I'm Dreaming...

Everybody wants a white Christmas. I think this year we will have white before and white after, and icy rain on the day! Yuck. So here is my white Christmas video for those of you whose lawns are still green, three days early.

Concert Time

Invasion of the Cookie Snatchers

Some people look like criminals, and some don't. Or so we think. Looks can be deceiving. Take the little girl in this picture. She doesn't look like a crook. But look again. Look closer...

Baby Smile

I told my parents that trying to capture Leah Carole's smile on video makes me feel like Steve Irwin or Jeff Corwin, stalking some elusive but beautiful wild creature. Maybe if I climbed a tree and used a night vision camera I could get something better. I also need to get around the problem of how difficult it is to hold the baby and the camera at the same time. Anyway, here is our best attempt so far. Focus is off, but the baby is sweet nonetheless.

David's Gingerbread House

David got a gingerbread house as a gift, and had a really good time assembling it. Benjamin helped with making the royal icing, and the girls "helped" with the decorating. I think they were mostly in it for the windfalls, but everyone seemed to be having a good time anyway. They were all singing along as David worked, not caring a bit about getting the lyrics right, and I thought I might be able to record them without their noticing. Who ever decided to put a chime on the digital camera anyway? "DING! I am about to take your picture!" The video ended up pretty authentic to their original behavior, only I notice they keep sneaking looks at the camera. Must be hard dealing with the paparazzi.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas!

The kids are learning this song for the church Christmas program. Not sure what it has to do with the story of Christ's birth, but a fun song for the season. While there may be a very few of you who would like to have heard the entire 37-minute recitation of the song from very beginning to bitter end, for the purposes of this blog we must keep it short. I have also been forced to leave out all the false starts, however hilarious, and just put in the finished rendition. Katie is a bit harder to understand than David and Rachel, but I am sure, in her mind, she knew every word. At the end of the video, Rachel leans forward and starts to ask if she can do it all by herself next time. She did sing it, but not on video. They had used up all my memory.

The Salt Dough Party

If you know us pretty well, you know we love to make Christmas tree ornaments at this time of the year. On Thursday, we had another homeschooling family over, and we rolled, cut and painted salt dough ornaments. Art class!

My Pie

I was so pleased with how this apple pie came out, I decided to put it on the blog! We gave the pie to the Dearborns for Thanksgiving. I hope it tasted good. It's my mom's recipe, only slightly Dare-ized.

Baby Leah Doing Nothing But Still Looking Adorable

Sleeping Like a Baby

A New Baby

Here is Leah! Her full name is Leah Carole Grace. She was born on Wednesday, October 21, at just after 5 pm. She weighed nine pounds even, and measured 22 inches long. She is quiet, as babies go. Everyone seems to be adjusting well to her homecoming, and we are working on getting sleep when we can. I think Leah is winning the "who's asleep count," though.

Pumpkin Fest 2009

Last weekend we went over to Conneaut Lake Park, where they were having "Pumpkin Fest." There were rides and food and crafts, and also the famed PUMPKIN DROP. There was a large crowd gathered to see a pumpkin, weighing 1,100 pounds, being dropped from a crane onto a demolition derby car. I have to say I was amazed how much damage the car sustained! I thought the pumpkin would get the worst of it. Of course the pumpkin did get pretty well smashed, too. They say that having kids drains your brains. As a soon-to-be mother of six, my brains must be almost completely drained, because I thought the pumpkin drop was a lot of fun!

Setting Up the Pumpkin Stand

Fall Around the Farm

The heifer in the middle is Oreo.

Here are dry cows out to pasture.

Some of the kitties.

The house.

Barn and buildings from the road.

Smiles at Presque Isle

Today we went to a home schooling picnic up at Presque Isle State Park, which is a peninsula that extends into Lake Erie. It was beautiful! And, well, worth a million laughs, too.

Weird Science

Here are David and Ben's science projects from this week. David is comparing how long it takes for food coloring to permeate a warm glass of water versus a cold one. Benjamin's red project is a "Cell-o" model of a cell. Interesting... At least I didn't have to fix a snack after the kids picked all the dried beans and corn out of the jello.

Katie, the Eater

All the kids like to eat, but when you have a two-year-old girl that eats like a cowhand, you have to wonder. Maybe she is going to grow soon?

Garden Harvest

The garden turned out pretty well this year. I still have not found a good way to support the tomato plants. At least not a really cheap, good way. I think the best thing would be to buy a roll of that concrete reinforcing wire stuff and make the big cages. The beans recovered pretty well after an early onslaught by a local woodchuck family. (Mr. Dearborn put electric wire around the garden at a height of about six inches. It was effective, but I personally keep forgetting it is there. ZZZAP!) The corn needed fertilizer, but we were trying to keep it organic.

We were hoping to sell most of our produce, but while the rhubarb was a great seller, the garden vegetables have not sold at all, except for one repeat customer who really doesn't eat very much. In a way, it's a relief, because it is hard to do the stand. You put things out, and then if they don't sell, you have old veggies on your hands. Who wants to preserve old produce? Not I! I haven't done very much canning this year, honestly because I really don't feel like it. We did do some beans, and I am in the midst of tomatoes now. We've done a few jars of tomato juice, and now I am doing plain tomatoes, chunked up for soup. I did a few peaches and cherries, too, and froze three bags of shredded zucchini. That's about the extent of my ambition. (Actually, that was beyond the extent of my ambition. I just could not stand the thought of throwing the stuff away!)

The kids have done really, really well with the garden this year. The oldest three truly did almost everything, from planting to picking. (To eating; they are very good at that part!) It's gone a little wild on us now, but I'll take the blame for that one, not sending them out while things were still doable. Now we are just waiting for our pumpkins and gourds, indian corn and cornstalks to get ready, to see if people will stop and buy that stuff for fall decorating.

Sunday Walk

Here are some pictures from our Sunday afternoon walk. Guernseys are very curious cows!

My Son, David

This is a picture of my son, David. We decided to take this picture while he had some face remaining. The black eye, which is mostly healed now, came from bumping heads with his sister, Amanda. The bandaid on his chin is covering the steri-strips, which are holding his chin together. (Fell UP the stairs!) The missing teeth are natural. The scabs on his forehead are of unknown origin. If you have a son like David, I recommend either a dedicated medical savings account or investing in protective equipment, such as a football helmet and mouthguard.

Is This Calaveras County?

Here in Conneautville, we have Homecoming in July. One of the big events, (cash prizes, mind you), is the frog jumping contest. Our kids entered this year, and though we did not win big, we did have fun. The frog gets three jumps, usually encouraged by a tap on the rump, and total distance is calculated by the judges.

Searching for contenders.

The bucket of contestants.

The venue.

The spectators.

At the starting line.

Mark Twain, eat your heart out.

Soccer's Over

Soccer is over! Even though we had four different teams to keep track of, it was not bad. Our soccer league is very family-friendly, only having games on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 5:30 or 7. There must be ten or more fields there together, so everyone can play at the same time. It was a first experience for the girls, and they enjoyed it. Rachel got on a team with one of her good neighbor friends, Jordan. Jordan is in the picture above with Rachel, wearing pink shorts. Amanda's team got outscored over the season about 100 to 10 overall, but as she, like most of her team members, was mainly there for the social occasion and the snacks, she was happy anyway. Benjamin showed great improvement from the last time he played soccer two years ago, as well as from the beginning of the season to the end. He says he definitely wants to
play again, so we were very pleased. David had a good season, though a bit rough-and-tumble, receiving a kick to the gut and the face in one game while he was playing goalie. It was a nice way to spend summer evenings, so I guess I have to say that being a soccer mom is not so bad, after all.