orange again

It's Tuesday--aka busy day extraordinaire! I need desperately to go to sleep soon so I can have another busy day tomorrow. I meant to post this mousey picture with the orange blog but i couldn't yet figure out how to post pictures. now that i'm oh so advanced, here he is. he actually got given away to his rightful owner, a guy named phil who started knitting him in the first place. the children loved this little mouse so much. it made me really want to make some knit toys for them as well. a clone of me would be so helpful some days. I'm also including this one of ella that fits right in with the orange theme.

Dahlialucy

In the interest of including everyone while I'm doing this phototest blogathon, and so that Aunt Karen can finally see all three kiddos, here is Miss Lucy Sky. We visited the Dahlia gardens in Canby this August. It was pretty beautiful. I told each of the children to stand next to their favorite one. There were too many favorites. She was such a good gardener this summer. She got a mini greenhouse and some seed packets from Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally for her birthday, and grew her own zinnias and sunflowers from seed. Pretty impressive for a 3 year old. Of course, she was very proud of them and often cut bouquets for the table. We grew one Dahlia in the garden this summer called Thomas Edison. It is a brilliant dark purple. I thought it was a goner after the slugs ate it completely off, but it ended up having about 6 blooms before the frost got it entirely. Next summer perhaps we can plant some more. I know Lucy will be up for it!

You are my sunshine!

There's Ella. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I took this photo, but when I look outside, it seems like years ago by now. See how she's stretching her arm up? The sunflowers were twice as tall as that! She really had a good time among the flowers in the garden this summer. I will have to post some other photos of her being a flower fairy. Today she and I had a squabble because she didn't want to go outside without me, and I really needed a break. I ended up going outside--should have started with that. I dug the last of the potatoes that were still in the ground. Ella and Lucy came around and we all went in and warmed up and became friends again. Ella was really my sunshine this summer. Gus and Lu had such a hard time getting along, and Ella just hung out in the middle, being peaceful. I need an Ella day like the one I had with Gus....

Happy Day with Happy Gus

This is Gus! Today I got to hang out with him for several hours alone. What a gift! I hardly ever get one on one time with any of my children, and even though I vow almost weekly to do it weekly, well, Ive been pretty weak at doing it. This happy Gus photo was taken on our hike in Lookout Creek Old Growth Grove this summer. It was a great experience for our whole family. We have been hiking with the kids since, well, since they were belly babies, and this was the very first hike that everyone walked the whole way by him/herself. There was one point that we had to portage the kids over the huge root structure of a fallen giant tree, but that was exciting for all of us. Gus is still talking about how great old growth forests are. It really made an impression on him. On days like today it is so amazing to re-realize how fantastic a kid he really is. We had some hot cocoa and he told me the whole story from his story time at school. Then we read a book together. He was sitting on my lap, and I could tell he was a little scared because he kept tensing up and gasping. It's hard to remember he's only six. We were reading about pirates, and he plays pirate all the time, but stories still scare him!