Fall Fun!

"Dear God....
Thank you for this day...
please let tomorrow be a good day...
and please let there be a full moon tonight instead of a half moon again. 
Love Caleb." 

 Shaking his fist at the heavens, Levi demands that the winds stop blowing leaves onto his neat lawn and tidy leaf pile. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"
My daily experiences in the laundry room allow me to empathize with him. 

"Go Mom Go! Go Mom Go! Go Mom Go!" My children chant an encourage chorus as I attempt, with all my strength and might, to push an extremely large pumpkin over a bumpy pumpkin patch in a wheel barrel.Banging my shin into the side, I soon realize that it has a flat tire. 
Nonetheless, I was one determined mama to get my super sized Patton Pumpkin home and make it a magical day for my kids. 

Magic pumpkin day

James about to devour his sticky Carmel apple treat at the pumpkin patch

"It doesn't get any better than this!" declares my dear friend Emily as we pass yet another brilliant fall afternoon sitting in the cul de sac while our kids circle us on scooters. 

She's right. 

When I look back on a year, I tend to focus on those "big moments," those Life Events. 
That is why I think my years keep going by faster and faster and faster! I tend to skip over the small little moments while I plan and strategize about the approaching milestones.
My friend reminded me that I am spending a lot of time passing time, when the time I'm passing is my life! 
However, this fall has had so many little moments that I have really enjoyed. As I sit here and try to remember the funny phrases and cute little stories I am filled with so many visions of beautiful afternoons with the  kids, under trees, at playgrounds and with friends.

This fall we could actually enjoy and play in the leaves! It has been so beautiful and dry; the leaves aren't goopy and wet from rain.

I'm one of those people who never gets tired of the change of seasons.





I wouldn't want to live in a place where the leaves don't change color and the air doesn't get crisp. The older I get, the more I really really appreciate and anticipate the beauty of each month.
Yes, I even like the rain.

We've had so much going on in our family the past month. There has been vans, trucks and workmen coming in and out of our house daily. We had to have our entire house repiped  and redry walled and repainted. Although it was an inconvenience, I am so grateful we are able to complete all these projects and just get it done. It truly was surgery on our house.



We completed these projects in the "Nick of Time", hours before John's entire work team flew in to conduct their annual meeting in our basement.

I have really relished in the changing leaves. They are more beautiful to me than ever before. I have often times spent afternoons after picking up my boys at the preschool playground, letting them run around and enjoy the sunshine.

"Can you make this into pumpkin bread mom?"

We've enjoyed sunny Saturday mornings at Evie's soccer games, cheering from the sidelines. 

Bottle this day up

Evie is really enjoying her soccer season playing on the "Cute Cuddly Puppies" team! 🐶

The tooth fairy also visited our home again.  Complaining about her front tooth for weeks, I got an email from the school nurse that Evelyn marched into her office at school and wanted her to help pull it out! (She won't even let me brush her hair!)

 Levi walked around trying to pull his own teeth out because he could use the extra cash too.......

The boys had their field trip to Lusher Farms. Again, it was on a beautiful fall morning and John and I both got to go with them and help build their scarecrows and tour the farm. 

They were very proud of their work.

The boys and the scarecrows. I can not believe this is the last preschool farm field trip!

Caleb following the farmer's directions and tearing up lettuce to feed the earthworm. He's determined to do a good job. 

Despite the chaos in our home this fall, I've really really enjoyed this season. I don't want it to end. It is bittersweet that this is the last fall with my children at preschool, and sometimes I simply stand in the preschool playground and just soak it up. 

The surrounding trees at BCP are so colorful. 

We had a great time as a family at Fir Point Farms picking out our pumpkins.The kids loved finding their perfect pumpkin. Now, we just have to carve them all!!

And, James really wants me to cook him more pumpkin spice goodies. 

And finally, it wouldn't' be fall without our annual Family Photo Shoot!

Here are some of the highlights. 

Girls Unite!

Nothing more special than Daddy, Daughter.

James was in a mood this year and had a hard time smiling.....

Love them, love them, love them.

My life

When a bead suddenly falls out of your nose....

We started out last Saturday morning with chocolate chip pancakes and digging a bead out of James' nose.

 While working on a craft project in the other room from the kitchen, we were suddenly informed that James might have a bead up his nose.
Some of the siblings were certain; others thought perhaps he was paranoid.
John and I were surprisingly not panicked but simply picked up a flashlight to peer up his nostril while the other three ate their pancakes (and added extra syrup because we were distracted...)

Sure enough, John confirmed that there was in fact a small bead lodged up his left nostril. We didn't even bother to try and uncover the reason for it's placement, but simply went to work devising a plan on how we could pry it out.
Tweezers just didn't work. Fingers were even worse.
"We need something with a small hook to latch in the hole in the middle and yank on it," said John.

Evie just couldn't look. She was disgusted, worried and totally upset by this whole thing. But then, as I thought about what John said, I immediately thought of Evie's little crafting hook that she uses to weave pot holders.
Immediately delighted by this solution, Evie jumped up from her chair and ran upstairs to retrieve the tool.

Amazingly, this tactic worked and the title orange bead fell on the floor beneath him.
Evie refused to go near the bead or the pot holder hook; but nonetheless, she was proud that she could be of assistance in this endeavor.

Upon debriefing about the situation, we all agreed that putting beads up your nose is not a good way to do the beading craft.

Later in the day, I went upstairs to try to escape the craziness that was taking over the house. John was preoccupied with fixing a leak in our basement, and I was exhausted;  so the kids had the run of the house. A few moments into my attempt of "zenning" out alone,  I heard an absurd amount of laughter coming from downstairs.
 I felt obligated to investigate. Sure enough, the kids had found a HUGE spool of fishing line and had run it all over the house creating invisible trip lines everywhere.
It went out of the house, into the garage and they had managed to string it around the front bumper of the van. Even when I thought I gathered it all up and tossed it in the garbage, I found myself tripping and getting tangled up in it throughout the rest of the day.
 Later in the day when I pulled the car down the driveway, a Styrofoam cylinder attached somehow by the fishing line trailed along with me, wound around the bumper. Getting out of the van, I yanked at the garbage attached to my vehicle. Unable to snap the line and getting progressively more frustrated, I looked ridiculous as I stood in the middle of the street pulling and kicking.

To sum up this day, I came out of the house to an abandoned toy jeep that Caleb was riding only moments ago, left in the middle of the street. Perplexed by this sight, I shaded my eyes and scanned up and down our road, wondering where he went off to. A few moments later, a woman five houses down informed me that Caleb had knocked on her door and wanted to play with her son, but informed her that his "mom didn't know where he was." Thank you Caleb for suddenly getting the epiphany to surrender your jeep to the road in order to engage with a new playmate.

Caleb and James both learned how to ride a two wheel bike sans training wheels, and their new found freedom and abilities has created a desire to be independent and seek out thrills. I find that I've been spending a large majority of the afternoons trying to figure out where they are and praying to God that they don't totally wipe out as they fly down the steep hill near our house on their bikes.
I think having four kids has made me way more chill than the average Mom when it comes to my kids falling, getting lost and seeking out dangerous activities.
I just pray...and hope for the best. 😳

Sunday morning I walk all of the kids into church, weary from the morning hustle of getting there and fatigued by the chaos and craziness in our home. Finding a brief moment to chat with some friends in the foyer while the kids burn off energy running around me, I am interrupted by Levi handing me a small sticky bead. "Here Mom," he says. "This fell out of my nose." He immediately runs off again to play with the other kids. I stand there, almost unfazed because my life has suddenly become a constant fountain of declarations I never imagined I'd hear stated with such normalcy.

My friends, who just had their first baby, just stare at me, and I tell them that this is what they have to look forward to. (Although, they just had a girl, and I'm not sure girls shove beads up their nose..) So far I've known about %50 of my kids doing this and %100 of them are boys. 

 Boys are great. I love my Evie, but the dudes and I spend a lot of time together since older sis is in school all day, everyday.
My pack of boys and I do a lot together.

Today we went to Walmart and what do you know, Halloween costumes were all nicely lined up on display, organized by size. So, we decided to chose what superhero we wanted to be this year. This year we have Flash, Captain America and Iron Man. There are benefits to buying costumes early. For one, all the sizes and all the options are available in somewhat neat order. Secondly, by buying them now, I just secured several hours of play a day. Now Caleb can speed down the hill by our house with a full on Flash cape. I just had to remind the boys, to their dismay, that masks over their eyes while speeding down a hill is not a plan for glory.

Last Days and First Days

In some ways, the end of the summer feels like a long drop after a steep climb upward.

It seems counter intuitive that structure and schedule gives freedom and exhilaration; but, nonetheless, after a long summer of fun and flexibility, structure is a welcome change.
The last few weeks of summer were very challenging. The kids were fighting constantly. The house was in disarray. Activities had run dry. This combination makes for a tired, crabby mama.

Our last week we were trudging. The kids asked me nearly every day when school was going to start and I was desperately trying to fill the hours.

 Our last big "hurrah" was a labor day weekend "family camp."
Family camp was always one of those things that seemed like it would be good to do someday, but it also seemed like a lot of work.
Our good family friends had invited us to partake in this family camp experience for the last few years; finally, we felt like we could accept this year and actually have a good time.

Washington Family Ranch

The thought of being disconnected from technology for the weekend and spending focused, uninterrupted time with my family was something I was excited about.

 I was also excited to spend some intentional time with dear family friends of ours, ones we've know throughout our entire married life. Remembering vividly the day their first daughter was born, she now is 11; these are the people and relationships that matter. The older I get, the more I recognize the absolute gift it is to be surrounded by people with whom we can trace these roots. However,  I also realize that the busyness of life can cause these precious relationships to slip away so easily if we are not careful to nurture them. So, this was a weekend of intentionality, of committing to pouring into relationships that matter, both within our family and friendships.

After packing an absurd amount of stuff, we sat on our suitcase and zipped it up.
We left midday Friday and drove through the mountain to the other side.

 I've not been to the other side of Mount Hood a lot and the landscape is a whole different place. It's brown, and desert like and hilly. It's completely different than the lush, green vegetation I am used to here in the Willamette Valley.

We drove through small towns, no towns, ghost towns....through a seemingly abandoned town of Antelope, Oregon. The only reason I know of Antelope, Oregon is because John and I watched the documentary series, Wild Wild Country, a netflix series about the Rajneesh Cult that once took over this region. One of the reasons I was so intrigued by the Washington Family Ranch camp is because after it got shut down, it was purchased and occupied by Young Life.

Now a beautiful oasis built for the cultivation of friendship and fun, Washington Family Ranch is truly a place of respite and reconnection. The camp was full of so many people we've seen and known through our school and church. It was a weekend of strengthening and building new connections.



Coming back from the ranch, we launched right into school. Blessed school.

We spent the day before getting new shoes, hair cuts, labeling school supplies...Tuesday was Open house, or as I like to call it, false start.....and Wednesday my house was so quiet.  John and I woke the kids up a little earlier than usual and surprised them by taking them out to the pancake house for breakfast. Once they were sufficiently stuffed with too much sugar and carbs, we deposited them at school and bid them farewell.
Then John hopped on a plane to NYC...and me, well, I basked in the peace of my own dwelling. The boys were only there for a few hours before I had to hop in the car and pick them up. We ended up playing on the playground for another hour as I chatted with moms I haven't seen all summer and caught up with friends whom I missed! It felt like I was reconnecting with co-workers or something. It was very energizing for me.
I am fully entrenched in my two communities of West Hills and Bethlehem Christian Preschool. My seemingly empty calendar is suddenly filled to the brim with functions and events. I love it though. I love this time of year. Of new beginnings. Excitement. A fresh start. It's just the best.

Our Time in Chicago

As I returned home from Chicago last week, I now look ahead to the three weeks of summer still stretched out before us.
Still....s    t    r    e    t    c    h   e   d  out before US.

Returning to life here Tualatin required about a week of recalibration.
The kids were moody. They were used to daily magical adventures and ice cream; pair that with a steady steam of adoring family members, and you have some cranky, spoiled kids.
So we settled in. Got back to real life.
 Readjusted.

Reading with Aunt Penny

In Chicago, their days were spent swimming, riding on trains, playing at parks and even fishing with my Aunt Penny. Back to normal life is always an adjustment; the days aren't nearly as exciting when the focus isn't totally on having fun.

A perfect catch!

Being the oldest and the only girl, Evie got to have some special sleepovers with Aunt Penny and GG. She also got my mom's undivided attention most of the day. So, of course, leaving all this was very difficult for her. She sobbed on the way to the airport. My heart felt sad for her; but, I also knew that she needed to get back to not being the center of the universe.

One of the ways I suggested she process the last two weeks and remember all the good times is by making a Chicago memory book.

GG and Caleb love the train at Blackberry Farm!

We printed out some of the pictures and she wrote captions under each event.

Ready to board! 

Feeding Giraffes

 

We drove up to Racine, Wisconsin one day to meet extended family who live in Milwaukee. My aunt met us with her two granddaughters.
Racine is a charming little community, located right on Lake Michigan. Oddly, there is a little zoo nestled into a lakeside residential community. Some residents literally look out of their living room windows and see the giraffes and zebras roaming around.
A highlight of the zoo were the giraffes. Levi was absolutely thrilled to see them. He says giraffes are his favorite animal. To make this experience even more magical, he/we got the feed the giraffes leaves.

Another highlight was the parakeet aviary . Colorful parakeets zipped by our heads. Caleb thought it was thrilling that they might poop on us. 

Pools and waterparks were definitely a highlight for Evie. The Chicago suburbs have many many public pools that are very nice. They spent a lot of their week going down water slides and splashing around. Swimming with my mom was something Evie talked about all year.

Another highlight for Evie was taking care of my aunt's little dog Tinkerbell. My aunt had to go out of town for a few days while we were there, so my mom took in her little dog. Evie just adored her.

The perfect little size for cuddling

A highlight for James is a trip to a unique restaurant near my Grandma's house in Glen Ellyn. It's called 'Toots' and its located right next to the train station that runs to city. What makes Toots special is a model train runs through the tables and delivers the food. It makes a little "toot toot" when an order is up. James was in train heaven.

Toot toot! Train whistles!😜

Caleb's highlight had to have been the balconies off my parent's sun room in their house. Growing up in this house, these balconies weren't anything terribly special to me. But, for my children, they were incredibly fascinating.
Caleb quickly transformed them into a stage. With the echo of the glass room, he had himself a real platform for preforming. There were many nights sitting below watching him sing and dance his VBS songs. The applause and adoration from his family was his fuel. He loved every second of being a showmen.

My highlight (apart from our adventure in Amsterdam..) was showing my kids my parent's property, exploring the land, seeing it again how I saw it as a child. It was a completely magical place for me growing up. There are streams, a frog pond, forests, cornfields and trees to explore.

 Now, 30 years later, things naturally look very different. The pond is consumed by cattails and river weeds. The cornfields were a construction zone when we were there.

 The forests are so overgrown I don't think I could step foot into them. But, the magic of it still lives on in my heart, of summer days wandering around, entertaining myself with the stories in my mind. My days were filled with catching tadpoles, climbing trees and making mazes through the cornfields.
I grieve the fact that my kids are not growing up like this, with land in which to roam and magic to uncover. At least they get this when they visit the house I grew up in, and I hope that they remember it.


When our two weeks were up, we tried to collect all of our items scattered and hidden around my parent's house.

Getting back to normal life after being gone for two weeks, it took a few to day acclimate. We jumped right back in to our summer activities of playgrounds, pool dates, and seeing friends.
Evie started soccer practice. The boys and I picked blackberries from the trail path near our house and made a pie for my Father in Law's birthday!

We are back to life here in Tualatin; now we just need school to start.