Emmanuel.....Our God is With Us!

Merry Christmas!

How do I respond?

Eliza: "Mama, Mrs. Pierson says that the best Christmas present ever was a horse but I think the best Christmas present would be twins."

Me: "Oh REALLY?!"

She really might want to start praying for that horse! ;)

Unbelievable!

Suffice it to say, it has been a most amusing snowy weekend!

Advent Friday Funnies

This gave me the giggles. Enjoy it.

Our First (not quite) Feature Film

There was time for tinkering today. Please bear with us as we delight in our first edited and published family movie. Everyone is a few inches taller now (or a few inches wider!) but it makes us smile anyway. And yes, the song is appropriately called "Wipe Out". :-)

Thankful Hearts

Recently I was transferring all of our 2009 family photos from one computer to another. As they imported onto the new computer they flashed quickly across the screen, one by one.....sort of a slide show of our lives for the past 11 months. Each image that passed was a sobering reminder of the depths of our suffering and the heights of our joy but mostly of the Lord's abiding faithfulness through it all. This year, Thanksgiving is especially precious. Although the Lord shows his faithfulness to us every year, the trials of this particular year have made His blessings to us all the more sweet. Many of YOU have shared the ups and downs of this year with us. We are so thankful for you for being instruments of God's faithfulness to us.

I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. 4 For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me.
Is. 45: 3-4

Happy Birthday Marina!

Fourteen years ago, God brought forth a cherished little baby girl with a song in her heart. With each passing year, we have been so privileged to hear new verses of that song emerge as that precious baby has become a lovely young lady.

Happy birthday, Marina.

We all love you very much.

"O sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things!
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody!"
Psalm 98: 1, 4, 5

A Message for Weary Homeschooling Mamas......(including myself)

We're headed into winter, in more ways than one. I've heard it said that November and February are the two hardest months for homeschooling moms. By November, the books don't smell so new anymore and the novelty of the new schedule, new chore chart, new you-fill-in-the-blank has worn off for everyone.

Fortunately, having the holidays just around the corner helps fend off the November blues. The air is getting crisper and I can almost smell the frasier fir tree that will adorn our family room in a few weeks. List making, menu planning, and the smell of cinnamon candles burning will keep me chugging along until we break for Christmas. Anticipation of the holidays and meaningful observances of Advent and Christmas can often keep a weary homeschooling mom's head above water.

January comes and things seem fresh and new again. (Some things literally are new if we've scrapped our curriculum plans from first semester and ordered all new books! Admit it! You know you've done it!) The break has left us recharged for the challenge.

But the charge is short-lived. Because by February, we're longing so very much for spring, and the end of school, and summer. It's winter. Cold. Dark. And in the coldness and darkness, even the smallest tasks can feel like a struggle.

Elizabeth Foss has a wonderfully encouraging post up today for homeschooling moms. Whether you're needing prevention or remedies for the "winter homeschool blues", I think you will find both in her exhortations. So click over.

"Find God. In the beginning, we can be carried through the challenges of this lifestyle on the shoulders of great ideas and good friends. But that's not enough for the long haul.....................I must let go of my idea of what this is all supposed to look like. Less of me. More of Him. Until it's all Him. We're climbing Calvary here and it's getting steep all of a sudden."
--Elizabeth Foss

Unintentional Internet Fast - Lessons from the Unconnected Life

We experienced, what I at first considered, a most unfortunate internet fast last week. My laptop was unable to connect for 6 days during which time our family computer also was "attacked" by what appears to be either a virus or malware. Upon realizing that our predicament wasn't going to be fixed quickly, I moved my laptop out of the kitchen, where it normally lives, turned off our most disagreeable family desktop and lamented how much I'll miss my daily email and blog reads. And then I began to notice some really interesting things.

• The laundry I started on Wednesday morning got dried, folded and put away.....on WEDNESDAY!
• Thursday, when we worked halfway through lunchtime without realizing it, I hadn't one time looked at my watch wondering if it was time to check my email yet.
• A pile of books (really three piles but stacked into one gigantic mountain) that had waited - I kid you not - MONTHS to be moved onto shelves are now neatly resting on shelves.
• We played games.
• We read aloud.
• On Friday night, when August was able to finally get my laptop connected again.......I felt sad.
  

I don't think this unintentional experiment means we need to pull the plug completely but it does mean that for me, cyberspace is a bit like the chip bowl at a Christmas party. If I park myself too close to the bowl, I'll have downed half of it before even coming up for air. With a little space between the bowl and myself, moderation is so much easier to exercise. The use of my time is much the same way. Without even realizing it, I can get lured into my computer screen and not even notice the minutes ticking away.......or the people (both little and big) needing my attention until a half hour later.

The beginning of Advent, the season which not only prepares our hearts to welcome an infant Savior but also heralds the beginning of a new Church year, is quickly approaching. We were challenged this morning at church to ask ourselves how we would live the next year if we knew we were going to die November 15, 2010. Hmmmm..... The little and big people around here need me - all of me. I need them. And we all need so much more of Jesus. I think the laptop will live tucked away in a corner for a while.

My Paycheck.....

I found this in my inbox today. Sent from one of my "students". I love this "job". ;-)

Go Ahead......Laugh

Today, as I'm carrying Brayden and walking in to our local homeschool co-op to pick up the girls from their classes, another mom stops me.

"Hi, Martha." She says, eyeing Brayden. "Did you all decide to adopt one or two?"

What?! Now, I'm fighting to maintain my composure and not laugh at this poor woman who sees the look of amusement on my face.

"No." I say cheerfully. "I had him. Maybe your thinking about my friend, Susan."

"Oh!" She says. "I thought when I saw him that maybe you decided on one now and then one later."

I smiled and kept walking but in my head I was thinking, "Yes, I KNOW my children look nothing like me.....they're CUTER!" ;-)

Oh well, (insert deep sigh here).....I guess I'll just have to keep praying for that blonde!

Food Challenge - APPLES!

After a beautiful morning of apple picking with an internet-turned-real-life friend recently, the girls started planning for their next food challenge. Marina was working on baking cookies for some friends on challenge day so she bowed out of this one. Here's what the others came up with:

(Note to self: Remember to get the camera out BEFORE the challenge foods are consumed! Sorry folks, I was so distracted by the beauty and yummy-ness of these treats that I plum forgot to pull out the camera before all of Olivia's creations were gone!)

Juliette's entry (shown above): Spiced Apple Spirals with Cinnamon Cream - Apples peeled and spiral cut then sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon sugar and baked. Served with a whipped cream/cinnamon sauce.

Olivia's and Eliza's entry (consumed before photo shoot!): Apple Pockets - Sliced apples tossed with brown and white sugars and cinnamon, then wrapped in dough to make individual servings. (Sort of like an apple turnover.)

As of this posting, I don't have permission from all of the participants to share with you which entry won. I'll just say both were tasty and we all enjoyed the judging.

Until the next challenge............(which they're already plotting)

How We Spent Our Weekend

Introducing Maizy

Would somebody please tell me how much cuteness can possibly exist under one roof 'cause we've got an awful lot of it around here! ;-)

Wordless Wednesday

Food Challenge - PEACHES!

This summer, during the long hot afternoons when it was too hot to be outside or at the pool with the baby, the girls came up with the idea of doing "food challenges" - as they like to call them. It started after a morning of peach picking and we had 2 full trays of ripe, juicy peaches on our kitchen counter.

The challenge rules~

• The "challenge ingredient" must be incorporated into the recipe - in this first case it was peaches.
• You may not follow a recipe exactly as written but must tweak it to make it uniquely your own
• Dishes are judged for taste, presentation, and creativity.

Mom's Rules~

• They could use any appliance in the kitchen as long as they cleaned it and put it away.

• The kitchen had to look like no challenge had taken place there when they were done.
  

They divided into 3 "teams" - Marina on one, Juliette on another, and Olivia with Eliza apparently serving as her sous-chef. August and I would serve as judges. And yes, we really did judge them.

Here's what they came up with for the first challenge.

Left: Juliette's Peach Crumble
Center: Marina's Peach Tart with Shortbread Crust
Right: Olivia's Lattice Top Peach Cobbler

With this first Challenge, our system of judging was pretty rudimentary. It pretty much came down to "Which one do you like best?" With subsequent challenges, which I'll post about another time, we (really it was August) came up with a more detailed points system.

I have to admit I was quite impressed watching them in the kitchen - not only as they planned and prepared the food but as they navigated the space with all four of them in there at once. We've had 2 more challenges since this one and we're going apple picking this week so I smell another one coming.

I won't say who won this first challenge - mostly because I can't remember anymore - but I will tell you they were all delicious.

All I can say is "Move over, Iron Chef!"

Cleaning House

I took a few minutes to clean up some things around here - the blog, not my own house because that would take a few years, not minutes! (I'm more into immediate gratification these days!) I updated my stack of reading in the left column but I'm just about done with Age of Opportunity. When I am, you can be sure it will immediately go into my right column of parenting favorites. What a GREAT book for parents of teens. It's not at all a how-to-get-them-to-do-what-you-want-them-to-do book. Rather, it's a how-to-understand-what's-going-on-in-their-hearts/minds sort of book. I can't recommend it highly enough. But then again, I feel that way about the Hold On To Your Kids book that already lives in the right column.

I'll soon be on to Bringing Up Geeks and also, Olivia and I are reading The Fellowship of the Ring together. (I'm a little embarassed to admit I've never read any of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.)

It's not hard to pick up on the theme to my reading selections so far this year. We have one teen already and will have a second in the near future. It is indeed an adventure!


Edited to add: Now I see that all those links I worked so hard to include above aren't working. I'll be back later to try and fix them. Sorry about that!

When a Mother's Heart Breaks..............

When I was on bedrest, friends from near and far reached out to be my hands and feet for my family. Some of these "friends" I'll likely never meet face to face. One of those women is Colleen. Colleen's sweet baby Bryce (3 months old) died today in his sleep. Would you please pray for her and the entire family.

Tap, tap, tap.....is this thing on?

So today officially marks one month since we've posted anything new on this poor, neglected blog. I was gently informed in an email a few days ago (thanks, Mom) and a phone call yesterday (thanks, Dad) that some folks have wondered about our well-being during the silence. The hiatus really hasn't been intentional but life got so full we were too busy living it to write about it.

So here we are saying good-bye to August (the month, that is) and peering around the corner to fall. Brayden had his first vacation and his 4 month check-up in August. Fortunately, for all the nurses, he managed to resist showing off his impressive stream during this visit. He's a whopping nearly 13 pounds now - still a pound or 2 short of where all his sisters were at this age but still pretty good for a guy who started out looking quite skeletal 4 months ago.

We'll try to get some more vacation pictures up later on this week.

Happy Birthday Liv!

I still remember, very vividly, my first reaction when I learned we were expecting a second baby girl.
I began to fret. I worried that I could never love another little girl as much as I loved your big sister. So I did the only thing I could do. I prayed.
I prayed that God would make you a unique girl with your own set of gifts and talents all your own.Boy did He do above and beyond my wildest dreams!
How God must have been laughing at your worried mom while he knit you together. You're a treasure and we love you!

Eye Clutter

The girls think he looks "cute". I say he looks more like an obsessed tourist in the Museum of Natural History or maybe a prehistoric theme park. All he's lacking is a camera dangling around his neck and a fanny pack around his waist. What do you think?

Three Months

The calendar tells us you've been here three months but it feels like we've loved you forever sweet boy.

I can't believe our little, bitty, newborn preemie baby is 3 months old. He's growing and gaining and even (almost) has some rolls of fat on his thighs to prove it! He's smiling, cooing, kicking, drooling and doing his very best to take in all he can of his environment. The days of weight grain troubles and nursing difficulties seem far, far away. It's a good, good place to be. ;)

Friday Funnies

Brayden, please, please do not try this at home. I don't care that your dad enjoys the challenge of casting broken limbs. Just spare your mom some stress and don't do it, OK?!




(No time to post much lately. Hopefully, we'll get more pictures up soon.)

Sweet Sunday Surprise

We were walking out of church yesterday when, while August was being tapped on the shoulder by a tall, broad-shouldered 16 year old boy (the same size and height as our nephew), I was making eye contact with a guy who looked an awfully lot like August's brother from Atlanta. Both were snickering as their eyes twinkled. Following close behind were our sis-in-law, niece, and 2 other nephews. They had driven all the way from Atlanta and surprised us!

They arrived in town Saturday evening in time to catch the local fireworks, stayed in a hotel overnight, and snuck into church without us noticing. We, apparently, were sitting directly opposite them in church and nearly made eye contact several times. We were shocked and delighted.

We had a wonderful rainy Sunday afternoon together. I'll post some fun pictures later but for now I'll just say that it involved one cute baby, nine enthusiastic cousins, one jubilated senior citizen, and bowling! ;)

OK.....now I get it!

Brayden seems to attract admirers wherever we go. A common observation I hear is "Oh, he's SO small!" I'm always surprised to hear that since I know how far he has come. So today, I pulled out the girls' baby books and compared weights at 2 months of age. OK, now I get it. The smallest of the girls, Juliette, was 9 lbs. 7 oz. at 1 month of age. This was our frail little gal who wasn't supposed to make it through my pregnancy and eventually ended up having lung surgery. So when I look at Brayden, now 2 months old and a "chunky" 8 lbs. 15 oz. I'm reminded that chunky is a very relative term and I'm so incredibly grateful for his health.....and mine. ;)

Brayden with the founding members of the "Mr. B Fan Club".

Our Baby Bug

By Marina

"Just when I begin to wonder if anyone ever died from sleep deprivation, he smiles, and I forget how exhausted I am." ~ Mom

We just can't get enough of these.

But the smiling sessions take a lot out of the little guy.












Not to worry, there's always a cozy place to snuggle around here!

I love these beady, black eyes.

Wednesdays in the Summer (aka Peptalk to Myself)

Every year in late May we pull out the goggles, fins, suits and coolers and begin preparing for the summer competitive swim season. We don't do team sports throughout the rest of the year but in the summer, the girls swim. With every ounce of their being, they swim.

I'll admit, and my kids know this, that I have a love hate relationship with summer. Around March, I begin envisioning easy summer afternoons with good books and lots of completed home projects (at last!) and I begin to not-so-subtly hint that perhaps our family might consider taking a summer off from swimming - a suggestion considered anathema to the swimmers in the family. So I surrender my Wednesdays (meet days) and hope that maybe those other wonderful plans will fall in around the practices and meets. They never do and come mid-July, I always wonder where the summer has gone and why my expectation never matches the reality. On paper, my aspirations for the summer months always look do-able but the day to day reality is that, for a number of reasons, those things rarely get done. So why to do I succumb to the madness?

First and foremost, I trust my husband and his love for me and our kids. When he tells me it's good for them, for us, to do this, I believe him because I'm confidant he has my (and their) best interests at heart.

Secondly, I do it because I love my kids. And as this book emphasizes so well and also as August reminds me often, I understand that one of the best ways to love my kids is to love the things they love. An even truer mantra, as I'm quickly learning, for the adolescent years.

Thirdly, I do it as an exercise in dying to myself which seems to be something I come back to as a mom again and again.

And so this past Wednesday, in what had to be the wettest, dreariest evening of the year, we sloshed in the rain and mud for hours while the girls competed. As we were preparing for the rainy evening, my number one goal was to keep my kids - especially Brayden - as warm and dry as possible through the evening. We packed warm towels (lots of them!) in a cooler and I grabbed my Moby Wrap with the plan to wear Brayden much of the evening. (I'll add here that someone has acquired quite a "Moby addiction" but I'll not say which one of us! :-) ) I also had to be sure I kept track of all four girls' events. I've learned over the years that the best way for me to do this is with lots of Sharpie marker scrawled down my arm. I can't lose my "notes" and they don't wear off for days. In our 9 years of summer swimming, I've only missed two races and one of those times was last week......because I didn't take the time to make my "arm notes" with Sharpie ahead of time. This week, I made sure that wouldn't happen again. After lots of teamwork through the afternoon, I was ready......we were ready......for the long, rainy, cool evening.

What we hadn't counted on was the MUD. And there was lots of it.....everywhere. And yesterday, much of the mud that was there, was now HERE in my house, carried home on shoes, coolers, chairs, and towels. :(

So as I scrubbed mud out of T-shirts, socks, and baby blankets, I'm reminded myself why I do this every year - why WE do this every year. And I thought back to that moment Wednesday night when I looked through the rainy mist and saw, across the pool, lovely Marina, gliding poetically through the water with graceful strength and beauty. Her face radiating with delight and contentment, despite the cool night air and mud, as she raised arm after arm, backstroking to a strong finish. That smile made every load of muddy laundry worth it...........I think. ;)

Weigh-in Report

Brayden had another weigh-in today. He's up to a chunky (at least relative to where he's been!) 7 lbs. 14 oz. And true to form, he managed to spray the wall next to the scale, AGAIN! His doctor has started calling him "hydro-(insert our last name here but for the purposes of maintaining some bit of anonymity on this blog, I'll not include it)".

Lapse in Judgement or Act of Goodwill??

Introducing:

Meet Pip-Squeak

and her cage-mate Priscilla

My IRL friends know my shady history with having rodents as pets but how can you resist those little, black, beady eyes?! :-)

Startling Realization!

I guess when Hanna Andersson has a sale I can no longer just shop the girls'/women's skirts and dresses, huh? Wow, that's weird! (Yes, I'm a little slow sometimes!)

What She Said.......

Elizabeth Foss, mother of many, makes some poignant observations about the heartbreaking Jon & Kate saga in her column here.

Happy and Holy Weekend

This weekend we were so blessed to have (almost) all of our favorite people join us for Brayden's baptism. For so many reasons, this baptism was extra special to us. We were so thankful to all who joined us despite not giving them a whole lot of notice.



We also used the occasion as an opportunity to bless those who literally fed and carried (translated as "drove our kids all over town") us through the past 3 months. I can't imagine living through that very challenging time without the help and support of o
ur wonderful, WONDERFUL friends. With that in mind, we prepared some favorite Indonesian dishes and enjoyed some great fellowship and food together after the baptism.



It was absolutely worth every ounce of effort to pull the event together but suffice it to say some of us were utterly exhausted once it was over.

(Yes, I know the APA highly discourages the tummy sleeping position for babies. Brayden does not normally sleep on his tummy. He just happened to be slumped in his sister's lap in a near comatose state when she slid him on to the chair for this picture. Be assured he had highly trained medical professionals monitoring his every breath during the entire "photo shoot"!! :-) )

Dear Uncle Bryan.....

Brayden says "THANK YOU!"

From the bottom

of his.......

....well....

his BOTTOM....

"THANK YOU!"