Painting Windows

There were window crayons...

and paint-making with a recipe from a book called Glues, Brews and Goos: liquid dish detergent, cornstarch and food coloring ("Mom, can you believe people eat this stuff?").
Eliza thought it was a lot like potion-making...
...and then she settled into making magic appear on her window.
We finished the afternoon with squash muffins smothered in apple butter. Yum.

I loved Eliza's window - she wanted to make an apple tree and a pumpkin, and somehow that pumpkin's vine wound its way around the frame of the window to wrap around (in a non-sinister way, really) the trunk of the apple tree. Ah, fall, we love you so.

Dan and I obsessed all morning over a new game from my sister's family, called Quiddler (he is showing great restraint right now, sitting across from me reading Marco De Marines' The Performance Text instead of trying to beat me...again...) while the girls played with a friend who had spent the night. Lots of negotiations and compromises...phew, are those ever exhausting. We listened to about three hours of the Bunnicula stories while painting, drawing, and making muffins, ran around for a bit climbing trees and chasing squirrels, and to bed! I spent a short time canning some hot peppers from our trip to the market and now I am wondering who in the heck is going to eat them, 'cause my fingers are burning, people. They are that hot.