Fall is in the Air

Well, the weather is at least 10 degrees cooler than yesterday, so I decided the time had come to try making the cranberry orange muffins. They turned out pretty tasty if I do say so myself.
Myles and Aeva helped by adding ingredients to the bowl.
This was Myles' first attempt at adding the baking soda.
It didn't make it into the bowl,

but it did make it all over his arm and the table.

He had better luck on the second try.

When Myles wasn't helping add ingredients, he was throwing

and kicking a lemon around the kitchen.

This afternoon we raked leaves on the back pad.

Meet Amber, Rhaevyn's Wooly Bear Caterpillar.

Myles likes to sit and hold the container and talk to it....

"Whoooo Bear, Whooooo Bear, time to eat."

Saturday

Saturday I washed the van. Actually, almost the whole family got in on washing the van.
Aeva did double duty with two sponges, Myles mainly enjoyed spraying the van, as well as me, with water and Chris helped by washing the roof and then drying the van.

Rhaevyn made a broom and swept the driveway.

When Myles wasn't spraying me with water, he was riding his tricycle. He is getting the hang of actually peddling it, but hasn't quite got the fact that he has to turn the handlebars in order not to run into things. I know this will eventually come, as both Rhaevyn and Aeva had trouble with that as well.

Hope you all had an enjoyable weekend.
We are in for a warm spell the first half of the week. Then we are supposed to get cooler weather. I am glad because I want to try a new recipe I got from mom for orange cranberry muffins :)

Field Trip

Today we went on a field trip to Mt. St. Helens.

We left the house at about 8:00 am. I have to give myself kudos because
I got us all ready in an hour. Last night my brain somehow was calculating that if I got up at
7:00 am and had to leave at 8:00 am that gave me two hours to get ready.
When the alarm went off this morning and I heard the news man say it was 7:00 it suddenly dawned on me that I only had an hour to get myself and the kids ready, make lunch and feed everyone breakfast. Amazingly we were just putting on shoes when our ride arrived.
The day started out with blue skies.
We were amazed at how windy and cold it was at the Johnston Ridge Observatory.

We listened to a little spiel about the activity of Mt. St. Helens since the big eruption of 1980, tried out making a seismograph move, looked at a light-up model of the 1980 eruption and watched a movie. No matter how many times I visit the area around the volcano I am always amazed at the devastation that the eruption caused and how much it rearranged the landscape surrounding Mt. St. Helens.

The kids and friends look out at Mt. St. Helens

To top off the field trip we walked up a trail. We had to hold onto each other for dear life due to the wind. I took video of it on the camera, but I don't think it gives a good account of what the wind was actually like, and the noise from the wind was incredible.

The kids up on the windy trail with the mountain in back of them.

Myles took this picture of the plant.

Myles and the girls with their teacher, Ms. Lampert.

It was a great day. By the time we were ready to head home it had rained twice and the blue sky had disappeared. We learned a lot, got a workout and were glad to be back home at the end.
Just a little video of Myles running and trying to walk backwards. He cracks me up!

This week.....

What a week it has been here at our home.
It stared out pretty rocky and ended on a very good note.
Thanks to those who helped out with the kids on Friday (you know who you are :)
and for all those who uttered sweet prayers in our behalf.

This week Rhaevyn was quite the hunter of spiders. She found some very unique ones.

This one was dining on a crane fly.

We think this is a grass spider.

It sure has some beautiful stripes.

Of course, I am still loving my stove. This week, with the weather turning quite cooler and overcast, I made pumpkin bread, banana muffins and chocolate chip cookies.
Wish you all were closer to share in the abundance of goodies.

This week we tried out a brushing technique with Myles, as I believe he has some major sensory issues when it comes to clothes and pull ups.
So far, I think we've been making progress. We aren't having near the amount of meltdowns every time he gets new pull ups on or gets dressed. Yeah!
Also, we are working on his sleep disturbances at night. We took two steps forward, and then two steps back, but hopefully we will start moving forward again because the two nights when he slept straight through were pure bliss for me.

Yesterday morning as Aeva was getting dressed in my room she turned to me, eyes brimming with tears. Apparently, during the night she had felt something in her mouth and spit it out in her hand. It happened to be a tooth. We are not sure where the tooth went, but it was the best tooth losing experience yet, no one got hysterical. I couldn't keep myself from chuckling. She related the sequence of events that led to a gap between her teeth. It was pretty funny. I think she was a little worried at first about not getting money from the Tooth Fairy because she didn't have a tooth to actually put under her pillow. I reassured her that when this happened to Uncle Ben he still got money from the Tooth Fairy.

Yesterday afternoon, Rhaevyn and I went on a date. We window shopped in Old Town Battle Ground. She showed me some plastic horses that she liked and picked out some very cute pink bejeweled cowgirl boots with metal toe tips. It reminded me of my cowgirl days. After we finished with the antique stores on Main Street we had lunch at the fish and chips place. We had a really wonderful time visiting with each other.

This coming week we are going on a field trip to Mt. St. Helen. This is only because my friend Jill twisted my arm. The kids are totally excited to be going, and they are also excited that we are carpooling with Auntie Jill. We will be having a picnic lunch there too. Hopefully I will remember the camera so I'll have some great pictures for the blog next week.

Cheerio!

The stove has entered the building....

Our stove finally arrived from Lowes. What a pleasure they were to deal with. The delivery crew was wonderful. They even joked with the kids and were very courteous. I would recommend Lowes any day to anyone.
I am so excited to be actually cooking again. Who knew one could get so much enjoyment out of making scrambled eggs?
Rhaevyn is happy to be able to cook again too. She has been waiting to make pesto pasta.

I have vegetables. So, I guess this means I have a sliver of green in my thumb.
Hopefully next year we will plant a real garden since I didn't kill anything I planted this year.

My tomatoes are on their way to turning red.

I have two cucumbers, which is better than none.


And zucchini.....the girls are anxious for zucchini bread.

Myles and I were out doing bubbles the other day.

Myles wore himself out skating around the kitchen with his

"skating boots" as he calls them.

This afternoon Myles pulled me down the hall claiming he wanted to take a nap.

He climbed up onto my bed, covered up and said "lay down, mom."
So, I did. No arguments from me. I won't pass up nap time.
So, I am laying there, and my eyes are really getting droopy. I am feeling more
tired by the second, but I had a prairie dog in my bed who kept burrowing down under the covers and then popping up every couple of seconds to kiss me, say "hi mom", give me a zurburt, fluff his pillow, occasionally tickle me and pet my hair.
I finally told him he had to lay still and go to sleep since it was nap time.
He got really still, and then I heard this fake snoring and heavy breathing. I looked over at him. His eyes were squinted up like he was trying to keep them closed. Of course he saw me looking at him, and he started to laugh, at which point I started cracking up too.
In the end, sleep did come for him.

Cheese!

We are happy that all of those who watched our video did indeed enjoy it.

Thank you so much for all the happy congratulations.

Happy weekend to you all!

Prayer

I know I already updated the blog once today, but we have more news to share.

We are just full of news lately.

So, we have been busily looking for a minivan. To be more detailed, a Toyota Sienna.

We have looked at lots over the past two weeks. By this past Wednesday we were getting a bit discouraged. We just couldn't find one that was in nice condition, not too high of miles, in our price range, and had everything that we were looking for in a Sienna.

So, we decided to have a family prayer. We prayed that Heavenly Father would bring the minivan to us.

Mark 11:24

"Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when you pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

Saturday I had to run to the bank and Safeway. When I returned home, what did I see parked in front of the house??? A Toyota Sienna minivan.

While I had been on my errands, Chris had called on a minivan listed in Portland. The fellow said he was out of town at the moment in Battle Ground. What are the odds? Anyway, he drove over to our house so we could look at it.

I took one look at it and knew it was the one. The condition was good, the mileage was right, and the price was right. The Lord truly sent the minivan to us. He truly answered our prayers.

We got to pick it up today. It seems to surreal. I am not sure it has sunk in yet that we actually own a minivan. It sure is nice driving the kids around in it though. I think we were all so giddy when we took it for a drive today.

Yippy Skippy!

It's like having Christmas in September. Boxes of school books arrived (finally) this morning. The girls were excited to open them up and see what books they have for this year.

Rhaevyn was most interested in a book about inventors that she has. However, she was disappointed that they didn't have anything in there about her great great grandfather Kinner. She said that he most definitely should have been in there.
We are still awaiting two more boxes, but we are excited that we can really get into school work now.

First week of September

We've had gorgeous weather this week, but Aeva is wondering when the leaves will change and Fall will be officially here.
We've had an eventful week.
The Sears stove was picked up, and Sears did send us a $35 gift card. Wow!
We purchased another stove at Lowes and are just waiting for it to come.
I have to say I have become quite adept at cooking with only a microwave and toaster oven.
Myles gave me a black eye Wednesday night.
We went to hug each other, and he came at me with a little more force than I had anticipated.
His big noggin caught me under my eye.

Thursday Morning.

Friday Morning.

I cut Myles hair this morning. He was so good and sat really still.
He didn't like the feeling of the hair falling on his back and shoulders.
But, I think I did a pretty decent job.

The kids had fun racing the cars this week with Chris.

Myles has especially loved it.

Happy September to you all!