Ratatouille, A Butterfly and A Pumpkin

Well, the title pretty much sums up our week.

Last Friday night I was up late with a certain someone (Samuel) and was watching "TV" on the computer in a dimly lit kitchen and I thought I heard a rustling behind me. I kept turning around and didn't see anything. There were a few flies buzzing around so I thought maybe it was them, but honestly I knew better.

Then on Monday morning while the kids were eating breakfast before school Josiah said, "Hey mom, there is a mouse in the living room under the couch." I hadn't told him about my suspicions and I wasn't 100% sure he would know what a live mouse would look like, not like the Mickey Mouse image in his head, but when I turned around I saw it scurrying along the baseboards and into the cabinet beneath my kitchen sink.

Well now it was official that we had a mouse in the house so as soon as possible I loaded up all 6 kids and headed to Wal-Mart to buy some mouse traps. I wasted no time setting up the trap and only snapped my finger once in the process, OUCH!

I kept checking the trap and we were having no luck. I thought maybe our mouse friend decided our house was too crazy and moved on, although it seemed as if the dollop of peanut butter bait was getting smaller every day.

Well last night Joel and I were sitting in the kitchen watching The Office on the computer and we heard a very distinct SNAP. The mouse was caught, although just his arm. When Joel went to dispose of the mouse I was told that he looked at Joel in the eyes and had a look of, "Don't kill me, I'll be your friend, I'm Ratatouille." He was disposed of anyways. One mouse down. Hopefully that will be the end of our rodent visitors, but there is still a trap set up just in case Ratatouille had friends.
On a lighter note, three weeks ago when I picked Josh up from school, he informed me that he had a "pet". Um OK, not really thinking his teacher would give him a pet, but then Josh proceeded to pull a little cup with a caterpillar out of his backpack. "Mom, it's going to be a butterfly!" Josh exclaimed. Great I thought, I already have 6 kids to feed, now I have to keep a caterpillar alive until it becomes a butterfly! Well the caterpillar did it's thing and turned into a chrysalis and we built our butterfly pavilion and hung it in the kitchen and then Tuesday I went to take out the trash and when I came back in and walked past the butterfly pavilion there was a butterfly in it! I don't know how we managed to keep it alive through all it's life cycle, but we did and now have a orange and black butterfly gracing our kitchen. According to my research it is too cold now to release it into the backyard and it should only live 2 to 4 weeks (their lifespan) so we are feeding it orange slices and sugar water.

And finally our pumpkin. Having never celebrated Halloween (see previous post) I didn't really have any experience with pumpkins, but Josh had to bring in a pumpkin for class on Monday for math (counting seeds, guessing weight etc.) and then he brought it home and told me we had to cook the seeds. Well I've never done that but thanks to google, I looked up that and other recipes and thought if we have this pumpkin we might as well use it. We made the cooked seeds, and I baked the pumpkin, pureed it and on Wednesday we made pumpkin bread for our math/home economics project of the week. Josiah read me the recipe while Josh and Naomi helped me measure and mix the ingredients. All in all it was a success and for the last 3 days we have been enjoying the fruit of our labor, the bread is gone now, but I still have enough puree to make another batch! Can you do the same project two weeks in a row? Maybe I'll make a pumpkin cheesecake or pumpkin cookies instead?

Our October 31st Tradition

I was raised in a family that didn't celebrate Halloween, so when we had kids I told Joel that I didn't really want to celebrate it with our kids. There was much discussion about it, but we finally decided that as a family we would not celebrate Halloween, but then there was the problem with what to do with the evening. The kids are somewhat aware of what goes on between what they see on T.V., what other kids talk about, the "decorations" that are up at other houses and the fact that dressed up kids come to our door asking for candy. When I was a kid it was our family tradition to go to Pizza Hut for Halloween and we were able to avoid most trick or treaters who might come to our door. I guess you could say that we have a similar tradition, although we do not patronize Pizza Hut, instead it is Chipotle. We have been going to Chipolte for Halloween for the last 8 years (even before kids). They run a promotion every year they call "Boo-rrito" where if you "dress up" as a burrito you get one free. So, here are the kids dressed up for our free dinner. Really all it takes is a little tinfoil and you get free dinner.

Even a baby burrito (and almost a smile!)

And here are mommy and daddy burrito on our way to Chipotle. If you ask Josiah what we do on Halloween, he will very excitedly say, "We dress up like burritos and get free Chipotle!" It may not be a very traditional Halloween, but it works for us.

We then come home to pass out candy in an effort to be good neighbors to the other kids on the block.