Settling In

I think we have settled into a fairly good school time routine.  Of course, as soon as I say that, something will fall apart and the routine will no longer work.  But for now, it's working.

The girls are still drained enough at the end of a school day that they (especially Kate) need some space right after school. Some days the down time is individual; other days it involves listening to a story on Kate's school ipad.

Still other days the kids can be found listening to Anna read a story to her younger siblings.

I usually have to tell Kate she has to stop reading at 4 o'clock (otherwise she would read all afternoon and then be a basket case for the rest of the evening), and the kids play until dinner.  Dinner, homework, prep for the next day, and finally getting ready for bed rounds out the days.

The girls have both had a field trip or two already this year.  I was able to go along to help with Kate's class as they harvested their garden plot at the community garden.  Later in the week, Matt joined Anna on the 4th grade trip to Old World Wisconsin, mainly to be her extra legs to make all of the movements and transitions safest for Anna and easiest for school personnel.

Kate and Anna are signed up for a drawing class once a week after school on Wednesdays.  They both are enjoying the experience, but it makes for an extra drained Kate by the end of the day sometimes.  Maybe she will continue to grow into these kinds of extracurricular activities.  The girls haven't participated in any activities outside of school (besides therapy) as of yet.  We're okay with that.  Nobody is expressing strong desires to join any clubs, sports, music groups, etc. at this point.  Someday they will, but we will enjoy our relaxed afternoons while we have them.

The lack of extra committments also provides us with free time to schedule appointments (like the traumatic flu shots we had a few weeks back) as well as giving us the ability to make a stop at a park on a beautiful afternoon.

In fact, Ethan and I have been doing our best to enjoy some of these gorgeous fall days, after the exceptionally rainy August and September.  This boy and I have a grand time hanging out at a park just the two of us, or visiting friends (both his and mine).  I'm treasuring this last year of having him home all the time, without the restrictions of a pre-school, school, or nap schedule.  Although Ethan has been known to fall asleep on the way home from picking up his sisters.  Oh, well.

Ethan and Kate have both shown an interest lately in using "real" tools, such as hammers and nails.  Those two had a lovely time nailing pieces of foam together one night.

Then one Saturday recently, Kate and I worked together to make a (very amateur) stuffed kitty.  Kate likes learning these kinds of new skills, even if it's a completely new experience to understand just how much time and energy goes into making something relatively simple.

Another day recently we discovered some visitors in our back yard.  A sandhill crane pair came by a few days in a row to feed on the leftover corn cobs and grubs in the garden.  It's pretty awesome to have a field in our backyard.

Shortly after the cranes' visit, we decided to dig our sweet potatoes.  Although there wasn't a frost predicted, we wanted to get to those tubers before the mice did.  Holy cow, what a harvest we have!

We only found one mouse nest and the critters had only gotten into a handful of sweet potatoes.  Not only were there lots of potatoes, but many of the ones we dug were HUGE.  We rigged up our sweet potato curing room (a.k.a. the basement shower with a heat lamp and humidifier) and these big bad boys have been curing for more than a week.  We're all looking forward to trying out some new sweet potato recipes this winter.

I guess all that rain this summer really helped these plants along with all of the fruit trees and raspberry bushes.

Unfortunately, we have colder weather on the way so not only will we need to turn on the heat sometime soon, but our tomatoes, peapods, broccoli, pole beans, and raspberries will probably give up when we get our first real cold snap.  Also unfortunately, we have our second round of colds since school has begun.  Ethan, Kate, and I have been dealing with sore throats, runny noses, and yucky feelings already.  Hopefully it passes quickly and easily for the whole family unit.