Christmastime

As the kids get older the holidays become even more magical.  We enjoyed celebrating the season in Indiana, Minnesota, and Illinois.  A whirlwind, but great to see family and friends.

Distance can't keep these gingerbread builders apart!  We had a great time visiting Ella, Emerson, and their baby brother Eli.

Gingerbread man cookie decorating with Mellany - I think more frosting was eaten than spread:)

Quality bud time with Auntie Becca, Eleanor, and Evelyn

Thankful

We were blessed to spend Thanksgiving once again in Florida, this time on the east coast in West Palm. We enjoyed exploring a new area and spending a day with Uncle Brad, Aunt Abbey, Charlie, and Ollie!  Nothing compares to a laid back holiday, especially having scallops cooked by someone else.  That would be a new Thanksgiving tradition that I could get behind!

FireMAN's Best Friend

Fireman Whit kept us safe this Halloween, and Quinn, his faithful Dalmatian companion, kept us all on our toes!

 We spent the evening partying and trick-or-treating with our friends Mellany Tinkerbell and Johnny Penguin.  A great night for all!

WE WEnt to WEa

Wea Creek Orchard was our destination last weekend when Grandma and Grandpa came to visit.  The apple trees were picked clean already for the season (not a good apple crop this year), but we took a nice stroll around the farm and the kids picked out some fabulous non-rotten pumpkins.

Then we capped it all off with a tractor ride!!!

New Toy for Mom

Our recent life as told by my new favorite photo editor app:)

Add-On Case

What do old OR nurses do when they stay home with the kids?  This, sadly.

We put up our halloween decorations yesterday, and it was discovered that Whit's bat no longer laughed when you pushed his belly and instead let out a far more frightening (and appropriate) faint gurgly squeal.  I was ready to throw him away, or let him live in silence, but of course Andy suggested that Mom could easily fix him.  Mom fixes everything, which is of course why Dad was so quick to volunteer her services.  So, to make it a bit more enjoyable, I took it as an opportunity to teach Whit a little about surgery.  Here he is taking vitals before we rolled Mr. Bat into the OR.

The OR team placed the patient in the prone position and prepped the surgical site.  Then Dr. Pieper proceeded to make his first incision with a seam ripper (sterilized, of course).

After obtaining the sound box and replacing the batteries, a lengthy closure commenced.

Always the compassionate boy, Whit cuddled Mr. Bat when he awoke and checked on him regularly post-op to ensure no complications arose.

And of course the circulating nurse documented beautifully:)

Mr. Bat is now laughing maniacally and ushering in the holiday just as he was intended to.

More Family Time

We were fortunate enough to have Andy's Great Uncle Doug visit us for a night during his travels to see friends in the area.  He and Whit had a blast building LEGOs together, and we all had a great time relaxing and sharing stories.

The Pieper League

This summer we learned that cousin Charlie had made a superhero name for each of the boys.  I thus decided to make each of them a cape and hand over their powers to them when we travelled to Minnesota for Labor Day.  Here we have "Whit Flash, Will Batman, and Charlie Aquabat."

Super Eva got one too, of course:)

Ollie and Quinn enjoyed some light conversation while the others ran around fighting crime.

This Girl

Last First Day of Preschool

Started off the day with the now traditional breakfast of first days.  Whit was most thrilled about the popcorn nose, which I found left on the counter from the night before and decided to add at the last minute.  Gotta love him.

Off to school and super excited!

A Day for the Pigs

We spent the day at the Indiana State Fair with dear friends doing everything you can do at a fair.  As state fairs go, it was very impressive - clean, well-organized, and a perfect array of all the foods I wanted to inhale.

Quinn watched everyone ride the rides

Whit played ONE game (I could barely handle the obscene cost for these things, and now understand why my parents almost never encouraged me to play them growing up) and he won a pretty cool giant bouncy ball.

We posed for obligatory photos

We learned all about how food goes from farm to table in a very impressive kids exhibit

And most exciting of all, we spent a LOT of time with pigs - Hampshires and Yorkshires to be exact.  It was super interesting to a nerd like me.  My friend Hallie's family has a pig farm in OH and they always come show at the IN State Fair.  She and her husband actually met showing pigs when they were young - love at first swine.  It was so fun to learn all about what they do to raise and show these 400 lb. hams.

The event was a family affair - here you see Hallie's sister Hannah wrangling one back to the pen after its auction, and her son helping.  You see farmers doing this while looking like they are going out for a night on the town, as you can see Hannah wearing very nice clothes and jewelry.  LOVE that.

Hallie and fresh baby Eli

Another wonderful visit with Ella and Emerson!

Paradise Lost

My grand dreams of a Martha Stewart garden have gone the way of the dodo.  Paradise was lost somewhere between the animal that has burrowed under our raised box and attacked the garden like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, the Japanese beetles, the mold infection, and the massive hail storm (the last of which left me embarrassingly weepy).  God bless the farmers of the world, for theirs is a heavy burden (admittedly lightened by crop insurance, but still).  This was definitely a year of learning for us.  Example A: These zucchini look impressive, eh?!  They sure do!  But bigger is not always better, folks, for once they reach a certain size, these giants become filled with seeds to the point where preparing them is no longer a simple task, and they just don't taste as good.

Made for some fun moments for the kids though, and that is worth it...I guess.

Then we come to the pumpkins, which have been both my greatest success and my greatest failure.

We'll grow our own pumpkins, and then when Fall comes we will carve them and have the pride of knowing that those pumpkins on our front porch were made in our backyard!  And look, we even got four pumpkins out of that one plant - one for each of us!  It is fate!

If you look closely, you can see that the stem is broken off the top, which I have now learned is the last sign that things have gone terribly wrong.  I went to pick up this guy's friend the other day, and he deflated (yes, deflated) in my hands.  So all four of our orange beauties have become fertilizer, due in part to the fact that I refuse to remove them.  They don't deserve the effort.  I hope the vermin that burrowed in eats them and gets a terrible tummy ache.

Next year we will plant only flowers.  ONLY flowers.  And herbs, of course.  And the tomatoes have done pretty well, so maybe we'll do those again.  Andy wants to try corn, so perhaps we'll do that, too.  And the strawberries are annuals, so we'll have those.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I can't let the dream die just yet.  And besides, I have to teach the kids to just keep trying........yeah, we'll go with that.