Harvest Season

Thanksgiving Day 2011 was beautiful. The weather was warm and bright and I'm so glad we spent the day outdoors. I had no idea people did anything other than attend family dinner. My eyes were opened to another option as we sought out something fun to do. We had a wee bit of fun. Logan,


Colby,
and Sadie on bouncing pillows.

Four Wheelin' Tricycles

Chase was content to watch the festivities...and nap.

Quinten looking plain happy in the maze. But little did we know a few moments later he would decide to navigate his own way (so did his other brothers, but they stayed in pairs). The rule was, to meet back at the bouncing pillows when you find your way out. Thankfully we ran into our good friends who had shared their Maze-o-poly game. Quinten happened to have it in his hands when he was separated. We sent Ryan and Mike (our friend) back in looking for Quinten. The took opposite sides of the maze. I then sent Logan in ... and after a long wait, I went in. I walked both sides of the maze before I found Logan and Quinten. I asked Quinten if he was sad enough from the experience that he had cried. He said yes but he said he was happy to have found all but 3 of the Maze-o-poly stop zones. This makes me giggle because he must have touched almost every corner of that maze in the time he was exploring. He was sad, maybe even a little scared, but he was distracted by the challenge of the game. Thank you to the K. family for sharing your game with us. Quinten kept from being traumatized by the experience.

Rubber Duck Racing.

Colby, unidentified boy, and Quinten; in that order.

Nothing like a little Calf Roping to get into the spirit.

And there you have it! "It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how." Dr. Seuss.
I tried my hand at cooking a turkey for the second time on Sunday. I also snagged 2 amazing recipes from the internet. One was a spicy green bean casserole and the other was a dessert-like sweet potato dish. After the Corn Maze we returned home to the easy meal of Planned-Overs.

Grandma and Grandpa (Mom and Dad) were jet set to Costa Rica this Harvest Season so we thought we'd try our hand at:
Farm Chores
and performing a Service Project for the Elderly. *insert snicker here*

"Grandpa! Will is navigating your tractor."
The Chore: A clean yard.
Seems easy right? Well you'll hear more about that later.
Looking east, we've gathered the leaves up. Please keep in mind this is not a job of perfection. I kept walking through the yard stating: You've missed one, you've missed another .....
This chore is not similar to gathering Lego. A few remnants can be left behind for fertilization.

The yard looking east.

And West.


And Southeast- ish.
Looking North. This is the good news.

5 Feet Away (on the other side of the tree line): The Not-so-good news.
The tractor ran out of gas. We didn't know where the key was to open the gas tank, and so... All the tractor could do was just "Sit, sit, sit, sit. And we did not like it. Not one little bit." Dr. Seuss.
Now, how many rakes do you think a man might have to maintain 20 acres...or 5 acres of leaves?
Give up?
Well 1 is the answer here. Only 1. (Having said that, I'm sure I will later be told of a secure corner that stores the others). I'm glad we arrived with 2. That totals 3. But there were 5 workers. This posed a problem. Soo, we moved to other means. And thus, the broom was introduced.
The East Side. Whoops, it appears we're losing the battle.
The North East Side. We've made a dent.


Is he giving up? We're attempting to train these City Boys a Country Boy work ethic. *no joke*

Exhaustion

Moving on ...

Quinten returned home from school with a felt marker spot on his nose. I asked him if he knew it was there?
He said that, "Yes he knew." In fact, he "did it."

What, Why?
"So that Mrs. F (the Grade 1 Teacher) can tell the difference between Colby and Me."
I see the difference without the mark. Don't you?Back to the Harvest. Sadie and I harvested Grandma's tomatoes (one beautiful afternoon after Preschool). At this wonderful, beautiful, changing of colors, time of year... I decided it was time to sleep train Chase. He has always fallen asleep eating or in his carseat. But by this age he should be laying in his bed and falling asleep on his own. I decided to give it a try. He was fed, burped, changed, and tired. All conditions a go. 5 minutes later I find this:
So the operation was a success but my hope was that he hadn't smothered himself.
All is well.
One last change:
I want to clean our carpet.
So, instead of moving furniture, I removed our furniture (with the approval of Ryan of course). We have no immediate plan for the future of this room. Sadie loves running in circles.