Big Imagination

Evangeline loves to pretend that she's a cat, domestic or wild, depending on her mood.  Here she is in cheetah character in her cage at the zoo.  She likes to call me Mama Cheetah and she is to be called Big Girl Cheetah, don't even think about calling her Baby Cheetah.  You will be corrected immediately.

When we aren't Cheetahs we are sisters.  She is absolutely thrilled when we pretend that we are sisters.  She can hardly suppress an ear to ear grin when I call her that.  It's especially fun when us sisters do our hair the same. 

Ammie surprised Evangeline with this Shrek mask and ears.  We've had a good time with it.  

She insisted she wear the ears to school.  She just looked so stinking cute I had to snap a picture. 

It was a short work week for us last week.  Evangeline missed 2 days of school with her fever.  I was exhausted after going into work from about 2-4am preparing for a sub, and then making a trip to the grocery store to make sure we had something to eat.  Luckily the doctor determined it was just a little virus.  Double lucky it wasn't passed on to Mommy.

A Whole Lot of Cheese!

Every year we take the girls to Portrait Innovations to get a picture of the girls to give out for gifts, and for the grandparents to get their Christmas cards made.  We decided to do it early this year to beat the holiday rush.  We made a fun day out of it while we were at it.  We visited Traders Point Creamery, the first certified organic farm in Indiana.  They sell milk, cheese, yogurt, and eggnog from the brown cows raised on the farm.  They also have an amazing restaurant where we ate our lunch. 

Here is a case of their artisan cheeses. 

The restaurant uses all of the sustainable products they can.  All of the foods are organic and sourced locally.

Not to mention it was quite charming.  Barn wood, fresh flowers, drinks served in mason jars.... Savannah said she is going to get married here.  It's good to plan ahead. 

My quinoa cakes....

For dessert we got a treat from the dairy bar.  Evangeline and I got a chocolate milk shake and a bowl of berry ice cream to share.  Oh my, it was delicious.

The cows were a tad stinky.

The smell can't keep a little girl hopped up on ice cream from running around in an open area though... She's pretty good at running while holding her nose. 

Speaking of cheese...  I have never been big on portrait studio pictures, but regardless I can never resist a picture of my child.  I always get suckered into buying one.  This year (thanks to grandparent purchases) enough money was spent that we got to keep the whole disk. 

Now this was hysterical...Lily is getting so much better at smiling on cue compared to years past.  We could never get a smile out of her.  However, 117 shots in she had had enough.  Each year that we've gone for pictures they try this shot of all of the girls laying on their backs with their heads together.  We have never had luck with this pose.  Lily made it worth the try though with her facial expressions.  They were different in every picture and in each one she looked like she was terrified.  

This is the one I bought.  Just couldn't say no to that angelic face. 

These precious girls are getting so big.  I can't believe how grown up they look. 

Harvest Time Happiness

Kyle spent about 3/4's of the long Columbus Day weekend with a fever.  Evangeline picked it up Sunday evening.  We managed to have lots of fun together before her bug set in.  We had a leisurely weekend.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  We worked on our crafts, took walks, cooked, watched Snow White, read books, cleaned the house and played Candy Land.  I made some really tasty pumpkin-ginger waffles Monday morning from a Country Living recipe.  Pumpkin puree is something I simply cannot resist this time of year. 

 

Playing games with Evangeline has become a real test in patience for both of us.  She hates to lose.  She tries so hard to be happy for me when I win a game since we have had so many talks about being a good sport.  Sometimes it's just more than she can bare and she melts down.  I don't usually let her win.  She needs to learn about sportsmanship.  She's gotten creative though and has learned to stack the deck.  Today when we were playing Candy Land she told me that she got the game all set up and that she was going to go first because she put Grandma Gooey on the top (which is the card that takes you right to the castle).  What a little stinker.

The cool fall winds blowing in have put me in a crafty mood.  I blew the dust off my big, huge craft binder, which is stuffed full of magazine clippings from years gone by.  These little crackers were clipped from an old Parent's magazine.  They were cute, easy and yummy.  All I did was cut shapes from wonton wrappers, spritz them with canola oil, paint some of them with beat juice, season with various herbs and spices and sprinkle with sea salt.  Bake for 4 minutes on 400 and done.

Evangeline "racked" in almost the whole pan within a matter of minutes.

While Kyle was hulled up in quarantine we went to Pumpkin Works, just the two of us.  We had a great time.  There just happened to be clowns there making balloon animals.  Evangeline enjoyed the talking pumpkin and the wooden cutouts. 

She is definitely my little bestie.

We crawled through a little hay maze that I vow to never do again.  I basically spelunked my way through this thing.  It was so tight and I was just waiting for a snake to pop out of the hay at any given moment.  It ended with a slide through a black tube which I could scarcely squeeze myself in to.  Oh my, I was so glad to be out of there.  Evangeline went back through it 3 more times.  I was amazed at how fast she got through it without me holding her up saying things like "stop right there, wait for Mommy."  She loved it.

Then we went through, what is claimed to be, the largest soybean maze in the world.  Impressive, I know.  It was 11 acres, but I'm not sure we cleared the whole thing because somehow the only exit we found was the entrance we started at. 

This is our view from a ways out.  You can see other people trying to make their way though.  This was my first soybean maze.  I've done corn.  Now that I've done both corn and soybean, and I can call myself an Illinois cash crop maze expert, I can say that the soybean was definitely harder.  Although you could see over the soybeans, it was so dense that it was impossible to see the different paths until you committed to one.

So this is where we were when Evangeline started saying, "when are we going to be out of here, Mommy?"  I honestly didn't have an answer for her. 

I followed her lead.  She told me she was the boss.

We rounded out the trip to Pumpkin Works with candy corn mix and pumpkin ice cream.  I do so love this time of year....and my favorite little pumpkin. 

Happy Place

Dad, Mom, Zachary (Candice was working), Kyle, Evangeline and I went to Bloomington, IN to visit Uncle Kenny on Saturday.  I have always loved visiting Uncle Kenny and Aunt Jeanne at their house.  It is packed with so many interesting items from Aunt Jeanne's world travels.  Now, just being in that home makes me feel close to her again.  I miss her terribly.  It feels good to be in her home, surrounded by her things.  I'm sure she had a great story to tell about each and every piece, and she would tell them with Jeanne flare. 



 

I also love the plants.  I'm telling you, it's good vibes all around at this place.  



 

A few of my favorite things in their home include the Tibetan singing bowl, the wall of framed women who were influential in woman's advocacy, and all of the neat fish she had collected from around the world.

She loved fish. 

There are so many beautiful coleus in the yard.  Whoever lives in our Carbondale house will hopefully enjoy all of the starts of various coleus we split from her plants.

The red stool was an old tractor seat from the farm.  The wooden chair used to be a park bench.  He's handy, that Kenny. 

I sure do love this old guy.

Uncle Kenny is one special guy too.  We adore him. 

 

Here's a picture of the angel created in Jeanne's honor which overlooks the bike trail in Bloomington.  It's made of recycled materials.  The wings are made of environmental license plates.  The words on the book say "love, peace, gratitude, forgiveness and kindness" in different languages.  Aunt Jeanne stood for all of these attributes and had a huge heart.  I am so honored to have had such a person as a role model to look to as I grew up.  I miss her every day.