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Oh, How We Love the Pumpkin Patch

10/12/2014

For the fourth year in a row, we headed to Hollin Farms to pick out our pumpkins. Hollin Farms is a quiet alternative to the seriously crowded pumpkinfests in the area. While Hollin Farms might not offer all the same play structures and activities, it does offer a fantastic pumpkin patch, an awesome corn maze, wagons (a favorite of my kids) and the most amazing view ever.

This trip was Baby Anne's first trip to the pumpkin patch. Last year, I was about eight months pregnant and, as we wandered endlessly through the corn maze on the side of the mountain, I began to think she might be born there. But she arrived at a hospital closer to Thanksgiving than Halloween.

Truly the corn maze is our favorite part of the trip. This year it was a challenge mostly due to the rain. As you can see from the pictures, we dressed appropriately but it was still challenging. I pushed our heavy duty stroller through the muddy paths--uphill and downhill. Meg and Clare slipped several times in the mud and fell completely down...much to their delight. We made our way out of the maze about five minutes before closing time. The nice woman working the pumpkin stand was just about to go looking for us.

It was another year of fantastic memories and I am sure we'll be back at Hollin Farms again next year.

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Living Life Deliberately

10/8/2014

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Decorating our birthday cake for Mary.

This school year has been a rude awakening of sorts. Our lives are no longer our own. Everything is a blur. My day is scheduled by drop-offs and pickups. While I drop Meg and Clare off at school at the same time, I pick them up at two different times. At some point between the drop-off and the two pickups, Baby Anne needs a nap. I must also schedule grocery shopping trips, housecleaning and laundry. We have piano lessons and a service organization that Meg has joined. I also do hours of administrative duties each week for our parent organization. The weekend birthday parties have begun (we had two this past weekend). Weeks go by like a blur. The girls are so tired from school they mostly want to rest. I'm exhausted too. In addition to all my duties listed above, I'm chasing around a 10-month-old who wants to climb stairs and eat woodchips, sand and whatever toy she happens to find on the floor.

So how do we reclaim our lives? I knew the answer the moment the question entered my mind. It's the entire purpose of this blog. We need to make each day the best it can be. As Thoreau would instruct, we need to live life deliberately. That does not mean planning big adventure each day--that simply isn't possible. It does mean making the most of the small number of free-time hours we have. At times that means recognizing the exhaustion and saying, "Let's put on our pajamas and watch Tinker Bell together." Other times it means having special projects that remind us of the season and make us stop and notice what is going on around us. A few weeks ago, on the day the Church celebrates the Mary's birthday, we made a birthday cake for Mary. The girls love decorating birthday cakes, so this was very special for them. Now that Halloween is approaching, we spent Tuesday afternoon making a Halloween Gingerbread House--thanks to a kit I found at Trader Joe's.

Ah, Trader Joe's...this wonderful grocery store has definitely helped in our celebration of Fall. They sell everything pumpkin: pumpkin pancake mix, frozen pumpkin waffles, pumpkin croissants, pumpkin bread mix. I stocked up this week and we are already enjoying our own pumpkinfest of sorts.

But again, it doesn't take much to make the day the very best it can be. During the afternoons, I've recently taken Clare and Baby Anne to Barnes & Noble, where Clare has taught Baby Anne about the Lego Table. Some afternoons we head to our community park. Meg is so excited that she can finally go the entire length of the monkey bars and her joy at that accomplishment makes all of us happy. One of the birthday parties over the weekend was for Clare's class only, so I took the opportunity for some one-on-one time with Meg at Starbucks. I even let her get chocolate milk, which I never do. We talked about her upcoming birthday party, though she mostly wanted to talk about a "feel better" party she was planning for a friend of ours who has been ill recently. I explained to Meg that our friend might not have the energy for such a party, but Meg assured me she could spend the whole party in bed if she needed to. That kid really does have a heart for helping people.

Of course in the midst of all of this living deliberately, I'm still yelling at kids to get dressed quickly in the mornings and I'm terribly stressed about getting everything done each day. But I'm hoping our new normal becomes less stressful as the months go by and living deliberately will mean more smiles and less anxiety. But if not, we do always have the pumpkin waffles to help us get through a day.

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Not Too Big for Curious George

10/7/2014

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These pajamas, in which Baby Anne is sleeping snug tonight, are among our favorites. Yes, they are boy pajamas and we have only girls, but that is meaningless. They are our favorites because they were given to us (by my mother-in-law) due to the girls' abiding love of Curious George.

Meg and Clare are 18 months apart. For the first 16 months of Meg's life, I kept her away from the television. But just before Clare was born, I began to realize that I would at times need a way to occupy our very rambunctious Meg while caring for our newborn Clare. (And yes, I know many mothers would scrunch their face in a disapproving manner upon hearing I chose to introduce television, but whatever. You do what you have to do to survive.) I began to look for a show that might hold Meg's attention for a short time. I tried a few shows, but she had no interest. Then one morning I turned on Curious George and our lives were forever altered.

Curious George has always been there for us. Curious George's adventures have inspired our adventures. We've gone through corn mazes, because in one episode George and his country friends went through a maze. We've spent time at farms, because George spent time at farms. We spent time at museums, because George spent time at museums. Just after Meg's third birthday, I took her to the Museum of Natural History and she spent the entire time looking for Professor Wiseman (the brilliant female scientist on the Curious George television show). Meg's fourth birthday theme was Curious George at the Museum, which highlighted all the areas of the Natural History Museum with books, puzzles and coloring pages that featured Curious George with dinosaurs, ocean creatures, etc.

Our love of Curious George was not limited to television. We also fell in love with the Curious George books. Among Clare's first words was the phrase, "It sank," which she said as we would come to those words in a Curious George book (one of the short ones based on the television show about a model ship contest). When we started reading the original Curious George books, my husband and I were a little taken aback to learn the poor monkey had been abducted from Africa. After getting over this shock, we grew to love Curious George Goes to the Hospital (one of Clare's favorite books of all time) and we spent many hours reading Curious George Learns the Alphabet (there are many abbreviated versions of this book out there, but the full-length book is fabulous).

Every once in awhile, Meg will declare that she is too old for Curious George, but she always get drawn back in. Last Fall (when I was expecting Baby Anne and needed a rest in the afternoon), I encouraged Meg and Clare to watch Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest and they were hooked. This very amusing tale of "No-Noggin" became one of their favorite movies and worked its way into their imaginary play and storytelling. (The movie also proved to be a great help in explaining why scary stories exist--which is a big question at their age.)

On mornings when both Meg and Clare are in school, I occasionally find myself flipping through channels as I fold clothes. Inevitably Curious George is on and I get a little sad that my girls are growing up and aren't there to watch the episode. On a recent Saturday afternoon, the girls were a little tired. One of them grabbed the Kindle and they curled up together on the sofa to watch Curious George. I sat across from them (folding clothes again) and smiled at the fact that my big girls hadn't grown up too much. When Meg and Clare do finally outgrow Curious George, I'll at least have Baby Anne, who I'm sure will be a fan as well. If not, you'll find me secretly watching Curious George by myself after I've sent everyone to school. I do so love Curious George.

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Oh, How We Love the Pumpkin Patch

Living Life Deliberately

Not Too Big for Curious George

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