some Halloween fun! Grace is a Spider Queen and Joe is a "Hunny" pot.



We were in Gainesville all day Friday and Saturday. The kids attended workshops, played in the pool, shopped at the mall, and performed the show, "Lockers." They did so well that the judges had no notes to give them. The judges said that their performance was really impressive and one of our boys won "Best Supporting Actor" at the awards ceremony later that night. We were very proud of them. I wasn't so sure how well I would survive spending that much time with a big group of teens but these guys were great. I laughed a lot and really enjoyed them! Even the two who did a dance and sang "Drop it Likes it Hot," on my bed at 11:30 at night. :0)






We got home Saturday evening just in time to put on our costumes and go to a Trunk or Treat and play on the playground with our favorite little pirate. :0)

Lockers-The Sneak Out...Hannah's 2nd Scene

Lockers..."Weavers"--Hannah's Scene from FTC

Fall Crafts With a Few Friends

Life....

I am getting to my blog less and less lately...and I feel like most of my posts are fairly boring...sorry about that...anyway, I think bullet points are in order--

• I am trying something new for meal planning--It is a website called e-mealz.com. A friend recently reviewed it on her blog and another friend was using it and loving it. It costs $15 for 3 months and you can choose the plan you want to be on. They have some that are based on a certain store's sales and then there are also variations for different types of diets. My only complaint is that you have to choose one plan and stick with it for the entire 3 months with one switch allowed during that time. I chose the vegetarian plan since Ollie is a vegetarian. The kids and I are what I like to call freegan-vegan-flexitarians. We eat a mostly vegan diet due to Ollie's vegetarianism and my dairy allergy but we are also more than happy to chomp down on a Five Guys burger or a Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich. We occasionally eat meat at home but not even once a week. Anyway, back to the meal plan--so I have chosen vegetarian and each week I will be given a plan with 7 meals along with a grocery list. The thing I am most excited about is that I will not have to think about what to make for dinner every night. I just follow the plan. I am hoping to find some new vegetarian recipes that I really like and the family really likes. This is our 1st week on the plan and tonight's dinner was a hit. We had stroganoff made with fake meat (TVP--basically soy that looks like meat) and mushrooms, served over egg noodles with a side of broccoli. Everyone liked it and I was surprised that the fake meat was actually pretty good. I'm not big on eating much soy though but once a week or so will be okay. I plan to substitute beans or even real meat for some of the recipes that call for the TVP. I noticed with my first week of meals that they use the TVP at least a few times a week and that's a little too much for me but I can work around that. I'll report back at the end of the week and let you know if I still like this plan and how the meals were.
• My life has pretty much always been busy, I am just a busy person and that is how it is and always has been. However, with that said, there are some seasons that are busier than others. I am entering into just such a season and don't see much of an end until after Christmas. We have a lot going on with theatre and a Christmas pageant (that I'm co-directing) as well. All three kids have fairly significant parts in the pageant so they have a lot to memorize and learn. In addition to our outside activities we also have a heavy school load and this house doesn't clean itself. Because of this busy season I am trying to take a FB break. I have been getting pretty sucked in lately and waste who knows how many minutes (or hours) a day just reading about what 500 or so people are up to. It's mentally exhausting and although it provides short escapes throughout the day, I'm realizing more and more that it's not a good thing in my life for now. If I need an escape in the day I need to go outside and get some fresh air or read my Bible or one of the books on my bedside table. It's been hard already--I have definitely become addicted!
• I'm taking a break from the normal novels that I read to read some Young Adult books. I read They Loved to Laugh last week. It is a book in the Sonlight Core 100 and Hannah will start reading it this week. It was really good, I think she's going to like it. Right now I'm reading Save the Gator Queen. That is the book of the movie that Hannah will be auditioning for at the end of November. The story is interesting and could make for a cute movie. We'll see... Next I plan to read The Strange Case of Origami Yoda. I've heard a bunch of kids talking about this book and I picked it up from the library but none of my kids seem interested in reading it so I'm going to read it myself. After that I have an Andrew Clements book to read and also I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier. The good thing about reading YA books is that you can blow through them pretty fast so although this seems like a long list, it shouldn't take me too long.
  
• Do you know just how much people say "cuddle" and "snuggle" on FB? A lot. That's the real reason I'm taking a break.
• My kids have their Halloween costumes all together. Joe will be a pot of hunny. You'll have to see pictures--too hard to describe. Grace is going to be a spider queen and don't tell my kids but her costume is my favorite. She has a black dress with creepy spider webby sleeves, an awesome spider hat and we're going to put some of that fake web on her and plastic spiders stuck in the web. Hannah is going to be a super cute bumblebee complete with yellow and black striped legwarmers. They are all excited about their costumes, I'll post pics soon.
• That's all I've got for now. I'm tired, it's been a long and busy, productive day. Time to sleep.
  

Pumpkin Patch

Pictures from Cinderella