Rainy Monday

Just wanted to post bunches of little stuff since I've been off blogging for a while.

- The other day we took the kids to our favorite little town that's about half an hour away, and as we were sitting in our favorite little soda shop, having ice cream for dinner (!), we were talking about baby names.  Not because we're having a baby, but because we're getting our first niece/nephew very soon!

We were trying to recall name finalists from all the baby name spreadsheets Geof has created over the years - sheets that ranked names, came up with different combinations and ranked combinations, etc.  Way too complicated for me, someone who really only cared about what color the name was.  Geof escorted Fancy back to the restrooms, and he reported the following conversation when they got back:

"So, Dad.  ARE we having another baby?"  Geof: "No, we're not."  Fancy: "Will we ever have another baby?"  Geof: "No, probably not."  Fancy: "Oh...[pause]...Is it because Mom is too old?"

- Several days before that gem of a conversation, I got the following report from a very sad Rella when I picked her up from school.  "I don't want to go back to school." Me: "Why not?" Rella: "See-cause there's a boy with a horrible smell in his mouth. I need to switch to a new school."


- Last night after the kids were in bed, Geof and I noticed that all of Rella's stuffed animals were down in the living room.  I wondered if she would sleep ok without Big Dog, Baby Bear, Owl Pillow and Daddy Dog.  She did.  When I got her up for school this morning, I found her snuggling with 2 light blue paper plates.  

- We're finally getting around to decorating Hi-Hat's bedroom.  He is way overdue.  I really wasn't sure what theme he would want to go with (or if it was more a matter of just choosing colors and rearranging furniture since he IS getting bigger after all, and every kids' room doesn't have to have a pottery barn-esque theme like owls or cars or surf boards or elmo).  Well, it looks like we're going with a theme.  The theme?  City skyline.  How interesting!  He's learning about comparing urban, rural and suburban settings in school, so I think he's got all things urban on the mind.  He was thoroughly confused  by our trip to Pittsboro on Saturday - what IS this place?  Is it urban? Is it rural?  We couldn't settle on a description other than small town, and he didn't seem convinced since that wasn't presented in school.  Maybe small towns are more of a third grade topic. :)  SO, we're going with city skyline theme.  I found great bedding with skylines and streetlights and it even had the same color scheme he had in mind - orange, blue and gray.  This morning I purchased an absolutely awesome vinyl wall decal off etsy that will cover his ENTIRE wall, floor to ceiling.  Photos to come once the project is underway. :)

- We were in our favorite little town (that's neither urban nor suburban nor rural) this weekend en route to go apple picking.  I had settled on an orchard earlier in the week, and then saw a friend had recently gone, so it sealed the deal.  And then on the way, through the fishbowl that is facebook, I saw that more friends were driving down the road at the same time to the same orchard.  Well, let me just say that I think in the future I will save apple picking excursions for trips to the actual mountains.  Like the Blue Ridge Parkway for winesaps or something.  AND, I will wait until it is not 100-degrees outside.  We did come home with apples, but I was not overly impressed with this orchard or the heat.  The kids were so hot and the apple trees were rather shrubby and picked over.  What apples there were tended to be too high for them to reach, so Geof was having to knock them off with a long pole.   We came home with just 13 lbs, which still seems like a lot to me.  You see, I didn't really think this through.  I'm not a huge apple fan, and I tend to only like eating them raw.  And I'm a little scared of eating these raw since the card that came home with them said to soak the apples in bleach-water for 5 minutes before using them.  Hmmm.  We don't eat applesauce or much apple butter and I don't can.  I did make some apple bread that is ok and I'm going to look into apple muffins and some kind of tarts.  Not sure what else.  Ideas?  What I do do is . . . wait for it . . . take pictures.  

I am now declaring her too large for my baby bucket. 

 Fun on the orchard tire swings

I'm up to my ears in fun projects around here - room decorating that will kick off as soon as Rella's new big girl furniture arrives and we dig out paintbrushes for Hi-Hat's room.  Photo proofing for some great sessions I've had recently.  Some crochet projects that have resulted in Fancy wanting to also learn to crochet.  Baby shower planning.   Halloween costume hunting.  It's fall, when life tends to get busy.  But we've scaled back on extra activities and I'm feeling pretty good about enjoying this season.  Maybe I'll even have time to keep up with the old blog.

Have a great week!