Autumn comes with the traditional

There are certain events that indicate Fall in Indiana for our family, and it seems they all came and passed this month.  We had Grammie visiting for the welcoming festivities of fall: apple picking.  Our friend's tree that we pillaged for fee last year was on an off year so we had to go to a 'commercial' local apple orchard to pick.  The name of this orchard gave us many laughs: "Tree Technology."  Yep, that's new technology - getting small kids with baskets on a stick to pick apples.Josh, the kids, Grammie and Aunt Jill picked 5 bushels of apples that we processed within that week to have plenty of applesauce and apple pie slices all through the winter.  The kids are always involved with smooshing the apples through the Victorio Strainer or twisting the peeler/corer/slicer, which makes the process move swiftly.

When the apples are on, we also know it is time to honor the man who gave us all this lovely harvest: Johnny Appleseed.  Fort Wayne claims the burial of Johnny.  We have a gravesite, although I am not certain, with many other claimants on to Johnny's burial, if the site is not just a relic containing maybe teeth or other random bones.  Ether way, all the community gathers for the fantastic festival in his park and celebrate the handiwork of many who still create without technology (ha, tree technology orchard).  Each year we heard the kids past the vendors to the settler's area and learn some new skills.  This year's skills were:  clay wheel pottery, woodworking (mostly for Josh who still dreams that he will have a wood shop some day), wood carving, copper smithing, and tinkering. 

This fella gave the kids a bit of a science lesson by carving back the stick and then pulling out the worms that were the cause of the great maple to fall.  Josh admired the lacquering.

Because it was the very end of the day the tinkers let the kids play with all sorts of machines and gave them lots of tin trinkets to play with.  They gave the kids a math lesson as to why you need to know geomotrey. 

 Another fall time favorite - the annual Fort4Fit race.  This year we worked with the kids through the end of the summer to run 25 miles, all building up to the Kids Marathon for Fort4Fit.  The kids had gotten the racing bug when we did the Spartan Race in the spring and were mostly willing to do the training.  We were amazed by how well they did on the actual race night!  With Jill, we had one adult per child to run with the kids during the mile long course.  Viv ran hard with Jill, Faith stayed consistent and long strided with her dad, and I ran with Danny.  I was most impressed with Danny.  Throughout the summer he was the least enthused about continuous running; often stopping with side aches.  However, for the race, Danny kept a steady jog the whole time.  We talked about Captain America, of course, to pass the second half mile and he made it the whole way without walking!  All three were so happy to have their medals!  It is so nice to have this family friendly race so close to our home, it is really too easy to do I would be ashamed if we had not involved the kids in their own race.

Start time was 7:30am this year instead of 8am.

The next morning I woke up and walked up to the race start for the 10K race.  Some friends joined me for the start.  To my happy surprise, Jill rode her bike up and became my support through the whole race.  I certainly wasn't in my favored shape for the race, but I made some goals and kept them, only missing my goal finish by one minute (should have followed Jill's advice and had faster turnover the last half mile rather than trying to lengthen my stride, lesson learned).

Josh and the kids made it up for the finish so they could steal my post-race snacks and then go to the library.  It is a fun race because it ends in the Parkview baseball stadium and they have the racers on the jumbo-tron and announce their names so the family can be more participatory in the end.

A new fall tradition for us, thanks to Jill, will be going to a college football game.  We are still learning to enjoy the event, so it was super nice to head over to a small university in town, St. Francis, and watch our good friend and old babysitter Jason "Big Guy" Gardner play as defensive center.  Danny was intent not he game.  Faith brought a book, which suits her personality after watching some of the game she was happy to read.  Viv spent most of her time watching the cheerleaders evidently to figure outs why they had blue and black pom-poms (which she finally figured out about the 3rd quarter and announced to the rest of of that it was to match the team colors on the football uniforms).  It was a very good thing to broaden the horizons of the kids to some of the best parts of fall sporting events.  Jill and I also took them to watch IPFW men and women's soccer.

Welcome Summer Fun!

The weather this week has been absolutely perfect!

Cool mornings, not too hot, extra time.  We made it a tour de parks.  Each day we spent time at a different park playing and playing and playing.  I finished reading most of Les Miserables.  Monday we went to Fowler.  Tuesday we went to Jonny Appleseed Park and Northside Park.  Wednesday we went to Franke park.  

Fowler Park was a new one for us.  I had some interesting observations of the kids while there, especially of Viv's extra observant flirtatious manners.  Oh my, gotta keep watching that one.

 Thursday we mixed it up a little, thanks to a suggestion from a friend, and went strawberry picking!  A little farm in Leo lets you pick your own strawberries for $1.29 a pound.  The kids each had a bucket and a friends and a whole field of strawberries.  I tried to stay close to them and had to keep jumping up my rows.  I filled two buckets of very red strawberries; I was very picky realizing I would probably have to balance out the flavor of the mostly red but partially white strawberries from the kids' buckets.  They all did fantastic!  We then spent the afternoon making strawberry jam with our friends and went home with 26 jars!  We found the best pectin ever (Pomona's Universal Pectin) which allows you to use as much or as little sweetener as you want.  I was grateful for the low sugar content on Friday morning when the kids smeared one whole jar on their toasts!  It was just like giving them fresh strawberries.  So delicious. I am so excited for a new canning season and having my own produce on my shelves and in the kids bellies.

Faith, Danny, and Viv were through the field with their buddies bending and picking and playing.

Tara is s super mom who takes her kids picking every year, this year she has a 6 mo old and he sat and tried eating the strawberries and kept getting frustrated that he couldn't quite eat them yet.

 Friday I planned to stay at home to catch up on everything we had been avoiding for the whole week, but we couldn't resist the fine weather and ended up joining more friends at Rockhill park for the morning.  When we got home we got most of the house tidy and then spent the afternoon again in the yard, weeding and watering the garden and playing some more.  With such fine weather we had friends over again to play in the backyard before dinner.

Rockhill Park Faith enjoyed finding a moth as a pet for the last part of the playing.

What a fine introduction to Summer fun!  I hope that I can maintain the carefree attitude that makes us all so happy and exhausted.  I have all winter to clean out the corners of my home, but only one summer to just enjoy playing all day long!  We live a charmed life and this has been a fine start to the summer!

Resurgence

To begin with, we have recently signed up for an at home deliver of veggies and other organic products.  Yes, you can order everything on the internet and be a complete shut in if you like.  I don't have to go to the grocery store anymore and I love it!  Two hours of my life restored.  Now if my kids want to throw a fit we can do it in the privacy of my own home and I don't have to get overstimulated with advertising for crap.  I love it.  The kids love it too.  It is like Christmas every friday - and the gift keeps on giving because it becomes their dinner!  Again, I love the whole concept.

Furthermore, I love the concept of getting local and organic foods.  For some weird reason, the grocery stores around here are rather fickle and don't have good selections of either meat or produce.  Now I know I am getting both from a fresh source. With the whole deal I also get to choice other organic-type products that I probably otherwise would not try.  Online they are on sale so I order some without walking down the perceived over priced 'organics' isle at the grocery store.  It has been super pleasant and we have made some crazy good finds, such as today's lunch:

These little nuggets are delicious!   They are not chicken, which in the land of chicken nuggets is actually a relief.  I have had an over reactive gag reflex recently with meat products - and even the idea of commercial chicken nuggets makes me nauseous.  You know that one bad nugget with the 'other' stuff in it. Gag.  These little guys are smooth!  They are made of fugiprotien - basically mushrooms - but the texture is as beautiful as the best homemade chicken pot pie.   They were delicious and I was mad I gave most of them to the kids.  The next box is all for me.


I find in this tale of day a few resurgent patterns of my youth that made me even think it worthy to post (besides spreading the word to meat eaters about Quorn).

One - the return to home delivery.  When I grew up we had milk delivered to our back porch.  By the time I came around we got the regular gallons that you would by in the store, but I vaguely remember that we did once set out our used bottles and the were traded out and returned full of milk.

Two -  When I was going through the finicky teen years I had a bad experience with beef that made me a psedu-vegetarian for awhile.  My mother was extremely patient and accommodating.  I insisted that it was medical - I would barf and be bulimic if all she served me was meat.  Yet, with this recent resurgence of hyper-sensitive gag reflexes I find myself cutting the teen me some slack.  I have always liked vegetable products better - the first time I ate a veggie-burger at Hard Rock I thought I had gone to heaven. Now the Quorn stuff.  I start to wonder if at some point my body gets overloaded with byproducts of animal products and puts on the gag breaks.  It is a crazy thought - but it creeps up on me even while reading fiction to my kids at night (we have been reading Jungle Book and I gag each time Mowgli makes a kill and eats it and moves on...could he really eat it raw and stomach it?).

Three - the feeling that with the turning of the seasons and finally have a fall again that there are some comforting parts of my past that are surging to the top again.  It is strange and invigorating.  Inside of me I am somewhat ageless and yet trapped in a 'time' that is constructed of my current life status.  Thus to feel more of the old me in the present time is....interesting.  I like it.  Just like the kids like opening up groceries; there is something fresh and nourishing inside.  I'm not a vegetarian but stomach a bit more of my past than I have let myself do in a while.

Squirrel

As it is officially fall, we have been having fun watching the squirrels go crazy getting the winter wares stored, and we had some fun mimicking them.  This is how each of my children looks with four grapes in their mouth:

If he weren't smiling you wouldn't guess there was anything unusual about his cheeks

Yes, the are still packed with grapes.

Not quite as well endowed in the cheek department.

Her face is just too petite to accomodate much.

Entertaining us all by making 'grape juice press' with his hands.

Amazing that I caught this one 'grape escape.'

Friday Food Fun

Friday I got my first door delivery of veggies/fruits from GreenBean Deliveries.  I ways happy, as where the kids, as you can see by their stellar apple smiles!  You can choose to get your produce as local grown, organic, or sustainably grown - and boy could we tell with the apples!  They tasted like the apples of my childhood - right from the tree!  That was just the start of our food fun on Friday.

For a long time Friday night has been pizza night for the family- it was born out of days when Josh used to work crazy and never be home and I was doing in-home-daycare and was exhausted by Friday and decided that my hard earned money would pay for a break on Friday night.  Well, although we love him, Papa Johns was recently voted out of our pocket book planning and we took to the 'new normal' -homemade!

Lucky the kids had been in a play-dough fettish all week long so when I gave them their real pizza dough to roll out they were awesome!  We used a Better Homes and Gardens recipe for the crust and it was YUMMY!  The girls stuck with traditional toppings but Danny and I went artizan on our pizza.  It was delicious and although a bit messier and more work than the take-out option, since Josh was home it was something special that we did together - Uh correction, something that we DO together.

Conglomerate Catch-up

To start off....Faith can read! Well, pretty close, she is good at just sitting down and reading to herself from the books she knows, and the best part is she understands it all. Somehow yesterday at lunch we got talking about fires and what to do if our house is on fire and Faith, from her lovely "No Dragons for Tea" knew not to go back in the house for anyone or anything but to get out. She has also learned that strangers can be dangerous, thanks to this dragon book.
Danny, well, he is cute as ever. Drinking constantly which ought to give us plenty of opportunity to work on potty training....it is coming along. He also has fallen in love with 'comfy' shorts (pictured here) or pants and will search through his drawer for them and is sad if I haven't washed them. He also loves his 'running shoes' (also pictured above) because they make him run so super fast. Mostly it is a lot of arms and huffing and puffing with his fluffly hair blowing in the wind a bit.
We had visits from cousins and the kids couldn't leave her alone for a second, even to bath. All the kids have been rather particular about their sleepwear lately, putting on only their christmas jammies. It wasn't until this past week when I got a pair of christmas jammies for myself made of the micro-fleece that I understood why. I have had to keep myself from wearing the same pajamas every night too.
Saturday Nov 20 was the last preformance of "The Little Mermaid" which I have been in for nearly 5 months. I will miss the Sea Witch, she was a lot of fun. Josh was off work and brought all the kids. Danny and Faith were super excited to see the show again and Vivy has been asking to see the Sea Witch again. We shall see what comes next for my theatre life I sure have enjoyed working with the Hale Center Theatre. Josh and I went there for our date night again and watched another hilarious comedy - always good entertainment and equal the price of a movie ticket anymore.
Yes that is me in the orange dress right in front of the giant dog.


And Thanksgiving. We had our celebration on Sunday, a bit early, in order to enjoy all the blessings of family we possibly could. We had Annmarie and MJ still with us and Marshall and family could join us after church. The food was fantastic!!! Not to toot soley my own horn, but all the food was fantastic. Josh borrowed a slow cooker from the neighbors that cooked the turkey so tender and juicy....I actually really enjoyed eating it this year! We did make the observation that to make a thanksgiving dinner delicious you have to add ample amounts of butter to everything. Marsh added a stick and a half to his potatoes and it was glorious!

This year I was markedly better at making pies. The addition of lard in the crust really worked and I think I was a bit more patient with the whole process. I was most proud of the apple pie with the lattice crust. It was so pretty no one ate it! Of course I did have Mom's famous French apple pie right next to it which is the big hitter. The best part is just having family around to share it all with. Our list of gratitude has grown even longer this year as the Lord has blessed us so very very very very much. My happiest find in searching for Thanksgiving decorations this year was a plaque that says "There is always, always, always, something to be thankful for." It will be a permanent addition to our home.

To scale

Your average cob of corn looks much larger when shoved into such a little face. Danny and Faith love the little pegs you stick in the ends to hold their corn on the cob. My favorite part is seeing their little bite marks in the discarded cob, it looks like mice nibbled them.

Wholesome grains

The last line of "Come, Ye Thankful People" (hymn 94) has always made me giggle. I think my mom had it on a harvest sign that she puts on her front porch and I would chuckle to myself each time I entered by the front door. The line "Lord of harvest, grand that we wholesome grain and pure may be." I just picture myself each time as a kernel of wheat, which I suppose is the poetic purpose of the line that we will be harvested with the wheat at Christ's coming rather than the tares. Nevertheless, being a large piece of corn, wheat rice, or unbleached flour has always struck me as funny.

I couldn't help but sing that line to myself all evening on Thursday. Tooting my own horn here, I made a pretty awesome dinner! From my Bountiful Baskets produce I had recieved 4 artichokes, and there they were in my fridge. I thought, gee, what do you do with those. So I went to my handy Moosewood Cookbook and found the recipie for "Stuffed artichokes with Greek Rice Pilaf." Fancy Shamancy. Surprisingly I had everything for the recipe right on hand, and it would use some of the two bunches of celery that I had recieved as well. So I got on my apron and started feeling pretty home-makey. I was proud of me. Using what I had in the fridge and storage to make a wholesome meal for my family. And yes, the kids ate it. I don't know if they loved it because they were too distracted playing with friends before I left for theatre to give me a good testing, but they were intrigued by the fact that we got to eat leaves for dinner!

As kid I remember eating artichokes once a year when they were in season and boy was it a treat! Of course, dipping them in straight mayonaise might have been the real draw. This week I didn't have mayonnaise to recreate the nostalgic taste (probably better for us anyway) and used light sour cream that I had on hand, another healthy choice. I felt like a little 'wholesome grain' as I cooked on the stove and bustled around the kitchen. Four little eager children watched it all and asked for tastes. My children tried, and liked everything whereas the two kids I was babysitting took some prodding. Who ever had to convince a kid that fresh pineapple was actually really tastey?! Just feeling proud of me right now and thought I would share. You know if I took pictures of it that I must have nearly been busting my buttons.

Yes, I hollowed out an artichoke for the first time in my life and filled it oh so pretty with rice pilaf. The pictures just can't do it justice.
Danny, in dog suit, eating his rice and watching how to dip the leaves in sour cream (quite possibly the best part of the meal to him considering he would eat sour cream out of the carton if I let him, which I sometimes do).