Apple Picking

Alex, Anna and I met up with some other mom's for a playgroup date at the apple orchard. It's been two years since we've gone apple picking. When Alex was a newborn, my family all got together for his baby blessing Labor Day weekend 2006. As part of the weekend festivities, we went apple picking - coming home with nearly 100 pounds of apples and 40 pounds of Asian pears. They were excellent and we used them to make all sorts of yummy recipes.

Today the little ones and I were not as ambitious. We held ourselves to only filling one bag with about 25 pounds of apples - Jonalicious, Fuji, Macoun and a few Jonagold. The apples are big and beautiful and delicious! All for $12.50/bag. After reading about Camie's applesauce, I'm tempted to head back with the whole family and try my hand a making applesauce, that is if I can get my hands on a free day and one of those magic applesauce machines.

First on my list of things to make is LaRee's Normal Apple Pie and our favorite Cider Pork Chops, and then I'm going to try making Sandra's apple cake. GR wants me to make a Dutch Apple Pie, but I need a recipe, so if anyone has a favorite recipe, please send it my way!

I took the camera, but the battery stayed on the kitchen counter charging ... so imagine a beautiful clear, crisp October day with a super cute Alex tasting each and every variety of apple we put in our bucket, and an alert little Anna strapped to my front in the sling enjoying the outing.

The NFL & Nickelodeon

Sunday nights, this time of year, mean football in this family. When GR and I first met I tried to fight his insistence on watching Sunday football games, with comments like, "if you can't watch the game reverently, it will have to be turned off" ... With some success on that front, Sunday afternoons and evenings you will always find a football game on at our house being followed to some degree or another.

A couple Sundays ago, a tired and very cranky Alex woke up from a less than complete nap and joined the family for dinner. While the kids ate dinner with GR in the dinning room, I was in the living room feeding Anna, and of course, a football game was on in background. The halftime announcers were updating everyone on the days highlights and at the mere mention of San Diego, little Alexander looses all interest in dinner and starts to cry and wail, "Diego! Watch Diego? Go, Diego, Go! Watch Diego!"

Kid Photo Shoot

My kids are not always the most cooperative when it comes to getting their pictures taken ... you would think that by now they would be so use to it they'd just sit, smile and be putty in my hands until I get just the right shot, so we could be done with it in half the time. But it's never, ever that easy. Our poor neighbors. I'm sure they cringe when they see everyone trooping out to the side yard, followed by the beast (aka camera), knowing that gritted teeth and tears are sure to quickly follow.

Most photographers will tell you that your best shots will be within the first few frames, and with my kids that is typically true ... occasionally it takes us 50+ frames to get use to the idea that Mom isn't going to back down and let anyone inside until she gets a picture where everyone is smiling and looking at the camera. Today I cut my losses after only 10 frames. This was frame number 9, and given everything that it took to get this picture, I am satisfied.

Determination

Today Emily came home with a Character of the Month award from school! I typically get a call a few days ahead letting me know about the awards assembly, but things in Emily's class have been super busy and it totally slipped her teachers mind. So it was a fun surprise for both of us!

The character word of the month was Determination and this is what Emily's teacher had to say about why she was given the award ... "Emily is determined to follow directions and pay attention in class. She is very patient and never bossy with other students who are not following directions. I really appreciate Emily's determination to do the right thing!"

We are very proud of Emily for the good example she is being in her class and for how well she is doing in school.

Everybody Wins

Today was an exciting day for everyone at school ... it's nice when the excitement can be shared among all the school goers in the family!


Sam had his apple celebration at school ... I think there was at least one adult per two children in his class there to "help" with the party. There was so much food there, that we got to bring home half of the applesauce muffins I took - no one here complained, we love that recipe!

The 2nd graders have been learning about butterflies over the last couple of weeks. And today as a special closing activity to their butterfly unit Emily and her classmates made this fun edible creation:


Friday's at our school are spirit day and the children are encouraged to wear the school colors, red and blue. Classrooms compete against each other to see which classroom can get the most students to participate. The class with the most red and blue, wins the spirit stick for the week. The school mascot is the bobcat ... the upper grades compete for BOB the spirit stick and the lower grades for CAT. Today, Rebecca's class won! So they will have CAT in their room for the next week.

Birthday Wishes

Today is also GR's birthday. After Anna's EKG, we stopped at the mall to look at suits. GR's one Sunday suit is in really sad shape ... the lining of the jacket needs to be sewn back in place, one of his back pants pockets needs someone to work their magic on it, and the hole he had the tailor repair a number of months ago while still holding up, won't last forever. JosABanks was having one of their many amazing sales and we found two good work horse suits and one "dressy" suit for him to put in his closet.

We had a nice little celebration at home. While I picked the children from various friends homes, GR picked up dinner at Jack Stacks - his favorite BBQ place. His mom wasn't feeling well so we called another family to join us in the festivities, and help us make a dent in all the scrumptous BBQ GR got. Yesterday, I made pudding filled cupcakes for his birthday "cake" allowing me to make both chocolate and vanilla (Anna reacts very negatively to any chocolate in my system and I wanted birthday cake too.). I sent all the extras with GR to work this morning so I didn't have tons of cake starring at me for days and days.

ETA: 15 October


GR picked up his suits from the tailor last week and tonight he and Sam put on their best suits to attend a memorial service for McKensie. They both look really sharp, and I was glad GR encouraged Sam to put on his suit for this occasion, and that Sam agreed to wear it.

Holding Still

I love my pediatrician. He's everything you want in a doctor for your kids ... thorough, meticulous, brilliant and loves what he does.

At Anna's one month appointment Dr. D spent a little longer than I expected listening to her chest, moving the stethoscope from one place to the next and back again, making sure he heard every millimeter of her heart. He was hearing a small murmur he wanted to make a note of for future visits. "I don't think it's anything to be concerned about. It sounds like a very common murmur we hear in babies and they typically grow out of it."

At her two month appointment Dr. D did the exact same thing. Anna was extremely quiet and calm allowing him to spend a number of minutes listening exclusively to her little murmur. Once he was done listening he explained more about what he heard and said he wanted her to get an echo done at the local Children's Mercy Hospital. He reassured me that he didn't think it was anything serious, he simply wanted the echo done so he knew how closely (if at all) to watch the murmur over coming year. He then asked me to restate what he'd explained ... wanting to make sure I fully understood why she was getting the echo so I wouldn't go home and turn Anna's little murmur into heart failure.

Today GR and I took Anna to Children's Mercy for her echo. She had to hold still for 10 seconds so the machine could accurately record her heart beating. Anna was in such a playful mood, wiggling and squirming with excitement. I finally realized that three smiling faces looking at her trying to help her hold still was just making her more excited, so we all turned around and stopped looking at her and the EKG was finally able to get a good reading of her heart.

Following the EKG, we met with the heart specialist who has known Dr. D for many years. Dr. D has a special interest in hearts and consequently has a very good ear for how the heart should sound at different stages of development. And it turns out Dr. D's initial diagnosis was correct. Anna has a very very tiny hole between the left and the right side of her heart, and as she grows it will most likely close up. The murmur - fyi, murmur simply means noise in the heart - in Anna's case was a quiet swooshing sound as blood moved through this little pin hole. As her body and heart grow during the coming months, the hole will close up on its own. Dr. D may have us go back around her one year birthday for a sonogram to confirm that the pinhole has closed up on it's own.

Another Fun Packed Saturday

We had so many fun things to do today!

The three older kids had their soccer games in a nice compacted time frame this morning ... 10, 11:45 and 12:30. We packed a budget friendly lunch ... a cooler with a couple big sub sandwiches, apples, yogurt tubes and lots of water ... to eat during the short breaks between games. This was our first "hot" game of the season, and the kids handled it as well as could be expected - they were hot and red faced after each of their games, but no one sat down of the field or gave up! The air temperature wasn't that bad, in the low 80s, but the sun was bright and hot, with little to no breeze.



After the soccer games, Rebecca had a birthday party to attend. She was to go dressed as her favorite pop star, and choose Jordan Pruitt. Since I had never heard of her before, we googled her and found this music video on YouTube, it just happens to be Becca's favorite Jodan Pruitt song. In this video Jordan wears skinny jeans, a sparkly shirt, and heels. So we went for a similar look in a totally different color palate. Jeweled tank from Sears - something I thought might make a good addition to the girls dress up tub - black leggings, and funky wedges from the dress up tub. She had such a good time at the party doing hair and make-up, singing along with friends to all their favorite pop stars.



Madison is a huge Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana fan and when we started talking about what Becca wanted to take as a gift, one of her suggestions was a Hannah Montana pillowcase. I was lucky enough to find some Hannah Montana fabric that wasn't too obnoxious or over the top, and it felt pretty good too, at Walmart - Hannah Montana centeral, and found coordinating fabrics at Hancock.

Since this was her 8th birthday and she has grandparents and cousins who live close by, I thought a little sleep over "kit" would be fun. I used every inch of the 2-1/4 yards I purchased and was able to squeeze out a pillowcase, pj bottoms and a draw string bag to put everything in.



After the birthday party GR took the three older kids to the KU football game with his parents. We look forward to this game every year! We've attended this football game - KU Band Day - for the last 4 years, and the kids really enjoy it. This year we opted to have Anna and Alex stay home with me. Alex is quite a little football fan, and when I couldn't find the game on TV, Alex and I watched Invisible on TNT instead. GR said their seats weren't fantastic, but they were down by KUs end zone and had a great view of three touch downs before leaving after half time.

Seussical the Musical

The second graders were the first to have their music program this year ... after only 7 days in music! Like the 2nd graders last year, they did Seussical the Musical, and it was phenomenal!

GR had classes to teach at the hospital, and wasn't able to join us, but Grandma and Grandpa came. Bob and Diane got us front row seats by going an hour early, allowing me to video tape the entire show so GR and Emily can watch it together later on.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

With three kids playing soccer, we have soccer practice three different nights of the week. Becca and Sam both practice on fields adjacent to playgrounds - ingenious! So while they are at practice, the other kids get to run and play! We've never spent this much time playing at parks, and it's been wonderful! At one of our latest playground nights, Emily did this:


After her second or third time up the parallel bars, I decided to give it a try ... with great effort, I made it to the top, and no I won't be posting the extremely unflattering pictures GR took of me pulling myself up this contraption. One would think lugging a 13lb baby and a 30lb toddler would be good exercise, but I clearly need to be doing more.

This was GR and Sam's approach to climbing the parallel bars:

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day

Alex and I have been fairly regular attendants to the Tuesday morning library story hour since the kids went back to school, and this weeks story hour centered around books about kids going to the doctor. After listening to all the stories, the children made cards for Children's Mercy Hospital.



At Tuesday's story hour, we learned that September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and that earlier this year, Saturday, September 13th was set aside as National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day. We also learned about a local mother, who's son is celebrating his first year of being cancer free this September, who was organizing a benefit train ride for the 13th where 100% of the money collected would go to Children's Mercy Hospital Hematology/Oncology Department, where he received much of his treatment.

Children's Mercy is a special place to us, we have a sweet little friend McKensie who is fighting very, very hard to beat the cancer that is raging in her very tiny little body. And I really wanted to make it to this event in support of her and her family. Thanks to four days of rain, all soccer games were canceled, as was the fireworks show GR was scheduled to help set up and shoot that evening, so the entire family was free to go and support this event.



The train ride was scheduled to leave the station at 6pm, so we opted for an early dinner at a pizza place near the station, the kids enjoyed being able to sit at the window, and we loved the pizza, but we will never go back to for dine-in again. GR and I have never eatten at a dirtier restraunt in our lives. I was actually thankful Alex spilled his full cup of water all over the counter and floor, it gave me an opportunity to scrub it without causing a scene.

The kids had a great time riding the train. And the weather cleared up that afternoon so things weren't quite as soggy as expected.





McKensie's older brothers came with their Grandma and were able to get seats in our train car. The four boys are great friends, and spent most of the first half of the ride like this, laughing and giggling watching the world go past them through the windows.



The train ride lasted about an hour with a brief stop at the midway point where a short program was held. As part of the program, the names of area children who had won the fight against their cancer, were currently fighting, and who had fought and are now angles, were read and then 150 gold balloons were released into the twilight sky. It was beautiful and touching experience. I had such a lump in my throat hearing McKensie's name and watching my children each release a balloon for her and all the other children (and may I add adults) battling this scary and devastating 'thing' that has invaded too many of our lives, and continually hits too close to home.

Soccer Saturday's

This fall the kids are playing their third season of soccer, and this time around everyone has moved up to bigger fields. Sam is no longer doing Hobbits and is playing official games, Emily's team now plays with a keeper, and Rebecca is now playing 5 on 5. Today everyone played their first games of the season, and they did so well! I am really proud of how much progress they have each made over the last year.

The weather was odd for this early in September ... chilly, overcast and rainy, ... not so bad for playing soccer, but terrible for taking pictures. It was too dark to take pictures during Sam's game, we got a few during Rebecca's, but it rained for nearly all of Emily's game, so no pictures. Hopefully, we can keep the cool temperatures for future games, but loose the rain.

Rebecca as a defender.


Where you'll find me on Saturday's from 8:30-2:30:

Smile for the Camera

The Sunflower State

Last year we learned about a huge field of sunflowers about 15 minutes from our house and tried to get family pictures taken out there, but completely missed the flowers by at least a week or more! This year, we started watching the field a week or so ago, and yesterday when I drove out to check on their progress, they were breath taking!



This morning we met another family at the field and took family pictures. The sun was very bright making it difficult not to squint, but I thing we got some good shots, and the kids really enjoyed talking to all the different people who had come out to see the sunflowers - some locals, some professional photographers, some tourists. If you have never seen acers and acers of sunflowers before, this is definitely a scene to put on your "must see before we leave KS" list. As GR put it, it will make your wife gitty with excitement.



We finished up around noon and went to an ice cream and burger place for lunch. The kids all ate ice cream for lunch, while GR and I ate a burger (and whatever ice cream the kids couldn't finish - cause you know that's our job as parents right?).

Alex and Anna

This morning Alex wanted to have his picture taken and was happy to pose with Anna ... she started smiling this week and I hope to capture a smile on both of them ... it didn't happen, but I do think Alex looks especially charming in this shot.

KC Air Show

GR and his sister grew up going to lots and lots of airshows with his Dad ... GR loves them, Elspeth, despises them. So when we found out many of our friends were taking their kids to the KC Airshow today, GR jumped at opportunity to go! We decided Anna, Alex and I would stay behind and he would give the older kids the choice of staying, or going. He tried his best not to candy coat the outing, trying to give those most likely to whine the most accurate description of what the day would be like - long, hot, cool airplanes, long, hot, etc. His description did not discourage any of the older three from going, and quite honestly they were all really excited about it.



There have been many times over the last 12 years I've wished GR or I could call his dad and gain needed perspective on a situation and today was no different. In order to get good seats and to see all the different planes scheduled, they left the house at 8am. By 11:30 when I called to check in on them, Emily was asleep on the concrete, Rebecca was complaining about how hungry she was and Sam had asked 3-4 times to go home. When I asked GR if he had loved his first air show, of course his answer was "Yes!" ... when I mentioned this to Diane later in the afternoon, she laughed! Turns out the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As a child, GR got just as hot and tired and bored and hungry as our kids did, but in the end, just like him, all three of them came home happy and all said they wanted to go again!

WIP update

Monday was a busy but exciting day ... I had a dentist appointment downtown - which Alex was a dream for! He sat on my lap eating a grape sucker (no worries, it was a sugar free sucker from the office receptionist) watching the Olympics and the fish in the aquarium, while Gwen cleaned my teeth.

Then Alex, Anna and I popped into one of the downtown quilt shops - we had about 30 minutes to kill before meeting GR for lunch - he had a rare in town meeting for work, so we planned to met for a really good Mexican lunch. I wanted to see if they had any of Heather Bailey's new fabric line Pop Garden, or Sandi Henderson's Ginger Blossom fabrics in stock - and they did! I was so excited!



I haven't made Anna any of my signature blankets yet - she isn't going without or anything. Grandma made her an awesome pink quilt, and Aunt Mary Ann made her a fantastic yellow nuzzie, and of course I've been using the blankets all the other kids have used, but I don't have any girlie blankets. So, when I saw that the quilt shop had Sandi's fabrics in flannel, I bought enough to make two blankets for her, and two for the shop. The top fabric is Heather Bailey (cotton - and I have no idea what I'm going to make it into), the second two are from Sandi Henderson's Ginger Blossom line in flannel. I'm thinking of ordering this print to make a third blanket for Anna.

After a nice lunch with GR, the little kids and I went to check on my butternut and blue quilt. For the last year it's been in the care of the Quilting Group at the Methodist church, being hand quilted. They've been working on it one afternoon a week for 2 hours and are finishing the last column of blocks, then they have the top and bottom borders to do and it's done! They are doing a wonderful job and I'm quite pleased with how it's turning out.

Eating BBQ Worms

This summer the public library summer reading program theme was "Catch the Reading Bug." And as we've done every summer, all the kids participated and got their name on the wall numerous times. Even this little mama participated in the adult program and got all four of her books "read" by the deadline (thanks to being allowed to count audio books!!).

As an incentive to the kids to read lots of extra books this summer, the library director, promised to eat bugs if the kids could read enough books to make a line of paper ants — representing 10 extra books each — go around the kids’ room, around the library lobby and back. Last week, while helping Sam get settled into his Kindergarten room, we got the news that the kids did it, they'd read enough books and the director was going to eat bugs at a bug banquet hosted by the library.

The banquet was yesterday afternoon and we all headed to the library to witness this feast. I think there were as many adults (library workers) as there were kids in attendance. The bug of choice, BBQ Millworms.



As you can see there were plenty, and the children were told they could try one if they wanted. Emily and Sam both tried one of their own choosing. Rebecca even took one - which floored me, my child who doesn't try ANYTHING new!, and promptly handed it right over to Alex who without even blinking put it right in his mouth. I think by the end of the program he'd eaten four or five of them, before I was able to get to him and say enough is enough.

Back 2 School

School in Kansas starts way to early in my book ... way to early. We were home for all of two days when the kids started back to school. The girls on Wednesday, Sam on Thursday. Before leaving for MN, I got to take each of the three older ones school shopping, one on one, for their supplies. Mom really wanted me to be able to have some one on one time with each child and this outing seemed like a logically thing to do. And I was glad to see that they were each excited about going out with just mom, by themselves to choose their supplies.

Can I just make a small side comment here about the cost of supplies. We spent about $20 on each kids supplies. And this doesn't include Sam's backpack and lunch box which alone cost $25 - Becca and Emily are still using the backpacks we purchased for them when they started Kindergarten and so far, no complaints. And it's not like their supply list was outrageous or had unneccessary items on it, but wow it all adds up fast! Add to that the school fees for each of them - $126/child - and we're forking out some serious cash.

With three of them now in school all day, we're making a valiant effort to make lunches everyday (one of GR's many tasks in the AM with the kids). They are none to happy about not being able to buy their lunches, and so far the explanations of health and cost ($2 x 3kids x 5 days = $$ Mom would rather spend on other things) while tolerated, haven't been fully embraced. So we're working on coming up with a few compromise that will make everyone happy.

Rebecca - 3rd Grade


Emily 2nd Grade - she has a different teacher than Rebecca did last year and while I'm a little disappointed - we really loved Mrs. L - I'm excited to see how Mrs. V works out for Emily. The same thing happened with 1st grade (Emily got a different teacher than Rebecca) and it worked out really well for her.


Sam - Kindergarten with Mrs. C.


Alex and Anna on their first day having the house all to themselves ... what are we going to do with ourselves?

Closing Out the Summer

We spent August 1-10 in Minnesota. GR's parents rented a cabin (aka house big enough to sleep all 7 grandchildren and their parents) on a lake in Brainerd, MN. We had a fantastic time. We flanked our trip with some fun adventures in Minneapolis, one of the highlights being a wonderful visit with friends we haven't seen in two years! I haven't gotten all our pictures gathered together from the different cameras and memory cards, so my posts about this vacation adventure over the next few days, etc., are going to be done more by adventure rather than timeline.

One feature of the "cabin*" the kids loved was the fire pit down by the dock. Each night we'd build a fire, and watch the sunset while roasting marshmallows enjoying an endless supply of s'mores.







* The locals say, "we're going to the cabin this weekend," ... dont' be fooled by this modesty, I never once saw my idea of a "cabin," something the size of my neighbors shed.