The Good, Full Life

I have written so many blog posts in my head that never made into the real thing. I feel like Charity's life has had so little recorded about it!!  A condensed version of her life would be that the first 5 weeks of her life was miserable for her and me. She was not a good sleeper and just cried and fussed her way through SO many naps unless she was being held. I don't know how many of her naps I laid in bed with her on my chest so we could BOTH sleep. She was a good eater, she didn't have unusual amounts of burps or gas. There was no rhyme or reason. Sometimes she slept great, others she didn't. And she wasn't spacing out her feeding times, either. I finally had a light-bulb moment when she'd had a few great days and then suddenly she was having a horrible time of sleeping again. I thought and thought and thought, going over each and every single detail of what I had eaten, where we had gone, what she had done over the last day and realized that I had eaten ice cream 24 hours before. I had been surviving on ice cream and yogurt for my "I'm starving, I don't have time to make food, there is no food ready to eat RIGHT now, I am so tired (caffeine isn't really an option)..." snacks and "get me through to bedtime" meals. I quite eating dairy and she turned into the happiest, smiliest baby just like I thought she would! Thankfully I don't have to read labels, but boy oh boy do I miss cheese and yogurt and ice cream! Hooray for Almond Ice Cream and other non-dairy frozen dessert things that I enjoy from time to time. She is just now to where I can have Parmesan Cheese on Spaghetti again. Yummy!! :) She sleeps through the night, from about 10/10:30pm to USUALLY about 6 or 6:30am. Now if I would go to bed at 10 or 10:30... ;)

 Daniel's work never had a slow season this spring. That seems typical of our baby years for some reason! He just came out of two 75-ish hr. work weeks so we are really looking forward to the 3-day weekend this week!

We make the most of his time at home when we're awake and can visit and hang out as a family.

Susannah and Sylvia adore Charity. :)  Susannah has developed and interest in the written word. She spends big chunks of time writing our names and from time to time other peoples' names. She is showing an interest in reading, too, so learning how to read may be in her future for this fall!

One day I decided I was going to make a set breakfast and lunch menu for a week, and we just go 'round and 'round with that. I eliminates 2 things for me to think about and figure out each day. :) I enjoy it and so do the girls. Ice-cube tray lunches are one of their favorites!  It changes a little each week depending on what fresh fruit and vegetables I have, but it's usually similar to below.

L-R: Organic Animal Crackers, Strawberries, Lunch-meat Roll (cut into wheels), Cheese, Avocado, Ranch Dressing, Bell Pepper, Croutons, Cucumber

I love being mama to this sweet girl!!!  It is strange, though, to look at her sometimes because she just has peach fuzz for hair. Both Susannah and Sylvia had at least 1" long, dark hair by this age. :) Charity looks a lot like Daniel when he was a baby.

Walking on the ceiling is fun when Daddy's home

 And sleeping on the ceiling, too... :)

In Daniel's "spare" time he has been busy building a large chicken house onto the back of our shed. We are very eager to have chickens again!!  He has made a lot of progress since I took this photo, and we hope that he will be able to have it chicken-ready very soon!!

 

I don't plan to leave you all hanging for another 2 1/2 months before I post again, but for now I must go see about dinner. Happy 4th!!!

The Never-Dull Life

One Saturday the girls - with Daniel's help - picked me some bouquets of  dogwood blooms. We put them in a vase on the table and enjoyed them for a long time. "Long time" as in... ahem, I just threw out the dead twigs and dried petals yesterday. ;)


Susannah has a very creative imagination these days. That may be an understatement; I'm not sure. She also doesn't have much of a filter between her mind and tongue so I get to hear just about every thought that passes through her brain. It makes for quite the entertainment sometimes, and very tired ears others. Most consistently, though, has been her imaginary kids/friends, Iryn (pronounced "eye-rin") and Hepsabah. She has conversations with them and talks about them as if they are real people. Most of the time when we go somewhere, at some point on the way to where we're going she'll say "Oh! We forgot Iryn and Hepsabah!" I'll respond by saying "well, tell them to come hop in!" She'll move her arms around and then say "They jumped in!" and then she'll verbalize how and where they are sitting in the car and so forth. Sometimes she'll say "Where's [either Iryn or Hepsabah]? ... oh, he's being silly and running beside the car! He needs to jump in!"

Last week she was outside playing, and I heard her come in the back door doing her best fake wailing. I asked what the matter was, assuming that Sylvia had done something she didn't like or some such aggravation. She continued with her fake emotions and said "Iryn died!!" I quizzed her about Iryn's death, and she said he had died because his body got old (most of the time he is either 69 or 70 years old, even though he's her "boy"). She put on some very good fake sadness over his death. About an hour later I asked if Iryn was still dead, just in case he had miraculously resurrected. She was again sad and said that he was still dead; he had died because he had a "sore froat".

A few days later Iryn came back to life and is a regular part of her imaginary play again. :)
 

Susannah and Sylvia asked me to spread their blankets out 

so they could join Charity in having some blanket-time.

A "best friends" moment on a day when there were plenty of NOT-best-friends moments. ;)

(Sylvia is saying "cheese!" with a mouth-full of food.)

The girls love to hold Charity.

My mom has been coming for a day a few times a month and my brother, Glen, came along the last time. Susannah and Sylvia loved having him here!

The Season of Worms. Ew. Gross. Creepy-Crawly. I don't remember what kind of worm it is, but EVERY spring here where I live, for a couple of weeks these worms are EVERYWHERE. They strip full-grown trees of their leaves, spin their long single-strand webs everywhere, and during the peak of their "season" it looks like the trees are raining worms because hundreds of worms dangle from their web-strings beneath the trees.

That was the preface to these next two pictures (you're welcome ;-) ). One afternoon Susannah came in really happy and excited. I quickly realized she was so happy and talkative about her WORMS! She had 3 worms on her hand and was talk about them, to them, and showing them to me. I was about to crawl out of my skin but she was loving it!!

When one started to fall off, she would talk to it and gently reposition the wormy so he could stay on her hand. **spine shiver** Anyway, I'm just glad she didn't try to convince me to let her keep them in her bed like she asked about doing with an earthworm a year ago...  I guess she still enjoys her wildlife.

Since Daniel's work has picked up with a bang, the girls clamor for time spent with him when he's home. I encourage it, too, because it makes a big difference in their behavior when they get some Daddy-time... and it gives me a little respite as well. Win-win. Anyway, Sunday afternoons between lunch and naps are one such time. They like to play a game, wrestle, read books or just have good fun together. Sylvia isn't quite able to play board games yet so she usually watches while she climbs all over Daniel. :-)

Resurrection Sunday

Since Sunday was going to be a full day and we had to be at church early (ah, the life of a musician's family!!) I knew the only way to be successful and sane was to prepare as much as possible before going to bed Saturday. Since Resurrection/Easter Sunday is such a special event to us as Christians, it was fun to take extra time picking out our clothes to wear to church. I started with Susannah and Sylvia's dresses, wondering if I would be able to have us ALL matching this year. Lo and behold, with some digging around in my and Charity's clothes, I found us all clothes that coordinated! I was pretty excited since it doesn't happen very often and I think this is the first Easter Sunday that I've been able to do this.

Charity dressed and ready for church. As soon as she was finished eating her "first breakfast"

Sunday morning, I got her dressed. One down, however many to go!

After our wonderful, wonderful service (that I didn't want to end) Daniel and the girls went to get lunch while I fed Charity. They ate in the car and then we did a full round of potty trips before hitting the road for a 2.5 hour trek to my parents. We didn't have to make any stops and the girls traveled pretty well. I wanted to nap but only managed to rest and doze. Such is life!

When we got to my parents (aka "The Ranch") it was time to feed Charity again. As soon as she finished eating I re-combed hair and straightened bows and got a quick picture taken. (Sylvia hasn't warmed up to the idea of smiling with other people are behind the camera...)

Then the girls got to change into play clothes and the fun began.  My mom got out her wooden puzzles for Sylvia (a puzzle shark!) and she spent lots of time learning the new-to-her puzzles and involving other people to help her. Towards the end of our day there, my dad was sitting on the couch and she took puzzles to him to work on together.

Sylvia, Aunt Gail and Hannah

Susannah enjoys the vast expanse of books in Grandma's big library.

After dinner, a few big people went outside and hid the oodles of Easter Eggs that my sister and her husband provided. Then the cousins enjoyed an egg hunt!  It was a new experience for Susannah and Sylvia and they both got help from Aunts and Uncles with finding eggs. I'm afraid their experienced cousins had them beat in the number of eggs found, but they had fun and didn't care. :)

Sylvia and Aunt Gail

Susannah and Auntie Juls

At the end of the day we loaded up our tired crowd and made our way back over the mountain to our beds. It was a good day, starting out rejoicing in Christ conquering death that we might live, and ending with time spent with family.

Life As Five

Is an adventure. :)

 

Morning pajama clad bed-heads. :) (And one wearing Sunday shoes because she loves shoes like that.)

Picnics in the living room when Charity needed to eat at lunchtime.

Lots of playing on the couch. Sometimes it's a house (they are actually both sitting in the "bathroom" in these two pictures!), sometimes it's a car, and when they throw the cushions on the floor it becomes an ocean for jumping and diving. (Hopefully no stitches or casts will come from these grand adventures...) These kind of adventures are the reason we said "yes!" to this ugly, huge, well-worn couch that fits nicely in our living room. It provides a great indoor place to have lots of fun of all kinds!

Talking to Aunt Lucy who lives far, FAR away with her big dog "Gunfer" (as they say "Gunther").

A Wonderful Christmas-Time

Early in December when we had our week of stay-cation, one thing we did was get down all the nativity scenes. Two are toy sets that Susannah could hardly wait to get her hands on and both she and Sylvia have loved playing with them this month. Another set is a ceramic set that I put out of little fingers' reach on top of the piano, and then we also have this set that is plastic. I remember how special it was to arrange and re-arrange and pretend with my mom's manger scene, so I made sure to put this set where little people could do the same. I did set a boundary that the pieces had to stay on the table, but they were free to play and arrange to their hearts content. They have and have enjoyed it. :)

Wanting to teach our children what Christmas is all about, we told or read many Bible stories surrounding Jesus' birth for bedtime stories. Sometimes telling them without a book or Bible, and other times we would take a few days and go through different of their Childrens Bibles. They are both very much aware that Christmas is Jesus' birthday.  It didn't stop Susannah from knowing that Christmas also meant presents, though. ;-)

On Tuesday before Christmas the girls and I made a birthday cake for Jesus. Susannah then asked several times if the "real Jesus" and Mary, Joseph and the angel were coming to our house for His birthday. :-)  I had to do some fast thinking to figure out how to answer her that Jesus is in Heaven at the right hand of God, and Mary and Joseph lived a loooong time ago and are not alive now; BUT that when we ask Jesus to forgive us of our sins and give us a new heart, He then lives in our hearts.  I don't know how much of it made sense to her, probably more than I think, but it was the answer I had.

This year I decided that I wanted to make stockings for our family. After seeing stockings made from thrifted sweaters, I wanted to do it, too. Unique and fun. Probably not as inexpensive as regular stockings from WalMart (our closest Goodwill is NOT cheap!), but lots more character! In November we purchased the sweaters and I started turning them into stockings last week. It took a little longer to get the hang of it (and to remember to turn the sweater INSIDE-OUT before tracing and cutting!!!), but by the 4th stocking I was moving right along. I finished sewing the hanging loops on them the afternoon of Christmas Eve and Susannah helped me hang them up. She was SO excited!! I was pretty excited, too, and couldn't wait to put our goodies in them after they went to bed. (I didn't grow up with stockings and always wanted Christmas stockings. Maybe that's why it's very exciting for me to do this for our girls.)

Daniel and I were both up late and the girls were up early. :-)  Susannah could barely contain her excitement over knowing there were things in her stocking!!  As soon as Daniel and I were up and had our bearings about us, we let them dig into their stockings. They had so much fun! We put very practical but fun things in them: a new toothbrush (Susannah got a new tube of toothpaste, too), a miniature box of raisins, a baggie with Cheerios and Goldfish, and an orange. They dug right into the munchies as I knew they would and that bought me a little more time to finish putting together our simple but yummy breakfast.

I had made Monkey Bread the night before so all I had to do was pull it out of the fridge, let it rise a bit and stick it in the oven (it was a new recipe, here, and I highly recommend it!). We also had bacon and eggs; the bacon was already baked (leftover from a family get-together on Saturday) and all I had to do was fry up some eggs. It was all so yummy! The Monkey Bread and bacon are special treats for us, which fit with our "special food for Christmas Day" tradition. While we waited for the eggs and bacon to finish, we read the Christmas Story as a family, sitting around the table. That was special and we were reminded again of why the day was so special.

After breakfast we opened our wrapped gifts. The girls went first and it is always fun to watch them. We kept our gifts very simple this year, but some were very exciting. Sylvia got some story books that I had been on the look-out for and found either at our MOPS swap or the thrift store, and a new notebook to draw in and a sheet of ladybug stickers. Susannah had been asking for a few specific things that we gave her. Glitter markers were at the top of her list and she got those with a new notebook. Nail polish so we could paint ladybugs on her nails was also very high on the list, and her wish was granted. :-)  She loves looking at my jewelry so I found the perfect necklace for her: a ladybug on a simple chain. We saved that gift for last and it was her special gift. It was sweet to watch Daniel helping her open the box and then help her put it on. I envisioned what they might look like in 10-ish-plus years when perhaps she might receive a pearl necklace, or diamond earrings, or whatever. *sniff*

Haha, Daniel and I were pretty practical. :-)  I gave him some tools including a new splitting maul, he gave me a cheese slicer (a very nice one!), 2 movies for date-nights and ... a freestanding toilet-roll holder for our master bathroom. I will really enjoy not having the TP on the bathroom counter anymore.

After we opened gifts we relaxed as a family until lunch. Lunch was more of our traditional, special foods. Oh, and we use paper plates for all meals to maximize our time of relaxing and being together! A shrimp-ring, summer sausage, Lebanon Bologna, cheese and crackers were the main course along with the oranges that were in the stockings. For dessert we had Jesus' birthday cake!!

We relaxed some more, enjoying our family time together. Before nap-time I sneaked the girls' dolls upstairs while Daniel and the girls went to their room to wait for one more special gift (that we didn't wrap). A while ago I got this wooden cradle (also from our MOPS swap) and had been keeping it for a special occasion. When the sewing bug bit this fall after the canning and garden were done, I started off with sewing cloth diapers for their dolls. After I made Susannah's dress I used the leftovers to make her doll a matching dress. Sylvia got a blanket for her doll since she didn't have one.  I got both dolls fixed up in their new things and brought them in the cradle to the girls' room.

The girls love the cradle and Sylvia knows which pink doll blankie is hers. Dear Susannah had done some digging around in my sewing corner Christmas Eve morning and found the doll dress, so it wasn't the surprise it was meant to be, but she was still happy to finally have it on her Baby! Both girls mothered their babies a lot today. :-)

Daniel's parents came over and joined us for a simple dinner and it was nice to visit and relax with them as we wound down the evening. This morning Daniel headed back to work and the girls and I had a good day getting back into normal routines and doing housework. Susannah asked this morning if it is still Christmas. I told her that it is still Christmas-time. In fact, we had more of Jesus' birthday cake for dessert tonight.

While Christmas Day is now behind us, we are still listening to Christmas music and enjoying Christmas-time. Merry Christmas to all of you!!

Vacation in December

It has been way too long since we've vacationed as just us (we had 3 weeks of vacation this year: 1 was a work-on-the-house addition week, 1 was at the beach with my sister's family, and one left), so with Daniel having vacation time available we decided to take this past week of vacation and just stay home. It was a welcome break after a whirlwind of Thanksgiving related trips and events.  Daniel had a list of projects he wanted to work on and got quite a few things accomplished!

On Monday he and the girls spent the morning outside getting things ready for him to gather leaves. They took a trip or two around the yard on the lawn-mower just for kicks. I spent a lot of that morning catching up on the mountain of dishes that had piled up over the preceding very busy days. I enjoyed being able to work without interruptions. :)  At one point I looked out the window and saw this:

He was giving his girls AND their dollies a ride on the lawn-mower (not mowing, just riding). During naptime he borrowed his dad's fancy riding mower with a leaf gathering attachment and got up a lot of our leaves, putting them on the garden for compost.

Tuesday day he spent the day helping a friend with an urgent project they needed his help and expertise with. That was a long day for me, but we're all glad he was able to fix their problem (which was a safety hazard). Because we needed to do it and since Daniel was going to be gone all day the girls and I did a major grocery shopping trip to Costco and Kroger. It was a morning and most of the afternoon ordeal and I was about done-in till we got home, but we made it and the coffers are restocked for a while!

On Wednesday Daniel spent a few hours in the morning and all afternoon getting wood from a friends' property to boost our firewood supply. There is still a lot left that he wants to get, but he was glad to be able to get what he did get in one day. (It is just cut, not split yet.) That morning I just did not feel like being home doing home-things so the girls and I went and did a little Christmas shopping. I didn't find what I was looking for at that store but did find a great gift for Susannah. She spied it first in the store and doesn't know I bought it. :) That night we watched the original Winnie The Pooh movie that I picked up for $1 a while back. Susannah has been asking to watch it and it was perfect for winding down the day together as a family.

That evening while waiting to eat supper Sylvia gave me the perfect opportunity to get a picture of how she sucks her fingers and holds her blankie.  She likes to make a "hole" in her blankie, wrapping the satin trim around the pointer finger of her left hand. This is how she snuggles, cuddles and sleeps. Sometimes she will wrap the little finger of her right hand (the one she sucks) AND the pointer finger of her left hand and snuggle that way. Aaaand... of course sometimes she sticks her finger up her nose to be silly. :)  

Thursday the girls and I spent much of the morning outside playing while Daniel worked on getting his load of recycling ready to take to the scrap metal place. It was an unseasonably warm day and it was good to get a bunch of fresh air and exercise before the cold front started coming in. That evening we watched The Sound of Music Live!, starting out with all of us watching and then we tucked the girls in about half-way through. Susannah loved it and has been asking to watch "the lady with the children" again. It was great to just sit and relax together.

Friday morning Daniel puttered around here doing different things outside and then in the afternoon tore the car apart to fix a leak in the heater core and trying to find a possible leak in the radiator. Thankfully the radiator did not have a leak!  I purposely made sure we would eat supper a little bit early so we could go on a family date afterwards. As soon as supper was over we got into our coats and drove to a small but very good Gelati (Italian ice cream) place. None of us had ever had gelati before but I've always had high recommendations from friends. It was a really fun and special treat. Daniel had Cookies & Cream, I had a scoop of Dark Chocolate (so, so, so good!) and a scoop of Mango (also good, but the Dark Chocolate was the best), Susannah chose Pomegranate since she wanted pink ice cream and that was the pink one she chose, and Sylvia had Strawberry. We all had tastes of each others' flavors and they were all yummy. The flavors were very true and fresh tasting.

Saturday morning was another exciting time! We went and got our Christmas tree. We had been planning to go to a tree farm, but spied a pre-cut lot while we were out Friday. We decided to look there first and found a very pretty tree to bring home. This is the first time we've had a fir tree and it is considerably heavier than the pines we've had previous years. Getting it to stay in the upright position was a little more of a challenge since it is heavier, but we finally got it up!

Saturday afternoon it started a wintery mix of weather and our church services were cancelled Sunday. We had a very relaxed breakfast (Daniel made us all eggs and toast), stayed in our pajamas for a while, I took a much-needed unhurried shower, and then had a time of reading Scripture and the Jesus Storybook Bible.

After that Daniel started stringing the lights on the tree. I caught this picture of Sylvia and Daniel. :)  The lights are on the tree now and I will work at decorating it this week. It is really pretty just as it is, too!

Since Daniel did not officially work on any projects Sunday we had a nice relaxing afternoon. Since he was home and everything was going smoothly, I mixed up a batch of gingerbread cookie dough towards the end of naptime (it had to chill in the refrigerator for a while). After supper we cleaned off the table and we all worked at making cookies. It was quite an adventure and I think Daniel got a little dose of what my daily life can be like sometimes. ;)  He helped Sylvia with her ball of dough and I helped Susannah.

Sylvia was all about poking the dough with her fingers and was finished before the dough ran out.

Cheesing at the ceiling instead of the camera!

Susannah wanted to try all different cookie cutters so it took a little longer for us to get through our dough and fill our cookie sheet, but we got there!

Then the fun part of adding the sprinkles!! That may well have been Susannah's favorite part. I got out all the sprinkles and sugars that she could use and let her go to town with them on "her" tray of cookies.

Some of her cookies were very well sprinkled!!

Sylvia was too busy doing other things to sprinkle her cookies so the first tray went unsprinkled. Daniel had fun doing the few cookies that ended up on a 3rd tray. I think he was secretly having fun. ;)

Susannah's cookie tray... and she wasn't finished yet! The large train cookie got lots and lots more sprinkles till she finished!

Susannah made sure that Daniel's cookies had enough of all the right colors of sprinkles on them.

While the cookies baked we got the girls into their pajamas. Before brushing their teeth they each got to eat a smaller cookie, fresh from the oven.

Today Daniel is back to work and both girls asked where he was when they woke up. The snow and ice are melting and pretty much gone (but a good possibility of snow in the forecast tomorrow! Yippee!). It is back to the reality of single-parenting for me and delving back into real housekeeping and homemaking. I think it was Tuesday afternoon that I decided we were going to use paper plates for ALL of the remaining vacation meals. Even though there were still dishes from cooking, utensils and cups to wash or run through the dishwasher, it was nice to be able to just open the trash can and have the dirty plates gone! Somehow we still generated enough dishes to run a dishwasher full every day. :)

Having this break between the busy of Thanksgiving and the upcoming busy of Christmas was so nice. It was great to not have to pack suitcases and haul our stuff anywhere. We got to sleep in our own beds, have all of our cupboard, freezer and pantry things at our fingertips, we didn't have to worry about the girls touching or breaking things that don't belong to us, and best of all we didn't have to pay anything to stay here or buy gas to travel anywhere!

I might just be thinking about suggesting that have staycation this week every year!