cracker, cuties, and anything else that falls out of my brain.

***edit: if you make the crackers, only bake them for about 10 minutes, or at least keep an eye on them. 15 minutes, as the recipe says, would be charred in my oven.

(the context of this: i wrote this post a week ago. so if it doesn't make sense, it is last week's fault. four attempts later i was finally able to post. yes, i wasted a lot of time on this post. it made me quite sour about blogging to be honest.)

glad to hear i'm not the only one still afraid of monsters. honestly it's not really monsters so much as cougars, aliens, cows, and the creature from "the village". let's just say m. night shyamalan is NOT my friend. cougars are mean and unlike most other creatures that try to get away from people, cougars have been known to stalk and kill hikers, cyclist, and me going to my car at night if given the chance. i know it's mean and they were here first, but i'm glad they have been pushed out of my lil spot of kansas and hope they stay out. as i child i was afraid aliens were going to come at night and steal my organs like the llamas on "unsolved mysteries". i hated my brothers for watching that terrible show. and cows, well, i obviously don't even have to explain that one. who isn't afraid of cows.

now that we've thoroughly discussed my weird fears, we can move on to crackers. erika had asked if i had a good cracker recipe, and because she once upon a time gave me an awesome bread recipe that has endeared me to my whole family for my usefulness in the bread making arena, i will share the cracker recipe. i some how found it here, although i don't know how because i don't read that blog. maybe i linked in from moneysavingmom, but i found the recipe long before i started reading moneysavingmom. apparently it was providence. not to imply that the recipe is so mindblowingly delicious, but it does the job of satisfying me and my littles. i'm pretty sure commercial crackers (and chips for that matter) have cocaine in them, thus making it possible to eat way, way, WAY too many in a sitting without realizing it. i hate the food industry. but i'll stop myself from that rant.

obviously i am not a food blogger, nor do i have any desire to be one. food is really hard to take pictures of and whenever i try, i gain more respect for the people who do it so well and artistically. but because i am a very visual learner, i took these to show a bit of the process. i like pics for new recipes because then i know i'm not screwing it up.

ingredients all mixed up in my circa 1980 cuisinart. i used evoo and white whole wheat flour on this occasion.

crumbles all mushed together and ready to roll out. oh rolling pin (that you can barely see), how i love you.

baked and broken up. i score mine before baking them so they break more evenly when done. i also mush the sea salt into the "dough" before baking so that it doesn't flake off.

now that crackers are out of the way, let's move on to the cuties.

here's the little giraffe we hauled around with us on halloween. his costume was too big, which made him extra cute.

he's in there somewhere.

here he and his cousin (the boy with the most kissable chubby cheeks) are trying to figure out why they are dressed so foolishly.

ben was a firefighter, which didn't seem like much of a costume since he wears his firefighter boots every day and the rest of the costume around the house quite a bit. still, pretty dang cute in my book. (am i biased? most definitely!!)

we had fun at tim's uncle's, who lives in college hill. if you've never been to college hill on halloween, you must go at least once in your lifetime. it's quite the experience.

to complete the randomness of this post, i will round it out with some coloring-therapy.

ben really likes watercolors lately. i had to accept that they would be destroyed and the colors would get all mixed together and the case would be a soggy mess. (i remember very clearly in kindergarten seeing other kids color-blended, soggy watercolor sets and thinking they needed to more careful. i liked to keep my colors true. )

he quickly tires of my picture taking.

on this particular day, i was really enjoying crayons.


don't be jealous of my skillz. i was, after all, a coloring contest grand champion. art, even if you're not good, is good for the soul. kids are really good about reminding us of the simple things.

well, i think that's all folks. good night and good day.