The Red Maple

 

Every year, during the second and third weeks of October, I ask myself the same question “How can I get a really good picture of this Red Maple?” This Red Maple, is without a doubt, the most beautiful tree in our yard.  It really is pretty at any point during the year.  But in late Fall, it’s a stunner. 

But I just can’t seem to capture it in a picture!  I can look at it, take a picture and look at the preview of the picture and right away, think “No, that’s not it.” This year, I actually did some searching online and found several articles on how to photograph leaves.  One article talked about how Fall leaves can look good in any weather – not just on sunny days.  On the day I read these articles, it just so happened to be a dreary, rainy day, so I thought I’d try out that theory. I played around with some of the camera’s settings the articles suggested and actually felt like I came closer to capturing the beauty of this tree.

It still looks better in person.  And the display is so fleeting.  Since I took these pictures earlier in the week, the tree has lost about half of the leaves.  I wonder if I would appreciate the color as much if the red leaves were there for a longer period of time? 

The Ball

I know my last post mentioned the subject of balls, but this one is about an actual dance – the Scottish Ball – hosted by our church.

There were so many details that made for a lovely and memorable evening.

Beautiful dresses.

(thank you, Goodwill!)

This is the 5th year of the ball, and each year, we have managed to find a nice selection of dresses at Goodwill.  The bonus this year was that the Saturday we went dress shopping just so happened to be half off everything in the store day.  Yes!  Rachel wore the same dress that she did last year, but Courtney & Erica’s dresses were new, plus we got one extra one that we couldn’t pass up. At $6 per dress, who could?!

Well-fitting, beautiful dresses.

(Thank you, “Express alterations”.)

So, when you find lovely dresses at a steal less than a week before the Ball, you go ahead and buy them … even if they need to be altered (a few sizes down in Erica’s case). Unfortunately, altering gowns is not included in my top three talents. After looking up tutorials online, making initial attempts at altering them (didn’t get any farther than pinning), and talking with a couple of friends who are more knowledgeable about such things, I ended up biting the bullet and taking Courtney & Erica’s dresses to a professional seamstress for alterations. That was an adventure in itself!  The only alteration shop in Lebanon was closed until November. This shouldn’t be too hard, I reasoned, if there is a seamstress in our tiny town, there must be plenty to choose from nearby. The good news:  I found plenty nearby. The bad news:

• one seamstress had temporarily left her shop when we stopped by, with no obvious signs of returning before we needed to head back to pick up Rachel from her piano lesson;
• we never found the shop that we heard was supposed to be near the one with the missing seamstress;
• another would take several weeks to send the dresses out to the seamstress and have the work done;
• one seamstress literally hung up on me when I told her when I needed the dresses to be ready.

So, by 2 days before the Ball, I’d just about resigned myself to doing the alterations myself. I ended up finding another shop and decided to take the dresses in just to ask for advice on how to do the work myself. The sweet lady not only said she could do it, but that she could have the work done by the next day. So, that led to some last minute trips to and from the shop for a fitting, but it was all worth it, as the dresses fit perfectly!

 

Fancy Hair.

(Thank you to my co-stylist, Rachel!  actually, I was probably her co-stylist.  ;-)

Last year, we did a twisting technique to create very curly curls (but needed at least 6 hours of setting time) and I bought baby pink carnations, which were very pretty, but difficult to attach to the girls’ hair.  This year, we heated up 2 different sizes of curling irons, Rachel tried out some unique twisting, and I bought Baby’s Breath – much easier to pin into hair! We were very happy with the results.

Fancy Food.

If it were nothing more than lovely people, dressed up, dancing to live music, the evening would still be wonderful.  But the “icing on the cake” is the fun, fancy food that everyone brings. It is a little challenging to come up with food that is fancy but not messy (chocolate is out!), but I’m always pleasantly surprised at the variety of delicious, fancy foods brought to the Ball. I wish I would have taken pictures of each table.  There were several and each one was as lovely and full as this one! It’s the little things can make an event feel very special.

The boys.

Who says it’s only fun to dress up girls?  Thanks to Once Upon a Child, we were able to find suits for Grant and Trent and boy-oh-boy, did they look handsome.  ;-)

 

 

Mi esposo.

Let’s face it: if Mick hadn’t been there, I would’ve only been able to take about 5 pictures.  :-)  I told him early on that my main goal was to be able to take as many pictures as I could. He helped me achieve that goal by taking Trent (aka my perma-attachment) off my hands on several different occasions.  At times, it was tricky to take pictures and stay out of his line of view.  In fact, in these pictures, he had just spotted me across the room.  :-)

 

Good friends.

Toward the end of the evening, I was talking to the musicians.  One of the violinists was smiling while watching all the kids dancing and said “I haven’t seen kids have this much fun since I was a kid!”

We’re so thankful for this opportunity each year to spend time with these families on such a special night.

Life with boys

 

After 12 years of parenting only girls, I often tell people I feel like a first-time parent with our little boys.  It seems like every day, I notice things they do and say which are unique to our boy-parenting experience. Sometimes, I feel like a scientist: watching, observing, taking mental notes.  I can’t think of how many times I’ve watched in amazement/amusement/horror and thought “none of the girls did that.” Take balls, for instance. We have had several balls through the years which the girls played with periodically. But I’d bet the boys have played with them more in the past couple of years than the girls played with them, combined. 

Just a couple of quick observations about boys and their ball play:  1) they should never be allowed around food and drink – the balls will become air born at some point, even after several pleasant reminders (read: warnings) to keep them on the floor; and (2) instead of just passing the ball back and forth (which is how the girls played with them), they can be played with in an infinite number of ways.  All you need is the right kitchen utensil.  Usually a wooden spoon is the instrument of choice, but anything will work really.  Today it was a cheese slicer and a meat thermometer. 

Parents who start out with boys (or have one after the first or second girl), may not be as entertained by these observations, but they are really amazing and hilarious to us.  :-)

“Confessions” by Saint Augustine

Apparently, our toddler is showing a mature interest in Christian classics.

This was right after he read that one part …

Finished: “1984”

1984 by George Orwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gripping, depressing, disturbing ... very well written. I liked Winston Smith very much and was pulling for him from the first chapter. Rachel will be reading this with her online literature class. It's definitely not her style, but I told her it is an important book and I'm glad she will be guided through its difficult themes and passages by an experienced, godly teacher.

View all my reviews

Can you spot the sleeping boy?

 

Summer 2012 – Part 2

Well, there’s something about Labor Day weekend to make you realize the summer is slipping away, so it’s time to do some more reflecting on Summer 2012, while it’s still fresh in my brain.  Of course, most of it is fresh, thanks only to the pictures that were taken.  Otherwise, most of it would just be a blur by now!

Mother’s Day

We celebrated Mother’s Day in the same wonderful way we are blessed to every year:  with both our mothers. 

The day started off with a nice breakfast cassserole and fresh fruit, courtesy of Mick and the girls.  He surprised me with a lovely mother’s ring and a stack of chocolate (mostly dark) – something sweet from each of the kids (yet another moment I’m so thankful we have 8. ;-).

After breakfast, we drove to Grandma Worley’s church and worshiped with her. She specifically requested that Rachel play something on the piano during the service (yes, she is a proud Grandma), so Rachel played the “It Is Well” medley. After church, we gave her her gift and card, posed for a few pictures at her house, then said our good-byes and drove down to Mom and Dad’s.

It was a beautiful day, so we spent most of the day outside.

 

Since it was so close to our monthly birthday celebration, we lumped in that as well.  Guess who one of the birthday celebrities was?

Ellie and Uncle Ron were also celebrating birthdays in May.  I think Elle was just a little excited about her birthday brownie.  ;-)

Somebody was just a leetle bit upset that I dared wander off a bit too far in the backyard.  Notice how sympathetic his father is in the background?  ;-)

No worries … all better now.  :-)

   

The day was capped off by a trip over to the Bruce ranch to see the llamas.  Ellie is leading “Caesar” here with Sarah keeping a close watch on things.

Family reunion

Back in June, Lois’s family decided to have a family reunion.  I have known Mick since 1986 and no one on either side of his family has thrown a reunion … that we know of anyway … hmmmmm.  :-D  At the time, Lois’s sister Betty and brother-in-law Don had been having fairly serious health issues, requiring hospitalizations for both.  So, the reunion was Betty’s idea and Lois offered to host it and did all the planning.  It ended up being a lovely day.  We were able to meet several of Mick’s cousins and their families who I’d never met, including some second cousins who live about 15 minutes away from us!

Here is Lois with her 2 younger sisters, Betty and Marlene.  They are very close.  Lois and Betty are 18 months a part and Marlene was born 5 years later.  Lois likes to talk about how she and Betty would dress up Baby Marlene like a doll and carry her around. :-)

I just love this picture of the three of them chatting.

One of the things I think we’ll all remember the most about this reunion is Betty’s glazed yeast donuts. Her donuts are legendary in the family; when Mick was growing up, they were a Thanksgiving tradition.  After the big Thanksgiving meal, the kids would all go bowling and the parents would stay back at the house. This was when Betty would fry up the donuts.  Mick remembers how great it was to come back to the house and smell all those donuts.

  

Oh yum, are they delicious!

Later that evening, we had a birthday celebration.  Interestingly enough, Claire shares a birthday with Mick’s brother and sister – June 10th! So, we celebrated all three birthdays.  This was a first, since Mick’s sister lives in Florida and rarely travels to Indiana (something about the cooler weather up here keeps her down there. ;-).

One of the big bonuses of the Worley get-togethers is Uncle Rick’s commercial ice cream maker. So, there’s usually all-you-can-eat homemade ice cream at our get-togethers.   

Homemade donuts, homemade ice cream … I’d better wrap up this post now … I think I need a snack.  ;-)