File this under . . .

Every child is unique and extraordinary in their own way!

And here's one now.  One that even after 15 and 3/4ths years of parenting five kids, continues to surprise me with conversations, ideas and interests never experienced before with the other four.  One most recently being, who she's going to marry!

This little sweetie had two friends in the car after school today and one of their conversations went something like this:

Liv: "I'm going to marry Henry when I grow up."

Friend 1, Addison: "Well, I'm going to marry Nolan."

Friend 2, Nolan: "I'm going to marry Livia."

Livia: "I'm going to marry Henry."

Nolan: "I'm going to marry Addison."

Addison: "I'm not going to marry Jack, I'm going to marry Nolan."

Livia: "Who wants to play unicorn ponies?"

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Yesterday her betrothed was over for some play time after school so we went hiking in the woods.  So cool to see so much green on the leaves down under the higher canopy of leaves that see more sun.  Surrounding the house the trees are just about bare.

Oh, lookey here, there's the man of the hour trying to knock down a dead tree stump while Livia bashes it with a stick...ahhhhh...!! (-:

One of my favorite trees, the beech tree.

Great year for fall colors this year!

P.S. Last week at the library Livia checked out, "How to Get Married," from the kids section of the library!!!

Oy!

'Cause we have so many extra seats in the mini van . . .

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"Hey," Said Liv . . .

"We did this last year!"

This year she requested a beautiful pumpkin with eyelashes and beautiful lips and, just after I'd drawn the nose...she wondered aloud why it couldn't also have a beautiful nose?? I'll tell you what, I'm not the regular carver around here, I'm lucky I got those eyelashes to turn out, so that's about as beautiful a nose as we'll be getting!

Just three done so far.  William's on the far left, he drew and carved much of his own.  I helped with the teeth.  Harrison's in the middle, again drew the face and carved his eyes, I helped with the mouth, and princess pumpkin on the right.  Our eldest said it was too cold to carve today so she did a lot of pumpkin carving research instead.  She informed us that the slicing of the top to open and put candles in isn't as good as slicing a hole in the bottom so no one will see the crack from slicing.  Hmmmm, interesting carving strategy.  Makes tons of sense but just seems wrong though! (-:  We'll see what she comes up with.  Ben was gone all weekend to a confirmation retreat, stayed up late and four hours of travel each way.  Let's just say he wasn't in the mood. 

So, Fall is in full swing, the evidence is all around us...Christmas decorations are up in every store!

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Football, Football, Football, . . .

This is my year of football for sure! 

This week we had some 1/2 days for the three pictured below and our first top was the big NFL display at the kinda nearby museum.

Harrison is most interested in football.

I, however, have this notion that football is even more dangerous than hockey and have been having a hard time signing him up for more than a few seasons of flag football.  He's had just about enough of this situation however and I think we're going to have to go all in pretty soon, yikes!

William arm wrestling a cast of a real NFL player's arm!!

I can not believe it's even possible to have that large of an arm.

P.S. I see William as a Cross Country runner...(-:

 Tough Girl!

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Some last few pics hanging around . . .

One summer day, the older sister was moved by the younger sister's 4 yr old Jc Penny pic and decided to sketch her out . . . 

On Shrinky Dink paper!

That is one shrink dink that I'm not baking into a 1 inch square, shriveled, hard piece of plastic. No sir-ee. (-:

Aww, these two again. They have such a funny relationship.  Well, I suppose pretty stereotypical brother/sister, closest siblings relationship really.  Well, stereotypical in our family at least.  They're both totally there for each other, kind and compassionate in times of need, but boy, if they're on each other's nerves, whew, we will all definitely know about it!  I think they're going to grow to be great friends in the end.  Sure is strange to think about how they're going to be the only two home once the big three age out...I mean, let's get real here right...Lara has just over 2.5 years till graduation!!  Oh my goodness, don't even get me started, yikes!

Some more summer . . .

 Ahhhh, an ice cream shop.

You see all five in there?

Kinda love that shot.

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Good ol' Summer.

Today, for the first time this season, I really felt like, "Yep, I need a coat."

It's coming my friends, Polar Vortex Part Deux!

That pic might have been from around the beginning of No Tech July, gotta plan wisely for that month.  If you look closely you'll even see gigantic double scoops on some of those, I plan very wisely when asking for such an effort as No-Tech.

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And this pic?  Well, that's inside our tent, yep, inside our tent, camping, hours away from our house, not just in the back yard...this is what she packs! Hahahaha!  Pretty sure this was the trip that she literally snuck two of those castles by me by just bringing them out to her seat area and shoving them in.  Gotta love the full size van!

"That never gets old" . . .

Tonight's bedtime reading with William.

I always read the table of contents and let the kids choose which story they'd like.

He chose The List, from Frog and Toad Together

I brought out Frog and Toad again because Liv and I are going to see a play of their stories on Friday.

Now you know. (-:

Current page, Toad's to-do list is blowing away.

"Hurry!" said Frog.

"We will run and catch it."

"No!" shouted Toad.

"I cannot do that."

"Why not?" asked Frog.

"Because," wailed Toad,

"running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do!"

William: "That never gets old."

Mom: "What, that that's funny?"

William: "Yep." smile...

Such a sweet time in life!

Oh, look now, here is that same sweeties' shoes from this past sumer.

I believe I took this because even though I so thoughtfully continued all summer to keep track of and put in very convenient places a large variety of sandals, crocs and water shoes, without fail, he'd come back from where ever with wet, sandy tennis shoes.

Ahhh...such sweet times...

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And this, my friends, is an artistic shot of my "souvenir" from my first ever trip to Traverse City last May, posed with some early summer bloomers. If you're wondering, I spent a little time dealing with pictures lately.  More summer pics coming tomorrow...or, well...soon.  

Funny little story about that vase. So, I'm in a little gift shop on the main street of downtown T.C. and this vase, filled with some dried green peas covering about a quarter up the bottom, catches my eye. Up to the counter I go to buy it and the gal quickly proceeds to dump out the dried, green peas.  "Oh," I say, "Um, those don't come with the vase?" "No." she says. "Um," I say, "can they just come with my vase, the pairing is what caught my eye." 

Now, I'm in the main shopping district in Traverse, these people must be doing pretty well, a bag of dried beans costs what? and my vase has about a half cup at most of peas in it. I'm feeling like this gal should be thinking customer service here and just throwing in the peas for this 40-ish year old tourist lady, aren't you? So, again, "What do you think then, can I just have the peas?" I ask.  "Nope, they don't come with the vase, " she says.  "Wow," I say. Now here's where my memory is failing me, I hope I said in my kindest voice, "Well, I almost don't want to buy the vase now," but I don't think I did.

Anyhoo, that's the story of the vase.  Remind me some time to tell you the story of how I got my parking spot back in the Henry Ford lot by using my kindest voice. (-:

We're still moving right along . . .

Cheers!

This boy and I finally got out for his annual birthday picture and "lunch" (he chose Aunt Annie's soft pretzels this year, ha!) a couple weeks ago...um, yeah...his birthday was August 11th.

And you wonder how 10 days or so could go by with nary a chirp over on this page?

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Harrison's busy moving right along with another cross country season that he's being forced by his mother to take. Yeah, I'm not really kidding.  He's not a fan of cross country running really, and while he is middle of the pack, he does try his best even though he is being forced.  Thank goodness for him having friends on the team.  Why am I forcing him then?  Well, practice at our school is only twice a week, I'm now teaching piano after school, at the school, every day for an hour or hour and a half and it'd be a handy way to get in shape for basketball season which is coming next.  It's either that or those two days a week he sits in on my lessons, playing Nintendo...so, he shall run! (-:

Liv had her first field trip!

The kindergarten classes headed over to the local science and nature center and she was just the cutest thing ever to watch.  Raising that little 'ol hand to answer questions, listening, following directions, she is doing great (and, psst...she's still only four! (-:).  Quite often, out of the blue, Livia exclaims how much she just LOVES school, though every now and then, after that exclamation, she'll add the tag line..."but, sometimes it gets really long." But still, when we hit Saturday she's already asking when school starts again, love it!

And William had his first field trip of third grade too. Couldn't get a great shot because of the amazing amount of warm, glaring sun (missing it already with two, gray, rainy and substantially colder days we've just had...heard they had snow in the Yoop today!), but had to get a shot next to the oldest steam train in the state, coincidentally from around our summer stomping grounds and a great-grandpa's birth place.

So, what do you notice from this post?  What I notice is me galavanting to this field trip and that since I have no one at home to make arrangements to be cared for!!  Wow!  

Although, I will add, I somehow managed to book myself for about 23 hours of work/week with three different jobs since I have all that "extra" time in the world with a 1/2 day kindergartner.  Not quite sure what I was thinking but one thing just came up after another and I couldn't see how to say no because they were all appealing.

  I'm the after-school piano teacher and ended up with 11 students (soooo convenient to have students right at the school, wow), I'm working with a couple from church four hours/week helping with various tasks made difficult because neither of them can see, and then, up popped a 12 hr/week Music Recruiter position at a local, small university where I already knew a number of people in the music department and thought it would be a perfect fit for my "business type" strengths and my music life (did you know, waaaayyyy back when, I used to work as an Executive Assistant to the Director of Corporate Audit for Merrill Lynch at their headquarters in NYC at Wall Street?? Crazy right?  Well, that was even after I represented myself in a lawsuit in the Bronx, and I beat two NYC lawyers, haha!  That's for real too, kind of cracks me up considering what I've been up to the last 15 year, anyway,  I temped for his assistant while she was on maternity leave, but then they wanted to hire me for other work after she returned. So yeah, as long as it's not math related (I top out at 2nd grade common core), I do have some business world skills in me too.

OK, enough about me.

What's the latest with you?

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My grandpa used to ask me that..."What's the latest?", he'd ask.

Have a great Sunday and I'll hope to check back in sooner than later!