Another Week of Sickness

Yes, you read that correctly! This time Natalie has come down with some sort of virus that involves a low-fever (thankfully, that's gone), irritability, and now, a mild rash. She's been so crabby and miserable that I haven't gotten much of anything done. I think Kenna had her bout with it Saturday, so hopefully once Natalie is better we can be done! The really disappointing thing is that with both girls not feeling well, we weren't able to go to the fair and see how Hannah's entries did.

School this week actually happened! We managed to sneak it in during Natalie's naps and few cheerful periods.

Brynne is loving school, but I think it wears her out more than she acknowledges. I've noticed she is much more short-tempered than usual and TIRED at night. But that's to be expected.

Hannah has been a busy girl. She studies a lot and is making great progress. Right now one of her projects has been a study of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". She's memorized it and done some research on Robert Frost.

Logan is progressing by leaps and bounds. He is into "The Magic Tree House" series and reads those. He is practicing adding multi-digit numbers that involve carrying. He and I just started his history program for the year. We're trying out a new American History curriculum that is geared more towards his age level. So far, after one day, we like it! :-) It's a program that I've been eyeballing since Hannah was his age and never quite convinced myself to get. But Hannah is doing what Brynne and Logan studied last year for history and I didn't want to move Logan on ahead - this way we can all study the same time period together next year (although with varying degrees of depth and difficulty).

Josh has a new BOA (Branch Office Assistant) in his office. His old one, Kathy, transferred to a new Edward Jones office that opened up in Mendocino, and to take his place the firm has hired another Kathy, who was his "on-call" before. I talked to her today at Church (she just got the official phone call on Friday) and she told me that she is still so excited. I told Josh that excitement will wear off when she faces the reality that she has to see HIM every day. :-) But seriously, I'm excited because I love her already and I know she'll do a great job! Yay!

Fall is coming! It's in the air, even though it's been pretty warm here. Funny how that is. I've been dying to make pies lately but haven't found the time with my sick little one. I did take a couple minutes yesterday while Josh was taking a turn with the baby to throw together a new recipes I wanted to try called Golden Pear Cake. Anyone who knows Josh really well knows that he loves fruit - particularly pears. This cake is cooked in a cast-iron skillet (in the oven) and it is like a pineapple upside down cake. You make a caramel-ly sauce in the skillet, add the pears, then top with cake batter and bake. After it bakes you fill it upside down and the caramel-ly pears become the topping. Yum! It turned out superb. Might have to keep that recipe around. Just so you know, Grandma, it was in the recent issue of Traditional Home - so thanks for that subscription!!!

This is the second post in a row with no pictures. I did take some. I think they got deleted from my camera because they aren't there now and they're not on the computer. Sorry!