Snow?? On October 19th!! And NOT just a Little!!

Yesterday's weather was about 60 and sunny. A pretty wonderful day all around and today's forecast was a 15 degree drop with snow. Truthfully, I wasn't too surprised. Kansas weather tends to fluctuate up and down often. And really, how much snow could there be today?? I figured we'd get a bit of snow that would just melt when it hit the ground. 

That's not exactly how the day has been going. The snow is sticking...and it's not stopping! It's 1:30 right now and it's still snowing. But you know what's crazy?? Our weather forecast is calling for a high of 65 tomorrow!! 

Here's the playground at Yahoo's preschool, entirely covered!! 

Though the snowy weather isn't going to stick around too long, it sure isn't going to make the farmers around here happy. 

Corn harvest is pretty much done out here and DR's elevators have the corn ground piles covered which is good but the quite a bit of milo is still out in the fields waiting to get harvested because it's still too wet. 

Well, today sure isn't going to help the moisture levels. The milo still needs a good hard freeze to draw the moisture out of the milo heads. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a freeze tonight. 

I'm sure any farmers out there would be angry at this photo but I think it's kind of pretty. 

The one good thing about the snow is the grain elevators are closing early tonight which means I might get to see my husband for more than an hour this evening! 

I don't mind the snow in October. Today's snow reminds me quite a bit of Indiana snow. The flakes are big, wet and heavy and the sky looks more like January than October. As long as the snow can hold off until after Halloween I'll be happy. I'm not looking forward to wearing snow boots while trick or treating!! 

Garden Dirt Clod Fight

The other day I decided it was time to dig up my sweet potatoes. Yes, I know we haven't had a freeze yet but I decided I'd rather dig when the weather was pleasant than cold and windy. While the weather was pleasant I was also able to get more willing helpers! Yip, Yap and the neighbor boy helped me scrounge through the dirt, after I dug, to dig out those big red tubers! Yum! Sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving! 

After we were all done the boys decided that that freshly turned earth was too good to pass up and they proceeded to have a dirt clod fight! I did warn them that if they were going to throw dirt clods that I wouldn't tolerate any whining if they got HIT with one. 

Winding up! 

I often tease Yip that his body movements mirror Captain Jack Sparrow. Sometimes his arms and legs are all akimbo but they always tend to land just where he wants them too, though I often fear he's going to just trip over his own feet! 

It's harder than you think getting a good photo of a dirt clod. 

My boys are getting too dang tall!! Yap there is one size away from he and I wearing the same size shoes! 

And here are my wonderful, small, but glorious crop of taters curing in my kitchen. Another couple of days and I'll make myself a batch of sweet potato fries before I store up the rest. 

DR and I love sweet potatoes. The kids..not so much. Anyone have a great sweet potato recipe to win over my kids, not involving marshmallows, that you could share with me? 

A Photo Shoot - The Many Faces of Yahoo.

I think I got burned on taking photos a while back but after I got some camera advice from a friend of mine, ordering some filters and taking football pictures I've been finding more and more reasons to break out the camera. Last week Yahoo and I were outside on one of our many glorious SW Kansas days and, surprisingly, she was hamming it up for the camera. Most days she runs and hides when she sees me shooting. I'm sure most of you won't care one bit about this post and that's fine; these pics are mostly for grandmas, grandpa and numerous aunts and uncles anyway :) 

Pretending to be asleep. 

She spends more time swinging on this hammock than actually laying down. Good thing they are sturdy. 

Her Princess Face....

...and her Tiger Face! 

..again..

...and again!

I was playing around a lot on editing these and I'm really happy how they turned out. Since she was born I've been trying to get a photo showing the accurate color of her eyes. I think I'm pretty close here! 

Our Pumpkin Painting for October

The Painting Party, where we all painted a Sunflower, that I taught at my town library a couple of weeks ago was a such a success that we are doing it again in October. The ladies I first taught requested a fall theme for our next painting and requested this painting that my librarian found on Pinterest. 

I tried finding the original source of this image but didn't have any luck. 

This is my version of the chevron pumpkin. 

When I teach the class I'll probably do it a bit differently; more orange and less red. I think I'll get rid of the spirals in the background and maybe do polka dots instead. 

I'm loving these 2 hour painting classes. They are just too much fun! I've been on the Internet looking for ideas and I've found that these painting parties are quite popular, especially in the big cities. They have painting parties with thirty some students. I'm not in a big city but maybe I could make this a business! Maybe I could travel around and lead these painting parties. I could see a bunch of women wanting to do this instead of Tupperware!