October

Will spent the month of October resting, healing, and eating the healthy foods that I have been cooking for him.  I spent the month of October taking care of the kids, the house, cleaning and cooking.  Will is still gluten, sugar, dairy and processed food-free.  Despite his healthy eating, the steroids he is on are packing the pounds on him, and he is still not back to his old self.  To be honest, he has been quite cranky and I can't help but think that I would be too, without sugar and carbs.  Funny enough to me, Will says he doesn't really miss the sugar and carbs but life without cheese is no life at all.  The kids and I try to eat cheese, carbs and sugar when Will is at work.  Below are pictures of one of our favorite fall snacks - caramel sauce with pretzels, apples, strawberries and kiwi.  The center picture below is of a gluten-free steak and gravy with purple mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli.  Other favorite fall snacks include making what we have titled, a "harvest mix" with mini pretzels, peanuts, cheese crackers, mini chocolates and candy corn (I found a dye-free version this year so Lucy can eat them!).  With this mix, I have discovered that candy corn and peanuts eaten together taste just like a PayDay candy bar and I can't get enough of it.  Unfortunately, the dye-free candy corn is all sold out now and so I will have to wait until next fall to try this winning combo again.

When we ate gluten, dairy and sugar free 10 years ago and got Will into remission it was all new to us.  Now, ten years later, cooking with almond milk, gluten free flours and ghee isn't that crazy and I have lots of recipes that I can make, or can easily adapt to fit Will's diet.  We have been eating really tasty and healthy foods!  The tough part is that most convenient and restaurant foods are out of the question, so three meals a day, seven days a week are on me.  Thank God for modern conveniences like the freezer and Pinterest!  Will's health has been a great push for us to eat healthier and to do a better job at meal planning - all things that I want to do, but generally don't pull off to the level that I would like.

Our garden was not very fruitful this summer but my herbs did great, so I was able to harvest enough plantain and mint to last me until next spring.  In the above pictures you can see our harvest from October - plantain, mint, a couple of handfuls of raspberries, two cucumbers, one apple (from two trees!) a handful of rhubarb and two tomatoes.  We haven't put much time into our garden and so I suppose that we shouldn't be surprised by these results.  My honeybees did not arrive in time to pollinate my apple trees this past spring, so it is lucky we even got one apple.  We did end up buying beets, tomatoes and green beans in bulk from the Farmer's Market to compensate for our garden harvest and I was able to freeze several gallon sized bags of tomatoes, and can some dilly beans and pickled beets.  I've come to the conclusion that I just can't help myself when it comes to being in the kitchen - if I'm not cooking, I'm making Harding Honey products so one way or another, I must like being there.  BUT, I especially like being in the kitchen when Will is home and keeping the kids helped and happy so that I can cook and concoct in peace.  If Will isn't home, a movie is the next best thing.

It has been a challenge to say the least, cooking for Will and taking care of all of the household and kids needs while Will recuperates.  It has been lonely too, as Will has been so tired this past month that as soon as the kids were in bed, Will was sound asleep on the couch.  Below are pictures I took of moments in time where I couldn't help but throw my hands up and try my hardest to laugh instead of yell.  In clockwise order from top left: a random pile of clothes strewn by my children in the kitchen, our lunch for in between their piano lesson and art class brought to the car by Lucy and placed on the passenger seat with the lid taken off so that it could cool(?!) and then flung across the car when I stopped too fast for a red light (yes, that is rice), me trying to find an important piece of paper in a stack of papers that hadn't been filed since last year, and Emma coming back in the house to wash her hands (she was told to go directly to the car and get in it but instead found dirt somewhere!?) when we were already late for yoga class.

Despite the marathon type feel of getting the kids to their classes on time, we always enjoy them once we are there.  In clockwise order from top left below: Emma and Violet with a friend on count day at the homeschool partnership we are a part of, Lucy with a friend at count day, Violet and I taking a rainy day walk at the park while Lucy and Emma are in their yoga class, and finally, the girls with a friend at art class.

Lucy's vision therapy continues to go well, and Will and I are so grateful for Lucy's great attitude, even despite the large amount of homework she has to do every day for her therapy.  The craziness is that if Lucy makes up her mind she doesn't like something, you can forget about it being a pleasant experience for anyone in the house.  I asked her why she was being so accommodating with her vision therapy and she said simply, "because I want to be able to read."  Us too Lucy, us too.  In the top two pictures below, Lucy exhibiting some of her homework, the bottom two pictures are of Violet and Emma doing preschool math while we wait for Lucy at her vision therapy and finally, the picture in the center is of a drawing Lucy did in her journal about the third book in the Penderwick series that we listened to during all of our driving to and from classes.  Lucy is making great progress in her reading and writing and we are so glad that we have invested our time and money into vision therapy for her.

Another task I took on without Will this past month was shoe shopping for all three girls.  Out of all the things I have had to do without him this past month, this was by far the hardest.  Of course shoe shopping meant going to a mall, which meant Lucy wanting to go into clothing stores, which meant Lucy and Emma both wanting to buy clothes, which meant I ended up being trapped inside the mall with three girls, multiple potty breaks and dealing with dressing rooms and making sure that I had all three girls with me at all times.  I don't normally go to malls and being in one with three girls was super stressful for me.  I was constantly worried I was going to lose one, and the demands on my wallet were crazy!  If you buy something for one, then you have to buy it for all three or deal with the whining and unfairness for eternity.  Never again will I take them mall shopping alone until they are at least old enough for me to not worry about losing them - which may be when they are all taller than the clothing racks!  There was a point in time when all four of us were in a Gap dressing room, each of us trying on something when I had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for my three girls but it passed as quickly as it came when Violet and Emma started bouncing off of the walls in the overcrowded dressing room and Lucy started whining about why I wouldn't buy her ALL of the clothes.  My response had nothing to do with the comment she had made moments earlier about how my rear end looked in the pair of jeans I was thinking about buying.

Give me a trail in the woods with my three girls any day over the mall!  Fortunately, Mother Nature must have taken pity on me and knowing that I was looking forward to fall after a rough summer decided to give me an extra month of it.  The weather this past month has been GORGEOUS, and whenever I got the chance, you better believe I was outside enjoying it.  We took many hikes...

...mostly just the girls and I, but at times with friends and family and even once with Will.

We enjoyed lots of walks around the neighborhood and through the cemetery that I love so much...

...and enjoyed watching a local family of deer with three little ones just like me with no buck around either.  Maybe he was recouping from a health setback too?  Either way, Charlie also enjoyed watching the deer in our backyard as well.

I swear Charlie knew something was wrong with Will.  For the six days Will was in the hospital, Charlie sat at our front door most of the days until I put him in the garage for the night.  On the night we brought Will home, Charlie could hardly contain himself and literally climbed up Will's leg and into his arms.  

My father-in-law mowed the lawn for us this past month and by the end of this month when the leaves started falling, Will was up to raking them - with our help of course.  The kids brewed soups in buckets in the garden, and enjoyed all of the colors the falling leaves and dried out flowers gave them for their stews.

We enjoyed the nature center with friends, and a park date with more friends...

In the bottom left hand picture above we had to return to the park to find my tea mug that I had forgotten earlier that day.  Lucy jumped out to grab it while we waited in the car.  We then proceeded to watch Lucy go down each slide with my tea mug held hostage and Emma and Violet crying that they wanted to play too.  It gave me a good laugh, but come on!  We were of course late for something and needed to go!

We enjoyed time at the Farmer's Market with friends, and even had a single mom dinner with six kids between us that was livened up by a bag of jelly beans that were mystery flavors - the green could be berry or toothpaste, the orange peach or puke, and the brown chocolate pudding or canned dog food.  What a riot it was watching our kids eat the jelly beans and spit them into red solo cups!

We spent time with family this past month, with cousins and uncles and grandparents.  Will's mom had a quadruple heart bypass surgery this past month and so we had a chance to be on the helping end of family emergencies.  This was the first scary surgery for our parents since my dad had cancer a couple of years ago.  Needless to say, we are all relieved that the surgery went well and she is recovering at home now.

We celebrated Will's birthday and had a great day, especially when it came time for Will to blow out his candles and make a wish and realize that we are so grateful to have him here with us.  Here's to better health for this next year of his life!

After Will's birthday was Halloween...here are the girls below at their dance class...

And here are the girls at the annual Farmer's Market trick or treating.  They made really cute mummy lanterns out of mason jars and medical gauze this year at the market.

 Pumpkin carving went as expected... with the scariest faces being that of me and the kids.

Up until the last moment Emma and I argued about what her costume was going to be.  I had it all planned out, to use the adorable ice cream cone and cupcake costume that Lucy and Emma wore a couple of years ago - this was going to be the last year that it would fit Emma and Violet, and so I wanted them to wear it.  Lucy could be the baker and it would be one of my last chances to have all three kids in coordinated costumes.  Lucy was on board with my idea, Violet didn't care, but Emma had other and more obscure ideas.  She really wanted to be Maid Marion from Robin Hood - but the Maid Marion who is a fox, in the Disney version of Robin Hood.  I just didn't have the time or resources to pull that off this year and so I kept trying to convince her to be the cupcake.  She put the cupcake on one time for me to take a picture, and then we compromised and I let her be a princess with an outfit we already had.  

We went trick or treating with friends and one of our friends was a vending machine that was the most amazing Halloween costume I have ever seen.  It got to the point while we were trick or treating that we would pass people in the street and hear them talking about the vending machine.  At one point, I just started proudly telling people, "I'm with her" when they asked if I had seen the vending machine.  A great time was had by all, and the weather was the best we've had since my kids have been trick or treating.

Halloween was a great way to end the month, and November is already looking up for us as we are still enjoying gorgeous weather, Will is regaining his strength and the holidays are just around the corner.

Violet at Two and a Half

Violet is officially half way through being two.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again,  I love having a toddler in the house.  Her fierce love, her happiness and her sadness are all so straightforward compared to the other members of our family.  

I think the reason why I love the toddler age so much is because I love the affection and cuddles that come with toddlers.  They speak effortlessly to my love language, and I can speak so easily to theirs.  We both have the ability to make each other happy at the same time.  Here Violet is below, snuggling with Will on his first morning home from his six day hospital stay.  She had forgotten that we had picked Will up the night before from the hospital, so she was so excited that morning when she woke up and found him home.  "MY PAPA BEAR!!!"  In the right hand picture below, I am snuggling Violet in our favorite sweater, that wraps around both of us while I "play baby" and feed her water from a bottle.  Violet is obsessed with bottles lately, which I find interesting since during her babyhood, she had such a traumatic time eating from a bottle.   

I try to remind myself of the merits of toddlers, as I deal with the mischief, tantrums, potty accidents and the general inability to go anywhere fast.  In the top picture below I found her in the closet playing on the iPad.  In the bottom picture below, she is falling asleep after throwing a fit.

Fortunately Violets tantrums are short lived.  Lucy still holds the title for Tantrum Perseverance in our house.  Violet usually throws a fit until I put her in her room, at which point she stops immediately and comes downstairs just as the timer is ringing at the end of two minutes.  Her attitude is then one of apologetic sweetness and says things like, "Okay, mama."  "Sorry, mama."  "Violet happy now."  

She is starting to phase out of naps and some days really doesn't need one, especially if she slept enough the night before.  Notice I didn't say slept well.  Good enough is what we take these days.  We are having good luck with remedies given by our homeopathic doctor that are helping Violet sleep, and helping her with her latest sleeping hurdle - night terrors.  We had five days in a row this past month where she kept sleeping worse and worse than her normal night time struggles.  The fifth night she was up every half hour screaming out with night terrors, and inconsolable by Will or I.  It was so very stressful and I didn't get more than an hour of sleep total that night.  Fortunately our homeopathic doctor had a remedy that worked the very next night and she has been sleeping better than she has in a really long time.

Violet may not sleep that great, but she continues to eat really well.  The other night we did Italian take out, and we ordered family style several different entrees to share amongst us, and to ensure that everyone liked at least one item.  We ordered meat sauce, meatballs, Italian wedding soup, fettuccine Alfredo and pepperoni pizza.  Violet ate EVERYTHING, her favorites being the "big" meat balls and the "baby" sized meatballs from the Italian wedding soup.  The rest of us just watched in awe as she continued to eat and eat and eat.  One of Will's favorite food groups is Italian, and I have to say, the level of pride that he exhibited was like she just learned to ride a bike without training wheels.

Another great thing about two year olds is that they are just happy to go along for the ride with you.  Most of the time for Violet, that means tagging along while her sisters have their vision therapy, dance, yoga, swim, catechism, piano or art lessons.  I have decided to capitalize on this time with Violet while we wait together for Lucy and Emma's various lessons to finish.  I pack a bag full of things to do, always including story books and then various little games or toys that she and I can play with together.  I am cherishing this time, away from household pressures, with just Violet and I.  It is so much easier to be fully present with Violet when I don't have mom chores hanging over my head or the interruptions of two other kids.  Violet and I get quite a bit of "special time" as she calls it, throughout the week and I am very grateful for it, especially since our homeschooling mornings require her to play independently for the most part.  Here she is below, reading stories with me while the girls are enjoying their swim lessons.  I love everything about the below picture, from the curve of her chubby, kissable cheeks, to the fact that her baby hand is the same size as the one pictured in the book "Ten Fingers and Ten Toes".

 Violet is very playful and loves to wrestle with Will.  An open invitation for Violet to wrestle with Will includes any point in time he isn't standing.  As soon as he lays on the couch or in bed, sits on the floor or in a chair - he is fair game.  Here she is below, tackling an unsuspecting Will as he plays a game with Emma.  In the bottom pictures below, Violet is playing various stages of House with her babies.

This past month has been extremely challenging with Violet's potty training.  Her night time diapers have been leaking or just flat out not working and she has regressed from being potty trained for naps.    On top of that, she has been having at least one accident a day, usually in the evening or while playing outside and I have been doing so much laundry it is ridiculous.  Of course she pees on the part of her bed that isn't covered by the flannel pad (any sort of plastic or vinyl waterproof mattress cover results in her overheating) and so the latex mattress acts a sponge, and is impossible to clean.  Or, on our first floor which is 90% hardwood, she manages to find the one square of carpet to have her accidents, over and over and over again.  And thank God we have leather couches, as I shudder to think the state our cushions would be in if they weren't so water resistant.  Don't even get me started on the amount of time I have spent in public restrooms either, as she LOVES using public bathrooms and is obsessed with them whenever we go out.  It is such a process to have her use a public restroom as the toilets are too big, the sinks are too high and the germs are just too much.  For a one hour church service, we will visit the restroom on average three times.  For a grocery store visit, at least once and for a wedding reception we went to last weekend, I lost count after five visits.  I keep reminding myself that this too is a phase, and I will miss the happy things that go with the challenges when they are gone.

I love my toddler and the cuddles, affection, and humor outshine the tantrums, sleeplessness, and potty accidents!