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.