After last month's blog I noticed that Eleanor had very few pictures because she's been hiding in her room reading a lot of books. So I had her pose with our new favorite kind of chocolate bar and this is the manner in which she posed. Le sigh.
Juliet sobbed when I told her Meg was sick, which surprised me a bit because she doesn't particularly care about the cats. I asked her what our other cat's name was and she said, "Layla?" Oh this girl. Bradley also couldn't be bothered to care about the cats until he was about 9, hopefully she'll get there in a few years.
Now Bradley loves the cats!
We had a Girl Scout event at the Johnson County Museum. Unfortunately it was on the same night as the school movie night but we still had a nice little crew.
They had to solve a museum mystery and went to a number of stations to get clues. We had the actor who played Toad in the Coterie's Frog and Toad summer production as their dance teacher. He was lovely!
Then they had a snack and a memory game.
And then the best station - they had to search for clues with flashlights in a museum exhibit area.
Juliet's favorite station involved getting a journal to write in and coming up with her own secret code for the alphabet.
There were screams of joy at the end of the night when they caught the culprit and a person dressed as her ran through the room we were in. It was such a fun event.
The entire crew at the end!
Bradley has been enjoying some social time with a few nice kids from church and they had screen time over at Wyatt's house after church one Sunday.
Meanwhile Nathan painted pumpkins with cute kiddos.
I worked on a blog post with the assistance of my sweet Meg. I'm still so relieved she's doing better and eating again. We have her and Sookie on some new kidney diet food and they both like it a lot, which is really good.
Family arts and crafts. Every time I clear this table they immediately cover it with new projects.
Then it was Nathan's birthday! We had time to open presents before kids had to run off to various activities.
Juliet had her zoo field trip the next day! I chaperoned her small but very active group.
We figured out early on that the kids were more into climbing than looking at animals.
Juliet tried to run right past the polar bear that was playing directly by the glass. It was the happiest I've ever seen a polar bear at the zoo and it was amazing, it was so close to Juliet and the other kids. She cared once she was encouraged to stop and push her way front and center so she could see it better.
More climbing
They really wanted a playground stop. But they made everywhere we went a playground.
So much climbing.
Finally the playground! Bliss.
10:50 lunch break. Juliet actually ate her sandwich at about 9:30 when we first walked into the zoo. It's really good I brought extra snacks.
We were told there was going to be an elephant talk, which was false, but at least the kids looked at an animal.
The aquarium was definitely their favorite spot, despite the lack of climbing options.
They just yelled at the shark instead and argued over which one of them it would eat.
Then we went over to the penguins and the children aggressively hugged penguin statues.
I might have been over the whole chaperoning thing by this point and the kids were a little whiny so I told them that they needed to pick out a penguin they could take home with them. There were at least 100+ penguins and the girls had a heated debate about which one of them could take home the penguin they both wanted.
We found a cool swing thing
And at least these kids enjoyed a good photo op!
Bradley tried to wear pants that were three sizes too small for him and an inside out black t-shirt to the concert. The number of times he has correctly and independently dressed himself for a middle school band concert is zero.
The kids didn't have school that Friday so Patrick and Juliet had a sleepover. They've had a few of these lately, it's really sweet. I'm glad they have each other, they've been such good buddies lately.
Nathan also had the day off so we took the whole gang to the Louisburg Cider Mill!
The middle schoolers even approved of this outing.
The corn cribs remain one of our favorite activities.
But also the donuts. Oh those apple cider donuts!
The air pillow was a blast.
And in a shocking, shocking move, the kid with the broken collar bone wanted to do a strong man activity.
He talked me into doing it too. The big one was very difficult. The medium one was just right for both of us.
We had a nice tractor ride out to the other side of the farmstead.
Cool hay bales to climb!
More corn crib.
The Burnhams came to the corn maze with us! It was fun to get to be there with friends.
We embarked on the corn maze!
Juliet insisted on blazing her own trail and we broke off from the main group. We may have accidentally taken a short cut because we beat them to the finish by a bit.
Lasso time! We love the Louisburg Cider Mill. It's just a bunch of easy, fun, activities.
And then it was home for some October pool time! We had some toasty days, October swims are pretty fun.
Meg continues to be incredibly clingy and we are incredibly grateful. Especially Nathan, it was very hard on him losing Layla last year so it's nice that Meg and Sookie are both eager for Nathan loves.
I took a moderately despondent 7th grade girl on a long walk one beautiful afternoon. Her legs didn't fall off or anything, although she started running at one point because she just wanted it to be over quicker and Callie and I hadn't exactly planned on running so that was exciting for us. She's a good runner. This just tells me we could go for jogs together too! Bliss!
A rare shot of Eleanor in the land of the living. She's so nice, we like her, come hang out with us!
Swimmer champ!
Here are some nice Eleanor climbing pics. She does such a good job, it's fun to watch her.
And game time with my buddy! We've been playing a lot of Sleeping Queens lately.
More Meg cuddles. She loves it when Nathan works from home.
We had Juliet's friend Nora over for a play date recently. Nora is such a sweetie, she's also the youngest of four and does really well with Juliet.
And then it was the night of Eleanor's play performance! She actually performed three nights but we all went to see her on closing night. She's the pirate in the center standing in the back with the kind of black vest.
Center of the stage again, good job Eleanor.
She had some choreographed fighting and got a bit of stage time. We enjoyed the show!
The impromptu conga line on our way to present Eleanor with her flower.
Family pic! Juliet was distracted. I think Eleanor was a bit proud that her brothers were so excited about her play.
I helped chaperone the after party and then Meg helped me tuck Eleanor into bed.
Meg is always so helpful.
We had Brewfest at the Arboretum the next day. Nathan was happy to have his dudes there!
I was happy about the donut booth! There isn't a lot of food at this event anymore so I insisted that everyone in our friend group bring some yummy snacks so we would have good things to munch on. It improved our experience tremendously.
But the donuts were a nice perk!
Group photo
There was a lot of discussion about people running off into the bushes together so we finally staged a photo for Susan after she left - Adam ended up in the bushes with his bros.
And I found my aunt's garden! Famous!
Picture of the two of us. I was proud of having some fashion, I ran into a boutique owner when we were leaving the Louisburg Cider Mill and she was so cute I thought that maybe I could do better than joggers for my next outing. All the fashion!
I went straight from Brewfest to a 1st grade birthday party at a ceramic cafe for a girl in Juliet's class. Quite the transition! We took all the rest of the kids with us because there was a Half Price Books in the same complex so they had a fun time shopping with Juliet was at the party.
And then we went straight to church for the end bit of Trunk or Treat. We packed costumes, we were very legit.
Juliet in particular was thrilled because she had been very upset about the idea of missing this because of her other social obligations.
Patrick's K-Pop demon hunter costume hadn't arrived yet so he just reused his Rubik's cube costume from the year before.
Quite the action shot
And there was face painting! What was not to love about this event? I didn't make Juliet wash this off before church the next day, it was clearly too beautiful.
Bradley was so sweet with his little buddy Edmund and had a pretend sword fight with him.
Juliet in all her glory. I love all the tummy in this costume.
Video game time with church friends for Bradley and a Juliet who likes to get in on things.
Nathan booted them outside for some badminton. It was very cute.
We did our boo bags the week before Halloween, which is the latest we've ever done them. Man I love a ding dong ditch with treats left behind. It was just the younger two who did them this year, which is probably fine, I guess it's not much of a middle school activity.
Then I chaperoned a Patrick field trip and was forced to hold a small crocodile for children. Patrick was very pleased with me.
I also supervised the project they got to do looking at pond specimens under a microscope. Patrick could have done this forever. I almost froze to death, but it was a good time.
Eleanor went back to her early rock climbing class so I took Juliet with me to supervise her class. Juliet is getting to be quite the climber!
We got to see Eleanor scamper up a route. She's so impressive!
This is the new play area/climbing area specifically for younger kids. Juliet is a big fan.
Nathan had time to take the boys out to see Tron at the movie theater. Then a couple days later he took Bradley and Eleanor to see Demon Slayer per Eleanor's vehement request. We never go out to see movies, it was quite the fancy weekend.
Nathan and I have been playing a bit of cribbage lately and Nathan was pretty delighted when Juliet joined him for a game.
She's definitely his good luck charm, he got a 24 point hand with her on his team!
Juliet has had a super loose tooth for ages and can do fancy tricks with it.
There was a lot of colored hair this Halloween. Patrick got to dye his hair blue so he could be a Saja boy!
Everyone but Eleanor at Nathan's company trick or treating event. I was at rock climbing with her. It was fun for them to go around with the Rutherford kids!
Charlie the skeleton and Bradley as Link!
They do a nice job, lots of cute things for the kids.
Official picture! Bradley was being like Nathan in this photo. And I used up the rest of a can of purple hair spray for Juliet for this event so we had to get regular purple hair dye for her for Halloween because all the purple hair spray was sold out at stores. Rumi from Demon Hunters was a popular costume this year!
Watching Scooby-Doo at the end. Happy kiddos!
Patrick really loved this outfit and apparently lots of little girls dressed as Kpop Demon Hunters were verrrry excited to see Baby Saja.
Cuddling with kitties in the heated blanket "kitty trap"
Juliet's tooth finally came out when she chewed on a blueberry! She is my first child to be able to sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" authentically.
Nathan and I had a date night in the basement and we had some small children crash our pool time at the end.
Then they had a sleepover in Patrick's room. Pretty cute!
Toothless!
Eleanor had a pickleball Girl Scout event which was pretty underwhelming but at least she got out of the house and had a fun time.
I love staying in the house and reading books with kitty buddies.
I had to pick Juliet up from school early for a dentist appointment and was pleasantly surprised when the principal ran out to give her a special prize for being a good student!
Nathan went on a work trip and I sent him a picture of one of our fancy dinners we had in his absence. I stuck cottage cheese in the pancakes for extra health which the children balanced out with extra syrup.
Bath time with my favorite toothless kid!
Bradley and Juliet got to accompany me to ROKC for Eleanor's rock climbing class while Nathan was gone on his work trip. Patrick was at basketball. Zero climbing happened, they just ran around in the play area the entire time.
I got Juliet her own heated blanket because she has the coldest room in the house in the winter. Being above the garage can be tough! She is quite pleased.
And I helped kids prep pumpkins for carving because Nathan's work trip went until right before Halloween this year and we were going to have very limited carving time. Juliet was unsure about the pumpkin guts.
I let Bradey cut the top off of his pumpkin and no fingers were lost although I had about a thousand mini heart attacks.
Great success!
Patrick had his buddy Luke over and they played some NBA Jam - I'm glad this is still getting good use!
I dyed Juliet's hair. I used so much dye and it still could have used multiple waves of dye but Juliet was adamant that it was fine after the first go at it.
Nathan got home from his work trip, went to a gold tournament the next day, and then came back and dyed Patrick's hair and then we met out friends Keith and Paige for a fundraiser at Top Golf. We hadn't been there in ages, we had a great time. Here's a winner/loser picture after one of our games.
Group photo!
And Nathan got home from work early enough to make it to the school class parties, which was a blast.
I kept taking band pictures of girls in Juliet's class.
We brought over Baby Saga for a guest appearance.
I think there are about 10 girls in Juliet's class and half of them were K-Pop Demon Hunters. Fantastic!
We watched the parade! Halloween is so cute at the schools here.
Then the three willing children carved pumpkins right after school before the trick or treating started.
Patrick went over to Carly's house to go trick-or-treating with her
Juliet got invited to join a couple 5th graders for trick or treating. She was SO excited to get to run around with Charleigh and Belle.
She ran around nonstop from 5:45 to about 8:30. She was one tired demon hunter at bedtime.
Bradley had his friend Wyatt over. They dressed up to go to a few houses to trick or treat and then they had a sleepover in the basement.
And Eleanor did eventually decorate a pumpkin! It's an anime guy, I don't remember who it is, but she worked hard on the pumpkin the day after Halloween and did a rather fantastic job. She showed me a picture and I was properly impressed, it was pretty spot on!
This is a typical morning with Patrick. I've been encouraging him to sleep in a few more minutes because it's a lot for the middle schoolers when a child is running around singing merry songs to the dog in the morning.
The teacher posted this photo in the class page for me later that day. Juliet is very proud that she can basically do the splits now. I have no idea how this happened. She told me she watched some YouTube videos about doing it. But that's not the same thing as actually practicing ... regardless, she's very bendy and very proud. Good for her!
Eleanor and Bradley had their first band concert of the year. Fun Eleanor story - she was way too tall for her jumpsuit she wore last year and no longer fit in it. She discovered this the night before the concert. So we went through my closet for black things that could possibly work and she made fun of the formal dress that I wore to Nathan's holiday party last year and then put it on and it looked beautiful on her. She then complained about having to wear it to the concert. I might not survive these middle school years.
We had some friends from our small group come over for a swim one afternoon. I think Juliet is our only child who agreed to swim with them. At least Nathan and I still really like the pool and we use it for parties!
More Meg cuddles. Meg adores Eleanor.
Oh the thrill of running back to the car before someone comes to the door!
Patrick got to go to a tennis class tryout for the Pre-Academy at Elite Tennis. He fit right in and played really well, I was so proud of him!
And they even shot a little video for their social media pages while he was there! Can you spot the shy child?
Bathtime is a jamming time for us
Nathan just looked it up. Muichiro Tokito. He's from Demon Slayer. He's her favorite character. He's a good guy! But apparently Eleanor likes him the best because he's sarcastic with everyone. Oh joy ...
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