Sunday Goodbye

After all the harvesting and cider making it was finally time to say good by with a good old fashioned sword fight, Goodrich style.
Then grandpa pulled out his gun.
Levi was too involved in battle but Max was completely fascinated.
He came back though, with a vengeance! That boy is definitely a fighter.



Then we went outside to check on the praying mantis the boys had found earlier, which they then put in a box and made a 'habitat' for it. Levi was enthralled with it because he loves bugs. Until they get to close that is.


It was a great couple of days at La Casa de Goodrich. Thanks for having us guys!

Mmmmmm Cider

Cider making isn't something we've done every year, it's usually every other year for us. But that's fine because it's a ton of work. Totally worth it though because fresh squeezed homemade cider is about 100x better than anything you could find in a store.

We use this cider press Larry has to make it.

First you chop the apples (well FIRST you pick them and give them a good washing)

Then turn a crank which chops the apples into a nice mush.Once the bucket is full then you put a top on and start pressing.Me and the boys gave it our all.
Jason or Larry usually have to help with this part. I think they secretly like it because it makes them feel super strong. Which they kind of are.

Result? Awesome homemade cider.
After, ok in kind of the middle/end part, grandpa got out the riding lawnmower to give Levi a ride, which was pretty much the coolest thing ever to him.
Then I even got a chance on it with Levi who is quite a good driver. Sort of. Mostly he was just along for the ride.

So were these hooligans.

The Reaper

Harvest 2011 was great and I have the pictures (and produce which is all dried and canned) to prove it.

This year we got something new, carrots.
Larry and his eagle eye spotted a small patch that hadn't been harvested right before they were going to turn the soil over for the next crop. I'll have to admit, it was probably one of my favorites because it was such a suprise what you got when you pulled at those green tops. It could be a tiny baby carrot, a giant one or even one with many little 'tentacles'. We got three big buckets from just a couple feet. Amazing.
When I say we got there RIGHT in time, I mean it.
or in some cases hitched a ride.
At this point I got pretty busy and into picking things so I let Phillip take the camera for a whirl. Not too shabby.

I guess everyone convinced Willy to eat an onion.

Ha!
These are definitely pictures taken by a bunch of boys. I was off getting onions and I'm pretty sure it went down kind of like this: "Hey, Phillip look how far I can throw this onion"
"Let's see if I can hit someone with it"
"Onion power!"

Just my guess but I'm pretty sure that's how it happened.
I love the pics Phil got with Levi and Al though, he sure loves his uncles.
Cheese! It took a couple of suckers and fistfuls of goodies to keep Max from freaking out because this was all during his naptime. Grandpa was prepared though.
I took my camera back. I can only trust a group of boys with my camera for so long. Levi found a baby carrot. It was "so teute".
After we headed to Grandpas favorite burger joint.

They scarfed everything down pretty quick. Harvesting takes a lot of work ya know.

Holiday Decor in a Fish Tank

I have been downsizing my fishkeeping hobby this year. I am down from 4 aquariums ranging from 150 gallons down to 2.5 gallons. Now I just have a 29 gal aquarium in the bedroom, and a 33 gal aquarium in the dinning room. I just finnished draining and cleaning the 150 over the weekend. I need to touch up some paint on the stand and get it sold. But I though it would make a nice place to grow some holiday plants, some amarylis and some paperwhite flowers. I have the space and lights for it, why not use it. From there, things started to get bigger. Now there is a bunch of moss and leaves and Kendra really likes the idea of adding some frogs because plants aren't fun enough for her. We will see about the frogs. I am trying to resist another hobby.

Moments

So I have literally over a dozen posts I need to do, all the fun Halloween stuff, Washington trips , but I've been crazy busy with holiday stuff already. I already did one Bazaar, just set up for another 6 week long one tonight and realize I have one more I'm doing Monday. Holy cow what did I sign myself up for???? But then there is only one more show which should be ready to go in a couple weeks then that's it. I'm pretty sure I'm insane.

But here are some things that have made me smile the past couple weeks.

- Max has now decided, whenever the opportunity presents itself, to instead of going in his car seat, to climb up to the drivers seat and yell "Me drive! Me drive!" while I pry those little hands off the wheel and strap him in kicking and screaming. It's hilarious. Frustrating, but hilarious.

- Levi and I went to the dollar store today and he got to spend the first dollar he ever earned. He gets a quarter every time he takes out the recycling which is about once a week, so it's taken some time. His item of choice? A green robot with a couple of cannons or something in their hands and a lazer. He was quite excited.

- We have been prepping for our children's program the last couple weeks. This is Levi's first year and since I'm in the primary presidency I get to see him in action. Last Sunday as they went through a couple songs in their spots, I was busting a gut pretty much the entire time looking at Levi. Most of the time he made binoculars out of his hands and looked around. Singing for the most part but 'wearing' binoculars. Later he told me "It's so I could see Sister Thomas better". Great reasoning. The rest of the time he was wildly rocking back and forth like a clock pendulum or singing 2 inches from the girl in his class's face, which telling from the looking on her face, she did not appreciate one bit. (later he told me he wanted to sing to her). SO FUNNY. All the other sunbeams? Even the one who is usually running around? Yeah, they were pretty much still and singing. This should be a good one, I can't wait. I am pretty sure I HAVE to video tape it.

- Yesterday we took a trip to mars on the couch. They've both been into outer space stuff and astronauts lately. It was quite fun pretending to look for space rocks and drink space milk.

- Today when Max went to get babysat I was shocked, amazed and completely dumbfounded when instead of having a hissy fit, grabbed her hand and went, no problem. Wow. Several months ago that never would have happened. I was even prepared with a bunch of leftover Halloween candy to bribe him with. He's gotten so much more independent lately. Kind of bittersweet.

Trapped

Since he has switched to a crib, Max has spent a fair, I'd say 15% of his time, sleeping in front of his bedroom door. He'll grab his stuffed elephant (he uses it for a pillow), his blanket and a stuffed animal bunny Mr. Floppy or now it has more recently been two small stuffed beavers. It's quite hilarious, though it often means I have to push the door open to put him in his bed and say goodnight for the night. It's very cute and slightly silly, which I love.

I suppose there is no exception of location because while we were up visiting Grandpa Larry's he did the same thing, though this time he didn't have his elephant. Since the doors are up slightly higher than ours we saw this:
L.O.L.

A Day in the Making

Last week Levi informed me that it was Big Al's (the ginormous alligator) birthday. His 1st if anyone was wondering. He told me we NEEDED to throw him and all the other animals, who happened to have their birthday on the same day, a party. On the list of things to prepare included a game, food, a card, presents and balloons.

We got some stuff done that day but couldn't finish with everything. Little by little we got all the bits and pieces together and had our day. Location: living room couch. The boys dragged out every stuffed animal we had and lined em up.
First order of business? Sing Happy Birthday. Or scream it.
Such enthusiasm!
For the gift we settled on heart stickers for all. Levi was EXTREMELY excited about the whole thing. Max took his cue pretty quickly.
Fishing seemed like an appropriate party game.
There were a lot of party animals in the crowd. The boys made sure everyone had some food that they made themselves. Mr. Chicken got pancakes. He loved em.Everyone even got a kiss. Every
last,
one. It was a fun afternoon. Levi's even been scheming for their 2nd b-day which he keeps telling me is soon. We're working the concept of years, weeks and months. He'll get the hang of it someday.