Fall days

One of the first places we drove our new, freshly detailed and carpet shampooed van was to the field for combine rides... (Bob took it to Restmor the next Sunday and they could hear corn stalks dragging underneath...)

Waiting their turn and drawing pictures.

"I'm a farmer! Why do farmers look like this?"

The older three wanted to run to the farm. :)

We didn't have school because of parent teacher conferences, so we picked up lunch and ate at a park.  Certain of the children were scared of the geese that were getting a little bit too close for comfort. 😜

And I made the older girls spring summer fall clean their bedroom.  It was a painful process- the have so. many. precious. things.

We cleaned and swept out the old green van.  Some of these things have made the move from at least three vehicles.... like the Stine Seed gloves. 😏

 

And then I needed to move the green van to get the new van out, and it wouldn't start. huzzah.  It will not go quiet into that good night (rage, rage against the dying of the light) and I am just over it.  I don't think I've ever been so emotionally UN-attached to a vehicle, even though I drove it for 10 years.   

One more wiener roast.  Perrin kept bringing me hedge balls.

I took Perrin and Miri on a walk at Firefly woods.

It was lovely.  When the leaves fall you can see down the bluff to the valley.

We spent an afternoon picking pumpkins.

And looking at animals.  'Oh! Sheeps!'

'Oh! Chicken!'

Also, someone can open the fridge and the drawer with straws and takes full advantage.
 

More chalk art.

'Take a picture me! Cheeeeese'

I celebrated Mole Day with my Chemistry students. :D  We sang Mole Day Carols and the looks on their faces when they realized I was serious.... hehe.  We have snacks too, and Lana brought in these adorable mole cookies.

Some of the girls wanted to carve pumpkins.  Somehow I end up doing most  of the work. 

 

Shooting stars, happy face, tractor, kitty cat, Olaf.

 

Middle School had theme days for spirit week, neither girl was excited to participate but Cecily was J.R.R Tolkien for celebrity day. 😂

Apple cider donut cake calls for a tea party.

Mr. Buster Brown was all about the apple cider.

We always love a reason pull out the teapot and tea cups. :)

I got to go to 5th grade pumpkin carving with Emmy.  She didn't do any carving, just decorating.

Her four trick-or-treaters and tiny candy bucket turned out super cute.

We took three Queens of Narnia trick-or-treating.  Queen Susan, The White Witch, and Queen Lucy were quite excited.

Cecily just finished the Wheel of Time books and wanted to be a Green Ajah Aes Sedai. 

Perrin was supposed to be her warder bodygaurd, but he did not want anything to do with his costume or pictures.

Until we gave him chocolate... "cheeeeeese."

We went to a few friends and two streets before they got too cold. 

Lots of leaf piles lately.

Rachel found this shirt at the local thrift store and thought I might like it. :D  The girls neeeeeded to try it on. 

It's hard to practice piano when somebody is driving monster trucks right next to you.  😋

Cadence had a short dentist appointment on election day.  Cecily and Emmy were hanging out with Lincoln and Gwen so Miri and Perrin and I were very loud in the waiting room.  I also didn't feel like fighting about footwear before we left, obviously... ha. 

We almost didn't bring Mr. Perrin to the HarvestCall family night, but he actually helped fill shoe boxes and was fairly well behaved.  Until the snack, when he dumped over a glass of water and started tearing around like crazy. Miri knotted comforters like an old pro with me, and the other girls had lots of fun.

They've been very industriously moving leaves around, but they never want to help when I'm actually removing leaves... of course.  😋

Blessings.

Wiener roast season and drama

Fall always seems pretty busy.  Weekends are full of wiener roasts and family things, and school is busy, I never have as many free days as I would prefer.  

Teaching at co-op is going pretty well, I think.  This class is quieter and doesn't interact with each other or me as much as prior classes, which makes me nervous that they are bored stiff.  I had them do an 'alien periodic table' activity in class before I assigned a bigger alien periodic table project.  My girls wanted to try it too, and they managed to figure it out quicker than the HS kids.... they were a little bit proud of themselves. 😬😜

The library had a Doll day again and the middle three wanted to go.  They made friendship bracelets.

Got their hair done all fancy.

There were cupcakes!

And saw some friends. :) 

Lake day cookout was chilly this year.  :) Nobody wanted to swim.

Two busy little boys. 

We went to Gridley the next evening for a wiener roast at Steve and Renee's. 
 

Perrin was more interested in the lawnmower than the toys in the shed.  😋

This tree has been hollow for as long as I can remember and it's still alive. 

I got thoroughly trounced at croquet. 

Jack beat me... by a lot.  (He did have a 3 stroke handicap, but still.)

Good times.

Usually Perrin sleeps through the older girls getting ready for school.  And sometimes I come in from dropping them off and he's gotten his juice out of the fridge, his pancake off of the counter, pushed a chair over to climb into his high chair, and is glaring at me: "hands are dirty." 

I came up with a great solution for our tooth brush holder problem!  The old ones were getting rusty on the bottom and we would have needed at least two new ones... but the holes of the ones I liked were too small for little kid brushes, or they were too big and heaven forbid your toothbrush touches your sibling's toothbrush....  Test tube racks solve all of these problems.  😏

It was a chalk on the driveway kind of day.

We've made it to the 'Hot Cross Buns' page.  Woot woot! 

Cecily turned 13.  I'm kind of in denial.  She requested a Gimkit cake... it's a game they use at school that they can customize and design with.  She gave me a sketch of what she wanted it to look like, including a detailed list of Gims to include.  Ha.  I did my best.

She said it looked cute, so I'll take it.

We went to Eli's for her favorite chocolate frappe.

And cake.

And presents. I'm not sure I'm ready for teenagers, but here we are. 

Bubbles!  So fun, and yet so messy.  They mysteriously get very wet, and then dirty, and bring in soapy bubble wands and pans. 

Cadence has been begging to play Clue. 

We lost one player to disinterest, one went to bed with a fever (again. Poor Miri.), and Perrin decided he wanted to play with the little weapon figurines. 

I took the girls to a band competition the next afternoon.  Miri really wasn't quite well but she insisted on coming.  It was hot.  And I made them sit there for two whole hours. haha.  They enjoyed it, especially as the bands got bigger and more exciting.  :P 

We brought Kenna home with us for the evening. 

It was Cadence's turn for a short lived fever.  She was feeling better, but home from school the morning we met Amy and Bowen at the park. 

Perrin and Bowen were not all that interested in playing together, but it was good to see them! 

So fun.

Little buster brown is doing pretty well swinging himself (hallelujah!), though thankfully not trying to jump off swings yet.  

The northern lights were visible here and since we don't have a clear view north, I piled the kids in the van to go see if we could see them out in the country.  We drove around for a while and stopped on country roads and saw..... nothing.  Meanwhile, Marci saw them from our street.  adkfjslkdgjlksd *sigh* 

I took four kids to the homecoming parade.  Miri was acting funny, didn't want to go and said her stomach hurt.  She stayed with Bob, Perrin was a terror and kept trying to run into the street. Oh Candy! Oh, pickup truck!

These two weren't sure if they were too cool for HoCo or not....

Miri was sleeping when we got home... and when we woke her up for supper she had a fever (again) and was still saying her stomach hurt.  She kept pointing down low on her stomach, which was concerning.  I asked if it hurt to pee and she said yes to that too.  Sooo... I took her prompt care. If it was a UTI, they could get us antibiotics, if it was something like appendicitis, the earlier you catch it the better.  Poor girl.  She was not feeling good at all.  She couldn't go to the bathroom so we couldn't rule out a UTI, she tested negative for all the respiratory infections, it hurt to jump up and down, and she was walking hunched over like a little old lady.  And it was almost 8pm when prompt care closes.  So they sent us to the ER.

The kids side of the ED was pretty empty when we got there.  They got her IV fluids so they could get an ultrasound with a full bladder, bloodwork, meds for her fever, and antibiotics to get the jump on whatever infection she was fighting.  And then we got to wait.  One of the Doctors gave her a little pink rubber duck and stickers.  When she finally needed to go to the bathroom she was tired, and sick, and grouchy and absolutely panicked that she was going to pee her pants.  It took sooo long to get her up to ultrasound.  She got some pretty strong pain meds because they were going to be pushing around on her tender stomach.... so she finally calmed down.       

Then we went back downstairs to wait on results. She seemed to perk up a bit then- loopy from the meds, charming the nurses when she snuggled under the warm blankets, and just looking better in general.  She fell asleep watching cartoons, I dozed on the couch until at 3am they finally brought me a pillow and said the ultrasound was inconclusive but her white blood cell count was up.  Probably not appendicitis, but they wanted to keep us until morning to see how she was. 

I didn't sleep well or much (poor baby with croup down the hall), Miri woke up feeling hungry, which was a good sign.   She didn't have a fever in the morning and her stomach didn't hurt as much so they finally let her eat something.  The novelty of the 'sleepover at the hospital' was wearing off and she was feeling so much better that we were both glad when they said we could go home.

We have no idea what was going on, but I'm glad we didn't have it any worse.  Miri thought the whole thing was a great adventure and was so excited about all of her new treasures- ducky, stickers, hospital socks... ha.

So THEN.  To add to our expensive overnight....  I texted Bob that we were on our way home.... as I was driving down the interstate I suddenly couldn't accelerate and there were other lights on the dashboard beside the check engine light I'd been ignoring for two or three days.  You. have. got. to. be. kidding. me.  I got it off the road, tried to turn it off and back on again and it wouldn't even turn over.  First I called Bob practically in tears. I was so tired, we were sitting on the side of the road with cars whizzing past, and I was just done.  Then I called the tow truck- we didn't end up having to wait very long before he showed up and Bob came not long after.  Ugh.

Then I took a nap.  I'm getting too old to be up all hours of the night and then have to deal with stressful breakdowns.  😜

Mr. Perrin likes to play the bells.   

We borrowed a vehicle for Sunday and went to the farm in the evening for Fall birthdays.

My quieter week without much on the calendar got a little bit more complicated with van buying trips and picking up the old van at the mechanic trips.  Mr. Perrin likes cars.

So yeah, we've driven the green van (Emmy has dubbed it 'the emerald cruiser') for 10 years now.  It's over 185K miles, has a very noisy muffler, and now the fuel pump went out on me on the highway.  I think we got our money's worth and can say we drove it until it died.  It mostly runs (we did have to jump start it in the driveway today...) so if anybody wants a wheelbarrow with an engine, we may be able to hook you up.  

We found a slightly lower mileage Honda with 8 seats (hooray for being able to bring along a friend! or carpool!) and the kids think it's the coolest thing.  It's much fancier and there are a lot of buttons and settings that are confusing me, but hopefully it will be reliable for at least a few years.  😏 Also, it's charcoal grey, which I don't hate.  It is going to be harder to remember where I parked since it doesn't stick out quite so much as the noisy green van did. 

Oh, and we also pulled out the fall/winter clothes.  Miri was trying everything on in a 'fashion show' and pairing everything with her hospital socks.  😋

Blessings.