Happy birthdays and other stuff

Ok, wow. It's been such a long time that I had to change my Xanga password in order to log on here. Sorry...I have to say though, that I prefer Facebook for a lot of my online interactions. Happily some of my Xanga friends are my friends there too, so I get to keep up. But occasionally I think I should blog. Why? I don't know. Just because. This is apparently one of those times.

I must say I don't much like this font. Ick.

Well, the birthday season has begun here. And this year is bringing us some pretty big birthdays. Six days ago, Rachel turned 16. And tomorrow, my very first baby turns 18.

That seems weird. I mean, I know she's growing up and all but to be a legal adult? How in the world is that possible? I don't even feel like an adult many times and here she is an adult and Rachel following close on her heels.

She is not at all happy about this milestone. In fact, she will cry if she thinks about it. She doesn't want to lose the essence of herself, I think, and she feels that growing "mature" will do that for her. I have tried to reassure her but to no avail. It must be one of those things that she just has to learn on her own.

So Rachel had her Sweet Sixteen party, Saturday a week ago. I will admit that I thought she carried it a bit overboard, but seeing as we are vastly different people, I guess that's not surprising. She had a group of kids out to bowl, then back to the house for pizza, cake, & playing. I mean, this group of teenagers colored with chalk on the driveway, climbed trees, played the piano, decorated cupcakes, and generally hung out. It was interesting. I really like these children/teenager people. I see most of them every week at our co-op and it is a pleasure for me to just sit and watch them. I never thought I'd be the person who sits and watches groups of people and just glows from the emotions they conjure, but I am.

The twins started soccer last month. Saturday was their first game. It. Was. Cold. I dragged all of the children out to watch their games (Doug was driving back from Florida and missed them.) They did ok, but neither of them is even remotely proficient. Still, they're getting exercise and enjoying themselves. And I'm getting exercise and enjoying myself, trying to get them caught up with a few skills. David's asthma really bothers him and he has no stamina whatsoever. I'm hoping that he will at least have more by the end of the season.

Abby is overwhelmed by hormones, I think. That is the only thing I can think of which would explain her moodiness and mood swings. Except for the obvious negative personality thing on which to blame it, and I'd rather not. So there she is.

And me? I'm still reading, still teaching, still trying to keep up with all my commitments. My therapy is going well. I can tell that it has helped me to attempt to not fall into the bottomless pit of despair that I have in the past. It's nice to have coping mechanisms which work.

Enough about all that, how about some photos?

Or maybe not, since I apparently don't know how to get photos transfered over here without Premium. Oh well, maybe next time. Be well!

Heard in my back seat today...

The twins are founts of endless amusement.  And frustration.  Here are but three things I heard from them this morning, as they rode with me to and from Rachel's piano lesson.

1)  (Celtic Woman is playing in the background.)  David:  "But Kuh (his nickname for his twin), Chloe doesn't have a voice!"  That would be my 4-year-old son criticizing one of the women in the group.  Yeah.

2)  Keziah:  "Mom, do you know how to make pancakes?" (As we're passing our local IHOP.)
     Me:  "Sure, Keziah."
     Keziah:  "Then, will you make them for me?"
     Me:  "Not today."
     Keziah:  "Why not?  You don't ever leave the house and you don't go to work.  Why can't you make me pancakes?"

Ouch!

3)  (Sounds of twins rocking out in their car seats, a song they've been singing a lot which sounds to me like, I Want My Mama Back.) 
      Me:  "Rachel, what is that song they're singing back there?  They've been wanting me to sing it at bedtime."
      Rachel, cracking up:  "They're singing a song from Hannah Montana."
      Me:  "I know that, but it sounds so sad--I Want My Mama Back."
      Rachel:  "No, Mom, it's I Want My Mullet Back."
      Me:  "Oh."
      Twins in the background:  "I Want My Mullet Back!  I Want My Mullet Back!"

They'll get you every time...

We gave each other little 'I love you' gifts today. I encourage the girls to make gifts, because they mean so much to us (and are so very inexpensive!) Rachel gave me a scroll that read this inside:

              THANK YOU  MOM

          For making me dinner

           For comforting me when I’m sick

           For making me cookies

          For telling me about me

           For giving me hugs when I’m sad

           For slapping me when I need it

           For caring about me all my 13 and 9 months years

 

            This check entitles one to 1 hour of twin- time at almost any time.

       Thank you, Mommy!

Oh my word!  And as if I weren't sobbing in my tea enough, this is what Sarah gave me...but first some background info. 

Sarah's writing teacher assigned them to write someone a thank-you note. She and two of her classmates wrote them to their mothers. I knew Sarah had written something to me but I wanted to wait until she was ready to show me and then forgot about it. She gave it to me today, framed. Here's the text. (I'll bet you've never received a thank-you note that contains the word 'manumission'.)

Dear Mom:

I am writing to thank you for your years of servitude as a mother to the five of us. For fifteen years, you have performed many varied services for us.

To begin with, you have always carried out more domestic tasks than many women in America. While some women are off working on high-powered accounts, you’re running a high-powered household. In spite of demanding little kids and other difficulties, you were determined not to send us to the gulag (public school). So you didn’t. But you relinquished a relaxing lifestyle. Your personal time is diminished. Frequently the day’s difficulties fray your nerves. However, now that I am old enough to understand the problems I missed by being home schooled, I am grateful for your hard work. Additionally, we must consider dinner. Some American women might not take the time to cook. For their children, dinner is the canned or frozen variety. But you cook real food almost every dinner every night. On our birthdays you go the extra mile of making a special meal. I thank you for giving us the gift of not growing up on canned or frozen food. Moving on, we will consider the next service.

You dealt with many physical tasks that come with being a mother. As you have told us, you carried us for nine months. The labor didn’t end after the birthing. Initially you had to deal with sleepless nights, midnight feedings, and easily audible wails. When we got older, other types of trouble arose. Over our childhoods, we made many messes and contracted several illnesses, not all of the minor variety. Staying up with a sick kid in the middle of the night is no walk through a flowerbed. Therefore, I thank you.

Additionally, you had to deal with our emotional sides. This road was sometimes fraught with difficulty. However, whether we seethed, or flew around the house in furor, or sat dissolved in tears on your bed at 10:00 at night, you took time to deal with our feelings of the moment-or, just as important, our dreams about the future.

In this place, I use myself as an example. Since I was born, I have had obsessions. You know that better than anyone. Nevertheless, you faithfully tolerated them, even when the constant repetition threatened to drive you crazier than a loon with a family history of schizophrenia. Over the years since I’ve decided to become a writer, you have listened to my dreams. When necessary, you’ve dealt with my sensitive skin. Because it was important to me, it was important to you. This means much to me.

In conclusion, for fifteen years you have endured the difficulties of motherhood. You have served without any promise of manumission. Having children meant sitting up with a sick child, losing downtime to cook, comforting upset children, and readying them for the future. These jobs have not abated yet. Nor will they for some time. Still, you will continue working. Abraham Lincoln once ascribed credit to his own mom in this statement: “All that I am or hope to be I owe to my mother.” I believe he was correct.

Your daughter,
Sarah

Memories

Here are a few random photos before I get to the meat of my post.  If one could ever be said to be meaty.  Which they aren't, but we'll pretend because we're nice that way.

This is what we did yesterday:



I made Almond Kisses out of one of the Hannah Swensen murder mysteries.  I didn't like them much but Friend Husband and the kiddles did.  Maybe my taste buds are out of whack from my cold/sinus infection.



We attempted to play Yahtzee.  You see what happens when we attempt to play games when the twins are still up.



And we had pigs in a blanket for dinner.  Oh.  My.  Word.  I'm sure that I've gotten my week's allotment of salt in one night.  The twins had a good time helping me make them.



This is where Lucy spent our weekend away...with her sister Ethel.  She did have a good time, according to Friend Priscilla, but I guess she was ready to go when I came to get her.

And here is what I was doing this morning:  putting the new pictures of the children in their frames.  In the process, I took out the old pictures and laid them out so I could admire how gorgeous they were/are.  And here they are so you can do the same.

I've got to run, natch.  Hope y'all have a good weekend!







I've always said that Abby has a demon seed expression on her face every time Mrs. Owens takes her picture.  Mrs. Owens didn't take the last one...can you tell?





And here's all five of them, hanging up in the hallway outside our bedroom.  (Yes, I know there's a blast of light in the middle of Abby's...I'm in a hurry, peoples!)

Wow.

The children's extension program had their performance night last night.  As I've been mentioning, sometimes bemoaning, Rachel has the role of Ida in Honk!, Jr.  This is basically a version of The Ugly Duckling, put to music (very cute). 

Now I know that Rachel has a lovely voice but I think she outdid herself last night in the small part she got to sing.  Here's the very poor quality video.  I apologize, but I was standing in the back using my digital camera, with children bouncing off me from time to time.  Enjoy!

Mouse, part deux, and picture updates

Ah yes, the return of the rodent. Sadly, it wasn't the rodent but another of its extended family. Friend Husband and the little people went out to ride bikes last night. When they returned, they ran in and out of the house a few times and neglected to close the door that leads to the driveway. I went to close it and heard, "What's that?!" "Hush, don't tell Mom!" Naturally, I had to go check it out. What I saw were Rachel, the twins, the husband, and Abby lined up along the edge of the driveway, watching something in the side yard. I gathered from the way they were positioned and the furtiveness of them that they'd spotted a mouse.

What they had, in fact, spotted was the fact that our spoiled house cat had found himself a mouse and was "playing with it". We stood out there for quite some time, watching the cat-and-mouse game. It was vaguely disturbing but it's hard to feel terribly sorry for a rodent who would gladly eat you out of house and home and spread disease in its wake. We finally came in so that the twins wouldn't startle the cat in a moment of exuberance and cause him to lose his quarry. When I went out there this afternoon, I found the sad little carcass. I did feel a little badly but, as Friend Cherylyn said yesterday, you feel sorry for it, let it go, and you are repaid with 100 in short order. Thank you, no. That's a gift I'd just as soon do without.

I just have to show y'all these cute pictures I've been taking. I was lying on my bed last night, reading after dinner. David crawled up behind me, talked for a while, then was silent. I looked back to see him sound asleep. His twin sister thought that was a hoot and crawled up with him, chattering happily all the while. I finally told her that if she was going to be on my bed, she had to hush and keep still (that child is the most fidgety I've ever seen!) After a while, she too, was quiet and asleep. I finished my book, stood up, and looked back to see them all cuddled up together. It was so cute, I had to take a photo of it.

Could you die from the cuteness? I'm partial to pictures of children sleeping (and not just because it's more peaceful when they're asleep!) but I just thought they were adorable.

So, it's Halloween. We don't partake in the festivities (unless you count buying leftover candy at half-price the day after a tradition) but we do enjoy the fall festivals and such that the neighboring towns and businesses have. The children (except for Sarah) particularly enjoy Shaw Farms with their pumpkins and sturdy wooden cutouts painted to look like wagons, tractors, a pirate's ship, etc. They usually close down the day after Halloween and the children had only gone once, so I thought I'd take the twins back to see it before it closed. The Reluctant Scholars also asked to accompany us. I gave permission, assuming they could get a subject finished by the time we were ready to go. Here are the pictures from this trip.

Please don't ask me why the sight of my children locked up here just soothes me.

Well, they didn't say anything about sitting on the pumpkins.

David wasn't too sure about the witch. He finally approached it and found it was just a statue, like everything else.

This pumpkin was over 800 pounds!

I guess I was fascinated by the white pumpkins this visit!

Tomorrow being the first day of November, it's time to crank out our NaNo novels. As Sarah mentioned on her blog, I'm a little freaked about the process this year. My brain steadfastly refuses to think clearly if at all about the topic I'm planning to capture in words. I'm afraid the whole thing is going to blow up in my face. I went back and read my NaNo novel from last year and I really liked it! I thought the prose was good, the subject was relatively interesting, and the story well-told. Now I'm really spooked about it!

The topic is semi-autobiographical, only the main character has a lot more problems than I do. A big part of the book is e-group postings, blog posts, and e-mails/letters. I have read a few novels in this format and I really enjoy it. I'm afraid, though, that it will bog down quickly. Anyone want to share some funny or strange things that have happened to you in the context of online friendships? I need the inspiration, badly.

So, here's my pre-writing journal (a birthday gift from Friend Cherylyn) and my trusty old laptop (that I haven't opened for 11 months). I hope all goes well...wish us well (Sarah and me). And now you know that, if I don't show up for a while, it's not the mouse who did it.

Back to School and other Stuff

This will be brief as we're in the midst of our first day of school. You can tell how thrilled I was to get started.



I assure you that everyone else was every bit as thrilled as I was, but they are way into hamming it up so it's harder to tell.


Sarah, already cranking away on her Spanish.

Rachel, the only scholar who decided to get dressed for the first day of school.


Abby taking advantage of her status as homeschooling student to wear her p.j.'s to school.

I wonder sometimes where they get their hamminess. Surely not from their mother!



Edited to add photos of the twins' activities on this first day of school:



Now you know why I look that way in the first picture.

So, a few of you asked about the deck. I still don't have a picture of the full thing, painted. Don't know why, just haven't done it. I do have pictures of most of us while we were painting and you can see the paint color there. Especially in this one of Friend Husband which nicely shows the juxtaposition between the old and the new.



Here are a few others of the hard workers:





Sarah helped a lot but somehow I didn't get photos of her.

And, as Miss Lori has mentioned already, we got to spend a couple of hours together on Saturday, watching her son's team pull from behind to win their football game. Very exciting! Unfortunately, it was also quite hot. I took the twins and they were freaked out by 1) sweat and 2) the yelling that all the adults around them were doing when something happened on the field. Here's a picture of Lori, getting the sunburn she alluded to on her blog.



At one point, Keziah pointed to her forehead, which was dripping with sweat, and said, "Mom, what's this?" We've been having an amazing number of bug bites lately and I thought she had a new one. I looked, didn't see anything, and realized what she was talking about. "Um, that's sweat, Keziah." "Sweat?!" Like she'd never heard of it before or anything!





Here's Dave, sucking down a generally verboten can of soda. The concession stand ran out of water and PowerAde, so soda it was. I figured Pepsi was the lesser of the two evils (the other being Mountain Dew).

Anyway, it was nice to see Lori and her family again. The last game we went to over at Landmark, it was so cold that Lori was wrapped in multiple layers. Funny how you remember things like that.

I guess that was all I was going to blabber about today. I hope y'all're having an excellent week. Back to work for this homeschooling mama!

Whew, it's over!

The wedding went pretty well, with only a few hitches that were due to people to whom I'm related.  I'm too tired for a recap tonight, but perhaps next week I can do it.  In the meantime, a few of you asked for a video of the girls singing.  This is my inexpert one, taken on my Canon digital camera, but perhaps it'll be enough to get a taste of what they were doing.  They did much better than I expected, but it's a little hard to hear them because they were singing as everyone in the audience was walking in, so there was a lot of chatter and footfalls in the background.  So here it is, I hope it works better than yesterday's video worked (sorry about that).

The Days Are Just Packed

My entire body hurts from head to toe, so this may end up being abbreviated, I don't know. I'm having trouble holding my head up straight.

So we'll start with Friday, where everything that could go wrong, did. I was so aggravated by the end of the day that I just didn't know what to do with myself. I'll leave it at that.

Saturday dawned bright, sunny, and humid. I dispatched some weeds in the vegetable garden early in the morning, then Rachel and I proceeded to take tea at Miss Annabelle's Tea Parlor. I've been here before, with a group of ladies from our congregation and I thought Rachel would enjoy it. I think she did, after she got over the intimidation of being in such a dainty place.

The tea parlor is in an old building (site of the first woman-owned hardware store in the U.S.) in Historic Loveland. It's a pretty little walk down there and those who are inclined to ride bicycles often find themselves riding right through as there is a popular bike trail that goes right through the town.

Upon entering the parlor, you are encouraged to select a hat from the wall. Of course, you can choose to go without, but part of the fun for me is finding a hat to fit my giant head. This was the one I found. I adored the netting but had to pull it up when we were taking tea.

Rachel chose a lovely black one that framed her face beautifully. It also had a fluffy feather, which was fun.

The tea was wonderful (but I think now that we should have ordered iced tea instead of hot...it was already hot enough outside). The food was just scrummy, and we had a great time talking and goofing off.

Blue crab sandwiches. Rachel liked them very much.

This would be one of the walls in the restroom. Yes, I take pictures of restrooms...you got a problem with that?

Rachel put on another hat when we were out looking at the teaware. I liked this one even better with what she was wearing.

After we left the tea house, we walked a very little bit in Historic Loveland but we had to make haste to buy Webkinz for Rachel had money burning a hole in her very purse. It was a satisfying day and almost made up for how hideous Friday was.

Today we had company for lunch, which was a nice change of pace. We scooted the children out to play in the pool so we could have adult conversation without interruptions. Ha! Where there are children, there are interruptions. David came in to use the bathroom 3 times. The last time, I failed to mop up the pool water that he dripped in the kitchen, which was a big mistake. Zidy came to the door and wanted in and as I was hurrying to let her in, I slipped on the puddle and slid across the kitchen floor. I landed on my rear and right hand, then fell onto my back. I had also attempted to bring my right foot, which was behind me, up to the front but ended up dragging it along the lino when I did. As I watched, it blossomed nicely into a big red pressure burn (complete with blister) on the joint right under my right big toe. So my head, neck, back, right arm, and right foot are not happy with me right now. Miss Grace I am not. I'm about to take some good zonking drugs and go to bed, praying that it is all better by the morning. You pray too, ok?

This will be a big week for us. Some of my brother's children will be coming up to spend a few days with us. We love spending time with the cousins! Then my brother and sister-in-law plan to come up on Friday night, then go to the Creation Museum with us Saturday before they head home. It'll be nice to see Robert again, as I haven't seen him since 2 Thanksgivings ago? Could that be right? I guess so. Anyway, I hope he can come up but if he can't, we'll do our best to make Amber's brief visit a pleasant one.

Sarah also has a big event happening this week which I'll let her announce when it happens (or whenever she chooses to).

So I don't know how much time I'll have online this week or if I'll even be able to crip downstairs with my clumsy self. But I leave you with this picture of a yummy yummy cake I made for dessert today, from Carrot Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke. This is the Scandinavian Almond Cake and it is wonderful. It didn't survive the day, that's how good it is.

Now y'all have a good week and be safe!

Wordless Wednesday

Guess what went on at our house today?

Having a fallow time...

I guess I've been having a fallow time of not blogging so much.  I'm ok with that, but I miss blogging.  It's not that I don't have anything to blog about, it's more that I've got so much on my mind that it's hard to sort it all out and figure out what I want out there in public.

It is supposed to be 60º today.  I'm freezing.  I don't know if there's so much water in the air that it seems cooler than it is or what. 

A dog found us the other day.  We were saying goodbye to Dinah after a sleepover when Rachel announced that a strange dog was in the driveway.  I went out to make sure it was friendly before everybody came out and he ran right up to me, wagging his tail.  He seems to have been cared for, was clean and had a choke chain on, but so far no one's claimed him.  I call him Elof for a joke.  He looks a lot like my great-uncle Luther did at the end of his life with his sweet saggy jowls (the dog, not Luther) but for some reason Elof tickled me more.  (Elof was another great-uncle, brother to Luther.)  I  need to make some more posters to put up in the neighborhood.  Here's a picture of him. 



He's cute but I'm hoping that someone claims him soon.

I was blogging in Friend Leigh's comments section the other day about Rachel's "lambie" and thought I'd drop it in here as a quick Monday Memories.

When Sarah was born and was sick, I bought her a lambskin to sleep on.  Lambskins are supposed to make the baby sleep better, grow faster, etc.  Grow Sarah did, but she didn't take a shine to the lambie (pronounced with the "b" intact) which was fine since we had Rachel two years later.  Rachel, on the other hand, loved lambie with a vigorous passion.

If Rachel was upset, all we'd have to do is hand her the lambie.  She'd rub it on her face, stick her thumb in her mouth, and all was right in her world.  She also liked to rub pieces of lambie between her thumb and index finger and, indeed, eventually pulled lambie to pieces doing so.  We collected the lambie pieces because they were worth their weight in gold.  Nothing but nothing could soothe Rachel like a piece of lambie.  It was a sad day when Rachel was grown up enough that lambie did nothing for her and we threw out the collection of lambie bits that we'd saved.

Once, we dropped something off at Kinko's for Doug.  He went to pick it up hours later and, upon entering the store, saw a piece of lambie that Rachel had dropped when she entered.  He chuckled to himself and related the finding when he got home.  He knew we'd been there.  Lambie was there.

Sarah had her bink (a pacifier or "dummy") and Rachel had lambie.  Abby was just a rabid nurser.  I guess I was her lovey.  I'm not sure that the twins had lovies other than each other but that has always seemed to work for them.  Friend Husband had a blanket with fringes on it (it was called the "fringe-ah" by my mil).  I had a doll that I slept with from the time I was two until I got married.  Sometimes when I'm really upset, I still dig that doll out and sleep with her clutched to my chest.  Lovies are so powerful and special.

What do you remember about your lovey?

Wordless Wednesday

Breaking news: Abigail got glasses right before Thanksgiving but she refuses to let me post pictures of her utter cuteness on my blog. She thinks she looks stupid even though she's just precious and adorable.