Another Girl Grows Up

I've been unable to keep up with life in general for the past several months and so naturally, posting photos on the blog has been neglected as well.  

Allow me the pleasure of getting some out-dated pictures up for posterity, would you?  It might look a little strange here for a bit...I can't guarantee summer pictures won't pop up in the next few days.  But it must be done.  Since I am already on a birthday kick and since All The Sisters have birthday photos languishing in a dusty corner... 

Ineke was first.  

Next up:  Adele!

A few days shy of Thanksgiving, our little Bunkin turned 11.  Because I have been a blogging slacker,  I remember very little of the day.  

I remember trying to figure out WHAT I could make different from the same old, same old birthday cake request of white cake and peanut butter frosting.  There are only so many pretty cakes you can make with BROWN frosting.

And Adele' is my little LADY- she needed to have a PRETTY cake.

(Ineke pining for the meringue mushrooms.  Or the fairy.  But given how many mushrooms she ate later that evening, I'm thinking it's probably the mushrooms.)

I think I succeeded because when it was time to blow out the candles, Adele' just kept staring and staring at it with a smile on her face. 





Ineke is wondering here why she won't just blow the candles out already!  She needs some meringue mushrooms to nibble!



Birthday fail: I had no birthday candles in the cupboard.

Birthday score!:  She was 11 so two candles made the appropriate number anyway.

I took Ineke to the dollar store to pick something out for Adele's birthday. I love watching the children give and receive gifts from siblings.  It is one of my favorite things.  There is just something so glorious about it.  So high, so holy.

Oh Adele'.  You are a quiet wonder.  

And we love you so.

Sweet Relief

Surgery is over and Adele' is doing just fine.  Her Uncle John (Matt's twin) was the nurse anesthetist for her surgery so he wheeled her down to surgery on her bed extra fast for the thrill of it.  It was nice for her to have a familiar face making it seem a bit more like a family gathering than surgery prep.

We got home late last night and were able to get a good nights rest. The pain meds are pretty much awesome.  Brothers and sisters are trying not to be jealous of all the extra treats and attention broken bones can bring, including (but certainly not limited to...) sleeping in a nest of pillows on a full size bed in the Spare Oom all by herself.  Adele' has been asking for people to sign her cast- and then writing herself little messages on it too.  A dress that fits around a cast and sling. 

For all of these mercies, I praise God. 

Thank you to all who have been praying and leaving little love notes for us.  It meant the world to us.

Prayers for Bunkin

It turns out, when Adele' does something, she does it with gumption.  So- when she fell off her bed with arm tangled in beam on the night of her birthday- she didn't just break an arm.  She broke several bones in her arm.  And, it turns out, after a midnight ride to the hospital, another trip a few hours later to a specialist and many twists and turns (very bad choice of words but too tired to change them) along the way that said breaks are those that are serious enough to warrant not just a set and cast but an actual surgery requiring anesthesia.

Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow evening and so, despite the single. solitary hour sleep pre-accident and the single hour of fitful sleep I got this morning after returning to the hospital, we have another fitful night ahead of us.  I have spent the day holding things together with a brave and courageous smile with my girl and then bawled (and screamed) in Mama meltdown mode out in bathrooms and parking lots.  It is a terrible thing to watch your child in a pain that you can not take away.

My  mind has wandered and prayed over the many parents suffering those feelings in even more devastating ways today.

I am weary.  I have very little brain power left, my eyes linger shut after every word and my fingers type through water so I will leave it at this.  Modern medicine is a great and wonderful thing; I am grateful for this good gift that can help my girl find comfort in her pain but I admit, anesthesia is a fearful thing for me, particularly with the children of my heart.

The Lord wills and decrees all things and His providence is one that is good and right and I rest in this.  I know this.  I trust this.  He knits together bones and strengthens sinews, He is the Master Physician.   Would you pray for us, though, as we trust in His good, hard providence tomorrow?  For my girl and that fragileness of health that surgery so clearly reminds us of?  For her surgery and her anesthesia, that is be successful?  For myself, that I bring God the glory as much in the sickness as in the health...in the waiting as in the result, in the trials as well as the triumphs, in the waiting and in the angst?

I'd be so grateful for them.  xoxo

Thanksgiving Baby

That baby up there is not a Tiddle.  It is a Bunkin...who, seven years later, has become quite a charming wisp of a girl.

Her birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year so we celebrated 'officially' on Wednesday.  

It turned out to be one of the most 'growing up' birthdays on record because Adele' (after much yearning and begging) was given the very grown-up gift of real earrings (and, as she calls it, getting her ears SPEARED.)  

Ears speared is a very grown up thing indeed.

She did marvelously and was very brave and VERY pleased with herself afterward.  

On top of the very grown-up ears being speared, she and I also decided it was time for her to get a hair cut.  I can't be sure but I am pretty confident this was her first haircut...ever.

Her wisps were beginning to get the best of her and probably should have been done a long time ago. 

  It took me so long to do it because...well, I was petrified of messing up.  And really, she has always been my wispy girl.  I wasn't sure if I was ready to let that go.

But I did.

I watched every last second of this video (which could have been half as long as it was) and felt prepared enough (it didn't look so hard!) until I took that first 4 inch cut.  

ACK!

After that first cut, I was a wreck the whole time! 

 I was pretty darn proud of myself when I finished!  

And, best of all, was this:

Adele' asked for a donut cake this year and picked out some donut holes for it.  Darling girl, she made my life so easy!

I was so thankful for this little bit of grace because the rest of the week looked like this:

Wednesday: Birthday.  Birthday Cake.  Birthday Feast. Presents. Ear Spearing. Cut hair x 4.
Thursday: Thanksgiving.  Prepare food to take to Thanksgiving Feast. Gone all day.
Friday: Make wedding gift and sew two dresses for the girls to wear on Saturday to....
Saturday: my brother Jonathan's wedding! Iron clothes. Photograph event.  Gone all day.  Dancing.  Exhaustion.
Sunday: church meal.  Make food.  And cocoa. Do nothing the rest of the afternoon.

I am so thankful for my smart, sweet seven-year-old Adele'; her gap-mouthed grin, her golden specked eyes, her contagious giggle and all her endearing little ways.  

A Whole Hand

L

 

There is a birthday girl in the house today!  Adele' is now five years old.  Her giggles haven't stopped since she woke up. 

I can't look at the top picture without my voice cracking and my eyes welling.  It has been ever so long since I felt the warm melting of a newborn on my skin.  sigh There is nothing like that.  Such a sweet moment that was and it happens to be my most favorite picture of all time.  

Five years of sweet curling ups, hugs, kisses, twirling around, skipping and most of all, giggling.  I'm so happy she is five.  I am so happy she is mine.

So today, when the weatherman says to STAY OFF THE ROADS because of sleet and freezing rain and snow squalls; a day I am prone to worry, fret, and fear over my Mister and his work travels, I have the wonderful distraction of baking and decorating a requested birthday cake (a PEACOCK!) and a preparing a requested birthday feast (SAUSAGE,EGGS, FRENCH TOAST), wrapping the few piddly things I have for my girl and most especially, wrapping this new five year old in the family up in hugs.

{P,H,F,R}

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} time again.  Every week that I participate I always think about adding a yummy category.  Pretty, Happy, Funny, Yummy and Real.  This is because I take entirely too many pictures of food.  But still.  I might just surprise you one of these days.
~Pretty~




 It's been quite some time since I posted some flower pictures...like at LEAST two weeks!  (smile) These marigolds are in the midst of watermelons, nasterniums and swisschard in the garden.  They are some of the most beautiful marigolds I have ever seen.  They are enormous.

~Happy~






This is my first week canning for the year.  Up until now, I haven't done a lick. Thanks to the weather being unusually (dare I say it?) FALLISH, it has actually been pleasant work.  Nothing at all like canning in the mid-90's like I am accustomed to.  

~Funny~

Two most recent funnies from this girl:

1)  Setting:  Everyone was in the living room chatting and laughing and doing their own thing.  Matt and I were talking on the couch.

Adele' jumps up and rushes to us and says very seriously and very matter-of-factly "Andwoo dust said a wicked word!"  It was SO funny and SO cute.

The wicked word, I find out later, was HATE.  (gasp!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2) Setting:  The children and I were driving home from the summer reading program at the library.  There had been a dump truck there and there were free construction hats and the children had made dump truck pictures of construction paper and bags of cheesey fish crackers. Since the little children had the cracker bags and not the big children, I asked them to share with the biggles.  From time to time, I would glance back and there was Adele' happily passing out fish crackers.  Then, all of the sudden- a wail from the backseat.

Adele', face red and twisted in torment, cries  "Mama!  I dave all my cwackers away and I didn't have a dingle ONE!" 

(How does one go about giving away all her crackers without realizing it until it is too late?)

~Real~


The pipeline is progressing quickly.  In one week they have cleared all the woods, laid pipe and began digging.  Three piles of timber, all piled up.  I am hoping this might be the thing that gets us over the splitting wood hump.

Up until now, we've split our wood for winter in the same year.  This isn't the best way.  It means the wood isn't terribly "seasoned" and bone dry.  It means that Matt has to split wood in the heat of summer instead of in winter when it really ought to be done.  It means sometimes not having ENOUGH wood and scrambling around about March.

I'd love to be able to split wood for NEXT year and burn the wood split last year.  With all the logs piled up and dragged from the woods, it might be possible.  There are plenty of trees to get started on that goal.

This is me looking for a silver lining.  ;-)

Hoppy

I was writing a letter and set the timer on my camera, mistakenly putting it on seven snaps instead of one.  At the same time, a little Addie Mae came bounding through the dining room.  

Watching each photo progress made me laugh.  

Let's get the full idea, shall we?

*Sigh*

It's all in the cheerful little hop at the end, isn't it?

I wanna be that cheerful.