We've mostly settled back into our school schedule, although Perrin has decided to start teething and wakes up a lot at night again. huzzah. So if you see me and I seem out of it, it's because I don't get nearly enough sleep.
Miriel has been doing great and staying dry in undies! woot woot! Finally. There was great rejoicing. :P And she finally got to open her new little car, which she absolutely loves. As does everyone else...
Somebody has a fun headband.
It even went to bed. :P
So my parents had a bumper crop of pears this year and dropped off an entire bushel for me to work through. And then the oven broke. Something electronic shorted/broke and if the range was plugged in the broiler coil was on and didn't shut off. Of course, it's over 20 years old and the part to fix it (plus labor) would have been more than half the cost of a new range so we opted to replace it. woot. Farewell money... Thankfully we found one that was available within a week but in the meantime I had to get creative.
Cadence: it's too bad we can't have extra food tonight. (with a smirk on her face)
Me: Extra food?
Cadence: yeah, like peas or corn....
She thought she was going to not have to eat vegetables. 😂 Sorry kid, we have a grill, a microwave, and electric skillet, a slow cooker, and a propane stove.
And then I almost burned up the grill. bleah.
Canning outside had some perks. It was a nice day, but I kept forgetting supplies inside and had to go in and out a lot.
Perrin watched from inside the screen door and still somehow got all bit up by mosquitos, poor boy.
Hooray for canned pears!
Poor sweet boy had a mosquito bite under his eye that swelled up and looked like he got in a fight. Also, he loves pooh bear.
And of course, gobs of tomatoes were ready. I did like being able to fill the canner and blancher and bowls with the hose! Much easier than the sink.
Oh hello, Mr. Perrin. He likes to practice with a spoon when he can.
Headbanded goofballs...
When you actually go in to a store and they both want to ride....
Skillet pizza. I was a little leary of using the grill after the fire fiasco so we tried to perfect skillet cookies on the stove, and also pizza. The pizza turned out pretty good, our skillet cookies were a bit crispy around the edges.
Sometimes Bob craves weird things and drags us along with him, so we went to Cracker Barrel with the little two for lunch.
Just chilling in my carseat...
And then, O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!, our new range got delivered. There was no time spent oohing, ahhing, or babying it- it was promptly pressed into service canning salsa and more tomato sauce.
The W-ton girls met for supper one evening and Perrin and Bowen got to hang out. :) My girls think it's so weird that a) I have friends and b) I used to go to Sunday School. Whatever. It is always a good time and so good to hang out with them all.
Bob planted several pepper varieties and keeps bringing them in and I keep ignoring them and then he and the girls make pepper people out of them...
Troy and Luke finished clearing what we wanted cleared. Shout out to LT Excavating for all of your excavating needs. 😀 Some of the girls thought too much was cleared, some not enough... haha.
Labor Day Saturday we went out to Iowa to 'Liezel's house.' This year was nice and uneventful- we did not require any tractors to pull us out of any mud. (Cecily: That was the WORST decision you ever made!) :D Checking out the mighty Mississippi.
Perrin was pretty content to be carried, but I think he's outgrown his hat!
How many kids can you get on a slightly precarious perch?
I did not go down to the spring this time; the last little bit of trail is wet and I didn't want to risk falling with Perrin. Maybe next time, because it's really cool.
My kids just waded in with their tennis shoes on. 😜
Then we hit up the twisty slide! Just imagine the sounds of sweaty legs sliding down hot metal....
Somebody fell asleep.
We went back to Jake and Rachel's for supper and Liezel's birthday. :) Poor Cecily had started seeing spots so we dosed her up for a migraine and she was resting in a dark room. She was pretty disappointed to miss out, but we caught it in time to prevent a bad headache and she had mostly recovered by the time we left for home.
Oh, and the handle of the garage door fell off.
Perrin was my door handle replacing supervisor.
While we were at Menards picking out said new door handle, the girls were in another part of the store with Bob. Talking him into this garbage can. Why, I don't know. It's heavy duty, but too small to be useful as such, and also the girls think it's a toy. So. Adorably useless. 😆
The older two got a sawing lesson one afternoon.
I feel like I spend late summer moving various canners, kettles, large bowls, and jars around the kitchen and the stove is always full and I have no desire to make cookies or bars or anything. And then Bob requests cookie pie and Emmy neeeeeeddddsss to make one, so we add that to the chaos.
Just a random picture from a regular everyday suppertime.
Because someday suppers won't look like this and I want to remember the everydayness. Also we need to buy stock in grated parmesan because they think it's a side, not a garnish.
I agreed to teach Chemistry again (some days I wonder what I was thinking) so off we went for our first day of co-op! I think I was sufficiently nerdy and exuberant... 😜 There are some smart kids in class, and they ask questions, so that could be interesting- I don't always know the answers. 😆 Miri liked the big toy room, and Perrin didn't cry so that was a blessing.
Bob asked some friendly local farmers to disc and plant a ground cover in the clearing. They were glad to, and they rented (and picked up!) a stump grinder to take care of some of the stumps that are still out in the clearing.
There may be many Tolkien references flying around our house lately, "Many of these trees were my friends!" "We need men of intelligence on this mission. quest. thing."
Lake day cookout was a good time. It's still plenty warm out, so the kids all swam. Except Miriel, who just wrapped herself up in her towel and sat on our laps all evening.
Here we have a train. Depending on which key the engineer used it was going to outer space, California, or anywhere you wanted. Unfortunately, the passengers could never agree on a destination, so it was kind of short lived.
Kendra and Aaron hosted cousins night.
The chunky boy got passed around a lot.
And met some second cousins...
I borrowed this picture from Kendra- Adelaide and Emmy were playing banana-grams 'not by the rules' and William and Cecily were playing chess.
And Cliff was passing on all of the checkers strategy he learned from Grandpa Carl.
Bob invited Dang over Sunday afternoon and he wasn't working for once. (He works all.the.time.) I don't remember what they were doing...
After she "mended" her shorts, Grandma suggested that she could fix some of Grandpa's work pants all fancy and Emmy jumped at the chance. Haha. So, I patched them and then she went to town with embroidery thread. 😁
The girls and I went to the farm one afternoon after school- hi happy boy!
Dad now has his very own pair of trendy visibly mended jeans to impress the pigs with. Hehe. Emmy stitched a bunch of fruits, vegetables, and hearts over the patched section, I did a little bit of multicolored weaving on a worn section. So we shall see if he's brave enough to wear them when people might see them. 😁
Dad took the cover off one of the hand dug wells from my Great-grandpa's day to show the girls. It's pretty cool to see how they did it and lined it with block.
Miri likes the rope swing.
The girls also thought they needed to pick grapes. So we came home with grapes. huzzah.
He's a little worker man. 😍
When you have a bunch of sour grapes (I'm not sure what variety Dad grows- concord maybe?) you get to make jelly. Of course I didn't have enough sugar in the house, or sure-gel. But Cadence helped smash them so we could strain them into juice and Emmy helped me make jelly the next day when we had all of the ingredients.
Another day, another waiting room. This time the three older girls went to the eye doctor. Cecily is still the only one who needs glasses, however, they allll think they need to try on glasses. *sigh*
I keep thinking that the garden is pretty much done and I should be able to put away the canner soon and then I get grapes.... or Kelly and girls offer to pick and bring me apples.... haha. Soon. Soon it will be winter and we can revert to laziness for a while. Or not.
Blessings.
