Arboretum

My mom and I took the girls to the arboretum to enjoy a fall day and, of course, the pumpkins. We had a lot of friends who were there that day. Caroline especially enjoyed time splashing in the puddles with Elizabeth.

Stress

It has been a bit stressful around our house lately. Since mid June Sam has been out of town or working 50-60 hour weeks in town pretty much every week. I think he was actually out of town 9 or 10 out of 14 weeks. To say that it has been hard on all of us would be putting it mildly. I have been a single mom and have a new appreciation for moms whose husbands travel regularly or are deployed. The kids have struggled with having a less than 100% mom and no dad. Sam has had a hard time as he has missed so much. As he said tonight, he missed summer. No fun swimming afternoons or really fun anything. He would be home for about 48 hours on the weekend and it was just catch up time. He also missed Caroline really learning to talk. Every weekend he would notice huge differences in her.

The last month was the craziest. Sam was gone Sunday-Thursday night on a trip to Portland, OR. He worked Friday and was home for 2 hours, just long enough to pack to go on a camping trip with Katherine. They got home on Sunday afternoon and he had 4 hours to shower, pack for a 10 day trip to London and spend time with Caroline whom he had not seen in a week.

As luck would have it, while Sam was packing Caroline decided to look for some of my earrings and she pulled my jewelry chest over, cutting her head open. I was in the other room and heard a crash and could tell from Sam's yelling that it was bad. When I went in she was covered with blood and we knew that we were headed to the ER.

This was our first trip to the ER and it was really not a bad experience. One of the hospitals in our area has a children's ER next to the regular ER. She stopped crying before we got there and really was a trooper.

We saw a doctor then waited for the nurse to put some numbing creme on her head. The nurse was so sweet and showed Caroline what was going to happen by doing it to her baby doll. That baby still has on her bandage and has been renamed "booboo baby". By the way, do you like Caroline's outfit? She and Katherine were playing Ariel and we did not both to change her clothes.
Daddy finished packing, showered and dropped Katherine off at my mom's which conveniently is located within walking distance of the hotel. Then he stopped by the ER to see Caroline before he had to fly to London. It was horrible for him to have to leave her in the ER.
When they did the actual stitches they wrapped her up in a sheet and then the nurse and I held her so that she would not wiggle. Then they put a sheet over her face that had a hole cut out just for the cut to show through. She did not like that at all. They gave her some Lydocane shots and did 4 stitches. It was not a fun thing to watch as a mom but I could not imagine leaving her there and not being there for her.
As soon as they took off the sheet she was fine. They gave her a popsicle but she wanted a lollipop from mom instead.
So here is my precious baby girl with 4 stitches and a huge bruise. Poor Nana was the one that had to take her to get the stitches out because I had joined Sam in England by that time. The injury has healed up nicely and we won't know for awhile if there will be a scar or not. Luckily her hair covers it up most of the time.
What an adventure!

To the Ballet

A good friend and I decided to take our older girls to see the ballet, Cinderella. They were so excited and got all dressed up.


It was a very long ballet with 3 acts and 2 intermissions. They did a great job sitting still and being quiet though they were a little concerned that Cinderella was not wearing blue and did not have blond hair. Disney has really affected the way kids view the fairy tales.
Afterwards, there was a meet and greet with the characters. This is the prince and Cinderella.

The step sisters were actually boys. That totally confused Katherine.

Our beautiful ballerina's holding up their programs.
It was a fun special event. I look forward to doing even more fun things now that Katherine is older and I can't wait for Caroline to be old enough to go with us.

Zoo Time!

Well, the ballet teacher called at 8:15 to tell us that the 9 am class was cancelled because she was sick. It was a beautiful day so we decided to make an impromptu visit to the zoo.

As we arrived at the Zoo we saw our friends and so it was a fun treat to spend the morning with them.

Arboretum with school friends

Caroline has a really sweet class at school, full of girls. We met up with some of them at the arboretum to play and take photos in the pumpkin patch.

Caroline and Avery

Caroline with "other Caroline"

Sisterly Love

Adventure Princess

I have fun memories from Indian Princess, a father daughter activity through the YMCA. I was so excited that Katherine is old enough to do it this year. Now though they call it Adventure Princess to be more politically correct. It has more of a western explorer theme with settlements instead of tribes.

We had the induction where all of the girls and their dads wore their leather vests (ours is plain and boring right now) and they had a bonfire and ceremony. I have to admit, I am a bit jealous that I do not get to participate in the camp outs but I am so excited for Katherine and Sam to get to do this together with friends.

Katherine's settlement is the Mighty Mississipi's (all are named after rivers). They are mostly girls that live in our neighborhood and will attend the same elementary. We also invited 2 friends from church to join us.

The girls were pretty amazed with the fire.
Some of the older girls put paint on their face, gave them a coon skin hat (which Hooligan ate) and some patches for their vest.

Dan and Eden

Sam and Katherine with Dan and Eden

James and Hannah, Sam and Katherine, Dan and Eden

Matt and Emma

Right now they are on their first camp out and I can't wait to hear all about it.

Fall at the Arboretum (#1)

Every other Friday we are a part of a Charlotte Mason preschool enrichment co-op. I am actually one of the teachers. On an off Friday a group of us met at the Arboretum for a fun day of nature study. It was the day before the pumpkin festival started so the place was already decorated for fall but we were not able to go to the pumpkin patch.

Robert, Katherine, Eleanor, Laurie Jane, Amelia and Sheridan

Caroline was sad for some reason and Katherine tried to cheer her up with "peek a boo".






Laurie Jane, Caroline and Elizabeth enjoyed looking at the fish.