Keep up with the goings on around the farm!

Keep up with the goings on around the farm!







Thursday, November 4, 2010

There's nothing quite like fall...

We are absolutely loving the cool weather. Still spending the days outside, I had to put a hamper on the back porch because we are so dirty by days end that not even our clothes can come inside! The pecans are starting to fall, I think three trees will definitely produce for us this fall. It is a tree that fruits every other year so we are thinking that they were strategically planted so that we will have a crop every year. That is a change from our old house. We had to wait out the full cycle there.



Simon got his first "clipper" hair cut. We tried the trim but it looked rather goofy and thought there was no way it could get any worse so out came the clippers. Not only did he tolerate them a whole lot better than the scissors but he looks absolutely irresistible! I always dread the haircuts but after it is all said and done I just love seeing my boys entire face; eyes illuminated with excitement and curiosity as they process and interpret their world!



Halloween was fun as always. The boys were both into it, I think Ben liked passing candy out to the guests more than trick or treating. He was hilarious and had us all laughing as he said good-bye to all the kids. He would wave good-bye and toss out comments like "we will be here every morning" and "have a great weekend!" Simon was the most polite little 18 month old dragon saying thank you to every treat giver as he waved good-bye and turned around. This year though I had to hide the candy because clever Ben has quite the sweet tooth. Out of sight and out of mind...we are holding the treats for dessert! We made Ben's costume just days before Halloween. He was rather indecisive, first he wanted to be Jackie Paper (Puff the Magic Dragon's best friend...amazing that he realized Simon was a dragon and put the two together), then he wanted to be Luna (our black cat), finally he landed on pirate and I thought...that I can do! So we headed into the sewing room and recycled an old sheet into super cool puffy pirate pants, made a spider vest, Ben found the bells among other notions and insisted they be added to the costume, and Adam fashioned the head scarf. The rope Ben has been using for months as he has discovered that tieing things up is super fun...maybe a sailer. We will have to have Grandpa teach Ben some knots when he visits. The boy loves to rig. Anyway, sorry typical tangent for me...the rope! Yes, perfect belt to house a swashbuckling sword! It was chilly Halloween night but Ben insisted on going shirtless, he has a good sense of style, we have to admit he looks pretty darn cool.


We also learned that Simon is crazy allergic to ants, two bites in two weeks and the poor boy has broken out in frightening hives. Thank goodness we keep Benadryl on hand. Thank you too to Mema who pecked the brains of her colleagues at the hospital and learned that ants rarely cause anaphalactic shock (yes, spellings is probably wrong and I have no clue how to fix it on the blog and way to exhausted from trying to teach first graders how to use a dictionary to actually use one myself!) Anyway, we have to be careful with Simon and the ants...and of course we spend every minute outside that we can so...I am sure that you will notice the boys on the giant pine stump are still in their PJ's...we are barely out of bed when Simon totes his shoes up to us and sticks his chubby little foot in our face pleading "out, out, out". Both the boys have discovered our little strips of forest, they form an L on our property and I kid you not but I must have looped that walk five times before noon on Saturday. Finally I grabbed the loppers and we began some trail cutting as I was growing tired of navigating tightly packed baby pines and pricker vines. Ben was our fearless trail leader while Simon and I keep up the rear, Simon has to have his basket...one might think it is for collectibles but no, he prefers to have it just in case! We also took a 45 min drive to hike maybe 1/2 mile in a state park...lesson learned: Toddlers need to inspect every minutia of the trail, when one is going the other is investigating, progress for grown ups is very slow almost non existent but for small children a half mile is halfway around the globe so don't waste fossil fuels driving far way when your own backyard is plenty big enough! Ben chose to hike one day with his bear in a sweatshirt sling. They seem to know what we need in the woods.
So, not much going on here except lots of playing, movie snuggling at night, fires in the wood stove, and groggy mornings when we all realize that the real world beckons.
You can see though how lucky we are that we have two little helpers to keep the real world tidy!