Field Trip

First Kindergarten field trip: Pumpkin Patch (did I confess that this was back in October? makes sense for a pumpkin patch visit I'd say)

Camera: Check

Little Girls Being Watched: Check

Chaperoning Like a Real Grown Up: Check

Sit Back and Enjoy: Check

Bus ride shenanigans

Standing in a patch of pumpkins with your friend.

Cheeser

This is Payden and her best little buddy at school.

The kids learning how to make real apple cider/juice and then tasting it. It was quite delicious!

My group with their teacher, the lovely Mrs. Johnson!

Most of their class

This was pretty cool...

Hazelnut's galore!

Clearly Lincoln thinks as highly of hazelnuts as I do!

Hazelnut angel? Okay

Hazelnut glee, alright.

Hazelnut bed...sounds good.

Hazelnut hat, makes sense to me.

This poor pig did not like all the attention he was getting from the sea of children.

Filling in the time with songs from class

I love getting to be a part of the kids school life regularly. It's one of those things that you weigh when talking about public school vs. homeschool. I would love to accompany my kids everywhere and help them in situations that are tough, or hurtful, or confusing! But I also love that I have a God who trusts me with these people and we are training them up to be bold, loving, and awkward at times proclaimers of Him. I'm already seeing the way God is using my kids and our family in their school, and the fact that I get to regularly have a pulse and presence only encourages the kids that much more to be who God created them to be, and I am blessed indeed!

Oregon @ Stanford

It was quite a day! It started when we left the hotel bright and early for Game Day. The best? Ben & Missy's car did a coffee run for everyone...seriously a lifesaver!

This kid was living the life

Some of my favorite signs

Walking around the beautiful Stanford campus...

While Jer, Amy and I were walking back to our tailgate there was a friendly group of older folks in subtle Oregon gear out for a brisk walk. So what did we do? We 'go Duck'ed' them. And the last gentlemen smiled handsomely and Jer did a quick double take. And then stuttered over himself trying to think of what to say. So he goes 'excuse me', and they turned around hesitantly. Jer 'sir, can I ask you something real quick, do I know you?' Sir "I don't know, I don't think so". Jer 'can I ask you your name?' Sir 'Some people call me John Smith' with a knowing smile and turned and kept walking. Jer immediately freaks out, that was Phil Knight! So I yelled "I love you Uncle Phil", apparently you can't get me anywhere near famous people. We were freaking out. The people walking by all started muttering, is that Phil Knight? It was fantastic.

Missy is quite accustomed to her SoCal warms and needs a little extra protection from a cool refreshing day...but I have to say, not many could pull off the look like she can!

Our tail-gate area.

Best friends!

These were our tailgate partners.

We are Oregon! Aren't you scared?

I love me some Missy time! Seriously is it December yet?

Our seats!

Hehe

We kept screaming 'Best day ever'

Cutie patootie Mullen's, oh and Callie ;)

I love my Ducks

We were a teensy bit excited and may have pee'd our pants a teeny bit. There I said it!

The gang, post-win

My honey...I just love him!

Woohoo, the hat really makes it!

Now you can't ever leave me!

Teehee

Why the long faces Brown's?

Gotcha!

It's one of those trips that you want to re-create but know you never can. I just kept thinking about how I'm really a grownup and on my own vacation with my friends. I doubt it will be the last one! Like I said so many times, I love my Ducks, but I love my friends more!

Why Not?

Okay so here we go. Be warned, I'm trying to get a little caught up. Which means finishing up multiple blog posts that have been sitting here incomplete and unposted. There may be things as far back as our trip to the Stanford game, Christmas, Winter Youth, Pumpkin Patch Field Trip, dream re-tellings...yeah this is embarrassing!


Why not? Life with kids is something I always dreamed would be a part of my story, and I wont be foolish to say that I didn't know how much that would really shape me. I mean come on, if you've spent any time with another human being, large or teeny, you are aware of how intensely you can love them, and how aware of sin you become (both in yourself, the other, and the world), how big the saving news of the cross seems, and how marveled you can be at God's creation.

Unexpectedness is a daily thing I face, big or small. Whether it's milk spilled at breakfast, sometimes it feels cry worthy by the way, a child refusing to walk, a nugget of gospel gold spoken by one of my offspring, washing machine breaking on a particularly muddy day, neighbors showing up to play on the fly, walking into the bathroom and realizing the girls tried to make a 'potion'...you get the point.

So why not christen my unintentional blogging hiatus with a puke story?! Sorry but this is happening. A few weeks ago Jer preached at a church in Astoria. Which meant of course that I wanted our whole family to go. The pastor and his family had been on vacation that week and asked Jer to take on that Sunday so they could enjoy the end of vacation without the job of preaching on Sunday. So we packed up, hit the MickyD's drive through and were on the road by 7:30 dressed in our Sunday best. By about 8:45 we had been hearing Taylor whine about her tummy for a while, and if you know me you know it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers. Now for a little context before I look like a bad mom, the kids have perfected the ailment excuses and I'm usually pretty keen to when they want something (usually one of three: TV, staying up later, or being done with errands), and when it's legit. Well this time we were in the Durango when it happened. Taylor lost it...big time. Oh and it was vile, we'll just leave it at that. Of course it was raining...hard. We pull over and at this point in our parenting careers, Jer and I have become a pretty slick machine when it comes to cleaning up after and incident such as this. It started with just bailing all of the contaminated articles on the side of the truck stop exit in the rain, you see, in our car we're a little more prepared than we found ourselves this time, bags and Ziploc's and often changes of clothing are usually much more plentiful than they were here. And instead of continuing on with the high probability of more getting sick from the smell we decided to pick up the 'goods' on our way home with a little more preparation in place. A little pro-wipe down action, car-seat swapping (yes we even left the car seat, no chance on this momma's life that thing was being used until washed and disinfected), and Taylor dawning a coat for clothes we were on the road...again. At one point I jumped to the back next to my baby who was still pretty whimpery, and comically thought I'd use the paper McD's bag to catch the inevitable, Hailey's coat was down for the count after that...yeah that was fun.

At this point we were running a little late, and Jer was gracious as ever, he is a timely man always prompt/early to anything he does. I just love him and the way he loves our family. We ended up driving past the church to a Fred Meyer where I ran in to find something my frugal brain would let me get so Taylor didn't have to continue through the day in her skivvies. And made it back just in time for her to loose what little was left in that poor girls tummy. Another car seat down. Sigh. I'm tired all over again! Jer ran in to do his thing, and we moseyed on to the bathroom to regroup a little bit. The three big kids went to their little class and TayTay snuggled with me. After church there was a potluck and we went back to the pastor's house with their family to relax and hang out, and wash some stuff!!!

Kids are funny when they're sick like Taylor was, no fever pretty much means they act completely normal until the dreaded moment of blech. So she was playing like normal and had just gone back to the daughter's room when we heard her cry I ran back as quickly as possible and sure enough once more. Poor baby. I quickly plopped her in the tub for a good washing and when I went to clean up the room I discovered the benefits of being in the house of a nurse. My new friend was already finished with a bucket and gloves and there was not a smell in the room. In that moment of exhaustion I felt God gently telling me that he's got us. Even in the midst of the crazy, he's got us, and it's all good!

So what do we decide to do? Go explore Astoria, it was a beautiful day and we had come this far. We obviously packed ready for some hazmat emergency but like I said Taylor was her normal adorable self in between episodes.
 

 
We went to the Column, and got to fly little wooden planes off the top. It was pretty epic for the kids. Even our little sickie made it to the top, with a little help from daddy at the end, and I'm glad to say she didn't get sick for the rest of the day. Oh don't mind the manhandling that seems to be going on with Hailey, she was quite set on not being in a picture and she is more dramatic than what meets the eye! Our ragamuffin littles with borrowed jackets and outfit for Tay. Oh the best part was my Mennonite get-up as Jer called it. I borrowed tennis shoes for the climb but brought no change of clothes...it was quite fetching.

And then there's my happy goonie, his dream came true getting to see the house from the movie he grew up loving!

We made it home, picked up our goods from the side of the road without incident. In the middle of the night we were visited by a tear stained face two year old who got sick on last time...but we survived and there aren't many cuter than this thing to have to clean up after. They always seem so scrawny after a round of puking. Don't mind my non made up face, it was a LONG 24 hours!

Aren't you glad I'm back? Stay tuned for my random out-dated updates!