this is the time of year when nostalgia feels most at home.

summer's vibrant greens are losing their voice while autumn's reds, oranges and golds are finding theirs. browns are taking over the greenery on the sides of the roads on our country drives, but lift your head upward and you are canopied by autumn leaves whispering their colors...and in two weeks will be singing at the top of their lungs.

we're gearing up our yard to "rest" during the cold for a busy growing season next spring and summer. our garden was roto-tilled last week (our nice neighbor drove his tractor up with a roto-tiller attached. i think he might have been sick of looking at our garden of weeds), we're doing the last few cuttings of grass, kenny weeded the raspberry patch so now we can take advantage of a LOT of yummy ripe raspberries this fall. we'll be planning out the garden over the winter. the temperatures are dipping into the 40s at night...this weekend we're not going to get much above 40 or 50 during the day. gotta love that fresh, crisp air!

here are signs of autumn in our yard.

1. a sideway's look at the "back" yard.
2. my grandparents standing next to our tilled garden. it's big, yes? we want to actually use it next year!
3. rowan with my parents' dog, shaye at the respberry patch.
4. the leaves are just starting to turn.
5. the side of our house. i love the lighting in this picture. that's autumn sunshine!
[link(pics/sept_06/blog_yard1.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/blog_yard1.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/sept_06/blog_garden.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/blog_garden.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/sept_06/blog_rowanshaye.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/blog_rowanshaye.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/sept_06/blog_tree.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/blog_tree.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/sept_06/blog_house.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/blog_house.jpg[/thumb][/link]

we've just graduated from the napping stage to the independent stage in parenting.

last week, we had a sleeping strike at the smith household. believe me, kenny and i were NOT the ones on the picket lines! rowan decided to fight bedtime, and two nights of him fighting us (and...ahem...getting his way...) sawyer decided to join him with a rousing rendition of Screaming Before Bedtime. then they were waking at night crying...fighting naps.... sleep was not happening.

to fix this problem, we decided that rowan no longer needed an afternoon nap. so we put sawyer down alone at naptime last week and he screamed. he was so used to having rowan in the room with him that he couldn't bear the thought of sleeping without him.

our older boys are great at falling asleep on their own, in their own beds, in their own rooms. but it seems they need each other to do so. now, rowan hangs out with sawyer until he's asleep and then he joins me downstairs for rowan-and-mama time.

the bliss of an afternoon nap (when all three boys are sleeping at the same time!) is long gone. but now i get to teach rowan how to read quietly alone, or i get to have book time with him alone if adam has decided to sleep when sawyer does. right now, he's playing with my hair as i type this out (and trying to feed me his milk). we just made a pumpkin pie together. and now he'll help me fold laundry.

it's kind of nice having a little helper around (and especially one who plays with my hair!).

my boys are turning into regular bookworms! they want to read Someone's Come to Our House and Curious George several times in one sitting, several times a day. but they also need to see their parents reading. i grew up in a house where books were sacred (correction: books ARE sacred). dad inhales theology books and science/metallurgy books while mom enjoys a good mystery between popular fiction and religious non-fiction. i tend to read what mom reads (i haven't opened a science book since freshman year biology at calvin).

so without further ado...here is my "fall into reading" challenge for the next three months:

1. Simply Christian I can't remember who recommended this book to me...(speak up if it was you!)

2. Father Melancholy's Daughter i read this a few years ago and it's sequel, Evensong and have wanted to re-read them for so long. this seems to be a good time to do so! i'll probably read only one of them this fall...

3. The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. One of the many homeschooling books i want to read.

4. Simple Hospitality. Because I want our home to be your home-away-from-home. :)

5. Recovered Body. I saw Scott Cairns at the last Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin several years ago and have always wanted to get a book of his poetry. I think it's about time.

Okay...so, your turn! And there is a "prize" with this challenge - $10 at Amazon!

this is one of my (many) favorite times of year. mostly because i'm fairly nostalgic by nature and i've always loved the anticipation of going back to school after a long, hard summer of fun.

it was most fun for me to "go back to school" when i was in college because i actually enjoyed the classes and didn't have to suffer through a math class since i was exempt from college math (really, who needs more than high school calculus when studying theatre and english literature?). and it didn't help my "longing for yesteryear" to get an email from my alma mater showing pictures of students signing up for their fall classes and moving into their dorm rooms.

ahhh. to be young again with worries only of getting a part in a play and wondering how much my semester books will cost?

speaking of books, and in honor of "back to school" we are putting away some of their toys (the ones they don't play with...not their favorites: the tractors, the trains, and the balls) and hauling out the books. just recently we unpacked the boxes of books from our basement and put them in the living room and found a huge box of the boys' books that we hadn't opened since moving in april. yes, i feel guilty for depriving their minds! :) we're finding times to squeeze in readings during our day...at the breakfast/lunch table, while we're getting ready for naps, while we get their shoes on, waiting for dinner to cook, etc...

we have some great books for them. and fortunately their favorites are turning into our favorites - we don't actually mind reading them over and over and over. and over.

PLEASE share with us your favorite books. the ones you're reading to your kids, and the ones you remember reading as kids. i'm starting an amazon wish-list for the boys' christmas and future birthday lists, and if we don't already have it, your favorites might just show up there!

the day we closed on this house, kenny tore open the bulkhead ceiling above our second floor bathtub to find no plumbing to support a tall enough shower head.

just a few weeks ago, we finally have a finished room in the house! we cheated a little by hiring a contractor to lay the ceramic tile floor and install the wainscotting...but everything else was our own work - from ripping out the old paneling and linoleum flooring to painting and installing the white shelves above the toilet (not pictured yet...). kenny also installed a tub surround in the shower since it was just a bathtub with wood paneling and wall papering up to the dropped ceiling

it's so lovely to feel clean again in our bathroom (the old bathroom was mostly wood - from the toilet seat to the handles on the sink to the soap dishes- a party room for germs!

here is the same shot of the bathroom before, during and after:

[link(pics/sept_06/mcg bath.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/mcg bath.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/sept_06/bathroom _during.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/bathroom _during.jpg[/thumb][/link] [link(pics/sept_06/bathroom.jpg)][thumb]pics/sept_06/bathroom.jpg[/thumb][/link]

also unpictured is the shower, which is to the left as you enter the bathroom - it's hard to get a shot of it through the hallway door.

the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the world trade center snuck up on us this year. to the country, this is a somber day of remembrance. to us, it's our son sawyer's birthday.

there are parents all over the country who have children either born on 9-11-01 or on the anniversary of it. sawyer was born on its third anniversary...three days before his due-date. i was worried about this. i fast forwarded in my mind to his second grade when he would be excited to share his birthday cupcakes with his classmates only to have to share his celebration with a school-wide assembly honoring those who died on the darkest day our country has experienced. of course i wonder how selfish it is of me for having such a worry...when so many people grieve personal loss on this day. the truth is this: as a parent, we want our children to feel special on their birthdays. even if it means celebrating when the country mourns.

i love what our friend ellen wrote on our blog the day we announced his birthday: "sawyer's birth stakes a claim for life and love on such a complicated day."

happy birthday little sawyer. you have brought so much to your mama and daddy's lives.

we've known for quite a while that we've been hit by spammers...and are just now getting around to a quicky fix (thank you jonathan, jon, and sursum!).

soooooo....we've added image verification to the comment section. please continue to comment all you like. unless you're a spammer.

also, our rss feed is http://www.smithical.com/smith_rss.aspx. we've always had it...just never added it to the menu on the left. it'll eventually get posted there. :)

ETA: look for coming changes to our blog...including a brand new image gallery, a fresher look, and New and Improved writing!

cheers,
~liz

when we moved into this house in april, we were so excited to get started on our garden. we had visions of rows of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, herbs, and even corn. the vegetable garden in our yard is HUGE: 20x40? (kenny can give you the exact measurments.)

we planted a few plants and then adam was born. then the groundhogs, or rabbits, or deer ate our plants and now we have a huge weed garden. oh well. there is always next year. and we are once again excited about the prospect of our very own veggie garden next year. we'll take the winter to plan out where in the bed we'll plant which vegetable and we'll figure out some kind of fence to keep the critters out (our neighbors have a very intimidating wire-type fence around theirs). we've been making some rich compost all summer long (and will continue to do so through the winter!). we'll have our organic vegetables yet!

in the meantime, my friend amy, who lives in the city and has a small yard, has shared her amazing organic crop with us again this year. and in the process has made our kitchen beautiful:
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that's a vase full of basil from their basil "trees," tomatoes, red peppers, and zinnias. what is not pictured is a bag of cherry tomatoes so incredibly sweet and juicy...they were gone before i took this picture last weekend! (not from her garden, but also pictured is a plant of aloe that she gave us when we moved in!)

kenny has also been busy designing and building the boys' jungle gym all summer long. it is 97% finished (a few posts at the one end needs to installed and that's it!) and the boys LOVE it. kenny and i get at least 10-15 minutes to sit together (and talk!) on our lawn chairs while we watch rowan and sawyer climb and slide and climb and slide and climb and slide.
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