More Glorious Autumn

Sunny Baby is so incredibly excited about having just eaten a second-crop chokecherry!

An egg! Look, Mom, an egg!

Miss Mouse was so proud of that egg....and then Sunny Baby got injured. In our haste to get her checked out, we forgot to take the egg home. She's so sweet, though; she just said, "Oh, well, we can get another one sometime."

They're drumming.

For anyone who thinks that Miss Mouse is always quiet and demure.....The girl can roar! *Sidenote: It's a happy roar.

Enjoying the near-peak leaves out at Grandma and Grandpa's. We were lucky enough to spend several weekends (well, what we call weekends, anyway) with them as the leaves changed and dropped.

The apples also ripened while we were out there. Sunny Baby Mouse shoved her little face right in. Yum!

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Everyone needs their Cheers bar.

I wasn't even old enough to be allowed to watch the show when it was on, but I remember the song and can probably sing it word for word. As I've gotten older, I've realized more and more how true are the words that we all need a place "where everybody knows your name" ...

The girls and I traveled to a place like that on Sunday, a place where Miss Mouse was welcomed as a "kitchen helper" with the other two children her age, a place of community, deep roots, and deep faith. Mr. T and I were blessed enough to be part of that community for some years, and it was so special to take the little Mice to see what it is like, to have a taste of that place where everybody knows your name.

From the inside on a warm, humid summer morning, these orange-glass windows cast a glow that makes the high-ceiling-cool of the church a little warmer. In the winter, they send warm fingers into cold tummies and feet as the strains of hymns sung for generations melt the frozen tundra outside.

Melodramatic? No, not so. Mr. T's summation of this congregation is that to be their pastor, one must be okay with the fact that until you've been there several (several) years, you are not the spiritual head of the congregation - Mr. F is, and rightly so.

Hard work, devotion, leadership, and faith have been passed on here through generations, not only to those in the "founding families" but to all those blessed enough to live on the prairie near this place. All are welcome here, as long as you're willing to pitch in, perhaps clear a table, teach some Sunday School kids, take the offering, or participate in the Christmas program, which seems to have sprung entirely out of a Little House on the Prairie book (complete with, as of my last knowledge, real candles with real flames).

I never did any of those things there, but I did make some fairly cute duck cookies for the bazaar every fall. The same woman bought them every year, put them in the freezer, and gave them to her son who liked to duck hunt for Christmas. Every year. Rose is gone now, has been for several years, and I very nearly cried for how much I missed her when we were out there last Sunday. This is a good place with good people. Most places are, to be truthful. But this one is especially special because here

everybody knows your name.

"Running free" in a parking lot. Miss Mouse loved that idea and has since mentioned several times that that is the only parking lot where she can run free (it was significantly after everyone but the ladies in the kitchen had left).

We had a perfect autumn day. Crisp, cool, windy but warm. A perfect day for a bobble hat. If you ask, I'll tell you where to get one ;)

Autumn

So, I'm getting braver...yikes! For the past few months, I've had trouble looking at or taking pictures of myself from the front, showing a smile.

It stems from an evaluative appointment with a really kind orthodontist last February. He's a member of our church, and Mr. T knows him well from council. Really, he's a great guy.

Unfortunately, my evaluation, which I was hoping would land me with a simple, "yes, you should have a retainer to stop anymore trouble with your bottom teeth" or "nope, you're fine", ended with a choice of the said retainer OR major orthodontic work....when I asked why I would want to go through having two permanent teeth removed, screws put in my mouth in two areas, and two-three years of braces, "aesthetics" was my answer. I appreciated the honest answer. Yet I had never had an aesthetic problem with my smile....until then.

Since then I've had trouble looking at any pictures like this. I guess this is some kind of immersion therapy then, posting this picture.

I decided to go with the retainer - eventually. Sure, a perfect smile would be great. Maybe 15 years ago I would have chosen differently. But for the main reason that I don't want my little Miss Mouse, who would be vastly old enough in the next couple of years to take all the orthodontic work in and process it in her pretty little head, to think that to be beautiful, to be feminine, to be perfect, requires that amount of pain and sacrifice, I am living with my imperfections.....and continuing to smile each time one of my Mice gives me a flower to tuck behind my ear.

If you have a moment, check out some of the other brave people at: