Sometimes

Sometimes we wear underwear on our heads.


{my only regret about this photo is that you can't see the dinosaur printed on the backside of those red undies}

"Mommy! Yur got one too!"

Yes, I do mean we.

It made our day so much more fantastic than if we had not had underwear on our heads. And if you don't believe me... I dare you to try it too!

You Capture - "Faces"

We've done this theme before.

Bruised up pears and other things

I played along with Ashley's little photo scavenger hunt this week.

1. Golden


The sound of fields being combined surrounds our little place lately. I expect these soybeans behind our home will come off this week. But for now, our boys delight in filling their pockets with dry beans that they snack on while they play.

2. Smell



These pears are bumped up and bruised and look like they've seen better days. Despite appearances, they are so juicy and smell wonderful... but best of all, they still taste amazing!

And seriously, again?



I have just too much help around here sometimes.

3. Fruit



We did finally have a hard frost a few days ago, but I was pleasantly surprised at how cold tolerant our raspberries are.

4. Simple


I do not like these things. When we moved in here they were on every window. Every. Single. One. Do I understand this? No.

5. Sports


Probably I'm cheating on this one. Wrestling? The little Bean had her brother screaming for mercy only moments later. That's my girl!

Facing Myself - October Linky

The Bean was down for a nap. The clock was ticking...

I decided it was time to do this three months ago, but it's the sort of thing that doesn't actually happen until I've had enough. Honestly, I can't remember the last time. It's been awhile. Before the Bean was born, probably.

Scissors? Check.



Wet hair? Check.

And this time... camera on the tripod and a five-dollar remote in my hand? Check.

Yes. Why yes I did.



Snip. Snip. Snip.

Pay someone to do this? Ummm... let me think. No.



There comes a point when I have to force myself to put the scissors down. For my own good. I tend to get a little out of control. I snip faster and faster as I go. I'm pretty sure it freaks my husband out.

He likes my hair long.

But it's my hair, and I'll snip it until I'm satisfied.



I always feel like such an airhead afterwards, as if I cut off five pounds of hair or something. What does it even cost for a real haircut anymore? For someone with plain old long hair, it costs way too much, I'll bet.

If you're wanting to link up, you don't have to cut your own hair. But you do have to take your own picture. Man, I'm a double threat this time aren't I?

Take a few minutes to head back over to the September linky and check out all the creative entries. Urban Muser's iphone shot just blew me away. I'm enjoying not just your self-portraits, but very much also the emotions that many of you are sharing. It's not easy, I know that much.

The Facing Myself linky will be open through the end of the month.

Edited to add: I've been chastised by a couple of hairdressers now, because "that thing" will "eat up the ends" of my "poor hair" (even though I never have split ends and go a year and a half between doing this). FYI, kids, please don't try this at home.

Togetherness

We've been having some amazingly beautiful fall days. I'm still using the clothesline. Our low-lying garden swamp still hasn't frosted. Dirty dishes are still piled high in the kitchen because we can't waste any of these gorgeous days indoors.

The little Bean tries her very best to keep up with her brothers, while I do my best to keep up with her.



A while later she got away from me, and I found her in the barn. Not good!

Strange things show up around the yard when the boys have put their busy brains together. Very strange things, like sixty year old terra-cotta drain tile hanging in a tree lilac house.



We find stuff like this all over the area that the kids roam. All. The. Time. I love it. They're so creative and resourceful, and even more so when they work together.

While the kids dig in the dirt, throw grass at each other, and fall off the back steps... the chickens swirl around us like the tide, coming and going.



This ninety pound beast of a dog is usually somewhere nearby. She just happened to be guarding her buried bread dough from the chickens.



Chickens are thieves, you know.


You Capture - "Togetherness"

Tough cookie

This is the age that I fall head over heels in love with my babies. Every time.


{almost eighteen months}

She looks so very sweet and calm and girly, doesn't she?

Don't be deceived.

Today she sat on one of her brothers until he cried. If I were to tell the full truth, she did also smack him with a weapon of opportunity, which skewed the battle in her favor.



It happens all the time. They like to wrestle with her, but she is one tough cookie and dishes it right back. It makes me laugh, even if I have to clean up the pieces when it's over.

Also: f/1.4 devours light like I cannot believe.

Also: October is nearly upon us (for real) and the new Facing Myself linky will go up on Saturday.

Also: I cringe every time I have to look at that out-of-season plum flowers header, but I'm starting to think it might be in-season again by the time I get around to changing it.

Also: In an incredibly strange twist of fate, we still haven't had frost in our mysterious sunken swamp garden. Not yet. I even managed the impossible and grew two red peppers... but even more bizarre than that, I didn't take a single picture of either one.

Also: I had some prints made at Wal-Mart. Yeah, I know. Believe me. I KNOW. While I expected that they were going to be bad, I didn't have a clue they were going to look that nasty. I was actually hoping for something that looked unprofessional, so I guess I got what I wanted. Yuck.

Also: Just kidding. I'm done!

An abundance

We watch for these little white flowers every Spring. They tease my husband, but they hold no promises. So many things have to come together in just exactly the right way, for sweet success.

Out here on the windy prairie... growing fruit of any kind is a gamble.

But even if the tree row across the road disappoints us, like it did once again this year, we can still smile because we love this place. We have awesome neighbors. Neighbors with plum trees that actually produce... in abundance.



Two weeks ago it still felt very much like summer. Some of us went a little plum-crazy and picked way more than we could have ever dreamed of using.



Why is it that little gems like this are so hard to stop collecting? Once upon a time when I lived by the ocean, a friend and I went to a u-pick strawberry farm. We gathered an alarming amount of strawberries. Then we had to figure out what to do with all of them.

It must be some kind of primal gatherer survival thing. Must. Have. More.

Good grief, they're right there! If you don't grab that beautifully red, ripe, perfectly round one, no one will!



The Bean said it for all of us, "I-wan-mwa. I-wan-mwa! I-WAN-MWA!!!". I was wearing her, so I wedged us into a mess of plum tree branches so that all by herself, she could choose and grab a good one.

Another one.

A juicy one.

I was glad to have a few tissues stuffed in my pocket.



It was dark there under the thick mess of living and used-up branches.

"Did she just eat the pit? Girl! Honestly."

I took an abundance of out-of-focus pictures of plums... and kids. Plums attacking kids. And kids helplessly eating plums.

We shook the trees to get the ones we couldn't reach.



It worked well.

The sound of plums bouncing off my kid's heads, and the giggling that followed, made me want to shake those trees again and again.



Mmmm...

Smirk

This was a hard one.

There was the "I'm soaking wet and loving it" smirk, and the "blueberry juice all over the lips" happy smirk. We have all kinds of "this is a very cool snake" smirks. Of course there was the "brontosaurus-underwear wedgie" smirk, which although I adore, might not be appropriate material for the blog. The cutest one of them all was the "every square inch of me is splattered with mud and my brothers had nothing to do with it" smirk.

In the end I decided to go with the "yeah Mom, I suppose I'll get on that bus" first day of school nervous smirk.

Just because.



There is a whole lot of smirking going on over at I Heart Faces.