William . . .

There's our guy now.

We took a family hike today around a local park. Beautiful Fall day.  W's doing a great job transitioning to all day school being in first grade this year.  Livia misses him, but we get along...nap time and all. (-: He's looking forward to taking floor hockey at the Y when the next session begins and is enjoying his spot as the only boy in the family without a broken arm...I'll explain later when I have pics! Heave a big sigh with me now, "SIGH!"

Anyway...

Sometime in the last week or so we had a paper bag lying around and an antsy boy looking for something to do so I suggested he make a puppet.  And, as has happened in the past (H in 2008), one bag puppet always (well, almost always, she only made one) needs a buddy...or two.

 "This one is my favorite."

 If you blow it up you might be able to see their eyes on top there.

When you puppet that mouth down over their teeth (the row of repetitive shapes above the big design on their mid-section), then their eyes are forward.

 Gotta get them arranged just so you know.

What a cool kid!

Learning to read really well, has always loved really creative coloring, is a champ at his daily math homework and has aced every spelling test so far (well, if you don't count writing a couple letters backwards...which I don't at this stage!! (-:).

Kids (& an eggplant) . . .

Oh.My.Gosh!!!

Isn't she just the absolute cutest thing ever????

(-;

And . . . 

 The big three were pretty geeked to go to Cedar Point last weekend.  

Despite the pause in the rides for rain, the 50ish degree temps and the one ride (the very first ride of the day) that they all waited 50 minutes to get on only to discover Ben couldn't go on it because of his cast (wrist and forearm have been casted for a few weeks now due to a buckle fracture...no, not from hockey...but as an aside, it's super awesome to have to pay for hockey while he doesn't play, grrrr...).

They were in the park and ready to go by 1:00p.m. and stayed until 11:00p.m., they loved it!

 Slicked down hair post rain.

That's one cool dude!

 Love this picture of Ben, just plain happy!

And . . . 

 Did I post this yet?

Oh man, it's getting bad folks.  I NEVER had an issue remembering one single picture I'd posted before or what I wrote about it.  I do have one more excuse that I'll throw into the hat to make it less about being over forty, HA...you see...now that I have this iPhone I have pictures on that and pictures from my camera with no one single way to get them into this blog.  Sometimes I email them to myself from my phone and then post over on my computer desktop before I drag them into iPhoto.  Sometimes I download my phone pics directly into iPhoto.  It's too much!  I have no idea anymore and no energy to go back through the blog to look for a CHINESE EGGPLANT picture I might have posted.  Although, after all that typing, I could have probably found it by now.

Well, I thought that eggplant was super cool and I've seen them in the store for $3.99/pound so I probably saved myself about $2.50 by tending to that plant for four months this summer, hahahahahahaHA!

Oh, AND . . . 

I haven't forgotten about William, I'll give him his own post next. (-;

Sometimes you have to look right in your own backyard . . .

For real this time.

(last time's "backyard" was a couple miles away)

How 'bout that for a sunrise picture?

Pitched the tent in early August (really? that long ago??...yep!) with hopes of people sleeping out there for fun.  There was one attempt but they "heard raccoons" and bailed.  And then, the tent sat there, empty until the start of Fall. We won't be entertaining the Queen before snowfall so I don't really mind the rectangular patch of yellow, and the moles don't either!

(But man, if I was a kid...I'd'ah been out there every night!!!)

Actually, now that I think that through...could be pretty peaceful out there as an adult...Hmmmmm, next summer...(-;

Anyhoo, I'm still enamored with my bean teepee.  I took these pics after my sunrise walk around the yard (well, "sunrise" by my standards...easily that was 8:30a.m.-ish...I am NOT a morning person)

And again, I know I said this before, this is not in your standard, "perfect yard" landscaping plan. But the beans we've had throughout the late summer have been outstanding.

Yes...I know I just posted this...well, I know now after going to look for my last "Sometimes you have to look right in your own backyard" posting.  But c'mon, it really needed to be posted with this series so just humor me.

Absolutely delightful!

 A Purple Cherokee heirloom tomato from earlier in August.

Tomatillos!

Wouldn't that make a cool painting, (MOM!)????

I have really gotten a kick out of my tomatillo success this year.  And, low and behold, I've been noticing tomatillo "salsa" is becoming big on the shelves these days too.  I could make my own the way they're producing.  So cool.

A little bit o' this and a little bit o' that . . .

Here we have our third, fourth grade runner crossing the finish line of his first Cross Country meet.  He was so cute the night before with his enthusiasm and strategy for how he was going to best his competition.  In the rush of activity that's one question I haven't asked him yet and will hope to remember to tomorrow, how his strategies pre race played out during the race?  I'd say he finished just a bit above the middle of the pack and is plotting how he can get stronger for his next race.  Tonight: "Mom, do you know how many times I'd have to run around the house to reach a 1/4 mile?" (-:

Speaking of tonight...kind of a little milestone...we left the kids with some Hot-n-Readies (I know, we're generous like that) while we went out to dinner by ourselves...no hired sitter!!!

We thought we had a coup on our hands with that genius move, after all, it was early in the evening, right when they got home from the meet and they'd all be on their computers/gadgets and t.v. after a long day.  Sitting zombies right and we'd be home for bedtime.  Well...

See this room here?  SP stayed home from our Yoop trip (U.P. for those not in the know) due to lots of travel this past summer to work and paint this room, it's a big one with tall ceilings, BIG job.  And yes, even though I spent a total of 6 hours (for me that's waaaayyyyy too much time on such a job...gardening and garage cleaning are my forte remember) dealing with paint samples and pillows at stores deciding on paints and blah, blah, blah...so, even though all that...I ended up with variants of the same colors we had.  BUT, it's fresh and clean everybody.  Fresh AND Clean!

 Lookee here, went from that darker shade to a lighter shade on the ceiling, beautiful.  For some reason, I don't have any "after" pictures of the whole room at my disposal so this is all we have, plus it's still a work in progress, we've got the trim to figure out.  I digress though, why am I bringing this up tonight? Oh, have I mentioned he PATCHED all the walls before painting, sanded, smoothed, mudded, I don't know, everything involved with getting rid of nine years of boys on our walls. Oh, yes...why did I bring this up tonight???

Right, we went out for our first dinner without a sitter, that dandy of an idea.  What's the connection with the freshly painted walls?  You with me folks?  Yep, you got it.  Big, gashing dent in the freshly painted wall because "Well, he wouldn't get off the computer."  and "Well, he kept poking me and telling me to get off the computer, so I had to..." "And I had too..." "And," "And," . . . 

Yeah..."AND"

Looks like we'll be calling the sitter next time.

AND...it looks like some boys won't have computer time for a while!

How 'bout a little smile, eh?

Came across this tonight in the ol' 17,000ish picture iPhoto library.

Isn't that just an absolute summer favorite???

 And we'll end with a chuckle:

Thanks for sending it over, Lara.

Boy is that a funny app!

Have a great weekend, ya'll!

I Felt Good Last Friday . . .

So I cleaned the garage (and the shed).

And then on Saturday...

I DID.NOT.FEEL GOOD anymore!

You see, I'm not really one for being sick for three weeks, too much to do.

I mean, COME ON, take a look at what became a total dumping ground for all of our travels this summer and fun summer nights at the lake.  Combine that summer scenario with two over-forty parents of five kids and that garage wasn't getting ANY attention.

 Right

 Center

Hey, at least we now how to carve out a clear path!

Left

As you can see, I had my work cut out for me.  But, it was a beautiful, 70 degree sunny day, no humidity finally and a healthy-ish feeling body. It hit me that the time was right (plus, I didn't want to clean the bathrooms! haha)

Oh, look what snuck in here...two friends looking for beans in the bean teepee.  I wasn't sure what picture 2070.jpg was so I downloaded it in, what a pleasant surprise.

Oh, HEY...guess what else...yep, in the depths of that bag, covered by gloves, hats, mittens and ice skates from an August trip to open skate at the Cube...MY CAMERA!  Yippee!!!

 And now for the big reveal:

 Left

 Center

Right

Yes, still some work to do here (I've gotten most of that cleared now even), but at this point I went out to the shed to see the state of the pile the kids hauled out and that I had to arrange.  They actually did a good job and didn't just dump it in a heap (they've learned, Yeah!!).  So then I arranged all the camping gear/summer beach stuff/etc out there and if you give a mom a project you know it grows and grows so I ended up sweeping out the shed and rearranging some other stuff.  Not sure what we'd do without the shed.

End note:  If you can even believe this, and I still can't (kinda)...I was out in the shed when SP came home (he was later than usual because of a meeting & had to leave again).  He came out to the shed to find me, we chatted for a while about this and that and finally I said..."So, no word on the garage, eh?" and he said..."What? What about it?"  People, we walk THROUGH the garage to get in the house!!!  He walked through that garage and never noticed the difference.  He said it was because he was so intent on getting in the house after being later than usual and having to leave again for an evening obligation.  That is some focus my friends, some focus! (-;  

Grand Adventure Part IV

Did you know we went to the Badlands?

Did you know I was in the process of summarizing an 18 day trip out West?  Did you know it might never get finished?

And, boy, when we were there in early July it was just "bad" hot, whew!

It's interesting though, with such amazing things to see you really get over the heat.

If we were at home with that type of heat we would've been whining up a storm.

But here, we were in and out of the car, up and down rock formations, watching for rattlesnakes and more.  Ninety-six degree day, what of it?

 That, my friends, are some Bad.Lands!
Isn't that just stunning??!!

 Many of our crew rambling over some Badlands.
(Minus the guy in the hat to the right of SP)
(Well, he was rambling, but he wasn't from our crew)
((I took this from the car from some distance away while a two year old slept))

 Coupla boys scampering up a Badland.

 An obligatory Badlands posed shot.

 Here's a little guy now mountaineering up some Badlands in his crocks with socks!

 The kid crew, minus one, working for their Badlands National Park badge.
(remember two of our delightful nieces travelled out to Yellowstone with us...one of them returned with us...to be continued...(-:).

 Here's the minus one now talking fossils with an expert.

Taken out my car window.
Can you even believe this stuff???
Gor.Geous!
Those are some Badlands!
(I kinda love that word)

O.K., off to take my (finally) antibiotic for what we've determined is now a sinus infection.  After a massive stomach bug three weeks ago and two weeks ago this weird coldish thing that's been morphing into big time yuck on and off, I am so ready to be healthy!

I Roasted These . . .

And they were amazing!

Tomatillos, various colored tomatoes, and chinese eggplant mixed with olive olive oil, salt and pepper.  Put on a cookie sheet in a 275 degree oven for a long time.  I kept losing track and then I'd come in the kitchen and remember and every time I'd have a moment of panic they'd be scorched black this time.  Nope, absolutely delightful and all from my garden!

And now, I'm done.  The nurse and I decided on the phone this morning a course of action for my almost two week sinus/head stuffiness (which has gone in and out of so many yucky symptoms, but today wasn't horrible).  We thought it would be a great idea to take the super strong decongestant stuff that you need to show your license for at the pharmacy, lest you're buying too much of it and making drugs I guess.  Wasn't the best course of action, now my head is still stuffy and I'm nauseous, weak, and getting hot flashes.  

That was a lot of fun at choir tonight!

psst...I have four pills for sale...

I'm TOTALLY KIDDING folks!!!

Um . . .

Altogether now...

Ewwwwwwwww!

 This is what I've learned:

The tomato hornworm is the larva of the five-spotted hawk moth, Manduca quinquemaculata. It has eight curved white stripes on each side of its body and a straight black spike, or horn, on its bum. 

Sometimes you'll see hornworms with little white things on them. The white things are wasp cocoons! Small, parasitic braconid wasps often lay their eggs on hornworms. The wasp larvae eat the hornworm's innards (yuck) then form cocoons when they're done. Eventually they kill the hornworm. This is good for gardeners but not for the hornworm. 

 Yes, that is a plastic grocery bag.

 Let's all agree not to mention this form of departure to Harrison. K?

Well, while we're on the topic, how 'bout another...

Ewwwwwww!!!

 'Ello mate, and what might you be?

A cicada perhaps???

 Nah, just the shell, you see the slice in my back don'tcha?

O.K., that's just too much of that.

Let's end on a nicer note shall we?

(I'm watching an English movie for the 1960's in the left corner of my computer screen while I post this.  Can you tell, and, isn't technology AMAZING??!!)

A late summer zinnia back lit by the rising sun of the morning.

Divine!

Watering the Garden . . .

Kinda!

Am I allowed to say that was kind of enjoyable???

(-;