This is our third fall season back in the Midwest, and with that comes our third year to participate in the Griggsville Apple Festival with the rest of the Dunham crew. Craig’s sisters do most of the work on the float and we show up and look cute (okay, the girls do).
The Dunhams have won the Apple Festival Parade trophy for the past two years (maybe more, but that was before our time), so tomorrow we go back to defend our title, eat corndogs, drink fresh-squeezed lemonade, peruse the public library’s discards, maybe take an overpriced tractor ride around town, and take pictures of funny advertisements we will see along the way.

This year will be extra fun, though, because Craig’s parents are the honorary citizens of the festival, so we will go tomorrow to watch them participate in that aspect of the festival as well.

My parents have been in town this week since Tuesday and they leave tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon we take off for the farm, so this is Grandparents week for us and the girls have enjoyed it very much. I have too, for all the obvious reasons of getting to see my parents again, but also because my mom should win some kind of award for washing, drying, folding, and putting away all the laundry we had piling up in this house. All of it (and there was a lot).

My dad taught Chloe how to tie her shoes, as we’ve made learning to tie your shoes a “learned from Papa” skill around here, which has been a beautiful thing because my dad is the perfect person to sit with a kid and go through the tying process over and over and over and over and over. Early Wednesday morning, he and Chloe took their tennis shoes to the front porch, sat on the steps, and began. She was a pro in no time, so we can now successfully mark “ties shoes” off her list of need-to-learn life skills.

I’ve been How Kids Think-ing, grading papers for Craig, and teaching the girls. I need to be sleeping and staying current with our laundry so we don’t again develop the problem we had when my parents arrived on Tuesday. I officially admitted to my limitations in the ironing department, and hauled a whole basket full of Craig’s shirts to the cleaners last weekend. It was the best $20 we’ve spent in a long time.

So, that’s the latest scoop from the Half Pint House. Our chaos has exceeded the “acquired” state right now (it’s more like “normal,” which we hope will change – maybe in November).