October is one of my favorite months of the year! Quite possibly because it’s usually our busiest month of the year! We have so much stuff that goes on in October it always seems like it just flies by!
First I’ll start with all our usual suspects. We continue on with homeschooling preschool and Pre-K. The twins continue with reading, spelling and writing in cursive. I swear their handwriting is much better than most adults I know! At the end of the month we wrapped up the first level of Logic of English Foundations book A. I have ordered level B but we haven’t started on it yet.
Harvest is still underway but about finished! With all we have going on between music lessons, dance, doctors appointments, etc. Andrew has at least one of the kids or multiple or all of them with him every day. Sometimes for my doctors appointments he has to keep all of them which means splitting them up between combines and tractors with our employees. Thankfully the kids love the guys who work for us and maybe it provides them with some entertainment! Haha!
At the beginning of the month Rhett and Lorelei both learned to ride the bikes without training wheels! I had taken them off for them a few months ago but they weren’t really ready yet and we’re just frustrated when we tried. Uncle Kyle stopped by one day and asked when they were going to ride without them and the very next day Lorelei was training wheel free and Rhett was right behind her the next day! I guess all it took was a little motivation from someone other than their parents.
Typically all the kids sit in the main church service with us instead of going to the nursery or children’s church. I prefer they hear the sermon instead of being in the nursery but at Pre-K age they start the children’s church program which is different. The twins decided they were ready to venture out of their own and have loved it every Sunday since! They’re learning so much about Jesus and precious kid centered worship songs!
On October 12 Andrew and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I can’t believe we’ve been together for 10 years and married for 7 now! Marriage is hard. We have been through the lows and the highs. It took us about 5 years in to realize that our marriage absolutely had to come second in our lives only behind God. Once we really got into the place where that was happening 100% of the time we have absolutely seen the benefits of it! It is so important to put your spouse above all others. One of my favorite quotes is “The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother” and while I love that so much and think it’s without a doubt true, I also believe that goes both ways for both parents. I pray for my kid’s future spouses every day. Whoever they may be, I pray they love them wholly and that my kids do the same. The best way for them to learn that is to grow up living with it.
Update on baby #5: He’s still cooking. For the 5th baby he is apparently holding out as long as possible. They’re supposed to arrive earlier and earlier with each pregnancy but mine have all gone backwards with the twins coming the earliest at 33wks and the 2 little girls at 39+4 and 39+5. With #5 so far we have had 2 different occasions where I thought I might be in labor but the contractions never got close enough together and then fizzled out. So here I am still pregnant and honestly over it at this point! Maybe me writing this out will make tonight the night!
Rhett and Lorelei turned 5 at the end of the month! It was super cold that day so we had their party inside our shop and I’m so thankful our giant blow up slide fits in there! It was nice and cozy with the heater on and everyone had a blast!
Halloween was a little different this year but we made the best of it and decided to have a last minute Halloween party with all the guys that work for us and their families! Our family dressed up as Star Wars characters; Andrew was Han Solo, I was Princess Leia very pregnant with Kylo Ren, Rhett was Chewbacca, Lorelei was Rey, Maggie Mae was the most adorable little Ewok, Belle was baby Yoda, and our German Shepherd was Darth Vader.
Unfortunately Halloween night brought a huge disruption to our daily life and a lot of our farm equipment was vandalized. Our combine and header were driven into a field and wrecked into a center pivot and a tractor with a grain buggy attached were driven through the woods and down into the river bottoms. Every piece of equipment involved was totaled, this is several hundred thousand dollars in damages and stopped our harvest for a few days. We were not the only farmers affected either, about 5 other farmers in our town also had their equipment stolen and wrecked that night. I wish I could say this is rare but it’s not. We regularly have stuff stolen and/or destroyed. I would like to point out though that Andrew has all the radios in our tractors programmed to K-Love which is a Christian radio station and when they finally found the tractor it was completely destroyed but the radio was still on and playing K-Love so maybe whoever did this heard the message of Jesus.
We are so hopeful that November is going to be our best month yet! We will for sure have a new precious baby this month and we are all so excited for that!
Raising Rowletts 