I guess it's Fall?

 It hasn't really felt like fall yet, other than the days getting shorter... I have a long list of chores for "when it finally cools off."  Like, self clean the oven. :P  

The girls had a half day so we met Grandma at her office and checked out the waiting room toys.

Then we ate lunch at the park.  Miriel fell off the picnic table bench and was not in a good mood so we didn't stay long. 

Cecily wants a dollhouse for her birthday so I've been working on putting together this kit... There's a lot of prep work, and I don't like prep work. I want to get to the fun part, but if I don't do the prep it won't look good when I do.  Sigh. 

We went to the church chili supper this year, it was a very warm, but good, night. 

Haha awww.

So. Many. Tiny. Pieces. And they all need 2-3 coats of paint.  Cecily picked the colors- it came with a coloring page of the dollhouse so you can figure out what colors you want to paint where, so that was fun.

Emmy started off sick week by missing school Monday-Tuesday.  She complained of a headache so I never actually took her temp- and she threw up Monday evening.  Woot.  I'm a bit of a slacker when it comes to temperatures.  They are always different depending on what thermometer you use and where you use it and unless it's super, super high it doesn't really tell you any thing, you already know they are sick.  Plus, they say that you can tell within a few tenths of a degree just feeling their forehead with your hand.  And I think the girls general whinyness/irritability level is a better indicator of degree of illness than what the thermometer says.  So she just laid around and watched cartoons for two days, and then by Thursday Cecily was feverish and she was home from school on Friday.  Miriel has had a runny nose for weeks and weeks now and Cadence too.... woot.  Bob's allergies are bad since it's been so dry and dusty and I'm perpetually congested (yay pregnancy) so we were a fun bunch.  

We were invited to "Betty's house" on Sunday evening.  The girls were super excited.  Honestly I was too, we don't get out much and Betty's a great cook. :P  So good food and good company and a good time was had by all.  

Haha.  "Uncle Matt in an Advertisement" now joins the other classic and beloved art piece on our fridge; "Uncle Jakey Stuck in Mud."   

She really is the best little two year old- plays really well alone (even if it is her sister's stuff), is super sweet most of the time ("sweet dweams, mama").  Other than her aversion to wearing clothing on her bottom half and the occasional "no, my do it" she's a lot of fun to have around.

Books on the kitchen floor make such better beds than doll cradles, obviously.

Waiting for the homecoming parade...

Fourth grade has been doing a marching band unit in music (which I love), and they got the opportunity to march behind the HS band in the homecoming parade.  She was sooooo excited.  It made me miss marching band days and wish that we had a competitive band in our district because band competitions were the best. 

We went from the parade to the farm because Jake and Rachel were in town, and we needed combine rides, and to celebrate Cecily's birthday.  

Back a lane from where the farm sits now used to be an older farmhouse where my Grandpa lived until he was 13 when they built the current farmhouse.  They tore the old house down and used parts of it in the "new" house; like the attic staircase has cutouts for spindles but it's always been walled in. When I was a kid we used to come back here in the spring and we'd find pieces of broken dishes and crocks in the field and it was our own mini archeological site.  I found one arrowhead and that was the coolest thing ever.  Anyway, the combine was back there. 

Miri got a ride.

She rode in the semi a little bit and the tractor with Uncle Fred.

The older three piled in the combine with Grandpa.... it was a little too big and scary for Miri, plus there wasn't any more room.  :P 

I rode up to the elevator with Troy in the semi.  Haha.  He asked if it was weird to be riding in a semi with my little cousin driving..... maaaayyybeee.  It had been ages and ages since I'd been to the elevator, like riding in the old dump trucks with Grandpa ages ago.  It is a much quicker process now- they unloaded the semi in a fraction of the time it used to take to empty the dump trucks.  Still holding up manila folders to the ladies in the office though...

After supper there were presents. :)

Saturday was a quiet day at home.  I worked on Cecily's Siberian Tiger cake.  ha.  If you know what you're looking at it looks sort of tiger-ish.   Ish.  I won't quit my day job. 

She was pleased, though.  AND Grace and Eden spent the night so they were there on her birthday morning and it was the best thing ever.

Sunday mornings are not the best birthday mornings, but after church there were candles (10 of them already!!  Don't mind me while I freak out about that!)....

... and presents! 

Checking out the progress on her dollhouse.  No, we don't in fact have room for it, but you know.  Happy 10th Cecily!

This week was watch week at tumbling- we get to see them show us what they've learned during the last few minutes of class.  It's amusing.  Emmy is focused and enthusiastic.

Cadence is a squirrel and a ball of energy.

Cecily is more self conscious, but she's close to getting her back handspring.  

I'm just glad they're improving so they are less likely to hurt themselves trying new things at home or on other people's trampolines. 

Cecily's in an extra-curricular music group at school and they performed at the Lion's club last night, and Susan's home so she stopped by today.... we aren't super busy, and yet, it seems like there's been a lot going on the last few weeks.  

Poor 'Grandpa Bear' spent today getting dressed up in all sorts of doll clothes....  He's a memory bear I made for Bob from one of Grandpa B's shirts but Miriel has pretty well claimed him as her own.  :P 

 Blessings. 

Adventures in Iowa

 Jake and Rachel invited us all out to visit over Labor Day weekend-  Bob thought he needed to teach Sunday School or something on Sunday so it was a short Saturday trip for us.  So excited to see the Mississippi... haha.

Our first stop was Starr's Cave for a picnic and exploring.  I think they had found a frog.

We checked out the exhibits inside- Miri was brave enough to crawl into the beaver den. 

It was pretty cool.

We walked some of the trails and peeked in the big cave.

The braver, heartier among us did some scrambling.

They were up higher than it looks.

Me: wear something comfortable and appropriate for hiking.  Them:

Another ledge to explore.

And a creek to get very wet and muddy in.

Matt found a dead crawdad.

They wanted to bring home all of the rocks.

So then we loaded up our wet girls (we'll change at Jake and Rachel's!) and didn't bother to hit the bathrooms before we left (it isn't very far!!).  And then the road we wanted to take was closed... and gps led us down a different road.  That turned into gravel.  That had a sign that said "No Maintainance Road."  That turned into mud.  And the van slowly started slipping. And then we stopped.  We had no traction on the slippery, sticky mud and our tires were just spinning.   

Hooray for adventures!  Ha. Or something.  We weren't waiting 10 minutes before there were tears in the back- "are we ever going to get unstuck??!" 

They were all still in wet clothes so I had them change in the van- "what if someone sees us??" Um... no one will see you.  haha.  (We really weren't that far from civilization, there was a house 1/4 mile back the road, and a golf course 1/2 mile back.)  Such a bucolic scene.... just at the top of that hill is gravel that we can't get to....  Bob tried to push the van back while I steered and we just kept slipping farther off the road so we gave up and waited for Jake to arrive. 

Cadence had to take a field trip to the woods to use the bathroom.  haha.

Thankfully, I had left a "What's in the Bible" DVD  in the van and that kept the girls distracted so they weren't freaking out the whole time.  Randomly, What's in the Bible is great.  It's a kids DVD series all about the Bible and it has puppets and animation and humor and silly songs- I learn something every time we watch one.   It focuses less on individual stories and more about what each book is about and how the Bible fits together as a whole.  So, you know, when your kid is impressing their SS teachers with things like knowing what the Pentateuch is and throwing around phrases like "the cycle of apostasy" you too can be embarrassed to admit they learned it from a movie.  Ha.  Anyway.  I'd highly recommend the series.  :D

So Jake and Matt showed up in a borrowed 4WD pickup truck and decided that it would not be able to handle the mud either.  We called a towing company.... they called back a little bit later, "our trucks can't handle that particular road."  Um... ok.  Second towing company was the same story.  So our last option was to try and find a tractor.  Jake knows people and we were in the middle of AC country so he found somebody to rescue us, all we had to do is wait.

But by then Emmy and I needed a bathroom and didn't want to go in the woods, so Jake piggy-backed her and I slipped and slid to the pickup truck and we drove to the nearest gas station.  When we got back, the guys had carried the other girls and car seats over the mud, back to the gravel, so I could take them all in the truck to play with Liezel and eat supper.   

The first tractor didn't start, so they had to get a second tractor.  (It just keeps getting better!)  It showed up not long after the girls and I left, and of course the guys took no pictures of the extraction. I'm told that it went pretty fast and that Bob was glad that the chain was short because the van almost slid off the other side of the road.... into a deep ravine.  Me: did you at least have your seat belt on??? Bob: weeeellll, I put it on after that.  Um.  😳

But all's well that ends well, and the van made it safely to Mepo and we all had supper and watched Liezel open birthday presents. :)

We really didn't get to spend much time at their house though, so back in the van to Illinois we went.  We let them watch Robin Hood.  It's a classic and a favorite. :D

After all that excitement we had a quiet Sunday and I finished this mini kit I've been working on for a year or two now.  :P  It's a cute little library/bookstore!  Just in time to start putting together the dollhouse that Cecily wants for her birthday...

Monday was pretty lazy- we smoked some chicken.

And had Bob's parents for supper.  We've had a good raspberry crop this year and the Farm Journal Pie Cookbook came through again with a really good berry cobbler recipe. 

The neighbors knocked on the door to ask Bob move his car- they were going to cut down a big dead branch.  So of course Bob was neighborly and jumped in to help.  (I think he just likes cutting trees down... ha.)

Miri likes to match Cadence and do whatever she's doing.

My cousin Carli got married last Sunday.  The girls were excited, but Emmy keeps cracking me up with her comments:  "She just got baptized, why does she want to get married already?"  Nathan had a pretty big audience during the reception.

They thought they were pretty cool getting their own Mango Lemonades from Faire Coffee. 

Gideon is cool and gets real "caffeine."  :D

This is the face of a little girl who has just realized that throwing her favorite "sprinkle" sandal in the toilet was a bad idea...

And speaking of toilets, it was raining in the basement. Again.  Sigh.  So, I pulled the toilet off and sure enough, the seal was pretty much non existent.  woot. 

Cadence and Miri were my very willing gophers and were thoroughly grossed out by the remnants of the wax seal I was scraping up- 'is that poop???'  Maybe.  Maybe not.  That's what gloves are for. haha.  There are many, many perks to growing up on a farm, not the least of which is to not be grossed out by excrement, and trust me, I've seen far, far worse plumbing catastrophes.   Which is why I know how to change a toilet seal.  I am pretty proud of myself for doing it all by myself this time.  Bob helped me get it lined up over the bolts again because that is easier with two sets of hands and eyes, but that was the extent of his involvement.  He wasn't sad about it either. :P   No more raining downstairs so far; hopefully that was the problem.    

mmmmm... Pinky's. 

Anyway, that's probably enough excitement and adventure and repairs to last us for a while.  

The van's been through the car wash twice and there's still some lingering mud.  Moral of that story: minivans are not built for mudding.  

Blessings.