Virtual Coffee

Hello! It's Tuesday, our weekly Virtual Coffee date.

If you were really over at my house for coffee today...it would be sunnier than this picture. I took this picture over the weekend because the clouds were fantastically gorgeous. So many colors and shades of grays and blues and even purples. And those mountains?! Can you believe how pretty they are when they have snow on them?

I'm sure you would have noticed our jack-o-lanterns on our front porch. We carved them Sunday night.
We always carve them the weekend before Halloween. This year Julia actually "helped".
I love carving pumpkins. This year Elisabeth wanted a cat face for her jack-o-lantern.
Evan's pumpkin is oddly shaped, so he made his a sleeping pumpkin.
Julia's is Mickey Mouse, of course. I chose to go with a traditional jack-o-lantern face.
If you were actually sitting with me at my kitchen table sipping coffee...you'd notice that Elisabeth is not here. School started yesterday and she was absolutely thrilled to be going back. I would tell you, though, that I miss her. I don't miss the bickering between the girls, but I miss chit chatting with her. She's so funny. Which would remind me to show you this:
I found about 20 more pictures just like that on my camera when I was down loading pictures to the computer this morning. She had borrowed my camera for her "class's" school pictures. I laughed very hard when I saw them all. Most of her students are animals of some sort with a few actual dolls thrown in for good measure. Here's her star pupil:
I tell ya, that Elisabeth is a hoot.
So, we're back to normal around here. Well, as normal as it ever is around here.
We'd discuss the weather and how cold it is today (40 degrees!) and how windy it is. You'd mention that I have some plants blown over outside and I'd say that I've been finding things blown all over the yard all weekend. I'd ask about your Halloween plans and tell you about ours. I'd have to squeal and tell you that my best friend is flying in on Saturday! She's staying about 5 days with us and the week is dragging. I'd tell you how we've known each other since we were babies at the nursery. Then we'd just talk and laugh and drink coffee that is so perfectly warm on this cold, cold day.
As you were leaving...we'd rush to say good bye because you'd be running to your car to get out of the cold. I'd send you off with some banana bread and loud wishes that you make sure and come back next week!!!!

This week...

We are preparing for Halloween. My favorite holiday!

I have told you of my love of Halloween before.

We carved pumpkins last night. My favorite fall activity!

We're getting the house ready for Elisabeth's Halloween birthday party on Sunday. I have to finish buy some last minute things for Evan's costume and my own costume, but the girls are totally ready.

I shall be stalking the weather to see if it'll be as lovely of a weekend as it has been all fall.

I AM SO STINKING EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, next month is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I participated last year and shall be doing so again this year!!! So, next Monday I will begin posting one post daily here the whole month of November. I hope you don't get sick of me!!! ;)

Sisters.

Growing up, my little sister and I fought...a lot. It wasn't ever very physical (my mom did NOT allow hitting), but we bickered like professionals.

Terra and I are 18 months apart. Once I had Elisabeth and realized that I would have been 9 months old when my mom got pregnant with Terra, I asked her in an incredulous tone, "Mom! What were you thinking having us so close in age?! I wasn't even one year old when you got pregnant!! Why did you just enjoy that fabulousness that is me a while longer before bestowing a sibling on me?!"

My mom just smiled and said, "I wanted you two close together so you could play together and be friends."

While my moms intentions were honorable, she couldn't have born two more completely different people if she tried. Where I was talkative, outgoing and loud, Terra was soft-spoken, shy and timid. School was quite easy for me and I loved everything about it, while Terra struggled with a learning disability no one would catch until she started college. Our friends were different, our interests polar opposites. We clashed constantly.

We fought about everything--sharing clothes, sharing toys, whether or not it was okay to talk to me in our room when I was trying to sleep (it wasn't), whose turn it was to choose a tv show, who would get shot-gun in the car. We bickered so much and so often, we didn't even know we were fighting. It became our way of communicating. Most of it was lighthearted and not meant to hurt. When the words did hurt, we'd try our hardest to make the other one laugh so we'd know we were ok with each other. Cause if one of us went to mom in tears (by the way, Terra's a total cry baby) then the other one (me, cause I am not a crier) would be in trouble.

My dad, being the youngest of 1 girl and 3 boys, did not understand this bickering. He and his brothers physically fought it out or just ignored. He couldn't tell the difference between our playful fighting and actual fighting. I remember numerous occasions when our dad would tell us to stop fighting and both Terra and I would look at each other with raised eyebrows; we hadn't been fighting, just talking.

I love my sister though. And even though we don't talk on a daily basis, (which totally drives my mom crazy) when we do talk, it's like no time has passed since our last conversation. We're still very different people, but my sister has a lot of qualities that I admire. She's loyal, she has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know, and she is the clumsiest person to walk the face of the planet and can laugh at herself and doesn't care if I laugh at her too. She also understands me better than I like to admit most of the time. However, she's also knows exactly how to irritate me to no end. Still.

I've been thinking a lot about how Terra and I were growing up lately because I am raising two very different girls.

And they have been fighting like two caged animals the past couple of weeks. Part of it is that Elisabeth is on fall break, so there's a lot of time together. But, most of it is that Julia is fighting for her spot on the sibling ladder.

If Elisabeth gets something, you'd better darn-tootin' have something very similar for Julia in your other hand. She's been bossy and aggressive and (quite frankly) annoying towards Elisabeth. Elisabeth, bless her heart, has been her usual sweet self about it and has been taking Julia's moods with a grain of salt. That's not to say there aren't times when Elisabeth isn't the one who instigates the arguments, because she totally does. I am thankful every day that they are 5 and a half years apart and not 18 months (mom!).

The thing is, though, Julia adores Elisabeth. She wants to be with her and play with her and be just like her. Elisabeth's been calling Julia her copycat because Julia mimics her constantly.

But the bickering? Oh, my. I'm sure I'm being punished for all the fighting I did with Terra. I'm sure that this is fate's way of making me feel sorry for my mom and want to call her and say, "Why didn't you sell us? Why didn't you pawn us off on unknowing family members?!".

So, I'm trying to keep it together. I'm trying not to just yell at them to shut-up for the love of that is good and holy in the world. I'm trying to give them the tools to work out their problems and to curb the tattle-telling because I can not handle that at all. Terra was notorious for her tattling. (My sister's nickname by our entire extended family? Tattle-Tale-Terra. There was even a song. I'm not kidding.)

I'm also trying to stop accidentally calling them Terra when they are getting on my nerves. But, seriously, I slip and call them that all the time.

Pumpkin Patch

There are lots of things I took for granted being born and raised in Illinois--long rainy days. Grass that grows without daily watering that costs lots of money. Squirrels.

But something that it didn't even occur to me that I would have to search and scrounge to find in Colorado were apple orchards and pumpkin patches. Apparently, due to its desert like earth, apple trees and pumpkins don't grow as readily here as they do in Illinois. We found this out last year when we googled apple orchards near us and found the closest one was 1.5 hours away and only offered 4 types of apples--red and golden delicious, gala and granny smith. I can buy those at the store, thanks.

This year, however, I was determined that we do something "fall-y". Something that had been a tradition in the fall when we lived in Illinois. When my friend Rachel said she found a pumpkin patch with a corn maze, I said yes! Sign me up!

When she said it was 1.5 hours away, I told Evan that it was not a choice, we had to go. Then he grumbled and pouted and agreed to come along. He couldn't say no to my reasoning of, "But we have to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

This is what Julia chose to wear. She was channeling the 1980s.
As soon as I stepped out of the car I was hit with a smell so lovely, so intoxicating that I breathed in as deep as I could. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what it was--corn. I was smelling corn. Fresh, sweet and so much like home. I was homesick. I grew up with that smell and didn't realize how much I miss it.

We started with the corn maze. Julia kind of hated it. She kept tripping over the rows of corn and then would whine for someone to hold her. She's not really an adventurer, our Julia.
Elisabeth, however was eager to explore the maze.



When Julia could handle the corn maze no longer, Evan and I took her to play in the pumpkin patch while Rachel, Joe and the older kids kept going through the maze.



The corn bin was very fun for Juju.
It's odd to see mountains behind the corn field. Well, at least for an Illinoisan.
Julia kept seeing other kids being buried in corn and asked Evan to do it to her. But, when he started pouring corn all over her, she seemed to be less than thrilled about it. I don't think she realized it would be kind of a messy process.


And then there's Elisabeth, who cares nothing about messes.
Corn angels.

We each got to pick a pumpkin to take home. Elisabeth found hers immediately.
Peter was next to find his. (Goodness, I love that kid)
Weirdo.

Julia was pulled around in the wagon by a Jedi master.
This is her asking me to help her after she'd fallen. This is me taking her picture instead.
We had a lot of fun. We ended up staying over 2 hours and the bigger kids went back into the maze again. Julia was fascinated by all of the pumpkins, which is exactly why I wanted to go this year. She's at that fun age where this is all new to her and I wanted to be able to share the experience of a fall tradition, even if we had to drive 1.5 hours just to get there.

Julia's pointing to the moon saying, "My moon! My moon's awake!"
This weekend, we shall be carving our pumpkins!!! My absolute favorite fall activity.

Virtual Coffee

Hello! I can't believe it's already Tuesday. I'm sorry, where did the time go again?

Well, let's link up with the lovely Amy over at Lucky Number 13 again for some virtual coffee.

If you were really coming over to my house for coffee today... I would actually want to sit outside and drink it. It is yet again another gorgeous fall day here. I am absolutely loving it.

I would tell you that we went to a pumpkin patch this weekend. I plan on posting about it later, but the girls had so much fun. We didn't go at all last year and I wanted to make sure we did this year because Julia is at that perfect age for exploring pumpkins and all kinds of fall things.
If we were really having coffee today... I would tell you that yesterday, I lost it. Again. That Julia was so overwhelming that I cried and begged Evan to come home on time. I then left for a while so I could be by myself. She is just so much sometimes. And her love language is totally touch and mine is so totally not that at times I am just on sensory overload.

Plus, she does things like this:
Oh, yeah. She's running an entire thing of yarn around my kitchen island. That was last week.

I really try to keep it together though, because, dag-nabit, the girl is so stinking lovable.
She's funny and sweet. She's just so totally two years old right now that it makes me want to pull my hair out. I keep reminding myself that I will (eventually) miss all of this. Not yesterday though.
As we sipped our coffee outside...I would tell you that I did a lot of canning this weekend. Well, I observed and helped. I've always wanted to learn and am lucky enough to be surrounded by friends here who know how and were willing to let me stand in their kitchens for a few hours and stare at them and ask lots of questions. I have some prickly pear jelly to make on my own today. I'm actually quite excited. I am such a cooking dork.

I would also mention that may cat, Roosevelt, has been escaping every day and roaming our neighborhood. He also has managed to take off his third collar and lose it somehow. I swear he is a genius.
As we were saying our goodbyes and I was thanking you for listening to me whine about the toll of parenting...I would try to sneak into your car with you. The girls can fend for themselves today, right?

No?

Oh. Well, then I guess I'll stay in the house with them. Maybe we could do some baking today. And there's always the park too. I guess I'll give the "Mommy" thing another go.