The Browny Bunch

Emma has started to pull up on things so that she can stand.  I found her in her crib the other morning like this...
Now she is pulling up on the gate in front of the stairs, the boys' toy drawer, us (if we're sitting on the floor or holding her), and almost the couch.  She can't quite reach the couch cushions yet because we own tall-people couches. 
After having this sweet girl in our family for 8 1/2 months (which was a long stretch of time on the other side of the womb), I can't believe how time has flown! 

Last Wednesday was the first day of school for the three oldest kids.  They were all super excited and so was I!  We kicked off the day by having cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  There's nothing like sugaring up the kiddos and then sending them off to someone else! Muah-hahahahaha!

Sarah is in 7th grade this year and so she headed off to the junior high.  We have all been looking forward to this for over a year now.  So far, she is enjoying the change.
I feel I should mention that the weather forecast for the day was to warm up to the mid-80s.  Originally Kyle had picked out shorts and a t-shirt to wear.  Chloe did NOT want to wear her running shoes (they're not new) because she didn't have PE on the first day.  It seems they really wanted to wear their new duds and I didn't think it was worth a fight.  They all came home feeling pretty toasty but happy about how they looked.  Believe me though, they all wore shorts for the next few days (since they were also 80 degree days)!

Here is everyone but Sarah at the bus stop.  It was weird to send her off to school before the other kids.  It will definitely take some getting used to.  I think she's glad to get out of the house before the "Hurry up, Chloe"s begin.
Aaron, Emma and I are enjoying our unscheduled, quiet days together.  Yay for school!

In an attempt to not spending the ENTIRE summer as a boring mom, I took the kiddos to the zoo.  I also asked Ashley to come with me.  She's good backup in the wrangling department!  We went to Point Defiance because #1 it's close, #2 it's small enough to manage in a few hours, and #3 it's close.  We started off with the obligatory picture inside the shark's mouth:

They were having a special exhibit, "The Scoop on Poop", which taught all about poop, how it is disposed of in nature, where it comes from, etc.  They had a hilarious cutout which only Kyle would deign to pose in.  I think you can see why...
Nice facial expression, dude.

I let the oldeset four ride the camels.  Kyle wanted to do it all by himself.

Chloe did too.

Sarah rode with Aaron.  I was glad she was happy to do it because I didn't want to pay for another ride for myself.

We also fed the budgies, but I forgot to take my camera into the exhibit.  The kids all had a great time in there.  We rode the carousel too.  Ashley tried to take some pictures, by my camera is pretty lame and it was hard to get a good shot.  She did get this one of Emma while we rode though.

Sarah spent the last week of August learning some new cake decorating skills.  Ashley loaned her a book from a class she'd taken last year.  Sarah did some studying.  Then she did some practicing.  Then she made her final project...
It turned out very pretty!
I love seeing her work hard at something and succeeding!

At the end of August I had my first picks out of the garden.  Well, I guess not the first, if you count the peas.  Anyway, I was so excited to have such beautiful yellow squash that came out of our backyard.  Just look!




They were tasty too.  However, since then I have learned several important lessons.

#1) I need to space my zucchini and yellow squash plants better.  I have two yellow squash plants that are in the front of the garden.  They are very happy out there in the full sun with the extra heat from the retaining wall.  Because of that, they have outgrown all of the other squash plants behind them.  They are hogging all of the sun and water.  I've only been able to pick one zucchini and there are only two more growing out there.  Also, this is too much yellow squash for our family to eat.  Maybe it won't be once the kids are older and less picky, but for now it is definitely too much.  At least I have lots to give away, right?  Next year I will plant two spots of each kind, all of them properly spaced and along the front of the retaining wall.

#2) No more corn.  This year was my second attempt at corn.  Again, I spaced it wrong.  I was trying to squeeze more into our small plots than I should have.  And corn is high maintenance.  It needs lots of space, water, sun, and heat.  Even with the special PacNW variety that I tried, this poor corn still didn't get enough heat.  And I have to admit, I was a slacker on the water.  I need to be honest with myself about how much effort I'm really willing to shell out for homegrown veggies.  Corn's not worth it for me.

#3)  Again, spacing... this time for pumpkins and butternut squash.  The vines for these are growing all over each other and out of the garden space.  I have only seen three pumpkins so far.  (I guess a trip to the pumpkin patch will still happen this year.)  I have notied a ton of butternuts, but they are all pretty small.  I'm hoping they grow and ripen in time.  And my mini pumpkins... they only produced 1-2 pumpkins per plant.  Lame.  I thought I'd get more.  I can't decide if I should dedicate garden space to something that I'm growing for fall decorations.

#4)  Tomatoes.  I planted three plants in the back.  Then, fearing that they wouldn't do well because they were so small when I planted them, I bought two more for another plot.  All of the tomato plants are now huge.  The golden tomatoes (a cherry type variety) have about a million tomatoes on each plant.  But will they ever ripen?  I don't know.  I finally picked five goldens yesterday, but two had split and needed to be tossed.  The others were pretty tasty though!  I've got my fingers crossed.  If this crop comes in, I'll have enough to share and then some!  I think for next year though, I'll do two plants at the most and try to have faith that they'll grow.  I might put them in large pots on the back deck so that I'll be better about watering them (and avoid watering the foliage).  I will also support them differently.  Mine are all so huge that they have overgrown their cages and are falling over.  Not a big deal, really, but I like the idea of a tidy garden.

#5)  New things to try next year: lettuce, carrots, and green beans.  We eat all of these, so it only makes sense that I should grow some, right?  I've tried carrots before, but it's been awhile.  Brad is installing some drip lines for two of the garden spaces along with our sprinkling system, so I think the carrots will fare better.  I also saw a great idea on Pinterest for sharing garden space with beans and lettuce.  Okay, so theirs was cucumbers, but I think it might work for beans too.  Or maybe I should try cucumbers. 
So those are my lessons learned for this year.  Of course, I haven't finished out the season yet, so I may have a bunch more learning coming my way!

The kids had all been showered up and had a few minutes of veg time watching Disney Channel on Gramma's bed.

Then we tried for a group photo.  Aaron was now feeling particularly uncooperative.  I was going to post all the outtakes, because they are so funny, but that would have made this picture post waaaaay too long.  This is the last one we took.   Aaron is a little goofy looking, but at least he's in the picture.  He was refusing to even be in some of the shots.

Emma wasn't too hot on the whole thing either, but to be fair, it was her bedtime.

We left EARLY in the morning on Saturday to drive home.  We drove all day long and made it to Pendelton, OR just before dinner.  Our KOA was pretty bare bones, but it turned out to be the best camping stay we had.  There is a fantastic family water park in Pendelton and we took the kids there for a few hours in the evening.  It was pretty cheap and they even had a deal for out of town guests that enabled us to get a couple of the kids in for free.  They had a zero entry pool for the kiddies and some fun water slides for the older set.  It was perfect for us!

Kyle loved going down this slide.

There were buckets and squirty things and other fun ways to get wet.

The girls had fun splashing around and sliding the slides.

Aaron was a happy little fish.  He was pretty chilly by the time we left, but he did not want to get out of the pool.

More Kyle on the slide:

Emma was thrilled to be out of the truck and out of her carseat.  She snuggled up to me and enjoyed a nap in the fresh air.  I enjoyed kicking back, holding her, and watching the big kids play.

See how great this place is?

The next morning we were happy to eat a free breakfast at the KOA.  The owners/managers cooked up a yummy meal of french toast, bacon and sausage.  It was a nice cap off to our camping experience.  The kids had fun taking a bunch of pictures in the camper that morning before breakfast. 





We did our typical McDonald's stop for lunch so the kids could play.  Of course, this particular one ended up not having a playplace (crazy!).  The kids were happy to get some more Smurf toys though.  And then they had some fun statues (would you call these statues?) to pose by.