All is safely gathered in

Little brother is mobile now and can scoot around and play with sister. 😋  Sister is not always impressed.  Also, sister was trying to put the baby to bed and he was not quiet enough and needed to be shushed repeatedly. 😂 Poor Perrin.

 

We learned about chemical change in Chemistry, so I took the creamer from the tea set to class and polished off the tarnish (silver sulfide) with a different chemical reaction.  Of course, it looked so shiny next to the other pieces at home that I had to clean them too.  (Really hot water, baking soda, tinfoil touching the tarnished silver- you're welcome.)

Little buddy wants to explore and doesn't appreciate being removed from the myriad hidden dangers in my messy craft/sewing stash.

We got to hang out with Tirzah and Griffin during the Madrigal dinner. :) 

The library had an American Girl doll day and I had four very excited girls with five dolls, and one Perrin just along for the ride.

It was really fun!  Crafts for both the dolls and girls.

A bag to keep it all in.

Cupcakes and lemonade, and a spot for pictures.  😊 Such fun.

Bob invited Dang over that evening and he got roped into helping with the latest duplo creation.

 

 

The three older girls got to go play with legos at the library one afternoon; the two little ones got to play, and I got to look for books.

  

Somebody can reach all of his blankets...

I don't remember why Miriel thought she needed a bandaid under her nose, but it looked hilarious. 

Who needs dolls when you have a little brother??

 

 

It snowed a little bit and Daddy brought some inside.  :)  

 

 

Miriel woke up sick in the middle of the night.... all over her bed.  Twice, before I thought to give her a bucket.  Which she used with great success for the duration of her illness (hallelujah!). Anyway, it was a miserable night because Perrin was up multiple times too.  One of the times I was cleaning Miri up I heard a crashing noise... I thought it was outside or something and anyway, Miri was more important. But it woke Bob up and he found this mess in the basement. *sigh* Apparently there was too much weight on the clothes rack and it collapsed.  Emmy and Cadence were 'being detectives' and investigating like Encyclopedia Brown.  

 

Thankfully Miri wasn't sick for more than a day, and no one else got it. (Although certain children were so worried about getting sick they practically made themselves sick.)

 Perrin has a hoodie. 

They have been learning all kinds about the Pilgrims and this is the Mayflower.  Perrin was too busy sweeping to come along.  

Aaron got a button buck at Firefly woods and brought it by to show us! The girls were neither impressed nor repulsed, so I guess that's good.  😀

 

Perrin is surrounded by the Sugar Plum Fairy, Clara, and a mouse.  He has no idea what is going on, but he is there. for. it. Hehe.

I mean, I write like this all the time... ha.

So I am/was still chipping away at the spring cleaning list. I probably won't get much more done because December is so busy; it'll keep til spring.  I did put the girls to work cleaning kitchen cabinets and washing walls.  "Why do we always have to work on our days off school?"  "Why do we have so many cans of beans?"

We were supposed to take pie to Thanksgiving and Emmy decided she was making it all by herself.  I cut the apples, but most of the rest of it was all her, and it turned out great.

She really likes the pie bird. 😋

We went to W-ton for church- Perrin's first visit, which is kind of sad, really.  Then we changed clothes at the farm and went to Paul and Jean's for the rest of the day. Other than good food, there were crafts and cousins ('Liezel's my best friend!).

Toys!

And good conversation- I had the girls write down some questions to ask Grandma and Pearline... Cecily: so we know them better and it will be sad when they die?   Um.... yes? haha.  They weren't exactly hard hitting questions, "what's your favorite color?" But, "what pranks did your brothers play on you?" brought up some funny stories.  :D 

I weaseled my way into some quartet singing, which was fun even though we didn't sing any Thanksgiving songs.
Uncle Paul got in some grandpa practice.  :P 

And of course there were games.

Good times.

On the day after Thanksgiving we clean and put up Christmas decorations! There's always great rejoicing from them and not a whole lot of patience from me... there was minimal arguing this year though, and Miri was soooo excited. 

Hooray for nice days to decorate the front porch.

What are you making me wear now?  hehe.  Little Illini beanie from Bob's cousin... 😁

I'm excited for Christmas this year.  Although, with 2/7 currently under the weather it might be interesting.... it can't be as bad as last year though.  Lord willing.  😬😜
Blessings.

All the Fall Things

Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.  And blogging gets put on the farthest back burner.  :)  (Don't worry, I procrastinate grading lab reports too...)
Anyway.  We went for a tromp in the woods one afternoon to check out the rye/pasture mix situation.

Large logs call for climbing.

Why am I more nervous than they are?

We walked the dry creek bed- Perrin approved.

Parent teacher conferences were in the middle of October, so I did conferences on Thursday and then we spent Friday eating lunch at a park.

These swings are so fun.

And then we went to the pumpkin patch for carving pumpkins and animals.

Cecily and Gideon both have October birthdays, and Cecily decided she wanted to wait until they were here in Illinois for the weekend to celebrate with G&G.  Logan wanted to hold Perrin; Perrin was not having it.

There was cake.

And presents.  Not pictured is all of the noise and crazy running around.  :P 

Little buddy likes outside.  Unfortunately, it is so. hard. to get outside.  I always think we'll go out, and then the laundry needs switching, and then somebody needs the bathroom, and then he's hungry, and then it's time to make lunch, and then another diaper change and potty break, and then switch the laundry again, feed him again, and before I know it it's time to pick up the older girls, and then we have a snack and do homework, and then, and then, and we never actually get out.

Fall calls for an apple cider tea party with apple cider donut cake.  Grandma Buetel's silver may have found its way to the right little girls...

The cake might have stuck to the pan and been pieced together by Bob, but we don't care.

China teacups for all. 😊

Fifth grade carves/decorates pumpkins.  I was super excited, until I realized it was on a Friday morning, and I needed to be teaching Chemistry.  *sigh*  So Bob got to go to pumpkin carving with Cecily.  I asked for lots of pictures.

Any guess what she wanted to make?

Oh, it's a dragon hatching out of a dragon egg!  Ha. Surprise, surprise. 

It turned out pretty cute. :)

Instead of pumpkin carving I went to co-op and taught... and got to talk to parents about the 1st quarter grades I sent out.  *sigh*  Homeschoolers.  Sometimes, I just.  I don't know.  There are reasons I don't home school.  Also there are reasons I don't want to be an actual teacher (I mean, aside from being an introvert who doesn't want to be around people).  I just want people to not dislike me and any criticism makes me feel like people don't like me, even though I know that's not true or their intention and it reinforces my feelings of incompetence... and I avoid conflict at all costs.  So I find myself smiling and nodding even though the kid didn't hand in the 40 point project that's 'dropping their grade so low, we never assign such high point values for projects like that,' and heaven forbid I should try and make Chemistry less of a slog by assigning an 'arts and crafts project.'  (It wasn't.  I just wanted them to put some effort into making it look nice and not be pencil on lined notebook paper.)  Also, google is a thing.  I got a lot of my stuff from my high school chem teacher, and there are so many similar variations available online, if you can't bother to ask me questions when you don't understand something, ask the all powerful google. Or a classmate. You don't have to live in a vacuum. Anyway.  I love my students and I love teaching chemistry, I just don't love this part.   

After school on Friday I took Cecily to Eli's to meet up with Josh & Kelly and Alethea.  They just moved to town and since we both have 5th grade girls we thought a few familiar faces before she started a new school would be nice.  Kathy and Lynelle were able to join us too, which was good because I am not a conversationalist.  😋  I am however nostalgic, and it brought back many memories from young group days.  Ha. I'm so old.

Then on Saturday Perrin got to come to brunch with my Sunday school friends at Elise's house.  Elise lives way out in the middle of nowhere ("rural Buda") and it's also on the way to good old Apple River (more memories).  Bowen was there too.  :)  Good times with great people.      

Bob walked the woods with Aaron and they found a bee tree!  You can't actually see any bees in this picture, but they're there.  :P  So along with my maple syrup, we can start an apiary.  ha.  Or maybe I can convince my dad to put some hives out. 

'Tis the season for trying to get a good group picture of all the kids together.... 'tis the season for it never going well.

Puzzles on the kitchen floor.

They get pretty excited to dress up for trick or treating.  And they don't like my group costume ideas anymore.  Emmy wanted to be a chef, and she wanted to reverse trick or treat and hand out cookies to the houses we visited.  We had to scale back her expectations a little bit, but we did hand out a few cookies. :P 

Cecily wanted to be a dragon.  Specifically, a water dragon. 

Astrid from 'How to Train Your Dragon.'

Miriel kept pulling things out of the dress-up so she was either a flower or a ballerina.  A lot of people thought she was a strawberry.  Eh, she was happy.  😆

Perrin went as himself.  As in Perrin Aybarra, from the Wheel of Time book series.  He's a blacksmith with his little leather apron, a hammer and an ax to choose between, and his wolf friend Hopper.... #nerdybaby

What a crazy crew. 

Cadence just fits her character.... haha.... messy hair in her face and all.  😋

The girls really wanted to carve pumpkins before Halloween, but it didn't happen until after. 

Cecily can mostly do her own, but everyone else needs a lot of help or refuses to touch pumpkin guts.  So.  It was a great time.

The finished projects are always fun!

Two cats, a dragon with sunglasses (she has a one track mind), and a duck.

Miriel is currently obsessed with Foghorn Leghorn...

Happy place....  paper chromatography.

Little brother likes to help Big sister practice piano.  Or something. 😂

Bob and I got to go to potluck, the girls got to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house with a bunch of other kids.  😂 It sounds like they had quite the party!  Emmy got to go to her best friends birthday party, and of course the rest of the girls were jealous.
Kids randomly knitting just makes me smile and think that I'm perhaps not completely failing.... 😜

Miriel and Perrin had snotty noses and goopy eyes in the morning for, well, it felt like weeks.  We decided to keep them home Sunday because, while I don't think they had pink eye or were any extra contagious, I still didn't want to pass that around the baby room. So we read about the 10 commandments and apparently Moses was a smurf.  hehe.

We just finished reading these books... so much fun!  Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on their Toes are the best.  They are so funny, and always make me want to paint the solar system and Morse code on the walls. 😁 It's interesting how many things I had to explain to the girls- like smoking.  They didn't know what a cigarette was and I was floored.... I mean, we don't get out much, but you really don't see people smoking in public like before they banned it indoors.  Also fashion- we had to look up pictures of 1920's and 30's swimsuits and clothes.  My favorite part of reading them my favorite books is that now when I say things like, 'that's not in the general interest!' they know what I mean and where it came from.  Also, they've definitely referred to Perrin as the 'latest model.'  😂

Election day is a holiday and a day off from school... woot... who wants a day off in the middle of the week??  And who wants to take 5 kids to vote??  I mean, I do like taking them, and showing them how it works, but I don't like having to tell them not to hang on the voting booth and loudly ask who I'm voting for... 😝 Voting is exhausting.

Since they were home I put them to work and we raked and mowed leaves!  Some were more excited to work than others... haha... but we got it all done, a lot faster than expected. The latest model likes to play in the leaves. 

Blessings.