October review

A very muddy, cupcake-faced, very happy David after his last soccer game of the season. SO proud of his trophy.

Apple picking with Grammy and Papa John. The low ones were picked over so they gave us one of these picker sticks and Luke was downright dangerous with it, insisting on doing it himself.

Success! Apple butter in our future...

Katy was having a hard time getting a bite while missing her two front teeth.

The kids look forward to this all fall.

Such a pretty day!

Stopped at Velvet ice cream factory on the way home. I wish we could have stayed longer because the place was beautiful, historic, and enormous.

It takes the patience of a grandmother to make an apple pie with this many helpers.

Shortly after this photo was taken, we discovered that this one had a fever, which was the start of a week long battle with Roseola. Poor baby was SO sick. Just miserable. It was a tough week.

Labor of love.

School pictures! I was really happy with them, although I only get the very minimal package in order to get the class picture which we all LOVE. They are so cute and the kids love that they can show me who they are talking about when they talk about kids at school.

Anna is belly crawling all over the place. We spent an afternoon trying to get all the choking hazards out of the playroom (impossible). I gave up on the matchbox cars after 24 hours because they make their way back into the playroom at a rate with which I cannot keep up. So I will just have to keep a close eye on this baby girl! Her 9 month stats: 16 pounds, 8 ounces (20th percentile) and 27 ounces (20th percentile). 

The kids have had several days off of school lately (parent-teacher conference, inservice days), and Katy has spent many hours making a "store" in her room.  Conferences went well. One thing I am sad about is a new security system being installed in the school so everyone will have to be buzzed in by camera ID. I totally understand why it is necessary, but it makes me sad that this is the world my kids will know from childhood.

Beth and Landon visiting our somewhat-impromptu reunion with old friends. Some friends were coming to town for an OSU game, and several of them have gotten married or had babies recently, so we hosted a reunion with lots of friends, babies, chili, and football. It was so nice to get together.

Anne and Cheryl (with Anne's baby Thomas)

We were happy to meet Cheryl's husband Brian since we were not able to attend their wedding last year. (That's baby Thomas again, Cheryl was getting her baby fix :)

All (fantastic) fathers now - Art, Jason, and Mark

At one (brief) point, Kristen, Anne, and I all had babies asleep upstairs and we were all checking our video monitors. Kristen and Anne have the same (new) monitor, and WOW. Those things have gotten fancy! You can not only hear your baby, but talk TO him, play music for him remotely, and it gave all kinds of information. At one point when baby Thomas was having a hard time sleeping, I said to Anne, "Do you think he's cold up there?" and she said, "Well, it says it's 69 degrees." I look at the monitor screen and it displays the TEMP of the ROOM!  Technology is amazing.

Kristen and baby Matthew.

These boys were due on the same day, but ended up being 3 weeks apart by birthdate. I love seeing babies' reaction to each other. So sweet.

Ready for Halloween!

It SEEMS like things will slow down after this coming weekend, but perhaps that is a myth that will never ever happen. This week is Halloween (parties and costumes and trick or treat) and my semi-annual Box Tops submission. Brian says this happens every fall, but for the past 4-6 weeks, I've been spending about 10-20 hours per week on Girl Scouts. The troop has grown to 13 girls, and getting everything off the ground at the beginning of the year is a lot of work. I've had to take a step back and remind myself why I am doing all this - keeping the big picture in mind because it's easy to get burnt out. I really am excited for everything we have planned for this year - more service, more outside, more arts. It will be worth it.

Other news from October before it's gone from my mind:
- I went to a continuing education class for a full day and left Brian with the kids - first time I've been away from that for that long in quite a while.
- Melanie went on a mission trip with my Dad and Sue to Jamaica - they had a really great trip, good experience.
- My friend Cindy had a 2nd baby girl, Amelia Marion, on my Dad's birthday! Precious.

An Edit

So in that last post I made a comment about David's soccer team not being very good and always getting creamed. But this week we've been playing a lot of soccer in the yard just for fun when we've been outside, and I feel like I've noticed some "clicks" going on in his head.

Well just a couple of hours after I posted that, David had a game and something seemed to click for him and his whole team. They were fairly evenly matched and David made not one. Not two. THREE GOALS!!! And his team ended up winning! (Again, they don't officially keep score, but usually the difference in the number of goals is enough that you can tell who would have "won.") He was on cloud nine. And for the rest of the evening, he kept saying over and over, "My team WON! We WON. My team WON, Mom!" and never even mentioned being proud of himself for his three goals. I'm proud of my little athlete tonight. He plays his heart out.

Chugging along...

We've been enjoying a busy month full of routine. In some ways, no news is good news. Soccer keeps us busy - next Monday is the last day of regular season. Katy is loving being on a girls' team for the first time and she plays hard. She got her first goal of the season the other day. Her team is really strong and have only lost to one team (twice). For David, the most important thing is that he is having fun, and he's just learning the basics of what it means to be on a team and be a good sport, pay attention to your coach and referees, etc. Truth be told, his team is...ummm...really terrible. It's a good thing they don't keep score at this age because the average score is about 8-1. Once the coach of the other team let us have an extra player on the field to try to even things out (it didn't help that much). He said to me one day, "Mom, my team isn't very good at winning." True, buddy, but you're having a good time, right?

About a month ago, we participated in the baby dedication ceremony at our church. We were very fortunate that many family members were able to be there with us (and for the first time, several of these family members are also members of the church, too!). This time we were supposed to submit a picture and write something about the dedication to be projected during the service. We wrote:

[ChurchName] has been our church family for 8 years, since we were expecting our first child. We have been supported in countless ways by this body of believers as we strive to raise our children in the way of the Lord. Joe R---, who invited us here 8 years ago, will be praying for us today for the 4th time as we dedicate our sweet gift, Anna Ruth. 


In trying to decide what to write, it really hit me how much our church family has been intertwined in our lives and our family over the past 8 years. I am so thankful for the people there who have been friends, servants, mentors, teachers, and givers. It is an awesome community to be a part of. 

She's a lucky girl to have so many people to love her.

I had to share one picture from the ceremony, because seriously. If you saw my boys regularly at church - their typical behavior in the lobby is to run around like crazy people as if it is an indoor playground until I physically wrestle them out the door. I gave them a little speech before we went up there about appropriate behavior and they. were. ANGELS. David literally had his hand on Luke's shoulder the whole time and they stood perfectly still and silent. Who are these children? Maybe something that I'm saying is getting through...somewhere.

Katy and David are both doing well in school, which is so great. They had a walk-a-thon to raise funds recently and I got to walk with both of them. It's usually my first peek into their class (friends, teacher, etc). David has a very good little buddy in his class, but I only know his first name, and nothing else about him. Haven't met his mom or anything. 

I wish I could show the video of the principal doing the ChaCha slide with all the kids. I was laughing so hard  watching it. They have such a great principal. 

I have no idea how to edit photos - I was just trying to erase his school name from his shirt, and I don't have time to figure out how to fix it. Ugh!

Beth took this one - she's finally eating solid foods - so twice a day I am stripping her down for this mess! She's loving it, though, and it's nice that she's eating something other than nursing! And she's starting to get mobile - not crawling but rolling and scooting. Video soon...

A typical evening on the sidelines of a soccer game.

The boys are getting lots of bonding time these days (not at this moment, here they are watching TV)- they are obsessed with footie jammies. And Aunt Mel brought home her broken work phone for them to play with. They had all kinds of funny questions like, "Which button do I push to hang up? How do I look up my contacts?"

Reading together cuteness