You can find my new blog at

www.thefireflylantern.com

I am so excited that it is up and hope you’ll come join me over there!

We just returned home from a 2 day/1 night trip to Chicago. It was my first time there. Definitely not enough time to do everything we would have liked. Regardless, I loved it! Loved the architecture, loved the view from where we were staying, loved walking, the kids loved the bus rides. The weather was beautiful. 

On Monday, we retested Kanon’s hearing. I was secretly praying that we would do the test, and afterwards the doctors would look at me and say, “We can’t explain it, but he has perfect hearing.” That’s not what happened. In fact, he’s lost even more hearing. I’m not sure if he has much if not any hearing in his left ear (I need to call and get a chart). His right ear still looks great.

After having beautiful fall weather for a few weeks we then returned to summer weather (like 100 degrees). Now it feels like winter. Not really winter. I know this is fall, but the mornings and evenings feel like a winter in Texas. However, I am still enjoying it and will so even more once we all have appropriate clothing. That way I don’t have to be the mom to send her daughter to nursery where they go outside to play, and my daughter ends up freezing because I didn’t bring a sweater for her. 

Apple picking is on our list of things to do this week. 

Pumpkin patch is on our list of things to do next week while Nonna is here. 

Kyrie’s 3rd birthday is on Monday. I am so very excited about the gift I’m making her; I’ve been thinking about it for a year now. Although, I should probably skip sleeping the rest of the week if I want it to be finished in time for her birthday. 

The blog redesign is the closest it’s ever been to being finished. I am so excited. 

I am also so excited (an understatement) that I will be attending the Relevant Conference in just a few short weeks. Does that sound totally dorky? A blogging conference? I cannot wait to listen to the speakers and meet some amazing women. 

I could tell you even more random stuff, but I think I will spare you for now. That’s if you’re still reading. Have a Happy Wednesday!

Yes, I got sick. At least half of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in bed. I was so dizzy I wasn’t able to stand for long. I am feeling much better now -not completely back to normal but better. I still get dizzy a lot, and I’ll spare you the other details. This is not what I am excited about.

What I am excited about is becoming a contributing writer at At the Well. It is a ministry based around Titus 2:4-5 “and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” (ESV) The blog has a daily post from various writers that I am still “getting to know.” The posts span a range of categories equipping and encouraging women.  I will be posting once a month in the Practical Living category. My focus will not be on writing (good thing, right!) as much as it will be on a practical tutorial. To say that I am very excited to be joining this group of women is an understatement! Go visit At the Well today to see my first post!

this morning’s doses

I feel like a pharmacist or doctor with all the medicine I’ve been administering around here. I don’t really like medicine (I mean I am very thankful for it), and I don’t like putting so much into my kids. However I dislike ear infections more than I dislike antibiotics.

We are on the rise. And while we’ve been sick, we’ve still managed to enjoy our days. So much time is spent around the sandbox.

The kids have checked on our garden multiple times a day -usually always picking something.

Kanon has been enjoying anything with wheel. His brother’s tricycle and bicycle and his sister’s (yes, sister’s) Mater are his favorites. 

Karston and Kyrie even helped me do the dishes today.

They really did do such a great job. Since they were such a big help, we walked to the florist where I let them pick out a few flowers for a small bouquet. The flowers now adorn their sparkly kitchen.

Tonight at bedtime, Karston told me walking to the florist to get flowers was his favorite part of the day. I’m glad he remembers it like that and not how he was whining the whole way home because he didn’t want his sister to walk beside him and how she wanted to walk RIGHT BESIDE him because “I love him”……

Now before I share the pictures I want you to know that there were SO many things that weren’t finished in time for the party. This is not an unusual occurrence in my life; usually, as the party draws near I lose excitement and think that it would be better to just cancel the party instead of have it unfinished. And after the party, I usually think how wonderfully well it went, but it would have been better had it been all I had planned. Kind of a perfectionist like that. HOWEVER, that was not the case with this party. 

Now on to the photos. I’ll start with our carnival games. These pictures are not good at all, many blurry, but it’s all I have. Since I wasn’t going to have any family around at the party to help out, I was going to hire a girl to photograph the party, but that was one of the things that didn’t work out…. So look beyond the quality of the pictures please. 

Games:

bean bag toss

knock ‘em down

pick a duck

make a match

face painting

strike a pose

The bean bag toss: made the day before the party out of three pieces of foam core, with a free hand circle cut out with a kitchen knife in each one, then wrapped in some wrapping paper I had in our giveaway collection in the basement, the three boards taped together and propped up with scrap wood

Super cute candy bean bags: courtesy of our neighbor

Knock ‘em down: cans are empty yogurt containers that I started saving for this very game, once washed and dried Karston and Kyrie helped by putting a handful of beans in each container (to add a little weight so the wind wouldn’t knock them over), I then glued the lids on and spray painted them

The polka dots on the table: Karston and Kyrie’s creation (I tried to include them in party preparations just enough that they felt they had a part but not so much that they weren’t surprised by the party as well)

Pick a Duck: rubber ducks picked up on my second trip to a Super Wal-Mart in 2010, letters written with a sharpie on the bottom of each duck

Pick  a duck, tell me what letter is on the bottom, get a prize

The younger kids just loved playing with the ducks…and the water.

Make a Match: a classic memory game, I spray painted clothes pins a golden yellow, glued them to the poster board, in about 10 minutes on Friday afternoon, I drew and colored six pictures on the computer, printed them out, adhered red cardstock out of my stash to the backs of the pictures, cut them up, and arranged them under the clothes pins

The older kids enjoyed this game. 

Face Painting: face paint (!), jar of water, mirror for the kids to see their cheeks

I started out face painting. However, on one of my trips up to take care of something else, the kids started to paint each other’s faces. This turned out to be a genius idea. Why I didn’t think of it when Kyrie was painting her own face before the party started, I don’t know.

Strike a Pose: a red tablecloth which should have gone higher (and lower) adhered to the garage door about 10 minutes before the party, props included: silly glasses found in party section of Target, mustaches cut out off cardstock 2 minutes before the party, a headband with strips of cardstock folded in a zigzag and taped on made about 30 seconds before the party

This was A LOT of fun. Each family had their picture taken in the silly props!

The Prizes (no pictures):

glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs (pkg. of 8 in the dollar section at Target)

animal shaped foam capsules -you know, put the pill in the water and a shape appears (party section of Target)

glow stick bracelets (pkg. of 15 in the dollar section of Target)

The Food:

Hot Dogs

Mini Corn dogs 

Watermelon

Animal Crackers

Popcorn

Buttered Popcorn Jelly Bellies

Gumballs

This was my favorite part of the pre-party: “creating” the food table.

The stripes were made the afternoon of the party using duct tape. I would so be a person to paint a wall or stripes or a mural for a party, but since this is a rental, duct tape will have to work. Don’t they look so happy? I wanted to leave them up.

And you can’t forget….

The Cake:

Meg’s Rainbow Cake

It was a HUGE hit! People were surprised it actually tasted good. Hello, I’m not all about looks.

Do you think he enjoyed it? He ate the whole purple layer in one bite, and the rest of the piece, and then went after Kyrie’s. 

Wow that was a long post! We enjoyed celebrating Kanon, the year we’ve had with him, and the year we’ve made it through! 

….more to come tomorrow

We have been having so much fun around here. We’ve had way more play dates than normal, been busy playing with the new neighbors, we went to the state fair

where all the kids enjoyed the animals, Karston enjoyed the ferris wheel and swings, and Kyrie enjoyed the swings. 

We also got some polyester goodness from our neighbor’s trash. Another neighbor told me that they had a whole box of fabric set out by the trash. I denied the urge to take the whole box home to go through it because I am trying to be careful about what I bring into our house. I did think it a great opportunity to let the kids pick some out for craft projects though. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves, going through all the fabric, picking their favorite, carrying it to the stroller basket, and returning to the box for more. I couldn’t stop them -I know that feeling all too well. The excitement and sugar high from seeing all that eye candy. They really must be my children.

Well while we were going through our neighbors trash, they came home. And I was embarrassed. And then the man told me all the fabric was his wife and mother-in-law’s from the 1960s. And then I really did want to take that whole box home. And I once again denied the urge.

We also made a spur of the moment trip to Cincinnati to see some very dear friends from Waco, TX. The visit wasn’t long enough. Such sweet times. The kids, as well as us, fell straight into visiting and playing as if no time had been spent apart. 

Now I can’t mention our visit with our friends without telling you what they are doing. They are filmmakers and are currently on a tour filming for their newest film.

IndoctriNation

Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America

IndoctriNation the Movie website

IndoctriNation the Movie blog

Whatever your views are on public schools, this will be a documentary to watch. The Gunns are amazing at what they do. 

And back to our fun, we also attended a free family festival event hosted by a local church on Labor Day. It was the first time that the Mr. has been employed by a place that actually takes Labor Day off. It was nice to be together as a family. I must say, for small children, the festival was better than the state fair. Karston and Kyrie took their first pony rides, rode a train, had their faces painted, jumped on inflatables, got balloons, played carnival games, got free Secretariat shirts, and ate cotton candy. And I half purposefully forgot my camera. So no pictures of it.

It is also turning fall around here which is so exciting. The weather has been cooler with the mornings and evenings being quite cold. Leaves are falling and starting to change colors. We have spent a lot of time outdoors. I think Fall may be replacing Summer as my favorite season -maybe that’s because we actually have a fall here in Kentucky.

Have you done anything fun recently? Did you do anything for Labor Day?

…..and the clean-up.

Is it bad that I was actually proud of two of Karston’s drawings? His drawing is changing, and it’s so exciting to me. I see drawing lessons in the near future! However, explaining to a four and two year old that this is not really our house, that we pay people money to live here, and those people will make us pay more money if we mess their house up, that it’s OK for Nonna to paint on walls because she is an artist and people pay her to do that…..yeah, that proved to be just a tad bit harder than we thought.

We love this time of year because our favorite corn is now in stock (in abundance) at our local farmer’s market. It is King White Corn- supposed to have a bigger kernel and be sweeter than Queen White Corn- and is the best corn we have ever tasted. We also cook it a certain way, and I thought I’d let you in on our delicious method.

Turn oven on to 400

Lay your corn out

Cut off any loose part of the husks. Keep your cutting to a minimum; you want to leave as much husk as possible.

Place directly on the oven rack and bake for 30 minutes. Cooking them in husks like this is supposed to give more flavor. Apparently the flavor is in the silks (the stringy parts of the husk) and cooking like this gives the corn the flavor from the silks. Even if this isn’t true, there’s something about cooking it like this that gives the corn more flavor.

**There is no need to set them this close to each other, but I was using my toaster oven because my regular one needed cleaning. 

While it cooks, gather these ingredients: butter, parmesan cheese, parsley flakes, and kosher salt.

Melt a little butter in a small dish. Sprinkle in some parmesan, parsley, and salt. Stir. I totally don’t measure for this.

Remove corn from the oven. They’re are usually not this brown; they will be brown just not this brown. Mine were browner than usual because, remember, I cooked them in the toaster oven and therefore set closer to the top of the oven.

At this point, you can peel off the husks and cut as usual. Or you can peel back the husks to use as a handle.

I go ahead and cut mine because it’s easier for the kids. Brush on your buttery topping and taste the best corn you’ve ever had!

Make sure you prepare A LOT. Everybody will want seconds. The little girl below could eat 6 ears herself.