A Spoonful of Sugar

I wish I had Mary Poppins to help me clean up my house. Saturday Eric decided to take down the ceiling in our family room (the room that now has the stairs in it. For those that have not seen the house, it is plaster, lathe and very old insulation plus filler insulation we had shot into the house about four years ago. You can imagine what kind of a mess that made.

Luckily we thought to cover the piano, but other than that, EVERYTHING on the bottom floor of the house, has a layer of soot on it, some layers thicker than others depending on where they were in porportion to the falling debri. At one point, with the soot all over his face, Eric looked like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: dark eyes, dark eyebrows, scruffy shadow on his face. I had my own sooty look, but didn't care to look into a mirror until Eric decided to take a wipe to my face. My hands are still a grayish color. I think I might have to loose a layer of skin to get it all out.

Eric and the kids helped vacuum and wipe down on Saturday, but that just got the first bit off. So, I've been cleaning EVERYTHING all day today. Washed all the bed clothes because, even though our door was closed, the kids watched movies in there after their early baths on Saturday and were there on Sunday as well. I couldn't see a lot of dirt on the linens, but knowing how many times I wiped kids' feet, arms, hands and faces clean, I know the sheets and blankets needed to be washed.

I pulled out the carpet rug in the office because the ground in soot from debri and dirty feet was not worth cleaning. Quicker to chuck it and call it good. I've sprayed the blinds, which are currently drying outside (thank you Heavenly Father for a beautiful sunnyshiny day). I've mopped the floors a total of four times in the last 48 hours. I've vacuumed and wiped the bookshelves and books twice, the laundry table two or three times, the computer desk has had a vacuum and two wipe downs, the keyboard needs a sponge bath in alcohol, and I'm covering up the couch and chairs in the living room with sheets until I can find something cheap to buy. They are old (a hand-me-down four years ago) and I don't know that I want to rent a carpet cleaner to clean them. Is that lazy of me? Maybe I'll buy furniture for my birthday, but then, who wants something nice when you have kids that, well, are kids?

The kids continue to help clean by not keeping their shoes and/or socks on like I've asked. This afternoon their feet aren't as dirty as they were yesterday, so I must be making some progress. Here's a picture of their feet. The picture doesn't do their feet justice, but then again, they aren't as dirty as they were Saturday and the sunlight through the window helps.

Graigry fell asleep on the couch last night and this morning woke up looking like a chimney sweep. Neta, after four baths in the last 48 hours (two were just rinses, I guess) still has a face soot painted wherever her fingers have landed. Here she is sporting her five o'clock shadow.

They don't mind the dirtiness of it all. Neta actually had fun playing in the mess, rather, helping us pick up insulation, on Saturday. It's just Mom who has to clean things. I just keep reminding myself that this kind of mess has happened before and we, the house and I, did recover and feel clean again.

The Great Pumpkin with an Apple Appetizer

We went to Anderson Apple Orchard for another pick of apples (we are just finishing the bushel we picked in September) with Aunt Patrice and Cousin Jayden. You can't live in Indy and not take advantage of fresh from the tree apples for apple crisp, apple muffins and just good crisp apples so we got together while the kids are on fall break (besides, Xela, Ro and Graigry were feeling jipped that Nate and Neta had gone to the Reads more often than they had). I brought two bags from last time so we only got a peck and a half and it will probably last us another month, depending on if I make apple sauce or muffins with it.

We got home from that about five o'clock after a stop at the dry cleaners and gas station on the way home. I had texted Eric earlier to see if he wanted to do pumpkin patch for Family Home Evening. I looked at the weather for the next ten days and consideration that we are going to be gone this weekend and Eric and I will be gone next Thursday through Saturday, I figured it was Monday night or freeze to death in the name of family tradition. It was a perfect night to play at the pumpkin patch.

We payed, put on our bracelets and then hit the hay. Here are a few of my favorite pictures form the haystack.

"Isn't this kind of high? And you want me to jump?"

"Okay! I trust you to catch me!"Queen of the haystack

I just like this one. I wish Neta had been in the middle, then it would have been perfect.

CORN MAZE

We always to the corn maze. This year, we went early enough that there weren't patron paved paths yet. Usually we go in the easiest and come out the hardest, but we did each one individually this year. Eric is good to let each kid take a turn to say which way we are going to go. Whenever we reach a fork in the road, someone else gets to say which way. We start with Xela and work our way down and start the loop. Sometimes if one person didn't like the direction we were headed, they did a 180 and we went back the way we came. Other times, Nate and Neta, who weren't taking mental location notes, got us to go in circles. We even met some dead ends, which we'd never done before (thanks to the unintended paths connecting the mazes). The maze is another one of our favorite parts of the pumpkin patch.

"That way!"

I like to have the kids hide in the corn, take a picture and then see if we can find them. In the first picture, Aurora made herself a little too obvious, so I picked the harder I SPY MONKEYS in the MAZE picture. Xela is squatting. Nate is better camoflauged because he's wearing light green. I think Graigry is behind or between Nate and Xela.
Eric always talks about how beautiful the corn fields are as he's driving around the state, so I took a picture of them. Granted, this is not driving by them at 60+ mph, but it was still fairly pretty, with the sunsetting through them.After the corn maze, we wanted to play on the huge blow up slide, but it was closed, so the kids did the bouncing castle. Neta kept barking like a puppy. I have a video of it, but it won't upload.

Xela and her Toyota jump (do you remember those commercials)?

Before the hayride, we saw a new addition to the pumpkin patch play things, a "Team Challenge." Eric took the older kids over while I got Nate and Neta out of the bouncy house. Then he came over and said he wanted to race me. I got toasted. You dive through those holes, then climb up a wall then go through a horizontal sandwich, then a vertical sandwich and then some sort of door hole, then you turned around and come back through it. Xela took me on. I think I lost that one too. Apparently I'm not as quick and nimble as I once was.

Xela decided to challenge Dad. He said she cheated. She denies it. Whose side are you on?
WAGON RIDE

Then it was off to the wagon ride to the pumpkin patch. It was the last one of the day and by the time we climbed up with our picked pumpkins, you had to strain your eyes to see if anyone was still out in the field. The camera on my phone didn't like the evening shade, so I apologize for the dark and blurry photos, but it is what was available to me.

"My baby!" I'm the grandparent to a pumpkin. Lovely."It's too heavy!"Just right!

Graigry and his goosebumped pumpkin

Aurora had no problem carrying out her pumpkin...

...but Xela did, all 26.7 pounds of it. She carried it alone, that's the rule. She made it to the wagon, to the check out and then to the car. HEEVE -HO!

Traditional wagon ride family picture, except this year it's in the dark.

SO, we get back, weigh and pay for our pumpkins and then I find the "How tall this fall" pumpkin that we ALWAYS take pictures at. Again, it was dark, but I had to get a picture of each of the kids.

HOW TALL THIS FALL??