October faces

 Now that it is October, we are beginning our Halloween celebrations. Maren and Linden have been trying to make scary faces:

Which just turns into silliness:

Practically 7 🎂

 Today Maren had a birthday party. 

Her actual birthday is tomorrow, and she will be seven years old. Parents say this on every birthday, but I really do still remember when she was born and it is hard to believe that she is this old.

Happy birthday kiddo ❤️

Sick but better

 Last week Linden had a nasty virus, and had a fever for five days. The previous week Maren had a high fever that only lasted one day, but it wouldn’t come down even with both Tylenol and Advil at the same time. Multiple home Covid tests were negative, and we took Linden to two different doctors who both said it was just a virus and it would pass. Which it did. They are both fine now. But being sick is no fun, and neither is parenting sick kids. 

Now that that is all done, we are enjoying the last days of summer/beginning of fall.

All in all we are pretty lucky ❤️

Tomato jam and red potatoes

 Our garden harvest this year is much better than last year. This year I grew mostly tomatoes and potatoes. The funny thing is, we don’t really like tomatoes, but it seems like they produce much better than anything else we have grown. Besides potatoes, which also tend not to disappoint.

So this year we had to figure out how to use a ton of tomatoes, even though we don’t like them at all when they are raw. We definitely like tomato sauces, but I wanted to do something with them that would be better homemade than you can buy at the store. We slow roasted some tomatoes and they were quite good, and I also made a batch of tomato jam, which is fun and unusual. I love it but Jeff is not as sure about it. Linden says she loves it but hasn’t actually eaten any 🤣

Grade 2!

 On Thursday Maren started grade 2. On Wednesday night there was “bring your backpack day” at the school, which is a chance for kids to meet their teachers, and drop off school supplies in their classrooms. And parents and families get to come too. That means that for the first time ever - never before because of the pandemic - I got to go inside Maren’s school, inside her classroom, and meet her teacher in person. After, there was a bbq fundraiser, and we ate (vegan) hot dogs, and talked to other parents while the kids played. 

It all felt so normal. I know we aren’t out of this pandemic yet, but I am really starting to appreciate the return to normal ❤️