Wrapping up October

Time for a wordy update.

What a busy season of life, and I know we will replace it with a busy season that will look different.

I can say that I am so glad I have the kids home.  Dear Emily has a hard time getting to sleep most nights, which is after she has read for 1-2 hours. I love that she gets to sleep in until 8:00 am when she needs to.  I love that I sometimes get to go back to bed and get a little nap after I return home from workout at 6:00 am.  It is sometimes still a rush to get to preschool, but it is only twice a week. 
Mondays we have Classical Conversations, and we need to be across town by 8:30, so I can prep my room for my tutoring gig.  Still it is a cake-walk compared to the middle schools I see waiting for the bus at 7:20 am. 
The kids are in a sweet spot right now.  They can get breakfast for themselves if I need them too.  They can make a couple lunches too. 
 Noelle is still a whiny mess and doesn't want to do most things for herself.  Year four has been a challenge!
We are entering travel season for Robert.  He will leave for SEMA soon.  He will have a different role this year, and will be working several different jobs/positions while there.  Hope he gets some sleep in the next 13 days.  He will have another trip in December that I might talk him in to letting us tag along. 

Dallas is making some progress with reading.  He knows all the sounds, and we are working on "helper" blends.  I have already introduced two different ways to say "ow", (yellow/brown) and I know he finds it confusing.  Language is hard.  He knows and can recognize er, ur, ow, ee, ew, ue. 
He enjoys math much more than Language Arts.  He especially likes finding patterns, figuring out which number is missing, or which would come next in the sequence, can skip count by 2's and 10's and we have started working with clocks, pennies and dimes. 

Emily still has not found her fondness of math, but we are getting through the work with less frustration each day.  I think all the multiplication she learned last year has finally re-solidified after summer break.  She likes fractions, money and making up her own word problems. Doesn't really prefer solving for "n" yet.   Grammar is going well, doing things like diagramming sentences.  We know enough about parts of speech now that I think Madlibs would be fun for her.  She is still working on composition each week, memorizing bible verses, cursive, and memorizing the states and capitals. Her cursive is getting good enough that she can compose some stuff her self.  The program we use is mostly copywork, copywork each week is the history fact we are memorizing, so it kind of kills two things at once! 

Noelle is enjoying preschool.  She loves the crafts!  That girl would glitter/cut/paste/scribble things all day long.  She told the teacher she would prefer being called Noelle Kibbe, not Noelle K.  It is very funny to hear her whole name when we go to class.  The other girl goes by Noelle D. 

My yard needs raking for the foreseeable future.  At least this fall has been good to our trees.  The silver maples usually just fall off green in December, we are actually getting a little Fall yellow on them.  Maybe that will keep my attitude better when I am raking in December.   In other news I might order Christmas cards next week, and I already have a couple presents bought which make me feel good.  I think I know everything I need to purchase for the first Christmas which will be on Thanksgiving. 
Kids still need better lists.  They want all the toys! I want them to have nice, well rounded, gets lots of play, worth cluttering up my house type of toys.  Or memberships for experience type of things.  Its a tricky thing to balance.  The joy of opening a gift of exactly what you had hoped for verses a science center membership that we could get fun out of all year long, but doesn't have the immediate gratification. 

 Upwards flag football has come to a close, don't worry basketball season is knocking at our door.  Dallas loved receiving a trophy at the awards ceremony.  He also won a door prize, a weeks stay value at Hidden Acres camp!  Lucky kid.

 Noelle made her face pretty the night before family pictures.  She used a Jesus stamper, and it took some serious scrubbing to remove.

Emily received an award for having 100 memorized piano pieces in her repertoire. 

Sick Noelle

This girl has been sick.  Friday afternoon she awoke from nap with a "croup" cough (sounds like a seal barking), out of the blue.  It got worse, lots of breathing treatments and steamy sessions in the bathroom for the next 48 hours.  She stayed home from church and school on Sunday and Monday.  Constant fever, coughing all night long and then sleeping in until 9:30 in the morning.  Tuesday we went to the doctor because things were just not resolving.  I am confident I would have went to the ER or urgent care Sat/Sat night if she was my first kid, but I feel much more comfortable with colds now, and I know fevers help the body respond, and it's nice to have a neb and albuterol stock at home as well.  The constant sleeping and falling asleep on me was getting a bit much on day 4 so to the Dr we went.  She was encourage to wear a mask in the clinic, lots of stares from the constant coughing, think people were a tad scared of us.   Lots of junk in the lungs, and we got to take home the picture to prove it!  She was prescribed an oral steroid and an antibiotic.  The Dr. told me she has a virus, and the antibiotic was just in case, but they wanted her to take it.  I think it must make some parents feel better, but this mom has 4 yrs of college classes that show antibiotics don't work on viruses.  Oh well, I know they want to prevent a secondary illness down the road so I don't have to bring her back in two days.... she hates the taste of it anyway, so we have gotten less than 1/2 of the daily doses.  I had to wait at the pharmacy almost as long as at the clinic, and we were at the clinic long enough for blood draw, x-ray and Dr. visits.  Noelle then threw up twice, once in the isle, the next we made it too the bathroom, then they hurried our Rx to the front of the line.  And for some reason the oral steroid was the last of one generic, so they filled the rest of the Rx with a different generic, one is clear, one is pink.  Noelle will take one, and the other causes instant gag reflex so I am not sure we will be finishing that script either.  Perhaps it is time to switch pharmacies. 
Wednesday she was 100% better.  Today she slept pretty late, we tried preschool, but I got a call an hour later saying she wasn't feeling well so I went and got her.  Hope we are on the mend.  We have been missing some beautiful Fall days.

 Dallas new favortie pass time is to "craft" accessories for the Tuffy.  He is showing off the rear view mirror here.

 Emily has enjoyed her volleyball season and wants to play again soon.  The winter league is for 4th and up so she will have to wait until next year.  She improved a ton over the 6 weeks and does well for someone who had never touched a volleyball or seen a game.

 Tailgating has taken up several of our Saturdays this Fall.  The people and the food are always good even if the Cyclones don't win.  We grilled steak sandwiches on sourdough.

 And of course we can't forgot small town celebrity sighting such as "the Mayor"

and nice enough weather to wear shorts to the first three games.

 Noelle stilll loves to dance

 Our church has finished the new building.  We did a Sunday morning at the park during the transition to the new building.  It was a gorgous morning, and the kids loved having a playground 20 feet from our seats.

Nelson Pioneer Farm Day

We headed down to Osky a couple weeks ago and toured the festival.  We picked up Lynne in Des Moines freshly home from a long work trip, and we also had little niece Audrey along as well.  Full van!

 

 First things, first.  The four cars in the car show.  It definetly wins the award for the most years I have seen covered in a show.

 The Johnson's were putting out lots of taffy.  Emily and Noelle were really dilligent in helping.  They loved it and only moved from their posts to make a corn husk doll and a rope.

 Dallas and I watched this guy cut wood on this bicycle powered saw.  It was pretty neat, and I am quite impressed he never cuts a finger off.

He was also stationed next to the people pressing fresh apple cider, so of course we had to walk by them several times for our sample.

 Dallas making his rope

 In the one room + loft cabin (the people/reanactors in this cabin had very colorful language, I am fairly sure people did not speak with such language 110 years ago, and I am sure they would have gotten detention if they did so at school currently)

 Audrey enjoying some freshly baked bread

 Noelle loves animals, can you tell?

 An old Mahaska County Jail, it was very "Dukes of Hazzard" we thought

 Not a great shot, but I was driving.  I do love the landscape of Southern Iowa.  It is just so flat in the middle of the state.

Happy Birthday to happy little Noelle

What a little joy Noelle Rose is for our family.  She wakes every morning completely elated and in the best mood.  I should bottle it up and make a fortune selling it. 

When she is not happy she is screaming. 

 

She started her birthday off at 5:15 am, I was gone to workout, but Robert said he sent her back to bed and tucked her in.  She slept until 7:20 which is pretty late for her.  These morning thunderstorms sure do help the sleeping, keeping this dark!

Rob did his dad thing and took her out for breakfast (pic on his phone, I will get it loaded soon), and the dropped her off to preschool.

 

 The kids and I visited preschool the last 40 minutes or so and brought birthday treats and got to see the celebration.  Her teacher shown here is Jackie.  Noelle really enjoyed the crown and wore it the rest of the day.

 After a busy afternoon of taking Em to class and volleyball we met Robert and Gpa at Hickory Park.  Ames is about 10 years behind in this trend, but we finally have Cy's around town sponsored by different businesses and painted uniquely.  It is really fun to be driving around and see them.  This Cy is a Cyclone Soda Jerk at Hickory Park.

 

We gave her a couple presents on Tuesday.  Dallas picked a stuffed talking Olaf for her, super cute, will be kind of creepy if it talks in the night though.  Noelle got her a jewelry box that you decorate with jewels.  She loves it.  Sticking stickers on things is so fun for her right now.  Robert and I got her the Doc McStuffins dress up outfit, and Grandpa got her an ISU scarf.  I will hopefully have another gift ready for her on Sunday when we party with the whole fam.

Hello first day of school

first day of school PE walk around the lake

 Emily, age eight, third grade

 Dallas, age 5, kindergarten

New curiculum that I am trying to learn

Other things that get done inbetween fair, friend and pool visits.

 I am decluttering kids art and other misc.  Remind me to snap a picture of the after pile.

 We tended the Homeschool garden last week and I guess this girl got hungry on the way home.

I know Dallas has a list going, but I would take this in a Med.  I actually think I will go back for it, not sure I can wait for Christmas....

We had a date last Friday and I out drank Robert for the first time, maybe ever.  Fun Laura!  Expensive bill.

We are getting more garden bounty than we can gobble up.  I had a light bulb moment and decided to roast the stuff that had a weird spot or that needed used up today.  I cleaned up all the veggies, in this case it was several zucchini, summer squash, lots of little yellow tomatoes that had split open on the vine, some banana peppers, and a couple of large red tomatoes that had a weird bug spot in that I cut out. I tossed them all with coconut oil and roasted for 20 minutes at 400.  I let the veggies cool a bit on the pan when finished then I stuck it all in the blender and pureed them.  I froze the puree in 1 cup portions and I plan to sneak add them into soups and sauces all winter. It was pretty delicious as is, I bet a splash of heavy cream, salt and pepper and it would make a good soup.