13 Candles - Another "Teen" in the House

Another important event I haven't yet devoted a post to is the celebration of Sierra's 13th birthday. 13 is a big one in our house, the transition from childhood to young adult.  13 is the year of the big birthday party because we believe the addition of family and friends helps mark the significance of the day, and we seek council from other godly women to encourage and guide our children.  For Hailey and Sierra this encouragement has come in the form of letters to be stored in their hope chest (which they receive on their 13th birthday).  These letters have been a true blessing to our girls, and I am so grateful that our friends and family would take the time to write them. 

We requested that gifts center around the hope chest we were giving her, and Sierra was blessed with many beautiful and thoughtful things.  It's so much fun to see what everyone comes up with!

Her daddy gave her a blessing and Sierra recited Proverbs 19:1-9

The cake was amazing. No, I didn't make it.

I love these young adult years.  The knowledge that my time with them is so short is ever before me, and I am frequently driven to my knees.  I am so blessed to see them growing in knowledge and righteousness.  And so grateful for the opportunity to speak into their lives as we spend our days together.

Miss Cadence is getting so big.  She's a real blend of her mommy and daddy.  And so smart :-) I can't wait to watch her grow up.

Chance was able to come for the party, which was SUCH a gift for Sierra.  We are all grateful for any time we are able to spend together, but it was really special that he came for her birthday.  Kirstyn was there too!  It is such a rare gift for us all to be together :-)


The day after the party Chance taught the boys to make boats with tooth pics.   The results were pretty cool, but next time I think we'll use popsicle sticks so it doesn't take so long :-)

 

Gregory Turns 1!

Of smiles there were many, 

of pictures, sadly few. 

This post is late,

the day was great.

Gregory, we love you!

Happy Birthday Gregory!

Snow Days

A huge storm blew in last night to finish killing off our fruit tree blossoms, so we are hunkered down trying to stay warm and drinking chai tea deliciousness.  Since we aren't at all interested in going outside, I thought I would share a few pictures of some of this year's earlier snow days. 

She's Just SO Stinkin Cute!

Audreyanna 10 months

Gifts

Tonight I am grateful for:

1.    My sleeping baby, snuggled up against my side.

2.    Celestial Seasonings Cocoa Tea with butter, honey, and coconut milk.

3.    A dishwasher that really cleans.

4.    Hot Water.

5.    A quiet house.

6.    The grassy, spicy, smell of "outside" in my little boys hair.

7.    Rain

8.    The way my kids always want to be where I am, even the big ones.

9.    Second chances.  And third...

10.   Warm blankets in a cold room.

Easter 2012

I decided to skip the interim and jump right to Easter. I still hope to fill in the blanks, but today...we're jumping to Easter :-)

It was a really great day. After church we were joined by Matt, Holly, and Gregory, and Dean and Jill, and Lisa, Angie and Sophia. We had lots of good food, good conversation, and good times!

Next year I am going to do a Christian seder on Good Friday. I am excited to try it and it may just become a new tradition. In any case, I am looking forward to a new way to get us thinking about all that we are really celebrating.

We did do something a little different this year, we traditionally hide a few "money eggs", but this year I took the story of the Resurrection from Matthew and cut it into sections of 2 verses each, with the verses un-numbered. We had bright eggs and pastel eggs and we put 2 verses in each egg in each color family. Make sense? So, there were 11 bright eggs with verses and 11 pastel eggs with verses. The eggs with verses inside were marked with an "s", the other eggs had candy. The kids were broken in to two teams and assigned a color family. They had to find their 11 eggs and assemble the scripture in the right order first. There was a bit on confusion and the process needs some fine tuning, but it was a fun twist. The team with Sierra, Eli and Titus carried the day!

I was a busy hostess and didn't take nearly enough pictures. But I did get some pretty cute ones!






We really need to find a prettier backdrop for the group shots! Ah well, the faces are lovely ;-)
I'm including 3 because you need all of them to get a decent shot of everyone. So, you pick!

I hope your Easter was as special as ours was!

Sleepy

I am sleepy. Beyond sleepy. Exhausted. Last night Hailey stayed up with Audreyanna until about 1:30 so that I could get some sleep so today I can actually put words together to form a sentence.I have had lots of babies, some great sleepers and some not so great sleepers. But my days are so full of the needs and activities of the rest of the family that they would exhaust me even with a good nights sleep, and when sleep comes in fits and spurts it doesn't take long to slip below the waves.

Cry it out is not my thing, I just don't have the stomach for it. So I got this book from the library to see what I could see. I was so giddy when I picked it up that I thought if it worked I would kiss it and hug it and dance it around the room. I might even buy my own copy and build a little shadow box to display it over the fireplace!

So, the book basically advocates gradually changing your babies habits and routines. Up until the last couple of babies, my kids were always on somewhat of a schedule. Not full blown bedtime routines, but the pretty much had a bedtime, and a naptime and they happened at pretty much the same time every day. Through the fog of my rose colored glasses it seemed like they were better sleepers. My last 3 have NOT been good sleepers. And they have not really had sleep time schedules. Hmmm. I know it sounds obvious, but you have to coming at it hiking uphill through a jungle of exhaustion where people keep grabbing your legs. It's harder to see.

So, Pantley says her suggestions could take some time to really see results. I really want to put her to be tonight and wake up in the morning shocked that she's still sleeping, but we're going to give it a go. I had already been trying to teach her that she doesn't actually have to have my breast in her mouth all night long to sleep. But I need to be more consistent. I have got her to the point where I can sometimes exract myself from her mouth and she will complain a little and go back to sleep. But only as long as I stay on my side facing her. If I try to move to my back or put my back toward her, her super spidey senses kick in and she is awake and crying.

So, we are going to work on real nap times. In her own bed. Hopefully working up to 2 naps about 1.5 - 2 hours each, in her bed. Rather than 3 - 4 naps of 15 - 20 min each in our arms. And I hope to get my response time during the night to times when she is actually hungry and she will learn to just fall back to sleep when she wakes as a regular part of the infant sleep cycle.

We'll see. Right now she is up every hour to hour and a half and she wants attention and comfort nursing. I would also like her to start the night in her co-sleeper at least until the first nursing. Which will hopefully be after several hours of sleep.

I'm going to use the heat pad to warm her bed before putting her in it. The book is really a lot of common sense solutions, but it was helpful to read it. I think I got a little lazy with my little ones. I just sort of fit them around everything that was going on with the biggers, instead of really working to develop the habits that would help the whole family function better.

So, here we go!

Comfort Food

Do you see that stock? Look how thick with gelatin it is. My new goal is to ensure we all get some mineral rich, homemade stock at least 3 times a week. Daily would be best, but I might have to work up to that, it's about habit building. Baby steps you know.

There are so many good things about this homemade beef stock. It is rich in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and other trace minerals. It is a very cheap source of good nutrition and the minerals are much more bio-available than if we were getting them in a pill or supplement. And all that gelatin will help our hair and nails grow longer and stronger, not to mention keep our joints healthier. Glucosamine and chondroiton? It's there in the broth, tasty and easily absorbed. I am hoping that regular, frequent servings of broth will help alleviate the heel and joint pain that Mike and Sierra suffer from. Another reason to work up to daily doses.

I like to keep my stock fairly neutral in taste and then season according to its use. I always cook it with onion and garlic, and usually celery and carrots, but not much else. Then I can make a quick soup, gravy, or sauce. I can use it as the cooking liquid for my rice, or just pour a cupful. I've been busy dehydrating all the bits and pieces of produce that don't get used up, and I look forward to throwing a handful of dehydrated veggies and seasonings in a cup of hot broth - cup a soup! Healthy and quick. You can bag the the veggies you like in your soup together in individual or family size portions. You can even run them through the blender or food processor and turn it into a powder if you don't like chunks. Some good ones are carrots, tomatoes, celery, onions, garlic, greens, and herbs of various sorts.

I make about 3 gallons at a time and keep some in the freezer and some in the fridge, where it will last a couple of weeks.

Enjoy!

15? Are You Sure??

It was my turn to spend the day with Hailey in honor of her birthday. 15! How well I remember rocking her to sleep singing 70's music. I painted her nursery 2 shades of purple with a Precious Moments border. I remember balling up newspaper and making it crinkle loudly to try to convince her to crawl across the floor. Tiny little girl toddling across the floor with her wispy blonde hair and pretty yellow dress. Walking at 9 months!

I thought we would never make it through her 2's. And her 3's. And her 4's. :-) Filling her baby sisters mouth with change. Painting the walls I had painstakingly stenciled, along with the clothes she pulled out of her dresser. And the carpet. Finding her on top of the fridge. More than once :-)

She has always had her own ideas. Always been a bit fearless. And now she is my right arm. She has the magic touch with the babies, she can calm them when no one else can. She loves music, the piano, her siblings, and God. She is sarcastic and funny, a singer, an artist, a great letter writer, and a fabulous baker. It is such a joy to see her growing in knowledge and righteousness. To see her grow in her faith and develop her own convictions. I am so blessed to be her mother.


Nana and Papa, along with Aunt Alice and Angie were able to join us for dinner, so that was a special treat. Sierra made her that hat, and Nana made the afgan. Love it! The scarf from Aunt Alice went perfectly with the hat :-)

And this is Sophia. Isn't she beautiful. Last time we saw her she had just broken 5 pounds. :-)

Boys

Ethan's big brother gifted him with some face paint, so now he fiercely blends into his surroundings. He shared his gift with his other brothers and they all had a grand time looking like warriors.

I wouldn't want to meet them in the woods, would you? :-)

Beachy Birthdays

So, it's only been a month since my last post. Hailey says I need to post more. She says I should post about all the things I'm always telling them, things I read, learn, and think. It just takes time to formulate all that into an intelligible post. And the time that I would be able to do that is at night. Which is when the baby is usually screaming. Or I am about to drop from exhaustion. Or both. So....it's been a month since my last post.


So, what's been going on? Well, Ethan had a birthday. So did Hailey. Heck, so did I :-) We went to Point Mugu for a few days in honor of Ethans and my birthdays. (Wow, that was an awkward sentence!) But we did, and we had a lovely time. Even if it was kind of cold and windy. I guess that's the price for a beautiful beach all to yourselves. If so, I'll gladly pay it. We intended to camp in the rv, but the day before we left we discovered that the fuel pump had quit pumpin. Bummer. We were able to salvage the trip with a couple of motel rooms on base, and we still had a grand time. I'd really like to go back in the rv though.



We got to see a whale right off shore, and a lot of seals. Which solidified Hailey's determination to never swim in the ocean, but was really cool to see.


We ate a lot, built sand castles, drew in our nature journals, climbed rocks, had races, and just generally enjoyed each other. On the last day we went in to Ventura and had an amaaazing lunch in a micro brewery. Really yummy!