It's That Time of Year

It's that time of year again.

The leaves are turning all shades of red, orange and yellow...

The mornings are crisp with dew covering the grass...

Pots of mums have replaced the summer flowers on my porch and deck...

We're going apple and pumpkin picking...

But it's never REALLY fall until....

I buy candy corn! Candy corn has been in the stores since, oh, July? but I promised Chris years ago that I wouldn't buy any until October. Candy corn ranks right next to Neccos and Peeps on Chris' list of world's most disgusting sweets, so I wait until October to fill the jar on my counter full of the sugary, food-colored goodness.

Lisi can't stand candy corn either, Kierst could take it or leave but Abs and me? We couldn't resist ripping open the bag on the way home from Target. Delicious.

The Look

I was at Home Depot the other day buying wood for Primary, (a children's organization at our church). As I wheeled my pallet-like cart full of 1X4s to the checkout, I got THE LOOK. I've had this "look" many times in my life, it's often accompanied by a smirk. I don't even know how to describe "the look," but if you've gotten it before you know what I'm talking about. I hate it.

Yes, I know how to choose and buy wood. And yes, I'm going to put that wood in my car all by myself, even though I'm a girl. Of course I'd like help, because that's what men do (and if they don't, they should), but please don't treat me like I'm not capable.

No, I'm not a feminist, and yes, Chris is the one who cut the wood--I really don't like to use saws of any kind (I have a fear of them ever since health class in 8th grade when we watched a first aid video, imagine a chainsaw and blood everywhere, that's all you need to know).

I got this "look" in Utah at Lowe's while buying a trough and mud to help patch my sister's wall. I even had someone point out that one side of the trough has a sharp edge and I should be careful not to cut myself on it. My thought was "really? I've never used one of these before (sarcasm) I've only mudded and sanded an entire basement." But of course I only smiled sweetly and said thanks for pointing that out.

I said the same thing with the same sweet smile while being instructed on how to grout tile by our builder's handyman even though I'd already made it clear that I knew how to tile. (At our other house I helped lay granite and ceramic tile in the kitchen.)

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to spend my days doing construction work. I don't want to be a man, I'm not saying that I have the same abilities/capabilities as a man, I certainly know my limitations and I don't mind that I have those limitations. There's a lot I don't know about, don't want to know about, and don't have a desire to do, I'm certainly grateful that I have a husband who can.

I'm a girly girl who loves all things girl (think lace and embroidery and bows and dresses and all of those things). I definately like being "taken care of," I like to be treated like a woman, I like my door opened, to be led through a crowd, for my main man to take charge of situations.

But I've also learned that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. And don't tell me I can't do something because I'm a girl, that's a sure fire way to get me to do it.

All I ask is that you assume I'm capable until you find out otherwise.

A Great Weekend

Last Friday night started our great weekend.

I co-chaired a Fall Hoedown with a friend of mine for our elementary school. This was my 2nd year doing the activity, so it went fairly smoothly (yay for committee members and their ingenuity--they thought to use bunches of sunflowers growing in empty fields by the school for decoration-how great is that?).

We used a great DJ that pretty much took care of the whole evening, she provided games and prizes and entertainment. I'm happy doing the hoedown every year as long as she can dj it!

Kierst with one of her best friends. Wish they were in the same class this year!

Abs dancing in front of the crowd. This girl has some serious rhythm and not a shy bone in her body.

The 5th Graders danced in front of the other kids, here's Kierst with a couple of her other friends.

Lisi got to help lead the chicken dance. Are those hats cute or what?

We left haybales at the entryway to the school for fall decoration. Unfortunately, Monday morning someone spotted a SNAKE in them--we hadn't thought about all the mice that live in the empty fields around the school!! Needless to say they were gone before the kids got to school!

Saturday we went to one of my favorite things--the NICU reunion at Chris' hospital.

On the way there, we rolled down all the windows, opened the sunroof and turned the tunes up in Chris' car. We've done this a couple of times and it has really brought out the girls' personalities. Kierst? Begging us to turn the music down and roll up the windows, she has a hard time letting loose. Abs? Singing at the top of her lungs, if there's a party going on, she wants in. Lisi? Well, look at the pics below to see what she thought:

Yeah, she likes the windows down.

Again, I love the NICU reunion. I get to meet these wonderful parents and their incredible children, many of whom have survived and thrived despite terrible circumstances. I also get to talk with the nurses and NNPs he works with--I have to say, he's pretty blessed to work with such great people!

The reunion is held in a large field adjacent to OP hospital. I'm not sure how many people attended it, I think it's around 500? Abs and Lisi checked out an ambulance and transport equipment...

They fished from a "pond" for silly bands...

They danced to Dino O'Dell...

Meanwhile, Kierst hung out at the "Dunk a Doc" booth. She was practicing to dunk Chris when his turn came to man the booth. All the kids got in on the action to make sure he got wet (and I'll admit I did, too).
I don't know how, but he managed NOT to get his hat wet the entire time!

Sunday we went to another NICU reunion on the Missouri side--see what I mean about a great weekend?? Getting to attend two NICU reunions back to back? How cool is that? This one was a lot smaller, but had some fun things for the kids.

Face painting was a huge hit. Kierst got a peacock painted on her face.

Lisi was up next, of course she wanted a purple cat (these would be her two favorite things right now).
Before:

During:

After:

Abs wasn't so sure she wanted her face painted, she's had it done before and doesn't really like it, but she thought that the other girls' faces looked so good she didn't want to miss out.

She also wanted a cat face. (I have to insert here that I really like Abs without her bangs, as you see her here because of the paint, but I can't convince her to grow them out and if you know Abs you know that if she has her mind set on something she's really hard to sway--and is it really worth the fight? Probably not, sometime she'll grow them out. Sigh:).

Besides the face painting, they also had a photo booth set up. You could try on hats, crowns, etc., the girls thought this was the best thing ever (and I have to admit that it was--I'm thinking about using it for 5th grade farewell??).

Chris and his girls.

Can't wait for next year's.

Lake of the Ozarks

Chris had part of Labor Day weekend off, and we thought it would be fun to head out of town for a couple of days. We couldn't decide where, though. We contemplated Omaha (their zoo is supposed to be great) or St. Louis but wanted to be outdoors since the weather was supposed to be nice, and when I say nice I mean only in the upper 70s, amazing for this time of year!

We thought about hunting for mozarkite (the offical rock of Missouri and probably the only one worth collecting), but the one and only location to gather (in a tiny town called Lincoln) was closed for the weekend.

So at noon on Friday we finally chose Lake of the Ozarks. It's been a long time since we've been there, don't ask me why we haven't gone there more often, I don't know. If you're not from this area, Lake of the Ozarks is beautiful--rolling hills, trees in every direction, I just love it. Kansas City has a lot of the same characteristics, especially on the Missouri side where we used to live. Our development in KS in on what used to be farmland so it lacks the mature trees I enjoyed while living in Missouri (how I miss the giant oak and maples in my old backyard!!).

We scrambled to pack and make reservations and were off after the kids got out of school. Had we thought about all the traffic headed in that direction for the holiday weekend we would have pulled the kids out of school early. Oh well, we still got there in good time, it's only about 2 1/2 hours from our house.

We thought it would be fun to explore the caves around the area. Missouri has a huge cave system, there are at least 6,000 known caves in the state. Four large ones are by Lake of the Ozarks. Have you ever been in a cave? There was a great cave by BYU called the Nutty Putty Cave. A friend of a friend had splunking equipment so we went there a couple of times. At one part of the cave you had to crawl through a small space called the birth canal that opened up into a large room, I remember the cave being so dark that if you turned off your light it was absolutely pitch black. I loved it.

We started with Ozarka cave which is run by the National Park Service.

Abs looks so grown up!
Trying to keep the cave as natural as possible, the park service hasn't lit the cave at all. Everyone held lanterns to light their way. The great part of this was that you really got the feeling of being in a cave and we were able to see a few bats and other animals.

We were at the back of the line most of the time with Lisi's little legs, and when you looked back into the cave without any light it was pretty cool. I felt like Tom Sawyer.
Lake of the Ozarks has really changed since we were there last. We looked for some of the places we'd been before, but they were gone. But we certainly had a lot of chain restaurants to chose from for lunch:)

Afterwards we went to Bridal Cave, a touristy cave right off the lake. Talk about the total opposite experience, we went from a cave whose mantra was "save the bats" to one where comments like "look at the rock that looks like the Energizer bunny" were the norm. It was well lit, the advantage being that we could easily see the incredible rock formations, the kids really enjoyed it. We're glad we did the national park one first, though, the kids wouldn't have been very impressed after the 2nd cave!

Yah, it's pretty amazing.

Looking up at the ceiling. I think the guide said we were about 100 feet underground??

The kids fed huge catfish right off the dock.

We spent a couple of hours playing at the lake. Abs and Lisi had a grand time, Kierst for some strange reason has decided that lakes aren't her favorite. I think it's time to take her camping and toughen her up a little:) Chris is, of course, looking for rocksThere's a huge outlet mall at Osage Beach (like the one in Destin) and in the evening we wandered through a few shops. I think this was one of Kierst's favorite things to do. Should I be scared? She's turning into a teenager!!

Sunday we drove back. We stopped at a lake near Clinton, Mo., for lunch. The playground was completely shaded by trees and so the kids gathered acorns and pecans.

We passed through a tiny town called Tightwad, population 200?? or something like that. We had to laugh at this place:

I don't think we'll stay away from the lake as long as we did before. We're looking at condos on the lake with fishing and beaches, I think we'll go back next year!

It's Tough to Say Goodbye

Today was a tough day.

We went through all of our baby items and packed them up for donation. Would you believe that most of our storage room was filled with baby things?

Sigh.

I guess this means we're done having babies.

We thought for sure that we'd have one more, I've always wanted four children (growing up in a family of 3 girls I learned there's always one person left out and always one can from a six-pack of pop left over, do you get where I'm going with this?? Four is just convenient!).

Having a miscarriage last year, though, changed our plans. We weren't sure anymore, we've struggled since then to know what to do. We turned to God, where we always go for direction, we believe that God will guide you on the right path if you ask Him. We got on our knees and asked.

The answer was no.

I don't know why. All I know is that He's guided us many times and we've always been grateful that we've listened, things have always turned out.

So we packed up the baby gear today. Everything brought back memories, visions of Lisi falling asleep in her exersaucer and Abs as a 12 month-old pushing around her toys while trying to run, and Kierst playing with the same spinning toy until we thought we'd go crazy.

It's tough saying goodbye to that phase of my life, not that I love staying up half the night with crying children (I've had my fair share) or the little annoyances that come with the toddler stage(like picking up cupboard contents over and over that they've pulled out). But there's nothing better than holding a baby in your arms, her little fingers curled around yours, her bright eyes staring into yours, or when your child tries to take her tenative first steps towards you, the whole world just seems to sing with happiness at those times!

On a positive note, it is kind-of cool to say that all of our 3 girls were born in the 3rd month of the year 3 years apart (on the 3rd, the 26th and the 30th--that would be in 2000, '03, and '06--yes, there are 3's everywhere). Chris says three is his lucky number!

I guess I'll have to be satisfied holding the babies of all my friends and family! To Lindsay, Kathryn, Tausha, Valerie, Jenn, and Sara: I can't wait for your babies to arrive!!