Corn Maze!

Today we went to the Right Choices Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch in Southwest City, MO (pop. 855). It was a nice drive up, about an hour and change for us, and pretty much a straight shot, so we made it there without hassle. It's a working farm, run by nice, pleasant Christian folks. We got there and promptly visited the small, red, barnlike structure that were nice, clean restrooms. We paid, went inside and ate a picnic lunch at the picnic tables next to the concession stand. Then all the homeschool group gathered in a large wooden area filled with benches for a lesson about the history of the area, the history and uses of corn, and how to farm a giant corn field. We had a great time, as you can see in the following:



Everyone piled into tractor-pulled carts with hay seats for a tour of the fields and woods. We went all the way around the maze, ending at the line of farm equipment and attachments that were used to farm the field (and new pumpkin patch). Erin had more fun pulling hay out of the bales and scattering it everywhere.



After the hay ride, we lined up to ride the cow train. Erin hopped right in.



Ian decided that he wanted to go too, and the Train (tractor) Conductor said that the big barrels were for grown ups, so I piled in too! (I was the only adult in the whole train.)



The Train went into one side of the maze. The tractor moo-ed the whole time. It got slightly annoying, but there were enough little kids moo-ing along with it that it wasn't so bad.



This is a picture looking into the outer wall of the maze. There ain't no cheating by going through the wall, folks. And there are also mesh walls to hold it together, as we found out later.



There were two slides built into the side of this big hill. The other one was slower, for smaller kids and required riding on a gunny sack. This one was the roller slide and required plywood squares. My adventurous cutie piled into line with the big kids and loved every second. Doubters be gone!



This was close to to the concession/picnic area and was a triple level accumulation of shin-deep corn kernels. And yes, it got everywhere. Ian dumped plenty out of his shoes in the car. Erin shucked her shoes off after a few minutes and kept playing.



This was on one side of the Corn Box.


There was a Hay Tunnel and an Echo Bale. This was the Hay Jump, outside of the opening to the Short Maze (the long one is a couple of miles; I was completely fine with the short one).


Ian took the map with the clues and did absolutely nothing with it. He guessed at every turn and it took us about 20 minutes longer than it should have, but he had fun being in charge. Erin just ran around. I trudged behind with the cooler and my purse.


We survived and were completely worn out.

We went to the Farm Zoo and visited the cute animals. The pig and chickens were Erin's favorite. She 'talked' to one chicken for quite a while (I was going down the slides with Ian, yee haw). Then we did the Corn Cannon, where they help you shoot ears of corn at targets. It was noisy and Erin was tired and crying, so we did not linger. I could tell that Ian could have camped out there for another hour.



So we quickly picked out our baby pumpkins and piled our tired selves into the car for the ride home with a movie and a cold drink.

And guess who conked out on the way home? So now I am ready for bed and everyone else is recharged. Sheesh.

Into the Fall

Things have been different at our house with the death of our computer. The desk is used for papers and bills, free time is used playing inside and out and all my daily websurfing is being replaced by other things, like reading on the treadmill. A good thing, believe me. I find myself composing blogposts in my head at odd times. Like the third night in a row of no sleep when everyone had the flu a couple of weeks ago. What misery!
Now we just have lingering obnoxious coughs. Erin says "Blesh" after every one of them. I guess she thinks they are sneezes?
Ian got his cast off yesterday. In September, he fell off the monkey bars at the big playground (a rare treat for his kindergarten class) and broke his elbow. Thankfully, it did not need surgery and seemed to have healed nicely after 4 weeks in a water cast (we love water casts!!! No itching at all and nice long baths without having to keep anything dry...). Ian's face was comical yesterday as the nurse came at him with the saw to cut off his cast, but he got through it. Now he just has a puny little arm and has to be reminded that he can use it. The first thing he did after getting the cast off was to wiggle a bit and say "Hey! I can touch my ear!"
He is enjoying being able to turn over easily in his sleep and being able to wear long sleeved shirts again, since it was 34 last night here and a bit chilly.
Erin is just buzzing right along, asserting herself at every opportunity, yet still managing to be charmingly adorable at the same time. She is wrapped around Daddy's finger so tight he bounces. This year she was Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween and everyone made much of her cuteness. Ian was a quiet ghost and didn't get it that everyone kept calling him Casper.
My HC is still having fun at work, though the driving all over the place gets old, naturally. The real estate agent wants us to lower our asking price again, but we're not going to. She is not happy with our decision, but we'd rather stay here with our currently manageable payments than end up with nothing left over to purchase again and have to rent the exorbitant prices that are now so normal. Even in our little town, a 2 bedroom rat hole is renting for 5 or even $600 a month. No Thanks! So that's frustrating, but at least we LIKE our house! It's just in the wrong town!
Also trying to save up for Christmas, which is increasingly hard, as anyone can attest. The holiday season always seems to turn into a giant Excess Party, where money and meaningless gifts are flung about in abandon. For the rest of us, who struggle anyway, we wish that others would realize what a big deal it is for us to buy our 20 Christmas cards and finagle the postage to send them. Last year there were some hurt feelings from a few that didn't get a Christmas card from us. I didn't have the energy to explain that we only got 20 and had to ration.
It is so tempting to just gloss over financial difficulties, but so much of normal worldly life is about glossing over and faking prosperity. It's also hard to hear others whine about their difficulties and how Christmas is 'so hard' when they only have $x amount to spend on their kids this year because money is tight and blah blah blah. It's hard to feel sympathetic when you know they make $1,000 a month more than you and eat out every day for lunch.
And now the self-pity part of my post is through. We are grateful for what we have. It could be so much worse. It's just a bit frustrating to see the piddly amount in the savings account, since we've been saving for 8 months.
And there's a fair share of guilt since it was my turn to go to the dentist this time and took a big chunk out of the kitty. I would feel no such guilt if it was my HC that had to go to the dentist. And yes, I really needed to go to the dentist and now all my teeth are fixed, etc. But still! Argh!
In happier news, it looks like we will be having company for Christmas and we are all very excited. Maybe this time there won't be an ice storm and the power won't be out for a week. ;)
Other happy news: we are done mowing the grass until next spring! Yay! Now as soon as we get a freeze, all the flies will die. That is what I'm truly waiting for. Hope everyone is doing well. I miss interacting with everyone. I just wish I could post pictures. That is truly the worst!

Not School Again!

Just read the title in a whiny voice and you'll get what I've been hearing from Ian. We really need to start getting to bed earlier. Like at 7. Erin has been sick again. More Reactive Airway stuff and a cold with it. So she is wheezing and coughing a lot and is attached to the nebulizer even more now that the PA-C is doubling her Pulmacort. And if she's wheezing, it's best to do the Albuterol before the Pulmacort, so that's at least 20 minutes of holding a squirming, energetic curly-haired noodle while trying to get her to breathe smoke. And Someone deposited a Goldfish cracker into the nebulizer's mouthpiece and I didn't notice it right away, resulting in a soggy extraction and a multitude of giggles and ewws from both offspring. That case remains unsolved, though both suspects are under surveillance.

So I've been getting up in the night to do neb treatments. And Erin's lava lamp bulb blew, so I've been lighting tealights. And her heater fried itself last night. Poor Erin is having a rough few days. It was another 3 hour trip to the doctor, too, yesterday. Our appt was for 8:15. They called our name at 9-something. We got home at 11-something. By now I can do it myself. I just wish the nurses would listen to me when I tell them to do her pulse/ox. (We watch her O2 levels when she's sick to make sure she's getting enough oxygen. Yesterday was 95, not too bad, but bad enough to where we had to do a breathing treatment in the office, which would have been irrelevant if they'd seen us at 8:15 and we'd have gone home and done it ourselves!) So we have a follow-up appt Thursday, where we will again go sit in that stupid empty office for hours. Anyway, I didn't mean to go into a diatribe about doctors.
Ian got reader #6 and can't quite seem to remember the bear's name, Tim. He keeps wanting to say Tang. Explanations are fruitless. This one is for the teacher.
We are down to the last week before our holiday visitors arrive. Yay! Ian already has extensive plans for the games they will play and the books they will read and how much time they will spend outside in the freezing temperatures looking for something to do (this is really killing time before you can bang on the door and ask for hot chocolate). We are especially looking forward to going hiking at Devil's Den. Except Elmo will be staying home and Erin will be in the carrier on a grown-up's back. Just to make all that clear. But in the meantime, it is a big toy.
And it's freezing outside! It was so cold this morning, in fact, that Ian opted to drive to school instead of riding his bike. Come on! It was only 28. We drove.
Erin and HC were still asleep so we left them home. And yet, when we walked in the school, I still saw kids wearing flip flops and short sleeved shirts around the school yard. I want to buy them all shoes and jackets. After a certain point (like,hm, below freezing?), the "I'm tough" coolness factor has dissolved and now it's "You poor thing!" I wonder if they would dress properly if they got more pity. We had hats and extra layers. We were the only ones wearing hats. But who cares? We were the only ones with warm ears.
As soon as everyone wakes up and gets moving, we're all going to do errands. Bank, post office, library pickup, get gas, GROCERY SHOPPING. This is exciting because it only happens twice a month. It is also exciting because we are completely out of tub butter, and I can't have toast this morning. Or popsicles. Shucks.
At least we have Ian's balloon hat to play with if we get bored. There was a guy at a table in the mall on Saturday (the last time I will EVER go to the city on a Saturday; I really mean it this time), making balloon creations for tips. We scrabbled for some change and Ian picked this out. He's a funny guy, isn't he. I thought for sure he would pick the sword and pirate hat. Not my litle guy. He wanted the silly hat. You gotta love him.

Labor of Love

Sunday afternoon, I decided to tackle the 2 pumpkins that had been sitting next to the heater for almost a week. I got a recipe for making your own pumpkin puree from the Pioneer Woman and decided to try it for myself, since we are pumpkin eaters and go through a big chunk of Libby's every year. When the pumpkins went on sale for 50 cents apiece after Halloween, I grabbed two.
Well, I didn't bake the pumpkin pieces quite long enough and they took Forever to puree. The motor on my processor got hot to the touch and started to smell like burnt plastic. Greeeeat. I still had two more pans of pumpkin to go. Each pan took over an hour to bake, so consider that as well. At 11 last night, I was still going at it, even though I only gave the processor a few short breaks to cool off. At about midnight, I put the last cupful of puree in a freezer baggie and plopped it in the freezer. Then it was cleanup time. No fun. Did you know that when pumpkin strings or seeds or pieces dry, it is like Gorilla Glue? It expands and sticks like freckles on a redhead (and I should know). Those suckers don't come off. Not even with harsh chemical agents (the pumpkin doesn't either, I tried). The pumpkin, as I found, does come off if you drown it in a puddle of water and let it soak. At least until your husband comes in with muddy boots. Then it's a whole other ballpark.
That being said, we now have enough pumpkin puree for about 8 pies. Or 16 pumpkin rolls. Mmm.
I was talking to a friend last night who asked me why I was going to all that bother. I didn't know what to say. The satisfaction of making it myself? The fact that I actually have an excuse to use my food processor? The triumph of finding a cheap pumpkin? Probably not, but it sounds good.
At least now I can say I made pumpkin pie from the gourd. Oh yeah. I even decided to document my progress, as you can see.
And pay no attention to the nasal aspirator in the one picture. It was clean out of the dishwasher and I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. No, wait, I changed my mind. It was there to show the scale of the picture, right Rachel? Like those geologists do when they put a hammer or something next to a rock. So the nasal aspirator is there to show you how big pile of pumpkin skin is? Suuuure.
There. Witness my insanity. And all for a pumpkin pie that I probably won't even get to taste.

The Two Day Wonder

We've been sick so much, it seems like we'll never get back into our normal routine. Now that Erin is feeling better and Ian is only coughing a little bit, it was Mommy and Daddy's turn to wallow in the tissue box for a while. I've been sick for a couple of weeks anyway, just cold/throat infection type stuff. It eventually goes away if you take some ibuprofen and drink a lot. Chris got sick last Friday and it got worse. He lost his voice for about a day and a half and wheezed some. He used the kids' nebulizer (it's a purple train, I got a laugh out of it) since his gave up the ghost and felt a little better. He took something for his asthma and slept a lot (I wonder what that's like?) and voila! this morning, he feels great. So he had a 2 day wonderbug. And that's it. I, meanwhile, am still coughing, sniffling, sneezing and tripping (that part may be normal) my way through the rest of whatever it is I have still. This is starting to get alarming though, since we are almost completely out of tissues. I even went on an emergency run to the groceryt store and got 2 more boxes last week. This cannot keep up. Something needs to happen!!!
We managed to take down all the Halloween decorations (the spider had moved away for something waterfront) and only had to keep half of them for display in Ian's room. They mysteriously ended up in the trash can after bedtime tonight, so we'll see if he notices them missing.
Erin got rescheduled for her well baby appointment. It's her 15 month and includes more shots. These should be it for a while. She'll also be getting her flu shot; I had planned on the kids getting theirs anyway, but it was stressed that she get one because she is "high risk." Oh well, it doesn't make it any easier to get. My HC and I will be travelling to the health dept sometime in the future to get ours. Last year we were the only ones at his work that didn't get the flu and I don't plan on getting it this year. No way! We missed the free flu clinic here in town because we were in the hospital. Oh well.
Ian got his 3rd reader with 2 new words added on to the rest. Now it's "and" and "Baby". He seems to be having a hard time with And, but he read the whole reader twice with only 2 helps. I don't care how many helps he needs, he's still brilliant to me. Every kid should be brilliant to their parents. That's part of the job, right?? :D
At bedtime last night, Ian was afraid of owls, so I got some old ALL/Febreeze type spray and told him it said All on it because it was Owl Spray for All Owls. I sprayed it around his room where he told me the owls came and he slept just fine. Tonight I had to spray it in more places, but I think it's working. And he can smell the difference. It's a pretty good smell, not overpowering. If nothing else, his room will smell fresh instead of like little boy sweat and other mysterious odors.
Also on my agenda is menu planning for Thanksgiving dinner. My mom and step-dad are coming all the way from FL to get a taste of young family life. Partly because we're so much fun to be around and I think the other part is to appreciate the quiet life and spacious house they go back to when they've had their fill of sharing one bathroom with everyone and listening to constant night trains. As my grampa and I agree, no matter how great your visit or vacation is, there's no place like the home toilet.
But we are all looking forward to their visit. 21 days left, or so Ian's calendar says. My HC's birthday is also coming up. I am hoping to take him to the movies; a grown up movie; with just the two of us. We haven't been to a movie alone since before Erin was born. Another reason to be glad that Gramma and Papaw are coming to visit: babysitters!!! Woo-Ha!
Before I get too excited, I have to remember that it is still 3 weeks away and there are other things to do before then, like getting Ian off to school tomorrow. Erin is still not adjusted to the time change, so she will be wide awake at 6am. Yay.

Unwanted Guest

This morning, Ian seemed better. He really wanted to go to school, so we bundled everyone up and set out. He coughed a lot, but he made it. But now Erin is coughing up a storm and dragging today. I was too. No fun. We were getting the bike stroller out to take Ian to school and I was passing our Halloween decorations. We hung up our little trashbag ghosts and strung up our fake spiderweb. It didn't come with the little plastic spiders, so I raided my stash of Halloween goodies for a few spider rings for Ian and HC to stick in the fake web. Well, this morning, one of them moved. And got bigger. Waaaay bigger. And it was yellow and white and black. Eeeeeeeew. We all froze, then stared at it, fascinated and disgusted and with creepy crawlies starting to shiver over the backs of our necks. Then we shook it off and took Ian to school.

When we got back, Chris spit on it to see if it was still alive (it was) because that's what boys do. When it doubt, spit on it or in it or over it. If it flinches, it's good and you're really scary. :) Guys are so funny.


It's still there. It has moved into the spider version of a model home, I guess. Furnished and even with a fake family so you won't get lonely. But it's really cold outside, so maybe it really needs a home. I hope it knows that its new home will be condemned and removed next weekend. Shiver, blrrrreagh. Not a big fan of spiders here. Ugh.

Here, this will cheer us up. A nice picture of Ian's pumpkin. It's supposed to be a drippy face. Ian had fun cleaning out all the slimy seeds and urging me to hurry up carving it. Now we have to visit it. I think he forgot about it today or else we would be out there lighting the candle and watching it in the dark until our toes turned blue and fell off.
But back to the no fun part of our evening, Ian coughed so hard he threw up his supper and red KoolAid all over the carpet and down the hallway. He then had to interrupt his vomit moment to pee, so we were laughing a bit. For example: "Bleah, Bleah (that's him throwing up). Cough cough. OH NO! I have to PEEEEE!" "Go then," I said, wondering how much would continue until I could start cleaning up. I was also holding a grossed out Erin on my hip. I wiped a tissue over Ian's nose and mouth as he ripped down his underoos and started whizzing like a champ. He had just peed about 10 minutes before. Wow, was his little bladder full. "Wow," I said. "Where did all that peepee come from?" His little pale face grinned up at me. "I don't know," he said. "But it's coming out." And he only sprinkled a little bit. What a buckeroo.
I got him settled in his room with a movie and draped towels over the messes in the living room. Uh oh. Erin felt hot. The battery in the thermometer is dead! I tried to get a replacement at the town pharmacy today, but they didn't have that one. They ordered it and it will be here Monday. Not that it helps me over the weekend. The only thing left is: DUM Dum dum. The Heini-o-meter! [screaming] Poor Erin was introduced to it and her little temp was 101.9. Oh NO! So she got some meds and some nebulizer for her wheezy cough and conked right out. I really hope she sleeps tonight and the temp doesn't go up like Ian's did.
So she went to sleep and I proceeded to scrub red food coloring out of the carpet. Wheeeee.
Now I need to finish up before someone else needs me.

Sick of sick--Part 3

This week has been one thing after another, it seems. The kids started to get the coughs and sniffles back, then some breathing trouble and then Ian woke up with the croup. Sigh. On night 2 of the croup, he woke up and couldn't breathe, so the nebulizer has been our friend, especially the little mask that leaves Ian hands-free so he can play on the computer at the same time. :D
Then last night the fever hit us. It climbed up to 103.4 and Ian started babbling and talking to people that weren't there. I was seriously freaked out. We started the ibuprofen and tylenol rotation. It slacked off after a lot of rocking and cold cloths on the face and neck. It went down to 101 and he asked to go to bed (I guess I wasn't that comfortable to sit on). He woke up at 5 telling me there were owls in his room (his version of monsters in his closet). I went in there, cleared them out and he went back to sleep. I got up at 7 and he woke up with a 101 fever still. Then he threw up the ibuprofen all over his room. Sigh. So we decided to stay home from school today.
I made chicken and dumplings for instant wellness. It sort of worked, though Erin picked out all the dumplings and launched them across the kitchen. I may still have one in my hair. But Ian hemmed and hawed and didn't want it until we told him it would make his cough and sickness go away (doesn't chicken have healing properties??). He quit playing in it and ate most of it, but only because he wanted dessert. But it was a change from the same old request I'd been hearing about all night and all day.
All he wanted was chocolate milk. All night. Then all day. Constantly. He was sick enough to not be bouncing off the walls, but he still bounced on the couch, the bed and the chair. Please Lord can we be well enough tomorrow to go back to school??? Pleeeease?

Camping with the Kiddies

Last week we went camping. This is a monumental thing because though we had planned going several times, we never quite managed to go. To make it a little more pitiful, we have owned our tent for about 5 years and have never even taken it out of the bag until this camping trip.
The weather is getting cooler, the leaves are changing and I sat down and sort of told my HC that we were going camping. Ian had the 16 and 17 off from school for something called "Fall Break," which I wished we had when I went to school. My HC has Wednesdays and Thursdays off, so we decided to take Ian out of school early on Wednesday, go to the campsite and come back on Friday in time for HC to get to work at 4.
We were so excited to finally go! There was a tense moment when we discovered that our unused tent instructions had somehow gotten wet and the pages all stuck together. Trying to unstick them resulted in ripped, unreadable pages, so I had to call the toll free number and have the nice ladies email me another copy of the instructions. Then we packed everything we could think of, including both of our dogs, borrowed a trailer, got Ian and headed to Arkansas.
It was very foggy, even at 1 in the afternoon, so the ride to Devil's Den (about an hour), was uneventful.

We got everything set up and Ian started his cycle of "Oops, I fell in the creek again." From the time we stopped the car until we left, Ian had wet shoes and socks draped around the campsite drying out.


Then my HC started on his Manly Quest for More Firewood and I got baby detail. And doggy detail. And drying soggy shoes and socks detail. But it was so beautiful. That night it was cold, but everyone slept like happy rocks.


On Thursday we decided to go on a hike to see the actual Devil's Den, which is a cave. There are also several sister caves with names like Devil's Ice Box, etc.

There was a very misguided park ranger who informed us that we would have no trouble with the bike stroller on this trail but clearly, he was wrong. My poor HC ended up carrying it a good bit of the way, especially on the half of the 2 miles where only a thin mountain goat would fit.
Ian loved running around and looking over ledges. I lost at least a pound on my racing heart alone as he fearlessly explored. Berry accompanied him a lot, but managed to fall in between two rocks and get stuck, so he was watched a little more closely after that. Buddy plodded along, I'm sure almost comatose from the altitude or exercise or something. Either one, when we got back to camp, he lay down and didn't move for over an hour.
We saw gorgeous mountains and rocks and caves (2 bats!) and were really really sore when we got done. Poor HC still has a sore knee from wrenching that dumb stroller up and down that mountain.
We decided to take it easy that afternoon. We saw the dam and the creek and the extension bridge. We roasted our hot dogs and brats for supper after HC collected a small plateau of firewood.

We also had lots of marshmallows. We heard some splashing in the creek after dark and HC spotlighted some deer walking across (right there!!) to the other side. We were tired and sore and went to bed.


Then it got COLD. Everyone did okay until about 2am. Then Erin woke up, cold and grouchy. She didn't want to be in bed with us. She wanted to be warm and in her
own bed, thank you. I took her to the nice heated camp bathrooms, but there was too much light and she was wide awake. I sat there dazed while she ran all over the bathroom wide awake. At about 3:30 I went back to camp and walked with her, hoping that she'd drop off. I heard an owl and some howling coyotes, which was interesting. She fell asleep until I went back into the tent (all those noisy zippers!!), then started the wailing again. I was tired and frustrated. I woke up my HC (isn't it amazing how guys can sleep?) and told him the situation. "I'm cold and Erin's cold," I told him. "I cold too," Ian chimed in from his little bed with his mound of sleeping bag and blankets. After more crying (Erin) and shivering (everyone else), we decided to call it a night and pack it up.
It was so nice to get home to our heater! The next morning, Erin greeted each individual toy with a peppy "Hey you!" and Ian slept until 9 (Erin slept in, but still woke up at 8). For the rest of the weekend we goofed off and played and recovered. :D



So looking back, our first family camping trip was great. We will be going back in the spring, when it's warmer, to camp some more. Camping with the kiddies? It was....educational. But fun.

Okay Pumpkin?

This past weekend was the Weekend of the Pumpkin. I had gotten a couple of small cooking pumpkins and let Ian decorate them to drippy splendor with his Crayola markers because he was very disappointed that these weren't his promised jack-o-lanterns. Saturday morning was The Morning.


I carefully followed the instructions on the Pioneer Woman website and lopped the stems off and cut them in quarters. Then came the fun part of getting the seeds and strings off. Ian was not so enthusiastic about this part, but he still helped. The chunks were cleaned and baked and then baked some more. Then they were skinned and stuck in the food processor and made about 8 cups of pumpkin puree. Go away Libby's! I don't need you anymore! I have Home Made Pumpkin Puree! It is stacked nicely in my freezer by cupful in baggies. :D
Sunday afternoon, after I finally finished chiseling dried pumpkin strings, etc off of every conceivable surface (evidently Ian had a BUNCH of fun helping), I decided to try out pumpkin pie. My only problem was the recipe. I had a great recipe in my big folder of recipes, but someone (cough cough) had messed with the computer before the recipe was printed off and instead of 2 tsp of cinnamon, 1 tsp of ginger (or whatever) there was 4^%2346549822 tsp cinnamon, 233%$#@&&$@23354 tsp of ginger.
Chaos ensued.

Then I remembered that there was a pumpkin pie recipe on the one can of Libby's pumpkin puree that I had left in the pantry.
So I used that one and the can it came on...I guess I'm saving my puree for the next one.
*Update*: Since the above portion was written, there is now nothing left of said pumpkin pie but a tiny sliver. It is for my HC when he gets home; sort of a little pick me up after he sees the empty pie plate in the sink. ;)



Tomorrow is Ian's first field trip to his teacher's farm/dairy. They will be back by lunch time, but he is more excited, I think, about getting to ride the bus than he is about seeing a farm. We'll see, I guess.