A Deer In the Garden

A Perk for the Work

When one goes about bringing children into this world you can expect a lot of things- but one thing I never anticipated was the amount of things UNEXPECTED.

Children add so much humor and fun to life.  

Like when they walk through the door, talking casually as usual but with hair flipped over in a backwards ponytail and some reading glasses and you turn around from what you are doing, take a double/triple take and then just bust a gut.

Or when you discover in the midst of entertaining company that, even after the frantic 'get the house in order for company flurry', there is a measuring spoon taped to the doorpost.  

Why is a measuring spoon taped to the doorpost?   One doesn't ask those sorts of questions.  

I have erased from my memory so many of those wonderful things that pop out of childrens' mouths because I have intended to write them down but never did.  Here are two that are fresh enough for me to still remember:

~~~~~~

Me:  doling out a handful of those hard, crunchy Cheetos to the children.  A rare treat.

Judah, ever curious about what he is eating: "Mama.  Are these tiger bones we are eating?"

~~~~~~~

I am working with the children on memorizing the books of the Bible.  Thanks to this cd (song #12), we've got the New Testament downpat.  We were working on the Old testament a while ago and it was Adele's turn to recite.  Genesis.  Exodus.  Leviticus.  Letters.  

(Guess she got her letters and numbers mixed up.)

Children make life so much more fun.

Her First Noel

The best Christmas gift ever... we were blessed to finally meet our little Tiddle on December 22nd.

We were discharged from the hospital the next day, just in time to put children to bed the eve before Christmas Eve.  The next day, it was wrapping presents and filling stockings.  The next, Christmas Day.  The next, more wrapping and last minute doings for a Christmas party.  The next day, more wrapping and last minute makings and doings for another family Christmas.  Every day was filled with bustle, every evening filled with a little girl who I can't seem to stop staring at.

I have fallen asleep sitting up more times than I can count but I love those middle of the night feedings when we wonder at one another by the glow of Christmas lights.  I can't stop watching her little face twist and turn into these impossibly sweet expressions, I can't fathom the sweetness of her little head of black hair nestled in the crook of my neck, I am utterly undone when she squints her eyes to peek at this, her new world.

 Today is our first day without some pressing holiday commitment looming ahead and a list of things to finish up quickly before it arrives.  It has been glorious.  Now that there is a moment to breathe, I wanted to finally introduce you to this beautiful little soul.

Ineke Rose Newman

(pronounced Ee-nuh-kuh)

She has a head full of dark hair that surprises everyone but me and a pucker that forms a perfect little heart.  Her fingernails are so tiny they almost don't exist and I don't know what color eyes she will have because her 'bright eyed and bushy tailed' look is actually just a whisper above a squint.

She smells delicious, the back of her neck is the softest thing on planet earth and she looks like the exact same child I have birthed four times before.

We are absolutely and utterly besotten.

Birth photos and details to come soon...

We've Got Tricks

Having four children keeps one on their toes.

Having a Judah ups that ante exponentially.   

He is fearless, he is strong and he is capable of doing things much bigger kids than he are too scared to try.  

He is exhausting.

All summer he has been riding his bike faster and faster, crazier and crazier.  He started popping  wheelies and they got bigger.  He started sitting on the back tire.  He started standing up.  He would try and ride without hands.  All kid stuff, right?

And then one day he said "Hey Mama!  Look!" And he was standing on the SEAT while riding his bike.

He was four years old. 

And then one day, giving his mother a heart attack by standing on the seat wasn't good enough.  He had to do it one legged.

Judah and Corynn just had their birthdays at the beginning of this month.  

Now, he is five.  Now, she is twelve.

He had a bloody nose here- hence the headtip.  ;-)

It is a hard thing to know just how to give these children of mine just what they need, even when it doesn't come natural to me.  It is hard, as their Mama, to know just how to encourage them and not stifle them while still protecting them.  Some of the things they do (or think or question) I am just not ready for- but I have to actively try NOT to hinder them just because I am not ready for it.  

This is new territory for me and I am finding it hard to find that balance.  I want to hold them close and keep them my little dependent ducklings forever but at the same time, it is almost magical, seeing these little children unfurl into creative, unique persons with skills and talents, joys and passions all their own.

How will I raise an almost teenager?!?  A girl who is working to discover who she is and what she stands for.  

How will I survive a Judah?  A boy who spends most of his time flabbergasting me and the rest of it exasperating me?

How will I do right by all my children?  

I don't know much but I do know one thing: 

I'll be doing it on my knees.

Another Judah-ism

Corynn : Have school buses been around for a long time?

Me: Oh, they've been around for a while.  They were around when I was a girl.

Judah:  You are a girl.

Me:  When I was a YOUNG girl.

Judah:  You ARE a young girl! 

Me: (chuckling by now)  When I was a young girl in SCHOOL.

Judah:  You ARE a young girl in school!  

Ah yes, we homeschool.  Which means, I guess I am still very much in the midst of school.

 Wise beyond his three years, that boy is.

Little Bits

This picture was taken BEFORE I put our flannel sheets on the bed.  Flannel sheets make everything right with the world.

Matt has a bit of a project that he is working on.  He borrowed his Dad's trailer and got some gravel from down by the creek to tidy up the back of the barn.  

This is what it looked this past summer~ (under the junk on the ground lies the remnant of a concrete silo that Matt had to break apart and move.

As you can see, it is a far cry from what it once was! 

Matt has plans to build an 'addition' to this spot, an overhang where he can store equipment out of the weather.  You'll be seeing that soon enough, if I know my man the way I think I do.

Andrew set up a cow museum.  He is obsessed.

 Then Corynn set up a horse museum.  She is not as obsessed about horses as Andrew is about cows, but you wouldn't know it from this picture.

Speaking of obsessed....

Have you ever tried making a galette without parchment paper?   I had big plans for serving a rustic apple galette with a brown butter caramel sauce for some company and then it totally flopped 15 minutes before they arrived.  I quickly tossed the apples in a pan and made apple crisp instead. 

 Maybe a galette will be in my future- but I will have to be smart enough to do the crust right on the pan next time.  (duh.)

We have a no-feet-on-the-table policy in this house.  Corynn must not have got the memo.

One Saturday morning breakfast,  I served cinnamon apple oatmeal.  This led to a discussion on cereal grains and what constitutes them, which led to a whiteboard presentation of grasses and what constitutes them, which led to mono and dicotyledons and what exactly they are which led to the dissection of an apple and a seed 'helicopter'.

Matt's contribution to our home learning. 

On Thanksgiving, the girls asked to have curls in their hair.  Then they asked me to as well.  Here we are, all curlified.