School days, school days

I feel like I blinked and summer is over.  It doesn't help that school started a few days earlier than typical this year.  

Cadence got invited to the Tea Room for a friend's birthday.  She was pretty excited about the dessert towers.  😆

The girls had fun that evening at KIDS night at the fellowship hall.  Perrin didn't know what to do with himself.... ha.

We met Mom and Michelle at "Summer's Pool" (Summer wasn't there...) for one last swim before all the kids went back to school.  Perrin was really grouchy when we got there, but after a snack he cheered up and swam. 

Grandma brought Alaska souvenirs for all the grandkids.  😋

And then we had to get up early and send four girls off to school.  How are they this old?  How do we have two in middle school already?  And Miri-goose is in half day Kindergarten.  

Perrin didn't mind the quiet morning, and he was pretty excited to get a pancake for breakfast. 

He picked me a flower.  😍

Bob's cousin had lots of apples this year.

We filled buckets and baskets with drops.

Mom and Dad were finally home from all of their wanderings so they came over for pizza.  The after dinner show was a bonus... ha. 

Had to swing out to Firefly woods to see Trent hard at work on the new driveway. 

Miri made it about three days before she got sick. *sigh* Kindergarten germs are the worst.

I've usually lost interest in the garden by August and it was a weedy mess when we dug the potatoes. 

Perrin has not been sleeping well or consistently.  When he's up too early in the morning he'll take a nap at odd times and in the strangest places. 

Apples all sliced and ready to can.  They cook down a LOT before they go in the jars so you never fill quite as many jars as you think you're going to .

Up too early and demanding juice while the girls get ready for school.

And then fell asleep on the back of the couch...?

Such a helper, or something.  All of the big apples were 'mommy' and 'daddy' and the little apples were 'baby.' And then he started throwing them into the water because they splashed.

Bob started another batch of oyster mushrooms.

He thinks he can ride on the road.  😳

Sometimes I find lots of random pictures on my phone...

Miriel is just a goose.  And I forget that she knows things, like how to use the sewing machine.  And she's super creative.

I didn't know we had these fabric colors, but she sewed a bandaid.  It looks real enough that when she leaves it around the house (which is always) I think it's real and get annoyed at the kids for leaving old bandaids around.  😂

Her backpack needed to be buckled into its own seat. 

These two.... either sweetly reading books to each other, or one of them (*cough* Miriel) is luring the other (*cough* Perrin) into big sisters' room and shutting the door on him so she can play without him bugging her.... "Momma... door shut... mama... I come out"

No, it mah bowl. And he will eat all of them.

Bob went to a coworker's retirement dinner and we went to Pinky's.  :)

The floor was lava and they had on their lava boots and lava gloves. 

We worked on projects and ran errands over Labor Day weekend. I took the girls to Barnes and Noble to spend gift cards, and Sam's; the boys went to Menards.

Bob's Dad fabricated a part for me so I could put together this light fixture finally.  It's got an Art Nouveau vibe, which I love.

We all enjoy the cooler days. 

Bob spent part of Labor Day mowing the logging paths at Firefly Woods, so we went for a short walk.

The van door has been very finicky lately.  The automatic door would close part way and then open up again multiple times until we wrestled it closed.  Not a huge deal until you're trying to go through the school drop off line.  Google and YouTube suggested replacing one of the wiring harnesses so I ordered a part.  It was a pretty simple swap and I had several eager helpers.  Unfortunately, it didn't seem to fix the problem.  Dad pulled out a leaf the other day and jiggled a wire and it worked better a few times, but it's back to being annoying again.   mur.

Emmy was invited to a birthday party and Perrin was 'helping' wrap birthday gifts.

I agreed to teach Chemistry again this year.  Maybe this class will be the class that appreciates the wonderfulness of Chemistry puns and science jokes....

Mr. Perrin took my water, dumped them out and made 'square!'

The older three participated in the Library's Mario Kart tournament again.  😋

There were not as many kids signed up this year so they mostly played against each other.

Aaaaand Cecily won again.  haha.  She was playing against a classmate in the final round and kept giving him pointers on how to do better.  😜  She doesn't even play MarioKart that often... must be all that practice long ago with my cousins.

One of these kids got up too early (again) and one of these kids is sick (again). Poor Miri, she's missed so much school already and it's barely been a full month. It also seems far too early in the year to be home every other Sunday with sick kids.

Jump rope in the driveway... little mr. just happily hops about. 

He got mad that his sisters were ruffling his hair and demanded a "nah-kin" to wipe off his head. 

Little farmer boy wanted 'muh buh-ket' and picked a few green tomatoes.  😊

Otherwise, it's been fairly uneventful over here.  Lots of everydayness and canning and remembering how to pack school lunches.  We try and keep the social events to a minimum during the first few weeks of school, which I love anyway.  :P  It's almost wiener roast season which makes my head spin... if someone figures out how to get fellowship and community without all of the people-y stuff let me know, because I'm going to be depleted by the time we hit cold weather.  😂
Blessings.

Dog days of July

After we got home from vacation, summer got busy.  Sort of.  Most of it is self inflicted and involves produce.  :P 
Cecily was in charge of supper one night.  I had her make spaghetti... she did pretty well.   

Rain calls for umbrellas, using them correctly is optional. 

My turn... vacuum... 😂

These two...

Sometimes they get out games just to set them up and look at them. 

There is a cute little splash park a couple of towns over that we visited one afternoon.

New playgrounds are always fun too.

Such fun. :)

I decided to take the kids to the very last ever Threshing day...  figured Perrin would like the tractors at least.  We looked at the animals.

And walked over to the wool felting and spinning demonstration.

The girls were unimpressed to meet Gideon's other grandma and aunt. ha. 

And then Emmy suddenly started to feel weird and almost fainted on me trying to get her to a place to sit down.  *sigh* And of course we were miles away from the van, it was blazing hot, and Perrin was mad that he couldn't ride on the little train.  Kelly came to the rescue and stayed with Emmy while the rest of us went to get the van.  She was fine again once we got home.  Of course.  

Bob and I spent the afternoon replacing the toilet seal.  Again. gah.  I am so tired of things leaking in the basement.  I made Cecily stop reading to watch, because pulling a toilet is a life skill.  (Why????? This is boring and gross!) So I told her to take pictures or something... haha.  We got some super flattering shots of us.

And some random *aesthetic* shots of the toilet tank and the lights.  😂

Then I broke the plastic coupling on the water line and had to run to menards. *sigh*  I replaced it with all metal. blah.
Bob got Cecily started reading the Wheel of Time series and she hasn't stopped.... currently on book 10/14.  😜

Little helper boy picking up sticks after a wind storm. 

This one took all of us.  ha.

I needed to buy more paint to touch up in the bathroom- the leftover paint was completely dried out.  Miri has a bad habit of forgetting to put on shoes.... so she was riding in the cart trying to keep her feet out of sight.  😜

So my parents went to Alaska for 3 weeks and of course all of the produce was ready while they were gone.  We went to pick up the pears that had dropped during the wind storm, and swim. 

Perrin is always uninterested in the pool until after he 'accidentally' gets soaked. 

We went to Dragonland on a slightly cloudy, not super hot day at 3ish.  It was great- not very many people in the water or on the pool deck. 

Perrin was super grouchy and didn't want anything to do with water, so I fed him a bunch of snacks.

Then he cheered up and had a great time and didn't want to leave. 

We met friends at the park to watch Migration. 

Miri was a little bit nervous, but overall we had a good time.

The green beans were ready.  And somehow I froze more pints than I needed and my family doesn't even like vegetables that much. 😜

Cecily has spent this summer with her nose in a book.... sometimes we make her go outside just for some fresh air while she reads. 

There was a new pile of rocks at lake day. 

Bob wanted to try growing mushrooms.... I like mushrooms... he started this project the night before we left for vacation, of course.  haha.  It ended up being quite successful!

The kids followed Luna to Marci's one evening and it took a bit to dislodge them from her swing. 

The kids and I went to the pizza supper and singing... it was kind of a bad night, but we made it.  We were running late, Perrin was not happy to be there, Miri was clingy... yeah.  

Since Dad was gone we actually had to pick our own corn.  Michelle and I picked a lot, while it was thundering (we checked the radar, it was south of us). 

The kids were more interested in playing than helping, but they each did a few ears.

This was the point I was regretting my life choices.....

All of the Dad's siblings met up in Alaska to go on a cruise together, so Grandma was alone.  Us cousins took turns stopping in. 

She's almost 96, but she can still play pretend tea party.  :)  Perrin got his clothes wet and dirty at the farm, so he's wearing a rather interesting borrowed outfit.

More mushrooms! 

Bob helped me cut and cook corn when we got home so it wasn't as late of a night as it could have been.  As it was, I didn't bring quite enough ears home.  *sigh*

Perrin had pulled a few books off the shelves, so the girls decided to take them all off and "organize" them.  huzzah.  I did not want another project.  And then they lost interest halfway through, of course. haha.

Miri-goose had her first eye appointment to get ready for kindergarten!

Pears are never ready all at the same time.... I canned a few.  They are organic, so the bug damage was pretty bad and it hardly seemed worth it. 

Bob and I went berry picking one evening.  There were quite a few deer hanging out in the soybeans. 

There weren't many nice blackberries this year and it was humid.

But it's lovely out at Firefly woods.

Homemade ice cream was on the summer bucket list...

It was really good with fresh wild blackberries.

Another quick trip to the farm for a few more ears of corn and pears. 

We were there more times while Mom and Dad were gone than we have been in the last few months.  ha.

A big branch fell down in the front yard so Bob cut it up and had the kids drive it back to the fire pit in their gator.  😂

Mom ordered peaches through Farm Bureau... and they were still gone and Michelle was gone, so I got to be the imposter who picked them up. 

Quite afternoon of painting.

Well, sort of quiet.

I made a cherry pie for the Sunday School teachers meeting.  😋

We did cat chores for Bolt for a couple of days.  Perrin: I yike uh kitty-cat! Not sure if the kitty cat liked him. 

One last trip to the farm before the travelers returned. 

Pretty sure we all depleted their snack stash and pop over the three weeks...

Also, Matt, Michelle, and I were in and out, doing corn, swimming, etc., Jake and Rachel stayed a few nights for corn and potluck, so we figured we should maybe clean up after ourselves a little bit.  The kitchen floor was rather sticky from corn....  

The girls helped me dust.

Cadence: I can't reach the top shelf!  Me: ... I used to just climb... Cadence: I can do that??!?

'Borrowing' grandpa's mints.

Matt was in the house after we left and he said the smell of cleaning solutions was overpowering. Ha. Someone did get a little overzealous with the mop. 😏

Bob and I had to go to a County zoning board meeting to get a variance to be allowed to build on our land.  It isn't looking like we will get to build a house though- bids are all coming in at greater than $700,000.  😣 For a cube with a garage and builder grade everything.  So disappointing and frustrating.  I don't know how anyone can afford that.  We might build a shed.  At least then we could wallow in self-pity in the country and not in town. 

Isn't there an old song about moving to the country, building a home, and feeding your kids peaches?

Bob and I went out and measured driveway lengths.  That at least is affordable and hopefully will happen soon.

After a stretch of super hot days, the last lake day before school starts was almost chilly and it started sprinkling!

We do love living on a dead end road...

We found a caterpillar in the garden a few weeks ago, managed to keep it alive until it went into a chrysalis, and got to release a black swallowtail! So cool. :)

Emmy wanted to take a snack outside and she took out lemonade and ice cream. Such a mess, but I was fighting a cold and let it go....

Bubbles and tractors.  😆

Someone was hangry and ate all of the raspberries right before supper.  😂

Blessings.