March happenings.

Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell— (Emily Dickinson)

 So my dream is to build a new "old" house, and when one of the local architectural salvage stores had a going out of business sale I went.  I really wanted this amazing two sided cabinet that looks like a fume hood (it's not), but it was $5,000 and massive.  And tall.  😆 I shall have to adjust my dreams.

 

 

I wanted to buy doors, but since I don't know how many or how tall I just looked.  I did come home with two light fixtures!  All strapped in for safe keeping... 

Hung them up in the basement to show them off. :)  They both need rewiring, so I'll have to figure out how to do that sometime. The girls are fighting over who gets the three bulb fixture- it has painted flowers on the shades.  Bob: so are these for the basement of the new house?  Me:? noooo....  haha.  We have different visions I guess.  😝

I bottled maple syrup.  😁

Warm days call for sliding.

 Emmy really wanted to invite her class to see our maple syrup operation. They're going to study the pioneers at the end of the year, and read in the Little House Books where Laura's family makes maple syrup, and Em thought it would be fun for them to see in real life. The day they could come was a little too warm for sap to be running, unfortunately.  Here they come down the lane to the sugar bush!

    

I didn't get many other pictures because I was too busy talking and answering all of their questions.  They had sooo many questions.  😀    Also, Bob told me later I kept talking about boiling to 219 degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.... ooops.😜  We showed them our different spiles, buckets, bags, and how we filter and boil the sap into syrup.  Then I had some samples ready for them to taste... third grade boy: 'This is the most amazing thing I've ever put in my mouth.'  😂
It was a lot of fun, I wish more of the taps were running though.

FFA strawberries got delivered (woot woot) so I made a batch of jam, and some homemade bread to eat it on.  😝  I am not remotely crunchy, and I kind of bristle at all the self styled homesteaders out there- and then I do things like bake bread and put my jars of homemade jam next to my homemade maple syrup and if you didn't know me, you could lump me in with both categories.  So after discussing with my sister, her newly coined term for those of us displaced farm kids who like homegrown/home cooked food and also like high fructose corn syrup and childhood vaccinations is Little Debbie Homesteader.  It's me.  I'm a proud Little Debbie Homesteader.  🙋

 

The two littles and I were at DG and walked passed the Peeps- Miriel: Oh! Squishy Duckies! Can we get squishy duckies?  DG employee (dying laughing): Did she just call them squishy duckies?!?  Yes. Yes, she did.  Perrin enjoyed his, Miri decided she didn't really like them after all. 😂

 

Tell me you're annoying your big sister without telling me you're annoying your big sister....

Bob's Sunday school class was having a hard time learning their song in 3-part harmony without a piano, so they had a practice at the fellowship hall on a Wednesday evening.  It almost made me miss ACYF days.  Almost.  haha.  Five years was probably enough... (eighth grade through highschool when you go to a small church with not many girls your age.)  It did make me miss singing with a group.  Our kids had fun playing with the toys, especially the paw patroller.

And then we got home and Emmy started complaining that her eye hurt. *sigh*  It was red and goopy by morning, and since I hadn't taken her for a well-child check in a few years, and she also hasn't had an illness visit, they were pretty sure she needed to be seen in person first to get a prescription.  huzzah.  So we went in, exposed ourselves to all the potential bugs in the waiting room, and they looked at her, said yup that's pink eye, and off we went.   😖  This is the third round in as many weeks, we could have done this over the phone.  Emmy thought it was the best day ever though, no school for her and she got to pick out a snack while we picked up her prescription. 

My big little helper boy. 

They built and fought over a very big Titanic made out of duplos. 

Jake and Rachel were in town for the weekend and we went to the farm for Katrina's birthday party.  The kids were wild... they were sliding headfirst down the stairs... and then Logan and Miri were 'vrooming' the barbie cars down the stairs.  'Setty, Ret, Go!'

I couldn't resist the Dr. Pepper squishy duckies... to quote my brother, "What a time to be alive!"

Another 1st grade leprechaun trap is done!  yay!  I think this is my least favorite project at the grade school.  It's just. dumb.  haha.  It's supposed to be a 'family' project, but I think Emmy actually helped Cadence more than anyone else.   

Bob and I got to go to potluck at Jon and Nichole's.  They made pizzas in their pizza oven- it was so good.  And the company and conversation was great as always.  :)

Ok, so, after I bought lights at Whiskey City Salvage, I was looking online various places for other antique light fixtures, and how to rewire, etc.  Scrolling through marketplace and up popped a listing for 'vintage fixtures- we're remodeling make an offer.'  Three chandelier fixtures and four beam fixtures.  And the house they were hanging in looked amazing.  And I waffled between being so mad they were taking the ORIGINAL brass light fixtures out of this gorgeous 1910's four square, and salivating over them.  And then I politely asked what they wanted for all of them.  And even with shipping it was a great price.  So she boxed up two of them and sent me tracking info and I anxiously awaited their arrival.  *sigh*  You can't pack glass and heavy brass in a box with just one layer of bubble wrap and expect the postal service to deliver it undamaged from Iowa.   Two glass shades out of 5 survived, but the big milk glass bowl fixture shade did not. So disappointing, but I can find replacements, and I'm hoping the post office is going to reimburse some because the boxes arrived with obvious damage.

We got a little bit of a sugar snow/slush.  😊  The first two weeks of sap season we got pretty consistent flow, but then it got too warm and we didn't get much after that.  

On Sunday afternoons when we don't have plans, I've been working on another miniature in a clock. It's slowly starting to look more Green Dragon/ Eagle and Child pub like. :) 

Cecily was a little bit nervous about getting braces.

How is she this old already?  mur.  Just the top teeth for now.  Her mouth was sore for about a day and a half and we heard about it for a day and a half. 

Emmy has been diligently working on and practicing her biography day speech. 

Miriel has been trying to make work gloves as cool as carhart caps on the gram.  :P 

She's practically lived in this tutu since we got it, and she was so excited to wear it to Biography day.  Presenting Maria Tallchief, America's first Prima Ballerina.  😁

Bob's class did another quick practice at our house before church on Wednesday. 

Even though the shades broke, the fixtures themselves are still really cool! This is the side you can't see when it's hanging up, so it's hard to tell what you're looking at. 😋 (I realize I'm probably the only person that likes them, but whatever, I'm getting closer to 40 every year, and I care less and less about what other people think is stylish. hehe.)  I started cleaning them in preparation for rewiring- one quick pass with Brasso changed the color and I was worried I was ruining it!  (The right silvery piece is cleaned, the more golden piece is patina and possible nicotine build up.)  But apparently, this is what brass looks like when it's freshly cleaned and polished.  I did take off 100 years of patina, buuuuttt... patina just looks like dirt to me, and it can re-patina itself for the next 100.  😁Also, I like silver toned metals better than gold toned metals.  Anyway, it made me super excited, though cleaning each of those chain links is going to be tedious. 

Mr. Perrin has a pair of overalls and he looks like a little farmer boy.  Or like he'd answer to 'Bubba'.  hehe.

Bob set up the compost tumbler he got for Christmas.... so far the novelty of turning it hasn't worn off for the girls. 

Perrin was very carefully putting connect-4 pieces into the game.  :D  He's getting so big and smart.

Saturday I helped Matt get ready to move for a few hours, and then we had some Beutel kids for the afternoon and evening.  They were all playing an educational game they do at school.  There are worse things I suppose.  😜

Blessings.

A delightful Valentine's Day, a long descent into disgustingness, and then a Birthday do-over

How's that for alliteration?  😆
Bob wanted to go out for lunch on Valentine's day, and we weren't going to argue.  We brought down the average age at Pizza Ranch.  By a lot. 

Perrin was torn between watching people and eating all the food. 

After school the girls kids and I delivered Valentines.  I love that they love blessing other people instead of expecting Valentines for themselves... I don't love how they fight over who gets to carry what.  :P  Our neighbor lady insisted that they each needed to take home a bell from her collection.  Ha.  Imagine 4 porcelain/metal bells tinkling merrily insanely loudly in the van and all evening.  

We ate red things for supper: lasagna, pink applesauce, jello, heart bread sticks that didn't look like hearts.... It was a good day.

One princess, one little boy making engine noises.

Emmy and I tried making 'tree stump fudge rings' for Perrin's birthday party.  They tasted good, I'm not sure that they looked much like tree stumps. 

Late Tuesday/early Wednesday Perrin threw up half the night.  Poor boy.  And poor me... so much laundry (blueberries! blueberries are the worst!) and a very sad and tired little buddy. 
Wednesday afternoon Cecily came home complaining that her eye felt weird and it was of course red and mattery. *sigh*  So she had to stay home from school on Thursday until she'd had pink-eye drops for 24hrs.  woot woot.  I had noticed that our drains were a little slow and that there was water in the floor drains downstairs when there usually isn't... so we were eating lunch and I started smelling something.  Pardon my french, but I said "Oh Crap!" and ran downstairs- the drains were backing up.  And it stank and there was toilet paper.  gah.  We called the company that cleaned the roots out of the sewer line last time and they were able to come that afternoon, thankfully.  But it took the rest of the afternoon to dry out and sanitize around the basement drains. 
Cecily working on schoolwork... or checking her 'email.'  Her later: "Mom, I've never heard you use grown-up words before!"  Um....oops ha.  Let me tell you a story about the only time I've ever heard Grandpa use grown-up words.... it involved a clogged sewer line too.  😜 (Grown-up words being words we don't want them to use, but also don't want them calling out adults who choose to use them.) 

 

Friday lab day.  :)  We did a titration and they were duly impressed.  

 

The girls had a half day at school and some of Cecily's friends and their families went ice skating!  Miri was just as enthusiastic as last time. 

We brought Perrin with us.  Kelly kept an eye on him while I skated for part of the time.

Cecily and some of her friends. :) 
 

Then I asked if I could take the stroller out on the ice and they said I could so Perrin got to skate too!  I think he liked it.  He likes being a part of the action. 

He's so sober. 

Cadence and Jayla are a pair.  :D  So much energy. 

Watching the zamboni before we left. 

 

So then Friday evening marked the start of 24hrs of misery. First Perrin's diaper leaked all over the highchair and they both (the highchair and Perrin) ended up in the shower.  Then Emmy threw up.  And kept throwing up at intervals.  And then Miriel woke up and threw up all over her bed. Bob and I were going from one kid to another, as soon as soon as one was cleaned up the other one would start again.  And then Perrin fell asleep for an hour or so, woke up, decided that that was a nice nap and refused to go back to sleep again.  So he was wide awake and getting in the way of us trying to take care of puking kids until 2am.  And then Cecily got sick at 2:30am.  We got a little bit of a break after 4am.... in the morning Cadence (and Perrin) were the last kids standing.   

We spent most of Saturday doing laundry and sitting around.  Bob and I both were sick briefly, and everyone took a two hour nap in the afternoon.  It was so quiet... 😜
It was poor Perrin's birthday... no one felt like celebrating or eating or anything.  Happy First Birthday Buddy Boy!

Perrin followed me on one of my trips downstairs to switch laundry loads.  In my exhaustion and sickness I had forgotten to shut the basement door behind me and he rolled all. the. way. down. the steps.  Poor boy was fine except for a bloody nose, and I felt horrible.  😭
We all sat down to eat (or at least look at canned chicken noodle soup) supper and Emmy and Cadence threw up almost simultaneously.  Make. It. Stop.   😭
We did give Perrin one birthday gift, a little Noah's Ark.  :)  Notice the massive pile of clean bedding behind Cadence.... I hate sickness.

Thankfully, we all slept well that night and everyone woke up hungry Sunday morning.  We were all pretty wiped out though, so we watched church and rested.  It was a lovely sunny day, and we needed some fresh air so we tapped the maple trees in the afternoon. 

So sunny!

Miri thinks she needs to ride under the stroller.

Everyone looks a little bit peaked, but it was good to get outside.

I felt well enough to make some cupcakes so Perrin got to destroy one.  We postponed the birthday party we were planning, but he at least he got cake a day late.

 

 

And we made some paper snowflakes since there's no snow outside.

 

Miri just wanted to cut paper into little pieces.

Cold nights and warm days means that the sap is running!  So we boil on the porch and play outside.

Perrin is very spoiled- everybody wants to push him in the stroller.

Emmy started a really cool drawing of a fairy.

 

There was no school on Presidents Day and the girls wanted to do the Lego afternoon at the library. 

We had a quiet week, and then we got a bunch of rain. 

Cadence came home from school with pink eye, and then Friday night Bob went downstairs just to check the drains.... they were backing up again.  gah!  Either they didn't get enough of the roots out when the line was cleaned the week before, or something broke loose and re-clogged it.  It was mostly groundwater (thankfully) but still slightly stinky.  I had a few choice words (again) for whomever decided it would be a good idea to tie footing tiles into the main sewer line.  Stupid 1960's and their stupid building practices.  Water was just slowly coming out of the drain and we wanted to keep it off of the carpet. So Bob and I bailed water into buckets and he carried it out to the sewer access/check valve until 1am when it seemed to reach an equilibrium and Bob plugged the drains with towels. He was up most of the rest of the night checking on them. 

  I was googling 24 hr emergency plumbing and sewer service companies... guess what? None of them are truly 24 hours.  I got answering machine after answering machine between midnight and 1am and no one even called back in the morning.  grr.  Well, one company I tried Saturday morning texted me back that they couldn't come until Monday and double checked with me Monday morning, so I'd at least recommend their customer service.  Bob was going to go buy a snake at Menards Saturday morning and just try and do it ourselves so we could flush toilets and shower, you know, minor things.  I called the company that cleared it last week and they informed me that 'he doesn't work Saturdays... he's probably already drunk.'  Um.... thanks??  I have sewer water in my basement- at this point I'm willing to pay whatever outrageous price you ask, why is there nobody who works weekends!!??
Enter Tim.  Tim doesn't even do sewer lines... but Tim answers his phone and Tim is willing to try to help us, so he came over Saturday morning and got the line clear again.  *sigh* Be like Tim.

We had been planning to take the kids to the Home Show that afternoon.  Instead I got to re-sanitize the basement and Bob took a nap.  ugh. So disappointing. 
I also baked for Perrin's belated Birthday party. 

The girls decided that Saturday night at bedtime was the perfect time to pull all the books off the shelves and reorganize them. gah. I was not very happy. 😫

We brought Kenna home from church and the girls mostly played legos all afternoon.  I got to set up to my hearts content. It was loosely woodland themed. 

Bob deemed the paper pinwheels and snowflake the girls and I made for decorations "oppressive."  Ha.  Mostly because they hung down so low they blocked some light.  :D 

Cake, cupcakes, stump smash cake, fudge 'tree stumps', trail mix

Perrin was not so sure about all of the people in his house. 

And playing with his presents.  :) 

Little buddy likes fire.  😬

And frosting.

He was using the little beaver on his cake as a spoon.

Such fun.

Logan really wanted to hold Perrin and Perrin didn't really want to be held. 😂

The girls played Mario cart until Kenna had to leave.

Doing his new puzzles the next morning.

Oh, and Emmy got her costume to be Maria Tallchief for biography day. She's so excited and puts it on multiple times a day.

Mister Perrin knows where the food is.

Emmy and Cadence borrowed my phone to take pictures of the sunset... and themselves.

Hehe. So cute.

Oh, and one of Perrin.  Blurry, but adorable.

He seems to delight in breaking their lego sets.  Does not bode well for the future.  😜

This week we've been boiling sap and trying to stay on top of all the things. 

Blessings.