Married to an engineer

You know you really are married to an engineer when you ask him to eyeball your knitting to see if it is about two inches long, and he looks over and replies, no about an inch and five eighth. Seriously people?  He said it was more than 1.5, and not enough to be 1.75.  I want a ruler so badly right now!

Happy Halloween

Arrr mateys!!  We went as a pirate band this year.  It was chilly and wet, and my umbrella blew inside out twice,  but we bagged a ton of loot. For added fun Emily and Sydney had a dental checkup the next day, oops, and no one had a cavity!!!

Yahoo! I made the kids outfits mostly,  Emily's pants I bought, and shirt I had.  But check out her awesome jacket!!  I never did get all the awesome buttons on it though. I also made the awesomeness that was Sydney's hat! Go me:)

Thanksgiving!

Woohoo, I will try and do a better job this year! 

I am thankful for kids who will help me finish a project, and give me space when I am grumpy.  I am thankful for Chinese takeout which tastes yummy after a long day!

I am grateful for a hubby who works hard at a job he doesn't love all the time, so I can be home with kiddos.

Josh's life plans

This morning Josh said

"Mom, when I grow up, I want to be a doctor."

I said, "awesome, that's a great idea!"

Then he thought a moment and replied 

"No when I grow up I'll be a mailman."

Trying to be supportive, I said, "that's great too!"

Then he thought again,

"Mom, when I grow up, I going to be a grown up, and play video games."

Smack the head! #parentingfail. 

Take That!

So maybe I have problems with organization, procrastination, and following through, but there is nothing quite as fun as completing a mundane/annoying/trivial task, looking for it on my never ending to do list, not finding it, writing it down, and checking it off.  Go me!  I'd take a picture, but it's in an app, so....

Tradition, Tradition!

We had a super yummy waffle breakfast this morning in honor of a long standing Rumsey General Conference Breakfast Tradition!

My mom made better strawberries though!

Birthday Boy!

Josh turned 5 yesterday!  I can't believe how quickly time has flown by.  Per his request we had a monster truck themed party.  We played some really fun games in the backyard using inflatable tube that look like tires.  Best prop ever!

He was probably his most gracious ever saying thank you to his guests and being an awesome sport.  It was also fun using the girls as party assistants.  They were big helpers.

Sunday was low key,  with just a cake and presents.  He was wondering where all his friends were though soI think the party/actual birthday concept confused him a bit.

Walking the pets

I have the oddest cat!  I took Baxter for a walk this morning and my cat came too, meowing the entire way.

Costume Making

So Josh was invited to go to a party, and I happened to know he was on a massive super hero kick, so naturally I decided to design a logo, and make a cape for Super Gage!!  Josh would like me to get busy and make a BatmanSuperJosh now!  I am really pleased with my cape and mask,  and discovered I hate sewing on dance wear fabric.  So glad I bought so much of it to make doll clothing:( seriously it is awful to sew!

After I got the mask and cape down, I looked up cute Pirate costumes on Pintrest as it was a themed party where costumes were encouraged, and got too busy to do anything at all about it. So last night I whipped out an awesome pirate shirt and pair of pants.the girls also enjoy being pirates so we will be working on a pirate theme for Halloween!  I'm thinking Elizabeth Swan style outfits for the girls.

Great New York State Fair

I can now say I have been to an actual state fair now!  It was actually a bunch of fun.  We went on the last day, so the big animals were gone.  Didn't see any cows, sheep, pigs, or horses, but ai think we went the wrong way to actually seem them.  We did see chickens, geese, pigeons, bunnies, and guinea pigs.  WOW.  Can I just say I had no idea how want different kinds of pigeons and bunnies are out there that i had no clue existed? They are curly, and ruffled, and some look like their heads are put on upside down and are staring at the ceiling all the time. Totally insane.

We also saw an ton of rabbit varieties, and got to pet the softest rabbit in the world, in my own opinion.  It felt like velvet.  And we also got to see an attempt at rabbit mating as were petting said soft bunny, and now we know where the going at it like rabbits expression comes from, which of course meant that Emily had to query the nice 4H lady about what the bunny was doing to the other bunny.  Smacking the head.  So embarrassing.  The lady sweetly said it was trying to mate, which I think went way over her head.  And we left.   See the fuzzy lump?  That is an angora rabbit.  It was massive.I liked the lionhead one too, but didn't get a good photo.

 My favorite part of the fair was finding an antique Miller's Dairy milk bottle.  That was the dairy owned by my great grandfather.  We went into a neat building with lots of cool historical farming stuff, even a log home replica.  They also tools, and milking equipment and tons of old dairy bottles.  I asked the man if he had a Miller's dairy bottle, hoping he'd have one not on display, and he pulled one out.  he had found it for a collector, but then forgotten to sell it to her when she had come by earlier in the fiar!  Yeah me!  I didn't even realize he was selling them, but was thrilled when Karl suggested I just buy it instead of only taking a pic!  I asked him to let me know if he finds anymore, but it is cool to have a small piece of family history.

 

 And then there were all the rides.  I was so grateful Karl was there and willing to take them on all the otherwise gag inducing rides.  I got a little queasy just watching them all go round!  Sigh.  But they LOVED it!  We have some speed freaks.  Karl really enjoyed the "pick you up and drop your ride" as it "felt like freedom" when he approached zero gravity.  No, it felt like my very overpriced and very expensive fair lunch just attempted to exit!

 

And then there was the giant storm that rolled in.  T

he weather was kept cool by the enormous gray clouds that built up during the day,  Karl proudly informed me that from watching the weather interactive maps, we would be fine.  They lied.  We got slammed with an absolute downpour.  But that just made it part of the fun of the day!  After the storm let up I took the kids to see the Butter Sculptures.  No joke.  Solid butter. 

First Day kiddos

We made it!! Everyone got up, had a decent breakfast, brushed teeth, and got on the bus. Emily had a close call when we discovered she had a new bus stop, nothing like sprinting in your Jammies! Happily her hair looked awesome!!!

Sydney got her homework done this morning which does not bode too well, but we will see. I had to wake up Josh to get him ready, but he was pretty cooperative and didn't freak out about riding away on the bus!

School starts Wednesday!!!

Thank you for the great idea April!  Lunches packed the night before does make me feel calmer. Outfits are picked for the morning,  Josh and Sydney got a haircut from me, tada.  Everyone has bathed.  I rolled every single overnight curler I had on Emily's hair, hopefully it will be cute and not electrifying and I am going to head to bed so that we can all wake up happy and cheerful and get them off to school!!!

Dinner prayer

Josh was giving the prayer tonight

"I don't like eating boogers" 

Vacationing with April

The kids and I got to spend the bulk of this past week with April and Gary in Eagles Mere, PA.  It was a wonderful trip!!  The kids all got along, and things were wonderfully relaxing and fun!  we soaked up the sun on the beach, tromped through the woods to see the Nature Trail,  took a few tennis clinics, and hung out at the cottage!

Nature trail

Being a crazy chicken on the village green

Beach day #1

Boys playing on the iPad, Eli never fussed about not playing.

Reading a good book

Back to the sweet shop!!

Gnome homes on the nature trail

Engineering at work!

Gemma is riding a horse

A little mermaid

All the kids in the gazebo

All the kids after a hard beach day of building a canal or some such sand feature!