Fall is here....

 Someone forgot to tell mother nature to turn off summer, but from the things we have going on - I say it is officially fall now!  Colin and Cameron are both playing football tonight - this is my favorite....the blue/white scrimmage.  It is my favorite because they both play on the same night, at the same place which makes life so simple!  Colin's high school team will play immediately after the jr. high team.

 Colin was willing to pose for a photo....but the world might end if he actually smiled!

 Cam was a little too peppy about slamming some 7th graders!

 

Little Adolf has settled in really well.  He is a sweet kitty, although it is sad how nobody likes him!  :)

 The back to school schedule has made a lot of people tired this week.  I am not sure if Saige makes a good pillow or not?  I had no help making salsa though, as my crew was sleeping on the job!

our day was "fine"

I keep hearing things about the "dumbing down of America" - today I saw exactly that.  Preston had an infection between his baby teeth and his permanent ones.  Our dentist recommended that his baby teeth be removed to allow for the infection to clear up and hopefully no damage would occur to his permanent teeth this way.  The problem is that he does not do extractions in his office.  I miss the days when you went to your dentist and if you needed a tooth filled, or pulled, they just did it.  Now it seems there is a specialist for everything.  EVERYTHING.  So today we had an appointment with an oral surgeon.  They met with us and agreed that the teeth should be pulled.  Then they tried to set up an appointment to do it later.  I kindly explained that I had already pulled Preston out of school, and that we live 45 minutes away and asked if there was any possibility that they could just pull the teeth today.  The oral surgeon looked surprised, asked if I needed time to explain the procedure to Preston.  I told him that I felt we had already explained it to him, and that I really wanted to do it today.  That was the beginning.  The dentist told me he could squeeze Preston in.  Then he sent us to sit in the waiting room.  The waiting room held a small bathroom, which we immediately used.  As soon as we came out, a man went in and proceeded to vomit mercilessly for what seemed like an excessive amount of time.  When he emerged, I realized he was a transgender man/woman.  This started the questions rolling from Harper, who I tried to distract.  About then this family came in and the mom was obviously mad at her son.....I now know more about them than I ever needed to.  I wanted to tell her to stick a sock in it, but it was distracting Harper from asking any more questions about the scary bathroom dude.  It was about now that a boy came in with a service dog.  Saige is terrified of dogs and she started screaming and climbing me.  No amount of me assuring her it was a "nice puppy" would get her to stop screaming.  All I can say is THANK GOD the 2 teeth were baby teeth and it didn't take very long to get them out!  Preston did very well, and is feeling fine.  We then went to Wal-mart to get his pain medication - because the insanity of the dentist's office was not enough.  Wow!

 At least we got to come home to some relative sanity....and a kitty who was so happy to see us after spending the majority of the day alone!

I hope I can sleep this soundly later.....I have a feeling I may have nightmares.

Big 'un

11 pound catfish caught in our pond last night.  Harper was very impressed until it splashed a little pond water on her shirt.

Pyros

 We spent some time at the land this evening.  The boys working, the girls roasting marshmallows and enjoying the pile of wood that they had cut!

 It was a beautiful evening to have a little bonfire.  My kids are pyromaniacs.  The husband might be as well!

 Harper reported to me that she roasted her own marshmallow - all by herself....with no help, without Colin or Cameron or dad, by herself and nobody helped her.  :)

 Cam was adding supers to his hives tonight.  This is photographic evidence that he learned his lesson and was spraying the frames down with sugar water.  He will not be fooled twice by these bees!

 The boys did a little fishing.  Jim took a photo of Colin's huge catfish.  I will have to share it later because I do not know how to get it off Jim's phone.

The neighbor keeps bringing me garden vegetables (we are very blessed).  For several days now, he has come over here with cucumbers.  I have made every salad I can think of, creamed cukes, and even eaten some plain.  Today, Jim told me he loves dill pickle spears.  Who knew?  So I did something I have never done before and made pickles.  The OCD in me does not like pickle making....how am I supposed to know if these are good or not when they have to be sealed and not opened or touched for 10 days?  I like a little bit of instant gratification I guess.  I was reminiscing a little bit though, as the smell of dill filled the house and reminded me of all the pickles my grandma used to make.  I hope mine are a fraction as good as hers.  I made 8 jars....if the neighbor shows up here with more, I will make more because it was so easy.  Of course, if they are awful, then we will be giving them away as Christmas gifts or something!

What we do

 What do you do with the 2 children left behind when the big guys go off to school?  Make monster cookies of course!  Harper and Saige were a little sad this morning when they were left out of the back to school crowd.  They did have fun rediscovering all the toys at my office.  And we may have had smoked chicken for lunch from the grocery store - always a good day when you can have that!  We also baked and delivered cookies to daddy at work - and had them ready for "aster school snacks" for the kids.

 A friend's cat had some kittens that they couldn't keep.  They have been in the house and she told me they are already potty trained and ready to go to good homes.  I thought it might be a good distraction for the little girls and a nice surprise for the big kids after school.  So tonight, after getting daddy to agree,  we added "Adolf" to our family.  In these photos he looks like a psycho cat, but he is really very sweet.  He was meowing a lot, I think he was scared and has never been away from his mom or siblings.

 Of course, it probably didn't help that Mallory gave him a bath and sprayed him with perfume to make him smell better.....

 The kids had so much fun playing with him and watching him play.  He settled in pretty nicely as the evening wore on.  I think he will be a good addition to the family, although Lizzie did not agree!

And I know you can't tell what this is so I will explain it....this is a picture of a kitten all exhausted from getting a new family - sleeping in a dollhouse in a bed made by his new owners - and the new owners crashed out in sleeping bags around the dollhouse in case he wakes up in the night and is scared.  Sweet family memories!

The kids all had good first days at school.  The girls and Colin attended the welcome back dance tonight, but didn't stay long.  They said only freshmen were there and it was 'boring' - which is fine with me -- early home means early to bed!  Preston was a little disgruntled that at Scranton you are not allowed to play games of basketball on the outdoor basketball court because it is "too dangerous" so all you can do is play horse or take turns  shooting baskets.  Sometimes I do worry that we are raising up a society of wimpy kids.  Seriously?  We played tag, had metal playground equipment installed over asphalt, played basketball and all sorts of other things that are now deemed 'dangerous' and we all survived.  Of course, I did not tell him to argue with his teacher about it, but this is my blog....if I can't rant here - then were can I?  :)

Back to school 2013

 I love to take a photo of all my kids together on the first day of school.  Yes, I know Saige is missing, but a summer of sleeping in did not make her in a good mood when we got her up early this morning.  She was inside being grouchy with daddy!  The kids were a little glum yesterday, but all of them seemed really excited this morning about going back.  Might as well embrace it.....you can't get out of it!  

 Quincy was ultra pumped because she could change her earrings this morning.  Hey, whatever it takes to motivate you to get up and going!  She asked me to take photos of the new earrings she picked out yesterday to match her back to school outfit!

 Quincy is in 2nd grade this year.  She has good old Mrs. Heffner.  Mrs. Heffner was my first grade teacher and has had every one of our kids so far.  She is wonderful.  Although I did think it was pretty funny Wednesday when it was meet your teacher day and Quincy said "WHY do we have to go meet Mrs. Heffner?"  I guess she felt we were already familiar with her?  :)

 Preston is in Mrs. Arb's 3rd grade class this year.  He is pretty excited about riding the bus to Scranton and going to a different school.  I hope Scranton doesn't disappoint!

 And there is Cameron.....8th grade this year.  He wanted his back to school photo to be of him jumping in the air and clicking his heels together in his fancy back to school outfit he picked out himself.  After multiple tries, we decided he either doesn't jump high enough or I am a worse photographer than we thought!  He is most proud of these pin striped golf pants we found on clearance for $3.60.  

 I admit to being a little teary eyed over sending Mallory and Madison off to their last first day of high school.  I am proud of them.  They are enrolled in college classes for dual credit this year, and it is paid for because their grade point averages are high.  They are great kids, I am still amazed at how fast the past 12 years have flown by though!

Colin - sophomore year.  He is happy to no longer be a freshman and so happy to be playing football which he loves.  School is not his favorite thing in the world to do, but he still does it well.  He is excited about taking a cabinet making class this year, and is planning to make Preston a bearded dragon condo!  

My hope for this year is that we can all remember how blessed we are to be in a good school district getting a quality education.

Backtrack

 Aunt Sam took these photos of the kids showing pigs last week.  They were better than the ones we got on our camera I thought, so I wanted to save them on here.

 The above photo gives a good idea of how a man had to follow the fighter pig around, to keep him from fighting in the show arena.  I was told that Preston went around the hog barn after the show and apologized to most of the other pig showmen.  There were several people who told me that it was sweet, but unnecessary.  One just never knows how these things will go. 

A brave visitor

 Our niece Sarah was here for a few days.  Since Overbrook lacks any real entertainment, we forced her to pick peaches and make jelly.  She never complained.

 Picking peaches with little kids goes something like this - do not pick them unless they are ripe.  So they pick them and then bring them to you and say "is this ripe?"  about 50 times.  Luckily, most of the peaches on this tree were ripe to overripe.  They were also some of the best peaches I ever had!

 Not only did we make jelly and put peaches in the freezer, but Sarah shared her delicious peach crumble recipe with us.  It is definitely a keeper!

 Trying to be cultural this summer, at least for a brief minute, we also drug poor Sarah to an art museum in Topeka.  It was not what she is used to in an art museum, being from near Washington DC, where they have actual art museums, but when dragging along small children, this was about our speed!  There were 4 rooms - 3 were all about tools, one was all masks.  The whole place looking at every single piece of art literally was about 20 minutes!  OK, so people who really love art might have been able to stretch that out a bit, but remember, we are non-cultured rednecks.

 The museum had an art lab.  The internet made it seem like they had all sorts of areas dedicated to all ages, and that they could choose to sculpt, create water color paintings and many other such artist type things were listed.  I would say this art lab is completely awesome if you are under 8 years of age.  The kids had a blast.  The older ones, well they did not complain (mostly because I promised to buy them lunch).  

 We did really like the masks, but decided we don't need anything like it on display in our own living room....although Colin may have pointed out that with little security, it would be easy to grab one and run.

 We also had a picnic in the park for Grandpa Ken's birthday.  The kids enjoyed fishing and playing at the park.

 Since we had visited an art museum, Mallory decided that taking a picture of Aunt Pam taking a picture is art.  Sorry Pam, this must be displayed - its art!  :)

I might add that staying at our house is a visit to the chaotic redneck backwoods of America.  Sarah, you are a very brave young woman.  We enjoyed visiting with you!