Skype

Jeff and I will skype each other during the day. Normally, it's nothing earth-shattering. Here is today's latest exchange:

[12:56:03 PM] Ronda Engle says: Tag.
[12:56:20 PM] Jeff Engle says: Tag back.
[12:56:56 PM] Ronda Engle says: oh no you don't. I call a timeout that will last until next week sometime. You're it now
[12:57:40 PM] Jeff Engle says: Fun day?
[12:57:52 PM] Ronda Engle says: don't talk to me...you're it.
[12:58:00 PM] Ronda Engle says: there is no talking in tag
[12:58:32 PM] Jeff Engle says: tag
[12:58:42 PM] Jeff Engle says: (inlove)
[12:59:16 PM] Ronda Engle says: and there is no tagging during a timeout. You listen as well as the 4 year old. for crying out loud.
[12:59:33 PM] Jeff Engle says: Fine.
[12:59:52 PM] Jeff Engle says: :x
[1:00:10 PM] Ronda Engle says: now you're mocking me which doesn't change the fact that you are indeed it.
[1:00:55 PM] Jeff Engle says: I can't say anything because I'm it. But if I could, I'd say you're goofy.
[1:01:24 PM] Ronda Engle says: No...I'm on the verge of drinking, which is why you are most emphatically it.
[1:01:42 PM] Jeff Engle says: :)

Get Me to the Weekend!

This was one of those weeks that was just plain busy. However, the weekend was fun! Jeff and Nick went to help a Rick at the cabin on Friday, so that meant that Cooper, Maddie and I got a "date night". Since Maddie is still too small to care where we go, Cooper was large and in charge. He wanted to go to "our" spot...Burger King. I don't know what the fascination is with that place, but I love a Junior Whopper, so who am I to complain? After our lovely dinner, in keeping with the royal treatment we were giving ourselves, we went to Dairy Queen. Burger King, Dairy Queen, Royal Treatment...get it?

Anyway.

Cooper also got to choose his own kid movie out of the Redbox. 2 happy kids and 1 happy mama on a date...$11.55...literally. Score!

Saturday, we went to his soccer game. Only 2 more weeks left.

Saturday night, we went out with friends and saw "Burn After Reading" with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Don't see it. We went for free, and that was the only saving grace. It was one strange movie with a LOT of really bad language. It left everyone in the theater scratching our heads. Dinner at the Weber Grill was great, though. Good friends, good conversation, good food and NO HIGH CHAIRS!!

After church today, the guys set up a borrowed tent for next weekend's campout at church. They are a little beyond excited, to say the least. They spent the whole afternoon in the tent playing, reading books, and Jeff even fell asleep. So, next weekend is another date night for just Maddie and me. This week looks as crazy as the last, so I'm on the countdown for another wonderful weekend.

I Love My Camera

It seemed silly to spend money on a camera and the tiny collection of lenses that I've amassed, but without it, I would miss pictures like this:

and this:

and this:

and this


I am glad we bought the camera...I just wish we'd gotten some deals.

Where has September Gone?

This is the last weekend in September? Really? How did that happen?

Next weekend is Riley Days, the Vera Bradley show, and when the boys are camping out with Jeff and the other dads at church. October is getting busier and busier...it will be gone before we know it. I love this time of year. It could slow down a bit, though.

Tonight was a nice evening; it was haircut night, but thankfully, it was one of our calmer ones. Sadly, it was the only evening this week that had nothing planned. We need to work on this.

Happy, Happy Girl

No, I haven't completely fallen off my rocker. I meant to blur Nick and Cooper a bit. That's because I love watching Maddie watch them. She hangs on their every action and word. I guess that's the duty of the little sister.

We had a soccer game on Saturday. Jeff got to coach again...I wish we had known he would be coaching, there is a registration discount involved. Cooper had a blast. Here he is throwing in the ball. That 12 year old kid is the ref. He takes his job very seriously, so don't mess with him.

After the game, we went to Conner Prairie again with Jeff's parents. This weekend was their Country Fair, so there was twice the amount of stuff to do! I took my new lens. Can I just say I love it??!?! I, of course, took pics the last time we went, but the difference in the quality I got in the blacksmith shop and the pottery shop were just amazing. What I'm going to do with all of these pictures, I don't know, so you faithful blog readers will have to suffer through, I guess.

Too Tired

We've had a busy, busy day. And I'm sure I have a bunch of good photos to show you, but they are on my camera. Unfortunately, I am too tired to load them up. So, instead, I lifted these questions from a blog that I read yesterday. This particular blog is of Miz Booshay -- the Pioneer Woman's photography guru. I save her blog for last in my day. It's like dessert, I love it that much. Anyway, she's very faithful, very calming, and takes amazing photos. Does life get better?

On Fridays, she supplies thought provoking questions that are always a lot of fun for me. It's a good time to share.

1.Of television programs that aired before you were born, what’s your favorite? Without a doubt, the Dick Van Dyke Show.

2.What person of historical significance was from your neighborhood or city? He's not from here directly, but James Whitcomb Riley was from Greenfield...just down the road, so we'll count it.

3.What’s a story that’s often been told about someone in your family in the years before you came along? My dad's grandmother, Bappa, was an amazing woman who had to bury 5(?) husbands, had 7 kids, and supposedly birthed one child alone (her husband had been tragically killed before the big day), and went out to milk...what choice did she have?

4.Which of previous generations’ dumb mistakes (in deed or thought) baffles you the most? The '60s

5.What aspect of life in the good old days would you love to see a return to? Family time and simple Sundays.

Sunflower Meyhem

So, the sunflowers that we had at our house took off like gangbusters. In the end, they wound up being about 10-12 feet tall, and put so much shade on our garden, that nothing else really grew. We had lots of cucumbers, but most of them were on the rotten side once the sunflowers started to grow. Heaven knows we didn't do a good job of watering, so I'm guessing that the sunflowers provided just enough shade to really mess them up.

Anyhoo, now were officially at the end of sunflower growing season. I've looked up online what you're supposed to do now. One site suggested cutting the stalks and hanging the flowers somewhere to dry. Jeff nixed that right away.

Another site said leave them in the garden, but put pantyhose over the head of the flower to keep the birds from attacking the flower for its seeds. Um, I don't think I even OWN pantyhose, and I'm certainly not going shopping for a bunch of overgrown weeds.

I thought it would be interesting to see what happened if we just let nature take its course...would the seeds dry out and start falling onto the ground and then we'd have a whole new crop next year? We're not exactly gardening experts over here, so I dunno.

So, being the patient creatures they are, the boys took the matter into their own hands and attacked a flower the other day. This is what they got...

FROM.
ONE.
FLOWER.

Do you see the size of that bucket? It's a gallon ice cream bucket from Sam's Club. It's nearly 1/2 full of seeds. There are probably a dozen more sunflowers out there just waiting to drop their seed. Holy smokes. Now what? We're open to suggestions.

Hump Day

Nothing much to report. We went to the zoo with Nellie, Brayden, and Luke on Tuesday. We had a great time, and everyone was on their best behavior. Did you know the zoo no longer has kodiak bears -- they both died. Sad. We had soccer practice Tuesday night, which is where I got the good picture of Maddie. Nick isn't feeling well today (I hope we didn't give anything to Brayden, although I'm not even sure what he has other than a slight fever and headache). So, we're taking it easy. We've alreay played a rousing game of high-ho-cheerio. I kicked butt.

I'm loving this new lens for my camera! It makes me happy.

Do We Look Like Idiots To You?

Because that is what we were going for.

Today, we started on our quest to buy carpet. We've never done this before, so obviously, we needed some help. We headed down to Greenwood to Floors to Go in search of a reputable salesperson. Instead, we found Alta. We very carefully explained to her that we had three small children, so we needed something durable for our living room and hallway. Currently, we own a cream colored berber with a pattern in it, and we (I) have grown to loathe it, so if we could steer clear of that, we'd be in good shape.

So what does Alta lead us to?

Berber Carpet.
In Cream colors.
With patterns.

For crying out loud.

So, very kindly, I say, "I think we'll just look around a bit."

Alta heads back to the sales desk to do whatever it was she was doing before we wandered in her store looking like two deer in headlights, and we start meandering through the hundreds of samples on her floor.

Oh-so-carefully, we weigh our options, rubbing each sample that catches our eye, trying to decide just how many graham cracker crumbs could get lost in each piece before without successfully being retrieved by the vacuum. We compare prices, we compare name brands, we write every single stock-looking number down, along with the fancy-shmancy names (Shakespeare in Pork-Belly Pig Mocha for you?).

Alta comes back, and we show her our list. She glances at it, and leads us back to the berber in the cream colors.

Um, Alta, can we at least take some samples home to check our colors and see if we're anywhere close? "No...the only way we can do that is if a salesperson goes with the samples. I can measure while I'm out there, too. Would you like an 8 pound or 6 pound pad to go with that?"

Alta won't be getting our business.

So we head over to Lowe's. There, Jeff, got a "Hey buddy." I got nothin'.

In the end, we do what we always do for home improvement projects...Call Rick. He gave us the names of two people he would recommend. Funny...one is in Greenfield, and the other is in New Pal. (We've got to start thinking like Eastsiders.)

We also called Herman and Jenny Blue, our dear friends from church. When they were showing us their new home, Jeff and I both commented that we liked their carpet. We've already got the name of their carpet guy, but we wanted to take a quick glance again to see how close we came to finding something similar today. "Sure!!" Herman says, "Come on over!"

We had a lovely visit with them this afternoon. Not only did they answer our carpeting questions, Jenny had a sample that she no longer needed, so she sent it home with us. To top it all off, Herman offered us a beer.

I'm going to send Alta to their home to learn about good, solid customer service.

Where's Daddy?

Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy?

*Oh, look...he's home!*

Here's daddy. Here's daddy. Here's daddy. Here's daddy.

Kiss daddy.

Little Treasures

Oh, how I wish we had room to keep all of these treasures that come home from school. (Not really...I'm not sentimental like that.) However, I do get a kick out of them. Where else can you get a hat made out of an industrial sized coffee filter? Nick was thrilled. He commented that he was glad it wasn't raining on his hat. Yup, good thing.

What a Weekend!

Boy, do we know how to jam pack a weekend! Luckily, not every weekend is like this...I don't think we'd make it. However, for once in a blue moon,it sure was fun.

We started on Saturday morning at the soccer game (8:00 a.m. - yikes. Cooper asked if he had to play in the dark!)



Following the soccer game, we played on the elementary school's playground.



Saturday afternoon, we went to Tuttle's Orchard. It was their 80th anniversary, so they had exhibits of antique tractors,

and their usual activity center for the kids (straw maze, sandbox, tractors, and hay bales).



Plus, because of their anniversary, they had a tomato tossing contest

And Jeff entered the sweet corn eating contest.

Maddie decided to help. Apparently, raw sweet corn is pretty good. Who knew?

Saturday evening, we fired up our outdoor fireplace and roasted marshmallows (and graham crackers -- I don't know, don't ask) for s'mores. We also accidentally roasted a toad. Ick.




Today was the start of Sunday school, followed by our family reunion. It's nice to see everyone. It's also entertaining, knowing that these two

are going to grow up to be these two.

This is my Aunt Teit. She's my grandma's only living sister (at the age of 90). Her 6 brothers and sisters are gone, and today it really struck me how very much she looks like my grandma, right down to her hands and even her shoes. Smart guy Brian said that was because he'd heard they were sisters. Funny. I'm just starting to see the resemblance now that Aunt Teit is getting older.

The kids had fun playing with their oh-so-distant cousins that we only see once a year. They have no idea who they are. They only refer to them as "that kid in the red shirt" or "the kid with the cool scooter", stuff like that.

And just for fun...tonight Nick decided it was time to ditch the training wheels.




So that was our pretty exciting weekend in a nutshell. Now, we're just counting down to bedtime and kickoff! Go Horse.