Here she is!

Welcome to Teresa Anne!

Born Saturday, August 27, at 12:16 a.m.

7lb, 15oz, 20 inches long.

All is going well so far.

Pictures to come.

Euchre and housework are alike!

I found this out this morning.  I think I’ll start saying, “I’m in the barn,” when I get close to having the whole house clean at once.  Don’t worry, though, it doesn’t happen very often.

How it can backfire to have your kids pick their own food

Our garden is quite happy and productive these days, and the kids usually pick things to eat from it on a daily basis.  Yesterday, though, I guess Sim decided he wanted some extra protein.  He came out of Quiet Time and told me:  “I chomped up a fly.”

Me:  What?

Sim:  I chomped up a fly.

Me:  [Not quite believing it, since flies are pretty fast]  Um, Sim, flies are not for eating.

Sim:  [Looking sad]  But it was dead.

Me:  [Still not sure whether to believe, but coming much closer to it]  Okay, but please don’t chomp any more flies.

School

We started school again today.  It went really well, actually.  The kids were excited about it, probably because we’re doing lots of crafty things, and were excited to show Michael their accomplishments when he came home.  Third grade, Kindergarten, and pre-preschool have all begun!

Real summer

Real summer weather is here.  Well, real summer for our area.  It’s in the 80s and definitely warm.  The kids are somewhat shocked by the lack of need for a fleece at any time of day, and I am so glad that it’s been a relatively cool summer with this pregnancy.  Enough said.  The bunnies are lamenting their fur coats.

Cucumbers and zucchini are very happy with the weather and producing lovely things to eat.  The tomatoes are (some of them) getting red! 

Music to their mother’s ears

This morning I came down a bit after 7 to my three kids actively doing something.  I could hear them moving about very actively when I was upstairs.  Since they have taken to occasionally “wrestling” by taking turns jumping on each other, I was a bit nervous about what I might encounter.

Me:  Good morning.

Them:  Good morning, Mama!  We’re cleaning up! 

And they actually were. 

Still not the rhubarb panic

Now it’s the zucchini panic.  Strawberries are all taken care of.  And, quite honestly, it wouldn’t be the zucchini panic if my due date weren’t 10 days away.  But we have loads of zucchini, and more coming in every day.  I’ve made pickles using the book from which I’ve loved every recipe I’ve tried.  I’ve made some zucchini bread, but everyone would be happy to see more.  I’ve sauteed, I’ve shredded and mixed in, I’ve made zucchini fritters, and I still have a lot of zucchini.  The thing that’s getting me, more than the amount of zucchini right NOW, is that I will have this baby and there will still be more zucchini.  I want to get at least one more batch of pickles done.  I have other big and ambitious plans for zucchini.  But I may have 10 days and I may have 2 weeks more than that, and I have things to do other than make things with zucchini. 

Name suggestions

Naomi has a name suggestion.  If it’s a girl:  Rose.  Of course, that’s her middle name.  What about a middle name suggestion for a baby named Rose?  After some consideration:  Sunflower.  Rose Sunflower.  That’s her suggestion.

Simeon suggested, if it’s a boy, John The Goose.  Somehow, I’m not convinced we’re going to use that one…

I have wild horses in my living room

You may not believe me, but a wild mare and her two foals are sleeping in the living room at the moment.  Well, actually, one of the foals is running about. 

This is the same herd that used the little wading pool in our back yard recently:

An amusing aspect of this game is that one of the foals has just decided to go off and catch a rabbit for her meal.  Her mother is trying to explain to her that she’s an herbivore.  However, the little brother foal has gotten into the spirit and has now killed something to eat, too.  Meanwhile, mother horse is attempting to get them interested in “this lovely grass!”

Three strategies for a happier afternoon

Sometimes we have tough afternoons here.  Sometimes the children are cranky and clingy, and I’m cranky and want to be left alone.  Sometimes this happens for a few days in a row.  Sometimes this leaves me feeling very, very tired and frustrated at the end of the day…for several days in a row.  That leads to some significant thought on my part about how to make things better, because late summer afternoons should not be spent in the company of people who are bickering and disagreeing and generally making life miserable for each other…

Three things that I’ve discovered that help us are:

-- Lots of exercise in the morning

-- Occasional fun projects to do in the afternoon

-- A high protein snack right after Quiet Time – for everyone!

Hopefully writing it down will help me remember it, should I ever need strategies to improve the afternoons again. ;)

Weather and clothes

To my children, sun = warm and clouds = cold.  This means that, on a sunny day in the winter, when it’s 25 degrees outside and windy, they’ll look outside and say, “I don’t need a jacket today, it’s sunny!”  Similarly, when it’s overcast on an August morning, they’ll looks outside and say, “I should put on corduroys and a long-sleeved shirt, it’s cold out today!” 

I have had to get Hannah, especially, to change her clothes (or clothing choices, if I catch her before she’s actually dressed) a whole bunch in the last week, because we’ve been having overcast skies, and she really does come down dressed for fall or winter.  The thing is, it is somewhat cooler in the morning, but it’s still going to get into the high 70s or 80s, and corduroys don’t work well for that.  Isn’t this what layers are for? 

Hannah gets very annoyed with me, and perhaps I should just let her sweat it out one day.

Long-awaited swimming lesson

Sim had a swimming lesson today – he’ll go once a week for the rest of August.  He was quite gratified and did a great job.  The girls, of course, wanted to get in.  I can’t blame them. 

Important knowledge to impart

Naomi to Sim:  Did you know that when you were born, you didn’t have any clothes on?

For some reason, the girls think it’s highly important that Sim be informed about this.  I don’t quite know why, because it’s not as if they ever have experienced it first-hand, but they want Sim to know.

Berry picking

We went blueberry picking this morning.  It was fun and peaceful and the bushes were mostly taller than me.  I have no pictures because I didn’t bring my camera.  For some reason, I’m not remembering the camera these days.  Pregnancy brain?  However, I do have pictures from strawberry picking a while back, so I’ll put those in, instead.

Today, Sim didn’t fall asleep on the way there, but on the way back.  He looked about the same, although the outfit was different and the sunglasses weren’t there.

Hats are always a good idea during picking.

Sim likes to pick 3 berries and then ask for berries from other people.  This has applied to both strawberries and blueberries.  He also likes to find sticks and other natural toys.

Naomi picked more strawberries than blueberries.  Well, technically that’s probably not true.  She disclosed that she ate a lot of the blueberries, so she may have picked the same amount, they just didn’t make it to the bucket.

Hannah is a dedicated picker and likes to come up with the things she’s going to do with her berries while she’s picking.  She wants to freeze her blueberries to eat on hot days.  Assuming there are any hot days coming up.

Today, Michael was working, so he didn’t go picking with us.  That wasn’t as fun, of course.

Here’s Sim after giving up on the strawberries.  There was a lovely dirt track that he -- and the other kids who were done with berries -- used to be sure that a layer of dust clung to their sunscreen.  Today, there was no dirt track, nor any other kids his age, so he stuck to wandering about, finding sticks, and occasionally getting another berry from the bush.  He remained fairly clean on today’s outing.

At some point on that trip, Sim realized that a WHOLE LOT of dirt would fit in his hat.  There was a little girl who would occasionally go over, dump the dirt out of Sim’s hat, and return it to his head.  Did I mention that Sim was completely and totally dirty by the end of this outing?  Yeah.

Berry picking

seems to agree

with our family.

5th Annual Dads and Kids Camping

By my count, this was the 5th annual Dads and Kids Camping Trip, and it was by far the biggest.  We had six dads this year, along with eleven children, which made it quite a crew!  I took Friday off from work, so we got a relatively early start, leaving a little after ten.  If the kids'd had their way, we'd have left at 6:00 am! 

Our first stop was a walk we've done several times before, the Shadow of Sentinels walk, among a beautiful grove of old growth fir trees.  It really is amazing to place your hand on a tree that is 680 years old -- that tree was ancient when our country was founded! It's a short, flat walk, which made it a good start.  We stopped to take a picture by the big stump – I think we’ve done this ever year:

After that walk, and lunch, we were off to pitch our tent.  Our cousins arrived as we were doing so, so once they were ready we took a walk down to the Skagit River.  The children are wonderfully clever at finding hiding places I would never think of, like this hollowed out tree by the edge of the trail:

This was Simeon’s first year, by the way, and he was completely psyched to be there.  He liked the hiking, he liked the tent, he liked the campfire, and he especially liked the s’mores.  Uncle Time is also a good thing:

After the River visit on Friday, we had dinner and the big campfire.  It really doesn’t get dark in the Northwest Summer until well past 9:30 pm, so the kids were up pretty late.  On the positive side, they completely crashed once they were in bed.

Saturday morning was our big hiking day, up on Mt. Baker.  I’ve learned that with the kids, shorter hikes are better, so even our big hike was less than 2 miles.  By the time the hike was done, we had some tired hikers!

Saturday afternoon involved a longer visit to the Skagit River, with more swimming, splashing, and mud.  We were blessed with lovely, sunny weather for the afternoon!

Saturday evening was the full campfire, since all the families had arrived by then, plus a Ranger Talk on Creatures of the Night.  This particular ranger would toss candy to kids who answered questions correctly, which definitely got her audience’s attention!  Sim was so tired, though, that he dozed off and fell off his bench, so we retired for an early bedtime for him.  The others followed not long after.

I don’t have any pictures from Sunday – we had a simple breakfast, broke camp, and tried to head for Mass in Sedro-Woolley.  It had been rescheduled (whoops!), at which point we raced back to Seattle and dragged our tired, informal selves to the most formal, liturgically high Sunday Mass that Blessed Sacrament offers.  Sim was making me laugh: he isn’t used to incense, and covered his nose for almost the whole Mass.  After Mass came donuts, of course, and a quiet afternoon.

Thanks to all of the Dads who came along this year – a campfire with six families is really a blast.  Looking forward to next year!

Birthday girl

Hannah’s birthday party hasn’t happened yet.  But she has opened the gifts that were here for her from her us and various others who have sent things.  However, that was at 7:15 a.m. on her birthday…so I didn’t get any pictures of it.  Sigh.  For some reason, I don’t think of taking pictures when I’ve been up for 2 1/2 minutes.  Next year I’ll remember to set out the camera the night before!

By the time cake time rolled around, though, I was awake enough to remember the camera.

Hannah requested a cookie cake this year.  This is a deviation from tradition; ever since she’s had the choice, it’s been apple breakfast cake made by Michael.  This year, she saw a cookie cake somewhere and thought that would be fantastic.

I was a bit worried about eggless cookie cake, but it came out really good.  And – bonus! – Hannah didn’t realize that there would be chocolate chips in it until I was making it.  I never even thought to tell her…it’s one of those things that kids who can eat eggs learn at an early age:  cookie cakes have chocolate chips in them.

We all liked the cake, and Hannah had a great day, even though I missed taking pictures of her gift opening.  I’ll try to get pictures of the gifts separately as she’s using them, and then you can see them.

Touching: they missed me

The kids were swift to point out that they missed me while they were camping.  The reasons were somewhat…less edifying than one might hope. 

Hannah:  I really missed you while we were camping, Mom.  Dada put a braid in my hair and it was too chunky and ended really abruptly.

Still, I can’t complain.  They had a great time and I am very, very glad about that.  They were happy to see me when they got back, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted them to spoil their camping trip pining for me at home.

Homesickness

can come from different sources for different people.  Naomi, on the morning they were departing for camping, said, “I’m going to go potty now [instead of after the car was packed].  I just remembered that this is the last time I’ll be using this potty for three days and two nights.”

Hannah’s 8!

Happy Birthday, Hannah-Boo!

Camping

This past weekend was Dads and Kids camping.  Our kids all went.  Well, except for Quinque, who refused to go along.  Preparations last week were quite amusing.

Hannah wanted to start packing about a month before.  We managed to dissuade her from this.  Meal planning was done LONG ago, and Hannah’s list was really, really, really cute.  She had a chart for the days and meals and a list down below of the things we needed to get at the store.

The day before they left, after Naomi’s suitcase was packed (oh, and she had corrected some of the erroneous outfit choices I’d made:  “Mama, I’ll go get the shirt that goes with this skort, because it’s not this one.”), she spent some time sitting next to her bag, with her backpack on her back.  She was staring out the open front door.  I’m not exactly sure what she was thinking, but I enjoyed watching her be quietly excited.

Simeon was excited because graham crackers were going along.  He loves graham crackers and we don’t have them very often.  Sleeping in a tent was also high on his list of things to be really excited about.  He also revived his old favorite from last year:  “Fire. Ugh.”

The kids were excited about leaving me at home. 

Hannah:  I’m looking forward to coming home to a clean house.

Simeon:  Bye, Mama!  I love you!  [This was about an hour before they actually left.]

Naomi:  Dada, do you know how do a high pony tail?  Yes?  Okay!  [As long as my high-pony-tail-making skills weren’t necessary, she was sure she’d be fine without me.]

They were all very sweet about it, though.  They assured me that they’d miss me and would be happy to see me again.