A Family of Pumpkins Arrived Yesterday

All through school yesterday, we were excited for the afternoon break when we could carve our pumpkin faces. Finally, it was time. School was done, and my husband walked in the door with the pumpkins. What pumpkins! There were four good-sized pumpkins, with two of them being huge! My oldest son (the only son that can talk in sentences yet) gasped and asked excitedly if he could have the largest one. "Yes, take any pumpkin you want!" his dad urged.

Giggling and full of expectation, we chose pumpkins, dreaming of the faces that would emerge, and then saw that they were filthy, coated with black mud. Laughing and brainstorming, we each picked up our orange heads and placed them into the shower.

Much later, our faces were done. My daughter, after sketching several styles of faces onto a green sheet of scratch paper and asking for our voted input, chose upon a "kitty" face. "That was my favorite too," she confided. Hers took the longest, but eventually, all of our faces were lined up outside on the green front lawn. It was slightly crisp outside, so we took pictures quickly, but had fun with several different poses.

Baby D was too small to carve his own pumpkin, so we garbed him in a pumpkin suit and lined him up with us. The hood of the pumpkin outfit kept sliding down over his eyes. Then when we plopped him down next to us for the last few photos of holding the pumpkins up over our faces, he was finally sad and angry. "Let me out," he insinuated. As soon as he was free from his pumpkin suit and was being hugged again, he was happy.

What a fun day!

Smoky Woodfires and Latin Hips

Walking to the mailbox, my daughter and I breathed in the crisp fall air happily, taking in big gulps of it. "Doesn't that smell great, Mom?" she said. I agreed, inhaling deeply, trying to distinguish the various scents in the air. Smoky wood fires, cold fallen leaves on the fresh cut green grass, and an earthy fragrance from the start of decomposing plant life. That combination is one of my favorite smells.

Other favorite smells: wet air and dirt after a rain; my man's cologne; my baby's cheek and hair; hugging my kids.

On a lighter note: my sister and I had fun laughing at ourselves while trying a Latin hip hop exercise class at my Y Friday night. The whole hip rotations of Latin dancing take a while to learn. We laughed while working out for an hour, and then popped into Caribou for coffee and conversation

Bobbing Bottles in an Autumn River

Yesterday the kids and I walked and rode bikes out to the river. My daughter had just read about Matthew Maury, the father of oceanography from the 1850s and his research to chart the paths of the seas. Maury's method was to drop bottles into the oceans, then note where they turned up later, learning more about ocean currents, wind patterns, etc.

Not being by a sea, the kids and I decided to track river currents. We rolled up notes into clean plastic bottles. Then, after romping in the river for twenty minutes or so and splashing in the shallow water, the kids unleashed their bottles, wondering who would find them and call us, and where the bottles would turn up.

Baby D and I watched the wind blow the tree tops around, and took turns bravely dipping our toes into the cold autumn water.

Edit: We heard back from someone who found one of our bobbing bottles! It had gotten several miles away. One mystery: it looked as if it had gone against the current?? How is that possible? Still probing that mystery on the maps.... Perhaps there is another smaller stream that we are not seeing on the map that connects that area.

Wind Chimes in the Evening Breeze

We just got back from swim team practice. The kids that can walk have brushed their teeth and headed to bed. Daughter makes last minute door barricades to stop the cats from shoving her door open and playing in her room at night. A plastic Lego bin lid stands upright as a shield to block her door, and a red velvety pillow acts as a noise barrier for Otta, the second cat, who likes to bang the lid against her door, waking my daughter up. It took us a few nights to figure out this system. :)

Hubby has read up on the next two chapters of C.S. Lewis's book "Mere Christianity" for his Bible study group tonight. They have deep discussions usually that go until close to midnight.

Son heads to bed downstairs but wishes he could stay up until 10 or 10:30, occasionally coming to the steps to try another discussion tactic. Should I let him? What were your bedtimes in middle school? Don't teens need more sleep than even younger kids, medically?

Baby nurses quietly, falling asleep. My jerking one-handed typing wakens him gently, and he quickly eats more as if to say, "No, really. I'm still eating!" ........ He sleeps now, so I transfer him to a burping position, inhaling the scent of his face and hair. Kissing his cheek, breathing his sweet milky smell, my body relaxes even more. There is nothing like it.

The small metal wind chimes, a gift from one of my former youth group girls years ago, sing in the night breeze on my deck.

A Brush with Thrush

Last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, baby D and I were battling a brush with thrush. Gentian violet (sp?) was highly recommended to us by a nurse friend. The bright purple-blue stain was hilarious to us those three dosing days.

Schooling has been fun this week. We finished "The Call of the Wild," learned about the North American continent--including a lot about Alaska-- and performed several interesting science labs.

J, my older son--inspired by Jack London's book-- made up a dog sled game, which our family just now played at the kitchen table. Caught up in that excitement, all of us started brainstorming additions to J's fun game idea. Daughter M began to sketch out a map board. Husband M jumped in often with new ideas, and I was eager to throw in story lines. "Oooh, let's have this Lose a Turn spot be called Snowstorm!" or "Oh, neat, the temperature is getting really low. That will benefit my low temperature dogs..." Of course that did mean that some dogs were lost to the cold. By the end of the game, the bitter temperatures killed off all of our dogs, just 60 miles short of their target. Pretty realistic, I thought! Every one else is brainstorming ways of adding food, or buying new dogs or warming equipment along the way. Of course, that would add weight and lower our speeds, hmmm. Fun game, huh? J came up with that idea, inspired by The Oregon Trail, I'm sure. :)

How are you?

Science Labs and Swimwear

Wednesday we started homeschooling. It was a great day of science, geography, literature, Language Arts and more. For J's science, we had a cool lab experiment that broke down water molecules and altered copper into copper hydroxycarbonate. (In other words, his end of the copper wire, after being charged with a battery and baking soda water, turned blueish green. Even the water turned blue! Tasted terrible too!) We had been warned not to touch the two ends of the wires together and were so curious to know what would happen if we did! Standing at the table with their swim goggles on (for lack of better protective eye wear), my kids worked away.

Yesterday was a good day academically but a harder day for me. Among another painful thing that made it hard to pick up and hold baby D, I developed a nauseating migraine throughout the day. By evening, it was miserable. But we still had a good day of school.

Mark likes to listen in on whatever history or literature books the kids and I are reading aloud for school. We enjoy him joining us so we like to read in the morning with him before he heads to work. Currently we are reading Jack London's The Call of the Wild. It's very dramatic, and we get choked up at sections of the book.

Today was a fabulous day! The migraine was gone when I woke up this morning. (Thanks to my brother-in-law who let me know which meds to safely take while nursing.) And thanks to La Leche League for their sage advice, I was feeling better in other ways too. Life was good. School went great today, and my kids were cheerful and polite as they did school today. We had fun studying and learning.

The windows are wide open to let in the cool breezes. Baby D is nursing here in my lap. And we have friends coming over this evening.

How are you? What's been something fun about this week for you?

Hi all, it's been a busy six weeks. Sorry for not updating sooner. You'll laugh. I'm sitting here in my living room with stain removers working on various outfits. On the tan corduroy pants that I'm still wearing, there are two spots of Tide stain removal drying. That was an accident from lunch--fresh tomatoes, cucs, red peppers, and basil leaves lightly tossed with olive oil and cider vinegar. I dripped that on me as I was updating facebook, nursing Daniel and trying to eat one-handed.

On the floor behind me are two brown shirts that have oil stains on them. I asked the smart moms I know for their advice on removing tough oil stains. Shari, Karen and Deb all passed on ideas. Apparently the consensus is something about wd-40 and Dawn dish soap. So, behind me on my living room floor are two shirts sprayed with wd-40 and now rubbed with dish soap. This will either cure the stains or add to them greatly!

The story behind the stains on my shirts? One was a drip from a delicious egg roll that Misty made for me when the Lawsons brought over a home-made meal during our first few weeks home with baby. (Thanks, guys!) The other brown shirt is a hand-me-down from my nieces! They have passed down clothes to my daughter for years. Now they are getting older and have clothes and shoes that fit me at times. This cute brown hoodie was too cute to put into a bag for a few years, waiting for Morgan to fit into it. I snagged it. (Thanks, K and R!) Apparently they were attacked by dripping egg rolls too, since the stain is in the same place.

Our garden has struggled through the summer of little weeding and sporadic watering due to a new baby. But we are enjoying some rewards! There have been green beans, tomatoes, chives, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and now--some beautiful gladiolas! Check out these neat photos.

I have missed blogging and talking with you all. How are you? Many of you are just now getting back to school too. How's that going? How are your classes? Or, for the non-students, how are your new fall schedules different?

I haven't been able to tell you some more fun family stories from the last few weeks. Check back to hear the adventures of the gas alarm and the front yard; the creative kind serving things that Morgan has come up with lately; John's cool deep thoughts; and more.

Meanwhile, catch me up on your life....