Autumn with the boys (and some glimpses of Eric!)

During the past three weeks (up until this weekend) Eric had exactly one day off of work, during which he napped all day (wouldn't you?). Sometimes I feel like I'm gasping for air, with the nonstop work that it takes to keep this family running! But it's hard to feel down during such a beautiful autumn, and I've certainly enjoyed keeping pace with these spirited little boys. 

A hike to Blue Mound State Park made for a lovely afternoon one day. 

Jacob even documented my attendance--this was before Michael got tired and I was also carrying him and his three special walking sticks. (Am I too accommodating?)

Later we went and picked some more apples to make applesauce. We used a delicious non-cooking recipe, and Zach basically completed the whole project himself. 

 I taught preschool twice, once on dinosaurs and once on ducks.

On the day that we did dinosaurs we spent a sunny hour on our rice digging sites. Then we spent another hour vacuuming up the rice that was tracked everywhere--it was worth it, though!

Speaking of cleaning, I cleaned up approximately 20 bowls of spilled cereal and 4 boxes of spilled cereal (why do I keep buying this stuff?).

We watched the construction on a neighbor's house go up--the boys squealed when the crane lifted the pre-fab shower into the upstairs bathroom.

We spent a delightful conference weekend with Uncle Jason, Aunt Jami, and cousins Matt and Jackson. Unfortunately the only thing I took a picture of was the boys' conference packets:

We hosted a Cub Scout den meeting--the scouts (there are 11 in his den!) and their parents all seemed to have a good time.

While we were in the hosting spirit, we also prepared a dinner social for about 20 of the current residents in and applicants for Eric's program. (Eric came, too!) Eric works with such interesting, positive people--I was happy to get to know some of them better.

We set up the bicycle/tricycle obstacle course to end all obstacle courses and timed each other running it well into one balmy evening.

And of course we went to a pumpkin patch--pictures of babies in pumpkin patches are always so endearing.

Then of all things, Eric got Columbus Day off of work yesterday. We let Jacob stay home from school and spent the whole day together. We organized the garage, mowed the lawn, caught up on laundry, and went on a bike ride in the morning. We spent the afternoon and evening at serene Lake Kegonsa.
After filling the kids up with roasted sausages

 and gooey s'mores,

we rafted,

dug,

 threw,

and relaxed

 until it was too dark to take any more pictures.
And that is the story of how one perfect day made up for three weeks of me running solo and even sharpened the saw enough to gear up for the next stretch. Good times.