I like Fall.  It's my favorite time of the year.  Now that we have a house of our own, I finally feel like I can start investing in some decorations.  I have all these idea (and all these pinterest boards) so I just jumped right in this month.

I have to admit the kids are the perfect age to start enjoying this kinda thing.  Which makes it even more fun. I wasn't sure how much they would care.  The first thing I bought were two garlands to go over the door outside.  I found them for 70% of at Michael's.  (If I still had an employee discount there, I could have bought so much more.)  You would believe just how excited Ruth was with the bright red and orange leaves and glitter on them around the door and how excited Britt was with the pine cones on the door.

While I was there I looked at wreaths, but I had already decided that I'd probably just make my own.  It's so much cheaper that way.  Finding nothing that jumped out at me, just confirmed that.  So, a few days later I went down to the dollar store right next to us, and picked up a couple of bags of leaves that looked alot like the leaves on my garland and a spool of wired bronze glitter ribbon.  Gary grabbed me a grapevine wreath from Walmart that night, and so with the help of a hot glue gun, and a reminder video online about how to make a bow, I put together a wreath for the door.  I thought it turned out well, since I really can't tie bows well.  I was one of the few at Michael who wouldn't tie them at Christmas time for customers.  I had planned to put a C on the wreath, but didn't find anything I really thought was in the right font or a cheap enough price, so maybe another time.  It was a $6 project, and might have been even cheaper if I had tried out the pinterest link on saving real leaves by coating them with clear wax.  Britt went on and on about the wreath the next morning when he saw it.

I had so many leaves left over that I used them to decorate the dining room table as well.  Gary picked up some fruit when he went grocery shopping, so I just piled it all up in a pretty glass bowl in the middle and scattered leaves on both sides, and it makes the room look so much warmer and happier.  I have some more ideas for the leaves, if I get time.
And of course no porch is complete this time of year without some carved Pumpkins.  Britt picked out a spider in a spider web for his.  His pumpkin was so big I went back and added two bats next to it.  Then Ruth picked out a cat in a boot for hers.  I went ahead and carved mine, because almost half of the neighbors on our street had, and I figured they knew when was ok to do them.  I wish I had waited a little longer now, because I'm not sure if they will last until Halloween.  I still have plans to try something called pumpkin etching with mine, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

The final yard decoration, I added this past weekend.  They are some neat lighted ghost.  The original idea seems to have started over on Lowe's website, but I've seen several versions adapted on Pinterest.  I went with a pattern that I can just take the sheets off and then use them for Christmas yard decorations.  Just take some tomato cages and wrap them in Christmas lights.  Throw an old sheet over the top and color faces and waa-laa!  Ruth was very interested in watching me make them, but she still hasn't seen them lit up at night.  Britt just loved standing with them.  I ended up using our tent stakes to hold them down, and using straight pins to secure the sheets to themselves and in a few places to the tomato cages so that they wouldn't blow away.  So far so good.  One thing I would say is to be sure that you have steady glow lights.  Ours our currently blinking.  They take a few minutes to warm up and start blinking, so when I checked them, I thought I had the steady glow, but I didn't.  Mother says it looks fine that they look like they are flickering, but I think it would have looked better with a steady glow.

We enjoyed raking leaves as kids.  I can remember all of us getting in the backyard around this time of year with a rake.  We would first rake out some major roads (where we rode our bikes, and then we would each pick a spot for a house.  We would rake out walls.  Have kitchens and bedrooms, and leave an opening for doorways.  They looked like little floorplans made out of leaves, but when you added some lawn chairs and other assorted toys and items from the garage they morphed into amazing houses.  Each afternoon that we played outside, we would first have to reform the walls and move any leaves that had been scattered by the wind.  Eventually as it was getting too cold to play in our leaf villages, we would help Daddy rake all the leaves on a big tarp, and with several trips transport most of them to the dog pens to help insulate them as winter arrived.  The dogs always loved jumping and bouncing in the leaves as much as we did.
Apparently there is a big parade here the end of the month, on Monday infact, and they line everything up in our neighborhood to then go downtown.  They call it the Callithumpian parade, and from what I can gather it's primarily a Northeastern-Midwestern thing (which explains why I've never heard of it).  In the tradition of the early settlers who would treat any local odd ball, or anyone who had earned the town's redicule to a sernading of pots and pans and horns, and general racket.  It is usually accompanied by costume contest which is why they are popular at Halloween.  They are also popular for the Fourth of July, as a time to celebrate independence and ridicule the British.  I'm curous to see what all goes on here.
So, what does that have to do with raking leaves?  I'm glad you asked.  Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and rake the front yard, because Monday morning the city will come around and pick up everything that you rake into the road (weird I know, it not in your yard or bagged, everyone is just raking leaves in the road, and they are going EVERYWHERE).  Well the kids seemed to love the leaves as much as we did as kids.  They are too young to get the idea of a leaf village, and besides with the amount of wind we have here, it would be gone tomorrow.  However, they did love the idea of making a huge pile and then jumping in it.
Britt helped rake until he had a little pile going.  I kept raking and when he realized how much fun a bigger pile was he was grabbing handfulls and carrying them to the pile.  Ruth, bless her pea pickin little heart, tried but was losing almost all the leaves by the time she go to the pile.  Ruth would sit in the pile and rake them over her lap and be almost neck deep.  Nice to know that we don't have to worry about chiggers in the leaves here.  Britt would run and jump in them.  I tried to get a picture of him airbound with no luck.  Ruth would run, stop, and "jump" aka for her that means get one foot up to her knee, leave the other one firmly planted on the ground, and fall over into the pile.  Our neighbor Lilly who is about 6 months younger than Ruth came over to play a little too.

Momma says that I need to work on sharing.  She says I'm not doing a very good job of sharing.  I have no idea what she's talking about.  I let Britt play with my things anytime I don't want them.  She says I need to work on sharing people too, not just toys.  I don't think I should have to share people like Grumps and Ahna or Momma's lap if I don't want to.

Grumps and Ahna came to see us.  I took them to the zoo.  It was cold, windy, and rainy the day we went, but I didn't need my coat, I wasn't cold.  Ahna kept saying, "Put on your coat, your making me cold."
There were lots of fun things at the zoo.  There were lots of pumpkins, some were carved with lights and some were painted.  There were animal pumpkins too.  We saw bats and sea lions.  They are my favorite.
I liked the maze too.  Ruth kept trying to catch up and find me, but she couldn't.  Then she did, but then I hurried off, and she climbed over some hay to catch back up.  There was a witch but we didn't like her.  We liked making witch soup though.
They also fixed my hair.  I picked pink and it really made me Captain America.  Ruth wouldn't wear her Wonder Woman dress, and she didn't like her hair after they fixed it.

We are up to 23 weeks now, and I am almost as big as I was with the last two.  I'm a little concerned how much of a belly I will have by the time this one gets here.  I've already had the belly button "pop out" and I can't see much around it.  I've been measuring a little bit ahead.  Mother keeps throwing the word twins around, and Gary can't even stand the thought. haha.  Despite my belly size, I'm only up 4 lbs from pre-pregnancy weight.  I'll confess, I'm thrilled even though I should have gained more.  I had gotten off all the weight from Ruth, but I still haven't gotten off the last 15 lbs from Britt.

This one isn't as busy as the other two were, but it's still early.  I feel her more in the evening, and she goes crazy after I drink juice (but not Dr. Pepper I'll add).  Sometimes I do think she's doing jumping jacks in there, since out of nowhere I will feel baby EVERYWHERE.  The other night Gary made some Spiced Apple Cider (which is almost all straight fruit juice.  This child went CRAZY.  For the most part this one likes to hang out really low.  I have almost always have pressure with this one that I didn't have till much, much later with the others.  I told Gary the other night, that sometimes standing and walking feel like I'm squeezing a bowling ball between my thighs and trying not to drop it on my feet.  It's a workout sometimes just to stand.  :)

We are still working on a girl name.  If we ever get one, I'll let Gary look at the paper, if he still wants too.  I think we have narrowed it down to Katherine or Rebecca.  I prefer Rebecca because Gary and I can't agree on what we would call a Katherine.  We are no closer on a middle name though.  I like Rebecca Raleigh, he prefers Rebecca Joy (though we still have a gazillion other maybes that he likes).  I like Hannah Katherine or Katherine Faith, and he like Katherine Hope or Abigail Katherine.  See the trend of undecisiveness here?  Furthermore, he is debating whether we should just keep going with the pattern of using a middle name, and last night he mentioned that have a girl with a three syllable name will be odd after having two with one.  He is no help at all.  :)  As much as I want another boy, I'm feeling like this one is another girl.  All the more reason to come up with a name.

Some superhero Britt is.  He has yet to figure out that he only has a shield for defense.  Unlike the real Captain America he doesn't have a gun or a motorcycle.  I on the other hand am the Queen of the Amazon Women.  I can fly and my "bracelets" deflect everything from lasers to bullets. I don't need defense because I have super strength, plus I'm pretty.  What I'm still looking for is my lasso of truth, for some reason I can't find it.  I need to tie Britt up, you see I've been getting blamed for some things that I'm sure are his fault...

For Halloween I'm going to be Captain America.  He fights with Hulk, and Iron Man, and Thor, and beats up the bad snakes.  He carries a shield but he doesn't have wings like Batman.  He wears a flag and a star.

I posted this to facebook earlier, but I know I have a few Mom friends that aren't on facebook. I need some suggestions, Britt has never been completely potty trained. We were making better progress he would tell us that he needed to go when we were out, and if he wasn't too focused on playing at home. Now, unless I tell him to go, drag him in there, and spank him when he tries to run out of the room, he won't use the bathroom. He is going through several pairs of underwear a day, I don't want to go back to pull-ups but I'm SICK of washing all of his underwear and pants every other day.

We had some success with a sticker chart. We were up to giving him one a day for every day he stayed dry, but now he acts like he doesn't care. I've tried taking stuff (toys, privileges) away for wetting his pants. I've tried rewarding him for using the bathroom with cookies/marshmallows/M&M's.  He always has to clean himself and the floor up, but he just doesn't seem to care.

I'm frustrated and out of ideas.  He be 4 in January and we've been working on this over a year.  I think it's utterly ridiculous that he's still not potty trained.

We just made it back from the doctors office for our check up for the baby.  There has been lots of movement over the last few weeks, and we heard a strong, fast heart beat today.  We didn't actually get a number because the kids were rattling on at a mile a minute asking the doctor questions about what does this do, and what does that do, and what is that called, and what are you going to do to my momma.  You get the picture.

Last go round my thyroid numbers came back much better than they've ever been, even not pregnant.  They were shocked because it should be even lower than usual.  They want me to run another set of lab work now that it's been another month, and they are going to run a second test to see if all the medicine is actually out of my system.  Then they'll decide what to do.

We talked a little about my general birth plan.  She said that she thinks everything sounds good, but she would like to plan to induce at 42 weeks if the baby hasn't come by then.  It was nice to hear that I can have the full time, and not start hearing about inducing 2 weeks early due to a massive baby.  That would mean depending on which set of due dates we use that we would induce on the Feb 22 or March 1st.

I'm still hoping for a boy, I think we've settled on the name William David again for a boy.  We plan to call him Will.  But, I think we are having a girl.  Which is a problem since we still don't have the name list narrowed down at all.  Infact counting middle names we have a grand total of 21 name combinations.  Gary still wants to cheat and look at the paper, but I told him if he did he wouldn't be able to tell anyone, because I want a surprise.  No co-workers, no family members, no church members.  He doesn't think that would be a problem.  I know what the problem would be though.  He'll start referring to the baby as a he all the time, and quit helping me pick out girl names, and then it would be obvious what we are having.  So for the time being it's still sealed up in an envelope and skillfully hidden. haha

Fall is my favorite season of the year.  I missed it while in Florida.  Those nippy mornings and crispy days.  The September and October footballs games, where it's not too cold yet, but you have on your letterman jacket and a cup of hot chocolate.  It's the weather for sweaters, bluejeans, and good boots.  It's all those great deep colors - hunter green, maroon, navy blue.  Best of all it's the trees that go from their every day green to explosions of color.  All over town, trees that looked perfectly ordinary are changing their leaves.  Some almost overnight have exploded in color.  Others are gradually easing into fall.  Then still a few (like our trees) are waiting to make their grand autumn appearance after all the others begin dropping their brown leaves to the ground.  Here are a few pictures I've collected mostly from around town in the last week.

This is called a "Burning Bush".  It's green and gradually turns a flame red during the fall.  We have one but it hasn't begun to turn yet.

We do go swimming in September... but only in the bathtub.  We like to pretend to be sharks, and eat Momma and Daddy when they come into the room.  Other days we play with ducks.  Today, Momma got out our bathbooks.

Nothing much right now.  Gary doesn't want to help me pick out a name until he sees what the sex is, and I don't want him to open it up (at all) but at least not till he helps me pick out names (and then only if he can keep a secret, which I doubt).  Mother has graciously agreed to take one for the team.  She says if we will just mail her the sealed envelope she can remove temptation from us and start her baby shopping. hahaha.

In addition, to all the usual request for have the baby on my birthday.  (We have 9 different days now, plus Daddy has told me to just hold it in, till his birthday... April 2nd.)  We are also getting naming suggestions this time around.  I like Anne as a middle name, but Mom informed me that her middle name doesn't have the e, so we can't spell it like that.  Bro. David has requested David for a boy or Davina for a girl.  Sis. Sharon has promised me a great big cake if I name a girl Sharon or Sharizibel (my choice).

I enjoy picking names, I don't enjoy the lack of name picking help I get from Gary, but he thinks part of his job description is to make life difficult, and veto all the good names (like Zoey and Felicity for girls, and Brennan and Landon for boys).  I always have more trouble with boy names, I like so many of them.  I have narrowed a list of 20 names down to William, Michael, Nathanael, Samuel, Ethan, Shaun and Ryan.  Some of those I've even narrowed middle names down.  The girls list has only been gutted of 4 names (all by Gary I might add) leaving Rebecca, Katherine, Bethany, Miriam, Caitlin, Laura Grace, and Raleigh.  I'm a little funny about names, I want a biblical name, and a name with meaning, in addition to it just sounding good.  I guess we'll be at this part awhile longer.

For those of you who don't speak my language that means "Baby in Momma's belly"  which I take the opportunity to tell almost everyone we meet.  I think we are going to have a girl baby, but I don't know what to name it.   After Momma vetoed Joey, Britt is insisting that we call it Brother Johnny now.  (That's the name of his imaginary friend.)  I don't think Momma likes that name any better than Joey.  She asked me if I wanted to hold or kiss or rock the baby, and I told her no.  She asked me what I plan to do with the baby and I said, "dunno?"  What do you do with a baby?

Sunday after Church, I was so excited.  I finally got to go to the zoo!  Momma promised me if I would be a good helper while she packed, and a good boy while Daddy was gone to Indiana to work, that Daddy would take me to the zoo, when we got to Indiana.  I tried very hard to be good, and then we moved, and I waited and I waited and I waited.  I asked Momma, "Will I never get to go to the zoo?"  Finally on Sunday I got to go!





Next we walked through Australia.  Momma liked the kangaroos best, they hop all around you.  Several had babies in their pouches.  And one baby looked like he was too big because his tail and leg were hanging out, and his Momma was dragging the ground when she hopped.  I liked the bats best in that part of the zoo.  They were hanging by their feet on the rocks, and then flying around.  Next we headed over to the train where we needed our coats.  The conductor told us it was windy by the water, going fast in the train.








Turns out the pizza place was right next to the carasoel and I wanted to ride it.  Momma asked me what animal I wanted to ride, and I told her the panda.  He ran in circles and went up and down a while, then he got tired and had to eat more bamboo.  Ruth wanted to ride the Tiger, so Daddy rode with her right next to me.  After that we saw the real tigers and then a bunch of different kind of monkeys, and other monkeys that have no tails.  They aren't real monkeys they are apes.  Ruth's favorite animal were the Gibbons Apes.  They would swing with their hands, all the way down the cage and back.  After that it was getting kinda cold, because the wind was picking up and the sun was back behind the trees.  Daddy was getting hungry too, so we called it a day, but Momma and Daddy promise we can go back again.

 This weekend we had a fish fry with the Fort Wayne Church.  We headed out to Bro. John and Sis. Leah's place.  Britt and I had so much fun playing with the grown-ups visited.  Bro. John took us around in the back of his tractor on a hayride.  He showed us all his fields, and where he normally has his duck blind, but there was no pond, because it had been so dry.  Britt mostly had fun running back and forth everytime we stopped the tractor, but Momma wouldn't let me run she said I would fall off.  I did climb off at the end when she getting down, before she could help me.  I bumped my chin a little but didn't cry and I ran off with everyone else.




 There were lots of fun things to play with.  My favorite was the rocket launcher.  I could put the rockets on, and I tried to jump on like everyone else, but it didn't work so well.  Britt and I laughed and laughed and laughed about that thing.  We had a good time playing with all the Green kids and Bro. Ralph's grandson, Paul.  Britt likes to follow Paul around everywhere, I don't have a favorite, I like everyone.




















The fish were good, but my favorite part is the hushpuppies.  I think I might have eaten five hushpuppies and just nibbled at the fish and my apples.  Everyone was really excited to have a fish fry.  Everyone either brought something or helped cook.  I think they ate almost as much fish out of the grease as made it to the table.  I was interested in what was going on, but they kept running me off, saying it was too hot around the cookers.



We ended the night with smores and a little fire.  Momma made Daddy help me with with the smores.  I could have eaten lots and lots of those, but they only let me have one.  Daddy said he doesn't even know why I like them, they are messy, and marshmallows don't taste that good.  Momma must not agree because she had one too.  Britt didn't like the marshmallows though.  I think he's crazy.

So this pregnancy is going well.  Better than either of the other two.  I have had some morning sickness, but not the all day, ab work out, throwing up marathon that the other two were.  Which is a good thing.  I told Gary we might not make it past three if I was that sick a third go round.  I've stretched a bottle of Phenagren through almost 2 months, where as before, I was doing fantastic if I only needed one a day.  This baby seems to really like Mexican food and raw onions.  I personally hate raw onions, and I knew this was a weird kid like his daddy when I was looking at an onion one day and thinking I might like to take a bite of it like you would an apple.  I've not had anything that I just can't stand to eat, though some days somethings sound like horrible food choices.
I've been feeling movement sporadically for around 3 or 4 weeks but in the last 2 weeks, I can feel it more regularly, without laying down, getting still, and consentrating.  This one I have mostly felt low and on my left side.  Sure enough at the ultrasound, the baby was sitting as low as possible with his tailbone on my cervix, and face burried into my hip bone.  I opted to not find out the sex this time.  I figure since we have one of each, and plenty of clothes, that I can always wash both sets of newborn clothes.  It might be fun to have a surprise this go round.  Gary wants to know though, so I had her write down the sex on a sheet of paper, and she sealed it in an envelope, which I promptly hid.  :)  She did give us a due date of 2/18.
The kids were a real laugh at the ultrasound.  They sat on the foot of the bed with me.  Britt was very intent on watching the screen, and the nurse told him where the head was and the feet, etc.  Most of the time he informed me that that wasn't a baby, but there were a couple of pictures that he thought were the baby.  Ruth on the other hand laid across my lap and was more interested in watching the gel and the "camera wand" rather than the tv with the baby.  Most of the time the baby had his back to us, and hands up by his checks.  Those feet never stopped moving though.  Of course that's because I had orange juice and Dr. Pepper before going.  I wanted to see some movement.  Once we saw the baby sucking his thumb.  The heartrate was 146 at the doctors office the other day and 156 at the ultrasound.  She said he looks like he is measuring 7 oz.
We don't have names right now.  Though my top picks for a girl are Rebecca and Katherine, and my top picks for a boy are William or Michael.  We will see how it goes though, because Gary likes short hacked up names, and I hate short hacked up names.  Will is the only shortened name I like.  If I use Rebecca, Katherine, or Michael it's because I like those names not Becky, Kat, or Mike.  Gary says he can't pick out a name until he knows boy or girl, and I'm not going to let him see the paper unless he helps pick out names, so we may not know the gender or name until the baby arrives.

So we are settling into life in Indiana.  So far I'm really enjoying it up here.  The weather has been great.  Fall is just arriving.  Even on the days it has been hot, it's not oppressive heat.  They complain about the humidity up here but after the deep South and Florida, this is nothing.  We've had a couple of nights down in the 40s and some days in the 60s.  Like back home the fall, when you have one day that is 62 and the next that is 85, it wreaks havoc on my asthma.  It's been really nice.  I got to break out the bluejeans for the kids today. First time Ruth has wore any in probably 9 months.  In fact, it was the first chance she had to wear any of her 24mon/2T pants.

The kids are loving the yard.  Britt is slowly learning his boundaries.  After being places were we had an acre or two yard, it's taken him a little bit to realize that three houses down isn't still his yard.  Right now I'm just trying to establish with him where his yard ends and the next begins.  He isn't traveling the neighborhood now, just straying into our next door neighbor's yards.  The kids love the grass up here.  It's double seeded with Rye and Kentucky Bluegrass.  It's supper soft.  The neighbors must think I'm that Southern gal, because I am not wearing shoes out of the house unless we have to go somewhere.   Britt said "The grass tickles my feet, Momma!"  He's a little slower to believe me when I tell him there are no fire ants in Indiana.  He is going barefoot some, but is constantly asking me if I'm sure there are no ants to "eat" his feet.

The people have been surprisingly friendly.  When we were in the hospital several people struck up conversation with me or the kids.  Out and about people seem to be eager to stop and visit.  At the grocery store on Tuesday, we were behind a van that stopped no joke three times to talk to someone in the parking lot.  The third time I just drove around her rather than wait to see who else she knew.  There are several kids in our neighborhood, and we've meet the neighbors on both sides of us, and the dad catty-corner across the street from us.  Almost all the families in this neighborhood are younger families.  The oldest kid on our street is 10, and our next door neighbor has the youngest at 18 months.  Though a lady down the street is also due with another one this winter, so I'm told.

The land is very, very flat.  And there are fewer trees than Alabama or Florida.  The trees they have are different as well, they aren't sprawling, wild, jungle/wood, but carefully managed wind breaks along the edges of fields.  As a result you can see the sunset for much longer here.  Especially when we are traveling on the interstate.  It gives us enough height that even the trees aren't much in the way.  I'm sure I'll freeze to death all winter, but right now it's really nice up here.

It's been a while, what with the upheaval of being in Alabama, getting a job, going back to Florida to back, a month without Gary, and then the move to Indiana.  Today I thought I might share a little about Gary's new job.

7-12, A couple of the guys Gary interviewed with.  His boss and his boss's boss.

He came up to interview in person with several members back on July 12th.  It was a long week waiting to hear back from them, but they made and offer, on Tuesday morning, Gary accepted it on Wednesday afternoon, and he started the following Monday.  It's been a real whirlwind for him, but I can say he is really loving this job.  Having a job is a blessing, having a career that you love is even better.  He's been there almost 2 months and his days are full of meetings, classes at the main office to learn about the seed program, and visiting farmers.

7-14, Some of Bro. Ralph's corn.

It's been a little bit of a learning curve from the way they word things up here in Yankee country, to the crops itself.  Gary didn't have much experience with grain crops, though he did study that some when he got his Masters.  It's alot to learn, yet not that much.  To put it in perspective, in Florida Gary was working with around 2 dozen different crops with tons of different chemicals, he figures he knew close to 600 chemicals and their rates of application, what you could and couldn't combine them with, and all that sort of important stuff.  Here he has two main crops and three minor crops, and their warehouse for chemicals isn't as big as our living room.  (Granted we do have a big living room, but still, you get the point.)  His big learning point has been seed.  Learning traits and how it works, the differences in different companies and yield.  It's been really neat to learn from him in the evenings.  The one thing that seems to come easiest to him is meeting the farmers, he says that they are just good down to earth people like anywhere.  Some of them have their quirks, but for the most part they are just like growers back home they like football, being outdoors, and family.

8-2, Sunset over Soybean fields. You can see the sunset for the longest time up here, since it's so flat.

He has alot of responsibilities, he has been hired on two work as the Agronomy and Seed Salesman for two different locations.  They are both close, but he is expected to sell and do a 40+hour a week job at both locations in one 40 hour week.  Some of the best salesman in the company have their own secretaries to manage the paperwork side, and Gary is working two locations without a secretary.  He jokes that I'll handle some of that at home, but I worry a little about that aspect.  Even with the minor concerns I have, it's a great company, with really great people, and Gary is loving the work.  I cannot get over what a blessing this position has been, so far there have really been no negatives.