sleepover!

We had a youth group party at our place last Friday night and since our new friends, Marcus and Jackie were coming from Custer, an hour away, we invited them with their four kids to stay the night. Our kids were so excited about having their friends stay the night that we even let them stay up late. I think they're still recovering from it. 

Noah and Eli are about a year apart in age. Evie and Aly are bff's and are only like a month apart. Samuel and JT are only a month apart as well. And Rowdy, their baby, has to play with Snap I suppose ;)

Enjoying Terry's pancakes the following morning.

fort

This morning Noah decided he wanted to make a fort - the first time for our new house. It's been a while since I had a photo up of this and so I grabbed the camera when all three kids were in there at the same time.

I love how Samuel's leaning down to smile for me. And Evie's toes. And Noah's sweet smile as he looks over at his brother.

I like my kids. They are good kids.

fall colors at roughlock falls

The last weekend of September after we visited Grampa's pumpkin patch, I convinced my somewhat reluctant husband to drive us up the northern hills to Spearfish Canyon so we could enjoy the changing fall colors - no small feat with three small children, one of which who was missing his long afternoon nap. But we managed it and had a nice time. It was so pretty and the weather was gorgeous.

This is a lookout just off the parking lot at Roughlock Falls. I remember looking into that stream when I was little. 

Almost ready to hike down to the waterfall. The afternoon light was so pretty in the leaves.

Look familiar? If you got a Christmas card last year, it should. This is the same place that photo came from, originally taken at my sister's wedding!

The Falls 

On our hike back up the hill, the kids had to stop and climb this boulder right off the path. They did the exact same thing at the wedding. 

It was a beautiful day for enjoying the view. 

Samuel was on lock down in his stroller since he was a tad, very cranky. I was entertaining him with the camera and loved the expression I caught here. Makes me smile. It also makes me miss his long hair.

Me and the kids took a little trail off the main path and beat daddy, Samuel and Snap up the hill. 

homemade pumpkin patch

Grandpa likes to grow pumpkins and give them to the kids. So another nice thing about being close to family is that our pumpkin patch is only 30 minutes away verses 6 hours. It's a much closer trip than previous years.

So here's the ranch pumpkin patch that we visited the weekend before last. I thought the turkeys and the drought took the whole crop, so I was quite surprised any pumpkins survived.

Noah and Evie pick the biggest they can find.

Doesn't Evie look enthused? Not as much as Samuel coming up... 

Yeah, Samuel was not happy for some reason. And for other darker reasons, I like having pictures of him crying. It makes me laugh :)

Hehehe 

And one more crying photo? What kind of sinister mommy am I? Well, off they go to unload the pumpkins from the golf cart to our van. And now they're sitting at my front door and Noah is asking to carve them already...

apples II

Since my folks and I are both overrun with apples, for the last couple weeks my mom has been helping me learn to make applesauce and apple butter. 

We've only used her apples so far because they're better - we have even been eating several a day because they're so good. The first week she brought over a full five gallon bucket and we made seven quarts of applesauce! Last week we made 12 smaller jars of apple butter. But I made the mistake of adding too much sugar. Terry likes it so that's good (but then again, he does eat moldy bread...). I also made a pie which was amazing. Perhaps I'll make another on this first cold autumn day of the year...

Apples ready to boil.

She has this neat Kitchen Aid gadget that's just so nifty. My kids favorite part? When the apple waste was separated from the good stuff like poo.

wrestling

This was wrestle time with daddy a couple weeks ago. You can hardly see the poor guy when all three kids gang up on him. We love it when daddy comes home.

long haired boy

No interesting stories today. Just some cute photos of Samuel from my birthday. I just cut his hair so I'm missing how cute his long hair made him look. He looks a lot older now.

He's showing the apples he brought inside and the ball that he always seems to have in his sweaty little hand.

He didn't seem to like the new bootie slippers I got him.

He's a ball boy. Noah was a train and car boy. Samuel likes those too, but really, he prefers balls. I found one in his bed yesterday.

lost and found

Nearly three years ago Terry gave me a birthstone ring for Christmas. I had always wanted a sapphire. And I love this ring. I like to stack it with my wedding rings. 

Unfortunately, I lost it on Saturday.

It fell out of my pocket.

I took my engagement and sapphire rings off while at my sister-in-law's Norwex party to slather on some Shea butter cream. I foolishly placed my rings in my shallow pockets. The Shea butter was thick and creamy just like butter so it was taking forever to absorb and I forgot to put my rings back on. After Shari's party, I went to Sally Beauty to buy some new clippers for Samuel's much needed haircut. Then I went to Safeway to gas up. Then I went to Mr. Movies for a surprise family movie. While waiting for the cashier to enter my info into the computer, I absentmindedly stuck my hands in my pockets and realized my rings were not there. 

Panic. 

Text Shari. Go look in car. Thankfully my engagement ring was sitting on the car seat! But the sapphire? No such luck. Shari has no luck even after removing cushions.

Search car. Search Mr. Movies. Explain situation to cashier and leave info. Call mom and dad and ask them to search Sally. Call Sally and have them search and call me. Mom and dad search inside and even wait until the car in my previous spot move and find nothing. Pray. Go home and make pizza so we can still have family movie night. Go out to look more with Terry and the kids (i was cringing at the thought of telling Terry about my idiocy but he was so nice. i was so upset.). Ask Noah to pray - God answers Noah. Search Safeway gas station. Explain situation to gas attendant and leave info. Get in the way of the person gassing up in my previous spot to look for ring. No luck. Text Jesse and Shari and ask them to search outside their apartment. No luck. Go to Sally and search inside and out. No luck. Decide to go and look once more at Mr. Movies since that's where I first missed my rings. Step out of the van...

...into the rain and see my ring right away in the spot next to where I had been parked.

Blam jam. There it was and there it had been all along. I like to think that God sent the rain (not just for me because we do desperately need it) since the wet ground showed up the ring very clearly on the concrete. You gotta know I thanked God for this! Because even though I keep saying "luck," that had nothing to do with it.

turning city kids into ranch kids - 1

When we moved away to Nebraska five and a half years ago, one of the things Terry really missed was being able to help his dad on the ranch. He's got this ingrained ranch work ethic where he thinks if he doesn't spend nearly every minute of the day working hard on something, then it's not a good day. Perhaps that's a guy thing too. And perhaps I'm just lazy. But, well, I did grow up in the city and though my dad did have us work hard in the garden and doing wood, it's not quite the same. So now our kids are city kids and Terry (and I) want them to have valuable ranch life experience. It should get even more interesting if Grampa gets cows again!

So since we moved home in the spring, Terry's been wanting to get out to the ranch more often and "do stuff." He finally called his dad and we went out there last Friday morning. Grampa had a job that needed done - taking apart Terry and Shari's childhood fort in the rafters of the old barn. Let me just say, the kids were not excited about going up there.

But we made them. And we didn't listen to all the whining either. Time to get tough kids! 

I had to stay with a even crankier Samuel so I didn't get to see the filth up there. When Terry came down, he said he forgot how Shari and him used to throw cow pies up there to scare out the pigeons so Terry could shoot them and earn some money for his dad. So yeah, old cow pie dust.

After a while, the kids seemed to accept their fate and stopped complaining quite so much.

Don't let his cuteness deceive you. He's loud. Maybe when he learns to talk he'll yell less...

Grampa helped the kids to safely descend the ladder once Daddy came to the point of removing the last boards. 

The kids were all ready to go inside and watch a movie, but Grampa had them pick up rocks. They don't look real busy here though do they? 

After this I took Samuel and cousin baby Grace (who was being babysat) for a walk. I squished them both in the single stroller and set off in the wind. We got to the bridge and threw rocks in the scant creek and headed back for lunch. I wish I had remembered my phone to take a photo of the two of them sharing a seat. It was so cute. 

So who knows what our next project will be out at the ranch!

my birthday

Monday September 17th was my thirty first birthday. Like I said before, I feel more committed to my 30's now - older. 

I had a good day. I slept late and was awoken by Terry bringing me breakfast! He had got up earlier to get me something. We just hung out in the morning and then got to do a lot of shopping and errand running in the afternoon - all without kids! Terry's folks graciously watched them so Terry could come out with me. When we got back to the house, Terry's folks had prepared a BBQ and my folks, Shari and Grace showed up. My mom even made a cake. It was a very good day. 

Grampa B grilling while Shari watches the little punks Samuel and Grace.

The homemade cake. She even got these candles that burned the color of the wax!

Noah explains his card.

Hanging out in the newly re-arranged living room. I bought some shelves to put up some more frames.

The card Terry and the kiddos made for me. I was proud that Evie did her name all by herself. Noah took full advantage of her wide "V." 

harvest festival reminiscences & early bday celebrations

Today is September 15. My birthday is September 17. I turn 31. Seems much more significant than 30 did - I'm committed to my 30's now.

So today I can't help remembering that on this Saturday last year, it happened to be my 30th birthday and it was Gburg's Harvest Festival. So today I'm missing my Gburg peeps.

So yeah. Now Terry and the kids have left me all alone with a napping Samuel to go off and do some kind of special "surprise" which I'm not allowed to ask them about. What's a girl to do?

Write a reminiscence post and talk about the lamb chops I had last night (sorry for the bad cell photo pic). I love to eat.

Even though it's not my birthday yet, we went for a date night last night. I researched where I wanted to go after Terry suggested Ruby Tuesday. Can all my lady peeps agree with me that that sounds kinda boring?

I love you Terry.

I thought this newish place just on the edge of town, Dakotah Steakhouse, sounded nice - good combo of a large plate of meat for Terry and newness/freshness/taste for me. It was fantastic! Of course, mine was better than Terry's steak. I had my first ever lamb chops and they were outstanding. The menu says, "Panko rosemary-crusted lamb chops with apricot orange chutney." Whatever all that is, it was good. Excuse me while I go get something to eat since I just made myself really hungry...

apples

When we bought our new house, we were pleased that a mature apple tree came with it. Those apples have been getting pinker and redder and falling off like crazy. I think this means they are ready to go (*note - I am not an expert...Perhaps I shouldn't shake apples off the tree? They got bruised that way...).

So I've stopped my weekly stocking up on apples at Safeway and insisted we eat them off the tree. At first Noah was dead set against it, as if they weren't real food ("I want the apples that come in the bag!"). But after I cut into one and it looked fantastic, and after I tried it, he was brave enough to try as well. And he's all for them now. Evie's not. They're too sour for her but she has to eat them anyway. They are more like Granny Smiths than Gala or Fugi. But they're crisp and juicy and that's what counts I think.

So I've been sending Noah out every day for lunch to grab us a few apples. I think it's so fun!

Noah needed some help reaching a good apple and while I was out there with him, I noticed there was a ton on the ground. So I put us all to work picking up the gross half decomposed apples, sorting them from the good ones. Then I shook the tree a little and we sorted some more. We ended up with three ice cream buckets worth (with lots more to come) to make apple butter, apple sauce and apple pie filling. Yay!

spiral water slide

Yesterday's weather was perhaps the hottest we are likely to get for a while (hopefully) so I insisted the kids swim in their little pool to enjoy it while they could. I began filling up their pool in the middle of the yard before I had the brainwave of filling it at the bottom of their tube slide. We had discovered earlier this summer that putting the hose at the top of the slide doesn't work since all the water seeps out from the seams of the slide. But Noah's wet bottom was enough to make the slide pretty fast.

They had a blast, despite what Evie looks like below. She can be a little timid about some things and was afraid to go too fast down the slide, which she had just done here.

I had another brainwave and got her a towel to sit on to slow her progress down the slide. That did the trick. She went down that thing more than Noah and kept going long after he wanted to go inside.

Safety and security = happy girl

When Samuel got up from his nap he joined in the fun as well. I snapped this shot at the perfect moment. After he sprayed himself he freaked out and dropped the hose, retreating to safer parts of the yard...

...At which point Noah picked up the hose and sprayed his belly ("look mom! i look like i'm peeing!") repeatedly, thinking it was the greatest thing ever. Boys.

Again with the silliness...

Perhaps that's why Samuel looked like this... Careful observation of the appropriate boy behavior that he'll tuck away for when he's big enough to be a goof like Noah.

SPLASH!