a little ESCHEL commencement (May 2015)

The kids after commencement in 2015 with their certificates :)

Ezzie graduated from K5!

Foofie graduated from 4th grade!

 Buddy graduated from 7th grade!

And Halo graduated from 9th grade. 

a little fun little boys! (June 2015)

The little boys enjoy playing together!

G's favorite shoes: the camo rainboots!!

a little kindergartener (spring 2015)

Ezzie in K5 ... seems like so long ago. Now he's my 1st grader!

 Lunch with his kindergarten friends!

 Show and tell (above and below)!

Story time!! (Ezzie's in orange)

a little lawncare business

Halo and Buddy's lawncare business really took off in the summer of 2014 ... so much so that Halo decided they needed official shirts. So ... she bought t-shirts and hand painted them with "their" colors while we were in Florida in winter 2015!

Buddy modeling his. Their name is Lawns P.L.U.S. Landscaping. Plus is an acronym: Personalized Lawncare; Unique Service.

They now have professionally made shirts but I love the handmade ones still :)

a little Thanksgiving (2014)

The two photos I did manage to take at our extended-family Thanksgiving dinner :-)

Halo and Buddy went pheasant hunting for the first time as well ... (unfortunately the photos are on J's phone)
Except this one of the hunters lunch in the barn.

Fun was had with cousins too!!

Foosball fun!

 Ba-ba's tractors and ATVs in the barn ... how exciting!

G loved the tire swing :)

a little lawnmower guy

Little Guy has been really in to lawnmowers. We have photos of him at various ages with his play lawnmower/weed-whipper (aka long shower head)/leaf blower (aka bat) as well as on the real lawn tractor and pushing the real lawnmower. He gets this from Buddy (who now wants to be called MowerMan) :-)

(these all from September 2014)

a little trumpeter swans

On a walk last fall, Ezzie, G, and I saw some trumpeter swans on a little pond/lake/thing near out house.

(Ezzie took this one ... that's what the angle is so strange!)

a little more photo shoot!

Halo has been really in to photo shoots ... just found another one from September 2014. :)

a little silly foofie and baby

Foof has been really into cameras lately. She took a bunch of goofy videos of G and Ezzie a few years ago. I found some recently from September 2014 :)

a little Florida welcome center fun

It has become a tradition in our family, when we go to Florida every year, to stop at the official (emphasis on official) Florida Welcome Center. We enjoy their fresh OJ and grapefruit juice and take silly pictures at their photo booth and pick out maps.

Here are our "silly pictures" from this year :)

Much fun and sunshine ahead!!

a (nother) little photo shoot

Halo likes to take photos of the kids and has "photo shoots" every so often :) This time, her subjects were the two littles, Ezzie and G.

a little first day of school (2014)

First day of school photos from 2014 :)

Ezzie, K5

 Foofie, 4th

Halo, 9th

Buddy, 7th

(Buddy thought we were going to be late so he didn't want a photo :) )

All four kids crammed into the back of a rental car -- our big van was in the shop.

little gardening

Halo has really gotten her green thumb now :) She is really into gardening and outdoor work. (thanks, G-ma)

Two years ago, she cleared a bit of land and has converted it into a pretty garden (finished product photos later).

Happy in her garden :)

a little catching up

I'm going to be catching up on blogging -- from the last few years :)

And I'll start with a photo shoot from two years ago:


Ezzie, Buddy, and G

Little, or big Foofie!

The littles

G-isims :)

Some little "Gunnar-isms" from the past few months.

The other day, Jensen said, "I'm watching you!" and G replies with, "Don't look at my face!!!"

"no-balls" or "no-fort" for "snow balls" or "snow fort" ... no = snow :)

SUPER everything ... "SUPER sick, SUPER dangerous, SUPER mad"

He loves anything lawn related or machinery.

Wants to go hunting with Hayley and Jensen in South Dakota and keeps asking if he can go!

Pretends he's a dog a lot ... he'll attempt to eat food like a dog, crawl like a dog, bark like a dog, drink water/milk like a dog etc.

If someone does something he doesn't like he'll say, "I'm sooooo mad at you!" or "I'm SUPER mad at you!"

Enjoys singing songs by tobyMac, I Am They, & Rend Collective (post video later!).

While setting the table for dinner, G watched H set the table. She didn't put a cup by his plate cause she was going to get a plastic/paper cup. He looks at her and says: I NEED a glass cup. She replies: Oh, really? Alright, I guess. She brings a mug over to the table and G eyes it suspiciously. "Is that a GLASS cup?" he asks in a huffy voice. She responded, "Yes." He says, "Okay. FANK YOU." (somewhat angrily)

I told G his legs were so fast and strong and he replies, no they're teeny :)

Whenever he wants candy/gum he tells us, "I'm SUPER sick!!!"

When asked what he's doing, he says, "I'm doing stuffin" or "I'm getting stuffin."

a little up north

Ivy caught a big Northern fish up north this summer!

G makes us laugh

A few G quotes from today ...

You know how we say "plug it in" and "unplug"?  Well G says "plug it in" and "plug it out".  "I'm going to plug it out again!" he said.

I was reading a Berenstein Bears book titled Down on the Farm ... and near the end the question is  asked whether farming is hard or fun.  "It's hard!"  G replied.  In the book, the answer actually turns out to be both ... "farming is hard fun".  "Is it fun?"  I asked.  "No.  It's hard!"  He might be right :)

H was going on a bike ride to pick up a chicken from Kowalski's and offered to bring G along.  So ... she asked G if he wanted to go for a bike ride.  "Are we going to Cup N Cone?"  he asked.  H said no so G said he didn't want to go.

We had a large kettle with a thicky layer of burnt chunky chili stuck in the bottom.  Yum!  Since it's summer ... I decided to take and hose it out in the yard.  As I was scraping it ... G was watching intently.  After a short while he said, "I wanna do that willy bad.  Please Mommy???"  So I let him have a turn scraping the gunk out :)

a little homemade stuffed dolly

About 2.5 weeks ago, Foofie decided she wanted to make a stuffed doll.  Fabulous!  And she hoped to have it finished in about 3 days so it would be ready to give to a baby whose family was going to China for many months.  Not so fabulous!

Foofie found a doll to make online and watched a little video tutorial and then showed me what she hoped to create.  I tried to talk her out of it.  I told her this doll would probably take about 12 hours ... plus I would have to help quite a bit ... not to mention she was trying to read at least 4 hours per day for a reading contest.  So ... it didn't seem like the best idea given that she (WE) only had 3 days to work on it.  Foofie was undaunted ... and in her mind ... the doll just HAD to be made.  I went along with her ...

We searched around our house for fabric.  Foofie traced and cut out the pattern on paper.  Then, she cut out the fabric shapes and I explained to her about seam allowances and the right/wrong sides of fabric (and how things are often sewn on the inside).  I was happy that she was interested in sewing and was learning ... and I told her this was a "home economics" unit :)  She sewed a leg up first and stuffed it.  It was hard to flip and stuff because it was so tiny and Foof laughed about how she thought the leg would be so big ... but it ended up so small (because it gets rounded and because of the seam allowance -- which sometimes was too small and so I had to do a little surgery stitching up little holes in the legs). She asked me to sew the arms (as they are even smaller than the legs) and she inverted them and stuffed them.  We had a tough time figuring out what to do for the eyes.  First, I embroidered eyes on ... but they looked goofy.  So we ripped them out and searched for buttons.  The first set of buttons were too dark ... so those came off.  This was quite a process!  I sewed yellow eyebrows on ... and then took those off.  When we went out to dinner on Friday night (August 7) to celebrate my in-laws 50th Anniversary .... we brought the doll with and I sewed throughout the meal.  The doll was pretty much assembled on Friday night and Foof stuffed her and I stayed up late fortifying her arms and legs with tiny stitches on the outside.  I wanted this doll to be fairly durable after all of the time that had gone into it.  But she still wasn't done.  The head was still open and I wanted to restitch her mouth in the morning ... if there was time.

Saturday morning, Foofie and I got up early to finish and deliver the dolly.  Foofie was sewing the head while I was driving!  When we got to their house, we parked and I did a few more stitches to close a little gap where the head and neck didn't quite meet.

Foofie was thrilled that it was finished in time and delighted to present it to its recipient :)

One the ride home, I told her that the next time she gets an idea like this and I don't think it is very feasible ... she will need to take my word for it and think of something else :)  All in all though ... it was a good learning experience ... and I look forward to making another one someday ... in a more leisurely time frame however :)

a little more about G

One time today when I was checking on G, I found he had gotten into some lipstick and had swiped a couple of horizontal lipstick lines on one of his cheeks.  When I arrived on his scene, he was lifting his shirt up with one hand and was about to apply some deodorant.  I took the deodorant from him and put the cap back on.
"No," I said.  "You don't need deodorant.  This is for bigger people ... older people ..." I explained.
"I have armpits!" He declared.

***

This afternoon, G and I were sitting outside eating coconut popsicles :)  After a little while, I noticed that G was eating his exactly the same way I was eating mine!  Turning his popsicle on the side and then back to vertical ... he was intently studying me and copying me ... until I started laughing and he joined me :)  He is such an interesting little fellow ...

a little lawn guy

Buddy is excited about lawn mowers.  So G is excited about lawn mowers.  Really excited.  And he is only 2.25 years old!  One of his favorite spots is on the seat of our riding mower.  When we were recently at Costco ... he was the first to notice a lawn mower in someone's trailer ... pointed it out to us and also told us that it had a bagger.  A couple months ago, he asked Daddy to show him how to use the regular mower ... the push mower ... I don't even know what the correct terminology is ... a walk behind?  Of course Daddy said no ... so he pushed it around some anyway!  And as you can see ... he wants to get in on the action {too close to the action usually!} and help out when someone else is mowing.  He even jammed a toy saw into his play mower so he would have something to use as a rip cord ...

a little hiding

A few weeks ago, Little G finally was able to lay down and go to sleep by himself!  The first time Daddy was successful in getting G calmly into bed, he hid under the sheets and waited for me to come and cuddle with him.  While he was hiding, he fell asleep ... and now this has become his bedtime ritual :)  This is what he looked like last night ...

easing back in

Just easing back into this.  I wish I could actually "catch up" on this blog ... this family scrapbook ... since my kids enjoy reading and remembering some bygone days ... but much has passed me by.  In any event, I am going to try and start filling in some of the gaps :)

Conversation with G tonight:
He was singing in the van ...
"Your love never gives up me.  Your love never gives up me.  Your love never gives up Gunnar."
(modified from Your love never fails ... never gives up ... never gives up on me)
"You're turning into quite a little singer," I told him.
"We're turning?"
"No, I mean you are getting to be a good singer," I explained.
"I just saw a cute house, Mommy!"

Yesterday my husband was called to clean up blood outside our 5-unit apartment building ... someone had been shot ... in the hip.  He told me he's tired of owning rentals and tired of this piece of land we recently bought.  Nonetheless, he googled how to clean up blood and went to take care of it {and mow the grass there} with our sheltered homeschooled teenage son :)  After that, they stopped by the aforementioned "piece of land" to cut the grass ... and lo and behold ... someone had dumped a hot tub and cover on our newly purchased land which we are already tired of!  Big frown face.  So, today, Husband spent the afternoon sawing up the hot tub ... getting fiberglass in his clothes and pores ... and hauling hot tub chunks to the dump (with a fifty-five dollar dump fee, which is somewhat cheaper, not considering the time however, than the $315 the city billed him for hauling away a couch which was dumped on the land).  I could go on about the heavy vintage televisions that he had to haul off and the puddle that someone complained about ... and how much the city billed for the puddle to be pumped out ... but I won't :)  I'm tired of it too :)

I think G has had the most interesting language development (to me) of all of my kids.  For several months now ... he has made every effort to immediately mimic pretty much every word or phrase he hears ... not just the words/phrases he thinks will be useful to him ... but EVERYthing.  I've teased him that he says all the words :)  I said to a friend, "Thank you for the offer."  And right away G copied me, "Thank you for the offer."

He is also very funny.  One of my favorite stories is from about a month ago.  I was changing his diaper on our front porch and didn't realize I was going to need wipes.  "Honey!" I called to my husband.  "Honey!  We need some wipes please!"  I finally decided to refasten the soiled diaper and I told G I was going to go get some wipes myself.  "I'M going to go find Honey," he said.  And he headed towards where Daddy was working and yelled, "Honey!  Honey!  We need some help here!"

unsuccessful hunt

E just returned from hunting in the backyard.  He was unsuccessful.  "I guess the only thing I can do is chase the bad guys."

a little swing

I constructed this little swing thing ... kind-of hammock inspired ... last week.  It really needs stronger ropes though ... so I only left it up for a few days.  The kids loved it {too much!} while it lasted :)

a little rabbit stew

What was for supper on Friday night???  Rabbit stew ... and leftover chili :)

How did we cook the rabbit???  Mr. T. plopped the bunny in the crockpot which I had first rubbed with olive oil.  Then, I asked Halo if she wanted to photograph the before picture or if she wanted to salt and pepper the meat.  She said she didn't want to look at it so she wasn't going to be able to take any pictures.  So ... she salted and peppered from a backwards position -- and hoped it was landing on the meat -- while I took some photos.  After a few hours some potatoes and onions were tossed in the pot ... carrots would have been nice too, but we didn't have any.

Mr. T. was the first one to sample the entree and his first three words were ... "Wow.  Wow.  Wow."  Buddy quickly tasted some too and seemed to like it.  Foofie, not wanting to miss out, requested some rabbit and promptly raved about it.  "It's so good.  I want some more, please!  It's GOOD!"  These three ate all of it except for two bites -- Halo and I each tried a little.  There wasn't enough rabbit stew to fill our whole family anyway ...  and Halo and Ezzie and I were perfectly content eating chili with cheese and chips.  I thought the rabbit was pretty good ... better than I expected actually ... but I've never really liked game meat all that much.  Mr. T. and Buddy, however, concluded it was equivalent to really good {dark meat} chicken ... and they would happily eat rabbit again :)  

a little measuring and a dove

This morning Ezzie asked me if anyone had ever measured around the whole earth ...
"Did they use 50 tape measures all lined up?"
"No.  It would take more than 50 tape measures to measure the earth."
"Did they use 79?"
"No.  I don't know exactly how it was measured ... but if it had been done with tape measures ... it would take even more than 79.  The earth is pretty big."
"Maybe it took 82 tape measures."

And this one is from last week ...
It was storming when we woke up and the morning was really dark and rainy.  Later in the morning ... closer to noontime ... it started to clear up and Ezzie spotted a dove as he was looking out the window.  Then Ezzie (or maybe I should call him Noah???) announced, "I see a dove so we can go outside now!"

a little rabbit

Buddy got his turkey license a couple weeks ago.  His first ever hunting license ... his first license of any sort ... and he's been hoping and trying to nab a turkey ... but we haven't seen any toms around (must be a tom in the spring) since he became an official bow hunter.

Today ... Buddy was out in the yard ... practicing ... waiting for a turkey ... when he spotted a bunny.  He aimed and hit his mark.  "I killed a bunny!"  He called jubilantly.  I quickly told him it would be more appropriate to call it a rabbit now.

He was thrilled.  He called some friends to share the news.  I was not so terribly excited.

Shortly thereafter ... my husband (to my surprise!) watched some youtube videos on how to skin/gut/whatever a rabbit ... and then they did the messy deed.  I thought they would just bury the poor creature.

This really isn't my thing.  Bloody patio tables???  No thanks.  In fact, I prefer to bring my chicken home from the store already cooked :) Kowalski's has the best rotisserie chickens by the way ... they're even amish  ;)

Then ... my husband requested a container to store the rabbit in the fridge so we can eat it tomorrow.  I think it was at this point that my husband enlightened all of us about the value and specialness of rabbit cuisine and also suggested that maybe we should start raising rabbits ...

Totally not liking this.  I didn't want to look at the rabbit and I didn't want to think about eating it.  All of this was making me lose my appetite for tonight's supper ...

Anyway ... the rabbit eventually made its way into our fridge ... but only into our little fridge in the garage ... and my husband suggested I cook some rabbit stew in the crockpot tomorrow night ... or have rabbit and rice???  But I really didn't even want it in the house ... in the kitchen.  I'm a wimp.  So ... I suggested he could cook IT over a fire ... or wrap IT in foil in a fire ... like one of those camping "hobo meals".  Anything involving a backyard fire instead of the kitchen would be wonderful.

And I just might be eating something other than rabbit tomorrow night :)