Happy Birthday Joseph!

Joey is 11 today! I can't believe how old he is. He is becoming a nice young man. I'm able to depend on him to help with the other kids which is really nice.

For his birthday this year he asked me if I would just take him and 3 friends to the new Harry Potter movie instead of having a birthday party. I agreed, but then somehow we ended up having a party anyway. I guess I just like to party too much. He ended up having 5 friends over for pizza. Then Justin took them to the movie and they came back and 2 of the boys spent the night. They didn't sleep at all, but they did play a whole bunch of wii. The poor boys had basketball practice the next day. So after no sleep they had to run around a gym and didn't fall asleep until later Saturday afternoon. Here they are completely crashed out on the couch.

I know this is a lousy picture, but it's the only one I have of the party. (of course I couldn't find my camera when we were singing happy birthday). I made each of the boys a stenciled Harry Potter t-shirt for the movie. They were super excited and had a really fun time running around the house.

Fall in Connecticut

I have been busy this fall. Many times I have composed entries in my head but never quite had enough time to upload pictures and sit down and write all about everything that has been happening here. Today will be a monster post, sort of a photo essay of our fall here in Connecticut. This is a picture of the joy school kids that Michelle does joy school with. It was my turn to teach last week and we went on a scavenger hunt to find leaves and acorns to glue onto our turkeys. This is the wall in our back yard. Kids are lt to rt: Michelle, Elijah Larsen, Gabriel Palmer, Amelia, and Jack Dynes.

John buried in the leaves. Our fall was definately full of leaves!

Alexa (neighbor) and John playing in the leaves.

Samantha.

Samantha on Halloween. Since it was Sunday we didn't go trick or treating, but some friends of ours, the Larsens came over for dinner and good times. It was alot of fun. Heather made these cool broomstick candy sacks for all of the kids. She's so crafty and fun.

Close up of the cool broomstick sacks. I'll have to make these some time.

Heather also brought cupcakes for the kids to decorate. We had a lot of fun building different monsters.

Here's Kate's halloween costume. She was a flower. As you can imagine, she didn't enjoy wearing it, but I thought it was really cute.

Nathan's halloween party at school. His class had a little performance and then snacks for the parents and kids. He was a pirate.

Little orange jack o lanterns I made for Nathan's party. They were filled with fruit salad. I got the idea from familyfun.com. I love that website.

Michelle. She decided to cut her hair this month. Right up front. I would have tried to fix it, but nothing would really work short of shaving her head, so she just looks ridiculus. She also has become fixated on wearing rainbow pants every where she goes, so she is definately one of those crazy dressed 3 year olds. She also thinks that rainbows match rainbows and constantly fights with me about how she should be allowed to wear striped pants with a striped shirt and is sure that it matches better than stripes and solids. Gotta love her. She also is able to take her shoes off in 2 seconds flat. She hates shoes and the minute we get inside anywhere, be it a store, church, school, her shoes come right off (as does her coat). She is so stubborn. We have lots of fights about clothes. I guess it's just the age, got to love 3 year olds. I do have to admit though, she is hilarious and adorable in her own crazy way!

Columbus Day - Bishops orchard

On Columbus day we went to bishop's orchard with the Larsens. It was fun. The day was absolutely beautiful! It's always nice to go to the pumpkin farm, go through the hay maze and enjoy some homemade apple cider. I was a little frazzeled heading out the door this time and some how forgot to pack the stroller. (big mistake). Luckily they had these cute little wheel barrows so I didn't have to carry Kate around the whole time. (especially since she was asleep and of course Jusin was working.) I planned to take some cute pictures of the girls while we were out there and had some ideas about coordinating outfits, but of course Michelle had to be her own person and I couldn't get her to wear anything other than the crazy outfit she has on here. So, we all tried to coordinate around her and her rainbow pants. I think we did pretty well considering the circumstances. Kate was more coordinated, but had a blowout just before we got there so had to be changed as well, but still did ok. Michelle.

Nathan

The whole crew. Jonah Larsen, Nathan, John, Noah Larsen, Elijah Larsen, Samantha, Michelle, Joseph and Isaac Larsen. Just after this picture we got yelled at for climbing on the maze (whoops!). Leave it to mom to disobey the rules.

Everyone on the tractor. Should have zoomed in a little closer.

Kate in her makeshift stroller. I can always count on her to be a great sleeper! YAY Kate!

The boys chugging cider. yum!

Samantha, Michelle and Nathan. You can tell that Samantha loves to pose for pictures. She actually looked really cute. I thought the bow was a bit too big to wear right there in her hair, but she really loved it and I think it worked out. She's pretty good at putting things together.

Here's my girl picture, if only I could have gotten Kate to look at me. What you can't see is that there were about a million little kids trying to jump into this pile of hay so I really couldn't take a lot of pictures right here (plus my camera isn't that good).

After playing in the pumpkin patch we went into the store where I was able to pick up a bunch of lower grade apples for a great price. The next day I made a couple of batches of apple sauce. That's something I need to do next year too. It was so good!

The 35th day of school

Ok, so the first day of school I couldn't find my camera, so we didn't get any pictures of the kids ready to go. I took these pictures about the 5th day of school, but didn't manage to get them uploaded until now. That's just kind of how my life is going right now, slow. That's all right though. Nathan was avoiding me at all costs. At least I got some sort of picture. He is really working hard at his adjustment to kindergarten. It hasn't been as easy for him as it was for some of the other kids. He just has so much more energy. However, he is making some real improvements and he may actually like school when the year is over. His teacher, Ms. Peel, is realy sweet. She is young, but seems to do a pretty good job of managing the class which is full of lots of energetic boys that don't always get along. Nathan calls her Ms. Banana Peel. So far this year I've been able to voluteer in his classroom twice and go on a field trip with them to Brooksvale park. Every time I've gone with him, he's been pretty well behaved as long as he doesn't sit by his nemesis Blake. They tend to fight. Blake likes to push peoples buttons and Nathan doesn't deal well with that.

Samantha is still such a girly girl. This is her favorite outfit. On this day she especially planned to wear this outfit because two of her other friends have the same outfit and were going to wear it to school that day. She is big into dressing alike. She constantly tries to get Michelle to wear matching outfits with her, but Michelle is her own person and won't allow it so Samantha usually just gets Kate to match her. She even asked me once if I could wear matching outfits with her. (I'll have to remind her of that when she's a teenager.) She's very creative and will often pick out some of Michelle's dresses to wear as shirts. It actually doesn't look too bad, and since Michelle hates to wear dresses it all works out. She is a really sweet little girl and is really looking forward to getting baptized in February.

John. As always he is doing really well in school. His teacher called me one day at the beginning of the year just to tell me how well behaved he was and how he fits in with all the other kids so well. He has a good friend named Kyle that he makes up stories with at lunch. He really has an amazing imagination. His stories are quite funny. He also has a very sophisticated vocabulary.
He is obsessed with video games especially Age of Mythology. He also loves all the Percy Jackson books and is the one child I can count on to have his nose stuck in a book continually.
He started playing the drums at school this year and is going to play basketball in the upcoming season.

Joseph. I had to laugh because when I took him school shopping this year, the one thing he wanted the most was a bright green dri-weave nike running shirt. You know, the kind made out of that special material that wicks the sweat off of you when you are exercising. I wasn't sure it would really be that cool to wear it to school, so I tried to dissuade him, but he really wanted it so I relented, and you know what, it actually looks pretty good with his nike shorts and shoes. The part that makes me laugh is because he then said something like "mom, I want this shirt because it's pretty much who I am. I love sports." It only makes me laugh because I'm pretty awful at sports and Justin is not what I would call the super sporty type. But, I guess if Joey wants to identify himself through sports that's fine with me. We just signed him up for basketball. It will be interesting to see how well he stacks up to kids out here. There are just so many more kids out here than there were in Mt. Home. I hope he has a great experience with lots of playing time. He really wanted to play football, but I had to focus on helping Nathan get adjusted to kindergarten and getting Michelle potty trained during that time. Next year for sure we will have to do football. I have to admit it is probably my favorite sport to watch.

This is the new experience for all of our kids - the bus! They've always walked to school before. They are the last ones picked up in the morning and the first ones dropped off in the afternoon. So far it's working out pretty well.

So far we like our new school. The principal and staff are all really sweet and seem to know us all all ready. It's not as big as our Texas school, more the size of the school in Idaho, but better organized more like in Texas. They are a lot more intense, even in things like school lunches. The kids are not allowed to bring in cookies or candy or cakes or anything in their lunches. Also, the school menu is a lot healthier which is a good thing, but ilicits more complaints. As for our family, we are actually doing cold lunch this year. Lunches cost 2.50 a piece. With four kids in school now that comes to $10 a day. That just seems like too much, so we are trying it. So far it's going all right. It's hard to come up with things besides sandwiches. Also, we have the occasional water leak from their water bottles which is annoying. All in all we love Bear Path Elementary.

Trees

It seems that at general conference there is always at least one talk devoted to trees. This year there seemed to be many references. And that is where I find myself, completely surrounded by trees. The back of our new home is being engulfed by trees. There is a little forest that stretches for a few acres behind our house. The kids love to wander out there and visit the long abandoned tree house someone built years ago. Just behind our house there is a little stone wall someone must have spent days building. Supposedly they are all over Connecticut. A little reminder that long ago someone cleared the land and farmed this area, but the farm is long gone, completely swallowed by trees. No one would guess that this forest is all new growth, all that remains is the ancient wall surrounded by trees.

Now the trees are trying to take over my grass. Actually, they already succeeded. The previous tenants failed to keep the leaves off the grass and the back yard is completely barren. Dirt and mud are constantly tracked into the house from the back yard. It's so annoying! I'm fighting back. Justin and I planted grass a few weeks ago. According to the internet it's the perfect time of year to do so. We got the seed down and then it started raining and the weather turned cold. I carefully watched it everyday for a week, vigilantly keeping little feet from trampling any seedling that might emerge and making sure it was appropriately watered, but nothing came up. Then I got distracted. More important things took up my time. I began to rake leaves, and chop vines and clear out old dying trees and brutishly uproot any acorns that began to sprout. I gave up on the grass. But just yesterday I looked again and realized that the grass is growing! It's very tender, but it's growing! I'm so excited! I have fantastic visions of a thick emerald carpet stretching out into the woods, soft and delightful, but Justin laughs and tells me it will never be. I know he's probably right, but it's still so exciting. The only problem is that now the leaves are falling and all of my tender grass is suffocating. What to do? If I rake, I will probably tear out all the grass and if blow the leaves away the grass may become tramatized as well, and of course if I do nothing it will surely be killed as well. Oh well, at least it's just grass, and I did prove to Justin that it can grow back there! I'll probably just blow the leaves and if it all dies at least we can try again in the spring when it will have all summer to flourish before the trees kill it with their treachourous leaves.

Back to the trees. I find it so fascinating to work in the trees. There are vines everywhere. I feel like there should be a confernce talk devoted to trees and watching out for the destructive vines that kill them. It really is fasinating. There are several trees between my house and my neighbors and I have spent an extensive amount of time between the two houses raking leaves and pulling up vines so they won't kill the trees. There have been many times that I have chopped down a vine and as I began to unwrap it from the tree realized that the tree was completely dead. It had no leaves, all the leaves I could see actually belonged to the vine and after the vine was removed the tree simply fell over with only a gentle push. It's a very empowering thing to be able to push a tree over. It really is kind of addicting to work in the trees and remove the vines. There are two types of vines in my trees, grapevines and killer vines. Really they both kill, so I chop them both out. As I chop, I must reflect, what are the vines in my life? My friends? my trials? my temptations? For right now it is anything that distracts me. I feel like I'm so busy all the time. There is so much mundane work that has to be done all of the time, laundry, bathrooms, leaves; let alone all of the little projects I'm itching to do to make my house more beautiful, pleasant and stylish. Then there are the groups and clubs: literature group, quilting group, PTA. My church calling, boy scouts, piano lessons. Exercising, cooking dinner, facebook and blog hopping. What should stay and what should go? What is helping my grass to grow and what is choking my trees to death? As I try to figure that out I realize I must go inside and nourish that which is most important. Rock the baby, tell a story, make sure teeth are brushed and toenails clipped. Kiss the husband who wanders in at 11:00 p.m. (a long hard day). The grass might die, the vines might kill the trees, the leaves will surely take over the entire forest. (How can they not?!) But, inside my home, that which is most important will surely thrive.

Camping at Kettletown State Park

One of our best weekends this summer was spent camping at Kettletown State Park. It's located in Southbury which is actually about a half hour away. It is amazing how one minute you can be in a fairly large city and the next you can feel like you are in the middle of no where. There are so many trees here, it just shelters you from the world! This campsite/park was really nice with great showers etc. There was also a nice lake and hiking trails. The staff had also planned lots of great activities that the kids could do. It really was just a nice set up. Just funny. I call it city camping because the campsites were really close together and the ice cream truck came by right about dinner time. The camp staff had activities planned that could keep your children occupied the whole time you were there. It was sad to me to see parents taking there kids camping and then not actually spending time with them. There was this one little boy (about 8 or 9) who kept coming over to our campsite to hang out with all the kids. It was kind of sad, because he was literally hanging out with us all Saturday morning and we never saw his parents. I think he was an only child and was just lonely. He really wanted to hold the baby, all the time. Kind of annoying, but I really did feel bad for him. As for us, we pulled into camp around 6:30 and immediately started putting up the tent. It didn't take long for me to realize that we had left one of the poles back at home. We really weren't that far from home, but didn't want to go back, so we used our ingenuity to jimmyrig our tent so it would stand. We tied it to a tree (Justin's idea) and used a branch to prop it up (my idea). OK so Justin's idea was better than mine.

THere's my oh so sturdy branch. (tiny tim's crutch as Justin called it).

The tent tied to a tree.

The sign in the bathroom asking us not to hang our tent to the tree.

John on our hike.

Super Michelle.

Nathan. This is the picture he took into kindergarten to show all of his classmates about his summer.

Climbing a huge rock on the trail.

Samantha at the lake. Love the goggles.

Joseph and John building sand tunnels.

My birthday. Justin made me a cake with fruity pebbles for frosting. It was GGGGrrreat! This picture is all the kids jumping on me and waking me up from my sunday nap with my freshly baked cake. Happy birthday to me!

A few summer highlights!

Now that school is back in session, I finally have some time to post and blog about all the fun things we did this summer. It will take me a few separate posts, but here is the first batch:

On august 23rd (the day after my birthday) my little brother Danny flew in and spent the 23rd adn 24th with us. My other siblings came as well so we had a little reunion before Danny headed off to Egypt. He had a 30 hr layover, so it was short, but fun. Maia picked him up at JFK on Monday then headed to my house where Matt and Colleen met up with us as well. We spent Monday night chatting and then on Tuesday we walked to Brooksvale park and played with the animals and threw around the football. It was great! I love my family! then we came back for thai food and more chatting. Then Matt and Colleen took Danny back to JFK where he flew away to Egypt. We are missing him, which is weird because it's not like we ever really saw him that much before he left, but it's always a little anxiety producing to have a loved one in a foreign country. I hope we get to visit him before he heads back. I'm thinking summer 2012. The siblings: Maia, Matt, Danny Megan

The whole crew minus Colleen (she took the picture for us.) lt to rt: Maia Greene, Brigham Greene, Matt Stoker, Danny Stoker, Megan Rowberry, Joseph Rowberry, Kate Rowberry, John Rowberry, Justin Rowberry, Nathan Rowberry, Samantha Rowberry, Michelle Rowberry.

The next set of pictures is from our trip to Rhode Island. One of Justin's co-workers owns a beach house in Rhode Island. We were invited to enjoy it (along with all of his other co workers.) Of course no one else has kids, but fortunately pediatricians (especially developmentalists) are very kind and tolerant of little ones. We had a BBQ at the beach house, and then went to the beach. The beach was gorgeous. The waves were much bigger than the Connecticut waves. We also learned to catch these cool little crabs. I think they are horseshoe crabs as they don't really look like the typical kind you think of. After the beach we went back to the house, cleaned up and went out to eat at a popular sea food restuarant. The boys shared a lobster because they really wanted to try it and it was a pretty good price. yum!

Our bucket of crabs. It was amazing how many there were. All you had to do was start digging and you would find tons. They just feel like little rocks and try to run away as fast as they can. It was fun to catch them.

Joey, John, Nathan and Justin catching crabs.

Michelle. See sometimes she lets me put her hair in pony tails, just not that often.

Hiking sleeping Giant with the cub scouts. (I'm the leader over the bears and wolves). It was fun!

Kate's blessing

Kate was blessed last Sunday Sept. 5th. It was really sweet. Justin's parents came up from Washington DC and so did his sister Janae and her husband and kids. Matt and Colleen came from my side. It was really sweet. I love it when we have a chance to get together with family. I made the dress she is wearing. It's hard to see the details, but the bodice is smocked. This was my first smocking project. It was really fun to learn, but took a long time. I really didn't anticipate it taking quite so long, so of course I was scrambling to finish it on Saturday night. Justin's mom actually hemmed it and did the facing while I made dinner on Saturday. She's great!

The weekend went really well. We've never really lived close to Janae and Tyson, so it was fun to spend some time with them and their little family. On Monday we went and toured Yale and went to the park, then grabbed some Thai food and played games at night.
Tuesday was a little dramatic. We went to Brooksvale park to see the animals, but got home a little late. As I was speeding to get Tyson and Janae to the train station to make their train, the power steering went out in the car. Then a few minutes later the temperature light came on. I kept driving because we were kind of close to the station and I didn't really know what else to do. Then the battery light came on. Then the car just started beeping constantly. I dropped Janae and Tyson off and the car completely died. The battery was dead. I was in the drop off lane blocking cars behind me. Luckily a taxi driver pushed me to the side of the road. I was still parked in front of the bus stop, but didn't really have any other options. I called Justin from work and he came and rescued me. We had to get the car towed to a car shop and got it fixed. It was a broken serpentine belt. The annoying thing is that we just spent a significant amount of money on it last week to fix a big oil leak that we had. Apparently this wasn't related (at least that's what they tell us). Hopefully the car will run for a while longer. We started looking at replacement vehicles, and let's just say it's not cheap to buy a car that seats 8. I would like to go a little bigger too, but don't really want to have the really big van, not a lot of options. Hopefully we'll just make it a while longer so we can save up some more money.
Here are some pictures of Kate in her blessing dress. Of course I couldn't find my camera on Sunday, so these pictures were taken a few days later, but you get the picture.

I normally really dislike collars, but it works on this dress. I love Kate's hair! She's actually wearing one of my barrette's, but has the hair to keep it in. So fun!