Prognostication witchcraft?

Here are today's NFL picks for the noon games.

Winners will be:

We ate dinner with our lively neighbor Lisa Wednesday night,
and noted that she cleans up real good.

Vikings

Giants

Miami

New England

Atlanta

Tampa Bay

Denver

Baltimore

These picks will be meticulously entered this morning in the Canterbury Park Perfect Pick contest at the third floor race book, right after our Sunday eggs and browns, in fervent, enduring hope of bringing home $1000 in prize money.

We'll see if our witch's magic spell works.

Bag puppet show

Emily's anatomically-correct Holstein milking cow features a Moo-vable mouth that can say most anything. We've got our first-grader at our house today, her loose and bleeding front tooth and everything. Could be out by the end of the day, we shall see.
Next up, making kleenex flowers and then a tea party for three. On the menu? Hamburger, shrimp . . . and a nice green salard, of course.

Hunter shoots deer

Okay, it's a bit blurry. But the deer is moving fast and it isn't easy to
grab a camera and get it all lined up and not be shaky when you're
doing it. Just ask Aunt Katie, who shot the Arizona bobcat below,
all trembly and shaky and excited. A computer program can only
do so much to sharpen it up, you know.

In the weekly Underwood family email to Great Grandma Bev, Hunter casually mentions that a deer cut across their West Des Moines lawn and they were able to get a photo of it.
In other news from Iowa,

Hunter - I am going to my last football tournament this weekend. I hope we win. We are playing in Omaha so we will be gone all weekend. We just saw a deer in our front yard. I attached a picture. We had parent - teacher conferences last night. It went okay.

Blake - I am between football and wrestling. This week I am playing basketball for Hunter because he has a football tournament. It will be fun to play with the older boys. We are doing Iowa Skills Tests at school this week. It is almost done. Yeah!

Knee class today

Our dear brother-in-law Allen goes to knee surgery class in Florida this afternoon, in preparation for the Big Day next week. As veterans of this miraculous procedure, our best wishes and good thoughts go to Becky and Al as they embark on this challenging adventure. We stand by for questions and to offer support. :)

Another sign of the season

This time of the year, more golfers convert to brighter, iridescent balls with the hopeful notion of spotting them under the lowered sun and in the scattered leaves. Alas, not so effective, witness today's back yard catch.

Jill

Mom's lead aide avoided a tongue lashing from yesterday's visitor, but barely. Jill spends her weekdays with Mom and lets Birdie run in the back yard after the squirrels. So far, Squirrels 2, Birdie 0.

Food hurricane makes landfall

Pulled pork tostadas with Slaw and Chipotle Cream?
or
Spinach, Brie and Bacon Mini Quiche?
or

Upside-down Apple Pie?

Kathleen and her pals attended cooking school in Prior Lake yesterday and watched a skilled chef whip up 10 tasty dishes. The creative inspiration lingers today. There's already been a couple of unscheduled runs to Cub Foods for supplies, a big breakfast in two skillets was served this morning, then Barb Lee's favorite Poppy Seed Cake made its first appearance in years. It was devoured warm as an accompaniment to the Vikings-Seattle event.
Standing by for Dinner.

Weekend visitors

Among the visitors today at Kell Avenue were Aaron and Amber. Aaron is Mom's grandson and works about 10 blocks from Mom's house so he's always in the neighborhood. Earlier, Linda and Ron, along with their grandchildren, Milla and Anja, dropped by for a visit. The little ones got their ride on Mom's stair-o-vator, a gentle ride into the basement and then back up again.

Starting in on This Old House

The refrigerator came out of this cubby today, revealing some really
old-fashioned plaster and lath under the staircase.

The list of things to do at Jennifer's new house got just a bit shorter today.
Jennifer's fixer-upper in Dundas, a suburb of Northfield, has a long way to go before Jennifer will be satisfied with it. She's moved in, now the first thing to do is to separate her living quarters from the main project area. Then the real fun will begin.

We joined Jennifer on her day off for a day of putting up shelves, hooks, doors and insulation. It was fun; Jennifer is an organizational aficionado, so anything made available to keep things straight and neat will be used assiduously. We have no idea where this trait comes from, but she's got an idea for storing everything.
This Old House has great potential. . . wonder if HGTV is looking for a project?
Later in the afternoon Marcelline joined in for a few laughs and some big plans.