Halloween

I have to laugh a little bit that I have had a few requests to see our "awesome" Halloween costumes. I am flattered those of you who made the request think we're creative. Which is why I'm sad to disappoint you this year. The girls costumes were WONDERFUL, thanks entirely to Grandma. Isis asked to be Sleeping Beauty (the only princess dress she doesn't have) and said that Elise could be a fairy. We chose Merryweather, since she was the roundest fairy. Grandma enthusiastically accommodated them. Jeremy was going to be Prince Phillip and I the queen (I suggested Maleficent but Isis objected claiming she was too scary.). But time and timing just didn't work out this year. So just appreciate these too-cute-for-words girls.

I love this picture.

Love Isis' face.

Coming back from a Halloween party in Tucson.

Carving pumpkins with Grandpa.

Tasting raw pumpkin.

Our jack-o-lanterns

I'll start gearing up for next year... :)

Reality Blog

Some blogs I just can't bear to read. Not anymore. They're too depressing. Not with woe-is-me posts. Just far too many (like every one) tout how much this person accomplished that day or that week - things I could never manage to do in a month or a year. It seriously makes me sick and feel like I'm pretty much the laziest, least achieving mom/woman on the planet.

So, in fear that I have EVER made anyone feel that way, here is this post. This is my life.
It is very obvious I have neglected my blog for quite some time now. Life has been busy, kind of, and I don't typically get on the computer when the girls are awake. Or when Jeremy gets home because I don't want to waste my little time with him. I'm not really sure sometimes what we do all day. What I do all day. Especially when my house looks like this:

(No one has to wonder if children live in this house.)

Or my kids are found like this...

This is why my bed is rarely made (or doesn't stay that way for long). It just doesn't seem worth it.

What the sink looks like... while the dishwasher is running.

Or sometimes it's just a CRAPPY day.

Enough said.

If you haven't noticed, laundry is my nemesis.

I just.can't.keep.up.

None of this is to say that I'm not happy. I very much am. Living happens and I don't try to hide it. I just want anyone else who may feel overwhelmed or inadequate or exhausted to know you're not alone. And if your house looks better than this most or all of the time - now you can feel GREAT about yourself.

Though that's completely not normal and I may have to stop reading your blog.

Jammin'

Raspberries went on sale (2 months ago) so I decided to try making jam. This was a first for me. I had made it up in Idaho with my grandma but that was mostly me just watching.

Isis told me she was making a sugar map.
We had to be a little creative with some of our jam-making tools.
Almost ready.

Ta Da! It worked and turned out pretty good too. Hooray for jam!

Guess what our friends are getting for Christmas? :)

In Loving Memory

David Holbrook Hatch

My great-grandfather passed away on August 16, 2010 -

20 days before his 100th birthday.

My grandpa's memory was something to be envied, all the way to the end. He had stories/memories (sometimes the line was blurry) about everything. He usually started chuckling about his memories before he started telling the story, often prefacing them with, "Back in my day..."
Grandpa worked up until early this year, when he somehow broke his femur milking cows... at 99! On one of my visits from college we were talking about my major. He reminded me that if you do something you love it's not work. He then told me that he had never worked a day in his life. :)

Charles Kingsley wrote something that summarized Grandpa's philosophy.

"Thank the Lord every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done. Whether you like it or not being forced to work, and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, contentment, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know."

I also remember his great love for my Grandma Hatch. He wrote a poem for her in 1934 when they were apart for a short while:

Lonely

I think about you often and I'd write you every day

But there is so very little that seems worth while to say.

It either rains or it doesn't rain. It's either hot or it's cold.

The news is all uninteresting or else it's all been told.

The only thing that matters is the fact that you are there

and I am here without you and its lonesome everywhere.

I think about the way you smile and I recall your touch.

Distance lends enchantment and I miss you very much.

An excerpt from Mark Twain's "The Diary of Adam and Eve" is also fitting for their relationship.
"Eve: 'It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together - a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart, of every wife that loves, until the end of time... I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me - life without him would not be life; how could I endure it?'
Adam, at Eve's grave: 'Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.'"

I am so grateful we had the opportunity to visit Grandpa this summer, which would be our last earthly visit. I think it is awesome my girls got to meet their great-great-grandfather. That is pretty cool. He will be missed and impossible to forget. I know that he is happy and I feel joy in knowing he is with Grandma again, as well as the rest of his family.

We love you Grandpa!