On my way!

Here I go!  This was the view during my flight to Chicago.

I put Kate down for her nap before I left for the airport knowing I wouldn't see her for over a week- I had to wipe away a few tears and breathe deeply to keep myself from crying too much.  It is so hard for me to leave my babies for the first time!  Apparently, she is doing great and doesn't miss me yet in the least.  

Can't wait to share all I get to see!

On a side note, aren't sunrises and sunsets amazing?!  They are so glorious. . .and so fleeting.  If we are too busy, we will miss them altogether.  I am so thankful to my a Heavenly Father for this beautiful world in which we live!  May we all take the time to seek out the beauty.

Backyard Campout

The kids have been begging to camp in the tent.  We thought we might do it when the cousins were visiting last month, but it didn't work out.  Then we thought we would do it a couple of weekends ago and we got too busy.  So, we finally set a date and made it happen.  The kids had a lot of fun.  Kate took forever to fall asleep- in fact if she hadn't been crawling all over me, I would have been out long before her!  Dad had a campfire with the 3 big ones- while Kate was supposed to be sleeping, but was crawling all over me in the tent.  Kate woke up at 4:15 and started to get playful, so I ended up taking her to be bed and I went to mine.  Needless to say, Kenneth was not pleased when he woke up in the morning and realized I was no longer in the tent.  He didn't so much want to sleep out there himself!  Ah the memories!  The kids will look back with fondness on it and that makes it all worth it, right?!


Setting up the tent



I love little Kate peeking in the tent!

Now Arianna wants to see what's in there, too!

Everyone wants to push a stake in!

These kids have the best Dad ever!!!  We love you, Daddy!

Art fun

Projects from Thursday's Art day:

Arianna's cat

Grant's cat

Emma's cat

On Fridays I have been trying to have 'mommy time' with each of the big kids.  20 minutes wherein they get to pick what we do- one on one.  Arianna chose to play with horses with me.  Grant chose to play with a train and some animals and blocks.  Emma wanted to draw.  Here's what I drew:

Isn't she cute?!  We watched Rio last week, so I think I had birds on the brain.

  The girls liked 'Fifi' so well, they drew their own afterwards:

Emma's Fifi

Arianna's Fifi Family

 

CTR Smoothie

We finally found a green smoothie we love!  

A few years ago I was looking to eat more healthfully and I was determined to get more kale in my diet, amongst other things.  I tried it in smoothie and I could barely choke it down.  Since then, I've made lots of smoothies and almost always add a vegetable of some sort (spinach, cabbage, Swiss chard, carrots), but I tried to avoid them looking green and didn't add too much of the vegetable compared to the amount of fruit I used. Well, today, I tried a new recipe and I could't believe how well I liked it!  The kids even loved it.  We have loads of kale in the garden right now, so it's great!  

Here's the recipe I used:

http://ohsheglows.com/2011/01/13/classic-green-monster/

I am loving her blog all around.  I've tried quite a number of things and they are so healthful and delicious.  So, I used kale today and instead of ice cubes, I did use frozen pineapple juice I had in the freezer, so obviously that contributed to the deliciousness, but still!  I think the peanut butter is what makes it so amazing.  

Try it!  If you don't love it now, try again in a few years!

 

Oh, and one of the kids said they didn't like the name Green Monster, so we renamed it the CTR Smoothie.  It's green like the classic CTR ring and drinking your greens is certainly 'choosing the right'!

Monkey saw, monkey did; monkey is CRAZY! Amongst other things. . .

Hello all!  Here I go getting all caught up! 

So, you know how Kate wanted to climb the walls, literally?  Well, she succeeded.  She is nuts, I tell you. 

The wall-climbers

There she goes again!

 
 

 

Where there's a will, there's a way!

I can hardly make dinner (or do much of anything for that matter) without being interrupted a million times by that little lady.  I've got to stop and take her off counters, keep her from falling onto the hearth, etc.  She's a busy body.  But, she sure is cute! 

So, to update:

We have been canning more- tomatoes, maple syrup.  It's the year for canning around here, I guess.  Of course, me trying to multitask, I boiled the maple syrup over.  Boy am I glad I have a flat top stove!!!  I even roped Kenneth into helping me with the tomatoes one night.  Last weekend, I even hosted a canning activity for our ward.  I didn't teach- we got a real pro to do that.  But, I did have fun hosting and sharing the excitement of canning.  It feels so good to be building our food storage. 

Grant had a follow up appointment with the optometrist and he still doesn't have to patch.  His eyes are doing great.  Hooray!

The kids had a dentist appointment this week.  When the hygienist asked Grant what flavor he wanted to have her use to clean his teeth and gave raspberry as an option, he said, "Does it have the seeds in it?  I don't like the seeds."  Funny guy! 

Here are the pictures:

With us trying to be healthier, I have been looking for things to enjoy at a campfire other than s'mores.  These baked bananas were amazing!  We did some in foil packets over the fire and they were good too.

The fire pit in our backyard.  We have only used it 3 or 4 times.

Enjoying the bananas and ice cream

Yum!

We had family home evening out there in the backyard.  Of course, the chickens had to join us.

Emma loves to swing with her babies!

Grant loves his chicken!

Grant and Puffy.

Kate loves ladybugs!

Pile of cutie pies!

My twins- separated by 5 years!

Kenneth helping can tomatoes

This is the sort of thing you can find this lady doing while we are trying to do school.  She's a climber!

 

One week, Arianna found this little corner to do her school work in.

Grant doing his math work.

Arianna licking up the maple syrup that boiled over- no worries, it cooled first.

Kate turns bath time into waterslide time.  She never wants her bath to end!   You should see her in action- she's wild!



Hummus?  Yes, please!

Yum!

 These next few are from our short trip to Colorado to get my passport.  Here are Holland and Kate doing what 1 year olds do:

 

These two are first cousins-once-removed and 3 weeks apart.

It was tough to get them both sitting still and looking at the camera.  Here they are with Holland's mom, my neice.

 

Grant with Brent, my brother-in-law.  Is he picking his nose?!  I hope not!  Good thing Brent is a good sport!

 

Last call for Kansas!

If any of you had thought you may want to pass through this way and stay at the Larchar home, this is your last call.  A couple of weeks ago, Kenneth accepted a promotion with AGCO and we will be moving to Duluth, Georgia most likely in January!  We never planned on staying here in Kansas a long time, but I must admit this comes a little sooner than I wanted.  We are very happy here, but we feel this is the right thing for us. 
We have had some busy times lately:
I washed my phone last week.  I thought for sure it was a loss.  I put it in rice in a sealed baggie for 4 days and it revived!  I couldn't believe it!  I prayed really hard about it and really think it was a blessing from heaven. 
The kids and I drove 14 hours for a 15 minute appointment.  Yes, crazy times!  (Of course, my phone was still dead when this trip came up, so Kenneth had me take his so as not to be on such a long drive phoneless.)  Last minute, Kenneth is making one last trip to Germany for work and we decided that it was possibly now or never for me to be able to go back there, so I had to drive all the way to Denver area to get a passport this quickly.  I leave in 9 days!!!!!  Can't wait!
We are busy with school, church, dentist appointments and just life in general.  And, there are more green beans calling me from the garden. . .a blessing and a curse, I tell you.
Hopefully soon I will do an update post with pictures so I will be all caught up before my trip. 

Visit from the Sherburne Larchars

What do Larchars do when they get together for vacation? They work!! Yes folks, that's just who we are! So, when we had a week long visit from Kenneth's brother and his family, that's what we did. An awful lot of work! (And boy am I thankful for it!) It just so happened that my 3 bushels of peaches came right before they arrived, so we had a lot of peaches to take care of. Also, Kenneth's mom went and picked lots of blueberries for us, which they brought to us and we took care of getting all those frozen as well. In addition, Kenneth and Scott did some work, when they weren't helping with the peaches or with kids, down in the basement on the unfinished bedroom and bathroom. Scott and Jenni actually weren't that interested in going out and doing a whole lot of sight-seeing (with our 100 degree plus weather, I can't say as I blame them!) We did watch a movie one night and went to a splash park another day. But, other than that we hung out here at home. It was a lovely visit. A first actually. . .the first time we have ever spent time with just Scott and Jenni and their family. Always in the past it has been at the farm with everyone else, or if it was at our house there were also other family members visiting. The kids had a lot of fun together too. Grant especially enjoyed having so many boys around! Here are some pictures of our fun week together:

Caleb or Josh told me the peaches were so beautiful I needed to take a picture of it, so here it is!

Working away into the night canning peaches

 

This shot also shows the simultaneous work on the table of the freezing of berries (raspberries were also on sale this week!)

Clean-up done for the night.  I'm ready to hit the hay!

 

At it again the next night.

 

We did NOT plan the red shirt thing.  Isn't that funny?

We ended up with 63 quarts of peaches, 7 quart bags frozen, a batch and a half of jam and a batch of peach butter.  Whew! 

We had crab legs for fun one day. 

 

The kids really enjoyed themselves!

 

Arianna's dancing crab legs

 

Grant man's crab dance

 

Story time in the evening

 

Kate could not get enough of Scott's tickles.

 

She is usually very shy, but after only a day or so, she had totally warmed up to everyone and was happy as a clam

Fun at the splash pad.

I put Kate's swimming suit on, but of course she wouldn't go anywhere near the water.

 

Happy cousins!

Jenni asked me to take some family pictures of them.  It was fun!  I hope they turned out as they wanted.

 

During the photo shoot, the kids noticed this on our tree.  Isn't that cool?  The shell of the cicada, from which it just emerged, is right next to it.

 

When Arianna knew pictures were happening, she changed her clothes and asked for 2 specific shots, this being one of them.

 

This is an extra one I snapped.

 

Here's the other one she requested.  She's even told me where she wants them placed in the house when I print them.

 

Emma wanted some pictures of her and the chickens.

 

Kisses!

 

Inch worm!

 

We celebrated Grant's birthday a couple of days early while Scott and Jenni and family were here.

 

Grant's icecream cake.  Thanks, Betsy for the 'recipe'.  Why haven't I done it sooner- it was so easy!!!

 

licking off the trees and animals waiting for icecream cake in their cones!

 

I love this little face.

 

Opening presents

 

Piñata time!  I had actually almost forgotten about celebrating Grant's Birthday while the visitors were here, but we decided kind of last minute to go ahead with it and Grant was all over making the piñata. 

 

On your mark. . .get set. . .go!

 

Finding the treats!

 

 

Lining up for tug-of-war

 

Setting up

 

Pull!!!

We had a great time! I'm so glad they made the long drive to come see us!