Archive for September, 2007
September in Review
Officially typed out 4/1/08
Updated 4/2/08 with pictures, links, etc.
Business
The market is over on the 9th. Please pray that our home business will sustain us through the winter/tourist season slump!
Celebrations
9/08/07 C.’s 9th bday! Happy birthday to our sweet third daughter! Your cheerful smile and enthusiastic bear hugs make our days much brighter! You are growing so fast into a graceful lovely girl and following your older sisters in becoming such a wonderful helper! We’re so thankful to have you in our family!
9/25/07 B.’s 11th bday! Happy birthday our dear dear daughter! You challenge us at times with your feistiness and stubbornness but when it comes right down to it, you have a caring, loving and protective spirit for your family. We wouldn’t change the precious package you are for the world. We love you to pieces Nanna! 
Chickens
The ladies are still on sabbatical. 
Children
9/01/07 L. is beginning to move one knee forward while on hands and knees! Also, nearly sitting completely on her own! She can push herself up to sitting and will use one hand but hasn’t quite been “brave” enough to lift the other one yet and play with two hands. Close though…real close.
9/02/07 P. has gone a week without wearing a diaper at night! Of course, I’ve been diligent about getting up in the wee hours (2-3am) to take her to the bathroom to make sure she doesn’t have an accident. I’ll keep it up about another week and then try letting her sleep to see if she’ll then wake on her own. The girls’ room gets some light at night from the neighbor’s yard light and the bathroom is right next to their room with a good night light…so, we’ll see if she calls to me or just goes to the bathroom on her own.
L. is solidly on her hands and knees now and definitely scootching herself forward a bit at a time with one knee (always the same one LOL).
9/03/07 L. has discovered her tongue and loves making this “tthbbb” sort of noise. Sometimes it’s a “raspberry”…but sometimes it’s not. LOL
9/04/07 L. is “military” crawling today! Sorta…she still hikes that one knee up occasionally (the right one).
9/05/07 L.’s first solid food today! (Four days from her 5mo bday.) Following NT suggestion, I gave her a small amount of smashed egg yolk. It was weird for me seeings how I’ve been trained to think that babies *should not* get egg before their 1rst bday…but we’ll see. (I understand the it’s the whites that mostly cause trouble.)
9/08/07 C.’s 9th bday!! ~*~Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!~*~ We love you bunches! 
9/09/07 L. is 5mo today - almost ½ a year already! 
9/11/07 L. gets up on her hands and feet now like she’s going to do the “bear” walk!
9/13/07 G. Hunt took everyone to lunch for their bdays and then we went bday gift shopping - fun!
9/25/07 B.’s 11th bday! ~*~Happy Bday Lovely B.!~*~ Love you! G & G B. arrived yesterday to celebrate with us and will go home tomorrow.
Exercise
9/03/07 I decided over the weekend that I was feeling healed enough to start “formal” exercising again. The PSD has increasingly gotten worse and this time is definitely not clearing up as fast postpartum. But, like I said, I noticed that I’ve been feeling pretty well recently and decided to get on the treadmill today. Here are the stats:
- Cal.: 289
- Fat Cal.: 90
- Incline: 3
- Time: 45min
- Dist.: 2.16 miles
- Laps: 8.6
- Speed: 3 average, 3.7 highest
Harvesting
9/22/07 40 lbs apples! (apprx) (See below under Recreation)
Homemaking
9/28/07 9 ½ pints of Mint Apple Syrup canned!
Recreation & Travel
9/17/07 Day trip to Whittier today! Got to go through (2.5 miles) the train tunnel! Very interesting and fun! Stats about the tunnel:
* Longest highway tunnel in North America (13,300′ or 2.5 miles).
* Longest combined rail and highway use tunnel in North America.
* First U.S. tunnel with jet turbine and portal fan ventilation.
* First computerized regulation of both rail and highway traffic.
* First tunnel designed for -40° F. and 150 mph winds.
* Portal buildings designed to withstand avalanches
Entrance to the Tunnel.
In the Tunnel.
Our playground for the day! (This pic is too small but two of our children are in it…mere specs in this majestic scenery!)
9/19/07 Day trip Glenallen/Kenny Lake area today - where dh grew up. In fact, we stopped at his old house, saw it was for sale so stopped in and looked around/took pictures. So cool for the children to see where Daddy grew up! We’ve been out there before but the older girls were really little and don’t remember. Plus, the house isn’t in the family any more so they only had a glimpse of it from the road. This time they got to wander around AND dh old tree fort (pretty elaborate) was still partially standing! Pretty neato!
Daddy with all his children at his childhood home! Oh the memories of hauling water and firewood and using this…
It still has his name graffitied above the can that held the toilet paper!
The view dh grew up seeing! (Minus the satellite dish - that’s the current owners.)
9/22/07 Day trip to Seward. (Dh also lived here - from the time he was 14yo through high school.) Picked apples at a small orchard just down the road from our house before heading out though for the first time! Been passing it for years and always said we should stop in there “this year” but wouldn’t and then would say “next year.” LOL This year the sign said FREE and there was no way I was going to let dh keep driving! Got about 40 lbs! We had a lot of high winds and cold weather this year so the apples were small and there were a lot of windfalls so the owner just decided to open it up to everyone (rather than charging) so they wouldn’t go to waste. Even allowed everyone to pick off the trees so we got a good variety. Delicious! I’m going to be busy canning or drying or something! LOL Anyway, a little late heading out to Seward but at least we didn’t pass it up this year! In Seward, we mostly enjoyed exploring and playing at the old “homestead” (dh’s deceased grandparents 30 acres that now belongs to his mother/uncles with one uncle still living there). It’s on the bay and boy was the smell awful because the tide was out (spawned salmon)! :sick: But, the children went out on the beach anyway. When the tide came up, the smell was nice and fresh and salty again. We had a bonfire with the uncle and roasted hot dogs, etc. Been a long time since I’ve had a s’more! 
Great fun and came home pleasantly tired.
9/29/07 Bonfire at our friends the Mischenkos! Had a great time Grace - thanks for inviting us!
Wildlife
9/02/07 Saw our third flock of geese flying south today (over the house). Yesterday some did too but the flock wasn’t as big. Last Wed., we saw our first one while at the store. That flock was big and flying high and fast. *sigh* It seems a little early to me…I’m not ready for Fall/Winter/cold weather. 
‘Til next time - Blessings,
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥
It’s Here!
The termination dust…
Can I have a good cry now?
Not to be overly dramatic or anything…but this summer flew and I’m very sorry to have it end. I don’t feel like I/we properly enjoyed it because we were so busy with the business. I love it when it’s green and warm and we have freedom. For some reason, despite living here all our lives, dh and myself aren’t into winter sports/activities per say. Sure, we like to take the children up the mountain and go sledding but otherwise we don’t do any skiing or boarding or snowmachining or skating or you-name-it. I’d like to do some skating with all the children…I have skates and I think we have another couple pair that *somebody* (or two) could possibly fit into…but to outfit *everyone* would be a bit of a hit to the ole pocketbook. Certainly cheaper than some of those other activities mentioned though. Maybe I’ll try Freecycle… Sure, winter in our “cabin” *sounds* cozy with the fireplace and good books and all…but when I think of how *long* our winters last I start to hyperventilate. *ugh* Cabin Fever is not an affliction I like…particularly in my children… [picture me a little cross-eyed] The novelty of the fire wears off rather quickly when you have to empty ashes regularly and the good books get read/re-read too quickly as well. I love cooking heartier foods and the aromas that go along with it but the waistband starts to suffer a little stretching for lack of a decent amount of exercise. *sigh* Somebody help me see a bright side here! LOL
Anyhow, I hadn’t been out for a drive in a while and noticed the “dusting” the mountains had Saturday while out doing errands. I gasped and asked dh when that had happened. (The two or three mountains that had it weren’t visible until you got into town.) He said he wasn’t sure but in the last couple of days of the top of his head. So, that means this past Thursday or Friday. Sunday, we noticed a bunch more on those particular mountains plus dustings on a few others on our way out to church! The geese were certainly telling us something last week. Several large flocks passed over flying high and fast. We had been noticing smaller flocks occasionally up to a couple of weeks ago. These were definitely loud and on the move though. One large flock merged with another large flock Thursday evening almost directly over the house and flew off to the south a bit which I’m positive meant they were landing in Potter’s Marsh for the evening. As soon as it was light the next morning, sure enough, a large flock passed over on their way out of town. That was neat but I was too blurry-eyed to get to the camera fast enough.
Yesterday, we took a road-trip to Whittier…one of the last little excursions before winter really sets in. Not much to do in Whittier but the drive through the tunnel was cool! Previously, the only way to get to Whittier was via train but they’ve opened up/converted the last tunnel for vehicle traffic. 2 1/2 miles through the mountain. The day was sunny and warm for this time of year. Granted, our trip took us south. We are planning another trip tomorrow. This one takes us north. This evening it is quite stormy - 44° F, raining and high winds. I’m afraid of what we will encounter in the morning once we leave town and are a couple of hundred miles away…we could be driving into winter conditions…I’d rather stay home and let the snow *find me*!
With that thought in mind, I’m off to make some warm tea and settle into bed with a good book. A good book aways makes things better…so long as you have a steady supply of them.
~ Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥
ps - I have quite a few draft posts saved and hope to finish some up in the next few days. I will post date them but leave them as “stickies” for a little while. Thought I’d say that to save some confusion if you read this and then there are others on top that suddenly get rearranged.
pss - And, I just have to record (for myself) that this blog hit a milestone of 11,000 visits today! *whoop* Thanks to all our faithful readers.
Good Book
I finished Papa’s Wife this past Friday evening. If you are looking for a heartwarming pleasant piece of fiction, you can’t go wrong with this one! It was just what I needed recently at the end of the day to restore joy and renewed freshness to my role as a mother and to send me to bed with a contented smile on my face. My dh even enjoyed a few chuckles from some passages I read aloud to him. This book now shares ranks at the top of my list of favorite fiction reads for mothers with A Lantern in Her Hand. I began the second book in the trilogy last night, Papa’s Daughter, and it started out wonderful right away. I’m really looking forward to a few quiet moments after I’m done typing this to squeeze in a page or two of it.
A link to it is in the sidebar if you want to take a look.
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥
