Halloween prep

The kids made pumpkins out of felt this morning which, for anyone who knows me, is a first. I'm working out busting out of my comfort zone a bit and doing the occasional craft / creative activity. It was super easy to do and the kids loved it... Added to the Halloween spirit - all the more so as we all have a touch of a tummy bug and aren't feeling fabulous.

Yesterday we carved our pumpkin at the annual neighborhood pumpkin-carving barbecue at the cul-de-sac at the other end of our road. Reminded me of how much has changed since we did it last year. And I didn't feel quite so clueless about how to carve this time around!

Attack of the poison oak

In mid-October Y went trail-running and encountered some poison oak. He recognized it and steered clear - or so he thought. The rash showed up all over his right leg, and while the first week after the exposure wasn't so bad, it flared up big time the second week. He began applying tea tree oil which he'd heard works well as a homeopathic remedy and it seemed to dry it right up. We thought he was in the clear.

Wrong. We ran all his clothes and sneakers through a warm cycle in the washing machine. Sunday he ran for the first time since the incident. Turns out his shoes were still carrying the oil from the poison oak plant and the rash cropped up on his hands that night; his legs got worse as well and, by Monday night, swelled up. Hives too; couldn't sleep at night for them. Bad news was by then he was in Philadelphia to kick off a four-week training for work. Perfect.

I had his home doctor call a prescription for steroids into a pharmacy near his hotel and today was his second day on them... Some improvement at last.
Poor guy can't catch a break lately, especially when he's travelling (to the east coast!).

4 is fabulous!

Tomorrow Y will leave for a four-week training on the east coast, so yesterday we did an early celebration of J's 11/1 birthday so his dad could be present. The festivities began Friday afternoon when J and I baked his requested cake together - a homemade chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. No sooner had I moved the cake to the middle of the kitchen island where I thought it would be safe from Angus to take the kids upstairs for PJs... when said canine demonstrated his counter-hopping prowess. Cake 0; Angus 1. Big ol' chunk taken out: rrgh! I did a frosting patch job - see photo - and we pressed on. Big accomplishment for the evening was learning how to hold our hands so as to properly display four fingers, and then correctly count them. J kept reverting back to saying '6' when asked how old he was turning, so we carried out the task repetitively (some may say obsessively) till we got it right each time

This week the schools here have fall vacation and the Scherreis headed up last night to a family cabin at Bass Lake... Since they're our stand-in family for birthday parties and enthusiastically oblige us by showing up to celebrate our kids' big days every single time (talk about true friends), we planned a breakfast party that would accomodate everyone. It worked out perfectly since J and his dad make blueberry pancakes together every Saturday morning anyway - a weekly highlight for our (pending) 4-year old. We had a lovely party with them... Breakfast, play, then snacktime cake-n-ice cream. I love the shot of their two youngest, Natalie and John, below. How our kids adore them, and how hugely blessed we are to have this dear family living next door!

We did pizza and presents in the evening and Q delighted to bring the gifts one by one to her big brother to open. Hard to believe our boy is four now... less a tot and more a boy every year. We love you J!

Sequoia photos

Thought I'd post a few more pics from our weekend away since it's been a quiet week here so far, but for a morning of puking by J yesterday (thankfully short-lived)!

Weekend in the woods

Successful weekend away in Sequoia National Forest on every front. We rented a very sweet cabin that was as secluded as promised on three acres with ample woods going uphill on a step slope behind. Small but well laid-out and quaintly decorated, we enjoyed the cabin's wood-burning stove in the mornings and hanging out on the porch from which we shot our bows to the deer target we brought from home. (Mom even got in on the bow-shooting action this time around!). J particularly enjoyed early morning 'hunts' with his dad looking for squirrels. The nearby campground where we stayed last fall, a particularly lovely spot with river access, was closed to campers so we could wander through it uninterrupted and hog it's excellent fishing hole. J caught three large size trout, one of which he even reeled in himself. Thrilling for the whole family, and we took them back to the cabin with us to fry them up and eat them. (One forgets how many bones a fish like that actually contains.)

The weather was largely sunny, and we enjoyed the crisp fall-like days. The nights were full of stars that we watched from the porch before bed. Angus loved the chance to roam more freely as in his days of old, and we all managed together at night sleeping in more or less the same room (not that they were the most sleep-filled nights we've ever passed, by any stretch). Little Miss Goose behaved herself very well.

We were all sad when it was time to come home!

Camp Nelson-bound...

A year and a week after our maiden voyage to Sequoia National Forest, we're heading back up to the mountains... this time to rent a little one-bedroom cabin for two nights. (We considered camping again at Belknap Campground like we did last year, but we decided tents and infants probably shouldn't mix quite this early. The cabin is in the same tiny town though, which we really liked.) Our tiny abode is on three acres and backs up against protected wilderness, so hopefully it will be a good set-up for us. J is bringing his bow and is looking forward to shooting more than the full length of our back yard, which is about 20 yards. Angus too will enjoy a good romp... And all of us are looking forward to the crisp weather and the full trees up there. Though I will say that it's amazing to discover that it now takes the better part of two days to prepare for a three-day trip away. Such is life in a family of 5 I guess!

Our little miss had her two month birthday yesterday and is getting very big - photo here is not the best of her or big brother but conveys the general sense of both. Very sweet.

Pumpkins and such

On Friday our church moms group took a trip to the Painted Pony Farm (site of J's field trip earlier in the week, so he got to go twice). The big kids enjoyed a trip through the pumpkin patch and picking their own pumpkins. Strange to see a pumpkin patch surrounded on all sides by basically a field of dirt... but that's just the way farms out here are. Dry, dusty, arid. Viewing the sweet farm animals in their dirt-floor pens feels pretty strange too.

Saturday we rounded out our fruit-n-veg weekend by making applesauce with our friends, the Grahams, which was good fun and an educational experience.

Tonight and for the next few days we're in for a rare treat: some rain! We haven't seen a drop since we were back in the northeast in July (when we saw plenty). We always love it when the rain rolls in around here. I'll be spending some of the rainy days trying to finalize some tech elements on my computer which I had to rebuild - again! - on Friday after some random driver issues caused the whole thing to crash on Thursday (5 weeks after my last virus-induced crash. Now if that isn't bad computer karma, I don't know what is)...

Fun with Dad!

I've mentioned that hunting is all the rage at our house since the advent of the Outdoor Life Network in mid-August; Y recently bought some camouflage fleece and sewed some vests and hats for the kids. (He has always been the sewing half of this team - a real Renaissance man-whiz with a sewing machine.) The amusing photo of Q here says it all.

J had his first field trip on Tuesday to the Painted Pony Farm, and since I wasn't able to go due to my moms' group at church that day, Y took the morning off and helped chaperone the trip. They had a great time there, all the more because our neighbor Chuck (whose daughter Natalie is a classmate of J's) was also a driver. They rode together and even stopped for a burrito on the way home. Farm animals, a pumpkin patch, quality dad time, and burritos all in one morning... Talk about a great field trip!

Weekend wine country

With our tomato-canning experience now under our belt, our whole-foods friends and we decided to try making applesauce. First stop, apple-picking... which turns out to be considerably harder to do in southern California than in New England. Go figure. We managed to find a farm within an hour's drive with pick-your-own apples... at $3/bushel. Not only significantly steeper than northeast prices but actually more expensive, even, than local grocery stores. We decided to check it out anyway. The orchard at the farm in Solvang, it turned out, was an orchard in name only. In reality it was a grove of about 30 tightly packed trees (no joke) with tiny and flavor-deficient apples; we picked about 25 between us. On the bright side, however, the farm bred miniature donkeys and allowed the kids free rides! A big hit. And had old-school swings - the kind you don't see anymore - enjoyed by kids and adults alike.


While we were in Solvang we decided to hit our friends' favorite winery, Beckmen Vineyards. It was beautiful and the visit was more fun than we expected because the tasting room was child-ready with a large coloring white board that kept all 5 of our kids (the ambulatory ones - L was sleeping angelically in her stroller) entertained.

Next weekend: applesauce-making (with store- or farmers' market-bought apples...!)

Hoppy day

The weather here has been hot, intermittently. Thanks, Nona, for the froggy sprinkler attachment! Big hit, as you can see.