54 pounds

It took some special math to come up with the grand total of apricots I picked and dried this year (Papa, this is the revised amount...I forgot my first batch). Another awesome Freecycler let me come and pick apricots off one of her trees. After two trips to pick them and countless hours cutting, pitting, simmering, soaking, and drying, we have three one-gallon bags of dried apricots to munch on. I borrowed my neighbors 70's Excalibur dehydrator (I'm gonna get me one of those) and used my smaller Nesco to slowly finish the drying process. The kids LOVE them and munch on them every day.

While they have a new favorite snack, the kids are not upset that I'm done with the apricots. I heard, "are you done yet" about a million times over the 10 days it took me to get it all done. I've committed to playing with them for a few days before getting to work on the tons of veggies I have to blanch and freeze. With Justin starting hunting season this weekend and me working on harvesting everything from the garden, our kids will equate this time of year with being able to get away with almost anything because Justin and I are both very distracted.

Rejection's tears (mine, not hers)

I took the kids to a popular park today to burn off some energy with the hoards of other kids there doing the same. After a few minutes of running up and down the ramps together, Madeleine broke off from Parker to see if there were any kids she could play with. I'm continually amazed at her confidence level when she goes up to kids and asks them if they want to play with her. She's scripted the whole thing perfectly: Hi, do you wanna play with me? My name's Madeleine but you can call me Maddie. What's your name? Seriously, is this the same kid who last summer buried her head in my shoulder any time someone looked at her when we were at the park?

Today she found a 5-year old girl instantly who showed her how to go down the fireman's pole. Madeleine mimicked her perfectly but after a few minutes the girl's daycare left, leaving Madeleine to wander to find a new friend. My heart slowly bent as she was rejected time and time again: No, I'm playing with her. No thanks, I don't wanna play with you. No, I already have a friend. No. No. No. No. Seven times in a row she was rejected. Finally she sat down in the sand about 3 feet away from a group of 3 girls who wouldn't play with her. She took handfuls of sand and piled them on her jeans.

She was content and only occasionally looked up at the girls to see what they were doing. Parker, on the other hand, would run up to her and tug on her to chase him every few minutes. She humored him a few times but would return to her sandy pit to pile up more sand.

After about 15 minutes of this I couldn't take it any more. Using lunch as our excuse, I gently pulled the kids away from the playground until the promise of dried apricots lured them to the car. I let Drake hop in the back, buckled the kids' seat belts, then sat in my seat while tears poured down my face. How could my sweet, beautiful, polite girl be rejected so many times in a row? What did she do to deserve that? Didn't these kids know how hard she's worked to be confident enough to go up and ask them to play in the first place?

As the tears streamed down my face I called Carol needing someone to share this burden. I know it is just the first of many rejections to come but it was a tough one for me. I'm glad I/we crossed this hurdle before the first day of preschool because inevitably she'll be denied something at some time there. However, this moment will be with me for a long time to come; maybe because I recently felt rejected or maybe it resurfaced memories of feeling rejected in the past. The pain I feel is deep and aching. Of course, it didn't appear to faze her at all; she even told me that it was okay no one wanted to play with her because she had Parker to run around with. But I can't help but wonder what she's thinking inside. I'm thrilled to watch my kids grow up but I wish it wasn't so hard sometimes.

"I can't do this!"

Madeleine just finished screaming/crying/yelling this while tucked under her covers in her bed. Yes, bed, as in not-her-crib. Although she's been able to climb out of her crib for almost 4 months, we hadn't transitioned her to a "big girl bed" because she was content and cooperative still using her crib. Well, we head to PA in a few weekends for JoAnn's wedding and they only have one crib...the perfect excuse we need to finally transition Maddie to a bed. So she's toughing it out and expressing her anger and frustration at not wanting to grow up. And as compared to other attempts we've made to let her ease into sleeping in a bed, we actually put her old crib in Parker's room because his crib would squeak every time he moved, sometimes waking him up. So there's no turning back tonight. Fortunately she didn't take a nap today so we have exhaustion working to our advantage. She's a fighter so she'll do her best to make her point but come morning, I think we'll be able to say yes Madeleine, you can and you did do it!

Work: in progress

The lazy days of summer are slowly fading away. While I welcome the shortening days and routine that fall brings, this year feels like we have a lot of work to do before fall actually begins. I've been busy harvesting herbs and produce from the garden like a maniac. We have basil everywhere (12 batches of pesto is already in the freezer with 8 more headed there this weekend), squash and zucchini with dinner each night, carrots to snack on throughout the day, sweet corn to fight over, jalapenos and banana peppers to turn into chile renellos, and huge heads of broccoli and cauliflower that desperately need to be eaten or frozen.

My neat-and-tidy fortress of solitude is now an unruly and untamed jungle. I picked our first ripe cherry tomatoes today, which Madeleine promptly devoured. When the majority of the tomatoes ripen, I'll probably be spending most of my days standing at the stove canning salsa.

We've also embarked on the path to preschool. For a while this past spring we were unsure whether Madeleine would be ready for school this fall. As summer progressed and her interest grew, I began to drag my feet. Although I said it was because we've had a lot going on, the truth is that I feel a lot of pressure to find the right fit for her. So much pressure that I've been somewhat paralyzed with fear and therefore waited until the very last minute to make it happen. Fortunately Justin helped usher me into action and we think we have found a great place for her. We'll hopefully find out tomorrow if she has a MWF opening. If so then she'll start the Wednesday after Labor Day. If not then we'll be on the hunt again.

This is also the calm before hunting season. Justin is busy practicing shooting his bow in the back yard every night. It seems as if hunting season always sneaks up on us and I'm once again pleading for Justin to not go out all weekend...that the kids need to spend some time with him. But we've been through this routine enough over the last few years that I know that I'll be kicking him out the door to hunt in November if he hasn't bagged anything yet. We're hoping (as we do every year) that he'll get a nice bull on opening weekend so the pressure to get anything else during the season is off. We really missed not having a freezer-full of meat the last two years.

And then there's the constantly unfinished list of projects we've started: the new front and back doors are in but we still need to get new trim and put it on; most of our plants have been planted but we still have a few miscellaneous bushes that need homes; I have a set of cupboards in the garage that I got free off Freecycle that we haven't yet installed in the laundry room; the gravel for our parking pad still need to be flattened out; and our flagstone front patio area hasn't been created. None of this will get done during hunting season so the outside items we don't complete this month will have to wait until spring while we can finish the inside projects after Thanksgiving. For now we're lucky the kids think a huge pile of rocks in our yard is beyond awesome.

Summer sewing

I haven't done much sewing since the basement flooded. It took me a while to get my craft room back in order and then we had guests stay with us which put my sewing on hold. This week I finally got around to tackling one of the hundreds of projects I want to try. Here's the final product. Tuesday this was actually still an man's short-sleeve dress shirt (I'm hesitant to take a "before" picture in case that jinxes me). Following the instructions found here, I cut out the neck, resewed sleeves, and added a sinched waistband. It looks pretty short to me right now but I'll have Madeleine try it on tomorrow. If it fits we'll show and tell.

Mutton Bustin'

If you wanna know what Parker will be begging to do in another 3 years, check this out. I almost peed myself watching it. That's the Western Montana Fair for you! :)

Papa and Mimi's visit

Whether we were out fishing, riding ponies (real or at the carousel), playing at the water park or children's museum, hiking, eating ice cream or drinking beer (don't worry...there's only water in Parker's bottle), we had a great visit with my folks. Everyone was tuckered out by the time they had to head home. Come back soon!

Nana and Papap's visit

Two months late but at least the pictures are finally here. JoAnn gets credit for half of these. Can't wait for them to come back :)