7 Quick Takes

I’m not linking up on this one today, although Jen’s blog is excellent.  It’s just that I’m stealing the theme because I’ve been having a hard time coming up with blog posts lately, even though there’s plenty happening.  So I’m working with other people’s ideas, which seems to work well right now.

1.  Sometimes my life is distracting.  I’ll give you an example. I worked on a brain dump yesterday – the kind of thing wherein one takes all the things floating around in one’s brain and puts them on paper – or wherever one’s list happens to be – and then they no longer keep one awake at night as one finds oneself planning the crazy garden thing one wants to do…instead of sleeping.  Or maybe this is all just me. 

But yesterday I was doing my brain dump.  I started to write a note on my list, and got interrupted by something that needed my attention – something related (you’ll be shocked!) to my kids.  When I’d finished dealing with the attention-needing thing, which took all of 45 seconds, I looked at my list.  “Determine,” it said.  Determine…It had been about 45 seconds, and I could NOT remember what I was supposed to write down about determining.  I STILL can’t remember what I was supposed to determine.  So if you have a conversation with me and I don’t make sense, that’s the normal state of things. 

2.  I thought we were coming out of the woods, but yesterday Sim crawled onto the couch with a blanket at 5:30 p.m. and sacked out.  This is a sure sign of illness, because he naps for two reasons:  1.) he’s sick, or 2.) we’ve had a crazy-busy morning after he went to bed too late at night and he made the mistake of lying quietly in his bed listening to something at Quiet Time and accidentally fell asleep.  It wasn’t 2.  So we’re back on the fever list.  We weren’t actually off the sick list, really, because all of us except Michael still have coughs. 

3.  Tess has developed some interesting habits about clothes.  She doesn’t like having socks on…ever.  No problem, Tess, it’s only 28 degrees out!  No need for superfluous clothing like SOCKS!  She also knows about the laundry chute, so when she removes her socks, she’ll helpfully put them into the laundry.  This means that some days we go through several pairs of socks.  It helps if I can get slippers on her, but I have to trick her into that.  So fun.

She also adores putting on  Naomi’s underwear, and if she can also put on other clothes of Naomi’s, she couldn’t be happier.  My other kids usually put the dress-ups on over their clothes, but Tess removes all of her clothes first and then – yes, that’s right – puts them down the laundry.  Then she puts on the chosen outfit.  In the picture above, she doesn’t have socks or pants, just a lovely skirt.

4.  I forgot to mention that Tess is also obsessed with hoods.  The fleece she has on below is Naomi’s.  She recently found a jacket hood that had been unsnapped from its jacket, and she wore that the rest of the day.  Just the hood. 

Nobody can argue that she’s darn cute while indulging her obsessions, though.  Which is more than can be said for many of us…

5.  Have you seen Librivox?  They’re on a mission to make audio recordings of books that are in the public domain.  And then people can download them for free.  This is totally awesome, and there are several books that I’ve found so far on there that I want to use for the kids’ history program.  Now I just have to figure out how to get them onto our MP3 player without Michael’s help.  Maybe that was the “determine” thing I wrote down – determine how to work the Librivox download thing.  Or maybe not.  Anyway, if you like audio books, you should definitely poke around and find some there.

Since the kids were all down for the count earlier in the week, I downloaded The Adventures of Buster Bear, by Thornton Burgess, for them to enjoy.  It’s always good to have a distraction from one’s illness. 

6.  Having kids who watched football and possibly understood it is funny.  We saw one of the kids’ friends yesterday, and he and Sim had a great time talking about the game.  Very funny.

7.  I have two kids who – at least right now – are morning people and two who are night people.  Hannah and Sim pop up and are cheerful, chatty, and raring to go, but once the evening hits, they’re cranky and need to go to bed.  Naomi and Tess are the opposite – the mornings are tough, but then they’re the life of the bedtime party when it comes around. 

 

Sim and Hannah love to go up and see Tess when she just wakes up, but it’s definitely hit or miss as to whether she’ll be happy to see them.  Some mornings are like the one above, and she’ll snuggle with them for a little while in her bed.  Other mornings, high pitched noises of annoyance issue forth from the bedroom the minute she sees anyone, Mom and Dad included.

I’ll be interested to see if they continue with their morning/night habits as they get older.  Truthfully, since I’m certainly not a morning person, I find the morning children in my life somewhat easier to deal with in the mornings, although I understand the night people better.   

{pretty, happy, funny, real} We survived

This past week has been illness week here.  Everyone except Michael got a nasty cough, the kids all ran fevers, and I had some stomach bug.  But we’ll attempt the pretty, happy, and funny to go with the real…

{Pretty}

You bet she’s pretty.  She’s also usually happy and funny, but this week that’s been somewhat overshadowed by whiny and uncomfortable.  She’s now feeling better (although still coughing up a storm), and is returning to her normal cheerful, mischievous self.

{Happy}

The ultrasound was technically before the illness set in, so last week.  But I haven’t had a chance to put these up, so here they are!  It’s amazing how much clearer the pictures are now than they were 11 years ago when we were doing this with Hannah.  Our baby looks just fine, and was good and active to boot.  Michael was able to come to the appointment, too, so we got to have the same, weird, “There’s a baby in there!” reaction that we’ve had every time together.  Of course there’s a baby in there, but seeing him or her on the screen certainly underscores that point. 

The kids were somewhat disappointed that we didn’t see twins – or triplets – on the screen…

{Funny}

I’m forming a theory that the original still life concept was developed by a mom.  You can’t really come up with a more random assortment of things than kids can put together in one place…for reasons that are unclear.  But just look at the assortments of shapes, textures, and shadows!  I can just hear my art teacher admonishing us to try to capture it all. 

Actually, this week has been less messy than usual, because my kids have spent large amounts of time lying on the couch or in their beds. 

{Real}

 

We’ll leave it at that.

 

Take a look at other {pretty, happy, funny, real} at Like Mother, Like Daughter. 

Five Favorites Garden Dreams edition

I’m joining Hallie, whose Five Favorites are always fun.  And since it’s February and I live in an area of the country that doesn’t get blanketed by snow all winter, I’m starting to garden.  And since I’m already thinking about all these things, I thought I’d share them.  Of course, it being gardening, there are many more things that are favorites, but here’s a start. 

1.

Territorial Seed

These seeds are tested and grow in our area, the maritime Northwest.  That might not seem especially important, but seeds that grow other areas of the country don’t necessarily do well here – our climate is too different.

 

2.

Raintree Nursery

The dreams I dream when looking at this catalog!  So many different berries!  So many different fruits!  It’s somewhat dangerous.

 

3.

Cedar Grove Booster Blend

I love getting this stuff in bulk and filling my planter boxes, top dressing my beds, and basically spreading rich compost goodness around.  Michael doesn’t love getting it in bulk, because that means a pile that we have to deal with.

 

4.

David Austin Roses

Oh, please.  Please don’t make me choose.  But I have my eye on two climbing roses, one for my new pea trellis and one for our pergola.  That might satisfy me for this year.  Maybe.

 

5.

The good-looking guy right here

We do a lot of the gardening together and I love it.  Michael is fine with it.  But he does it with me because he loves me.  And I couldn’t do it without him, so he’s really my gardening favorite. 

Wallbed

A bit belated, but we installed a long-awaited wallbed a couple of weeks ago.  We had hoped to have this in place for Christmas – that didn’t work out, but now it’s available for guests. 

Some in-progress photos:

The bunnies had to move slightly to make room for the bed.  Hannah was a huge help with this.

Part of the fun is hiding behind mattresses …

… or in cardboard-box tents …

The bed was pretty heavy – it was a relief to get it bolted to the studs:

Simeon tests the new bed for stability:

The bed has a folding table on the front, which is *very* exciting, as you can see.

All done and dusted!

Seahawks Victory

The Seattle Bees salute the Seattle Seahawks on their Super Bowl Championship!

The past few weeks in short

We were getting back into the swing of things, although we were not quite there, and then last week Tess got a fever starting Thursday.  This has been passed around, mixed with some stomach bug (for me only, so far, thank goodness!), and added to a cough in our family.  Michael’s the only one well at the moment, and he’s been pull lots of weight around here… Since I’m sure an entire post of how wonderful all these ailments have been for the past few days is NOT on the list of things that you want to know, I’ll just do some short bits about fun things that have happened recently.

One night, in our prayer time, Naomi was thankful that we didn’t do much school work that day.  Did I mention that we’re not *quite* back in the swing of things?

I found out that, contrary to my former belief, I can make a completely DELICIOUS 9x13 pan of brownies with egg replacer used for 4 eggs.  This is dangerous knowledge that I shall have to apply with great care because although I’m pregnant and supposed to be gaining weight, I am not supposed to be gaining as much weight as I would if I made these brownies as often as I will want to.  My first trimester chocolate aversion is WELL AND TRULY OVER.  Let’s just celebrate that one!

My children all spent a lot of time – hours! - outside one recent afternoon.  It was nearly 50 degrees and sunny.  I spent about an hour outside, also, and then that weekend I talked Michael into making me a trellis – which, of course, turned out to be far more work than I had thought – and planted some peas.  It was rather nice to get back out in the garden.

My niece, upon seeing our winter backyard when she was here last, said, “What happened here?!”  The winter landscape is not nearly as lush, I take it?

Hannah and Naomi are learning new embroidery stitches, which is a lot of fun for them.  Naomi learned a new stitch recently, went off and found a piece of fabric, drew a design to use that new stitch, and proceeded to stitch up the design.  It was quite impressive, and I wish I’d gotten a picture before she gave it to someone as a birthday present.  Hannah has finished up a sampler of new stitches and is itching to move on to her new one.  Both have big ideas for all the things they can stitch.

Simeon has decided he wants to have a Lego get-together with friends, wherein they all bring Lego projects and do them.  This sounds like such a lively gathering, doesn’t it?  Let’s get together, but not actually interact – let’s do individual Lego projects instead!  The funny thing is, I think all the people he wants to invite will love it. 

Tess found a baby that she left outside all fall.  Unfortunately, this baby did not survive without some serious mildew.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to clean the baby up, but I’m not sure it will happen.  I’m hoping Tess will forget about the baby, but I’m not sure that will happen, either.

Tess also managed to get some vomit (sorry) on St. Rose of Lima.  I am 300% positive that Lima can’t go through the wash, so I was having a bit of a panic about how to get her clean without soaking and destroying her when Hannah suggested rubbing alcohol.  Brilliant!  This did the trick without ruining Lima.  Thank God. 

[As an aside, I’m not exactly sure how Hannah knew about using rubbing alcohol on things that can’t go through the wash, but it didn’t actually surprise me that she did.  She reads EVERYTHING she can get her hands on, and I’m sure some how-to book or set of washing instructions somewhere included this tip.]

Lima has occasionally taken to wearing clothes lately, in a surprising twist that nobody saw coming.  Someone recently asked if Tess got a new doll, because when Lima’s grey-that-used-to-be-white underclothing is covered, she looks a lot better.  Nope, she just had on demamas.  That’s a Tess-ism for pajamas.  Tess also found a drawstring bag that fits just perfectly over Lima’s body, so she often wears that around, too.  Yeah.  Not really recommended baby clothing, but Lima doesn’t seem to mind.

Our kids turned into big football fans a couple weeks ago when we divulged that the Seahawks (about whom they hadn’t ever heard) were playing for the NFC championships.  So we did something I don’t think we’ve done since we started dating, which is watch the Super Bowl.  The kids, all sick, were all in their pajamas, but they enjoyed it.  Technically I slept through more than half of it when my afternoon nap turned into a 3-hour marathon.  Everyone was extremely pleased with the outcome.  Today, Tess told me all about someone running with a ball – she was relaying one of the plays she’d seen in the game. 

Things continue to challenge, delight, and amaze here at House of Germs our home, and I’ll try to be better about updating this month!

Hannah and Christmas

Hannah has become the keeper of the Christmas traditions.  Or the rememberer of the Christmas traditions.  This is good for me, because I remember certain things, but I don’t remember everything, such as Swedish fish in the stockings EVERY YEAR, and Hannah reminds me.  Which means that there are fewer disappointments from lost traditions that I didn’t even realize were traditions, such as Swedish fish in stockings. 

She’s not so traditional that she can’t let go of some things, though.  This year she announced that we had too many ornaments and need to sort through as we took them down so that we could get rid of some.  I didn’t tell her that she has an aunt who got a second tree in order to fit all the ornaments.  Nor did I tell her that I’m somewhat behind on the yearly photo ornaments for the kids.  Nor did I tell her that I’m not sure it’s very likely that I’ll get rid of very many ornaments. 

Despite lamenting the plethora of ornaments, she was most happy to take a lead role in decorating the tree, reminding the others to hang the breakable ones up high so that little hands couldn’t reach and destroy.  Tess mostly liked the stroller ornament, anyway, but we do have other toddler visitors during the Christmas season, so it’s probably just as well.

It’s crazy to me how big Hannah is getting!  This year she had enormously ambitious plans for making Christmas gifts.  About two weeks before Christmas she was outlining her 73 separate projects (maybe it wasn’t exactly 73, but it was a LOT), and telling me how she was going to get them all done.  

She ended up needing to pare down a bit, but she still got a lot of crafting in, and was SO excited about the things she’d made to give away.  It was really fun to see her getting into the joy of giving this year.  (She also had the joy of getting, of course!)

Her plans being extremely ambitious, she didn’t quite finish the matching pillowcase to this one, but she’s working on it.  She embroidered it herself, then washed and ironed it herself.  It’s fun having a very competent 10-year-old around!

Her gift for Naomi and Simeon, a kitchen playset made from cardboard boxes, had been in the works for a couple of months.  She spent many quiet times working on it, and was constantly on the lookout for empty containers to use for the kitchen.  It was in her closet, and she even put a little gift note on the door for them.  They were pretty excited about it, too. 

I think this was the first year that Hannah wasn’t the first one up – Simeon took that honor.   But she didn’t waste much time once she was up.

She was just as excited about the roller blades as Naomi.  She’d wanted some for a while, but when we lived on a hill, with hilly sidewalks all around, it wasn’t too practical for her to get roller blades.  Now, with a flat driveway with lots of room, she’s having a great time. 

She’s already decided that for NEXT year’s Christmas she’s going to start earlier with her crafts so that she can get more done.  And I imagine she will.