happily random

Tractor Day!

Guess it's easy to see what we're doing today. Joel rented a tractor to do a little clearing before the winter comes. He's clearing our fire road (I can actually hear him driving by right now) and our meadow which has become overgrown during the summer. Of course all the kids are thrilled with the big machine and he's been giving them turns riding in his lap. Except Sam. I don't think she would understand the full thrill of the ride. But the other three are waiting their turns on the trailer while Joel makes the rounds with each of the kids. It's better than an amusement park! :)

On the mend...

Just thought I'd post a quick update. I took Samantha & Tyler to the doctor on Tuesday morning. Just a cold. Their ears & lungs were both clear. Good news, but that didn't help us in the sleep department. But after a week of not sleeping, last night was a good night! Samantha seems to finally be improving. It's going to take me a bit to get rested up after not getting enough sleep for so long though. :)

Ugh.

I got 4 hours of sleep last night. Only 2 the night before. I have a sick 9-month-old. 'Nuff said.

Stupid TiVo! & Great Family Day

I was so excited that last night was the start of The Amazing Race, one of my favorite shows. But for some reason, my TiVo did NOT record it. I checked my To Do list on there on Friday and it was there, so I have NO IDEA why the stupid thing did not record. ARG! No other shows were scheduled to record, it was 3rd on my priority list, so it should have recorded. What a bummer! I wonder if iTunes has it?

Anyway, onto more happy things. Yesterday we took the kids out to 4th of July Pass to go hiking. It's been too long since we've been on a family hike. The first place we stopped to hike was along a river. We quickly discovered that wasn't going to work. Either way we decided to go meant crossing the river to keep going. Joel thought he could carry the kids across on his back, but after one trip he realized that that probaby wasn't the best idea. Here he's laughing because I told him I was just waiting for them to fall in the water so I could get a good shot. :) They didn't.

While Joel & Rebekah were crossing the river, Lucas & Tyler found a caterpillar to play with. I don't know how it did it, but the caterpillar was stranded on a rock in the river. Can caterpillars swim? The boys decided to rescue him and moved him to a rock on the edge of the river. That right there was reason enough to stop. Oh, and I got this great shot of Lucas too. He's usually so hard to photograph cause he likes to make wacky faces. Here's a great shot though. :)

We headed down the road a bit and found a GREAT hiking trail. For some reason, there were lots of fallen trees all over to path that the kids (and Joel & I) had to climb over to continue. Of course the kids thought that was great. But I had Samantha in the backpack, so climbing over and under fallen trees was quite the workout.

There is something about getting out with the kids into nature that brings us together as a family. No bickering, no whining, no fighting! Just running and climbing and exploring. I love it and they do too. Why don't we do it more? Living where we do there are more places to hike than we could do in a lifetime. And what's better, it's free! :)

The weather has suddenly turned cool here in North Idaho. Fall has arrived, and it is most welcome! We've had more than our usual share of hot days this summer, so I'm welcoming the cooling off. I even had a fire going in the wood stove on Saturday morning to take the chill off. Leaves are starting to turn and the days are noticably shorter. Welcome autumn!!

No rest for Mommy

Will I ever not be tired? I've been sleep-deprived for 6 years now. Will there ever be a day where I wake up rested and refreshed instead of dragged from bed exhausted?

Last night was rough. Samantha has come down with a cold & was up at 2:30. She didn't go back to sleep till 4:30. And of course, it's now 6:30 and I'm up for the day. I can do okay with interrupted sleep, but not a 2-hour chunk. Ugh.

Good weekend though, quite productive. Friday afternoon I took photos of the kids outside. It's amazing how their personalities become so evident by how it was to take their pictures. Samantha, by far, was the most difficult. For some reason, lately she has not had an easy smile. To get her to smile, you have to practically stand on your head, and if you're not Mommy, then forget it. Tyler is my happy-go-lucky guy. All you have to do is ask and he'll beam at you. Lucas is tricky. If you tell him to smile, he grimaces. You have to do something to make him smile to get a natural expression out of him. Rebekah is a little model. Whenever I take pictures, she strikes a pose. Anyway, I got good shots of all of them, as you can see.

Saturday we ran errands: bought Beka new tennis shoes (why don't kids tell you that their toes are squished to the end of their shoes?), went to PetCo for a self-watering dog dish (for the doggie jail) and to the bookstore. I just love the bookstore. When I go alone (which hasn't happened in years), I could stay in there for hours. I love reading and I love books.

Saturday night I had a night out with my friend, Melissa. WITHOUT SAMANTHA! She stayed home with Daddy. It's the first time I've been out without her since May. It was wonderful for me. Not so much for Dad though. I put her to bed before I left, but she was up 20 minutes later so Joel reported. When I got home at 10:30, she was still away. And crying. Ugh, Mommy guilt. But Melissa and I had a great time. We got Noodle Express, took it to her house, chatted and looked at scrapbook magazines (I have a HUGE stack of unread ones). Good times. :)

Sunday we decided to skip church, mostly because we dawdled around so long that when it was time to leave, we still weren't dressed. Shame on us. The afternoon we started to tackle the enormous pile of wood we have to split for the winter. I ran the splitter with Samantha in the backpack all afternoon while Joel moved wood. We put a dent in the pile, but we still have a lot of wood to go to get ready for winter. Next week when we do it again I'm going to have to get pictures; I think it would make a great fall layout. :)

Off to take care of my 4 sick kids.

Autumn's on it's way!

I know that fall is on it's way, because the sun is starting to rise after we get up. We were up at 6 this morning and while I was doing my Bible Study & drinking my coffee, the sun rose. The leaves are also starting to change, and even though it's been in the 90s during the day this week, it's been in the low 50s at night. Last week we even had a night in the 30s! I love the fall: the crisp weather, the shorter days and the colors.

First Day of School

Back to school today! Which means getting back into the routine. And just to throw us off, the school changed the starting time from 9 to 8:45, which means even less time time to get 4 kids dressed, fed and out the door on time. I think I forgot to brush their teeth this morning. That's where that 15 minutes is going! Guess I should send the school their dental bills. ;)

Rebekah is now in 1st grade. FIRST GRADE! Real school, or at least what I consider REAL school. She has her own desk and she's at school all day now. *sigh* It's lonely here without her. Oh, and I have to pack her a lunch. That's yet another thing I have to get done in the morning and now have less time for.

BTW, I did NOT pose Lucas. I just told him to sit down so I could take his picture before we headed off to school. Future Calvin Klein model in the making? :) Anyway, Lucas started preK today. I've been very worried about how he would handle going back to school again, as he doesn't transition well. Being the good mommy, I've been preparing him for weeks, getting him prepared and excited. Well, at least this time it worked. No tears from him at all! My mother-in-law is picking him up from school this year (a TREMENDOUS blessing) & bringing him home. So today I had Tyler down for a nap and his lunch all ready so it would just be the 2 of us when he got home. Samantha cooperated and was still down for her morning nap. He was able to tell me all about his day and we were able to spend a little quality time together while he ate his lunch. I don't get to do that with him enough, so it was a nice treat for us both. Oh, and one more thing: he picked out his OWN socks this morning. ;)

Tyler, not to be left out, also wanted his picture taken this morning. Of course, I am not one to pass up a willing picture-taking opportunity! :) Those are actually the clothes he was wearing YESTERDAY. He did not take a nap yesterday, despite being in his room for 45 minutes, & last night we went to Open House at school. Being as tired as he was, he fell asleep on the way home & was so tired that Joel was able to get him into the house & into bed without waking him. This morning when he got up, he looked down at what he was wearing & said, "Why I wearing clothes?" LOL. Then when I went to change him he said that he wanted to wear what he had on. Since it was pretty clean, amazingly enough, I decided what the heck.

So we're getting back into the swing of things. I thought I would be emotional, as I usually am, especially with Rebekah starting REAL school, but I wasn't. Actually, I take that back... I just wasn't weepy like I thought I would be... I was DELIGHTED! This has been such a LOOOOOOONG summer holding down the fort with now four kids, trying to keep them busy and entertained. It is nice to be back to school. And with my MIL picking Lucas up from school and Joel picking up Rebekah, I only have to make ONE trip into town a day. It's wonderful. I am definitely happy to be back to school. :)