Random act of poetry for the day-*ahem*
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost
After being really warm and dry, it's finally feeling cooler. Our heat is on- we have small children.
Another day, another waiting room... this time it was eye appointments for the older three. Still only one in glasses.
Kelly and girls went apple picking and offered to drop a few off. Ha. So many apples. :P It was much appreciated though!
We had just read the American Girl Molly books, and in one of them Molly and her friends knit squares to make a blanket.... so I thought it would be a great idea to teach them how to knit! Since, I am so great at knitting. (Not.) (Also, I have finished exactly 2 knitting projects that I liked.) We picked a terrible time of day to start, but they were interested so we went for it. There were some tears. And some "I don't want to learn to knit. I will not learn to knit." But then we learned a macabre rhyme and the older two sort of figured it out. :) "Stab it, strangle it, scoop out the guts, throw it off the cliff..."
Miri stabbed at a ball of yarn with some crochet hooks and had a great time.
We went to the all church chili supper on a warm Sunday evening. A good time was had by all of us, though poor Perrin's toy options were kind of girly.
Emmy made apple pie because we had apples. Good enough reason for me.
Confession: I don't love garage sales. I don't love 'the hunt.' I like the search and sort features on my laptop. But Perrin needed clothes, so I was going to go to a few. Bob had the day off, so he came along with us. We were halfway through our list when the school called that Cecily had a migraine and wanted to come home. *sigh* So we turned around and picked her up. She didn't throw up in school, but she didn't quite make it to the grass outside either... woot. We maybe left her to rest at home in the quite and continued on our way.
So besides clothes and a few kids books, this was Bob's great find of the day. Ha. At least I like old things? And our battery powered scale is forever fritzing out?
Perrin wanted to help make applesauce. Pink applesauce! The apples were more eating apples than saucing or baking, but an apple is an apple is an apple and they made a nice chunky, sweet, sauce.
The homecoming parade was a bit damp this year.
They didn't seem to mind much.
Tip of the hat to you too, sir!
She got up with him one Saturday morning and I found them like this. So sweet.
They fight over who gets to turn the crank.
So. I tried to make caramel for caramel apples. I was following the recipe and it said "Resist the urge to stir!" while it came up to temp. So I didn't stir. Then it boiled over and I had burning caramel all over the stove. And the caramel in the pan smelled burnt. Woe is me. At least this was easier to clean than a coil?
So needless to say, I did not have any caramel apples to take to Sauder's weiner roast that evening. The girls had fun playing hide and seek and seeing their newly hatched chicks and petting the dog. :)
Miriel and Cadence were outside running around after supper in the dark and Miriel came in screaming with a massive goose egg. She said she fell on the road.... I really hope she means the driveway, but still.
Long ago in middle school/ high school Matt and I were good friends with Stephen and his sister Elizabeth. They were in and out a few times because their parents were missionaries in Paupau New Guinea. Stephen was back in the area for a week and so we met up with him and his wife and boys at Monicals. We were kind of loud.
Matt and Stephen....
Haven't changed a bit! hehe.
I really enjoyed seeing him again after almost 20 years... ha... and meeting his wife and family. We did a little bit of catching up, a little bit of reminiscing. It was a fun evening. It's also always a blessing to experience the kinship of fellow believers across the years and denominational lines. The girls were mad that we had to go home to bed, and not go to Jack and Logan's house after supper, but it was a school night.
Mr. Perrin can sit by himself now. 😄
We did applesauce in small batches for days, partly for time, partly because I ran out of jar lids. I can everything that isn't eaten hot so that Bob can eat it with us. And I was down to just pint jars so I needed a lot of lids. *sigh* I don't think far enough ahead to be a true homesteader/prepper. haha.
Bob took us to family day at work- Perrin was happy, I promise. 😋
The kids all got badges and lanyards just like Bob's and they think they are the coolest things ever.
There were things to see, and activities, and free lunch, and bounce houses, and not enough time to do them all. I was pretty excited to see the scanning electron microscope (#chemnerd) and I thought the fly wing they had magnified was really cool, the kids were less enthused and were expecting a microscope with lenses. ha. We also saw Bob's desk, that he's rarely at, and they really wanted to visit the cafeteria for some reason. 😏 A good time was had by all, and there was of course some lamentation when it was time to go home.
Fifth grade band has begun!
Her great-grandpa played the cornet (trumpet),
Her grandpa played the trumpet,
Both of her parents played the trumpet,
...she chose the flute. #wheredidwegowrong #darkside
Absolutely enthralled with the apple peeler/corer/slicer. haha. They peeled and sliced so many we had to make another pie. :P
The swelling started to go down, and the bruising was a little better on her forehead.... only it moved down under her eyes, poor girl.
Cecily wanted a dragon cake for her birthday that looked like the hidden world from How to Train Your Dragon. ("Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and crystals and a dragon figurine.") So I was going to buy rock candy crystals until I saw the price. I figured we could at least try to make some, it's just a simple recrystallization! Since I have so much counter space to spare.
It worked pretty well! We had rock candy crystals, chocolate rocks, and buttercream flora...
She was so excited for her birthday that she couldn't fall asleep the night before and didn't feel very good that morning. She came home from school after about an hour, slept for two hours and felt fine again. *sigh*
Presents! Many many art projects from Cadence. :P
So many candles! How is she 11 already!?
Emmy has decided that horses are her favorite animals, and Aunt Amy has miniature horses we've never visited. So Bob finally got it coordinated to go over there one evening.
First they brushed them.
Perrin liked the horsey.
So excited to ride.
Even Miriel. :) Then it got too dark for the phone camera to take decent pictures... Cadence rode too, and they walked the horses around and around and around the pen.
We got a little bit of rain and there's green growing in the clearing!
The girls had an early out one Friday and Cecily has been begging to have friends over for a play date for ages. So four of her friends were able to walk home with her after school for a few hours. They ate a ton of mac and cheese for lunch and played inside and outside and put up with younger siblings really well!
He rolls and slides himself into the most uncomfortable of situations...
Oh you know, I'm just now getting to my 'spring' cleaning list. I think I should just call it a 'list of things I want to deep clean at least once per year.' Cadence insisted on washing the front windows, no one wanted to help with the rest. 😝 (They helped Bob clean up the garden while I did windows so I guess they did their share.)
Perrin was very popular at the Koch wiener roast last Sunday.
Hanna and Eva invited Cecily and Emmy to go home with them in the interim after church.
And we shipped Cadence off with Jayla. The house was very quiet with the older three gone.
There was no school for Columbus day so we went looking for the combine. First we stopped for lunch in Mackinaw and found Grandma at the park and said hello to her coworkers.
Perrin loved the buddy swing.
We hung out at the farm for a bit while they were opening up the next field.
Had to go next door to visit Jody's horses.
Then we went to the field... snacks...
Patiently waiting their turn...
Troy's just outstanding in his field. haha.
Perrin enjoyed his first combine ride.
I don't always need a bath in the middle of the day, but when I do, I really need a bath in the middle of the day. Chubs. 😊
I was supposed to teach on Friday, but then we had an awful night. Perrin was up late, slept fitfully and not much, and then one of the older girls wet the bed for the first time in years. So at 5:30 am I'd gotten less than 4 hours of sleep and decided I didn't feel safe driving and didn't think I could possibly be coherent to teach so I cancelled class. Mur. I was pretty sad about it- I was going to wear my Ionic Bond shirt and introduce Mole Day.
I had planned to run some errands on the way home from Co-op, so after a long nap (thankfully Miri and Perrin ended up sleeping pretty late) we did those and stopped at Faire coffee for a treat. Carli and Lexi were working, so that was fun!
Speaking of deep cleaning, I don't bother scrubbing my kitchen sink in the fall until after all of the produce is done- it gets so discolored from tomatoes and fruit juice. So here's a lovely after/before.... The power of comet and elbow grease.
Blessings.
