October Festivities

Well, as promised, I'm updating. October went by in a blur. I'm not even documenting the family trip out to Idaho (because family who would really like to look at pictures... already HAVE those pictures! :)), but we did that too! So a brief look at a full month, in pictures. Ready, go!

carving pumpkins

 Caroline preferred to mummify herself in the curtain rather than participate in the carving

 Our awesome shrunken heads! Really easy and fun to make. Gwen reminded Caroline daily that they needed to check on their little heads. She insisted that hers was always cute, never scary, even when old and wrinkly. 

 We (okay, I) really enjoy themed food, on a simple level. Those crazy Bento box moms put me to complete and utter shame, but I do enjoy easy fun snacks. Every day Gwen and Caroline got to choose a shape for their lunch sandwich. I thought is was fun and not time-consuming to use my seasonal and holiday cookie cutters to oblige their little dreams. I just love holidays and themes!

  Gwen loved banana ghosts and requested them pretty much every day! Caroline liked the jack-o-lantern mandarin oranges best. Both girls liked the cheese ghosts with faced drawn on them in edible food-writer ink. Gotta love fun snacks!

 Gwen lost her first tooth (the dentist says she has 3 more loose ones-- ahead of average) and the tooth fairy brought her a Brazilian coin!

 Pumpkin Festival (or Show, if you prefer the "official" title of the event) in Circleville is a yearly tradition. This year the gals had a great time and I was glad we got there early to beat the crowds! 

Posing in front of the world's largest pumpkin pie.

 last year's gignormous pumpkins were bigger, but the girls didn't care. They definitely liked the "big...big...big...BIG pum-kins!" (how Caroline said it)

 And we went with a friend who treated us to a petting zoo extravaganza! The lighting was bad under there, so most of my pics didn't turn out. But it was pretty awesome to get to pet camels, kangaroos, emus, etc. Thanks Kasia!

and of course, the to-die-for pumpkin donuts! This year we got the sugar sprinkled mini kind instead of the larger glazed ones. I think I prefer these! A-maz-ing. And the line to get them was ridiculous, so I know I wasn't the only one who thought so!

Gwen's preschool had a field trip to a local farm. We went along. Caroline was NOT keen on the 'educational' or even the 'social' part. This is her reaction when a friend got to close to her. :)

 So we ended up heading out on our own while Gwen enjoyed the time with her class. 

 playing in the corn box...and why does it always have to go on her head?

 and then the hay bale maze with the awesome slides and secret tunnels...

 Gwen's class joined us and I got some pics of her... at which point Caroline disappeared into the maze and craziness ensued bc she thought it was fun playing hide and seek. That girl needs a homing beacon. As soon as I successfully tracked her down, we headed home to take naps. 

While the weather was still nice, we enjoyed doing garden harvesting and looking for bugs. I love it when I find some cool ones! the day of these pics was particularly fruitful, as we found a very pregnant preying mantis (which Gwen promptly dubbed "Gwen"... until I suggested we pick a more fitting name. Then she chose "Mantia") and 3 very fat and fuzzy caterpillars!

 I told them we couldn't pet Mantia. So we just watched her. 

Caroline is singing and signing "Caterpillar Dreams" from Signing Time... see the little guy climbing up her sleeve on her right arm?

 Gwen loved the way they tickled on her hands!

 The expression on Caroline's face is too cute!

Preschool Halloween Costume Parade

Gwen's school has an annual costume parade so parents can take pics and kids can show off their costumes. 

 Gwen loved another opportunity to wear her shark costume. I don't think she even noticed that all the other girls were dressed up in fancy dresses as princesses. That's my girl! :)

 Caroline got to participate. This is her "cheese" face. :)

She insisted on holding the teacher's hand for the parade. You'd think she ran the place. :P

Halloween Costumes (aka, how I am a sucker for spending limited time in frivolous ways for a silly holiday)

You might gather from the title that I am a bit chagrined by the amount of effort I put into a certain costume for the amount of time it remained on a little person's body (Caroline, you are such a varmint!)

I thought I managed to pull off a pretty cute look, considering the amount of time allotted me to work on it, but considering how busy we have been, maybe I should have cleaned my toilets instead. She only wore her costume for 5 minutes... then I started to find pieces of it on the floor at our church building for our trunk or treat. Ah well. I guess we were never shoo-ins for the costume award anyway (but I am proud to say I made them and that the cost was minimal)! Gwen sure loved her shark, though, and wants to wear her costume non-stop around the house.

And apparently, noone could figure out that I was a jelly-fish. No, I was not an umbrella. I thought it looked pretty good, especially with the goldfish and shark alongside, but maybe I wasn't so obvious as I supposed. Eric's costume subtlety went over EVERYONE's heads. They all thought he just didn't dress up. No no. It is a pun. and it is punny. He's a "muscle"... "mussel"... goes along with the ocean theme? get it? get it?... but no one got it. Or could appreciate the humor because he is definitely NOT what most people would call a muscle... :P and he said it first, not me!

I'll have to do another post with the fun things we've been doing around here, but this week is too busy. I've got to turn in my 60 page thesis in a week!

Peach Productivity!

Productivity and "feeling productive" are often two very different things around here.

But last weekend the two coincided!

We bottled 31 quarts of delicious fresh-picked peaches from a local orchard on Saturday. This almost didn't happen because we missed the annual sale that we wait all year for... but decided to bite the financial bullet because nothing compares to home-bottled peaches! It was amazing how much more quickly it went with two adult hands rather than just me trying to get a batch or two done during nap time. Plus I just love cooking with my husband; it affords us such beautiful time to chat about all kinds of things.

We saved out a dozen or so peaches for baking and eating... and freezing, but we ended up eating and
eating and never froze any! I did reserve a handful for this delicious peach pie!

The recipe is awesome because it combines the perfection of a pie (presentation, folks! We eat with our eyes first!) and the perfection of a cobbler (streusel... no need to say any more, right? You guys are right with me!) because it has BOTH! You really ought to try it! and if you have a nut allergy, you can totally leave out the almonds and it would still be amazing.

The last few days of astronomy curriculum were this week, so I had the girls help me with the star and moon decorations. They had a great time eating our 'space' pie! :)

Summer Photos

It has been a while since I posted. I thought about trying to come up with a profound post, particularly because I've read some pretty provocative books in the past couple months that prompt my opinions, but I decided it would be altogether more satisfying in the long run if I documented in photos a few of the things we've done so far this summer. So, nothing profound, just life. Which I guess IS profound. :) Sorry, they are in reverse chronological order. ;)

My family had a reunion at Gettysburg this year for the 150th anniversary. Wouldn't you know my photos of the reenactment are...lame...so. Oh well. I have great memories of the things we did, including Amish country, Hershey chocolate world, and swimming daily to escape the sweltering heat. Just had my hands too full with little crazy kids, I guess, to take all the photos I wanted. Here are  few I did manage to take:

She looks angry, but really Gwen is so happy to be holding hands with her cousin S, who 'grew up' quite a bit since the last time the cousins got together. S's older brother, whom Gwen usually sticks to like glue, might have been slighted more than once by Gwen who made it clear that she was sitting by S, standing by S, going with S, walking with S, and playing with S pretty much all the time. Poor little cousin A. There was a love quadrangle there, Gwen wanted S, A wanted Gwen and C wanted A... the drama of 3-5 year-olds, seriously. :)

 inside Indian echo caverns

 Caroline *finally* content on a swing. She was in rare form the entire reunion

. In other words, I don't know if my family got to see much of her endearing side, just her crazy side. :)

 Once again, Gwen and cousin S.

 At home in C-bus the girls get to explore various parks. Here: Coffman park. 

 Homestead park:

 fishing with daddy

 Alum Creek (which is actually a freshwater beach 30 minutes north of us)

 Bunny fountains:

 In Idaho for Collin and Alison's wedding, we made a point of spending time up at the cabin.

  It was dinosaur week for our summer curriculum, and it ROCKED up at the cabin with "real" fossils to dig up (actually elk bones, but cousin E was positive they were pteranadon scapulae and the like), fossil cookies, and awesome dino hats courtesy of Uncle Marc and Aunt Rachelle. 

It has been a busy and marvelous summer! and it isn't over yet!

What I want for Mother's Day...

What I got out of Stake Conference today:

1. I really want to be a better, more patient, more loving mom. The kind that never raises her voice and always gets down eye to eye with her children, even when disciplining them. Always out of love, never out of anger. The kind of mom that shows her children what following Jesus Christ truly looks like. 
2. My children (esp the younger one) are bent on making the above desire as hard as possible by disobeying whenever possible-lying regularly-and abusing the younger sis (elder child's infractions) or screaming, squalling, kicking, biting, bawling, whining, and just generally being an ornery disagreeable child as often as possible (younger child's infractions). Family Home Evening lessons just don't seem to be sinking in, no matter how many different angles I approach the various problems we are having in our home.
3. The desire and the frustrating reality were painfully apparent at the conference as I battled (quite literally with screaming and kicking and hitting and trips out to the foyer about every 5 minutes) with the littles in between snippets of inspiration that were painfully opposite of the juxtaposed reality. 
4. What can I say more? While being inspired to WANT more joy and peace in my family, I am at the same time so frustrated with the CONSTANT fighting between the kids, the selfishness, and the never-ceasing bawling from the little one, and the subsequently far too frequent bouts of combustion from my own frustration-- that I can't help also feeling like it was a hard chastisement for our lack of spirituality in our home and relationships. 
5. I am not looking for comments of 'you can do this' or 'this is just a phase--they'll grow out of it'. This isn't a post to glean some obligatory compliments or words of sunshine. What this IS: a frustrated mom who feels like she's insane to want more kids when she can't handle the two she's got, when the pending Mother's Day next week just makes her want to hurl cards and flowers off the deck because what she REALLY wants.... really really... is a happy family with two girls that will love each other, play together, and stop the constant constant constant contention that drives the spirit from our home. 

That's what I got from Stake Conference today.