Glorious Fall at the Grovestead

It is gorgeous around here! I have a feeling this Minnesota fall is going to be stunning. Because it already is. The sumac is turning bright red and the maples are already firing to a bright orange. It makes for dangerous driving because I want to take pictures instead of watch the road. (don't worry! I don't!)

Speaking of watching the road...there are so many wooly bear caterpillars trying to cross the road lately. I feel like I'm in some terrible video game, trying to dodge the caterpillars with the tires of my car. There are dozens every time I go to town. Rory apparently hasn't seen one. He said to me, "why are you looking for caterpillars when you're driving?" Now we know who ran over the flat ones.

Another animal related thought. I have grown weary of the idiom "look what the cat dragged in." Because our cats are dragging stuff in every single day. You best not go out in the garage without shoes on. I used to be a good sport about this, because we do live on a farm. But you can only take in so many little dead animals before a girl starts to tell her husband to go dispose of the half-eaten frog/bat/mouse/chipmunk in the garage.

And more animal news! A week ago we brought our 30 broiler chickens to the meat locker. Rory and I loaded them up in the pouring rain. Well, Rory did the loading, but I was out there taking pictures and video the whole time. I was a little sad to say good-bye. I tried not to get attached, but in the last weeks I made up new names: Kiev-en, Gordon Bleu, Tettra-Zina, Kung-Paul, Floren-Tina, Caccia-Tori...and I thought the names were so clever that I was sorry to see them go.

Two nights later we were eating (one of our very own) fried chicken. While eating that first bird it was important to keep the conversation rolling. Didn't want to think about anything for too long. It was pretty good, but it was also our first attempt at fried chicken, and the bird probably should have been brined. However, tonight we had a roast chicken (that had been soaked in a brine) and vegetables and all I could think of when I was eating that bird was how good it was. Rory roasted his own carrots, potatoes, onions and scallions and it was a great meal. One of the record books. (You can read Rory's blog all about the chickens by clicking here.)

All in all, we're doing well here at the Grovestead. Rory is working around the clock with business stuff, we got cable so I'm watching a whole lot of HGTV, and we have a wood burning stove that will be put in our living room one of these days. We're savoring this weather, Elsie and Ivar laugh hard and lock horns all in the same minute and we're taking in as much fall beauty as possible. The world we live in is quite stunning, and I am trying to soak it all in.

the minnesota children's museum

After our trip to the zoo, I knew we had to hop back in the car and drive to St. Paul to see Thomas. The exhibit is about to close and I was feeling the pressure to follow through on a whole lot of promises and self-created hype. So I loaded up the kids for a second day of field trip fun and went to see Thomas the Train.

Truth-be-told, the exhibit was a bit chaotic and made me sort of mother-tired. The kind of tired that's caused by too many interventions helping your kid share or helping another kid share or stopping little tantrums before they become large scale. I try not to hover too much, but when you have this many kids driving trains on one little island, it can get a bit crowded. And no one this age is skilled at sharing.

So we left that room and found the station where kids can paint their own faces. Elsie has found my lipstick before, and after this experience I am terrified (and fully aware) of what will happen the next time she finds it.

We visited every room at the Children's Museum and in every room Ivar complained that "Thomas isn't in this room!" He had no interest in the other exhibits until after lunch. With some cheese and crackers in his belly he seemed to mellow a bit.

The trip made for a fun adventure into the city. The sky-ways were a huge highlight and left me thinking we need to come back sometime with no destination and just run the sky-ways to burn off some energy. We sat for a while and watched cars and buses drive right under us. A sweet little memory.

a trip to the minnesota zoo

All weekend I told the kids we would go The Minnesota Children's Museum on Monday to see the Thomas the Train exhibit. I hyped it pretty well. Unfortunately museums are closed on Monday's...a fact my sister gently reminded me of just as we were about to hop in the car. After tears and promises to go on Tuesday, we decided to seize the day and pack a picnic for the Minnesota Zoo.

Rory had recently taken the kids to the zoo and came home raving about how impressive the zoo has become. He likened it to Epcot (a pretty high compliment!) and commented on how each exhibit area has a whole theme...the architecture of each building matches where the animals are from, the animals are grouped with animals you'd see all in a particular region and the exhibits are nicely designed. I was excited that he was so enthused and was eager to get back myself.

The zoo was awesome as ever, but the biggest change that I noticed this time was my kids. Oh my. They are getting so big. And helpful. I don't think I'll bring the stroller anymore. It was a pain to push, and no one really sat in it for very long. Ivar and Elsie are the perfect zoo-visiting age and the day together was so, so fun. I was so aware of our life stage right now...we don't require a whole lot of gear and on the whole are pretty low maintenance. It was really great.

We played a game in the aquarium, looking at the pictured fish and trying to find it in the tank. The kids loved this game and we could have stayed for ages.

The current favorites for my kids were the penguins (they're by the rocks above, but clearly didn't make the picture...I was obviously more into photographing my kids than the animals!), turtles and the monkeys. They also loved playing in the bee hive play space and they each touched a snake. I didn't, but I was proud they did.

motherhood is a ride

Rory needed the house silent today while he took a few sales calls. And since we were still in our pajamas and couldn't really go out in public, I decided to take the kids on a country drive. I kept telling the kids, "oh that's a pretty picture!" and stopping the car to take the shot. Later they were telling me, "Pretty Picture! Mom, take that picture!"

We drove to a nearby town and got lunch at the meat locker. We played at the park and did a show for each other, showing our jumping jack skills, demonstrating our favorite give-me-five tricks and singing our favorite songs.

So here's what I was thinking about while on this super lovely outing: each day in motherhood feels like a bit of a crap-shoot. It's as if dice actually are rolled before I wake up, and the trajectory of our day greets me and asks me to adapt. It's why motherhood is the ultimate test in selflessness. Because some days require total selflessness. But other days are like today. They take you on adventures with your kids where you can't believe your life is this grand. Days when your heart is overflowing with gratitude for these two little lives who make for super fun company on these random outings.

And actually it's not days that are the crap-shoot... it's minutes. Everything changes in a matter of moments when little kids are involved.

So you end up with pictures like the one above where there are two happy and joyful kids, playing hard and life is awesome. But what I didn't know is that Elsie is running over to the swing to try to fly like superman. Except she's going to miss her fulcrum and tip forward, planting her face on the gravel below.  And this moment will be followed by screams and sobs until we pull ourselves together to go meet a dog and his old man owner who are walking through the park and distract us back to happiness.

Motherhood is a ride.

On the way home I turned down a new gravel road that, as it turns out, did not loop me back the way I thought it would. I was sincerely lost, scanning the horizon at every high point looking for a grain elevator that might point to some sort of town nearby. Eventually I spotted a tall elevator and found the town we had left about twenty minutes earlier.

And as it turns out, life is the ride.

God is so good, He's so good to me.

I'm not sure what kind of head-grabbing silly game they were playing in the stroller, but my kids really enjoy each other. They laugh so hard together. Sometimes they laugh because they're being naughty and not listening to me. But even that is kind of cute because they're in cahoots together. (I mean it's cute for like four seconds. But still cute.)

On Saturday night we moved Elsie's crib into Ivar's room. The first night it seemed like it might have been a terrible idea, but three nights later and I think we have a successful set up.

Their bedtime chit chat is crazy cute. Ivar will tell Elsie things and she will repeat his words and add an "ohh yaaa" like an old Scandinavian woman. Two nights ago I caught them singing and recorded the baby monitor (sideways, apparently). The words they are singing is "God is so good, He's so good to me." It's from their Veggietales CD and at the end of the song Larry the cucumber says, "That's nice Bob." And Junior the asparagus says, "Ya, that's nice Bob." (you will need to know this so you can tell what they are saying...) Now prepare yourself for some cuteness.


god is so good from Becca Groves on Vimeo.