No more store bought bread

We need to buy a new car, ours is quite old and she is on her last leg, or should I say wheel.


We are going to keep fixing ours at least one more time, more if it really needs it, but sooner than later we are going to have to purchase a new one. Well, new to us anyway, we won't be splurging for a brand new one.



Before we welcome a new car, and it's payments, into the family we need to pay down some debt so we can still sleep at night and not be fraught with economic worry. For the last year we have not had any car payments and I gotten rather use to it.



To accomplish "Mission Debt Reduction" we are no longer going to be buying any more groceries until our cupboards are bare. We will still buy the basics of milk, butter, fresh veggies, fruit and anything else that crops up that we just can't go without, but otherwise, no grocery shopping. I also will not be foolish enough to pass up a great sale on something just for the sake of staying with our no grocery rule. Especially in the upcoming month when baking and regular pantry staples are on deep discount for holiday baking and cooking. Dancer can't eat anything with food coloring in it, including yellow cheese, so we are already quite limited to grocery store sales that I can't let these seasonal sales go by. We are also going to have to shop for Thanksgiving since guest are coming to our house this year.



It may sound like we are really depriving ourselves but we are not. If anything should ever happen in the world and we had to stay home for a few months, we would be okay. Our freezer is so full from the garden and butchering that we can't get anything else in it. We also buy with a food co-op and just bought a few cases of our favorite items. And like probably most families, we have those things in our larder that maybe aren't our favorites but they need to be eaten any way. Thus far it has been quite easy but I am assuming as we get further along we will be having some rather creative meals. The kids are excited about the challenge so with them on board it shouldn't be too difficult.




This last week I spent $28.00 at the grocery store. That total would be lower if we were still milking the goats, but they are dry now for breeding. I am back to buying cow milk, and we only drink organic, so that ups the bill a bit more.



On our "no buying" list is bread. Our last slice of store bought bread was eaten on Sunday of last week. This week we have started baking our own bread. We often make homemade bread but certainly not exclusively. When we make it, it is usually some fancier type, not a loaf that you could make a sandwich out of. So now we are in the plain loaf bread and buns baking business. Here is a loaf that Dancer and Dad baked earlier in the week. I must say that Dancer has quite a knack for bread baking as her first loaf turned out delicious!
It is dangerous to the waist line to have fresh made bread in the house though. We would normally go through a loaf, or maybe two, in a week, with fresh bread we are eating a loaf a day. Most of that is eaten the few minutes after it comes out of the oven. I don't know what we are going to do when we run out of flour. Pray for good holiday flour sales I guess!

Welsh Cakes - Llech Cymreig

It is believed that this recipe can be traced back to the 1830's and 1850's Wales and that it came to America about that time with the Welsh who immigrated to work in mines. We whipped these up this afternoon in about 20 minutes. The cakes would be great alone for breakfast or snack time. They would also work wonderfully as a roll at lunch or dinner.

Welsh Cakes

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. mace - we omitted this

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter

1 cup currants or raisins

2 large eggs

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Combine dry ingredients. Cut butter into 10 or 12 pieces and cut into flour mixture with pastry blender until it looks like pie crust. Add raisins or currants. Whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla. Add to flour mixture and stir until just mixed, it will be sticky.

On well floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/2 inch thick.

Cut out circles with biscuit cutter, or in our case a Bob and Larry glass. Heat electric griddle or fry pan to 325 degrees. Oil the griddle lightly once for all the cakes.

Fry the cakes about 5 minutes on each side or until they are deep brown color.

These were so good the kids want to have them again tomorrow. They can be served plain or with butter or syrup. Slathered with jam in the middle like a sandwich would also be a tasty variation. The cakes were just as delicious reheated for Dad. The only hard part was knowing they were in the fridge and not eating them before he was able to.

Running to the library is a lot like the grocery store

You know how you run into the grocery store quick because you need one item and then, some how, when you are in there it turns into two bags full? Well, that seems to be what happens to us when we go to the library.

Today we went into town early, before homeschool gym at the YMCA, to pick up ONE book at the library. Spark is doing a 4-H project about Fox Terriers, because that is what our little Nikki is, and there was a book he wanted at the downtown library.

We brought some books back so we had the library bag with, otherwise, I would have even said to leave it in the car, we were only getting one book. Our book basket at home is already overflowing and we have plenty of books checked out to read.

We get in the library, put the returning books on the conveyor belt and march right upstairs straight to the animal books. We find the book he wants no more that four minutes after entering the building, we can see the library catalog online at home so we had the number and everything before hand. But did we take that book and head promptly to the check out as planned? Goodness no. There was another Fox Terrier book that probably would have some good information in it, and then just a few shelves lower was a cat book and Dancer is doing a cat project so we get that one too.

Now we are on the way to the door. Down a couple of rows is as far as we get and Spark sees a Christmas cookbook. 'You should get this Mom" he says "it looks good." Right next to it was another enticing Christmas book so that one got plucked off the shelf as well.

Since we were close to the knitting books I should really see what they had on the shelves this week. So that Spark would let me look for a few minutes I directed him to the comic book section. I quickly found five knitting books to put in the library bag. I stopped myself from getting any more so I did show some self control.

While waiting for me, Dancer found a doll making book which went in the bag. The craft books in the adult section are so much better than in the children's area.

Dancer and I headed back to get Spark from his row and he had found a book called The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. I can't really say no to a book that has the name Smithsonian in it even if it does weight about nine pounds. We are homeschoolers after all.

We have now picked out more books than will fit into the library bag. Our library bag is a backpack with wheels and one of my hard and fast rules is that we don't get more books in a trip than will fit in the backpack. Spark's book is too big to fit in the bag so it really shouldn't count and I am sure that after we check the books out I will be able to finagle them to all fit, beside a lot of them are mine and I probably meant the rule to only pertain to the kid's books.

We start heading towards the stairs and as we were passing the Christian book section, Dancer eyes a book that one of her friends has at their house. Oh, we should check that out, it is by C. S. Lewis so for sure it is good and worth bring home. And this one looks good too, as I spy another one I might want to read. We already broke the library bag rule so we might as well go all the way.

The kids and I get to the top of the long granite staircase and gaze downward. I realize, that to get the library bag down the stairs, I am going to have to clunk it down each and every one of those steps because it is too heavy to carry when mine, and the kids, arms are full of books. We quietly opted to take the elevator.

After Dancer checked them all out, I managed to get all but two, and the huge book of Spark's which wasn't going to count anyway, into the bag. One of the books was a paperback that I needed to curve around the side of the bag, but I was patting myself on the back none the less.

Now we just had to go across town to the other library and pick the two books I had on hold there. So much for our overflowing book basket.

Science Poetry

Sweat Haiku

Sweat, gross and smelly
Drops ozzing off your belly
Makes the girls say ewww


Thyroid Limerick

The thyroid is an endocrine gland
It's not made of hair or bits of sand
It does a lot
Except make snot
When working properly you'll fell grand

One of the great things about homeschooling is we can make up goofy stuff during class and call it learning! These were composed after a long lesson on the thyroid and what happens when things go wrong with a gland. The example was the thyroid and malfunction was hyperthyroidism. Not the most exciting subject and we felt it needed a little spicing up.

Putting the gardens to bed

We have been blessed with some great "Indian Summer" weather the past week and a half. It's really nice since they say our October was the second wettest and fifth coldest on record. Today it was in the 60's and we got to pick up, mow and till most of the garden. There is a post from back in the spring showing me, Dad, tilling in a cloud of dust and now I had to wait to till until the ground dried out. The weather has been really odd this year.

The project started and stopped after about thirty seconds when the mower ran over a bunch of this wire from an old Christmas wreath. After a break to free up the blade, the work continued. All of the gardens are ready for the winter now except for the fenced garden. Eeyore, the pet wether goat, was holed up there browsing on what was left of the garden. Well, there is always tomorrow.

Almoner - a medieval coin purse

Pockets had yet to be invented back in the medieval ages. Since holding on to a handful of money wasn't the best laid plan, the people had almoners to carry coins (their alms) and other small necessities. The almoner was tied with purse strings and tied to ones belt.



.

Today the kids made their own almoners. They used fleece, yellow to make it look like it could be leather or fine cloth, and cotton yarn. We chose fleece so that they wouldn't have to worry about fraying edges and because we have boat loads of it. They laid out the fleece, put a plate upside down on the fleece, traced around the plate and cut out the circle. All around the outer edge of the circle they cut little slits with a sharp scissor about 1/2 inch apart to lace the yarn through. To make the lacing easy, we folded a bread bag twisty in thirds for a make shift needle. Once the yarn is laced through just cinch it up and it is ready to use. Dancer really like this and made one large and one small one. Hers is pictured above and Spark's is below.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Dancer's list

1. There weren't any deer shot in the field behind us today.
2. I have a pet goat - Eeyore
3. Our house
4. Dad got to work safely tonight
5. That I have gotten to dance for so many years - I am in my 10th year!
6. Nikki hasn't had any accidents inside today.
7. We had homemade yummy buns for supper
8. I belong to a fun 4-H group
9. We haven't been to the emergency room lately
10. All our animals are doing well.
11. We figured out what cause my eczema
12. I have fun friends
13. That people are coming to our house for Thanksgiving
14. I am homeschooled
15. My brother bought me a flower at the dance show yesterday.

Deep thoughts by Spark

"You know what I hate about history?

I know how much life I have missed."

Adventures with Larry

Dad, Dancer and Spark constructed Larry. That afternoon, unaware that Larry had come to life, I came home, pulled in the drive and wondered who was on the lawn mower before realizing that he was a scarecrow. Larry is really living up to his title of being a scarecrow.

Dad was mowing lawn with the other mower, came around the corner of the garage and just about fell off his mower seeing a full grown man sitting on the other one driving towards him before realizing he was a scarecrow.

Dancer took the dog out to potty in the dark and came rushing back in because there was a man in the driveway. A couple of seconds of clearing thinking and she realized it was Larry who had scared her socks off.

Hopefully he will have the same track record with scaring crows if we ever need him to step up to the plate for that job.

A Pumpkin's Story: "The Final Chapter"

"Oh a pumpkin's life. I shone brightly on Halloween night; the star of the evening, the main event. Did I mention winning the 4-H pumpkin carving contest? Have you seen my amazing pyrotechnics that special eve? They say the brightest star burns out the fastest, but not I. On the front steps I will linger, rotting and liquefying as nature intended. Never mind the hazard of my frozen goop on the front step, I shall...HEY, WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME????"

"You aren't really going to throw me over that fence."

"Please, no, anything but the goat corral"

"AAARRRRGGG!"

"I promise not to rot on your front steps!"

"It can't get any worse than this"

Oh, but it did get worse. Much worse. "THEY ARE EATING ME!!!"

"Sadly now, there can be but one outcome" Although his fate was not as bad as Dancer's pumpkin. The goats stuck their head in her's.

How Static Electricty Works

Dancer has been learning about cells and electric potential in nerve cells. We did the project shown below to see electric charges influencing an object, and to have fun.

Dancer and a Balloon.

When Dancer rubs the balloon on her hair some electrons move from her hair onto the surface of the balloon. The hair is positive (relative the balloon), so the hair reaches towards the ballon that is negative
(relative to the hair). Opposites attract, so they say. Like opposite poles of a magnet.


The balloon has a negative charge in relation to any dense object, here it is, sticking to the ceiling.

"The van is in the garage"

Sounds like a secret code or a password doesn't it?! Nope, it literally means that our van in the garage where it has not resided since late March or early April. I could have had a child in that amount of time!



I had good intentions of cleaning the garage but after I pulled everything out from the back, and on shelves, and stacked along sides, and up in the rafters, and piled on tables, and sitting on the floor on the other side of garage, and anywhere else we had been storing stuff just to get it out of the way, I ran out of steam for the project. Once in a while I would go out there and do a little work or sometimes Dad would make a little head way on the mess.



But all that has changed. Dad, the last couple of weeks, has been diligently working on making room for the van to fit in the garage now that winter is knocking on the door. Dang, I love that man. Vehicles need to be in garages here in our part of the world. Without a garage, every time you desire to use the car it needs to either be dug out of a snow bank or an inch of frost or ice needs to be scraped off the windows. Never a pleasant situation.

So here it is "The van is in the garage."

Giving Thanks Challenge

This year, again, we signed up for the Giving Thanks Challenge hosted by South Breeze Farm. The little logo is on our side bar. We so enjoyed this last year. Last year we listed every day, again on our side bar, something that we were thankful for. Making the list prompted a lot of good discussions and we actually missed it when the first of December rolled around and the challenge was done. This year we are going to make posts about what we are thankful for just to mix things up a little bit.

So here goes some things we are thankful for today.

1. The kids had dentist check ups and had no cavities.
2. The news so far is that Spark will not need braces.
3. Dad was home to go with us.
4. We had a treat at McDonald's after the appointment. This is a much looked forward to tradition for us.
5. We had $800 dollars set aside for fuel oil.
6. It was suppose to come tomorrow when Dad would be sleeping but they came today instead.
7. After the fuel oil was put in the man measured how much was in the tank and it is 3/4 full. That means that last year we were more frugal with the oil than we thought. This amount might get us through the winter.
8. Dad was able to sleep this afternoon before work, sometimes he can't fall asleep the first afternoon before he works.
9. We had a yummy supper - fried potatoes, mushrooms, onion, garlic with ham and leftover rabbit and squash.
10. Miss Congeniality was on t.v. tonight - one of Dancer's favorite movies.
11. Spark and I added three miles onto our 300 mile goal - our ticker is on the side bar.
12. Nikki is catching on to the new trick we are trying to teach her of putting her toys in a box.
13. We had safe travel all day.
14. The sun shone, something it hasn't done much of lately.

Trader Joe's has Puttanesca Sauce!

Last year we were reading book 1 of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket. After Violet, Klaus and Sunny Bauldelaire were deposited into Count Olaf's care, they were instructed to make dinner for him and his extremely odd troupe. The kids found a recipe for Puttanesca Sauce at Justice Strauss' library and made it for the lot of actors. This prompted us to try our hand at making Puttanesca.

The recipe we used was:

3 cloves of garlic
1 tin of anchovy fillets cut up really, really small almost to the point of being smashed
2-3 Tbsp. capers, drained and washed
1 can stewed tomatoes, sliced

Saute garlic with anchovies. Add capers and tomatoes. Simmer to warm through.
Serve over a pile of pasta.

The Puttanesca Sauce was very good but also quite expensive, they don't exactly give anchovies and capers away. Because of the cost we haven't made it again.

The other week though we were going through Trader Joe's and there on an end cap was canned Puttanesca Sauce for a mere $2.99. We snapped up a jar, eager to give it a try.

We had it for lunch and it was very, very good. Not as good as homemade, but then most things made from scratch are better than their premade counter parts. We will definitely buy this again as a pantry staple.

Halloween happenings

We started the night at a friends house eating pizza. The kids went downstairs to do whatever kids do and us adults pulled out the apple crisp and ice cream. That was our pre trick or treat! Here is the group of kids that trick or treated. There was a rabbit, Dancer had to be a snow princess since it was so cold and she wore her coat over her costume, a knight, a cow girl and a witch. I wore the pedometer to know how far we went and we walked about three miles by winding through their neighborhood and surrounding area. The kids would have gone even further because they ran up to the front doors for treats. We were out pandering about an hour and half.

. The kids got lots of good treats, the traditional candy and then cans of pop, lots of microwave popcorn, juice boxes, stickers, Valentine and Christmas candy (odd I know), Halloween drinking cups and one house gave out a bag of school supplies to each child with things such as full sized notebooks, packs of colored pencils, pens, highlighters, pencils, glue sticks and a bottle of water. I never got a notebook trick or treating but what a good idea.

Dad telling Dancer how much he is going to enjoy eating all of her candy tonight after she goes to bed.

Dad, with his floating hat, is dismayed that she really isn't going to give him any candy!

After taking out all the extras from the candy, and enjoying some of their favorites, the kids each had three pounds to sell the dentist. I told them they got three dollars for the candy instead of twenty hours on the treadmill to wear all the calories off. They both thought this was an awesome deal.

The hot dog roast that wasn't

The plan for today was to get together with friends for an outside, cooked over a fire, hot dog roast. The weather did not cooperate with that plan, it was rain mixed with snow all day. As of yesterday evening the host knew that wasn't going to work so the plans changed to an indoor lunch and they called me while I was in town to let us know. Now that it was going to be inside we should really bring with something that would add to the lunch. My standby is Mandarin oranges which we always have cans and cans of because it is one of Spark's favorite foods.



Spark and I needed to go to the craft store while Dancer was at dance class to get more paint and brushes for upcoming projects. While there, we saw these Halloween goblets for just fifty cents each. They are a purple glass with spiders on them. The spiders have diamonds in their middles so to a kid they seemed quite spectacular. In each glass we put chocolate pudding, let it set and put a layer of vanilla pudding. It turned out to be the perfect dessert, easy to make, they kids were excited to keep their glass and everyone, it seems, loves pudding.

Halloween eats - Moldy Maggots

Moldy Maggots - if this name is too gross, call it cheesy rice with spinach.

1 C. onion

1 lb. spinach

3 C. cooked rice

1/2 C. shredded cheddar cheese

1 C. cottage cheese

1 egg beaten

Saute onion, fresh mushrooms are a good addition and can be sauteed with the onions. We call the mushrooms "slugs" since they have the same look and texture! Add spinach to onion and cook until all the water from the spinach has evaporated. Mix together all ingredients and put in baking dish. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. This is very, very good reheated.

We did it our way....Bayeux Tapestry

Reading about the Battle of Hastings brought us to learn of the Bayeux Tapestry that we had never encountered before. The Bayeux Tapestry tells the tale of the battle on a linen over 230 feet long and 20 inches high. The entire tapestry is a hand embroidered depiction of the battle. It is amazing, just amazing.

The kids, using three sheets of paper taped together, told their own stories in Bayeux Tapestry style. Dancer's tapestry tells of the day in Branson we went on the Ride The Ducks tour. These pictures are small and hard to see detail, but she drew the duck going into the water, driving on the water and coming back out onto the road.

Spark's tapestry is of him carving his Halloween pumpkin. Again, it is hard to see his work, but besides his main pictures he also put a boarder on the bottom of gargoyles. He got out the paint and mixed up some red/orange to embellishing his background. He really gets into the painting so much of his is background is just one solid finger painted color. He always cleans up after himself when painting so I let him have free reign with the paints.

Alfred the Great Cakes

One of the first kings of England was Alfred the Great. While he was waiting for the Vikings to come and attack he hid out with some peasants in the countryside of Wessex. One day the woman of the hut told him to watch the cakes she had baking to be sure that they didn't burn while she went to get some firewood. As Alfred sat wondering how he was going to defeat the Vikings when they came to attack, the cakes burned. To help us remember the story we made Alfred Cakes.

Alfred Cakes

1 C. flour

1/4 C. sugar

1/2 T. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

3 T. cooking oil

1/4 C. raisins

1/4 C. chopped dates

1 egg

1/8 c. heavy cream

1/8 C. lemon juice

Mix together dry ingredients including dates and raisins. Mix together wet ingredients. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, pour in wet ingredients and mix until moist. With floured hands knead the dough ever so gently and divide into four parts and shape into cakes. Bake on a cookie sheet, we used a baking stone, for 8-10 minutes until lightly browned at 425 degrees.

We enjoyed these with diner, but they would do equally as well at breakfast by themselves or with a dollop of jam.

The book club girls

The book this month was The Borrowers. It is about tiny people who live in the walls and floors of the house and borrow things from the owners. The girls put on a play from one of the scenes of the book, thought up questions to ask the moms and had us pick out little things to borrow and tell them why we choose those things. I really liked how the girls had to lead the whole study, they were given an hour to get it all together and they did a wonderful job. These four girls work very well together. For snack they served mint tea with cream and sugar in tea cups, crumbs (super delicious scones) and a cookie (an extremely large chocolate chipper).

The Great Candy Buy Back

I went to the dentist today for my twice decade cleaning, where they found no cavities, and there was a sign on the wall. The sign was an ad promoting that on Sunday afternoon the dentists at our clinic would be buying trick or treat candy for a dollar a pound and then sending it over to the troops in Iraq. Well, this got Spark's attention in a big way. He has plans to trick or treat at enough houses that he can sell it for the price of a Webkinz. Now if he could just find someone giving out chocolate covered rocks!

Spark's Birthday

Nothin' could be finer than the day that you turn niner. It is Sparks ninth birthday today, and it was an all day fiesta:

9:00 Loafing in bed for your birthday.

11:00 Dancer makes you a pancake brunch.

11:30 You open your birthday gifts.

12:00 Dad and Dancer doing your chores for you on your birthday while you play Webkins with your new birthday Google Webkin.

2:00 Grandma comes over for marble cake and cookies and cream ice cream.

4:50 Going to a movie (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs--3D).

7:00 Dinner and arcade games at the theme restaurant Space Aliens.

8:34 You officially turn 9 years old.

9:00 Watch some TV and play some Wii with your new controller before retiring for the evening.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPARK!!!

Flaming Pumpkin

Taking the pumpkin to the next level.

Dad and Spark took a soup can and filled it with rolled up napkins. Paper napkins, not your cloth ones. Then they filled the can part way with kerosene and let the napkins soak in it all afternoon. They put the can in the pumpkin, lit it and stood back and watched the flames shoot up. As we told Spark, you have to be using your common sense when you do something like this.

Here is how it looked in the dark. Pretty cool. It burned for about two hours.

No idle hands here

The weather was nice enough today that we could get out and get some outside work done. Lately the forecast has been rain and cold so we are way behind on getting things ready for fall. Spark and I cut down the huge tree branch that blew down last month, Dancer got a good portion of the yard mowed, Spark got some of the onions picked and Dad covered the strawberry plants and did the fun job of cleaning out a goat stall. Dad cleaned out the buck stall and whoa did it smell. Male goats do not smell endearing when they are in rut in the fall. We burned all the brush from the tree branch, it was whole pick up load full, in the fire pit and made some apple pies in the pie irons. Sitting around the fire eating warm apple pie made the all the work worthwhile.

The to do list is still long but this next week is suppose to bring more rain. Our gardens are in terrible disarray and the barn needs more cleaning so we need a few more nice days before the snow starts to fly.

Two innocent pumpkins.....

looked like this when they were plucked from the vine.

After the kids hacked at them with sharp objects for an hour they looked like this. The one the left is Spark's. He brought this to the pumpkin carving contest at the 4-H Halloween party tonight and won first place, I think because it is barfing. On the right is Dancer's, we think it looks great too. It is a pumpkin that is mad and crying. This year we were a little bit smarter about this pumpkin carving thing. First the kids drew out the designs they wanted on their pumpkins, and then we went looking for a pumpkin that would best fit that design.

This is the costume Dancer is wearing this year because she can't find the top to the scarecrow costume and we didn't know that until yesterday afternoon. I actually made it a few years ago, probably three, and last year she didn't want to wear it. She wore it for two Halloweens and for a role in a Christmas play at church so it has gotten a lot of use. When I made it, it was big enough to for her to wear a coat under it and it came down to the tips of her toes and just skimmed the ground. Now you can see that it is more tea length, about six inches off the ground, and she is only wearing a t-shirt and pants under it. The sleeves are a lot shorter too. She has really grown in three years! The thing about Halloween costumes where we live is that if they aren't really big there is about a 98% chance that you will be wearing your winter coat over them because it will be in the 30's or low 40's when trick or treating. Tonight we were in a garage so a pair of sweat pants and t-shirt was warm enough. If she chooses to trick or treat she will have to find a long sleeve something or another to wear under it or be a snow princess in a winter coat. A really cute thing about her costume tonight is that a little kindergarten girl was also a princess. When we got there she ran out to Dancer and said that her and Dancer were the same thing like that was the coolest thing ever. Then she wanted to sit next to Dancer because they were the same. Dancer said the little girl kept reaching out and touching her skirt all night. I still think of Dancer as being little and here little kids are looking up to her as a big kid.

Meet Creamy and Creamy

This is Creamy, one of Spark's beloved rabbits.

And this is our other Creamy. After months of debating what he was going to be for Halloween, Spark decided to be his rabbit Creamy. He started out wanting to be Caesar, then a spider web, a hay bale, and I can't remember what all. In the eleventh hour, as I was getting ready to put together the Caesar costume, he quickly changed his mind to a rabbit. So on Sunday we went off to town to find a rabbit costume. Thankfully a rabbit costume pattern isn't hard to find. We went to pick out the fleece and there were about 10 different shades of brown and tan, who knew there would be such a selection, and he found the perfect shade for Creamy. This Creamy is made out of McCall's pattern 8953 and it went together like a charm. I didn't get a picture of it but it has a huge, puffy tail. Tomorrow night is the 4-H Halloween party and he is excited to wear it. Snow is in the forecast so he should be nice and toasty in his fleece bunny suit.