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We had a big, fun week around here!

The girls and I took a trip to Scholz Farm down in the valley with my folks. It’s a great size for little kids and just about everything is free!  Carys led us through the “pumpkin maze” (the field of pumpkins) from one end to the other while Lilia touched a lot of pumpkins very tentatively.

They have a big sawdust hill for kids to play on so the girls played with the other kids for awhile, with varying degrees of success at getting to the top of the hill. We fed chickens and a donkey before heading into the gingerbread-man-themed corn maze. Then it was time to pick out a couple of pumpkins and head home for lunch! Quite a nice way to spend the morning.

And then we spent the next day in the ER… Lilia managed to split her head open in the back on our fireplace hearth (I’m not entirely sure what happened as I was in the kitchen at the time). Head wounds bleed a lot, which was really impressive and kind of makes me glad that we’re getting new floors next week as I don’t have to figure out how to get blood out of the carpet! By the time we made it through triage, Lilia was running around dancing with Carys in the waiting room. After much cleaning and numbing and waiting, Lilia got two staples in her head and we were on our way. She’s fine and it hasn’t slowed her down a bit. Danger baby.

This weekend brought more fun, though. We headed out to the farm for apple cider! We trekked out to the orchard to pick our own apples (we visited the beehives on our way, which Carys found fascinating) and the girls had a good time picking the ones they could reach.

We then washed and ground and pressed them into cider. Both girls had a chance to crank the wheel and feed the apples and, surprisingly, didn’t get bored! It was a nice little outing and we’re all enjoying the cider.

No-Pressure School Fundraising update: It’s the last week for Entertainment books. We’re also selling Ram Cards (for the restaurant) and I think we’re doing an auction in a couple of months if anyone has something they’d like to donate.

This week will probably be a little more busy. We’ve got to finish up our preparations for the remodel and there are 3 different doctors appointments and Carys has school, of course, and classes start at the Y. And I still need to decorate for Halloween! I need more pumpkins.

We had a pretty mellow week for the first week of October. With no fairs to go to and no remodeling going on yet, I think we’re in a lull.

I had lots of fun “working” at CareBear’s class. I was the “art mom” this time around and we did really messy things with paint and rocks and shaving cream. I spent half of my time trying to get the right kid’s name on their work before they took off to do something else and the other half trying to wipe up the paint drips so that they weren’t tracking it all over the place on their shoes! It was very chaotic, but we like that.

LiliBee took a nice crash into a rack of clothes over the weekend while we were browsing maternity pants. She went face first, so she ended up scraping her chin and split open her lip. It was very dramatic! She’s fine and still has all of her teeth, but she points out her “boo-boo” several times a day for sympathy.

The turn in the weather last week was a nice change of pace. I love it when it gets chilly (and I’m usually overheated these days so it’s extra welcome) and the girls spent a lot of time playing in the rain and the mud. I was only partially successful in talking them into getting dressed first… if I could catch them before they ran outside, I had a good chance of at least one of them putting on some clothes! You’d think they’d get cold, but apparently not.

We spent some time being productive over the weekend and sent another big pile of stuff off for donation. I’m finally getting rid of all of my text books. I’m still attached to them, but they’re 15-20 years old now and there are better references out there. I’ll still miss them.

This week should be mellow and fun. I think we’re visiting a pumpkin patch and I’m hoping to go press some cider at the farm. With any luck, I’ll make some more progress on the kids’ clothes and start purging my massive crafting collection. I might even start cooking dinner more regularly now that I feel a bit better about food!

Is everyone enjoying the last of the nice weather (around here at least)? I know I’m looking forward to the rain and wind this week, but that’s mostly because I want to stop taking the allergy medicine.

Last week’s announcement certainly raised a few questions! “Banjo” will be joining the family (externally, at least) around the end of March 2010, so right in between CareBear’s birthday and Chris’ birthday. That puts me at almost 14 weeks along right now. “Morning sickness” is mostly in the evening for me, and I really couldn’t face preparing anything raw, so Chris and the kids ended up with a lot of fast food for a few weeks. We will be keeping this baby a “surprise”, just like the last two, so everyone has to wait another 6 months or so to know if it’s a boy or girl. LiliBee and CareBear have an ongoing argument about that, but those two can turn anything into an argument! The ultrasound picture was actually a few weeks old, from when I was around 10 weeks, which may explain why it looks very much like a white blob. Banjo will arrive by scheduled cesarean if everything goes according to plan (my only option after two emergency c-sections). And we will then have three kids under five years old… and be outnumbered.

Anyway, this week was lots of fun!

I got to “work” at preschool as the snack mom. CareBear decided on apples and cheese as our snack and helped me prepare and portion it out. As snack mom, I got to play with the kids in the blocks/puzzles/etc room and then the bubbles area during outside time. CareBear had a great time being the helper for the day. Meanwhile, LiliBee ran errands with Grams and Pas and enjoyed being the only grandchild for a bit.

We donated all of our interior doors and old bathroom fixtures, so our storage shed is nicely cleared out. Unfortunately, that means that we’ve got a very open floor plan right now! Still, it was nice to have good forward momentum in the remodeling. Chris and his dad opened up some of the boxes of flooring to see which way will look better when they lay it out. It’s going to be such an upgrade when it all gets put in… getting rid of all of the dark features will make the house seem so much brighter.

The Y was hosting a big community open house over the weekend so LiliBee got to get her face painted and play in the gym while CareBear had her class. They had all kinds of things set up for the kids… now I just need to remember to register for next session!

We hit the fair for the last time this year. After a tasty lunch, Chris took the girls on the skyride. They loved being up so high and seeing the whole fair. CareBear has actually been talking about it ever since they rode last year, so it must be pretty impressive from their point of view. Meanwhile, I helped out a lost kid. There was much rides riding and then we (finally) had our annual treat at the dairy barn. It was a warm and crowded day at the fair, but lots of fun.

This week should be interesting. Apparently, I’m scheduled to go to preschool again on Thursday! I didn’t expect to do two weeks in a row, but it counts as a completely different month so maybe that explains it. I’ll be doing “art” this time, though, so that will be new and exciting! Since we’re out of fairs to go to, I guess I’ll get serious about sorting and storing the kids clothes and shoes. And I really need to find my maternity pants.

Is everyone enjoying the last day of summer? The weather looks to be pretty impressive this week as fall begins, if a little too warm for my tastes. The kids are certainly enjoying the nice weather and clear nights (they like looking at the stars before bed).

We had a fun week!

CareBear continues to be happy about going to school. She really is enjoying it and likes to teach us the songs she’s learned. Art seems to be her only real concern… she can’t make it to all of the “stations” during art time and is always sad about the ones that she missed out on. She’s excited about my first time as “snack mom” this week, though.

We had a quick trip to the fair while Chris was working the radio booth. CareBear won a giant, stuffed turtle playing a ring toss game, which was pretty impressive considering it was one of the “real” fair games and not the “kiddie” version. There were a few more rides, some tasty treats and we even listen to a doo-wop band for awhile. The kids really liked the show until the singer came over to sing to them, then they got all shy. Chris had fun being a radio guy, though, and enjoyed talking to the people who stopped by the booth.

While CareBear was at school on Thursday, LiliBee and I went to the park. She had the playground all to herself, which is a totally new experience for her. She had a great time climbing and going down the slides. We even saw some deer! A doe and 2 half grown fawns, I think.

We were hoping to get back to the fair this weekend (or I was, at least), but we ended up being responsible and staying home to work on the big clean and sort. We’ve got a bunch of stuff to go through and get rid of before we can move everyone into the bonus room during the new floor installation. The flooring arrived this weekend, though, so that was pretty exciting… if also a bit frustrating and overly complicated. They also brought my new washer and dryer, which I totally love so far!

CareBear did have her first gymnastics class of the short “in-between” session at the Y this weekend. She’s really getting into learning the jumps and balance beam. I’m always impressed with the coaches that take on the class of three-year-olds… they’re a chaotic bunch.

This week should be fun and productive. Chris’ dad is coming up on Wednesday to help get stuff pulled out of the house for donation to Habitat for Humanity. I get to go to school with CareBear, which means LiliBee will get my folks all to herself. I’m totally going to the fair and getting ice cream (and no one can stop me!). And the big clean and sort should be mostly complete… with the possible exception of my extensive crafty collection (Chris has been amazed by the amount of knitting and scrap-booking stuff I’ve accumulated… and the candles). And it’s Fall!

We had a fun, exciting and educational week around here…

We finally got the chance to use the extractor tool that we got from the doctor when CareBear shoved the pea up her nose! LiliBee decided to keep up tradition and wandered up to me the other day saying “pea” and pointing to her nose. Luckily, there was an uncle around to help me pop it out of there… that little tool is pretty nifty but I’m glad someone was around to hold her little arms out of the way!

We learned from poison control that laurel berries are poisonous, but you have to eat more than a couple before it becomes a problem. And we learned that kids should always check with their parents before eating random berries found in the yard to avoid the “you ate what?” drama.

CareBear had her first day of school! She was very excited for it and had a great time. I got to watch some of her “class” in between learning what my duties will be when it’s my turn to volunteer in class. I think outside time and music time were her favorites. I wonder when it will occur to her that she’s going back a couple of times a week for the next 9 months or so.

We took an impromptu visit to Olympia when Cousin H called to let us know that the butterflies she was raising had hatched. It was fun to see the butterflies drying their wings and finding their food. I hear that the butterflies were set free over the weekend and are currently living in Grandma’s garden.

This weekend was productive… we cleaned out the storage shed in our backyard! Chris’ dad came up to help move things around and haul stuff away, which was very helpful. Chris is happy to have a home for his tools and that will come in handy when it’s flooring time.

The girls and I spent this afternoon at the fair with my folks. It was a lovely day for it (a bit overcast but warm) and everyone had a great time. CareBear went on lots of rides. Her favorites are always the “obstacle course” types, but she got to ride on a real pony too.

LiliBee was a little bored waiting for those rides, but she loved going on the carousel and playing the games once it was her turn. We even ran into friends that I hadn’t seen in months, which was great considering I’d spent the weekend sorting through old college stuff and wondering how everyone was doing!

This coming week looks to be pretty busy. Chris has several things planned for his day off, some fun some not. He’ll be manning the amateur radio booth at the fair from 6-10 pm on Wednesday so if you’re in the area (I think it’s in the Hobby Hall), stop by and say hi! We’re also getting our big delivery this weekend. I’m pretty excited about the washer and dryer, but I’m still not sure where all the boxes of flooring are going… And, of course, I’m hoping for a couple more trips to the fair!

It’s September and, apparently, that means rain, thunder and tornados!  It’s been an interesting weather week around here and Lucy is not happy about that at all. Luckily, the worst of it hit east of us… I can’t imagine how panicked she’d be if a storm that bad went directly over us.

We had a fun week, otherwise. We had a great fun visit with Auntie T and Z with lots of good running around and tasty snacks. It was nice to finally meet their new dog, too. On the way home, CareBear asked if we could go back to play the next day.

LiliBee has learned that asking “why?” after any statement will result in more talking, so we hear that a lot these days. She’s also decided that “chase” is the best game and will randomly come up to me and shout “GET ME!” before taking off. It’s kind of hilarious.

Our weekend was spent running some errands. We borrowed a bunch of books from the library, mostly picture books though I look forward to the day when I get to actually read books with words again. We also picked out our new floors! Now if only we could decide whether to raise up our sunk-in living room floor or not. CareBear and LiliBee had a good time “helping” Chris measure the rooms, though.

This week will be a big one… CareBear is venturing into the big world of education! She’s been asking all summer to get to go to a “three year old school” so we signed her up for preschool. I think she’s going to have a great time. It’s a cooperative preschool, too, so I get to go with her sometimes!

The unfortunate (for you all) side to this is the beginning of fundraising… I spent all of those years supporting other people’s kids and then quit my job before I could get my turn! And anyone who knows me knows that I’m not really the “door to door rah rah rah” type of fundraiser… so I’ll be mentioning what we’re selling in my emails, briefly, just in case anyone is interested. Feel free to ignore it!

This month’s fundraiser is Entertainment books. They’re full of coupons to tons of different places and I can get them for any region in the country. $20 gets you the south puget sound version.

There. My work is done.

Anyway, the rest of our upcoming week will probably center around getting ready for the flooring delivery in a couple of weeks. We’ll have to stack boxes and boxes of flooring somewhere to acclimate for a month or so. I wonder how big the boxes are… Anyway, Chris has been spending his Labor day starting the organization of our bonus room. We figure we’ll all move in there while the floor gets done so that we’re not moving furniture from room to room just to get a place to sleep!

Since I missed a week due to illness, this is a summary of the last two weeks… which makes it kind of long, but it’s my blog so I can do that.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last of August. I can’t believe it’s almost the start of school already! I have a new interest in all of those “back to school” ads these days as it will only be a couple of years before that has to mean something to me.

We had a lot of fun over the last two weeks. Unfortunately, last week ended with all of us coming down with a cold and missing out on the weekend. It was a planned “stay at home and get something done” weekend, but we mostly just sat around sneezing and coughing at each other so not much got done. The girls didn’t get nearly as sick as Chris and I did, so they were practically back to normal quickly. Chris took a sick day today to avoid infecting his coworkers. Unfortunately, my parents were not so lucky.

CareBear had another day camp type of class, this time with a safari theme. She had a great time and got to bring home an elephant mask, which has become a very popular car ride accessory. The class was particularly helpful since we had so much down time due to our colds… CareBear tends to get a little stir crazy if we stay home too much!

Everyone recovered from their colds around here except me. I ended up having to go in to the doctor for antibiotics as my cough just wouldn’t go away and apparently decided to turn into bronchitis. I’m tired of being sick so often!

We took an impromptu trip up to Mt. Rainier… it started out as “let’s go for a little drive”, then it was “hey, maybe we should go to Alder lake” and it turned into “why don’t we go pick up a national parks pass while we’re out here?” Since it was late in the day and we weren’t really planning on going all the way up there, we only went as far as Longmire before stopping to explore. The girls were more impressed with the bugs they found than the mountain, but they had a good time nonetheless. It was a very nice day for an outing.

We spent part of this weekend doing some comparison shopping and errands and then providing “tech support” over at my folks’ (ok, Chris does all the work, I get to visit), which was a nice change of pace. We’re in the market for a new washer and dryer and new flooring if anyone has recommendations!

Sunday was spent down in Centralia for a celebration of life/memorial gathering. It was nice to visit with family that I don’t see often, though the circumstances were unfortunate. CareBear made fast friends with Aunt Gail and has been talking about her ever since. She was particularly tickled that Aunt Gail thought the butterflies on her undies might be real!

We made a surprise stop at Chris’ folks’ on our way back north. The girls helped feed the goats dinner and we had a nice visit. It turned into a later day than we expected, but the kids did some napping in the car so everyone maintained good moods all day!

This week will finally (hopefully) see our long planned visit with Auntie T and Z. Our classes have finished for the session so it’s our week off. I’m not sure what else we’ll be doing with ourselves, but I’m sure we’ll keep busy.

I don’t know about the rest of you around here, but I really enjoyed our few days of rain. We even had a thunder storm that traumatized Lucy but entertained the rest of us.

We had plenty of ups and downs this week, but it was mostly good. Everyone is still enjoying their classes at the Y and CareBear spent a good portion of her time during gymnastics running around an obstacle course screaming “fire! fire! hurry! hurry!”. She had a great time.

We managed to make it to the Ren Faire on Saturday. The weather was overcast, but warm, so it was a good day to go. CareBear and LiliBee collected fairy stones and mermaid glitter from random costumed people, which was a lot of fun. We watched part of a play and browsed through the shops. The kids liked the sword fighting but were really impressed by the whip-weilding pirates. I even ran into someone that I worked with years ago at Good Sam!

In other big news, LiliBee is 21 months old! She’s practically two… where did my baby go?

The down part of our week was on Friday when CareBear was a bit under the weather with a tummy ache. I’m still not sure what that was all about, but at least it didn’t last long.

We’re hoping to do a little visiting this week and maybe go play in the park while the weather is nice. Chris will be heading to the dentist for a temporary crown, which should be lots of fun for him. I’m just hoping to take a nap.

We’ve managed to avoid any of the rest of us getting sick again (so far), so we were able to have quite a fun week. We started new classes, had a picnic in the park, played at the fair and even visited Northwest Trek!

Carys is trying out a preschool gymnastics class this time around. So far, it’s her and 4 other three year olds swinging chaotically from bars and jumping into the foam block pit with varying degrees of success. She had a lot of fun and I was quite entertained. She’s also taking a swimming class again and is actually starting to get the hang of kicking!

Lilia is taking a parent/child swim class this session. Chris went with her and, since it’s the same time as Carys’ gymnastics class, I didn’t get to watch this week. I hear that her favorite part is jumping off of the wall to Chris and that she liked doing “motor boat”. She tends to get chilly while swimming, but that didn’t stop her from climbing in and out of the pool for fun.

Chris surprised us with a picnic at the park the park on our way to the farm this week. One of the best parts was that I got to be surprised, too! Since I’m usually tasked with planning and providing food for things, it was a very nice change. Carys thinks that surprises are the best and she and Lilia had a great time picking out a picnic table and playing at the playground.

We hit the Pierce County Fair this weekend. It’s a nice sized fair for little kids, even though the ride selection isn’t very diverse. There were only a few rides that Carys could go on (and none for Lilia, but that’s not unusual)… though it didn’t matter too much since she rode the 4x4s twice and then did the “jungle gym” obstacle coarse type ride 4 times. She really liked the ball pit part of that “ride”. We did all the usual fair looking and eating and generally had a great time.

Unfortunately, Chris missed out on some of the fun to make an unscheduled trip to the dentist for a temporary filling. He cracked part of one of his molars off eating breakfast, so he’ll be going back in a couple of weeks for a crown. Lots of fun for him. Luckily, our dentist is right across the street from the fair so the girls and I had plenty to do while waiting for him to return.

The kids and I headed out to Northwest Trek with my folks today. We had a nice walk on one of the hiking loops and then wandered around looking at animals. Carys was really impressed that she can spot the animals all by herself now, even when they’re not moving around. Lilia loved stopping every few feet to pick up a new stick or rock or leaf. It was quite challenging to keep her walking in anything resembling a forward direction. The animals were mostly sleeping while we were there, but it was still a fun trip.

This week will probably be a little more mellow, with rain in the forecast and all. I do hope to hit the last weekend of the Ren Faire, though!

I hope everyone survived the record heat… I know that I’m very happy with our decision a few years ago to add an air conditioner when we replaced the furnace. We had to be out and about in the heat some, but it was nice to come home to a relatively cool house (still way too hot for me, though).

Chris finally came down with the plague, almost 2 weeks after I did. I’m not actually sure that it was the same thing, but he was pretty sick for a few days. Since we didn’t want the rest of us to get sick again, he got quarantined to the bonus room with a can of Lysol and hand sanitizer (and a window a/c unit, thanks Grandpa!). He’s feeling much better now so he got to come back downstairs and go to work today.

Between the heat and Chris being sick, we didn’t get out as much as we’d planned. The girls and I made a fun trip over to my folks, though, complete with (kiddie) swimming pool and dinner! The girls had a great time splashing and playing in the water and stayed in the pool for a long time because of the hot weather.

We did get a bit of cleaning and organizing done this weekend. Not nearly as much as we need to do, but anything is good!

We missed out on going to the Ren Faire but, happily, it runs for two more weekends. That is particularly handy as the Pierce County Fair is this coming weekend. CareBear was very excited to see a couple of rides driving down the road this morning. Have I mentioned how much I love fairs?

This week is the start of new classes for the kids. CareBear is taking a swimming class again and LiliBee will be taking one, too (though she has to have one of us with her). CareBear is also going to try out gymnastics. It will be interesting to see what she thinks of that since she’s been so excited about doing summersaults and walking on the balance beam by herself.

I’m just glad that it’s not as hot anymore.