Loving Life

Yes, ladies, I have learned a very valuable secret that I will now share with you. An answer to the big question of how to get your husband to willingly volunteer to do chores. You have to plan in advance for a few weeks to get this to work. Here's the secret: deprive him of meat. Serve meal after meal of food grown in your garden - you can use small bits of meat to flavor your food if you need to so he doesn't die, but don't give him big chunks of meat. He will enjoy eating the garden produce and find it a fun challenge to see just how many different ways zucchini can be prepared, along with green beans and tomatoes and broccoli and kohlrabi and peppers and cabbage and beets and kale and... you get the point. So after at least two weeks or ideally more of eating this way, decide that it's been a long time since meat has entered your diet in any significant fashion and get out a roast from the freezer and cook it. Let the delicious aroma of slow roasted meat with a ro...

Yesterday, a teenager began living in my house. I liked him an awful lot before he was a teenager. I'm pretty sure I'll like him even more now that he's officially old. I love how he adores his baby sister and asks to hold her and play with her. Here he is tickling her and enjoying her squeals of delight. We measured him yesterday as we do on every birthday, and he is now almost 5'10" - long past Mom's height. We had to measure Dad then and put his mark on the wall so David knows what he's shooting for next. Only a bit over 5 inches to go! He slowed down on his growth spurt and only grew 4.5 inches last year, compared to the 5.5 inches he grew the previous year. I shudder to think of him trying on his winter clothes this year and having to find things that fit him once again. I try to buy as minimally as possible and get everything second hand as they rarely last a season before he's outgrown it all.  David is a rock in our family. He's ...

Hey guys! Guess what?! I have hands! They're so cool! I can look at them and hold them. They are also really good to chew on. Other than that, they still seem pretty useless to me. But I still think they are pretty and really like looking at them and admiring them. Every once in awhile, Mom puts me in a tub of water and gets me all wet. I really don't know if I like it all that much. She always tells me this joke every time she puts me in my tub: "How does a Mennonite girl take a bath? First she fills up the tub... then she turns on the water." Mom grew up Mennonite, but I'm not sure why she always tells me this joke and then giggles about it as she looks at me in my little tub. I'm clearly not amused by it. Another thing I like doing is sitting in my bouncy chair. I often sit there and tell David what to do with his school work. Mom tells me I shouldn't be so bossy when David isn't working on school work, but David doesn't see...

Before I get on with this post, I would like to report that my Christmas tree is finally down and put away until next year. Yea me! Last week, Keilah had a number of fussy days and had a hard time staying asleep during her naps. I wasn't sure what the deal was until I realized that I had been drinking a bit more coffee than usual. I was drinking half-caffeine, half-decaf, thinking we could manage that, but apparently not. When I cut that out of my life, she went back to her peaceful little self and hasn't had issues with her naps since. So I guess it's good-bye coffee for the next while. Sigh. The things we do for love. I'm beginning to wish David was old enough to drive now. Three days a week, he has band practice at the middle school, which is in the next town over. So I pack up and head over there for an hour those days. On one of the days, he has a lesson after band, so Keilah and I often hang out at the local coffee shop (don't worry, there are other thi...

Finally! I've been eagerly awaiting those precious smiles from my little girl for 6 long weeks. The past week we would get a few little ones here and there, but not the whole light up your entire face smile that I love. Today, Keilah was in a very happy mood and spent a lot of time smiling up at me. It just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy to look into that sweet face that lights up when she looks at you. Aaron and I are always amazed by how babies break down any barriers that people construct. A baby smile bridges all sorts of social gaps. Our favorite story was when David was a baby (he was the smileyest baby you've ever met) and we were sitting at the DMV waiting our turn to get our licenses renewed. We ended up sitting beside some rough looking biker dudes - leather, tattoos, lots of facial hair, bandanas - you get the picture - the kind of people you don't want to meet in a dark alley. Anyway, little baby David started grinning at them and the next thing you know...

Remember when I said David would be taller than me at Christmas? Well, it's not quite Christmas, but he did it. Here is the official proof.  Someone named David is quite pleased with this new arrangement. Someone named Mom pretends to be sad about this new arrangement. Here's a picture of my largest child with my smallest child. Hard to believe they both belong to me! I also found a great way to really like folding laundry. It's finding cute little socks in the laundry like these.  You can't help but smile when you come across these.  My finger is to help you get a picture of just how tiny they are.  :) Have a happy Tuesday everyone!

Ana was on the food committee for her class' Halloween party.  She volunteered to bring brownies, suckers, and candy monsters.  She was most excited about making candy monsters.  Here's a sampling of her work. I know it's hard to tell what everything is since they are all bunched up together, but they turned out super cute.  Each one is different.  She couldn't wait to go to school today to share them with her classmates. These are currently the best things ever. Caramel Pear Scones. My recipe made 10 of them.  There are currently nine left.  I want to soon make that eight.  If someone tries to help me not over-indulge in these lovely things, they may get their hand bitten off. Someone needs to teach David to put his school work away as he finishes it instead of moving to a clean spot on the table for the next subject.  This is the table at the end of his school day. This is baby's stuffed doggie and blankie. My mom has bought ea...

...having your son volunteer to bring cookies to the end of season cross country party, and then making them all by himself without any help or reminding from me.  Aren't these beautiful?  They tasted delicious too! David's cross country season is now officially over.  He is sad.  He loved it so very much.  Now it's the long wait until track season starts. Soon the high school cross country season will be over too and then Aaron will join him in that sadness and anticipation of track season.  Districts are this week and state is the next weekend.  The nice thing about CC being over is that I'll get to see my husband a little more in the evenings as he won't be at practice or meets anymore. Happiness is also cleaning your grimy windows.  I try to get my windows clean before winter sets in and I'm stuck inside looking out more and more each day.  Today, I tackled my kitchen windows.  They are so clean and shiny now - it makes...

Abby has developed a habit of "smiling" whenever she is placed in front of a camera.  I'm not sure what that is all about. It seems to have started when she lost her front teeth.  Perhaps she was self-conscious of the gap there, though her grown-up teeth have finally grown back in.  But anyway, when school picture time came around, I knew I couldn't trust her to make a normal looking smile so I didn't order any pictures from school (plus you pay about $70 for three pictures - that's only a slight exaggeration).  I think my fears were justified.  Though we struggled and struggled to get a normal looking smile at Sears , I think we did better than this school picture.  : ) Sunday night, I made some supper.  That's an unusual thing for the weekend.  I usually do not cook on the weekends and we eat either leftovers, or odds and ends of whatever we can find.  But this night I made a delicious supper.  I called f...

I suppose some of you don't care about running and find running pictures of my son redundant. (hey look, here he is running through a field again - big whoop!) If you are one of those people, I apologize. Sort of. I, however, love running pictures - especially when they include my favorite son. My mom and I went to another one of David's meets on Monday.  We had a good time watching for him and cheering him on.  This meet, he was the first boy on his team.  He's slowly improving his times and ability and really catching the running bug. *sigh of parental pleasure*  Since I'm not running right now, I'm living my running life through him. Once I'm done being pregnant and have recovered from labor, I aim to get back in running shape.  I told David he had better keep running through the winter if he wants to continue to be in better shape than me, because I'll be coming for him a few months.  We're not at all c...

The girls had their first day of school today!  They were both very excited, but also very nervous. We got to go to school last night to take their school supplies and unload them in their desks, meet their teachers, and eat ice cream at school.  What a great thing - if I equated school with ice cream, I'd be happy with it too!  This morning, I unfortunately was unable to see them off on their first day of school. I had to take David to his physical - one that you schedule four months ahead of time when you don't know that it will be the first day of school.  : (  However, Aaron did a fine job of seeing them off and he even took some pictures.  I will try to post them soon.  They both had an enjoyable first day and were excited to tell me all about it. As I said, I took David to his 12 year check-up/physical.  He used to be at about the 80th percentile on the growth chart for his height.  But now his is officially off the top end of it...

We had a great first day of school with David!  I think he even enjoyed it and was happy with his work.  I love starting off a school year on a good note like that.  I worked very hard the past few weeks in getting the lessons all mapped out and written down.  I'm not sure how many hours I poured into it, but I hope that it will free up many hours in the future of this year. I told David that this planner is now his life for 7th grade.  He must take good care of it and it will lead him well. He will learn to use it and rely on it to keep him on track and keep him organized throughout the year.  While I told him he may not get everything done in one day that's listed, he should have it done by Saturday at the latest. Here's our nicely organized school cupboard.  The most encouraging part of today was our writing class. That is the one subject we have butted heads on the most.  He despises writing and acts as if I'm trying to kill him when I h...

I took this picture yesterday before church - I'm almost 19 weeks here - definitely looking pregnant. Aaron finally felt the baby move last night.  It made him happy.  I had been able to feel it from the outside for several weeks now, but every time I tried to get Aaron's hand there, the baby would stop kicking.  I'm enjoying feeling good again and having a little more energy - though I do get more tired out sooner than I used to.  I guess that goes with the territory.  Next week is our ultrasound appointment.  We decided that we are going to find out what we are having!!!  I'm super excited about this! Yesterday, right as church was ending, David took a nasty fall at church.  Somehow, the only thing he managed to hurt was his lips and one front tooth. It appeared that his single tooth took the entire fall.  He cracked it vertically from top to bottom, and then along the gum line was another crack running horizontally.  S...

We're surviving the heat over here.  We've even broke down to turn on our AC (that's how hot I've been lately!).  For those of you who know me, that's a big deal.  I just haven't been able to cope as well with a house whose internal temperature is 90-92.  We had a good 4th of July and kept it pretty relaxed and low-key on our end.  I appreciated that.  This pregnancy mixed with the heat has sapped a lot of my energy and I just wasn't up to having a house full of people like we normally do each year.  David was gone all this past week at camp.  Our house felt a lot emptier this past week.  I will say that meal times were easier as I didn't have to cook for a growing boy.  We were excited to pick David up on Friday morning and see him again.  It felt like he had grown yet another inch since we dropped him off on Sunday night.  He had a great time there, but was pretty wiped out.  He came home, unpacked and then ended up fa...