Fall Update

Well - where to start!?!  It's been a long 34 days but hopefully combining will wrap up this week! Some highlights of harvest this year:

• 34 consecutive days of combining - not one day off.
• Extremely dry weather - leading to only one, minor, fire.  Thankfully Noah and Caleb were able to keep it under control and find the problem in the combine that caused the fire. Other farmers were not so lucky this year with the fires.
• Only minor breakdowns - nothing that kept them out of the field more than a couple hours.
• AWESOME help by two gentleman (Lincoln and Cole). Cole is a high school student who's been running the grain cart after school while Noah runs semi. Lincoln is a friend/cop who helps in his off time. Both have helped considerably to keep the combine running and enabling Noah to tend to the cattle twice a day.
• An awesome daddy/hubby who made stops in almost every night just to say hi to Harper. He hates not being home with her so he'd make special trips, or we'd make a special trip to the field, so he could see her.
• One "farm with your hubby" day by Erin. Spent the day with Noah and Caleb. Actually drove the tractor - with MUCH coaching from Noah. Future farm wife?  We'll see about that! Ha!
• Decent yields despite the down corn from our wind storm this summer. The down corn definitely slowed things down. They could go from one field averaging 1800 bu/hr rate to another field where it was 400 bu/hr rate. The down corn made it difficult to see the rows and stay on track. But thankfully, still a relatively decent crop.

In other news, pregnancy number 2 is going good.  This time around it is different than with Harper.  At 16 weeks, I still have days where I feel crummy.  With Harper, at 10 weeks I was pretty much back to normal. This leads Noah and I to believe it's a boy this time.  We'll be able to find out around Thanksgiving what the sex is - and this time we will be sharing with everyone!  Photo below at 16 weeks....tummy starting to show!

In Harper news, she continues to be super fun!  But we are starting to see the toddler attitude and stubbornness shine through!  She frustrates us with her not following directions and having to tell her 5 or 6 times to do something.  But despite all that, she makes us laugh each day with her humor and intelligence!

Harper dressed as a clown. No this is not Halloween. She got this shirt at one of Joe's (Noah's broker) parties that was a carnival theme.

Checking out a butterfly at Reiman Gardens. We had a season membership there this year and loved it. We have been there many times and Harper loves it. Highly recommend to anyone in the area.

By the giant gnome.

On this visit to Reiman Gardens, we let Harper lead us around to anyplace she wanted to go. Love this picture of her running ahead of us, excited to explore - and the beautiful fall trees!

After our exploring, she enjoyed a $.75 bag of popcorn. A nice treat that the cohorts sell for those at the gardens.

One of Harper's favorite musicians is Laurie Berkner.  Well, Laurie came to Des Moines for a concert/fundraiser in October. I took Harper. I thought she'd be more into it....but I think she's just a little young yet. She LOVES to listen to her music in the car and will sing the songs on her own.

OK, now this is Halloween!  Harper in her sock monkey costume - minus the hat.  I couldn't get her to wear that hat.

But thankfully her teacher (pictured in black) was able to get Harper to wear it! This is her class trick or treating at the hospital on their annual "Monster Walk".  I met up with them along the way and Harper was having a blast!

Harper with her friend Madison. The two love to play dress up together at daycare.