Es Schneite!

Yesterday afternoon in Rebekah's classroom, the kids suddenly ran to the window, their tiny voices calling out, "Es schneite, es schneite!" as they marveled at the first snowfall of the year. Rebekah marched out to the hallway where I was helping kids paint a turkey handprint, and as if I needed a translator, she said, "Es scheite! Mommy, it's snowing." Now usually the translation is very helpful, but it was pretty clear what the kids were so excited about in this case. It only lasted a few minutes, but check out what is going on right outside my window as I type this...

Hopefully like yesterday this will be just a short little flurry. I'm not sure that I'm ready for all the cold quite yet! Missing hats and soggy boots, mittens and scarves all over the place ~ yuck.


Some very welcomed visitors in our yard:

During Fall and Winter we often have a family, or a few families of deer that make their way through our neighborhood. We were happy to see them return a couple of weekends ago.



Rebekah promptly scared them off into the bushes on the side of our yard trying to alert Dave of their presence. But we're so glad they're back and hope they stick around for the Winter. It's a very peaceful thing to sit and enjoy a morning cup of coffee while watching the deer in the yard!

Our Growing Gecko

Last weekend, Dave and his sister were talking on the phone about our gecko, Banana Lemon Mulch Big Bad Bob, so I thought I would try to get some better pictures of him. We keep referring to the gecko as a "he" but we won't actually know for a few more months whether it is a girl or a boy. Dave is excited that it seems to be growing, which suggests he is adjusting to his new habitat nicely.

Isn't he cute?! The girls love that they chose the name Banana for him and he likes eating banana baby food off a toothpick!! It's kinda funny and cute to see the little guy lick his entire eyeball with one swoop of his tongue, and he likes my hair ~ he's taken a flying leap into it twice.

We have been trying really hard not to frighten Banana as we pick him up, because when crested geckos feel threatened, they are known to snap off their tails as a defense mechanism, and if this happens it won't grow back. We are trying to avoid that, so the girls are learning valuable lessons in the care of a delicate pet. Banana has been cooperating with letting the girls hold him more and more, but he does get a little jumpy after a few minutes. He seems to be shedding his skin some too, which is a good indication that Dave is right, and he is growing.

Anyway, this is unrelated, but I was so proud of Emma the other day. After school, she and Rebekah were playing tag with four boys in Emma's grade, and Rebekah was IT. She was in ambitious pursuit of two of the boys when they ran under the tot lot bridge and split up, going opposite directions. Rebekah froze under the bridge as if she didn't know which boy to run after. Just as she looked like she was done with the game, Emma ran to the stairs of the bridge, stuck her foot through the railing and called out, "Here, Rebekah, I'll get 'em!"

Rebekah tagged Emma and the game was on again.

I've thought about the brief scene several times since I was watching them play that day last week. I can't get over the feeling of hoping that things will always be that way between them. When one needs help, the other will jump in and eagerly offer it. Now I'm not trying to read too much into a simple exchange, in all honesty, it wasn't really that sacrificial on Emma's part. The boys didn't stand a chance against her. She knows it, and they know it too, which is why they invite her to play with them :-) But it sure blessed my heart to see her run to Rebekah's defense!

Apple Orchard

I love going on school field trips with the girls! It's sometimes exhausting, as this day at the apple orchard was, but always worth it!



Maybe it's just the excitement of being out of the classroom, but I always see a wilder, crazier bunch of kids when we leave school. It's fun!

Today at the apple orchard, we learned about apples, Johnny Appleseed, honey bees, pumpkins, and we were able to pick several different kinds of apples to bring home. Yum!



Peeking at me through the tree as she picks out the best apples! She was so excited.



So proud of her beautiful apples, we baked cinnamon apples for dessert that night and Rebekah was so happy with her contribution to the meal.



A happy group of victorious apple pickers.

Choosing her tiny pumpkin from the garden. The smile Rebekah is showing here she inherited from my mom's side of the family. Pencil thin lips that all but disappear when we smile big is completely a Currie trait.



These chilly little faces don't look like they are up to trouble, do they? Well about five minutes later I discovered they had the idea up their sleeves about how they might lose their chaperone for the day.



It all started with me taking this photo above, thinking they looked so cute with the corn towering high over head...

Which led to this ~ all four girls giggling and running away from me in the corn maze. I loved this picture because Rebekah is airborne as she happily leaps and runs after Sophie. And if you've never chased four little kids frantically through a corn maze ~ you should give it a try. It's a good time, and an even better workout (especially if you happen to be carrying loads of apples and a very heavy camera around your neck).

A cute little daisy at the end of a long, but fruitful day.

Pumpkins for Our Pumpkins

Our adventures in pumpkin farm visiting for this Fall...

We took a hay ride to the highest point of the farm.



The girls loved it. I'm always amazed at the simple things that amuse them so much. They're not usually loud girls, but they were definitely the goofiest kids on the wagon that day as they laughed and told stories the whole time. Any hay ride that makes them that happy...



...Even one that a cow tries to join...

...I'd happily take again if it means I get to sit across from these sweeties to see them enjoy it!



It turns out the girls may make excellent little farmers someday if they enjoy stacking hay bales as much as they loved jumping off them, and sliding down them...



...And falling face first into them. Just looking at this picture makes me feel like I need to sneeze. What it doesn't show is how after each climb to the top of the hay, she had to start the five minute long process of taking her boots off, shaking the hay out of them, while at the same time getting hay stuck to the bottom of her socks, putting the boots on the wrong feet, then starting the process all over again.



This precious newborn calf was only a few days old.



Alyssa enjoyed studying this map and finding out about all the prime cheese locations in our state.



And this picture is because Kahiwa always likes to tell Granddaddy what a good climber she is ~ well she's been at it again!



We picked out lots of pumpkins in all shapes and sizes, and got some "rainbow corn" as Rebekah calls it. Alyssa agonized over picking out the perfect gourd, which I'll have to see if I can get a picture of later, it's unique!



It was a perfect pumpkin day!



How all good days on the farm ought to end.



Happy Halloween.

A Clean Car, Some Artwork, A Crested Gecko and A Cool Author

Earlier this week I drove Dave's car all day while my van was being washed and detailed courtesy of a groupon Dave had bought me a while back.

Emma and Rebekah were so excited when I picked them up from school in Dave's car! As I put their backpacks in the trunk they peeked out through the backseat armrest with such happy little faces. I had the camera handy because earlier in the day I didn't want to forget to take the picture below, of Rebekah's beautiful crayon work on the walls of the van. I knew they'd be long gone after the cleaning. I remember when Emma told me that Rebekah was drawing on the car and how her tone went very quickly from tattling to great pride as she told me, "Look, Mom! Rebekah made an upside down bicycle!!" I'm sure that's exactly what Rebekah was going for :-)



This picture is embarrassing not only because it shows the crayon marks that have probably been left on the wall of the van for over a year (I kept meaning to jump back there with a magic eraser sponge to clean it up, but somehow the task managed to remain at about #700 on my to-do list), but also the upholstery and cup holders in the back were both filthy. This cleaning was long overdue, and it came as no surprise when at about 2pm I had a message from the guy at the car place saying, don't worry, everything is alright with your van, it's just taking us longer than expected to clean it. Can we move the pick up time from 4 until 5? It was eventually finished and ready to go at about 5:30, and the girls thought we had gotten a new car. Rebekah looked down at the protective foot mats and said, "Hey, we had these in the old car too!" So now we have a mini van that doesn't look like three little girls have chosen to take up residency in there...we'll see how long it lasts.



Speaking of Rebekah's artwork, she has been really into drawing her cousin Triton lately. Here he is cheering on the Brewers, a team established in 1970 as she read on my t-shirt. I missed getting a photo of her drawing of Triton on the board in our classroom at church, but it was equally cute.



And here's one of our little family. It started out as just me in the middle, but then she added everyone else in. Dave is in the top right corner, and as Rebekah said mid-marker stroke, "Daddy is so hard to draw because of his hair!"

I'm sure not loving the huge Jay Leno chin she gave me, but it's a lot better than the picture she drew of me almost a year ago (here, Mommy, this is you she had said handing it to me):

Yikes, the scariest Mommy ever. I hope I don't really look like that.


In other news, we got the girls a real live pet. He's a crested gecko, and super cute as far as little lizards go. He's tiny right now, but will eventually grow to be about the size of my hand. Before we even picked him out, Rebekah wanted to name it Banana. I was surprised that Alyssa and Emma immediately agreed on her name suggestion, they just wanted to add some middle names for Banana. So without further ado, meet
Banana Lemon Mulch Big Bad Bob Sachs:

It will be a couple more weeks before we can handle him a lot. I guess geckos have a difficult time adjusting to a new environment and everything we have been told and read about advises us to give him plenty of time to settle in before we overwhelm him with three little sets of hands that are eager to hold him. He's an awesome jumper and climber too which ought to make things interesting, but hopefully soon, I'll have a little bit better of a picture to share.



Last night, the girls enjoyed meeting James Howe, the author of many books including the Houndsley and Catina books, the Bunnicula series, and The Misfits. We started reading some of his books last year when Emma loved a book by him that her teacher read to the class. He wrote super nice messages in the books the girls asked him to sign and we are so excited to read the new books!

Fall in Full Swing

We have been having the most beautiful Fall weather here lately! I've been soaking up each day outside with the girls because I know this is probably our last stretch of weather quite this nice for a very long time.

The girls had a day off school recently so we had a picnic in the park. It was a very last minute, throw some food in a basket kind of days, that's why Rebekah is wearing a 4th of July dress...not dressed to match the pretty Fall colors at all ~ but it is one of her favorite dresses and it is tiny, so this was likely her last time to wear it :-(



















They were amazed how the tree seemed to "catch" some of the leaves they threw into it's branches. I looked up and wasn't seeing what they were seeing...



But it must have been pretty cool!









Happy Autumn!!

Fast Forward

When we returned home from Hawaii I had the best intentions of getting caught up on all the posts that I drafted and then "left behind" on vacation. I got so busy with back to school stuff that I never got even close to catching up, and realistically I could probably blog for another entire month about the month we were there.



Last weekend I back dated a couple of posts about Rebekah, because I wanted them to reflect the actual date of her birthday, but I think now I'm just going to go ahead and fast forward. There is still lots of Hawaii stuff that I'd love to write about and share, so what will likely result will be a mix of some postings that are current and others will be about things we did back in August during vacation. Just to explain :-) ...



Vacationing for a month at a time is really the way to go...I wish we could manage to get away for that long every year, but that's just not possible (Alyssa and Dave had a very funny conversation about this truth). It makes getting back into the swing of a regular schedule challenging, but that's really the only downfall I could think of. I came home feeling refreshed, almost ready for the girls to start school (which I always dread) and I was really motivated to re-organize all of our closets and the girls' bedrooms. It's been a very slow process (frustratingly so), and still a work in progress, but I think I'm finally simplifying everything (one tiny corner of a closet at a time).



A picture for my parents of the girls in front of their favorite breakfast restaurant on Oahu. We didn't eat there, but it was neat to see their new location.



Skipping ahead to September 1st...the girls' first day of school in 6th grade, 3rd grade and K5. And so far the school year is going well for each of them!



And this is September 7th, their first day in a new MPact class for Wednesday night church. I am so excited because Rebekah is in my class this year. I started teaching the kindergartners when she was just a few weeks old and it seemed crazy far into the future when she would be one of my students...doesn't seem possible that time is already here. The first Wednesday of class, completely unsolicited on my part, she came up and sat in my lap while I was reading the story, and the second Wednesday, also without my prompting she began a very dramatic re-enactment of the story while I was reading it. So the good news is that we're both very excited to be spending Wednesday nights together, the bad news is that the teacher's kid is totally the naughty kid in class :-)