new nephew

my sister, beth, had a beautiful baby boy this week. we got to go visit him at the hospital. the girls didn't really know what to do with him, so after this picture, madeleine and diane entertained themselves with bruce's ipad.

i got to hold him for a long time, soaking up his infant-ness and sending favorite aunt vibes. welcome to the family!

cornbelly's

on saturday morning, we headed up to cornbelly's at thanksgiving point with the girls for some fall festivities. randy has been itching to go to a corn maze for the last few years and we decided to finally bite the bullet and do it this year.

the girls were fairly reticent when we first arrived and diane wouldn't even let me put her down. we decided to start out easy by sitting on a big rocking chair. they weren't that amused.

once they saw the big wooden play structures with slides though, they were sold.

after randy showed the girls his lasso skills, they decided to give it a try.

we headed over to the corn maze, although it took some serious convincing to get the girls to leave the slides. it wasn't exactly what randy had hoped for and not the most fun activity for small children. after about ten minutes of wandering around, we took a few shortcuts through the corn and made our way back to the entrance. so much for that.

even though she was having fun, diane had her thumb in her mouth pretty much the entire time we were there. it was her morning nap time (which she has given up taking, but is still tired through), so if she wasn't on the move, she was in sleepy mode.

next, we hit the cow train ride. madeleine did not want to go, so she sat out with randy and i took diane. i am not sure how i crammed myself into the cow barrel and i am not sure that my tailbone will ever be the same.

we took a quick break and spent a small fortune for a mediocre lunch. diane spent the whole time dipping things in mustard, making this face, and then immediately going back for more.

the girls loved these jump pillows. so much better than a trampoline. plus, they had one for little kids and one for big kids, so the girls weren't terrorized by older aggressive children.

diane fell down a couple times and had a hard time getting back up. she would sit there with her head bouncing against the pillow over and over until she could finally regain her balance. i would have intervened, but she was laughing wildly the whole time.

she also had a long period of time where she just sat on her bottom, thumb in mouth, while she was gently bumped up and down. i wish i had a picture of it, but i didn't take one.

at this point we cooled it on the pictures, but we went on a lot more slides, did a bouncy house, and finished up with a hayride. on our way up, i had told madeleine about the hayride and explained that we would sit on a wagon with hay and horses would pull the wagon. she said that she did not want to ride behind horses (apparently she has a great fear of horses). i didn't push it, but wanted to she if she would change her mind when we got there. fortunately, the wagon was pulled by a tractor and we didn't have to deal with the horse issue. she said that the hayride was her favorite part of the day, but that may have been because it was the last thing that we did. diane tried to fall asleep on my lap during the hayride, so we decided to call it a day and head home.

all in all, it was a success and i'm glad we went. it was a fun way to spend a fall morning.

all is safely gathered in

it's over. my larder is full and canning season is over.

my big canning pot is back in storage and will not be coming out again until next may at the earliest. canning season has been a long one this year, but it has been fruitful and we went out with a bang this year.

randy's parents came to town this weekend and even though we took some time to do fun things, we took most of the day saturday to can applesauce. randy's parents are going to stop coming to visit if we keep working them this hard (in my defense, jeanie suggested it.)

we had quite the assembly line going. randy and his mom were manning the apple/peeler/corer/slicers and randy's dad and i were cleaning up with paring knifes and cutting the apples to size for cooking the applesauce. once we had three big stockpots full, we would cook them, fill the cans and process. repeat several times. we processed cans all day.

even though it took most of the day, we really did make quick work of it and having randy's parents here was so helpful. i just imagine randy and i doing this alone and i cringe at the thought. and most of the time was spent processing. the actually cutting apples, etc. went quickly with the four of us.

we ended up with 56 quarts worth of applesauce. jeanie took some for herself, but left the lion's share for me. we are set for the winter and i am so excited to have homemade applesauce. it turned out really well. last year, i did some, but not nearly enough and we were rationing ourselves. even then, we ran out in december. hopefully we make it all the way to next year this year.

i didn't take too many pictures because i was busy making applesauce. i wish i had gotten a few more. oh well. i did manage to get a few more pictures from the weekend. these are jeanie and madeleine making some fun halloween treats:

all in all we had a great weekend. thanks for coming and working so hard, mom and dad.

sunday evening walk

on sunday evening, my parents were gone, so we didn't go up to their house like we usually do for sunday dinner. the girls had some pent up energy and the weather was beautiful, so we ventured out for a family walk.

the girls found some dandelions on a vacant lot and proceeded to seed the entire lot for the owners. usually i discourage such behavior, but i figured that it was nothing that the wind wouldn't do in this case.

madeleine wasn't thrilled when she realized we weren't heading to the park.

 

 

we always know that it's time to head home when madeleine plops herself down on some convenient patch of grass and dramatically declares that she is "out of energy."

that was the goal.

tent time

my girls have been obsessed with me making forts for them lately. unfortunately, diane doesn't really understand physics and likes to pull them down on top of herself. including the heavy books that i use to weigh down the corners. not really safe.

so when the weather got cold last week and madeleine started begging for a fort, i decided to set up our tent for the girls. not sure if it was a great precedent to start, but they loved it.

while i was setting up the tent, madeleine said, "did daddy teach you how to set up a tent?" i informed her that i knew how to set up a tent long before her father was in the picture and that i am a very capable woman. i was telling randy the story later and madeleine (who i didn't realize was listening) said, "mom is very smart, daddy." at least she thought it at one point in her life. even if i did have to indoctrinate her first.

after running around like wild women for a few minutes, they calmed down. we put some pillows, cushions and quilts in and they sat and read in the tent for a long time.

a good treat to remember for rainy days where we're all going a little stir-crazy.