I've been steam juicing grapes since 6:30 this morning, most of the day yesterday, and the day before. I love making grape juice, especially when it is cool and rainy out like it has been today and yesterday. It makes my house smell yummy and it's easy. And we get delicious and nutritious grape juice sealed in clear glass jars that look gorgeous on the pantry shelf. I've done 83 quarts so far. Nine 5-gallon buckets down, 1 to go.
In between squeezing the little thing to pour the juice in the jars, and doing laundry, and playing with my toddlers, (and being that I am tired and my legs are calling for an elevation) I thought I'd post a few random pictures from the last while, along with some updates on all of us and some kiddy quotes.
(I've actually been working on this post here and there for the last week and a half.)
We'll start with a what's-going-down-with Zoe Charlotte. Zoe girl is 2 years and 3 months old, and is a monkey. She is constantly climbing, hanging, swinging, or jumping from something. She seriously wears. me. out.
Yesterday, I looked out the window and she had climbed on top of the suburban. When Weston went to get her, she was on the ground crying. He wasn't sure if she fell off or fell climbing down. Sheesh. I blocked off the ladder to the loft in her room, but she'll climb up the back side (the ladder is at an angle) and then climb through the rungs at the very top to get up to the loft. Then, once she's up there, she'll call for help. I have to move the doors and climb up to get her. We need to change something there, obviously. A friend was over a couple of nights ago and he was kind of stressed watching her go from one thing to another. And he has 4 boys. He said, "I know you're probably used to her doing that, but can you please get her down for my sake?"
I feel like I'm am always rescuing her, or chasing her, or catching her, or pulling her down from somewhere high, or pulling her away from the puppies (a.k.a. saving the puppies from her choke hold). She loves "nigh-nigh" (Midnight), the cat and anything animal, really. And her babies, of course.
She is also talking a lot more now. She mimics Jiles constantly in everything he does. She learned how to say (a version of) Jiles, so now I am finding out a lot of what he does. She'll say, in a tattle-tale tone, "Dile...." and then a bunch of 2-year-old jargon about whatever he did and it usually ends with the word "me".
She also says, "Mommy, wah!" (or "Daddy, wah!" whichever the case may be) all day long, which means both, "Mommy, watch," because she is doing some sort of trick, and, "Mommy, wasp," because there have been thousands in our house lately and she points them out all day long.
She'll take on a wasp with a pen, has gotten stung so many times that I've lost count, and I even found her holding a wasp in between her thumb and forefinger, saying, "Mommy, wook," ("look") as it was wriggling around trying to sting her. When she kills a wasp, either with a pen or the flyswatter, she'll announce, "I got it!"
Whenever a cow comes around (and this calf is in our yard all the time, so this happens very frequently) she yells, "Daddy, cow! Daddy, cow! Daddy, cow!" until he acknowledges her. We gave her a taste of "bull riding" and now she tells us quite often that she wants to ride a cow.
She loves to dance, and often stands on her chair during lunch and says, "Mommy wook," as she's busting a move. She is also constantly getting dirty, or stepping in poop outside from somewhere, or spilling something down her front. She takes lots of "quick" baths. The mud room sink is awesome for this purpose. Baths make Zoe very happy.
Oh yeah, and she is an artist. She has drawn on almost every wall, and many doors, of our house. I'm all out of Magic Erasers. I never catch her in the act, though. Sneaky. I gave her her own pad of paper and that has helped.
Oh boy, is she a cutie! And full of personality.
Wow, that was a long update on her. The others are a lot shorter. I feel like I haven't said anything about her in a long time and a lot is changing with her.
At 4 years and 5 months, Jiles boy is as sweet as ever. He is the easiest kid.
He entertains himself with almost anything for hours, still.
He is a night owl, for the most part, and has preferred sleeping in the hallway under the light lately.
He wants to wear the same clothes day and night and for as long as he can. He really does not like wearing pants. On Sunday we were having a dispute about wearing church clothes to church, and we finally came up with a compromise for him to wear his white shirt over the shirt he had worn the day before, and his church pants over his sport shorts. You'd better believe the second church is over he's stripping down to his preferred outfit, sometimes before he even leaves the building.
This (above) is a pair of shorts that he has been stuck on for a while. Can you tell? They're thrifted, so they were already worn, and had definitely seen better days. I sewed them up last week. A very crude job, indeed, but sewed nonetheless. And check out all those weapons: vacuum extension things (one makes a great sword, and the other part a great sword case); glove; ruler (another great sword) child dull-tip scissors. He also keeps a gravy baster and funnel and toy guns in his arsenal.
He has been saying a lot lately that the time is 20 o'clock. He wants to say the prayer every time it is time to say prayer. His prayers usually go something like this: "hammaw and hammaw (grandma and grandpa) come back home. drammie and daddad (grammie and grandad) come back home. bwess da hood (bless the food)." Lately he has been praying about going to Noah's house to play with his toys.
Can you find Ezra in the above picture?
One day I heard, "MOM!"
I went in to find him. And found him up there, looking for something.
"I can't get down."
"If you got up, then you can get down"
He could. He did.
He is 7 years and 3 months old, and as giggling as ever, especially when he is not supposed to giggle, like during church and prayers.
He has been asking me over and over to put him in football. It's too late this year, plus we are not doing any sports this fall or winter because of adding a new one to the family. That's enough action. We'll see if he's still interested in playing next year.
Trying to cut Ezra's pinky fingernail:
E: "Don't cut that one! I need it to get revenge on Katelyn."
E: "I want to be a grown up in Idaho."
me: "Don't you want to live in other places, too?"
E: "I want to adventure around the world, but I just want to stay in hotels."
E: "I don't like when I go to the city, and then come home and I'm not tough because no one there hurts me."
I promise no one here hurts him either.
Looking for Kate one day, I found her watering a dead spot on the grass. She saw me and said with a smile on her face, "Mom, I made something up. The green grass is the people who believe in the church, the yellow grass is the people who don't, and the water is the missionaries trying to get them to believe in it.
She loves the puppies and has given each of them, not only a name, but a nickname too. She's 9 years and 3 months. (whoa, I just had to ask myself, "Really? She's NINE??" Yup.)
Spencer, 10 years and 11 months, has been working like crazy to get all of the Cub Scout badges that he can before he turns 11 next month. I am total drill sarge through it. He is working really hard.
He is so sweet with Zoe. He'll get her jammies on sometimes and read to her before bed. So nice and cute to find them asleep side by side. He takes her to nursery every week after Sacrament Meeting, and she goes to him when I need to do something. It's so great.
He is really good at doing jobs when I ask him now (for the most part). I asked him to do the dishes the other day, and before I knew it I heard the dishwasher running and the sink was clean. I cannot even express how nice and helpful that is.
I'm 32 weeks now. The picture above was taken a while ago. Not even sure when, but I am definitely bigger now. This sweet babe pushes from the inside in every direction, like right now.
Weston went bow elk hunting with some friends this morning. He has been going in the evening a lot, sometimes taking a child or 2 or 3 along with him. He hasn't gotten anything yet, but did have a run-in with some trespassers this morning.
He has been working on a fixer-upper house down in town.
He made a motorcycle track that they all like to go on. I even go out around it with the little ones on the 4-wheeler.
A few other things:
The kids all started piano lessons again. It's Spencer's 4th year, Kate's 3rd, and Ezra's 1st.
There is no fruit whatsoever on the ranch this year, due to a late frost. I bought gala apples for 25 cents a pound and pears for 35 cents a pound from the church orchard, canned about 50 quarts of applesauce, and 5 quarts of pear sauce (we ate most of the pears).
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| Kate in a wild plum tree trying to find any plums. I think that she found like 15 or something. She wasn't going to let them go to waste. |
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| The boys wanted me to take a picture of their hair to see if they were the same color and if we could tell who was who. |
Our dog, Maisie, had 7 puppies. They're almost 5 weeks old now. The kids spend a lot of time hanging out with them.
My mom and dad have extended their mission in Poland for 5 more months. I'm excited for them. They may as well extend while they are already there. They teach English, and my dad is the branch president for their tiny little branch, among lots of other things.
Weston's parents' have been out for over a year. They had lots of (unwanted) excitement recently with a lot of unrest in the country due to strikes of farmers and then teachers, and the airlines.
The little hill in the front yard is a popular play place.
We switched rooms around to put school boys together, and preschoolers together. It's always fun changing rooms around. Now most of the toys are all together with J and Z.
We put a screened door on. Well like 6 weeks ago now, I guess. It has been nice. I really like how it makes our house look/feel more country/farmy. We will take it down for winter, though.
Midnight does not like it.
Okay, forever long random update/scatterbrained post over.
And grape juice is done.
100+ quarts.
Woohoo!
