Happy Fall!

This post is linked to 5 Minutes for Mom.

Leaf Collecting

I'd had in mind that we needed to get out to collect some leaves while there were still leaves on the trees. A walk through our neighborhood yielded plenty of items of interest.
And on a day when we're all a little cranky, getting out to collect leaves does wonders for everyone's disposition. Especially mine.

Finger Knitting

Millie's latest obsession has been finger knitting. A fairly simple skill for the 5 or 6-year-old to learn, and it's incredibly satisfying to see that long chain take form.



Instructions here. Or you can see a finger knitting video here.

Fresh Pepper

The bigger kids each ate an apple for a snack...

while we enjoyed an afternoon in the backyard.

But Isaac preferred a pepper which he picked for himself out of the garden

thankyouverymuch.

School Days

At the beginning of September we started adding a little bit of structured learning to our mornings at home. Things are still very relaxed around here, but now I have more of a plan in mind, and I usually do some short lessons and reading with Millie and Silas during and just after breakfast.

I took pictures of the kids on our first "official" day of school, but all they would do was hold up their new pencils.

New pencils are cool.

Millie is enrolled in a couple of classes through our homeschool co-op. Here she is ready for the first day.

And here are the kids' school notebooks:

My sister made notebooks for Millie and Silas last year, and they were so useful that I made new ones for the new year. Right now pretty much everything goes into these notebooks - coloring pages, random drawings, artwork from church, co-op handouts, and whatnot. It's one easy way to tame the paper monster.

So far, a few of our favorite homeschool resources have been:

First Language Lessons by Jessie Wise - this book provides very simple lessons for teaching the rules of written and spoken English. The lessons are very short and pleasant, and so far the kids have learned to recite a poem and the definition of noun.

Leading Little Ones to God by Marian M. Schoolland - we are using this for Bible study, and I've been pleased with how each short reading makes issues that can seem big and complicated accessible to little minds.

We are studying Chinese a bit, and Millie has really enjoyed working on these Chinese character worksheets.

We're off to a good start!

A Stocking for Isaac

I finally pulled out the materials to finish up Isaac's stocking. Yes, I know it's only September, but I figured I'd better get started if I hoped to finish it on time!

A Good Saturday

We set out bright and early this morning to cheer on Tom at a local 5K race. He was pleased with his results, and we were proud that he finished first in his age division.

The rest of the day was spent resting, pattern shopping, setting off a model rocket, playing outside and going for an evening walk.

And we pulled all of this out of the garden:

I love Saturdays.

One Year Old

It's amazing that in one year Isaac has gone from a bruised-face baby

to a curious,

funny,

happy, mischievous toddler.

Of our three kids, he was the biggest at birth, earliest walker, and earliest teether (not too difficult since Millie and Silas were both late teethers). He's not wasting any time trying to catch up with the big kids.

We had a typical day spent at home. Although we'd been dealing with fevers in our family this week, Silas woke up this morning and declared, "I not burning up anymore!" So we did a little bit of school, Millie and Silas helped me make a carrot cake from scratch, and we spent some time in the back yard enjoying the perfect weather. Same perfect weather as one year ago when Isaac was born.

This was the best I could do for a picture of all three kids today:

And Silas is such a goofball.

I frosted the carrot cake with homemade cream cheese frosting, but gave Issac an unfrosted cupcake. Silas blew out the candle, and then Isaac was a little unsure about it,

took a tentative bite,

and then thoroughly enjoyed eating nearly the whole thing. That boy's got an appetite.
Happy first birthday Isaac!

The Night Before

I'm thinking back to exactly one year ago, the night before Isaac was born. How waiting to give birth is such an intense wanting and not wanting all at the same time. That mix of dread and excitement, all because you know exactly what's coming.

The full birth story is here, but tonight I was remembering one detail that I didn't include in the story. It's difficult to keep a birth story short, as labor and birth are really all about the details, but still you can't really tell everything. But it's something I know I'll never forget. Just after Isaac was born, I was still holding him in my arms while Tom and Millie and Silas were all gathered around. We were looking at him and talking to each other when we realized he was suddenly awfully still. And looking back at the pictures I see that he was awfully gray. It was such a brief moment, and we looked to our midwife and asked, "Is he okay?" She told us to rub him and talk to him while she grabbed her doplar and checked his heart. And in the next moment he was fine and moving. Still sleepy, but breathing. Our midwife's only explanation was that he'd just forgotten to breathe for a bit.

I was watching Isaac tonight toddling around the house getting into mischief and thinking how so very, incredibly thankful we are to have him. That brief moment with Isaac reminds me of life's fragility, of not taking things for granted. That things could be different, and that I should really embrace all that God has given me for each day.

We don't have any big plans for celebrating Isaac's birthday tomorrow. We've actually had some sickness in our household. Tom and Millie both came down with fevers late Monday afternoon, and are on the mend today. Silas just came down with a fever tonight, and I am wondering if and when it will hit me. So we'll plan to keep things low-key tomorrow. I am hoping to have Millie help me bake a cake for Isaac, but otherwise we will just be home for our normal routine, which I imagine will involve a lot of cuddling of Silas and chasing of Isaac. We are blessed indeed.

Scrounging for Supper

Tonight I went scrounging in the garden to see what vegetables I could find to make a salad. I already had two large heads of leaf lettuce that I bought at the grocery store. Even though we haven't had lettuce in the garden for quite some time, I also couldn't bring myself to buy lettuce until recently. (I think I've had a feeling of guilt because if I'd been more attentive and diligent to keep up with succession planting, we could probably still be harvesting lettuce just outside our back door. But I admit to many failings as a gardener, and thus we have no lettuce of our own.) So tonight I had store-bought lettuce, and I thought I could at least stick to complementary vegetables from the garden. Here's what I found:

Some purple carrots


A cucumber and a red bell pepper.

I planted my cucumbers late, so this little guy was my first one to harvest, and I probably should have given him a few more days. We'd been waiting on the pepper to turn red, and we really couldn't have waited a day more, as it already had a soft spot when I picked it.

Kohlrabi

Along with the vegetables I also had chickpeas, red kidney beans, sunflower seeds, and pears. (I was in the mood for a sweet salad with some fruit.)

So here's what we came up with. Millie's salad:


Everything except the kohlrabi, and she added a cherry tomato on top. She topped her salad with a raspberry vinaigrette.

My salad, which was exceptionally good:

I left off the kohlrabi, mostly because I thought it might be strange not knowing if I was taking a bite of kohlrabi or pear. The dressing is Cranberry Walnut Gorgonzola from Trader Joe's, which was excellent paired with the pears. I also left off the pepper because for some reason it just didn't seem to "go", and I figured Tom would really enjoy more pepper on his salad. I didn't get a picture of his salad, but he's the only one who ate the kohlrabi. Silas just ate carrots and pears for supper. I thought maybe he'd want to try some lettuce since he'd been so involved in working the salad spinner. But still no luck! Maybe next time. And Isaac? He enjoyed eating chickpeas and tossing them over the side of the high chair.

Weekend Camping

Last weekend was actually our second weekend in a row to head out on a camping trip. The weather has been perfect. It already feels like fall with the cool temperatures. While our actual trip was dry, there had been quite a bit of rain during the week before, so the woods where we were hiking looked like this:
Beautiful, but awfully wet.

I resigned myself to a very muddy weekend.

My mom brought hiking sticks for all the grandkids.


They came in very handy when navigating some of those muddy trails.

And you can just imagine how much Isaac liked to swipe them.
As much as camping is a lot of work for the grown-ups involved, I love what an adventure it is for the kids.
And I suppose really, it's an adventure for us grown-ups too.