#thankful in November

November was nice to us, and we were able to get outside and watch the season slowly turn from fall to winter temperatures.  There were a handful of days that hit 70 degrees, and so we made sure to spend some great time outdoors.  Here are the girls below on a walk near our downtown.  Each of my daughters is wearing her favorite dress (that they would wear every day if they could) and each one is posing for the picture in a way that represents their personality so perfectly!  Lucy, with maturity and class, Violet with feisty silliness and Emma with sweetness.  Notice the patch of wildflowers we found on the hill near Emma's feet that was a welcome sight for me as I have been worried about my bees with the warm temperatures, but nothing in bloom for them to eat.

Charlie has found a new way to be close to us when we are in the house - in the top, left hand picture below he is at our kitchen window ledge, which is about six feet off of the ground.  Every time he jumps up there to watch us, it freaks me out a bit.  In the bottom pictures below, Violet and Charlie were playing a fishing game together.  

We were able to get a family hike in on the last day of 2016 that would be above 70 degrees.  It was a push to get to the trail after Will got off of work and before the sun set but we managed!

 The girls and I got a lot of walks and bike rides in, and even had a few last picnics outside with Charlie before the winter temperatures came.

Here they are below after a walk on our main street with no jackets in November!

 We knew the weather would get colder eventually, and here they are below with our very first snowfall for the season.

 It was a little chaotic the day that it snowed, scrambling to find all of our winter wear, and finding out what fits and what doesn't.  Who wants to plan ahead for snow when the weather is warm and balmy?    Just when we thought we didn't have any boots for Lucy and needed to add boot shopping to our to-do list, we realized that friends of ours had given us their daughter's old boots last year and as luck would have it, they fit Lucy perfectly this year.  How nice to NOT have to go to the store and to be able to play in the snow despite my lack of seasonal preplanning!

Will has been feeling better this past month, and so we have gone from survival mode to thriving mode once more.  Proof of our thriving is the fact that Will cleaned out our oven one night (first time we have EVER cleaned our oven!) and I even went to the store and bought vacuum bags!  If you ever want to feel like you are in control of your own life, clean your oven and go and buy vacuum bags.  But once you put the new vacuum bag in the vacuum, put the vacuum back in the closet.  I was so satisfied with the new vacuum bag, that I called it done and left it out - just in case I felt the urge to vacuum later.  Several hours later, Violet decided to ride the canister part like a horse and peed on it.  One fried mother board later, I no longer felt like I was winning at adulthood.  Fortunately, the vacuum technician didn't know what questionable liquid had spilled on the motherboard and it was replaced under warranty.

Here we are below, winning at life: relaxing indoors as the weather is now cold and it gets dark before dinner time.  We've spent a lot of time in our pajamas this past month because when it is dark outside, I just feel better in pajamas.

I love cooking seasonally, and this month I made my favorite cranberry and pear sauce that I've missed since fresh cranberries were in season last year.  I made a jar of elderberry syrup when my kids got sick, and I hope to make it next fall BEFORE my kids get sick.  I made turkey pot pie in bulk from leftover Thanksgiving turkey and stocked the freezer, roasted and processed all of the pie pumpkins from our fall decorations outside, made a huge batch of banana and yogurt pancakes (that my kids are now sick of and whine that they hate pancakes - seriously, where is the gratitude!?), made a pot of chicken and spinach Alfredo pasta on a night that Will was working late (dairy isn't the best for him) and have enjoyed finding reasons to use my favorite fall and winter spices - clove, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon - in everything.  I also have been using for the first time cardamom, and am LOVING it.  Such a great time of year for this cozy and delicious smelling spice.

I came up with a new hashtag #riskybiscuits after I made heavenly buttermilk biscuits when my kids were sick and had to decide if it was worth risking the potential germs and eat that leftover biscuit from their plate or cry softly to myself as I threw it out.  The decision was made for me when Will came home from work while I was putting the kids to bed and threw it out - gluten and dairy in a biscuit was a no-go for him, and so he had no emotional qualms wasting such deliciousness.  I never did get sick, so maybe it was for the best.  God knew I couldn't handle such a decision.  Also, the kids and I are now teasing Will that Risky Biscuits was what he was called in high school.

We had a good month of homeschooling, and enjoyed in clockwise order from top left below: piano lessons, making a fort at our chiropractor's office while most kids are still in school, having a lantern walk and bonfire with friends, art class, and working on geography.  Geography is one of the subjects that all three girls do at the same time which makes it fun.

Will and I treated the girls to a play at our local community college's theater.  It was about the Ugly Duckling and was called Honk Jr.  I worked it into our lesson plan for the week prior and the week after, including an entry in their journal about it, the social lessons discussed as well as many readings of the book.

I processed all of my beeswax from the 2016 season by melting and filtering it several times until it was clean enough to make ornaments and to use in my Harding Honey products for the upcoming year.  My bees didn't have the best month, as the weather was so warm, causing them to come out of hibernation only to find no food sources for them.  I hope that they will be okay through the winter now and only time will tell. Below in clockwise order from top left: melting and filtering my beeswax, the melted wax, beeswax ornaments, holiday soaps, and my bee hives, ready for winter. 

We enjoyed a family wedding this past month, lunch with friends, a belated birthday party at the local indoor playscape with friends as well as time at our nature center science class with friends, complete with hikes and exploring.

 We had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, which started with an annual visit with friends that I've known for almost my entire life.  I made cranberry pear sauce and several different pies on Thanksgiving including sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie and apple pie.  I even served my family mini apple pies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it for their pre-Thanksgiving dinner lunch after they finished watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.  Lucy was so into the parade that she could hardly contain herself and would excitedly tell us facts about each float as it rode by on TV.  The following day, she announced to us with her purse in hand that she needed a ride to Michael's Craft Store as there were several Door Busters that she had her eye on.  We blame the parade commercials, as we have never talked about Black Friday shopping, and had no intention of going out in that madness.  Needless to say, we took her to Michael's, and sure enough, she knew what the good deals were.

 We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving this year, with pies and cranberry pear sauce in hand.  Imagine my shock when we unwrapped the tinfoil from the pies at dessert time and I realized that I had accidentally brought one of the empty pie shells I had made for the turkey leftovers I was going to make turkey pot pie with the following day.  Oops!  I would have sent Will home to get the missing sweet potato pie, except I had already sent him to CVS after dinner for an emergency bottle of dye-free liquid Benadryl.  Come to find out, I think I may be allergic to turkey.  I had a fairly bad reaction after dinner, and fortunately CVS was open on Thanksgiving day.  My kids enjoyed building with the vintage Legos in my parents basement all night, and I was recovered from my allergy episode in time to have a small dessert plate before we went home.  Thank you liquid Benadryl!  And Will, and CVS... #thankfulonThanksgiving.  All joking aside, this Thanksgiving, I am especially thankful for Will and his health and humor coming back.

We also visited with Will's family over Thanksgiving Day weekend, which was a great time as it was the first time we were all together since his mom had her quadruple bypass surgery.

We decorated for Christmas over the Thanksgiving weekend as well, and really knew we were winning at life when we thanked ourselves for having all of our decorations in three boxes counting the new tree we had purchased the Christmas before that is pre-lit and assembles in three pieces.  Since you now know that we never change our vacuum bag or clean our oven, you can understand why streamlined Christmas decorations are just right for us.

 

We are excited for Christmas, and are hoping to have a very relaxing holiday with good health, good memories and good cheer!  We have so much to be thankful for this year!

Violet at 31 Months

I've enjoyed writing monthly blog posts for each of my kids during their first three years of life and I've found as they approach their third birthday, their changes slow down and they have integrated themselves so completely into our lives that it's hard to come up with enough things to make a blog post about!  Based on the number of things I have for Violet's 31st blog post, my baby is growing up.  Probably the biggest change this past month, besides the fact that she seems so tall to me lately, and her hand in mine feels so much bigger, is that she is talking so very much.  Her chatter is non-stop and she is listening to what I am saying too, even when I'm not talking to her.  And her questions!  So many questions!  "Why did you say, 'oh no' mom?" Asked after I dropped something in the kitchen.   The other day Lucy and Emma got in trouble and I told them to take care of some things around the house which they weren't happy about and were exhausting me with their attitudes.  Violet then followed me into another room and asked, "Why you not talking to me mom, I not grumpy right now!  Lucy and Emma grumpy, but not me!"  Thank you for that Violet, thank you.

And probably the most telling story of how much Violet is talking and listening this past month happened when I was talking to Will on the phone, pulling into our driveway right before lunch.  I looked behind me and saw that Violet had fallen asleep so I mentioned to Will that I would probably leave her in the car to finish her nap while I made lunch and commissioned Lucy and Emma to play outside until she woke up.  Violet's little voice piped up from the backseat, "Why you leave me Mom?  Why you leave me in the car?  You hurt my heart!"  Of course this broke my heart and I immediately scooped her up out of her carseat and apologized while I brought her into the house.  Once inside, she told me, "My heart is broken now mom" in the saddest little voice.  Oh Violet, my heart too.  My heart too.

And since I am all chatted out thanks to Violet, I will leave you with these pictures...

...Violet proudly pushing a stroller and a baby doll while we browsed at our local Salvation Army where we spend our time while Lucy and Emma are at dance class...

 ...Violet enjoying my veggie soup to the last drop (and me thinking at least ONE of my kids eats the healthy food that I make)...

 ...and Violet playing with me, which entails her telling me exactly what to do and when to do it and sparing no words when I don't follow her directions as precisely as she wants.

Our little chatterbox is lucky she is cute!

October

Will spent the month of October resting, healing, and eating the healthy foods that I have been cooking for him.  I spent the month of October taking care of the kids, the house, cleaning and cooking.  Will is still gluten, sugar, dairy and processed food-free.  Despite his healthy eating, the steroids he is on are packing the pounds on him, and he is still not back to his old self.  To be honest, he has been quite cranky and I can't help but think that I would be too, without sugar and carbs.  Funny enough to me, Will says he doesn't really miss the sugar and carbs but life without cheese is no life at all.  The kids and I try to eat cheese, carbs and sugar when Will is at work.  Below are pictures of one of our favorite fall snacks - caramel sauce with pretzels, apples, strawberries and kiwi.  The center picture below is of a gluten-free steak and gravy with purple mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli.  Other favorite fall snacks include making what we have titled, a "harvest mix" with mini pretzels, peanuts, cheese crackers, mini chocolates and candy corn (I found a dye-free version this year so Lucy can eat them!).  With this mix, I have discovered that candy corn and peanuts eaten together taste just like a PayDay candy bar and I can't get enough of it.  Unfortunately, the dye-free candy corn is all sold out now and so I will have to wait until next fall to try this winning combo again.

When we ate gluten, dairy and sugar free 10 years ago and got Will into remission it was all new to us.  Now, ten years later, cooking with almond milk, gluten free flours and ghee isn't that crazy and I have lots of recipes that I can make, or can easily adapt to fit Will's diet.  We have been eating really tasty and healthy foods!  The tough part is that most convenient and restaurant foods are out of the question, so three meals a day, seven days a week are on me.  Thank God for modern conveniences like the freezer and Pinterest!  Will's health has been a great push for us to eat healthier and to do a better job at meal planning - all things that I want to do, but generally don't pull off to the level that I would like.

Our garden was not very fruitful this summer but my herbs did great, so I was able to harvest enough plantain and mint to last me until next spring.  In the above pictures you can see our harvest from October - plantain, mint, a couple of handfuls of raspberries, two cucumbers, one apple (from two trees!) a handful of rhubarb and two tomatoes.  We haven't put much time into our garden and so I suppose that we shouldn't be surprised by these results.  My honeybees did not arrive in time to pollinate my apple trees this past spring, so it is lucky we even got one apple.  We did end up buying beets, tomatoes and green beans in bulk from the Farmer's Market to compensate for our garden harvest and I was able to freeze several gallon sized bags of tomatoes, and can some dilly beans and pickled beets.  I've come to the conclusion that I just can't help myself when it comes to being in the kitchen - if I'm not cooking, I'm making Harding Honey products so one way or another, I must like being there.  BUT, I especially like being in the kitchen when Will is home and keeping the kids helped and happy so that I can cook and concoct in peace.  If Will isn't home, a movie is the next best thing.

It has been a challenge to say the least, cooking for Will and taking care of all of the household and kids needs while Will recuperates.  It has been lonely too, as Will has been so tired this past month that as soon as the kids were in bed, Will was sound asleep on the couch.  Below are pictures I took of moments in time where I couldn't help but throw my hands up and try my hardest to laugh instead of yell.  In clockwise order from top left: a random pile of clothes strewn by my children in the kitchen, our lunch for in between their piano lesson and art class brought to the car by Lucy and placed on the passenger seat with the lid taken off so that it could cool(?!) and then flung across the car when I stopped too fast for a red light (yes, that is rice), me trying to find an important piece of paper in a stack of papers that hadn't been filed since last year, and Emma coming back in the house to wash her hands (she was told to go directly to the car and get in it but instead found dirt somewhere!?) when we were already late for yoga class.

Despite the marathon type feel of getting the kids to their classes on time, we always enjoy them once we are there.  In clockwise order from top left below: Emma and Violet with a friend on count day at the homeschool partnership we are a part of, Lucy with a friend at count day, Violet and I taking a rainy day walk at the park while Lucy and Emma are in their yoga class, and finally, the girls with a friend at art class.

Lucy's vision therapy continues to go well, and Will and I are so grateful for Lucy's great attitude, even despite the large amount of homework she has to do every day for her therapy.  The craziness is that if Lucy makes up her mind she doesn't like something, you can forget about it being a pleasant experience for anyone in the house.  I asked her why she was being so accommodating with her vision therapy and she said simply, "because I want to be able to read."  Us too Lucy, us too.  In the top two pictures below, Lucy exhibiting some of her homework, the bottom two pictures are of Violet and Emma doing preschool math while we wait for Lucy at her vision therapy and finally, the picture in the center is of a drawing Lucy did in her journal about the third book in the Penderwick series that we listened to during all of our driving to and from classes.  Lucy is making great progress in her reading and writing and we are so glad that we have invested our time and money into vision therapy for her.

Another task I took on without Will this past month was shoe shopping for all three girls.  Out of all the things I have had to do without him this past month, this was by far the hardest.  Of course shoe shopping meant going to a mall, which meant Lucy wanting to go into clothing stores, which meant Lucy and Emma both wanting to buy clothes, which meant I ended up being trapped inside the mall with three girls, multiple potty breaks and dealing with dressing rooms and making sure that I had all three girls with me at all times.  I don't normally go to malls and being in one with three girls was super stressful for me.  I was constantly worried I was going to lose one, and the demands on my wallet were crazy!  If you buy something for one, then you have to buy it for all three or deal with the whining and unfairness for eternity.  Never again will I take them mall shopping alone until they are at least old enough for me to not worry about losing them - which may be when they are all taller than the clothing racks!  There was a point in time when all four of us were in a Gap dressing room, each of us trying on something when I had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for my three girls but it passed as quickly as it came when Violet and Emma started bouncing off of the walls in the overcrowded dressing room and Lucy started whining about why I wouldn't buy her ALL of the clothes.  My response had nothing to do with the comment she had made moments earlier about how my rear end looked in the pair of jeans I was thinking about buying.

Give me a trail in the woods with my three girls any day over the mall!  Fortunately, Mother Nature must have taken pity on me and knowing that I was looking forward to fall after a rough summer decided to give me an extra month of it.  The weather this past month has been GORGEOUS, and whenever I got the chance, you better believe I was outside enjoying it.  We took many hikes...

...mostly just the girls and I, but at times with friends and family and even once with Will.

We enjoyed lots of walks around the neighborhood and through the cemetery that I love so much...

...and enjoyed watching a local family of deer with three little ones just like me with no buck around either.  Maybe he was recouping from a health setback too?  Either way, Charlie also enjoyed watching the deer in our backyard as well.

I swear Charlie knew something was wrong with Will.  For the six days Will was in the hospital, Charlie sat at our front door most of the days until I put him in the garage for the night.  On the night we brought Will home, Charlie could hardly contain himself and literally climbed up Will's leg and into his arms.  

My father-in-law mowed the lawn for us this past month and by the end of this month when the leaves started falling, Will was up to raking them - with our help of course.  The kids brewed soups in buckets in the garden, and enjoyed all of the colors the falling leaves and dried out flowers gave them for their stews.

We enjoyed the nature center with friends, and a park date with more friends...

In the bottom left hand picture above we had to return to the park to find my tea mug that I had forgotten earlier that day.  Lucy jumped out to grab it while we waited in the car.  We then proceeded to watch Lucy go down each slide with my tea mug held hostage and Emma and Violet crying that they wanted to play too.  It gave me a good laugh, but come on!  We were of course late for something and needed to go!

We enjoyed time at the Farmer's Market with friends, and even had a single mom dinner with six kids between us that was livened up by a bag of jelly beans that were mystery flavors - the green could be berry or toothpaste, the orange peach or puke, and the brown chocolate pudding or canned dog food.  What a riot it was watching our kids eat the jelly beans and spit them into red solo cups!

We spent time with family this past month, with cousins and uncles and grandparents.  Will's mom had a quadruple heart bypass surgery this past month and so we had a chance to be on the helping end of family emergencies.  This was the first scary surgery for our parents since my dad had cancer a couple of years ago.  Needless to say, we are all relieved that the surgery went well and she is recovering at home now.

We celebrated Will's birthday and had a great day, especially when it came time for Will to blow out his candles and make a wish and realize that we are so grateful to have him here with us.  Here's to better health for this next year of his life!

After Will's birthday was Halloween...here are the girls below at their dance class...

And here are the girls at the annual Farmer's Market trick or treating.  They made really cute mummy lanterns out of mason jars and medical gauze this year at the market.

 Pumpkin carving went as expected... with the scariest faces being that of me and the kids.

Up until the last moment Emma and I argued about what her costume was going to be.  I had it all planned out, to use the adorable ice cream cone and cupcake costume that Lucy and Emma wore a couple of years ago - this was going to be the last year that it would fit Emma and Violet, and so I wanted them to wear it.  Lucy could be the baker and it would be one of my last chances to have all three kids in coordinated costumes.  Lucy was on board with my idea, Violet didn't care, but Emma had other and more obscure ideas.  She really wanted to be Maid Marion from Robin Hood - but the Maid Marion who is a fox, in the Disney version of Robin Hood.  I just didn't have the time or resources to pull that off this year and so I kept trying to convince her to be the cupcake.  She put the cupcake on one time for me to take a picture, and then we compromised and I let her be a princess with an outfit we already had.  

We went trick or treating with friends and one of our friends was a vending machine that was the most amazing Halloween costume I have ever seen.  It got to the point while we were trick or treating that we would pass people in the street and hear them talking about the vending machine.  At one point, I just started proudly telling people, "I'm with her" when they asked if I had seen the vending machine.  A great time was had by all, and the weather was the best we've had since my kids have been trick or treating.

Halloween was a great way to end the month, and November is already looking up for us as we are still enjoying gorgeous weather, Will is regaining his strength and the holidays are just around the corner.

Violet at Two and a Half

Violet is officially half way through being two.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again,  I love having a toddler in the house.  Her fierce love, her happiness and her sadness are all so straightforward compared to the other members of our family.  

I think the reason why I love the toddler age so much is because I love the affection and cuddles that come with toddlers.  They speak effortlessly to my love language, and I can speak so easily to theirs.  We both have the ability to make each other happy at the same time.  Here Violet is below, snuggling with Will on his first morning home from his six day hospital stay.  She had forgotten that we had picked Will up the night before from the hospital, so she was so excited that morning when she woke up and found him home.  "MY PAPA BEAR!!!"  In the right hand picture below, I am snuggling Violet in our favorite sweater, that wraps around both of us while I "play baby" and feed her water from a bottle.  Violet is obsessed with bottles lately, which I find interesting since during her babyhood, she had such a traumatic time eating from a bottle.   

I try to remind myself of the merits of toddlers, as I deal with the mischief, tantrums, potty accidents and the general inability to go anywhere fast.  In the top picture below I found her in the closet playing on the iPad.  In the bottom picture below, she is falling asleep after throwing a fit.

Fortunately Violets tantrums are short lived.  Lucy still holds the title for Tantrum Perseverance in our house.  Violet usually throws a fit until I put her in her room, at which point she stops immediately and comes downstairs just as the timer is ringing at the end of two minutes.  Her attitude is then one of apologetic sweetness and says things like, "Okay, mama."  "Sorry, mama."  "Violet happy now."  

She is starting to phase out of naps and some days really doesn't need one, especially if she slept enough the night before.  Notice I didn't say slept well.  Good enough is what we take these days.  We are having good luck with remedies given by our homeopathic doctor that are helping Violet sleep, and helping her with her latest sleeping hurdle - night terrors.  We had five days in a row this past month where she kept sleeping worse and worse than her normal night time struggles.  The fifth night she was up every half hour screaming out with night terrors, and inconsolable by Will or I.  It was so very stressful and I didn't get more than an hour of sleep total that night.  Fortunately our homeopathic doctor had a remedy that worked the very next night and she has been sleeping better than she has in a really long time.

Violet may not sleep that great, but she continues to eat really well.  The other night we did Italian take out, and we ordered family style several different entrees to share amongst us, and to ensure that everyone liked at least one item.  We ordered meat sauce, meatballs, Italian wedding soup, fettuccine Alfredo and pepperoni pizza.  Violet ate EVERYTHING, her favorites being the "big" meat balls and the "baby" sized meatballs from the Italian wedding soup.  The rest of us just watched in awe as she continued to eat and eat and eat.  One of Will's favorite food groups is Italian, and I have to say, the level of pride that he exhibited was like she just learned to ride a bike without training wheels.

Another great thing about two year olds is that they are just happy to go along for the ride with you.  Most of the time for Violet, that means tagging along while her sisters have their vision therapy, dance, yoga, swim, catechism, piano or art lessons.  I have decided to capitalize on this time with Violet while we wait together for Lucy and Emma's various lessons to finish.  I pack a bag full of things to do, always including story books and then various little games or toys that she and I can play with together.  I am cherishing this time, away from household pressures, with just Violet and I.  It is so much easier to be fully present with Violet when I don't have mom chores hanging over my head or the interruptions of two other kids.  Violet and I get quite a bit of "special time" as she calls it, throughout the week and I am very grateful for it, especially since our homeschooling mornings require her to play independently for the most part.  Here she is below, reading stories with me while the girls are enjoying their swim lessons.  I love everything about the below picture, from the curve of her chubby, kissable cheeks, to the fact that her baby hand is the same size as the one pictured in the book "Ten Fingers and Ten Toes".

 Violet is very playful and loves to wrestle with Will.  An open invitation for Violet to wrestle with Will includes any point in time he isn't standing.  As soon as he lays on the couch or in bed, sits on the floor or in a chair - he is fair game.  Here she is below, tackling an unsuspecting Will as he plays a game with Emma.  In the bottom pictures below, Violet is playing various stages of House with her babies.

This past month has been extremely challenging with Violet's potty training.  Her night time diapers have been leaking or just flat out not working and she has regressed from being potty trained for naps.    On top of that, she has been having at least one accident a day, usually in the evening or while playing outside and I have been doing so much laundry it is ridiculous.  Of course she pees on the part of her bed that isn't covered by the flannel pad (any sort of plastic or vinyl waterproof mattress cover results in her overheating) and so the latex mattress acts a sponge, and is impossible to clean.  Or, on our first floor which is 90% hardwood, she manages to find the one square of carpet to have her accidents, over and over and over again.  And thank God we have leather couches, as I shudder to think the state our cushions would be in if they weren't so water resistant.  Don't even get me started on the amount of time I have spent in public restrooms either, as she LOVES using public bathrooms and is obsessed with them whenever we go out.  It is such a process to have her use a public restroom as the toilets are too big, the sinks are too high and the germs are just too much.  For a one hour church service, we will visit the restroom on average three times.  For a grocery store visit, at least once and for a wedding reception we went to last weekend, I lost count after five visits.  I keep reminding myself that this too is a phase, and I will miss the happy things that go with the challenges when they are gone.

I love my toddler and the cuddles, affection, and humor outshine the tantrums, sleeplessness, and potty accidents!

The Taste of September

September was our chance to change the last few bites of summer so that the memory of our favorite season of the year would leave us with a sweet aftertaste.  We had one last swim at our favorite pool with some of our favorite people...

...we enjoyed outdoor treats and our neighbor even tried his hand at strawberry shortcake as a thank you for all of the summer baked goods we have shared with him.

We played outside and the girls built more fairy houses.  And after Charlie smashed them, and then Violet smashed them, Lucy and Emma built the fairy houses again.

I know it's hard to believe that cuteness like Violet and Charlie are not friends of the fairies, but maybe in time one of them will build houses for fairies too.  In the below left hand picture, Charlie was sunbathing next to my Sweet Autumn clematis, one of my favorite flower blooms in my garden each autumn.

For the most part, the girls play with one sister while one sister is excluded.  That is why I am always so happy when all three play harmoniously together.  In the below pictures they have all agreed unanimously that a hockey net makes a better bed in a play house than a goal for a game, and that slip and slides are a great way to spend the afternoon on your first day of school.  Oh, and also that sidewalk chalk is fun for everyone and if you gang up on your parents - as in all three girls asking pretty please for the same thing - chances are pretty high that you will get what you are asking for.

We are homeschooling again this year, and despite it's many challenges, still believe that the benefits for our family outweigh the drawbacks.  Violet is happy to join in our school day and I have even planned out some preschool activities for her, despite the fact that she is on the young side.  She just loves to be included and it is exciting to see how fast she picks up on things.  The day before school started I surprised the girls with all of their new books, a new educational game for each girl as well as art supplies and other fun school accessories.  This grand reveal has become a tradition now, and helps to build the excitement for the new school year and gives our year a fun start.

Our first day of school started out crazy busy.  We are getting into the routine now more and more, but the simple truth is that we have bitten off more than we can chew this semester.  We found out almost the same week that school started that Lucy would benefit from vision therapy to help with her reading challenges.  It is a steep financial and time commitment and because of that, is our top priority.  If we don't put our all into this, then we might as well flush our money down the toilet because it is the equivalent of a really nice family vacation complete with airfare, a rental car and a nice resort.  For two weeks.  Yup.  BUT, we are already seeing major improvement with her eyesight and watching her grow by leaps and bounds with her reading.  Priceless.  However, we had already committed to a lot of extracurricular activities, all of which require a deeper level of involvement than just showing up.  Below are the kids in their piano classes, drawing class and knitting class - all of which take place in the same two and a half hour time block, with a half hour worked in there for a lunch break.  Very efficient and a great group of homeschoolers, but definitely a long time to keep Violet out of trouble.

Something else I didn't account for was how much waiting that Violet would have to do while Lucy and Emma were in their activities.  Our first knitting class, Violet got her hands on a ball of yarn and although it wasn't as bad as the time she knotted herself to the shopping cart at the craft store, she had made several circles of the classroom, students' feet and chair legs before I realized what she was doing.  She doesn't seem to mind the waiting so much though - it is really me that ends up exhausted and cranky.  In the below, top left hand picture, Violet is very content watching dancers get ready for their lesson while Lucy and Emma are in their ballet class.  Violet also waited at a nature center while  her sisters enjoyed a class about birds, and she doesn't seem to mind playing with the blow dryers after Lucy and Emma's swimming lessons.

Yes, we already had more than we could reasonably handle BEFORE we had the twice a week commitment to vision therapy.  This semester has definitely been a learning lesson for me.  In order to learn something with any speed, you need to have singular focus - to be involved in so many things makes it impossible to put in the time required to master anything.  You better believe I will remember this when it comes time to sign up for next semester.  

I am trying to make the best of it though, and one of the things that helps is to make sure we are done with school before the extra curriculars start for the day, and to pack a lunch so that wherever the day may take us, we can enjoy a picnic lunch somewhere, which always helps to make the day feel more adventurous.  Lucy and Emma take a yoga class at our local community center and Violet and I play at the park while they are in class, and then we all enjoy a picnic together after.  In the top, right hand picture below, Violet is excitedly showing me that the tunnel on the playground that day is clean and dry!  So many times it is filled with mud and she can't crawl through it.

Lucy's vision therapy is an hour long, and I pack a giant bag full of storybooks and games that I would otherwise not play if we were at home and I had things like food prep, dishes or cleaning to take care of.  Don't get me wrong, I still leave the appointment feeling completely worn out, but at least I got to have some quality time with my youngest two in an environment free of household distractions!  Now if only I could find the silver lining of the car ride there and back - vision therapy is an hour and a half round trip for us and the girls fight so much in the car.  That last sentence may be the most understated sentence of this entire blog post.     

It's cider mill season and you better believe we are enjoying it.  My youngest sister got a job at our favorite cider mill so that is even more trouble for us.  

We have been on several fall hikes this past month - with my parents, with friends, and Will and I even had a couple of dates out where we were able to hike our favorite trails in record time.  We finished one trail and had to think for a moment why we were done so quickly.  And then it hit us that we didn't have to carry any one, stop for random bug bites, water breaks, snack breaks, etc.  I love hiking with my kids but wow, hiking with my husband kid-free is an entirely different and wonderful experience!  The photos in clockwise order from top left below:  the girls and I playing in the creek after yoga class, a honeybee we spotted on a date-hike, the girls holding up what they want me to buy them in a store, an enormous Sweet Autumn clematis it the school by our house, and all of us enjoying a picnic dinner at dusk on a Friday night after our town's annual art show in the park.

We also enjoyed the annual cemetery tour in our neighborhood and the center picture below is of an actor depicting the man who founded our favorite cider mill!

I had the honor of being the God Mother of my cousin's sweet baby daughter this past month and we had a wonderful morning celebrating the newest member of our clan.  Two of my favorite pictures below are the top left of my sweet God Daughter just hanging out as her mom changed her diaper in the pew, and the top center picture of Lucy and her cousin's face as my God Daughter was baptized.  Can you believe that she slept through the entire thing?

We also spent time with friends new and old this past month.  Pictures in clockwise order from top left below: running into our friends at the craft store and realizing we had BOTH received letters in the mail with coupons for being the top customer!?, jumping in the bounce house at our friends' baptism party (same day as my God Daughter's baptism!), making sidewalk art with friends, at the park, friends all packed into the backseat of our car to play, a picnic with friends and chopsticks and finally in the center picture, getting to hold our friends' hamster.

We had a good honey crop that we harvested this past month...

...with lots of help from Will and the kids...

...sticky fingers, sticky floors and sticky grins...

...and several honey bee classes and a Honey Open House to end the season.

Our backyard harvest this past month was meager if you don't count the honey, but I compensated by going to a freezer meal workshop with a friend where we made 10 healthy freezer meals in two hours.

Imagine the irony then, when the following day Will ended up having a health crisis that checked him into the hospital for six days.  Cue the thawing of my first freezer meal...

Will was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when he was 18 years old.  After years of steadily becoming allergic to each drug he was prescribed to get his condition under control, several hospital stays and a multitude of kidney stones stocked up in his kidneys as a side effect from the colitis we were left with two options - removal of his colon or a chemotherapy type drug that he would need infusions of every six weeks for the rest of his life.  Neither of these were acceptable options for us, and that is how we started the journey that became the life we have today.  We radicalized how we ate and realized that very few ingredients bought off of store shelves were healthy enough to keep Will healthy.  After our lifestyle change, we enjoyed ten years - almost to the date - of Will in complete remission from ulcerative colitis.  That is why several weeks ago it came as a surprise when his symptoms started coming back - fast and furious.  We had a very stressful summer with Will's job, the loss of our chickens and the peace of our own backyard, lice, and finally, the car accident he was in this past month.  We cleaned up our diet and Will went back on the supplements that he utilized ten years ago to put him into remission.  Despite these changes, his symptoms continued to get worse.  When he spiked a fever, the on call doctor at the gastrologist told us to take him straight to the ER.  After almost three weeks of symptoms he had lost over twenty pounds and was exhausted.  He was motivated to take care of his own health and would get cranky anytime I suggested that perhaps this was more serious than he realized and we should call in backup.  I didn't realize just how scared I had become over the last couple of weeks watching Will's health steadily decline until we were waiting in the ER for the cat scan results.   Around midnight we were told that the good news was that there were no unusual masses found in his abdomen but that 50% of his colon was inflamed and starting to perforate.  It wouldn't be until the next morning that we spoke with his doctor, but for that moment, we at least had the relief of knowing it was just a bad case of colitis.  We began to relax and while Will waited for the morphine to start working, we had a chuckle when we realized that he was on the Brown Team in the ER.  The following day we met with the doctor and were told that it was a miracle that Will was still alive and that we should have never waited as long as we did to come in.   This was hard news to hear, as was the fact that he is still left with the same options as ten years ago - drug infusions or colon removal.  After the doctor left the room, I started praying and pleading to God.  Finally I called out to Luke, and asked him to take a note from his sister Violet, and take God's face in his hands, force Him to turn his face towards us and ask God to heal Will.  No sooner did I finish that prayer when I looked out of the fourth floor hospital window and saw a monarch butterfly take it's time flying past me.  Above smoke stacks and cooling towers in an industrial wasteland IN THE RAIN - a monarch butterfly that I am certain was a gift from God to tell me that He has not left our side, and yes, Luke does have His face in his hands and will make sure that his earthly family is going to be okay.  Will saw the butterfly too and we watched in awe as it danced outside of the window on a gray, rainy day.  No matter what happens, God is with us.

Through the help of Will's and my parents, friends and family, we made it through Will's six day hospital stay.  At one point I was driving home from visiting Will in the hospital and realized that I had a flat tire.  To further complicate matters, my other car was already in the shop.  Thanks to my father and father-in-law, my cars were taken care of and everything worked out.  It just makes you wonder why it all hits the fan at the same time though!  And through it all, the exhaustion, the loneliness of having your life partner so sick that I have to hold it all together without him, I had my girls.  There is nothing like a crisis to make you look forward to the simple things - giving them a bath, reading them a story, and just being together.  Kids make it so much easier to live in the moment and to really savor the simple things in life.  They missed Will so much, but thanks to FaceTime and the generosity of our family and friends, they were okay too.

I will save the recovery journey for next month's blog post as we are still currently living it right now.  Will is a very optimistic guy though, and our prayer right now is that we can get him back into remission without the drastic measures we were left with ten years ago.  He is currently on a heavy dose of steroids to help reduce the inflammation in his body and if you could join us in prayer that this is enough to heal him, we would greatly appreciate it!

We have lived a lot of life in the last ten years, all of which would have been drastically different if we hadn't discovered an alternative way to get Will's colitis in remission.  We have had four beautiful kids, something that wouldn't have happened if he had been put on the blood transfusion medication, and we have found a way of life that would otherwise have never been on our radar.  Our gardening, our cooking, our chickens and even our bees are all gifts from Will's colitis and we are confident that this latest bout will also offer us many gifts as well.  Until then, we are taking it day by day and trying to find the lessons and gifts amongst the pain.  September, we thought you were going to leave a good taste in our mouth to last us until spring but I'm afraid if given the choice, I would spit you out and demand my money back!  I'm not the one calling the shots though, and so because I have no other option besides despair, I am going to believe these last bitter bites of summer will be acting like medicine to our soul and the end result will be amazing still!