Tis the season...

...for apples!!! Last year we found out about an orchard where we can pick apples for free after they have done their commercial picking. They are beautiful apples and very tasty, and we have picked approx. 1500 lbs total in the past 3 weeks or so. The majority of them were sent back to friends and relatives with different folks who came to visit but thanks to Mr. Wise Guy (and a. susie and gramma jo ) we have 126 quarts of applesauce canned/frozen. And I have just 2 1/2 boxes left to dry and make canned apple topping with, and to just eat fresh and make one more apple pie. Amazingly enough the kids and I are still not tired of apples and have been eating them every day! :)

a familiar sight in our garage for the past 3 wks.

Needless to say, the kids have gotten pretty good at fending for themselves lately. I had to laugh when I looked out the window and saw their choice of footwear for the day.

Sunday shoes with no socks for Miss Kate...

and Daddy's shoes for Tay-O. I couldn't believe how long he actually kept them on and clomped about in them.

I spent my first day on my own with the kids in the sewing room. I was able to finish up a few pairs of flannel PJ pants for Miss Kate and a matching pair for Miss Aubrey. I propped Miss Aubrey on some big cozy blankets on the floor and the kids wanted to be as close to her as possible. They cooed over her and told her stories and then settled in beside her for awhile to entertain themselves.

Here is the Wee Lady herself! The center of our little world these days. :)

She reminds me of Sjo or uncle AJ in this picture.

She loves to hold tightly to my finger and usually settles down with a finger to hold if she's getting agitated.

Tay-O is very caring and compassionate with his little sister. He doesn't like to hear her cry and will croon to her and stuff her binky in desperately.

Miss Kate mothers them both. :)

Tay-O is always quite pleased when the binky hushes Miss Aubrey up.

This morning i had to suction out her little nose as she is still getting over her cold. The kids both climbed up on the bed to inspect. I didn't notice Tay-O until half way through the painful process. He was sitting crosslegged with his hands clamped over both ears. After a short time he pulled one hand off to remove his binky as quickly as possible and immediately continued covering both ears and humming loudly as well trying his best to drown out the screaming of his precious little sister. Eventually he resorted to burying his face in the covers until it was all over. I think it was more traumatizing for him than it was for Miss Aubrey. :)

I sat down with the camera the other day thinking it had a been awhile since I took any pics of our Wee Lady and ended up getting a bit carried away. Sorry she's sleeping in all of her pics. I'll have to work on getting an awake one. Especially now that she is smiling in response occasionally. I'll let you look without comment ...other than "can you tell I love baby feet?"

These Days...

Well, life has been moving right along here without too much eventfulness. I'm at 29 wks now and getting purty big. Down to Drs. appt. every 2 weeks which makes it seem close to the end, although when i think of everything we have going on between now and then it seems far away. :) I was going to post a pic of me in the new dress i sewed but have yet to actually get a picture taken. I'll have to see how talented Miss Kate is with the camera, but for now no ME pics. :)

We also got the garden in FINALLY so we'll see if it survives the kids. the seeds have been walked over a few times but not dug up yet. So far 2 of my planter boxes with the herbs in them have been "accidentally" dumped. Kate has a habit of roaring around the deck on her trike and apparently miscalculated where her back wheel was. :D

So far the kids have managed to drowned both of the flower pots I planted on the back deck with their extensive watering treatments. So no flowers in them this year i guess. They have also filled the toilet with rocks twice this week, ate a handful of my tums ( at least once, maybe more than once) that I keep in the bedroom for my heartburn , (they love them) used a very generous coating of cortizone cream on Elliotts face and squirted the rest of the tube out in the sink, and got in the fireplace and played in the ashes. thankfully none got on the carpet. Oh yeah, and Tay-O got in the fridge and found himself an egg to play with. He cracked it on the hearth and then came to me to ask me to help him wash his hands and offered me the empty shell. Only a minimal amount got on the carpet that time. So now you know how I get my sewing done. :)

On the other hand, the kids had been playing in the basement for a while the other day and I was busy cleaning up the house...when Kate came upstairs she happily proclaimed, "Wow, it looks all nice and really clean up here ! Thank you mommy!" she often surprises me with her appreciation for things when I'm not expecting it.

And when inviting Elliott to be in her sunday school class just after he got up from his nap and was sitting in the rocker with all of his blankeys: She bent over him sweetly and cooed, "You can come sit in my sunday school class OK. I know your tired Elliott, but you can bring your blankeys, you can even lay down and sleep in my class". (apparently she was getting a little desperate.

At this moment she is telling him a mixed version of Jonah and Curious George in the said sunday school class.

Seems these days Miss Kate is either sweet as sugar or distressingly naughty...and either chatty as i'll get out in a very jolly way, or impossibly hard to get a word out of. So many times this line of that little rhyme has been running through my head lately...When she was GOOD she was VERY, VERY, GOOD....but when she BAD she was HORRID! :D

We do love our Kate dearly through all the ups and downs. :)

A couple weeks ago we went to watch the AG Parade at the Spring Fest ( i guess thats what it was). We dined on fair food and Miss Kate got to ride a pony for the first time. She loved it! ...but was most impressed by the horse that went potty while waiting for the riders to dismount. :D We have a little video of her riding and she was quite disappointed that it didn't have the horse going potty. Gotta love 3 yr olds! :D

Of course the camera battery died during the video so we have no pics of the parade to share. But the kids happily waved their little mitsies off to all the waving parade folks. We were not aware that they would come home with a load of candy from it as many of the floats had people walking along beside throwing candy to the kids on the sidelines. The kids were quite excited and have been slowly working down their sugar stash over the past weeks. The parade started with a bunch of snazzy motorcycles that the kids found facinating as the went by just a few feet away from us. Apparently they made quite an impression as Kate had a dream a few nights later ....something about all of us in the back yard and a motorcycle pulling a big boat came crashing through the fence and was going to "trip over" Elliott! But mommy and Kate were ok and we weren't gonna be tripped over so we were happy ...but Daddy ran so fast and got Elliott and the motorcycle didn't trip over him after all so we were all happy ...and Daddy kissed him...and we were all happy...

or something like that. :)

Kate has been having interesting dreams lately that she remembers and talks about, and occasionally I hear her hollering stuff in her sleep. The other night it was "Elliott, NO, you stop that" and "But I CAN'T catch them...its too hard!".

These are the new jammies I sewed her that she absolutely loves! They turned out well and were relatively easy so I am making a couple more pairs. they're a very soft cotton. I also made (well, its verry close to being done) myself a nighty out of some of that super soft lightweight cotton that is so comfy and i also happen to love the colors of it (a lovely coral color trimmed with a light aqua)

Oh and I sewed her a new blankey too, of which she's very pleased.

We participated in a book chain awhile back of which I had forgotten about, but we got our first book in the mail a couple days ago. The kids were SOO excited and love the book!!! I think its mostly just the fact that it was a fun surprise in the mail, but they do happen to like tigger and pooh also.

Today I was inspired to post because the kids were entertaining me with their playing mtg. skills. Mostly consists of Kate singing loudly and Elliott jumping around from here to there as he would love to do in real mtg. and Kate gives him permission to do so suggesting he sit by cousin LaLa or U. Nathan and A. Vi.

Tay-O diligently wears a headcovering just like his sister...

and he occasionally helps out with the singing.

The part that I found very amusing falls in the middle of the second video. Tay-O comes around with a toy phone which Kate interupts the mtg. to insist that she needs and must make a call. She then goes into her cardboard house, first instructing Tay-O to sit on his chair, and makes a phone call to Brother Bill Prost. He has been visiting our area this week and she was impressed by his singing ability. Anyway, her phone conversation goes something like this:

Hi, Bill Pwost.

Are you coming?

OK. I was just wondering.

I.....I....was singing...are you gonna come?

Oh, OK....and sing?

Do you have your hymnbook?

OK

Bye Bye , ....starts to say Aunt susie as that is who she usually "calls", but quickly finishes with, Bill Pwost.

Ends phone call and comes out to report to Elliott, "that was Bill Pwost".

She has since made more than a few "calls" to him.

In the first video she belts out a slow and slightly draggy rendition of the ABC song during her sunday school. :)

before the rain came...

We've had a surprising amount of rain and cloudy weather for our area this past week. Its been blustery and chilly out and both of the kids have slight colds. Seems strange to be keeping them inside with colds when its nearly June. ...But before the rains came we had some very warm weather!!! Since I didn't have the pool out yet we filled a couple big bowls of mine with water and since we conveniently still had a sled out hanging around from winter we filled that as well. I gave em a few cups and spoons and the had a blast!

Our redneck side showing a little. :D

Doing her best to make the most of her small swimming pool. :D

So while the kids were busy with the water... i was busy with the paintbrush! Finished painting all the trim for the playhouse and Mr. Wise Guy worked on getting the roof finished.

I also got the ceiling primed...well, at least half way primed.

A little someone got into my primer bucket during lunchbreak and apparently stepped in his mess. (Note the heel prints going in circles) He left his tracks around the lawn as well.

This shows our progress to date.

Oh yeah, and I finished another dress that weekend also.

I have finished a few other sewing projects now too but haven't taken any pics of em. I still have several things I'd like to finish in the near future though... while i'm on a roll in the sewing department. :)

I filled a little wading pool for them on the second hot day. This is what they were actually doing while Mr. Wise Guy and I were working on the playhouse together. The pics are from the day before when I was painting all the trim. Enjoy!

Parties and Pretties

Well, the "pretties" ended up coming first, so here we go...

I sewed this dress yesterday for Miss Kates summer wardrobe. I've had the fabric since last spring and intended it for last year but didn't have time to sew it up and she had enough stuff anyway. I got it on a very cheap clearance and was very excited to finally get it done!

It is sleeveless and ties at the top of the shoulders.

Super full skirt and very frilly!

With a big chocolate bow in the back...

Miss Kate LOVES it!!! She twirls until she's dizzy and falls in a heap, then sits there and asks, Are we still moving? We're all moving! Everybody's moving!

PARTIES

We went to the riverfront park in Wenatchee on Sat. for a Birthday party for a 1 and 3 yr. old who's dad works with Mr. Wise Guy.

The theme was TRAINS!

and for the duration of the party they had rented the little kiddie train that goes around the park.

It was such a cute little train!

With jolly engineers included! :)

The Kids LOVED it!!!

(waiting for their first of 3 rides)

and they're off!!

my view :)

I loved how he sat with his elbow hangin out and his little hands folded over the edge. :)

Here we come...

ridin' in our little boxcar! :D

The kids loved to watch the engineer on the caboose hop off and switch the tracks every now and then.

Making sure he got back on his perch.

and then we're back at the station!

always greeted by the station masters!

There was a also a real caboose that the kids could go in and explore.

Note the sign above his head: It especially applies to this one! :D

He is dangling his foot over the edge (which is about level with my head) accompanied by some dramatic gasps included just for me...then laughing his evil little mischief laugh. :D

The kiddos enjoyed climbing all over the place! :) We though of our 3 musketeer cousins and wished they were here to enjoy it with us. Maybe sometime...

A couple of videos of the train ride.

Mommy's perspective...Elliott, sit down. No don't lean out of the car, it can tip over. Kate it's OK if Elliott has his hand there. Elliott, SIT DOWN. Kate don't push Elliott, he doesn't have any more room to scoot over. SIT DOWN. Are you having fun?!?! Stay in your seat. Yea! We're back at the station! :D (actually they were very good and we all enjoyed the ride. Only on the last ride did Tay-O keep standing up)

Daddy's perspective...Hi Daddy! Smile. Wave. Off we go! Have fun!