Catching-up

I feel as though the past month or so that life is just passing me by, I don't have the time to sit down and type the day to day events of my life anymore...and I miss it! I will try to remember some of the highlights just so that I can be reminded myself.

Gabriel has started pre-school and absolutely LOVES it. He goes 3 days per week, and brings home homework, and we still work out of the books I had purchased for him when I thought about homeschooling him. Most of the stuff he brings home he is beyond as far as his learning is concerned, but he is making new friends and seems to be a happier child since he started going! I have been pretty lucky so far as my mom or my sister-in-law Kate enjoy taking him to and from school, so I have not had to do that extra running!

Sophia she is quite the HANDFUL these days, she is a true mix of a "prissy little girl" and a "tom boy." When we are around home she insists on changing her shoes in what seems like a million times a day, she loves to wear hats and try on things that she finds in my closet, it is just amusing to watch her. When Sophia is outside she picks up bugs and dirt and rocks, and fights with her cousin Sam over who gets to ride on the tractor with Poppy or who gets to drive on the gator. Those 2 only being 4 months apart are going to have loads of fun growing up together. Sophia not only blows kisses, but she will give kisses now as well, and she will only eat at mealtime if SHE is allowed to feed herself...MISS INDEPENDENT! Every afternoon at calf feeding time we all head down to the creamery adn the 3 cousins play together either in the Morton Building riding bikes, or out along the calf barn playing in the rock pile, it really doesn't matter where they play, they always end up covered in dirt and have to be bathed the second we get home!

I have gotten the kids childcare figured out at the moment, as I now switch off 2 days per week with my sister-in-law Kate, she watches my kids for 1/2 day and then I watch mine and hers in the afternoon, and then on 2 other days per week my grandparents still watch them too. I am working between 4-5 days per week, but only partial days.

Tony is pretty much around the creamery and home these days, we have a fine group of drivers now, that show up everyday and really seem to enjoy their jobs. We are still growing as we are starting a new route in the Thurmont/Emmitsburg area this Friday, so before long we will need a #6 driver, but for the time being our Route Manager will cover the new routes. Tony is also overseeing a MAJOR plant installation, we needed some other equipment to help us keep up with the demand of our products so we have a new batch pasteurizer, and a cheese press, and some other equipment that we are cramming into our already overcrowded plant, but it should be completed soon, and things should run more smoothly again. Our annual fall festival is this weekend, so we are gearing up for that, we hope the weather will be nice and that a large crowd comes!

I love this time of year with the changing of the weather and the leaves. The evenings are so comfortable that we find ourselves staying outside until almost dark, chatting and letting the kids play. Once all the work is done, my parents and brother and some of the other employees meet in the Morton Building to end the day by having a beer and re-capping the days events. My parents are able to enjoy watching their grandchildren grow-up and I can see it in their eyes that they are loving evey minute of it! In fact yesturday when my Dad brought home the planter and Sophia and Sam saw him coming down the road the both could hardly contain themselves until he got the tractor stopped...then they both took off towards him as fast as they could go, and my Dad's face just glowed to pick them both up and put them on the tractor seat beside him!

For the most part life is good, we work together and play together, but being all together as a family is best of all, and moving here to the farm has been a tremondous blessing!