a day at the farm

our trip to the farm last weekend was a good one! high 80s was not the ideal temperature for a trip to the farm in october, but we found some shade and made some wonderful memories. and that view was definitely worth the drive. we didn't find the field of pumpkins i was hoping for, but by the end of the day, i was content capturing the orchards and cutie pies in the wagons. and apple cider. and kids who were tired of posing. and sweaty boys before family pictures. and let's not forget the grown men on pedal racecars.







and what was so funny, you wonder?!



the kids weren't going to let the adults have all the fun...



and then there was the "ameliamobile"!







we were so glad that our friends sam and jen came to the farm with us.
their girls, lola and amelia, are so stinkin' adorable.







"what are you guys doin' over there?"



"you're not having too much fun without me, are you!?"



caroline's main goal for our day at the farm was to see the horses. she talked about nothing else for the days leading up to our farm visit (in addition to asking if we were going to the farm everytime we left the house for the past two weeks!). as you can see, she wasn't thrilled about the horse once we got up close.



i love these next two shots of my farm kids....





here's our obligatory family picture at the pumpkin patch...
or next to a couple of pumpkins. :)



the cousins were not real thrilled with the continuing
photography at this point.... but this one is still a keeper.



nana and some of the kids at the pond...



this one isn't really all that clear, but i love this shot of karina.



we were all excited to try their homemade apple cider. it was pretty good!





i think karina liked it, too. :)



ethan also tried a caramel apple. it only took him 67 hours to lick to the core.
(i gladly demonstrated how it was done, but those did not make the blog!)



this little farm girl thinks her cousin is one silly boy!



amelia is thinking, "well! if everyone else is having a treat,
i think i'll just take a bite of this."



"nevermind!"



ethan and caroline discover that farming is hard work.
all this turning just for a little corn!





and these pumpkins...they're so heavy!



caroline decided she'll take the swinging job!



i had fun snapping pictures around the farm...













and my favorites from the day... these of my three little farm kids.
i love these gifts from God.




we agreed that we would be back next year! i think we have a new fall tradition on our hands. though i'd like to leave "sweating" out of the tradition. a girl can hope, right!?

(as if those weren't enough pictures... if you'd like to see more from our farm day, click here.)

amelia is 7 months old! amelia is 8 months old! and she'll be 9 months old soon!

according to this blog post, amelia grew up over night! in my last monthly post (the one that i actually posted on her monthly bday!), she was just starting to get hair, and she couldn't even sit up yet. and now here she is with some fuzz on her head and a couple more months under her belt! she is growing so quickly in real life, too.... it seems like just yesterday that she was a quiet baby, content with rolling around on the living room floor most of the day. now she is sitting up and crawling everywhere, and she is a little noisemaker! her favorite noises of late come from the back of her throat (for my speech therapy buds, she has perfected the glottal fricative!), and she has the best time experimenting with her voice. we joke that she is a genius because i'll say, "what do you use to unlock a door?" and then i wait for her to squeal, "kee kee kee". :) oh the silly little joys of motherhood! amelia also loves to shake her head-- not really on cue or for "no", but it's so cute when she does it. her other favorite past time lately is grabbing my face while i talk and sing to her (you know, during all that one-on-one time i have with her all throughout the day.... are you picking up on my sarcasm!?). mama's keeping baby's nails nice and trimmed these days!

amelia is working on two more teeth.... the top front ones, and those two will make four. she has still been a pretty happy teether most of the time, though i can tell lately that they're bothering her. speaking of pain, amelia is currently sporting her first big bonk. she rolled into our new (very used) armoire the other day, and her lack of hair shows off the purple bruise. :( it's small but looks really purple on her blond head!

amelia will get to visit her first pumpkin patch this weekend!!! we are taking a day trip to a (sort of) local farm. i can't wait! a farm! with pumpkins! not a parking lot with pumpkins! surely, surely, surely this will be better than the mosquito patch last year. it has to be! (i would say check back soon for pictures of this weekend, but with my track record lately, i doubt any of you would believe me!)

we're so thankful to God for our precious baby girl...

september!

my dear out of town friend that is by far the busiest person i know emailed me today to make sure i was okay since i hadn't blogged in weeks. here's a snippet of her email:
Now, I know you have 3000 things to do everyday and blogging can't be the top of the list, but usually you make time for it anyway. ARE YOU OKAY?
i was so encouraged by her email. really, i was. but i also had to chuckle at the "but usually you make time for it anyway" part. let me translate: "you will let your laundry pile up and you will abandon your floors, but by golly, those pictures make it to your blog! so what in tarnation has gotten in the way of your ten little fingers updating tenlittletoes!?" that's really what she meant.

well, september surely was a busy month. not really so much running here and there with the kids everyday... we spend the majority of our week at home. i have had a couple of projects that have demanded much of my evenings for the past month or so. project number one: the books.


these are just some of the books that i have been organizing and selling for my church's school. the school has changed all of its curriculum this year, and they had hundreds and hundreds of books that were no longer needed. when i saw the stacks and stacks of books in early august, i knew that they would sell on ebay or amazon. i also knew that the window of opportunity was narrowing. once homeschool families and private schools settled on their curriculum choices, there would be less of a need for these books until next year. so i began organizing and inventorying this room of books. whew! i won't lie. it was a lot of work. but i got most of them listed, and they began selling like hotcakes! i couldn't believe it! the week before labor day, i had about 30 orders a day on amazon. it got kind of nuts for a while. it started to slow down in mid-september, and then last week, it picked up again for a few days. lately, i've just had a few orders a week, and i am fine with that. it's manageable, and the hard work is over. now the books just need to keep selling! i will admit that i enjoyed the inventory process. i know, i'm a dork. and i have a really great spreadsheet to prove it!! :) i felt a serious sense of accomplishment when i turned the mess that you see above into a wanna-be bookstore stockroom. i should take an "after" picture of my organized stacks! (and if you're looking for bob jones or a beka curriculum...or glencoe math books, let me know! i may have something that you need!)

my other project for august/september was organizing kids' quest, the wednesday night kids' program at our church. i have had a lot of fun getting all of this ready, and last week was the big beginning! now that the major planning and preparation is behind me, i am really enjoying being a part of this ministry! for the last two weeks, i've been filling in for an out-of-town teacher, so i have yet to take a single picture of kids' quest. i know. it's killing me. so stay tuned for pictures of these kids in action. they are having a ton of fun while they're learning the basic truths of God's Word!

so my plate was pretty full in september. i probably should not have taken on both of those projects at the same time, but i did. and the craziness is over. and i am so thankful for my super patient husband. and i'm only slightly sleep-deprived.

here's a (sort of) quick recap of our family's september:

caroline is officially potty-trained! woohoo! we actually worked on this in july and august, and she caught on really quickly. i've been wanting to blog about this for over a month. i hope to write more about my big girl soon.


ethan was promoted from his very first sunday school class this fall... here he is with mrs. deb and his 4 year old buddies after their last sunday school class together. ethan loves his new class, too, but i think he'll always have a special place in his heart for mrs. deb.


we've started our homeschooling journey this year, and we are blessed to be a part of a fantastic co-op group, classical conversations. we have so much fun meeting with other families once a week, and ethan and caroline are learning so much. (and honestly, so am i!) the moms are incredibly encouraging, and the older kids are so sweet to my little ones. i plan on writing more about this later. i've taken tons of pictures over the last 6 weeks!



september began with a relaxing reunion of brian's high school friends. most of his classmates are still local, but it was nice for us all to get together for lunch. here i am with rachel, her sweet boy daniel, and mara!


then came brian's birthday! the kids never give up a chance to blow out the candles... we had a wonderful family get-together to celebrate my sweet husband's day....


the next weekend, brian was still humming "happy birthday to me" as he came home with an acoustic guitar! he practices almost every night, and he's getting better every day! i told him i expected a love ballad written for me by christmas. :)


we made a quick trip over to see brian's grandparents in september. as always, it was wonderful to see them. they couldn't believe how big amelia had gotten!



ethan has been loving writing these days... either on his magna doodle, dry erase board, or whatever he can find. usually, he will copy something that i've written down, but lately he has so much fun figuring out how to independently spell simple words. a few weeks ago, he came to me with his very first word that he spelled out and wrote all on his own. so of course i had to take a picture of it. (think of it as a baseline for his handwriting!)


and we couldn't resist just one more trip to the beach... it was a picture perfect day! i have several favorites from this day, too.... can i hope to get caught up on here one of these days!?



this was amelia's first time to get wet at the beach. she loved it! (don't worry, i put her hat back on her after a minute.) did you notice her "farkly" glasses to match caroline's?!?!


and this week, we had ten more little toes wandering aound our house... those big brown eyes are gorgeous, aren't they!? georgia will be two at the end of october, and we loved babysitting her while her mommy was out of town.


and i cannot forget that amelia turned 8 months old on the 22nd! pictures of that coming soon! as soon as i take them!

so there's september in a nutshell. the book orders are proving to slow down and kids' quest is off and running. i am hoping things will "get back to normal"-- whatever that means! but then again, amelia is now crawling, and my family sees the need to eat and have clean clothes every day. so i'm thinking that october will fly by at breakneck speeds as well! this afternoon was my first chance in several days to just breathe and enjoy some time at home. ethan and i got face to face with a lizard in the window, and that made my little boy's day. i cuddled up with the kids this afternoon and read book after book. and i finally folded the clothes on the love seat. so there's hope after all. :)

i have missed blogging... i look forward to getting back on here soon to talk potty training. :) have a great weekend!

(i actually wrote this on thursday, but i fell asleep while adding pictures both thursday and friday nights. i think i need some sleep!)

ahhhh!

it's the middle of september now. and my last post was the first of the month. it's been a busy one, folks. the busiest. great, but busy. hang with me. i want to blog. i really do. but my plate is full of commitments to fulfill, apples to cut, and picture books to read. my "to blog" list just keeps growing and growing. check back soon. or at least in october.

(that was a joke, but we'll see if i do actually roll out another post in september.)

24 hours of quiet.

our anniversary night away was just what we needed in the midst of these busy days. things are still busy, so this will have to be short and sweet. (which is a great way to describe our getaway!)



we had a great time doing pretty much nothing. we enjoyed the quiet.


and i got to take naps. i was really bummed when i woke up on my own at 7:30 on saturday morning, but i happily went right back to sleep.


we ordered pizza and watched movies. neither of the movies were that great, but i think they were the most enjoyable mediocre movies i've watched in a long time.


we never tired of our beautiful view. we contemplated eating our muffins out on the porch saturday morning, but the absence of a breeze and the presence of mosquitoes and humidity sent us back indoors.


i really just couldn't get enough of the trees. a canopy of oaks is hard to top in my book.


and here we are, five years later and five years stronger. we are so grateful to our gracious friends who gave us the keys to their beautiful beach house for the night. thanks, jay and tammy!


i love my husband. i am thankful for the blessing of marriage and the daily reminders that this union brings. i am reminded of Christ's love for His church. i am reminded of the abundant gift of God's grace. i am reminded that my life is not my own. i am reminded that i am in need of a Savior. and i am reminded of the wonderful power of forgiveness. praise the Lord for these five years, and i pray that the next five (and the next five, and the next five, etc) will be to His Glory.