A Dozen

Today John and I celebrate 12 years of being married to each other.  We had a date night last night (courtesy of Papa and Grandma) where we indulged in cheeseburgers, beers and a great movie (Argo!).  Hardly any better way to celebrate an anniversary, right? But oh, the uninterrupted conversation!  The chance to reflect on 12 packed years.  

Today the girls and I took in a play at the Des Moines Playhouse - Little House on the Prairie on the Banks of the Plum creek.  Ava and Amelia...

Plus Jessica!  Last year we went to see the Nutcracker with Jessica and her mother. This year a matinee play.  A nice holiday tradition unfolding before us, to be sure.

Since today is actually our anniversary I came home from the play to beautiful flowers from my loving husband...

Our Thanksgiving weekend has been generally pretty low key.  We've really enjoyed having so many days at home, without many obligations - a chance to catch up, unwind.  We put up the Christmas decorations and tonight Amelia helped John finish up the lights on the house....

This is, of course, after John prepped a wonderful Thanksgiving leftover dinner.  Homemade turkey stuffed tortellini in turkey stock.  So delicious, so clean. Amelia was a CHAMPION tortellini roller....

Ava, not so bad herself....

If you're coming to our house for dinner, you better be prepared to be put to work.  Nevermind that Papa and Grandma made our first date night in months a reality.  Let's roll some tortellini! 

Seasons Greetings

How fast has the holiday season come up on us?  Is it just me? A few weeks ago I thought I was being so clever, scheduling our family photos which got cancelled, rescheduled, post-poned and finally happened yesterday now that it is very cold and blustery to try to take outside pictures.  All of the sudden it is Thanksgiving, which was lovely and low key this year.  Our anniversary, which we celebrate with a date night tonight thanks to Papa Ray and Grandma Jo.  But most importantly (for the short ones among us) we got our Christmas tree.

Yesterday afternoon after family pictures we headed out to Howell's to choose the 2012 Christmas tree.  Here's John and the little girls trying to decide which tree belongs in our living room....

Then I hopped in....

Santa was there, but neither of the girls seemed especially interested in sitting on his lap.  Seems like good boundaries to me!

Remember the farm cat the girls adopted last time we visited Howell's?  The one they named Sunshine?  She was there yesterday and her real name is Jane. This meant for sure the girls wanted to take her home.

Once we were home we prepared to feast on the traditional Christmas-tree-setting-up fare.  Yes.  Chicken in a Biscuit crackers, squeeze cheese, chips and dip, Peanut M & Ms, grapes, egg nog....  Help me Rhonda this was actually dinner last night!

The tree, she's a rag tag beauty.  We are really enjoying this long holiday weekend to restore some order on the home front, stay pretty close to home, celebrate milestones and prepare ourselves for the busy holiday season.

November Golf

Another completely chance encounter with a beautiful November day today led John and Ava out to the golf course.  Amelia and I went to the walk in pedicure place where she got her toes painted purple with some pretty flower decorations while I apologized to the poor woman who tried to give me my first pedicure since the marathon. Yeah, my toe nails are still pretty much a mess.  But at least now they are painted a lovely dark red!

The golf carts are put away for the season, so golf today meant walking. Here's sweet Ava, future LPGA tour member....

But this picture tells the whole story.... check out the caddie.

Reset

Last night was one of THOSE nights.  You know, those nights where the house seems very small, the girls were bickering, we were tired and I just couldn't wait for bed time.  One of those nights that reminds me of this post, the genius "Don't Carpe the Diem," in what can be the hard work of parenting.

I went to our mud room/pantry/catchall tiny closet of a room that holds way too much stuff and desperately needs to be cleaned out - to get some napkins for dinner and saw on the top shelf of the closet some sparklers left over from the 4th of July.  To try to break up the mood of the evening I sent the girls outside (gorgeous weather yesterday) to do sparklers.

They were thrilled....

Disco pose...

Playing with that box of sparklers kind of reset the whole evening.  For them.  For me. After dinner the girls got out the yoga mat and their box of yoga cards and practiced.  Amelia - up dog!

Trying to get to double boat...

And their favorite - double dog.  Remember?

Don't get me wrong, bed time still couldn't come fast enough.  The girls were still bickering some.  We were still tired.  But it was a good reminder to me to look for the small things to reset the tone, rather than just endure.

Kairos.

Living History Farms

Oh am I ever a creature of habit.  I grab on to nearly any opportunity to establish a routine, a ritual, a tradition. Three years ago I ran my first Living History Farms race with a few friends from my running group.  I had such a good time, but the whole time I was thinking, "this would be so much more fun with John."  So last year I talked John into running it with me last year and we both talked Brian and Hilary into making the trip to Iowa with their whole crew to join us. 

This year we signed up with Meghan and Lane (who had a work conflict and wasn't able to join us at the last minute) for Meghan's first go at LHF, my third and John's.... 10th?  In short, we had a ball.  Seven miles, eight creek crossings (even though the water was low due to the drought) and three pairs of muddy shoes in the garbage later and I am most satisfied with this end-of-the-running-season/pre-Thanksgiving tradition.

With my people, post race....

The Last of the Warm Air

Today in kind of a freaky weather day - temperatures hit the mid-70's.  The wind has been blowing us around all day and there is a cold front on it's way in.  Temperatures are expected to drop more than 30 degrees in the next 12 hours. We know we are surely enjoying the last of the warm air for 2012.   Trying to soak it up the best we could Amelia and I hit the trail (she rode her bike, I ran) and then this afternoon we went to Howell's to see what kind of activities were available.

Howell's has been a bit of a tradition for our family, both in the Fall and at Christmas time for our Christmas tree.  A few examples.... Fall 2008 and Fall 2009....  Fall 2011 and Winter 2011. This year I thought we might miss our Howell's trip.  Grandma Jo took the girls to pick their pumpkins a couple of weeks ago, but I was so happy the weather opened a little window for us to head out there today.

Ava and Amelia, climbing the long log.  I tried to get Amelia to show her face more, but she was insistent that she photo bomb.  (Her new favorite photo opportunity).  My goodness Ava is so tall!

The little girls, together atop the log.

They've added a new feature to Howell's - a quite well stocked pretend kitchen for making mud pies.  They have dirt and rocks and corn husks and an actual oven.  Two kitchen cupboards, a peg board filled with spoons and and sieves and rusted pans.  The girls played in here for almost 45 minutes, so lost in their pretend play they looked startled when I asked to take their picture....  At one point Amelia came running over and said, "Mom, it's such a nice day, why are we they only people here?"

Besties....

The nicest, calmest farm cat followed the girls around the play area today.  The girls named it Sunshine.  Sunshine was very calm, purring and quite tolerant of being carried from place to place.  Ava said she'd still rather have a dog, but this is a very nice cat.

And speaking of dogs.... any idea why Orbit gathers up his lovies and stacks them up by his food bowls?

Happy Election Day!

Happy Election Day!  Ava and Amelia's school held it's election today and "Obok Obama" won every classroom.  (Affirming our lefty choices, of course).  Here Amelia models her "I voted" sticker.  Atta girl!

Happy Birthday Lane!

Sunday night we celebrated Lane's 24th birthday with family dinner at our house.  The birthday boy chose chicken piccata with mashed potatoes and Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies with ice cream for dessert.  We are so happy Lane is back home, so proud of his service and very proud to see the man he is becoming. 

Just because you don't have birthday cake doesn't mean you don't have candles to blow out!

Proud dad photo bombs the birthday candles....

Am I the Only One?

At our house laundry is my job.  I will freely admit I take this on willingly - I have very particular rules about how the laundry is done - I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to either understand or follow them.  So laundry is my chore.  Sometimes it is just so defeating. You are never, ever done with the laundry - right now I am wearing dirty clothes - it is not possible to ever be finished.

But this week the laundry totally got away from me.

Last Wednesday (yes, more than a week ago) I went to Cedar Rapids for a budget meeting.  I was only gone overnight.  But here in our bedroom sits my suitcase - with just a handful of clothes (plus the bag that held my workout clothes) sitting in it.  I've walked around it, stubbed my toe on it as I leave in the dark for my early morning runs.  But can I unpack it and put it away?  Apparently not.

And over here we have our basket of clean clothes.  Yes, I said clean clothes.  These used to be folded neatly, just waiting to be put away.  But during the last week we've rooted around in this basket looking for things, we've thrown things on top of that basket of clothes, but these clothes have not been put away.

And here is our hamper of dirty clothes, piled so high we are relying on the corner to keep the dirty clothes from spilling all over the floor.

It is time to get after it and restore some order.  But really all I want to do is take the lead from Orbit, find a patch of sun and take a little snooze.

Turning the Page on the Calendar

And suddenly it is November. Our Fall is moving so fast I can hardly tell where the days go.

Amelia has always been a big helper - she delights in being asked to tackle tasks, be a big kid.  She loves to help me get dinner together and it has been fun to give her increasing responsibilities.  The other night she tipped and tailed all the green beans with a real, honest to goodness sharp knife. And did a great job of it.

Tuesday night was Beggar's Night, the night-before-Halloween- trick or treating tradition in Central Iowa.  The girls dressed up as Laura Ingalls Wilder and Carrie Ingalls. It was a gorgeous evening for trick or treating.  My brother Marc, home from the Peace Corps in Senagal, snapped this picture of me, John and our prairie girls.

Here they complete the trio with Mary Ingalls, aka Ava's bestie Jessica....

My mom and dad and brother Marc came over for dinner (this Cheesey Corn Chowder, which I modified a bit, but is delish) which the girls ate a few polite bites.  Then went trick or treating and parked themselves on our porch to hand out candy.  And eat some.... see all those wrappers?

What? Who us? We only ate one piece mom!

Ava has joined the Indianola Swim Club, which has been such a great experience.  She has learned more about swimming in the last month of practicing with them than in 5 summers of swimming lessons.  She has always been comfortable in the water, but has never really had a swim stroke that was recognizable.  Here they practice 4 nights per week, but there is no expectation kids come every night.  We usually make it 3 times per week...  The coaches do an excellent job of helping the kids wherever they are skill-wise.  The club participates in meets, which I think is probably a few months off for Ava. She needs some more time, but man is she stronger and more confident in the water.

On nice nights I take Ava to swim club and bring Orbit with me to go for a walk while she practices.  Orbit is a smart pup and knows this.  Last night while we were getting stuff together he parked himself in his travel kennel and would not move until he was sure it was time to take a walk.  I know his eyes look a little crazy here, but I had to show the picture of the pooches waiting for his evening constitutional....