Halloween and Little House on the Prairie Living

Why are there not many pictures of Halloween? you might ask... this was the Halloween that we didn't have time for because we were too busy doing our Little House on the Prarie chores since we have been without power for a few days.  We will definitely be buying a generator after this fiasco.  It has been relatively warm out and sunny during the day, so we haven't missed the heat except that the meat bird chicks are not old enough to be without heat, so, in something that is now funny after the fact, yesterday morning the kids and I loaded up all 30 meat chicks into a dog crate and dragged them to the back door.  The crate wouldn't fit through the back door so we had to drag them around to the front door.  This is fairly early in the morning, the ground is frosty and James is helping me in nothing, but underwear and a bathrobe.... it was quite a scene, not to mention the fact that the meat birds are on the verge of dying from the cold... On top of all of that having that many chicks live in our front room for a few days was unpleasant to say the least.  We were able to flush the toilets but only because part of our twice daily chores were to go to the pond next to our house and get buckets of water to use for this purpose.

Thankfully, most of our friends had power, so we had hot showers and towards the end we were able to borrow a generator so we didn't lose the meat in our freezers.  The kids had a great time trick or treating with their friends, the power eventually came back on AND no meat birds died in the end;)

Halloween Party and the Orchestra

Our friends host a pretty great Halloween party every year.  This year, due to some unforeseen circumstances, they were unable to host, so we moved the party around the corner to our house and had a blast.  There was lots of candy, donuts from string and that time we let the kids toilet paper the play set... I think that was a good idea... they did all help to pick it up though;)

The next day we headed to Portland for another orchestra family concert.  Ben was chosen, again, to be a conductor and he did a great job!  All of the kids really love the instrument petting zoo and once again Ben proved to be destined for brass and that he doesn't care about clashing stripes in his wardrobe...

Fall Hodge Podge 2017

The persistent warm weather has really made things interesting this fall!  We have just harvested our carrots, but it is still too warm to store them outside, so we had to put them in the refrigerator.  It is always so much fun to see what has been growing under the ground all summer:)  The pigs are settling in nicely and starting to turn over the ground.  Just because we thought life wasn't full enough, we decided to get another round of meat birds before winter... I think that was a good idea...

The kids and I took a foliage walk up Titcomb, still without coats at the end of October.  Last weekend James and I ran in the Fit Girls 5K and he did an amazing job!  It was his fastest race to date and he finished near the top of the entrants.  Noah and I are training for a half marathon in December and had just completed a long run the day before, so he opted out of this race.  Our early morning runs have been beautiful!  Nannie came this past weekend while Gabe was on a hunting trip and we made sure to tackle the corn maze and get some pretty impressive pumpkins.

Ben has now lost his second top tooth and is wondering if he will still be waiting on both front teeth for Christmas.  He is still rocking the sweatband and since this seems to have some staying power, I did buy him two real sweatbands so there is an alternate when one needs to be washed.  The sweatband craze occasionally spills over to the other kids, but no one is as committed at Ben;)  James and Audrey got up early last weekend and were playing quietly until they came in a showed me their new ammo belts... for pretending to be in the war... for the record, this was the answer to my question to James, "What are you planning to do with all of those broken tees you keep collecting?"... 

Glidden Wedding Weekend

We didn't stay for the entire week at the fair because we had to get home, get the pigs settled and make a quick turnaround to head to Millinocket for Tim and Brandy's wedding!  We had so much fun, I think the pictures sum things up nicely. Audrey had her first flower girl experience.  It was hard to tell, but I think she enjoyed getting her hair done, she was expressionless and refused to speak to the hairdresser, but she didn't complain either;)  The barn was beautiful, the weather was perfect and everyone had a blast.  It was fantastic to be able to spend time with everyone at such a happy occasion.  Congratulation Tim and Brandy!