A few last flings of summer.
Tonight, I picked about a dozen red tomatoes off the vine. I'm not sure how much longer we're going to get those and also fresh basil from the garden, but I'll take it - in OCTOBER! Very nice weather this weekend too from what I saw.
A few highlights from our last two week:
Ezra is loving pre-school, he always has stories to tell about his art projects, or playing in the big motor room or singing songs. He also seems to be sick again, which is too bad, because we just got over getting colds. I have a hunch that his runny nose tonight is from his flu mist vaccine.
Levi has been enjoying kindergarten. Tonight at dinner, he surprised me and recited the entire pledge. I didn't even realize they were saying it daily at school, but I'm glad they were and that he listened. He's been opening up more and telling us a few more details about his class - some days more than others. He never talks about other kids in his class though, which is frustrating. Levi got a new baseball glove - its intermediate size and he should be able to use it next year for baseball. It has already improved his catching and throwing (he usually just loves hitting).
Roman is doing better. He is almost turning over on his own again. He's still very happy to be talked to or looked at or paid attention to. He has one tooth on the bottom of his mouth too, which is cute when he smiles. His fine motor skills are improving and he loves to eat Cheerios and Gerber "puff" stars and buttered toast. Roman is getting too big for his car seat, so this will be the last two weeks probably that he'll be in an infant car seat - we'll have to move him to a toddler one that is rear facing, but doesn't come out of the minivan. It seems like just yesterday (honestly) that we were taking him home from the hospital and that car seat was just too big for him and we needed to put in extra padding. Now, our baby has outgrown it.
Ivy is still eating whatever we give her - which lately has been yogurt, cheese and eggs. She also eats veggie nuggets and veggie burgers. And she eats veggies and fruits. Pretty much everything but potatoes (which she doesn't care for) and sweets (cause we don't let her have those yet). To my surprise, Ivy isn't crawling yet. She's scooting fine, but mostly backwards. I give her a week and she'll figure it out for sure - we're already putting up the baby gate at the top of the stairs whenever she's on the floor though, just in case she motors too fast. Ivy, probably because of the exercise and the less-fatty diet (fewer bottles of formula) is thinner and has no problem fitting into her car seat. She's shorter too, which is really what is pushing Roman to get into a bigger chair.
So here are a few of the activities we've done recently include: Going to Target's kid book fest in Bloomington; going to the Mall of America amusement park, I went to the Gopher's game with my neighbor Justin. (We watched the Gopher's lose big to North Dakota State - of course I was rooting for the Gophers.) We also have been shopping at Ikea, Target and Lowe's. Oh, and last Sunday, the Levi Ezra Christina and I went to meet the new lead pastor for our church. His name is Jay and he is supposed to be voted on by the church council next week and the congregation a few weeks after that. He may be installed on All Saints Sunday. He was very polite and friendly to talk to. I think he was surprised when I brought up a news story I read about him when he was a starting pastor in California - he was quoted in the LA Times. It was easy to find, but I doubt he expected anybody to do that level of background check on him. Oh, Levi gave him a buckeye. We happened to go on a bike ride the afternoon of the party and found a rare buckeye tree near the high school - i told Levi that my mom considers the little round nuts to be good luck and so we agreed it was something that a new pastor like Jay would enjoy getting as a gift. Levi gave it too him, and I kinda had to explain why.
Finally, the really big news around here is the fact that Christina and I have moved our bedroom up to the new addition. We were blessed to get a very beautiful bedroom set from Christina's uncle. Her cousin Erik and dad went up to "the lake" to retrieve it and haul it in - Thanks so much to both of you for your help. It was back-breaking labor - the dresser felt like a piano. We have the floors upstairs pretty much finished and this week I installed blinds in the room (from Lowe's). We haven't really done much but paint the spare bathroom upstairs, but that will come together soon enough. This weekend, I'll be staining the new stairs we had installed - they are maple and look a little bit like albino stairs right now - so we need them to match our existing wood stairs and main-level floors. It's very exciting too that Roman and Ivy get their own room (to share). We moved our bed out and got them a little rug at Ikea and put in the glider that Jonathan gave us. It's very cozy and cute in there, now we need a nice kid-friendly light fixture and to paint the drab walls, and we're in business.
That's about all for now. We are sort of distracted getting ready for winter around here - seems like we have a lot to do outside - I have to put up some shutters and do some raking of leaves and maybe even mowing of grass this weekend. I also want to finish painting at least some of the overhang near the back porch so we don't have to see yellow blobs of paint peaking through.
That's about all for now. My work is going OK. This week I wrote a story about a printing company that decided NOT to do an expansion project - you could say I made lemons out of lemonade. Here's a link - even though the story will only be available to our paper's print subscribers for the next two weeks - the link will still work after that and go to a free site. I also recently broke significant Twin Cities business stories about Target buying a piece of land near its headquarters in Minneapolis and one about a new $100M apartment project in downtown Minneapolis.
I'm listening to BOLERO by Maurice Ravel in a live concert by Minnesota Orchestra Live from Orchestra Hall. Good stuff. Oh, and did you figure out what the title is from up above? September song.
