Wizard of Oz!

Our high school put on The Wizard of Oz for their musical this year. Elena was a very animated crow, a poppy and a citizen of Oz. Charlie was a munchkin (in the lollipop guild). Every time I watched the show, Olivia was sitting on my lap so between her squirming and my poor quality phone camera, all the pictures I took turned out blurry. I do have a shot of Charlie in the lollipop guild.

Sam helped with sets and stage-crew this year. The set builder was very impressed with his ability to create and build sets. His favorite part was building a bed that would spin for the tornado. 
Here is Sam testing out the initial construction of the bed. 

These pictures are once again thanks to Reba, a local mom who takes lots of pictures and is kind enough to share them with the world, which comes in handy for moms like me who are usually holding a toddler and can't manage a good picture. A few are from the receiving line after the show.

Here's a link to the entire show:

Anyone need deer meat?

Seth and Craig headed out to Colorado this fall (after about 10 years of banking preference points) to hunt for mule deer. They had a great time and took in some spectacular views. Seth got a deer a few days in, Craig wasn't so lucky, but collectively the family has gotten plenty of deer this year.

They were roughing it in a very nice tent they very fortunately borrowed from a friend - they never would have made it in a regular tent. They had a few problems with mice creeping in and nearly getting stuck in the muddy roads, but otherwise managed ok during their 9 days away. There was no cell reception and no gas stations nearby so as they headed out, they had to make sure not to go so far they would run out of gas on the return.

The trip home was coming down a mountain on icy roads. A car and semi crashed in front of them, and as they slowed down, a car behind them lost control and ended up sideswiping Craig's car and hitting the semi in front of them. Fortunately Craig's car was still drivable and they made it home safely.

Because Seth was gone for deer opener here, Sam went out hunting with Jim. He got a young buck (Grandpa mistook it for a doe). This is the only picture I have of Sam hunting this fall - no picture of the deer. I believe between all the guys they got 8 deer!

Camping!

 At the end of September, we took our camper out for one last trip before storing it away for the winter. We had a wonderful time at Camden State Park with the kids. We got in a bit of hiking, but their favorite was playing on the rocks in the river. The water was low enough they could easily get around without getting wet. At one point I asked Seth, "Who do you think will fall in? It's usually Sam but I feel like he's getting old enough that it won't be him this year." But it was him. So he ended up with a wet tennis shoe that day.

They got lots of practice in skipping rocks. To my amazement, all 4 of our older kids can skip rocks and they do it really well. I can't skip a rock to save my life despite their many attempts to teach me. I get the concept, I just can't put it into action.

Halloween

Halloween started with the Saints Day contest at St. Edward's. Sam tied for 1st in his class and got 3rd overall for his St. Sebastian costume (with super authentic tennis shoes and gym shorts). 

   

Charlie and Frank were both St. Francises. Charlie was St. Francis of Assisi and Frank was St. Francis Xavier. It's always so fun seeing the kids in their costumes!

I didn't do too hot at getting actual Halloween pictures this year. Seth was gone on a 9-day hunting trip to Colorado with his brother, Craig over Halloween. That's my excuse anyway, but really I'm just not good about taking pictures. Here's what I got:

Charlie is the Mandalorian (on left), Frank is Bumblebee (with an IronMan mask - close enough), Sam is being abducted by an alien, Olivia is a monster (after saying she wanted to be a cat for weeks leading up to Halloween - and I am pretty sure she wore that same costume last year), and Elena is a guy from the You Spin Me Right Round music video. Noah is the green minecraft guy and Ian is an Among Us character.

The weather was PERFECT for Halloween. I think the high that day was pushing 70 degrees. I took the kids trick-or-treating with a just a sweater and was comfortable all night. It sure beat fighting the wind and bitter cold like previous years. I am pretty sure Sam and his friends hit every house in town. It's nearly Thanksgiving and his candy bag is still way more full than everyone else's - and we've all been sneaking from it plenty.

Frank is 7!

Frank turned 7 last month and celebrated by having a bunch of his friends over. It always amazes me how much children's voices increase in volume when they are excited and in a group! The boys had fun wrestling and running around - we didn't have much success in getting them to do something organized, like football, but they had fun anyway wrestling, shooting nerf guns and screaming.

He got phone calls and visits from all the grandparents, as usual. My parents asked him how it felt to be 7, and he said, "Mmm...well, it's not much different from being 6!" 

Marathon 2022

St. Ed's had their annual marathon this fall. Charlie once again made a video to promote the marathon and ask for pledges. This one had us crying, we were laughing so hard.

And here are a few pictures of the marathon itself!

Quotes from Olivia

I've been busy this past week bringing Olivia in and out of the hospital and clinic with  fever and stomach pains. She seems to be improving slowly. Of course it landed right as Seth was preparing to leave on a week-long hunting trip to Colorado and as we're preparing for Halloween and the Saints Day costume contest at school. But instead of dwelling on our hectic life, here are a few new quotes from Olivia:

"I need my coos-case!" (suitcase)

"I don't want the cheeseball." (That's what she calls the yolk in a hard-boiled egg)

Elena: (referring to their "shared" bedroom) How much of this room is mine?

Olivia: Mmmm....20 bucks.

Elena: And how much of it is yours?

Olivia: The diamond in the rough. 

The other night when the boys were going to sleep, Olivia decided she wanted to sleep in Sam's bed. I figured it wouldn't last long as I went back downstairs. She cuddled by him for a few minutes, then got up and said, "I'm going to go downstairs. I'm going to tell mom you hit me." And then she left. Boy, she's got this youngest child thing down!! (She did come downstairs, but she did not actually tell me Sam hit her.)

Haircut

This morning, I noticed a pile of hair on the kitchen floor. Olivia had said earlier that she didn't like the bangs on her Elsa doll, which accounts for the blonde hair. The rest of the hair, however, looked suspiciously like Olivia's own hair.

So I went looking and found this (no more bangs!)

And this (now featuring bangs!)

Fortunately she cut her own bangs surprisingly well. If it weren't for the big chunk missing on the right side of her head, her haircut would look pretty much normal. I'm not a fan of bangs due to the growing-out process, but this could have been much, much worse. 

For reference, here's how her hair looked before:

 

Boundary Waters Trip

 

This summer Seth and the kids once again went on a Boundary Waters trip. It was Charlie's first time going. Sounds like they had a great time as long as they could keep the mosquitos off of them. I don't have many details other than they all made it back safely! Here are a few pictures!

Homemade Catan Set

The Flash Store

 I came across this video from 3 years ago - so Frank was about 4 years old. I had completely forgotten about it. He wanted to go visit his cousin Gabby and I must have said that it was a long drive to her house so we couldn't just go for a quick visit. His solution was to get a "Flash" suit to get there super fast. I had to share - even if it's a few years late.

Recent quotes

Charlie: Mom, can you go to the store and get milk? Because I don't want water and I 'm too young to drink beer.

Sam: (wondering if I could give him a ride to football practice) So can you run me over?

Frank: (thinking Sam was talking to him) With what?

Olivia: Get out of your room! (said to Elena when she walked into her own room, where Olivia had been napping)

Olivia: Olivia's mom! (after hearing her friend call me this enough, Olivia also started referring me as "Olivia's Mom")

Seth: We're not keeping it that way. 

This was in reference to our new riding lawn mower, which we bought locally. It came with a clown face painted on it for some reason, which Elena, Sam and I found hilarious and wanted to keep. Seth was very opposed to the idea, especially after riding it down the street and getting several "What the heck is that??" looks. He had it painted before I even got home to get a picture. 

It still has the eyes, though!

Another one bites the dust

 We've had a run of severe thunderstorms in the area with straight-line winds this summer. The first storm back in May pushed one of our pine trees over enough that we needed to cut it down to avoid it falling on someone. That's the 3rd tree we've lost in 3 years so our yard is quite a bit sunnier than before. 

Seth cut down the tree himself, and within minutes of the chainsaw being fired up, men started coming out of the woodwork to see the action and give their advice. My dad happened to be over that day working on our apple trees and Seth's Uncle Ken was next door visiting Grandma and Grandpa. Of course Grandpa DeCock brought out a chair to watch as well. I was happy to have several eyes on the project helping make sure the tree didn't hit the house. It did not fall where exactly where they were aiming, but it missed the house and ultimately that's all that I wanted. 

It's times like these I'm super thankful to have married a hard-working farmboy. Once the tree was down, he proceeded to chop up the entire thing in one day. The kids helped load up the wood to haul away over the next few days and the whole thing was gone in less than a week. 

Now we just need to decide which trees to plant in it's place. We have enough needles in our yard that we definitely want deciduous trees. We're open to suggestions!

Catching Up: Olivia

Olivia turned 3 at the end of May! Leading up to her birthday, she got mad if we said she was about to turn 3, insisting she was still 2. Fortunately, she got over that on her birthday and has accepted the fact that she is 3.Good thing - it would have been a long road ahead if she were already in denial about her age before pre-school.

Olivia staged this picture all on her own. We were sitting on the patio behind Seth's parents' house and she suddenly came to get me and insisted I take a picture of her between the flower pots. 

It comes as no surprise in this family that Liv is quite the talker - and she is right up there with Charlie in volume. She's got a huge vocabulary, but still mixes up and makes up words here and there as 3-year-olds will do. She says got-for instead of forgot. And she only uses the past tense of find - "I can't found it!"

She still doesn't quite get the word because and often uses it in place of and or but. For example, she might say, "Mom! I'm hiding because you can't see me!" The other day she said to Frank, "Frankie, we had a party because you weren't there!" Frank was understandably offended thinking we were celebrating his absence so I let him know that she doesn't quite know how to use the word because. I have no idea what party she was referring to, by the way.

She also talks in her sleep nightly. By morning, I usually can't remember what she said, but here are a few quotes I can recall.

• "Bugs can talk! I can talk like bugs."
• "Don't put a snake on my head!"
• (while laughing) "My face and my...booty-cheek!!"
• "Why is the hee-hee talking to Sam?" (Hee-hee is her word for witch, imitating the sound they make when they laugh)
• (Variations of yelling at her brothers come up frequently) "Charlie/Frank! Don't take my candy/baby/toy/etc!"

And this was yesterday's conversation in the garden. 

Olivia: Mom! I see a crib!

Me: A crib?

Olivia: I mean...a ribbet. 

Me: Do you mean a cricket?

Olivia: Yeah, a cricket! (It was a grasshopper, but she was close)

Matching pigtails with cousin Briar

Olivia is finally taking off with potty training! Like the rest of our kids, using the potty has to be her idea and she does not take well to the suggestion that she should maybe just try using the potty before a long car ride or first thing in the morning. But progress is being made. Once she starts going, she can usually stop herself and run for the potty. So still a lot of laundry, but not too many messes on the floor. Of course, as predicted, she started to really take off after I finally bit the bullet and bought more diapers. 

Taken on her 3rd birthday when we went to a park in Monevideo. It was still quite cold outside!

Papi is 77 years old and still giving (double) horsey rides!!

And to finish, here's a video from a few months ago. It captures her well.

Rapid City Trip

We finally took a long-planned trip out to Rapid City this summer. We had plans to go last summer, but Olivia was still in her phase of screaming on any car ride that lasted more than 10 minutes. So we postponed. And then gas practically doubled in the meantime, but we went anyway. With our new camper. Which I think Seth regretted about halfway across South Dakota. Pulling a 30 foot camper up and down large hills in nearly 90-degree weather (the forecast predicted mid-70s) made for a lot of stops to wait for the transmission to cool down. But we made it and fun was had by all!

The first night we stopped in DeSmet, SD at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead, which I highly recommend to families with kids. There were so many old-time buildings and activities to explore. We got there too late for the actual tours and presentations so we'll likely go back someday, but they had fun nonetheless. Their favorites were ringing out clothes with the old style wash basins and a corn sheller (I'm not sure that's what it's actually called). 

There were a few other families camped near us and one little girl lost her frisbee up in a tree shortly after we arrived. We assured them one of ours would have no problem climbing up to get it. And sure enough, as soon as Frank heard about it, he clambered up the tree and got the frisbee. As a reward, they let him keep it. That evening three of our families all gathered around one campfire and had a great time getting to know each other. The little girl (who lost the frisbee) had the quote of the day that night. She said to me out of the blue, "I'll tell you what. It sure is nice to be a in a Red State!" I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud to hear that coming out of a 7-year-old's mouth. They are from Washington state and I gather they haven't been too happy with how things are going there.

The frisbee rescue

We left early Saturday for the long haul out West. We drank as little as possible to avoid making any unnecessary stops. The kids did a great job entertaining themselves with reading, looking for cows and singing - I am pretty sure we heard Olivia sing the ABC's a good 50+ times on the trip. We tried avoiding the tourist trap of Wall Drug, but the transmission was getting pretty hot so we got to see it after all. They still have the free water - no cups, though. Quote of the day was from Olivia: "We're going backwards!" - said when a semi truck was passing us giving the illusion of going in reverse.

Outside of Wall Drug, after realizing that we almost made a rainbow with our shirts. I was saving Olivia's yellow shirt for the next day so we could easily spot her at the more crowded destinations.

Elena finally found a souvenir with her name on it - and spelled correctly! We didn't buy it, but she had to document it.

Photo op at Wall Drug

We got settled in our campsite, gave Olivia an emergency haircut after realizing she had gotten a huge wad of gum stuck in her hair on the trip, had supper cooked over the fire (by Seth) and settled in for the night. Seth was exhausted from the stressful drive and passed out immediately...which is why I felt bad waking him up at midnight to tell him our window was leaking. A lot. It was pouring rain outside and the water was streaming in right onto my pillow so I ran to get a bucket to catch the water. We stayed up holding our buckets and cups until it stopped raining (which fortunately was only 30 minutes or so) all while Seth was completely baffled at how that could happen because he heavily caulked the roof before leaving. He discovered in the morning that a panel on the roof must have popped out on the trip leaving a big gap for the rain to come in. We were thankful it was an easy fix and that I caught the leak before our bed was soaked. 

Before(during) and after the haircut:

We went to a beautiful Mass (I guess they're all beautiful, really) in Hill City. Olivia sneezed during the homily and the priest - who had kind of a Wild Bill Hickock mustache - said, "Bless you" and kept going without even skipping a beat. Later, the kids were able to bring money up front to a basket the priest was holding during the offering. Frank came back from giving his dollar, and whispered in awe: "That's the closest I've ever been to him!" 

The two big highlights of Sunday were seeing the Crazy Horse Memorial - I found the story behind it fascinating - and Mount Rushmore. Frank had another good quote when we saw a harp at the Crazy Horse Visitor Center and he exclaimed, "It's a real live accordion!" 

Crazy Horse

The kids were eager to climb all the rocks, of course, which is one of my most vivid memories of visiting Mount Rushmore when I was little. Olivia was no exception and had no fear - she immediately took to climbing steep rock slopes and Seth bravely followed her up and helped her back down, which is much more challenging than getting up. At one point, Olivia wanted to climb some very challenging rocks and I told her she couldn't, pointing out a sign that said so. She pointed at the sign and explained to me, "It says, 'Yes! You can climb on the rocks." 

We lucked out at Mount Rushmore to arrive just as a show was beginning of an Irish Dance group called Celtic Throne, in which the dancers were incredibly impressive (and a man was lying on the ground for no obvious reason through half of the performance. I assume he had a purpose as the performers didn't seem concerned and he eventually got up and walked off in seemingly good health). 

Monday we headed to Lake Sylvan, which was one of my favorite spots. Lots of climbing rocks and a bit of swimming. We had initially planned to hike Black Elk Peak (formerly Harney Peak), and I was glad we decided otherwise. It appears we have much less energy than I estimated because we were shot just from walking around the lake in the heat. We didn't even make it as far as the trailhead to the peak before we were ready to be done. I included some photos of the kids climbing at Lake Sylvan. Almost as much fun as watching them was watching other tourists watch Olivia scale the rocks in amazement.

 We followed that up with Needles Highway - very neat, but a little long for 5 kids. By the end we started to hear things like "He's wiping his boogers on me!" and "Stop poking me with your used Band-Aid on a stick!"

Lake Sylvan (Liv was on the verge of falling asleep)

There's a picnic bench in Lake Sylvan for some reason - Elena had to get a picture!

Up at the top!

That evening Seth, Sam and Frank went down the Alpine Slides in Keystone - I was at a local playground with the rest of the kids, which had a comforting sign posted warning that rattlesnakes are native to South Dakota. I was told Sam came very close to tipping his cart on the slides because he was going too fast on a curve (not surprising). 

Elena and Charlie skipped the slides because they really wanted to take an Old Time photo of our family, which we did. It was a lot of fun seeing all the kids dressed up. I was worried Olivia wouldn't cooperate because she kept throwing her hat off as we were waiting, but as soon as the photographer took over she did everything he asked of her - even following directions to smile or be serious. He said he's pretty sure she's the best 3-year-old he's ever worked with. 

This was everyone's favorite - mostly due to Frank

Tuesday started with Olivia waking up to Sam sleeping next to her. Thinking it was me, she rubbed his back and said, "Good morning, Mom!" He rolled over and said, "Good morning, Liv." To which she shrieked, "You're not my mom!!! MOM!!!" We had played a bit of musical beds that night because it was storming and it was really loud in the back bedroom and the boys couldn't sleep. So Frank took my spot by Seth, Sam went by Olivia and I went to sleep in Sam's bed. 

For our last day, we hit up the Reptile Gardens, where we ran into our former priest Fr. Craig and his family. It was a lot of fun catching up with them and as impressive as everything was, Elena said seeing Fr. Craig was her favorite part. Then we drove through Bear Country. And lastly we toured the Cosmos Mystery Area. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves for all of our adventures there. 

Petting an alligator

Meeting a real tortoise

On the ride home, we stopped to hike in the Badlands. We did a couple of short hikes. The scenery was so unique. There were lots of little "canyons" small enough to keep me from getting nervous and big enough to make the hike a real adventure. At the end, we took a family picture. You probably can't tell in the photo, but I'm pretty much terrified in that picture. There's a huge drop-off just 3 feet behind us, and the boys kept trying to climb out over the ledge. Charlie in particular wanted to stand at the edge and take a picture, but this Mom was not brave enough to let him do it. I try not to be too helicopter-y, but the older I get the more heights bother me. Frank found a sling-shot so he was happy just shooting rocks into the distance the entire hike. Olivia (as usual) made me carry her almost the entire way. If it hadn't been naptime, she probably would have walked.

Well that about sums it up. In closing, here's Olivia singing the ABCs (also known as the EDC's). We all have her version memorized now: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-Jake-I-LLLLLLLLLLLLL-P-Q-R-S-P-U-D-W-X-Y-Z. Now I know my EDC's, next time won't you sing with me!