That Time Family Pictures Required Two Tries

You guys know that I enjoy telling a story, right? Well ... buckle up. This one's a doozy!

When I was gone for a week in August and then got back and immediately went on a family trip up north, the kids did fantastic. So I thought that doing family pictures two days after I got back from a week at Emerson Exchange would be a good idea and the kids wouldn't be broken.

False.

Picture day dawned extremely sunny, which we would soon learn is actually not amazing for pictures. Poor Kim had to deal with all the shadows as we walked through the woods and we had a hard time finding good spots to stand, even though the fall colors were amazing. We found out later that Kim actually had a setting goofed up on her camera as well, which made many of the pics washed out or grainy. The "funniest" part - weird lighting and a messed up camera were the least of our problems.

Declan was pretty happy during pictures, but was physically incapable of smiling in the direction of the camera. To the side of the camera? Sure. Looking at his feet? No problem. Turning in a full circle? Nailed it. At the camera? Nada.

Quinn basically refused to smile unless she had a minimum nine points of contact with me AND no siblings were touching her. Or looking like they might touch her.

Fiona full-on teenagered out on me near the end and just simply refused to smile. Instead she crossed her arms, stuck out her chin, and scowled.

Mike stomped off, muttering something about kids being broken

Yogs decided he is old and laid down in the middle of the path. Because clearly if no one else could pull it together, he didn't have to either.

So basically, it went well. Sigh.

Due to a combination of, uh, "special" attitudes and the camera settings issue, Kim wanted to do a Take 2 the following weekend.

Against all odds, we got some really sweet photos of the crew between the two sessions. But in case you think I'm exaggerating this whole thing, I leave you with this gem. From Round Two. Which went "better." Stay tuned for the actual good pictures in a future post.

**Auntie reminded me of this epic disaster of a photo shoot. I will admit as challenging as this one was, it's hard to be as bad as that one!

Bobbing for Apples

One of the unexpected fun moments at the apple orchard was the apple bobbing contest. I knew we were going to have the contest at my work picnic, but I figured that the Vs would not be interested in participating. I was wrong. There's nothing like a 90+ degree day in September to make sticking your head in a bucket full of hose water appealing.

Fiona was the first to dive in. She was pretty pumped to join the kids line and bravely put her whole face in the water. We learned rather quickly that it is very hard to get an apple when you are missing your two top front teeth. With a tiny assist from me in pinning the apple against the edge, she successfully got one. And was so proud. She got back in line two or three more times, but didn't get any more apples. She never got discouraged and worked very hard.

Mike was the adult Vanneste representative. I continued to maintain that if you wear make-up, you don't have to stick your head in a bucket of water. Apparently I didn't let him know how the contest worked (it was how many apples you could get in one minute), so he got his first one, leisurely set it on the table, and looked around. Our VP is now clear that I'm a bit competitive (he may have used the word "intense") and I "kindly" told Mike to stick his head back in that bucket to get more apples. Family pride was on the line. I think he ended up with around 17 - a respectable showing based on our rather slow start. 

I think the pictures of it are my favorite part!

Picking [and Cooking] Apples

We've brought the gang to the apple orchard before, but we have never actually gone out and picked our own apples. It's a bit overwhelming to drop close to $40 for apples and we could never quite get over that fact. [The per apple cost is actually fair - but that's just a lot to spend on apples] As part of my company picnic, we were provided bags to do some picking. Score!!! We took four bags and left with probably close to 70 apples.

We decided to take the wagon out to the orchard and were very glad we did. Although the walk wasn't that long, it was - as established in the last post - a million degrees out and we have a lot of small humans who would have wanted to be carried. Add the four bags of apples on the return trip and we would have been a walking disaster. Literally.

Each of the kids got their own bag and we chose a row of trees where we were pretty much on our own. Mike held a short training session on 1) not picking rotting apples off the ground, 2) not picking rotting apples off the trees, and 3) proper apple twisting technique. They had such a fun time searching for the perfect apples and putting them in their bags. On the wagon ride back to the barn, they each picked an apple and sampled their hard work!

The night we got home, Quinn, Dec, and I made apple butter. It was my first time making it and we had to do a little extra reduction work to get it to the right consistency. But it tastes delicious. Today we made homemade applesauce. And had a teachable moment when I discovered a worm in one of the apples. We were all terribly intrigued and disgusted by the discovery. Note: we did not use that apple in the applesauce!

Besides our couple cooking experiments, we've just been enjoying the plain apples. Because if there is something the V family loves to eat any time of year, it's apples.

Company Picnic at the Apple Orchard

Three weeks ago, we went to the Emerson company picnic at a local apple orchard. I was on the planning committee, which meant the night before the picnic, Mike and I spent our kids-in-bed hangout time cutting tablecloths and burlap table runners for the party decorations. Quinn and I made a couple runs to JoAnn Fabric for red gingham ribbon and made some sweet mason jar vases. And we had 30 hydrangeas in our storage room for the weekend. All in all, it was a good thing he recently bought a larger vehicle!

The forecast leading up to the weekend was showing rain, so I spent a ridiculous amount of time worrying that the picnic would be rained out. Instead, it was a very sunny day. And 90-odd degrees. Or what feels like a million degrees to Minnesotans at the end of September!

There was seriously a clothing crisis that morning.  I don't know how to dress for a "mid-summer" visit to the orchard. It was questionable whether I had work-event-appropriate shorts or not. We were on the edge, but I went for it. I spent so much time worrying that rain would ruin the day that I never thought to worry about heat!

We were hot, sweaty Vs - and hot, sweaty Vs are not the most pleasant version of the V family. But we still had a fun time. We ran into our favorite Rahns in the hay bale barn and had a great time with them. Mike and Fiona took part in the apple bobbing contest (it was so hot that sticking your head in a bucket of hose water sounded amazing), and we picked four bags of apples out in the orchard.

It was fun to introduce my gang to several of my co-workers and to meet their families. I love family events for work. And thanks to one of my colleagues, we got some really awesome photos of the day.

**Dec did tell me that he was going to stick out his tongue**

Dec Figures It Out

Hi everyone! I've surfaced from the all-encompassing vortex known in my professional life as Emerson Exchange. The week of Exchange - and the weeks leading up to it - I'm basically off the grid. I'm back, slightly less fueled by coffee, and sorting through the piles of laundry. It's 99% amazing to be back - but I did enjoy other people bringing me food and being able to eat it while it was still hot.

Anyhoo ... I had a different post planned for my re-entry, but as they do sometimes, one of the kids slotted themselves in ahead of the regularly scheduled programming. And this time, it was the D man!

Once upon a time, long long ago, Declan pooped in the potty. And then had absolutely no desire to ever repeat that success again. Clearly he'd been there, done that. This summer, he became somewhat interested in wearing underwear because they "are more comfortable-er." This was all well and good - except that the pieces had not all connected for him yet. When he would start to pee, he would look down at it in surprise as if it was completely independent of his body. Our carpet did not appreciate it.

Two weeks ago, we had an unexpected day care closure and Mike stayed home with Dec. Mid-morning, I got a text from them. It was a photo of D with a Hot Wheels car carrier. Perhaps the car carrier that had been in Mike's closet for months, just waiting for its future owner to stop making puddles on the carpet. He kept it going all day and has been mostly in underwear since that point. We've had a few "leaks" (where his underwear gets wet but not his pants) because he gets distracted and forgets to make it to the bathroom. But for the most part, he's doing a great job.

While I was at Exchange, Dec had a couple surprises in him. Mike sent me a text on Wednesday night that they found themselves into a bit of a situation at the park ... and he had successfully taught D how to poop in the woods and wipe with a leaf. Dec took that lesson to heart on Thursday night and tried to wipe himself when Auntie was babysitting. There may have been some washing involved after that experiment.

We are just awfully excited because this boy went from us figuring that the college roommate was going to have to put some peer pressure on him to full-time underwear. Just like that. Who says ignoring the problem doesn't fix it ...