making applesauce with mom, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

And suddenly I am making applesauce (seen here with my little helper) and squash soup and pumpkin muffins like a crazy woman.

It’s been a bit of a long, strange but good week. Jane has a bad ear infection but the antibiotics seem to be helping. Cate has been super-emotional. Lack of sleep? The stress of turning FOUR? I don’t know what the deal is but yesterday and today have been better. Maybe the rain is calming her. I certainly love it. I am up here in my office during naptime working on thank-you notes and going through a stack of papers and books and cups of tea and other random detritus on my desk. My window is open and the rain is coming down. Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours in October.

On Wednesday, Jane was feeling somewhat better after her nap and I was trying to be a good mother. The plan was to do a Fall craft and then have family dinner. We punched out leaves and owls and the girls glued them onto their trees. I may have had to draw the trees a couple of times before they looked like trees. Cate had to be threatened before she would consent to having her picture taken (or really, to do the craft at all). I kept saying: Mama is doing something FUN with you! Let me take your picture! Sigh.

fall craft day, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

fall craft day, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

After we did the craft, I went in the kitchen to make dinner and found I was missing a key ingredient. Sigh again. Telfer came home and we just bagged the family dinner (why is this so hard for us?) and fed the girls mini peppers and bananas on the way to Costco for a hot dog. Epic fail.

dark & stormy, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

But then, after the girls went to bed, Telfer made me a Dark & Stormy for the first time. It’s from Dinner, A Love Story (first link is to the blog, the second to the book). Truthfully, a Dark & Stormy + a good night’s sleep is exactly what I needed.

In other news:

I just made the girls’ birthday thank-you notes with this app. Love it! I emailed all of them but I had one printed and mailed to Nana (who doesn’t email). How cool is that?

We finished watching the first season of Homeland then shared the discs with Chris & Mendy. Utterly HOOKED. Good acting, good writing.

I am currently in a memoir mood. Read The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe and My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story with Recipes by Luisa Weiss and Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. Loved all three and by reading any description of any of these books you will know if they are your thing or not.

Early tomorrow morning I am heading to Vancouver to run my second half-marathon with RaChelle this time. Why do I agree to these things? I am trying not to think about it too much. It’s supposed to rain, and rain hard, the entire time.

ballerina barbie!, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

Cate turned four on Saturday. This was probably her favorite present: Ballerina Barbie from Gresham. Awesome.

Mom and Dad came up for the weekend and Grammy & Papa & Nana and Austin & Adrielle & cousins & Sherry & Gresham & Kelsey & Regan all came for her heart birthday party.

We are all excited about year FOUR. In some ways, I feel like I have been Cate’s mother for much longer than four years. It’s so hard to imagine my life without her.

first ballet class, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

Cate started ballet on Tuesday afternoon. She is the youngest little girl in the class but she did a good job of listening to her teacher and trying new things. In true Cate-fashion, she had a meltdown when the class ended and told me she didn’t EVEN get to dance. And yes, I need to work on my bun skills.

big j and big c, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

We are mostly finished with our upstairs projects. We still have a little touch-up painting to do but that can wait for a bit. Grammy and Papa unexpectedly took the girls out for an adventure on Saturday afternoon so we went into full-on work-as-fast-as-you-can-without-distraction-mode. Telfer frantically hung up pictures and I finished up a bunch of little things. The picture above is of Cate and Jane’s closet. Yes, we put their little toddler beds in the closet. We had the room taken down to the studs this summer and insulated and new walls and ceiling put in. Telfer put down a new floor and painted it as well. So it’s not JUST a closet. Jane is still sleeping in a crib in the main part of the room for now but we are hyping up the toddler bed.

upstairs landing room, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

This is the view from the top of the stairs. Everything is basically from Ikea but we love Ikea so. Such a comfortable place for us to read to the girls. We don’t all fit in the chair in their room anymore.

upstairs landing room, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

upstairs landing room!, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

And a close-up. The lights on top of the bookcases are a nice touch. For anyone who is interested, the top sections of the bookcases are fiction, arranged alphabetically and wrapped around the shelves instead of up-and-down (not sure if that makes sense). Non-fiction is on the bottom shelves. The bookshelves below are mostly children’s books.

built-in, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

While we were at the beach in August, we had this built to replace the very low bookshelf and railing at the top of the stairs. It was seriously not safe at all. My girls are not climbers but it could have been a situation. This looks a lot better, holds many, many more books and is much safer. My dad will sleep better at night.

picture wall, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

And finally, this is a new picture wall. Seriously, we bought three frames and three prints – the Fairy Tale ones on the bottom – Mary Poppins – Rapunzel – The Princess and the Pea. We pretty much had everything else. We reused a lot of frames and finally framed a bunch of things we had lurking about. We had a couple of bookcases against this wall and so we are enjoying a clear pathway between the bedrooms and the bathroom to the downstairs.

sleeping upstairs, a photo by telfandrea on Flickr.

I ran upstairs to take a couple of pictures of the new bookcases tonight and I found Miss Cate sleeping on the sofa. So cute. Telfer will scoop her up and put her in her own bed here in a bit.