David Said "Hat"

Yesterday at lunch time, David said, "Hat." Now, there really is nothing unusual about that; he has been saying that word for quite some time.

This time it was a riot because he took his plate full of food, put it on his head upside down, and said, "Hat," while giving the cutest grin which turned into a laugh when he got our attention.

It was a camera moment, but the camera wasn't in my hand!

David

Which picture of David should I enlarge to put up on the wall and give to the grandparents?
Oops, I think I need to run the red-eye checker through on the last batch of pictures I uploaded.

Pumpkin Fun

The younger kids got a pumpkin from a party we went to back in the middle of October, and we just got around to carving it last week. It had one "heart" ear and one "crescent" ear. I did get enough pumpkin for one batch of bars, but the other went moldy before I could get it processed. It has been a busy time around here.

David enjoyed checking out the inside of the pumpkin and even decided to taste the "pumpkin guts," much to Jason's and Emily's dismay!

I Snagged a Few Deals

I pulled out some coupons the other day and ended up getting the ravioli for 30 cents a can and the ketchup for 60 cents a bottle. The Chicken in a Biscuit were $1.49, which is a good deal for me since we like to eat them at "Christmas" parties, and the hot chocolate was 19 cents because I spent $10.00 at the store. I also pulled the trick of shopping for someone else so stuck a few things of mine into his cart so I could get the deals on the limited items such as butter for $1.99 and then paid him back. So "crazy" were my receipts that I had to give him a hand-written one though. :)

David's First Birthday

David turned a year old on Wednesday.

Here he is all happy in the morning.

A lunch of grilled cheese with tuna was on the menu.

Here we are heading to town...

...about a minute later David was sound asleep.


We spent a bit of time waiting at a friend's house until her husband came home from doing chores.


David LOVED the balloon!


Looking at the fish and other animals at Soulutions was on the list of things to do.


Enjoying some birthday cake...


"DON'T TAKE MY CELL PHONE AWAY FROM ME!" was David's cry when Jason was trying to get it out of the packaging.


Sleeping at the end of the busy day.

Snow

Well, you would think we "Minnesotans" would not become excited about a little bit of snow, considering we have winter eight months out of the year, but I sure have seen a lot of excitement on Facebook and blogs about it. :) Here is my two-cent's worth:

SNOW!!!!!

More Busy Days

I just cleaned up my e-mail "Inbox." It is handy only having to scroll through a few things now. :) I try to keep it around 20. Earlier I made some cookie dough, three different types of cookies, and a pan of bars. Hopefully they will stick around long enough for Mike to have some for work each day this week. He will be leaving for work in a couple hours. He just got off of a five-day weekend, works four days, then has the four after that off. It is a ROUGH life but someone has to live it. Ha ha ha :)

I wrote my preliminary food list for Thanksgiving, and it looks so good that I might have to have a trial run at it this weekend sometime. :) I'll have to get the kids' handprints for our annual handprint turkey cookies too.

In the meantime, here are some "fall" pictures of some of the kids in the leaves.

Busy Days

As I just about head to bed (I need to press the charge button on the water softener after the washer fills for the last time,) I am enjoying the peace and quiet of the house. I am so thankful I got a nap earlier this evening because Laura was up well past midnight.

For the past two weeks I have been trying to keep up with the housework (not very well, I'll have to admit,) trying to do some school work with the kids, running errands, and sitting with our friend while Aaron helps her husband at the farm. I do not see the schedule getting lighter anytime soon.

I have started sewing on the "Christmas dresses" which is going to prove to be a big project. I do have one all done already except the zipper. I am debating on making a purse-type thing with that one, and hopefully the recipient will be greatly excited about getting the dress. I know her mom will. :)

I am also working on an assortment of pictures, but I need to go buy some more pages to get one of the projects done. I did get some pictures mailed out to the grandparents yesterday plus bought stamps to get the rest sent to people.

Today is Mike's last day of his five-day weekend so we will have to make him some cookies and bars for breakfasts and snacks.

Have a great week!

David, David, Candle Blower

Aaron is 15 Years Old!

Aaron did not want to do anything special for his birthday and would not even choose the foods he wanted to eat so he ended up with eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns for breakfast, chicken nuggets and fruit pizza for lunch, and pepperoni pizza and cheesecake for supper. He received a couple cards in the mail, Facebook greetings, a phone call, and a "pen light" is on its way in the mail from us. Here are a few pictures. As you can see, he is REALLY appreciative of the camera. :)

David is 11 Months Old

David turned 11 months old on the 24th and has been keeping us busy. He is walking about 1/3 of the time now, he gets into EVERYTHING, he loves pencils (which I have written before) and wooden spoons, and he climbs.

Thursday

Today was a relatively calm day. We did not do much, but that turns out alright because tomorrow will be extra busy.

David really enjoys pencils, which really scares me. He can find a pencil where there was none before, it seems. He even knows how to sharpen them. Every-so-often I will hear the sharpener going and find out David is the one who is there. He has been walking more and more too.

Tomorrow some of the kids will be going to geography club. I will have some of the other kids and will be sitting with a friend who has liver cancer. Aaron is going to go out to the farm with her husband to see if he can be a hindrance. No, really, I hope he will be able to help in some way, if just keeping company.

I have a load of laundry calling my name. The buzzer on the dryer we have likes to buzz several different times to give us a second, third, and sometimes fourth chance. :)

It sounds like tomorrow will be the last "really" nice day for October. We have had so many that I have been thankful for. Last night I had a bonfire for the little girls since we did not have Awana due to no school today for the public schoolers.

Tuesday

Today was a calm day, compared to some. We did some school work, bummed around, Mike treated us to pizza with some of his soccer "thank you" money, and we watched "Swiss Family Robinson." Jason and Emily had read the book as part of their reading project this year, and all the kids were laughing at various points in the movie. Yesterday Tracy had a violin lesson, and tomorrow Mike goes back to work after having a five-day weekend.

David's Newest Batch of Baby Gifts

David got these gifts from the friend that attended his birth. She had wanted to get him stuff earlier, but I told her, "No, he doesn't NEED anything right now!" Now was the perfect time; he looks so cute in the outfits. :)


His favorite toy---the lawn mower

Last of the Garden

Here are the last of the beans from our garden and the tomatoes that we got this year. A friend gave us a big box of tomatoes that I canned and got 14 quarts from so that was good.


Out of 24 squash and melon seeds I planted, this is what I got. I guess I cannot hide any squash in our food this winter. :)


Another friend was done with her garden and told me to take what I could use so I grabbed some carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and tomatoes that were there. I made some "California blend" and froze it along with two separate bags of broccoli.

David Walking

David has been taking lots of steps since September 20, when he took the first two to Mike. Here is a clip of how he has progressed since then.

Soccer Tournaments

The tournaments are tomorrow. We will be gone all day again. :) We have been invited to the corn maze afterwards.

Clean Teeth

Today I had a dentist appointment. My teeth were very stained because of our water softener not working. I am so glad to have my nice-looking teeth back for a while!

Tonight Mike and the four older kids are at soccer practice. The little ones and I are working on cookies. At the moment, one is on the computer and two are in the bathtub.

Today we went to the park and then got a small treat at Dairy Queen before heading home.

A Little Bit Muddy

David decided to head outside to play in the mud the girls made up by the house.

I guess he wore himself out. :)

Famous Last Words

I gave instructions to each child this afternoon for an outside job. I told the oldest two to "clean out the shed," and this is what I got. I had actually been considering this for a long time but have never been ambitious enough to do it. It sure looks nice!!!



Does anyone want this smoker?








Ahem...did I say it looked nice???

(all the junk they took out) LOL!!!!!





Emily did a great job of cleaning out the sandbox so I took the tiller to it.

Jason was supposed to be picking up stuff from around the yard and putting it by the sandbox, but I don't think he did very well. I will have to go out and point some things out to him. He is, after all, a boy. (Most of this is what Emily took out.)

Laura and Melissa (along with a tiny bit of help from Jason at the end) put the soil from the box garden into a can to save for next year.

I took down the garden area and got most of that tilled. I still have carrots and onions in it, if they produced. Most of what I have pulled out of the garden this year has not been anything worth mentioning. I will see if any of it is picture-worthy. I had been lamenting about not having enough beans to can, but after thinking about it, I have never had enough beans to can from my garden. The beans I canned came from a friend, and she did not get many this year.



David crawled around where the excitement was best at the time. Here is a picture of him earlier today.
Dumbo-dog is barking at the shovel while Jason takes dead bean vines to the woods and Aaron tills the horseshoe pits.

Checkbook

I need a whistle or a call-back feature on my checkbook. I seem to always misplace it because I am so scatter-brained. I have been "missing" it for the past eight days, but I KNEW I did not lose it. I finally took the time to think back on where I was and what I was doing when I had it last and found it in the little van. :) I cannot spend any money though--I only have three checks left. I am here on the computer to order more plus send an e-mail. I wonder what else I will get distracted with before I actually complete the tasks... :) I put my last two stamps on bills to mail so will have to hold off on a letter to Mike's parents.

We have been busy with soccer, Jackpine, soccer, youth group, soccer, playing, soccer, school, soccer, shopping, soccer, cleaning, soccer, Awana, soccer, etc. I am sure you get the idea. I did manage to make a pan of bars for Mike's breakfast, and yesterday afternoon Tracy made him some cookies. He has a bag of chips on the counter, but I do not know if they are a good flavor or not since they are still there. (Or maybe I did not let him know they were for him!!!!!)

I hope everyone is asleep. I will get those checks ordered now.

This and That

Tonight I am wishing for another refrigerator and freezer for the weekend. My family is growing by three teenage boys, and I have been making food for the Jackpine Retreat.

I still have a bucket of apples in the refrigerator I would like to make into apple crisp, and I would like to make some blueberry muffins for a friend and possibly visit her for a few minutes tomorrow.

I made some refried beans for our taco dinner Sunday and splatted them out of the blender onto the ceiling. I certainly hope nobody gets a piece of my spoon because it is a tiny bit chopped up. ha ha ha (I guess I was not trained well in blending foods.)

Tonight I sent Mike and the older four kids to town for soccer practice and sent them a list of stuff to do afterwards. I was called about an hour later with the sound of, "Are you coming to the meeting?" I TOTALLY forgot about the meeting I was supposed to attend so threw the three little ones into the vehicle and headed to town. That is the fourth trip to town we made today.

David is getting ready to stand on his own and maybe take a step or two. We have caught him standing alone a couple times already.

Aaron and I picked up one of our lawn mowers from being repaired from one of the Jackpine boo-boos, and I about died when I paid for it. The belt was a dollar over the twenty I was expecting, but the labor is what got me. They had to nearly tear the whole thing apart to get the belt on.

After we picked it up, I had Aaron do some mowing at the church building. There was some sort of problem, and the deck is now smashed. He said he could fix it with a pipe wrench though...

Melissa wanted a fire when we got home so I made her a small one. It was not as much fun without the big kids though--she only lasted around two minutes. It was enough to make her happy though. I suppose part of it is that we had no more marshmallows to roast. :)

We have a gentle rain falling. I also have the radio going. I love the "Music Through the Night" programming.

Hmm...no new pictures to post.

I will see some of you this weekend. The kids have a soccer game tomorrow afternoon.

Soccer Game

We had our first soccer game yesterday. Both the junior and senior teams lost but played hard.
If anyone who is coming to Jackpine is interested, they have games on Friday at 3:00 (Jason and Emily) and 4:30 (Tracy and Aaron) in Warroad as if packing for camping is not enough to cram into your day. :)

Happenings

Sunday
Church
Tracy went to a CTI concert.

Monday
Tracy and Aaron went to water balloon volleyball.
Mike and the four older kids went to a soccer practice for the juniors.

Tuesday
We did school work.
Tracy and Aaron had soccer practice.

Wednesday
We did school work.

Thursday
We did school work.
Mike and the four older kids went to soccer practice while the younger three and I did errands in town and went to the park.

Friday
We did school work.
We had a long day because we were supposed to have a soccer game which got canceled.

Saturday
Mike, Tracy, Aaron, and Emily went to a Kid's Day at our sporting goods store.
In the evening we were invited to a birthday party.
Aaron is now at a Bible study, and Tracy would like to drive to go pick him up.

I did not get letters sent out to the grandparents this week so hopefully some of them will see this. :) We did a lot more, but it is the "little" things I usually write to them about.

Three Down, One to Go

Well, we now have three mowers out at the Jackpine campgrounds not doing a bit of good. :( Did I ever mention I think mowing is a waste of gas, time, and everything else?????? It does smell good when it is freshly mowed though. :)

Canning

I have been busy canning tomatoes, applesauce, peaches, and jelly. We have been busy with soccer and other activities and will start on the fourth week of our school year tomorrow. Other than that, life has been happening; it is quite busy. :)

Congratulations, Tracy!

Tracy studied hard this summer memorizing Bible verses and studied the book of Colossians. Saturday she was in a competition in the cities. She placed 6th for her age group! Yeah, Tracy!!!!!

Itasca State Park

We finally made it to the state park with the youngest two kids.

David at the base of the tower. Because of the HUGE amount of people and limit of six on the tower at a time, I didn't even bother trying to take him up. Had he been awake, I would have considered it.
Laura climbed all the way up.


David at one of the pine trees.


Crossing the headwaters of the Mississippi River...






Trying again...