random pics from september

Well, it's the last day in September, and yes, I'm still pregnant.  I guess that means we'll be starting October off with a baby... hopefully.  In the meantime, here are a bunch of random pictures from September.

Something about being a first-grader has peaked Drake's interest in reading, and he loves it.

I love that he can sit down and read simple books to his siblings.

Here's a video of Drake reading, with Avery trying to copy everything he says.

Our neighbors were selling lemonade, so my kids decided to buy some, and then stay and help them.

We took our kids to a local nursery for shredded beef sandwiches and corn (we love a free lunch), and came home with a clematis and a lily (I guess it wasn't completely free...).

The aroma of these lilies is strong.

Playing with the neighbor's kitten.

Blankets are well-used in this house. 

Drake is taking piano lessons, again.  Maybe this time we can keep it up.

The kids love to draw and cut.

These two found their winter boots and didn't want to take them off the entire day.

 

Putting onions from the garden into a mesh bag.

As a gift for the new baby from his/her older siblings, each kid picked out some material and I sewed them together to make a blanket.

A random trail of paper that led from the kitchen...

...to the kids' bedroom.

And finally, both boys now ride their bikes without training wheels.  Drake took Graham's bike out and felt pretty confident on it.

So I encouraged him to try again on his bike, and it was a success.  I love watching the joy these two get from riding their bikes.

It's been a good month.

harvesting the garden

So even though at my most recent Dr. appt., he said, "Well, you're definitely 4 cm...." this baby is still hanging out inside.  So we've been using the time to get stuff done.  This week we've been slowly harvesting the garden.

Drake helped me pick a bunch of red grape and gold cherry tomatoes.

We never picked our artichokes, but they blossomed really pretty. 

The bees love them. 

We pulled out a few tomato plants from the garden that we had not planted.  They just started growing on their own, so we let them.  We picked all the green tomatoes off to ripen up on their own, and we still don't know what kind of tomatoes they are. 

We made some cucumber boats with the too-big-to-use cucumbers. 

Graham relaxed in the shade a lot. 

Drake wanted to start in on one of the sunflowers. 

I picked a few mini pumpkins for decoration that Graham grew in his garden. 

Earlier this week I preserved most of the corn that was picked, and Shad and the boys threw the corn stalks over the fence to the horses. 

Shad planted a globe willow.

The drip system was put away. 

The boys "planted" some corn stalks in random places. 

And once my nine-month pregnant self got over the fact that the kids ruined a bunch of perfectly good produce, I took pictures.

 I probably shouldn't be upset about losing a few zucchini, since we had plenty.

I don't even know what they used to carve the faces, but I have to admit they were creative.

We still have a few things in the garden to take care of, but I'm letting Shad do it when he wants.  We didn't really figure into the picture that I would be due to have a baby when it was time to harvest... but until this baby decides to join us, we'll keep trying to get done what we can!

new office desk

For a long time, Shad has wanted a corner desk for our computer/office to replace the one we've had since we got married.  And for a long time, I've wanted to build some furniture.  So I finally convinced him that if we combined our wishes, maybe they would come true.  Although Shad ended up doing most of the finish work, I did actually help in the building process.  So, without further ado...

Here is our old desk.

And here is our new desk

Eventually we'll build some drawers to go in the base cabinets so we can use them as filing cabinets, but we're glad to finally have the main part done and usable.  I don't know if I can convince Shad to build anything else with me, but I enjoyed it and I'm glad we got to work together on it.