Outdoors

Happy Fall

Posted on by Amy

This is my favorite time of year.  When the air cools and becomes crisp and smells amazing.  When everything changes so quickly.  And beautifully.  When I think, at least once per day, that I wish I had my camera so I could pull my car over and take a photo of that gorgeous farmstead, that harvested field, that amazing tree. …

I didn’t pull over to take this photo. This is just the tree in our front yard.

Often, I don’t have my camera.  But even when I do, I never pull over to take photos of what I see as I drive along.  I’m always worried about finding a safe place to stop.  Or about getting home quickly because my kids are hungry, or tired, or need to go to the bathroom.  Maybe I should make a point of keeping my camera with me.  Maybe I should stop once in a while.  Seize the moment and all that.  Maybe someday I will.  But for now, who needs photos of farms and trees, when you have this?

Leaves on a trampoline –

A nice front porch for hanging out –

And drawing –

Lots of leaves for gathering and raking and throwing and jumping –

This time of year is when I get the urge to do more spontaneous things.  Simple things to soak in the beauty of my favorite season.  Like pulling my car over on a country road simply to take a beautiful photo.  Or stopping at the roadside pumpkin stand.

And then I remember I need to make lunches and feed a hungry baby and  get girls down for naps, or get to school/swimming/gymnastics on time, or get home to start cooking dinner.

Oh well.  I do try to do other simple things that make the most of the perfect fall days we’ve been having, like impromptu lunch picnics and walks and jumping in leaf piles.  We are planning Halloween costumes and will be getting pumpkins for carving soon.  We watch football and buy apples at the farmer’s market.  I get lots of gorgeous photos of my girls enjoying the season.  We’ve got leaves in hair, crazy outfits, precarious wielding of very large yard tools. …  Soon we’ll have pumpkins, bigger leaf piles, and two little girls trick or treating as ballerinas (again).  Who needs photos of barns and cows and fields?

Happy fall to you.

Animal Farm Revisited

Posted on by Amy

My husband is working nights this week.  Ugh.  There are several reasons this is not my favorite work schedule for him, not the least of which being that I feel the need to stay out of the house all the time to let him get some sleep.  Though we can and sometimes do stay home while he’s sleeping, it generally leads to me feeling anxious about the girls being loud, and then crabby because invariably they are loud, and then guilty because of course they’re loud, they’re kids, and I hate fussing at them about it.  So needless to say, when Daddy works nights we try to stay out of the house as much as possible.  Today I decided to make the most of it.  After a little bonding time with Daddy over some archery in the morning, we hit the road to have a bit of fun out and about.

I decided to take the girls back to the dirty weird zoo we visited last summer.  Why did we return to such an odd place, you may be wondering?  Well, if you recall from our visit last year, though the place was kind of strange and dirty, it really was fun and Miss totally enjoyed it.  So I was kind of excited to check it out again now that both of my older girls could appreciate it.

I was happy to see this guy right when we pulled in.  He was one of my favorites last year and was right there to greet us when we got out of the car.

Okay, really he totally ignored us, but it was fun to see him again.  The place still had the long stretch of trail that was full of trash, but happily no bison skulls in varying stages of decay this time.

And of course, they still had tons of fun animals to feed.  This time the animals were all much cleaner as well.  A major improvement.  My favorite thing about this place is that they give each person a bag of bread when you come in and you can feed almost all of the animals there.  This time we were told we could feed any of them except the new wolf and dingos.  No problem there.  The rest of the animals were eager to accept our offerings.  In fact, we had almost the exact same problem this time with the goat assault that we had last time.  As soon as we came in and got our bread those guys were all up in our business wanting to get some.  Lass started screaming (just like she did last year) and Miss started trying to climb my leg (just like she did last year) and I started hip checking goats and hustling my wagon out of their range.  After that, Miss was kind of hesitant to feed any of the animals and Lass wouldn’t get out of the wagon.  But they still loved looking at the animals and watching me feed them.

After a while we saw this goose on the trail and Miss wanted to feed him.  She took a piece of bread and tried to take it to him, but he just waddled away from her.  Finally she threw the bread at him and then ran like hell when he turned around and started coming back towards her to get it yelling, “Momma, I knew I could do it!”

And that was her mantra for the rest of the morning. Once she braved the goose, she was all in.

She really wanted to feed the llama.  She kept calling him “Llama Llama,” like the book character.  I had to distract a few other animals (a zebra, a cow, and a pony) so she could have a clear path to feed Llama Llama.  She was really proud of herself after she did it.

She wanted to make sure each of the animals in this area got a piece of bread, and she kept pointing out animals that hadn’t, “Give one to him, Momma” and “He needs some bread, he looks hungry.”  She was quite concerned that we try to get some bread to the ones who had gotten boxed out by the bigger and more assertive animals.  So we did.

This zebra was new and very beautiful.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to a zebra before.  I know I’d never fed a piece of bread to one before today.

I was a little bit surprised that my typically fearless middle child did not want anything to do with feeding the animals.  She held one piece of bread the whole time.  At the end of our walk through the zoo she kept saying she was going to give it to one of the pigs, but wouldn’t quite pull the trigger and throw it through the fence.

Then the goats came back and she quickly shoved it at me  and ran back to the wagon with more screaming.  Miss was not as fearful this time though, and actually walked up to a goat and petted him on her own.  But due to the screaming of her sister, we headed out pretty quickly at that point.

When we got back to the car I asked each of the girls which animal was her favorite.  Miss said the goats (really?).  Lass said the horses (though both of them had seemed terrified of the huge horses).  In spite of the goat terrorizing, we had a really great time again this year.

And, in a burst of mommy genius and planning, I made our lunches before we left this morning so when we got home we went straight from the car to a picnic in our front yard under our beautiful oak tree.  The girls thought this was so cool.

We had some new elderberry jam on our sandwiches today.  The girls had never had this kind before (or even heard of it) so we pretended it was “Bumbleberry” Jam, which is a favorite of the Care Bears.  It was a big hit.

After lunch we just enjoyed a beautiful day outside.

Sis and I hung out while the older girls ran and chased each other back and forth.

Naturally they found the one remaining puddle from last night’s rain.

It was a great day.

Making Memories

Posted on by Amy
We were in recovery mode today.  Yesterday we partied hard with our friends.  This statement takes on a whole new, yet still quite accurate meaning when you consider that “we” is in reference to four adults with our six children under five getting together for a fun evening of grilling, trampolining, swinging (on the swing set), running, sandbox-ing, exploring, chasing, and s’mores eating, with grown up conversation in between.  The three “little kids” (under 2) went to bed after s’mores and the three “big” kids (3 and 4) got in jammies and stayed up to watch Snow White while the adults visited around the fire pit.  My husband and my friend’s husband had spent what seemed like an hour getting that fire started.  They didn’t use a lighter or any matches.  Just some old-fashioned cave-man fire-starting stuff.  I was literally on my way to get the lighter (because it was way past time for s’mores!!) when I saw smoke finally rising from our fire pit.  The manly men prevailed, and it was good.
We had a wonderful time with friends.  The kids all got sufficiently sweaty and dirty and scraped up to consider it a true summertime playing extravaganza.  They explored our “woods” (treed area around the perimeter of our yard) and jumped themselves silly on our new trampoline.  My husband, hero of the evening, played a new game with them, which involved getting on his hands and feet under the trampoline and chasing the kids by pushing his butt up into the trampoline from the underside while running around bear-crawl style.  I wish I had seen this and gotten a photo.  I heard the laughter and screaming of the kids, but I was putting Sis to bed while this was going on.  So I, like you, have only a (very hilarious) mental image of these antics to go by.  Oh how I love that man. 
Needless to say, we were all feeling a little worn out today.  Incredibly, the girls only slept in a little bit past their usual wake up times, so they were pretty tired and crabby today.  We got lots of good down time in though.  Nothing like being pooped to bring a family together for some serious bonding.  The girls made breakfast with their Daddy.  
They love helping him cook eggs.  They work the pepper mill and really get into pinching and sprinkling the salt from my salt pig.
We read lots of books and just relaxed.

This afternoon we went outside for more backyard fun.  I love watching the big girls run and play in the yard.  They go on “adventures” and make up scenarios involving monsters and giants and castles and rescue missions.  We got them sufficiently tuckered out again this evening.  
This is the stuff of memories.  

Fashion Shows and Fishing

Posted on by Amy
The title of this post really sums up the variety of things the girls have to do when we go to the farm.  The last post showed a good selection of their activities, as well.  It just seems never-ending.  One day early in the week I came out of our room after feeding and changing Sis to find this:

 You can’t see much of them here, but she paraded around in these big gold flats calling them her “dancing shoes.”

The girls and their “Baba” (my mother-in-law) had gotten into the dress up basket and they were in heaven.  Miss switched between several different outfits, but Lass found the one she liked and didn’t vary from it. They were both princesses ready to go to the ball.  We all got dressed up and danced and twirled.  They selected my outfit.

Yes, we all got dressed up.

Sis gave her opinions on our outfits and dancing techniques.

She is very chatty these days.

I think it was Tuesday that the girls discovered the dress up clothes, and from that point on, each morning when they woke up the first thing Lass did was ask for “dress up!” and “pincy!” (princess).  She spent much of the rest of our time there in that pink leotard.  In fact she often had a mini fit when I took it off her to change her diaper of get her dressed.  The one thing she was always willing to take it off for though was to go and play outside.  We had lots of fun exploring the Farm on the Ranger.

We took a long ride one day and ended up on a dirt road where there were two very old houses that had mostly collapsed.  I pointed them out to Miss and she was fascinated by them.  She kept talking about the houses that had fallen down and how someone should have taken better care of them and maybe we should go and fix them.

 Stopping for a snack in the shade.  

Of course after our ride it was time to go fishing.  Miss had been talking about fishing with her Daddy for weeks before this trip.  She caught some bluegills, which she called “blue jays” when I asked her what kind she had caught.  

Lass loved to sit by the pond and throw rocks in the water while her sister was fishing.

We had a jammy day one day when it was cold and rainy out.  The weather was great for fishing so my husband and two nephews went out on the boat and ended up bringing home dinner.  Lots of walleye.  The girls were quite intrigued by the process of filleting the fish.

Notice Lass’s outfit.

The girls’ cousin showed him the walleye’s teeth.

My girls always seem to grow and learn so much after a week of travel, either to the farm or visiting my family, or wherever we go.  Lass’s vocabulary seems to triple and Miss’s use of subtleties of language improves noticeably.  She even learns things like, “I’m going to kick you in the weenie!” from her older boy cousins, which of course prompts a conversation about what a weenie is and why we don’t say that or do that.  But that could be another whole post, I suppose.

I love to watch my girls blossom at the farm.

A Weekend in Photos

Posted on by Amy
We are doing it up right this week, here at the Farm.  The weekend was hot and sunny and beautiful and perfect for little girls to have fun outside with cousins and aunts and uncles.  

There was mud digging and splashing

Sand castle building

Frog catching

And butterfly chasing.

The girls did plenty of drawing with sidewalk chalk.

We went exploring and treasure hunting.

Miss got her hair done like her older cousin.

I need to learn how to do this!

The girls battled with some swords.

Check out her form!

Baby Sis observed happily.

There was a rousing game of kick ball.

To top it off, a campfire with s’mores and fireworks.

And, somebody is two months old already.  Holy smokes.

Gotta go.  I have some mud-pie-making to do.  Or treasure hunting.  Or maybe swing pushing.  Or sidewalk-chalking…

Simple

Posted on by Amy
This weekend I’m enjoying simple things.  Lilacs in mason jars on my counter and table.  Big smiles and hugs from my girls.  Playing outside in amazing, warm weather.  Watching imaginations bloom and sister games develop.  Great times with wonderful friends.  Date night.  Some lovely real snail mail notes from my Grandma and a sister in law.  We’re not doing anything extravagant or big this weekend, but doing simple things together is exactly what makes me happy right now.

Miss has had some trouble with a bit of eczema.  We discovered it was probably largely being caused by her frequent wearing of her “ballerina costume.”  So I have had to tell her she can no longer wear it and explain why.  I was worried this might lead to an all out screaming fit.  But to her credit, Miss has taken this in stride and is now just working on expanding her dress up repertoire.  At a play date on Friday she was a doctor.  Yesterday, she was a princess.  She had been wearing high-heeled play shoes and carrying a Snow White purse in addition to her tutu and crown, but in preparation to go outside to play, we discussed every princess’s need for real shoes and sunglasses.  She chose boots.  It’s a good look.

I believe this stick was supposed to be some sort of weapon for fending off the “Evil Queen,” her sister.

The weapon of the Evil Queen?  A watering can.

Miss chose this rock as her place from which to defend herself.
“Here she comes!!!”
Terrifying, eh?

The battle.

It was epic, of course.  Miss alternates between enlisting her sister in the roles of “Monster,” “Evil Queen,” and “Prince Charming.”  Lass plays along happily.  It’s so fun to watch.

Last night I think my husband and I finally reached real “grown up” status.  We had a grown up night and play date in one.  It was awesome.  Our friends came over with their three kids, my husband cooked ribs, the kids played, no one got hurt or threw a tantrum, my friend and I chased kids around and had a some great grown up conversation (as only moms can do while managing five kids running and climbing all over and one newborn), and our husbands consumed a couple of grown up beverages while talking about manly things and occasionally bouncing a baby.  Good food and good company led to a supremely enjoyable evening.

The four oldest kids all crammed into our tiny sandbox.  This thing was the entertainment hit of the evening.  They all played in there, even dumping sand over each others’ heads, and never once was there an argument amongst them.

It was beautiful.

This little munchkin was the star of the show.  She loves to be outside, and she rocked the bouncy seat when she wasn’t eating or napping in her swing inside.  A good time was had by all.

Today we’re having a lazy Sunday at home.  The big girls are outside playing with their daddy.  Our garden is starting to produce a few items ready to be eaten (radishes and lettuce).  We have lots of leftovers from dinner last night, so I won’t have to cook.  This is the life.  Happy weekend to you.

One Wonderful Guy

Posted on by Amy
I’m enjoying having my husband home this week.  We have been relaxing and he’s helping me get as much rest as I can.  Other than the days Miss went to school, he’s been letting me sleep in, which is such a wonderful luxury.  I slept until 9:30 one day!  It was amazing.  He’s been outside with Miss and Lass a lot too, which they love.  They’re working on getting our garden planted.
The girls helped him plant some veggies in these boxes today.
Then he opened the sandbox for them.

Oh, how they enjoyed the sandbox.  This was Lass’s first experience with it.

I must admit, I’m usually not a great lover of the sandbox.  But I think my lack of enthusiasm comes from having Miss in it last year in the middle of summer when she was hot and sweaty and sunscreened and it was nearly impossible to get the sand unstuck from her.  Today, it was no prob. Brushed right off.

Miss found a worm.  She didn’t want anything to do with it.

But Lass thought it was pretty darned cool.

It was a great day for lots of playing outside.

I love looking out the window while cooking dinner and seeing my husband chasing my girls around the backyard, playing “Monster,” or teaching them to kick a ball.  Sometimes I glance up and see them all just lying in the grass chatting and snuggling.  It warms my heart.  He is such a great girl daddy.  He is so thoroughly outnumbered, and I think he loves it.

I’m taking advantage of having my husband home this week and trying to spend some good one on one time with each of my girls.  My older girls have been such troopers through the whole adjustment to having Baby Sis home.  Miss loves to help with her, but I’m trying to give her some special attention all of her own too.

When I first brought Sis home, I was worried that Lass might get lost in the shuffle.  Miss was so interested in Sis and wanted to hold her and help with her all the time, and Sis of course just needs lots of attention and time.  I felt nervous that Lass might get left out.  So I have made a special point of trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.  She’s such a little lover that it hasn’t been hard to get in lots of extra snuggles with her and give her some special time.

I am not going to make the mistake I made with Lass of not introducing her to a bottle until she was five or six weeks old, at which point she flat out refused it, and continued to do so until I gave up trying to get her to take one.  Sis isn’t necessarily loving the bottle yet, but she has done pretty well taking it both from her daddy and from me this week.  I’m trying out a few different bottles to see which one she likes best.  I have just about every type of bottle ever made from my attempts with Lass, so she has lots of choices.

She is such an amazingly easy baby so far.  I’m finding it so easy to just soak up the sweet moments with her.

Unfortunately my sweet littlest one has had a little tendency to scratch the heck out of her face.  Poor baby.

You would think, this being my third time doing this, that I would have mastered the art of cutting newborn fingernails by now.  No.  I suck at it.  I tried three times yesterday to get those suckers trimmed and she was so squirmy I couldn’t get them done.  I know.  I’m a total wuss.  Today I finally wised up and cut them while she was sleeping.  Mission accomplished.  Why didn’t I think of that before?

I’m loving having three precious girls.  And one wonderful guy.

Happy St. Patty’s Day

Posted on by Amy
We have had amazing weather this week.  We’ve been busy soaking it up.

Swinging and running and climbing.  It’s been wonderful.  Lass wakes up in the morning and one of the first things she says is “‘side?  ‘side?” asking to go out and play.  My girls definitely love to be outside.

I don’t think I really even need to describe how much fun we’ve had in our yard the past few days.  The photos say it better than I could anyway.  But I will say that one of the great things about being outside is that I can often sit in the grass and watch as they get exercise and have a blast running around.  Sitting is my friend right now.  I’m at 39 weeks and large.

We have taken some walks too, as I’m trying to get the ball rolling here, but sitting and blowing bubbles or just watching my girls chase each other, or show off how fast they can run, or play with sticks or whatever. . . Well, it’s nice.  I want to be very lazy right now.  Don’t judge.

We got decked out in green for St. Patty’s day and played outside a lot more today.  It ended up being 80 degrees here.  In mid-March.  Beautiful.

We played with shamrock stickers and ate a special shamrock treat after dinner and took a walk by the lake.

I had purchased a really cute Good Luck Bear Care Bears T shirt for Miss to wear today.  It says, “Hug Me, I’m Irish” and has shamrocks and of course a Care Bear with a shamrock belly badge. I thought she would love it.  She flat out refused to wear it today and instead picked out her own green outfit.

Miss wanted to share a shamrock sticker with her Daddy.

Oh well.  At least the shirt was only $5 from Walmart.  Maybe next year.  And the outfit she picked out almost matched.

We had a fun day.  Nice and lazy and loaded with good family time.  Whether you’re Irish or not (I’m not, but my kids are), I hope you had a great St. Patty’s Day too.

“Muddy Soup” and Other Messes

Posted on by Amy
So, yesterday I mentioned that I was hoping for more messy outdoor time for my girls today.  They are such agreeable and thoughtful girls.  They found the one little remaining spot of standing water/mud, and they really delivered.
They jumped and stomped in the mud.  They splashed with sticks.

Miss got a little on her face, and freaked out momentarily, but recovered well when reminded to just wipe it on her sleeve.

Lass was largely unperturbed by all the mud she was getting on herself.  Once in a while she’d turn around and point, as if to say, “Hey, I think I’ve got something on my face!”

She also held up her hands a few times and said, “Wash?” though when informed that we couldn’t wash without going inside, she happily went right back to her puddle.

Miss was a little concerned by how dirty her sister was getting.  She said, “Let me see your face, Muddy Girl.”

Then Miss declared she was going to make “Muddy Soup.”  Her Daddy requested pepper and garlic in the soup, to which she declared she would add cream, butter, and sugar.  Yum.

We had a grand time and sure did make a mess today.  I have no problem with outside messes.  Outside, my girls can get as dirty as they want.  Who cares if the yard gets dirty or messy?  The only thing I have to bother with, generally, is their clothes, and those wash (yes, these did all come miraculously clean).  So I find it kind of odd that I struggle a little bit with indoor messes. I have to regularly remind myself to lighten up when we are doing things that are a bit messy inside.  Now, I don’t care about toys getting messy.  Our house looks like a tornado hit it every day until bedtime when Miss does her chores, one of which is cleaning up toys.  No.  Toy messes don’t bother me.  I tend to get a bit uptight about other kinds of messes.  Play Doh.  Paint. Glitter.  Etc.  I make myself tolerate these things and try really hard to embrace them.  And typically I find that when I do, I have tons of fun and realize the mess is no big deal.  Like tonight.

Miss tested me with indoor messy tonight before bed.  She decided to play with the plastic eggs that I have in an Easter basket on our counter.  Yes, I have Easter decor up in our house already.  I was afraid I wouldn’t put it out if I waited too long and Baby Sis arrived before I got it out.  So anyway, we have an assortment of Easter decorations around the house, one of which is a fairly large basket with plastic eggs in it.  Under the eggs is a whole bunch of that paper Easter grass stuff.  Miss decided to dump the whole basket out on the floor, multiple times.  That grass stuff was everywhere.  I started getting all antsy about it, but I took a deep breath and told myself to chill out.  Then Miss brought the “grass” up on the couch where I was sitting.  It was in my hair and her hair, stuck to our clothes, in my couch cushions, all over my rug in the family room and the floor in the kitchen.  But you know, once I started really playing with it with her, I stopped caring about the mess we were making.  Miss made “hair” and “hats” out of the grass.  We used strands of the grass to make mustaches and giggled while we tried to arrange our mouths so they would stay in place.  She made lots of “toys” for her Baby Sissy, which she lovingly constructed, described to me (“tiny ball,” “snake,” “thing to put her thumb through,” “headband,” “mustache,” etc.), and then placed on my belly.  It was precious.
I sometimes wish I could be like those moms who are totally laid back about all the different types of messes of childhood.  That I could get out the really good crafty stuff, like finger paints and glitter projects several times a week, instead of my more boring stuff like stickers and crayons.  But, I yam what I yam, and I do always try to grow and to stretch myself, like by telling myself to chill out when a relatively minor mess starts to make my heart flutter, my hands sweat, and my face flush (just kidding, I don’t get quite that freaked out about it).  I’m getting out the Play Doh and the dot markers more and getting ready for another painting day.  I’m really enjoying the girls’ increased interest in helping in the kitchen in spite of the increased messiness it brings.  Childhood is messy.  I love the outdoor messiness.  I’m working on bringing my outdoor attitude about it into the house.

I’m getting there.

The Little Photographer

Posted on by Amy
Quickie post tonight:
As foreshadowed yesterday, my girls got to get outside and play today.

And play they did.

They ran and ran around the yard, especially through the last patch of snow.

Lass fell and got snow on her hands.  She did not like that one bit, and Daddy warmed them up for her. 

They got beautifully wet and dirty and had fits when it was time to come in for lunch and naps.  Hopefully we will have more of the same tomorrow.

Miss got a little camera today.  She has been asking for one.  She was so excited and get right to taking photos of everything.

Her sister.

Herself.

Her Yo Gabba Friends.

And various other artistic subjects.

This one was quite puzzling to us until we realized she had taken a picture of the cover of her Daddy’s “Whitetail” magazine.

I love this one.  She took it while spinning around dancing.

I didn’t edit any of these photos other than to enhance the color on them a bit, as this kid’s camera doesn’t take the best quality photos.  No cropping or otherwise changing the pics.  I love them!  What a wonderful way to see the world through her eyes.  I’m so proud of my little photographer.