Bountiful harvest

Annalise and I did some gardening this week. We had to clean up the garden to get it ready to plant our fall crops of lettuces, chard, and spinach. A little rain would be nice.... We planted carrots this year. And we probably waited a bit too long to dig them up. Annalise was pretty excited about this giant one.
This was the rest of the carrots. They weren't too bad. A little bitter.

Our harvest for the morning. We feasted on fresh tomato soup for lunch and had a big bowl of green beans for dinner.

Soccer and Swimming

It's almost fall in our neck of the woods and that means all the kiddos are involved in soccer. Evie is back on the white team again this year. She is #7 in the middle. Not getting a lot of help from her teammates. Her team name is White Dynamite. The other team was called the Highlighters. Haha.

Evie getting ready for action while assistant coach Dad looks on. I think they are both having fun this season. Evie is getting more coordinated and quick with the ball. If there was just something we could do about her genetic predisposition to having the ball hit her in the face.

We have only a few days left of pool time. I think the kids are pooled out. That's ok because the days are getting shorter and cooler and the pool is getting cold too. Evie did not want to go to the pool. She only agreed to come if we let her bring a book along.

Over on the edge, Annalise gets ready to do some serious swimming.

What a show off.

Annalise's swimming skills have really improved this year. She is confident enough to swim all over the pool. If it weren't for her darn goggles fogging up and leaking water, she would be under water all the time. But, with only a few days left, no new goggles for this kid. Heck, I even have half of the beach towels already put away!

Evie did get in the water that day for a time. She spent most of the time reading and couldn't be bothered to put her book down on the walk home. Good thing the sidewalk was straight.

Annalise finally mustered up the courage to jump in off the diving board. What a little fish.

Everyone loves a parade

One Sunday, the cul-de-sac crew decided to have a parade around the block for all of their lucky neighbors. There was a clown (Paige), Bubble Blower (Evie), and Princess (Annalise). The big girls were there as escort and carriage puller.
We also had music playing. Yellow Submarine anyone?

Despite the racket, we only had a few neighbors outside to wave to. It really didn't matter to the parade organizers. They had fun.

Mom's Birthday

On August 17, we celebrated another year of Mom.

What better way to combat another year of getting older than my very own LEGO space shuttle. Yes, there are few things that I have unconditional love for. NASA and LEGO are at the top of my list and to combine them, well that was just awesome. And one of the astronaut mini figs was a girl!!


I only allowed the children to assist me in sorting the Legos. The rest was all me. no one else is allowed to build, touch, breathe, and most certainly, play with my LEGO space shuttle set. I'm thinking of never taking it apart and suspending it from the ceiling over my bed so I can dream about NASA while I sleep.

Part of my birthday celebration was to spring for a new song on Just Dance 2. The neighbor girls (collectively called "Paylor" or "Taige") came over to do Katy Perry's "Firework" with us.

Yes, that's me getting intot he groove. Because of Just Dance 2, Evie walks around singing "Criss Cross is going make ya JUMP JUMP"

These were my space themed birthday cake and cupcakes. Evie, Grandma and Annalise made them for me.

Happy birthday to MOM!

And we all blew them out together.

Trip to Connor Prairie

After the Fair, our second favorite place for farm animal fun is Connor Prairie. We have been there so much that we recognize all the volunteers by name. But we haven't been there enough that the volunteers remember us because they keep telling us the same stories. I do have to say that every single time I go there, I learn something new. We love Connor Prairie and someday, me and Annalise are going to work there. I will be in the yarn spinning and weaving shed while Annalise will probably be taking care of the animals in the barn. This sweet thing was born just 7 days before we got there. Annalise was pretty pleased to get it all to herself to pet. It was one nice calf.
For the first time this summer, we were there while Marin was working in her character. She was a hired girl at the Doctor's house. That day, they were watering the garden and picking flowers. We were so happy to see her doing her chores. Looks like she will be washing clothes next while we wondered on to the new Civil War area.

This one is for you, Cleveland

Yes, internet followers. We are alive. Since the first day of school, my days have been busy with keeping Annalise busy. The first week, we went to the fair, Connor Prairie and some other stuff I can't remember. The second week Evie was in school, it was my birthday. Jim was gone on a business trip in California and my mom came to visit. The third week back to school was just plain nuts with babysitting, dr. appts, meetings, presentations, and playdates at the splash park. You would think that I have tons of pictures to update this blog with, but that is not the case. I have been spending this weekend taking lots of pictures so all of you are in for a treat this week (that means you--Grandma Taller and and Aunt Jean in Cleveland). So the fourth week of back to school (the last week of Annalise being home before preschool starts) is going to be officially catch up the blog week. The Thursday following the first day of school, I took Annalise to the fair. Just me and my Shlee. She gets in free because she is under 6 and I got in free because I had a coupon from the paper. Bonus. We went before the terrible stage tragedy that took 7 lives and injuired many people. After that happened, we just didn't have it in us to return to the fair. Sadly, this was the first time in Evie's life that she missed a state fair. But anyway, all was happy and fun while we were there. And you know our little farmer. She had big plans to love on all the animals. This was a calf in the dairy barn that she loved on.
We like to support all the "producers". One of the places we had to check off our list was the dairy producers barn to get our milkshake. You can see how thick it was as Annalise collapsed the straw trying to suck it up. I just used a spoon.

And we had lunch at the fair. A Giant Corn dog. It was really greasy and I'm glad we had a big water bottle to wash it down. I was going to get my own lunch of a gyro, but there was no way I was parting with $8!

And we had a little break outside of the little farm hands exhibit. i"m sad to say that I think this may have been the last year of this as the kids are probably too old to milk the plastic cow and dig up fake veggies.

And Annalise is almost too big to ride the pedal tractors. She waited a long time for a pink one to become available for her 30 second ride. It made her happy and I was able to watch the lumberjack show while she waited.

Thank you to our favorite in state land grant university for bringing so many breeds of cows to the fair for us to pet. Someday, Annalise will be among your ranks on campus. The AG campus, that is...

A tired and happy little girl on the way home. We didn't get home until the bus came. It was a full day of fair fun.