Our End of Summer Vacation

As the summer winded down for us and Will headed back to work, I started panicking and regretting our decision to stay home this summer.  I crave time up north, and without at least a couple of days each summer spent in the aura of Michigan beach and pine tree, I can't fathom getting through another Michigan winter.  After several weeks of searching, I finally found a little cottage an hour away from Will's work that was available for Labor Day weekend.  We found a loop hole in our one hour radius with Violet (we can only handle her car screaming for an hour), by picking up dinner and taking it to Will's work.  After we ate dinner, we left Will's car in the parking lot of his school and headed together as a family to the cottage on the lake.  We arrived in the pouring rain, well after the kids bed times but we were able to handle Violet's crying.  Here we are below in clockwise order from the top left: waiting for our carryout at our favorite restaurant before bringing it to Will at his work, our rented cottage, the girls riding in the car listening to a wonderful audio book entitled "The Penderwicks" about four sisters time spent at a summer cottage, and finally, a picture Lucy took of the sunrise on the first morning of our vacation.  Bless her that she used my phone to document it and let us sleep instead!

Still scarred by our up north vacation last summer, I took every precaution I could think of in planning this last minute trip.  It was still extremely stressful packing for the trip by myself as Will had to work up until the very last moment, but I was able to cut a lot of corners since this cottage wasn't in the middle of nowhere like the one we rented last year.  Even still, I'd pack a box of items and Violet would unpack it just as fast.  Lucy and Emma couldn't stop fighting and the clock was ticking for us to get to the cottage before check-in time was over.  We pulled it together though, after I had a melt down around lunch time and told the girls we weren't going as it wasn't worth the trouble.  After my melt down, Lucy and Emma did an amazing job helping me pack the car and clean up the house and I have to say, the rest of the trip went off without a hitch once I was able to get our luggage arranged in such a manner that all four doors and the trunk of our car could close.  I stand by my theory of there being no free ride in life though, as the amount of stress I felt the day packing for the trip was probably equal to four regular days of parenting.

Lake Huron was a flight of stairs away from our cottage and it was perfect in every way.  The beach was private, and all ours for the next four days.

The beach was very rocky, but we had planned ahead and brought water shoes for everyone.  Violet was not a fan of the feel of sand between her toes despite having water shoes on or the fact that the waves kept moving back and forth along the shoreline.  We timed our beach play for the mornings and late afternoons to avoid the hottest part of the day for Violet's sake, but she still spent the majority of her time on a blanket under the beach umbrella or in mine or Will's arms.  She did take a nap one afternoon under the beach umbrella, and the rest of us had a memorable time in the water while she slept.

We found lots of sea glass and fossils along the beach, and even found a pocket of clay near the water that we made pinch pots with.

We visited a nearby lighthouse and I climbed to the top with Lucy and Emma while Will and Violet took our picture from below.

We also crossed a super long suspension bridge at a local park, walked the pier, ate frozen custard, and explored a near by playground.

 We enjoyed campfire meals every day, and marveled at the view from our cottage out across the lake.

It was good for us to get out of our element.  I had contemplated packing my tea pot since the cottage owner mentioned there wasn't one but at the last minute I decided it wasn't worth taking up space in our already packed car with a tea pot.  I changed my mind once we were at the cottage as it was so chilly and damp at night.  So we picked up some tea at the local grocery store and I fashioned a double boiler out of an aluminum pot and a glass measuring cup and never did I appreciate and savor a cup of tea as I did each morning and evening on our vacation!  This was just a small example of why the trip was good for us.  I also felt so much love and appreciation for our house when we returned, especially my own shower and my own bed.  It was a restful and memorable little trip, and I can welcome fall with no regrets from the summer of 2015!

Violet Plays at 17 Months

 

This girl has a grin that can brighten any day.  Which is a good thing, because the days are long and the sleep is short with this one!  We are still trying to find the perfect recipe for sleep with Violet.  This month we are trying out a big girl bed of her own, under a ceiling fan with a gate on her bedroom door.

This has helped her sleep a tiny bit better but we are now trying to figure out our next challenge - how to keep her dry for the entire night.  Because she doesn't sweat she drinks more fluids to maintain her body temperature and as a result, we have yet to find a diaper to hold it all.  Here she is below, enjoying a plastic ice cream cone while she tries out the potty chair.  They say that when kids start to enjoy potty humor that they are ready for potty training.  Violet officially thinks farts are funny, and will go out of her way to pass gas for a laugh, and will also point her finger accusingly at one of us and laugh when she hears anything resembling a toot.  Potty training makes life more difficult, not easier, for a good stretch of time so I am officially over potty humor, meaning I am not ready to potty train.  So we shall continue our quest for a diaper that holds it all.

The biggest change this past month is Violet has evolved from destroying the house in her free time, to playing.  Don't get me wrong, she still destroys the house, but now she is actually playing while she makes a mess.  She loves feeding and changing her baby dolls diapers as well as pushing them in a stroller and snuggling them too.  There is no shame in taking a sip from the baby doll's bottle either.

She also seems to have a passion for shoes.  She loves walking around in different family member's shoes, and she has become quite good at walking around in Lucy and Emma's dress up heels.  In the bottom right hand picture Violet surprised me one morning by making a pretend cup of tea, complete with pretend honey and a play tea bag.  She handed it to me and proudly said, "TEA!"

Violet spends her entire day either playing with me, or practically yanking my finger off as she tries to drag me away from whatever I am doing so that we can play.  She is very determined and usually will not be convinced to play with Lucy or Emma, despite their trying to please her.  Fortunately if Will is home, he is a suitable playmate in her eyes.  She loves to get us to play with her by saying, "Roll?" for roll the ball, "Ride" for go for a basket ride, "Book" for read a book, and "Bo-Boat" for playing Motor Boat, which is similar to Ring Around the Rosie.  Once she has recruited myself or Will for "Bo-Boat" she will then search out every other member of the family and drag them over to join in "Bo-Boat" with us. 

It is just amazing to me the changes this past month in her play.  As long as I am sitting on the ground near her, she will do some play by herself.  The other day I slyly watched as she pushed a stuffed dog around on the floor while she kept saying "Ruff!  Ruff!"  She steals my heart when she plays a game that I have entitled Mama Polo.  Think Marco Polo but replace the words with Violet chanting my name in a sweet voice and me responding to each chant of Mama with Violet's name.  This usually takes place on car rides or stroller walks.  "Mama."  "Violet."  "Mama."  "Violet."  And on and on and on.

She still is up to her usual trouble, which she times nicely for when I am preoccupied with Lucy and Emma doing schoolwork.  The other day I caught her trying to climb on top of the stove.  Her efforts were foiled when the oven door handle she was using to prop herself up slowly opened the oven door instead causing her to hit her mouth on the door as she fell backwards.  Fortunately, the oven was not on, however it did make me wonder why our newish oven did not come with an oven door lock.  Our old oven had one, and at least now I know she can't be left in the kitchen alone if the oven is on.  Here she is below caught chewing on a stolen plastic eye dropper from a science kit in the left hand picture.  In the right hand picture you can see the results of chewing and swallowing a piece of green chalk.

Based on the above pictures, Violet is definitely teething!  She popped her sixth tooth this past month which was met with much celebrating.  We have been told to expect just a few teeth in Violet's mouth, so each tooth, no matter how it's shaped, is cause for rejoicing.  It is much easier to cap a misshapen tooth than it is to put an implant in.  Around two and a half years old we will begin the process of getting her fitted for partial dentures, and they will use her existing teeth to anchor it in.  Her teeth don't hold her back too much when it comes to eating, however she does prefer softer foods and is my number one fan of the soups I love making.  I can't tell you how great it is to have one of my children appreciate my cooking!  Just having a couple of front teeth has not held her back from corn on the cob or apples though, and she is always so proud to eat food like her big sisters.  New words this past month include "apple" and "cheese stick".

Since receiving Violet's diagnosis, Will and I have come up with canned responses for when people make comments about Violet's appearance.  We have decided that the responses aren't really for the people asking, but more for confirming to Violet that she is loved, beautiful, and made exactly how she is supposed to be.  This past month I thought I was facing my first real challenge.  It was the girls first yoga class of the year, and I was dropping Lucy and Emma off while Violet sat in her stroller and ate her lunch.  Our beloved yoga teacher was excited to see the girls after a summer off but when she looked at Violet she immediately exclaimed, "What is wrong with her mouth???"  I took a deep breath and I launched into my speech.  After saying far too much, our sweet yoga teacher looked up at me with the most confused look on her face and asked, "But why would that make her mouth BLEED???"  Shocked, I leaned down to look at Violet's mouth and saw red, dripping all over her face.  It took me a second to realize that it was raspberry juice and not blood, at which point I started nervously laughing and turned the color of a raspberry myself.  After explaining to their teacher that Violet just finished eating a bowl of raspberries you could have cut the awkwardness with a knife.  When I returned to pick up the girls after their class was over, their teacher had recovered from her shock and had lots of loving questions and affirmations for us.  I regret that I wasn't recovered enough to apologize for the information overload.  Most importantly, I realized that I need to shorten my canned response and to always assume less is more when it comes to information!  I just hope Violet knows that I am learning as I go, but am oh so proud of her and her beautiful smile.

The Threads of August

I've been really thinking about the purpose of this blog lately, and feeling vulnerable for putting my life out there for all to see each and every month.  It would be safer for me to keep the fabric of my life private.  As I have mentioned in the past though, I believe this blog was a gift from Luke and that he has given me the push to put my unfinished tapestry up on this blog for all of the world to see.  This leaves me feeling exposed and nervous because I am still a novice and my work isn't done yet.  Most of the time I am rewarded by encouragement, love and a renewed commitment to what I am doing as well as positive accountability that keeps my writing regular.  Lately though, I have felt repeatedly judged and attacked, hit by ammunition taken from the very details I have shared on this blog. 

I will not let the critics of the world ruin the design of my tapestry or alter my vision for it.  As lonely and as painful as the stitching may feel at times, I will keep weaving this tapestry with the thread that began with Luke.  Although the pictures and stories tend to show the front of the fabric, I hope that I am providing enough behind the scenes glimpses of the back of the fabric that you know the real me, and that myself and Will and my kids can look back one day and read the step by step story of how our family's tapestry came to be.  It's such a fine balance between a realistic, truthful portrayal and trying not to hurt anyone's feelings while respecting the privacy of my husband and kids too.  There are some thoughts and feelings that I leave unwritten, that are a tangled mess underneath the fabric.  Sometimes I figure out how to resolve the issue and smooth the stitches and can write about it here in a nice, tidy, happy-ending type story.  Other times the colors our family chooses to sew in, or the placement of my stitches make no sense to the people around us.  I may like purple (a lot) and you may like green, but both colors add to a beautiful world and each have their place in the rainbow.  I may not make it clear that I was up all night, stressing about what step to take next or how to tackle a stitch I have never done before but I want you to know that I have no more experience at this tapestry of life than the next person and am simply doing the best I can and would appreciate your unconditional love and support and an openness to see that although I may stitch differently than you, I think that your stitches are beautiful too.

I am starting to become more bold with my pattern choices and less patient with the critics.  If a thread keeps breaking, or tangling over and over again I am going to try my best to work with the materials I have but at some point I will have to decide if that particular material is no longer meant to be in the tapestry of my family.  I am now juggling multiple threads and I feel like once my glittery and fine thread named Violet was introduced that I lost the ability to balance some of the threads that were continually making my fingers raw.  But here's the good news.  I am at the point in my weaving now that I am okay with letting some threads go so that I can focus on what will make this tapestry my masterpiece - Will, Lucy, Emma and Violet.  If you have a problem with how I sew but aren't putting any effort into your own sewing, then your opinion is not worth my time.  I've realized that the people in my life that are busy putting their best into the tapestry of their life have no time or agenda to judge my handiwork but can instead come along side me and offer encouragement and support on this project called life that we are all in.

So with love, light and courage, here is my family's August summed up in pictures and stories.

My sister Jane was in town for a couple of weeks before her big move to the east coast.  I am still in denial that she is now a full 12 hours away, but it is slowly sinking in.  We had a memorable trip to IKEA with her, to help her pick out the most stylish and comfy furniture and home accessories for her new place.

My sister and I did not get along when we were growing up, and the relationship I have with her now is my light at the end of the tunnel with my own daughters and their incessant fighting.  Here they are below taking good care of each other, which is why I took a picture, because I wanted to remember it.

I've heard that sisters fighting is completely normal but it just wears me down and leaves me feeling angry.  I tell the girls repeatedly to imagine someone smacking or being mean to the person you love most in the world.  It's a frustrating feeling.  Now imagine that the people you love most in the world are being mean to each other.  It's like a double whammy and it pushes me over the brink of insanity when my beloved babies are mean to each other.

We spend a lot of time together, and I think that is part of the reason that tempers flare and patience is short.  Our house is not big by most definitions and so space is limited and I feel like we are drowning in stuff.  Violet is always getting into the older girls toys which of course have numerous tiny pieces which end up all over the house.  Lucy and Emma both are creative with their play, and so regular household items like staples, tape rolls, potato chip clips and empty tissue boxes are regularly found stuffed in corners and under furniture.  There is nothing like stepping on a Lego that your sister left laying around to put you in a bad mood.  But here's the thing - I wouldn't trade my kids, my house, or my life for the world.  No one said it was going to be easy, and just because it is hard doesn't mean I am doing it wrong.  Sometimes life is just hard.  I am hoping the investments I am making now will pay off when they are older and that all of the fighting will just be funny stories to us, reminisced over Christmas dinner.  In the meantime, I am not going to let life being hard stop me from moving toward the dream of a close knit family who enjoys being together.

Some of the things we are trying to learn as a family is what to do when we are in a bad mood.  I say, when life gets tough, go outside and pick flowers.  It is impossible to stay in a bad mood when picking flowers!  Especially if you then give the bouquet as a peace offering to your mom.  In the below right hand picture, I am getting ready to throw some left over seed bombs which is also a great way to dispel frustration while also helping the environment!

Petting our loving cat Charlie always puts us in a good mood too.  There is something about his purring that just radiates peace and calm and love into us that I think Charlie may hold the key to world peace.  How can you stay mad with a friendly fur ball looking adoringly into your eyes?  Charlie continues to scare us though, as this past month we took our car into the dealership for some recall parts and when we went back to pick it up the mechanics gave us a kitten collar that they found in the engine.  Thank God it was a break away collar, as I shudder to think what may have happened to our Charlie.  In the top left picture, Charlie enjoyed spending time on both floors of a doll house our neighbor garbage picked for the girls.  Charlie even got a kick out of using the doll house door to come and go.

Observing nature also helps to improve our spirits.  In the top right hand picture the girls released a monarch butterfly on our cousin in heaven's birthday.  If you look super close at the bottom left hand picture you might be able to see a tadpole just above a frog.  The frog just days before looked like the tadpole above him.  It has been amazing to watch the transformations between caterpillar and butterfly and tadpole and frog.

Playing in the sprinkler or even just with the hose is a good way to blow of steam too, and in the bottom left hand picture you can see us chucking seed bombs into the field across the street from our house.  In the bottom right hand picture is a glimpse of what Will loads into our trailer on a regular basis - cat food, chicken feed and free wood chips from the city.  The free part puts Will in a good mood.

 Playing with friends and cousins is a guarantee for a better day...

…and doing crafts together is even better!

We got on a stepping stone kick this summer and had to laugh when Will read the directions on how to mix the concrete.  "Stir the concrete until it reaches brownie batter consistency" the instructions stated.  Will pointed out that as he is super manly, he stirs concrete until it reaches concrete consistency.  Clearly, the instructions were meant for a different target audience.  We used Will's concrete talent for many stones to decorate our garden with and even made my mom a stepping stone for her birthday that I wanted to keep for myself.

Harvesting food from my yard puts me in an amazingly good mood.  Especially when the harvest is my favorite food in the entire world - fresh, ripe peaches.  Peaches are such a finicky fruit, and I am very picky about what constitutes a delicious peach.  The peaches from my front yard were the best peaches I have ever eaten.

So far the peach tree seems to only give us peaches every other year.  I don't know if it's the rarity effect, or if they were that good, but I savored them and even ate them in secret so I wouldn't have to share.  This backfired on me though, as one evening I went to eat a peach after the girls were in bed and realized that the remaining third of my harvest had rotted in the bowl.  This was devastating for me and I learned to never stack peaches.  I also learned sharing is good too.

We harvested tomatoes, pears (two from our tree a bushel from a wild pear tree across the street), peppers and blueberries.  I made more Popsicles, enjoyed my cousin's shagbark hickory syrup on waffles, and made my own crescent dough for a chicken, cheddar and broccoli combo that was heavenly.  I also processed the wild pears into pear sauce, which was super time consuming and I wonder every year if it is worth my time.  The kids love the pear sauce though, and it is like the dessert version of apple sauce.

Despite my excessive dessert making, my kids had a clean bill of health at the dentist this past month too.  I always hold my breath, as if cavities are a reflection on whether or not I am a good parent, even though my rational side knows that this isn't a logical thought process.

 We finished the Outdoor Explorer program that we started with our friends in July...

 …and hit the zoo one more time with Will before he headed back to work for the school year.

We also enjoyed lots of playtime outside including performances put on by the girls with the empty garage as their stage, play doh and science experiments on the picnic table for easy clean up and forts inside when the weather got too hot.

Will cleaned out a section of the basement for me and installed recessed lighting and shelves so that I could have my own honey room.  I am really excited to have a permanent location for my side business and I had fun getting all of my supplies organized, labeled and together in one place.  I have had a horrible year with my bees and will probably get very little honey.  Will accidentally dropped two frames of honeycomb when we were working in the bees this past month and as bad as we felt for damaging the bees hard work, the silver lining was we were able to harvest some honey that we otherwise wouldn't have in good conscience been able to take.  Sorry not sorry.  In the bottom right hand picture Lucy is enjoying a taste of honeycomb and in the bottom left hand picture Will is prepping an order of math posters.  We had a great season for math posters, so our side businesses weren't a complete loss this year.

After much thought and discussion, Will and I have decided to home school Lucy for first grade.  It never occurred to me that this was a decision that other people would feel strongly about.  Will and I feel very strongly about education, and obviously Will's career IS education.  Our view of education is that it is something that is a life long process, and is exciting and integrated into the daily routine of our life.  Homeschooling Lucy for preschool and then kindergarten showed us that it is just an extension of how we already live our life.  We never set out to home school our kids, but feel as though we have been lead to this decision through many baby steps that we believe God directed us through.  We are happy with our decision, despite the opinions of others and the fact that it does not make my life any easier in a lot of ways.  Because of this, it does feel lonely a lot of the time, but again, just because it is uncomfortable and challenging does not mean that we will be detracted from our decision.

After Will went back to work the second week of August, the girls and I started back to school and had a very successful review of last year's lessons.  We viewed the three weeks before public schools headed back to class as a trial period to determine if we were confident in our decision.  Fortunately for us, we are blessed with the ability to have multiple school choices, and if homeschooling turns out to be something that we no longer feel fits our life's goals, we have an excellent school system just a couple of houses down the street from us.  Here the girls are below opening up their curriculum for the new year.  It was like Christmas morning at our house as the girls went through their new books for First Grade and Pre-K.

Violet is our wild card, and that coupled with Lucy and Emma's fighting presents the biggest challenge to pulling off our homeschooling goal.  Usually our routine is that Lucy and Emma do their school work directly after breakfast is cleaned up while Violet systematically destroys the entire first floor of the house.  Here she is below after I found her sucking on a blue and then a yellow bingo dauber.

Perhaps there is just not enough known about homeschooling and that is why it is practically drowning in stereotypes, fear and opinions.  I will be happy to answer any questions people may have about it, as long as they are asked with an open mind and no hidden agenda.  I feel nervous about this post, but it is something that has been on my mind for several months now and situations keep happening that have given me the fuel to post this, and find the courage within me to even continue this blog in the public arena.

This blog has become a steady presence in the fabric of my life.  Writing monthly blog posts is therapeutic for me, and the routine review of my life helps keep me on track with goals and reminds me of how far I've come, overcoming obstacles and realizing dreams.  For now I will trust that the intricate patterns I am figuring out now will become beautifully established in the future, and that the tension of my thread is balanced, my needle is straight and my vision is clear.  If you have loyally followed the weaving of my family's life, free of an agenda but instead with love and support, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I assure you that you have greatly contributed to a one of a kind piece of art.

Our Wild Card at 16 Months

Violet is establishing herself as the comedian of the family.  Her vocabulary has grown so much this past month, and she is definitely using it in her comedy.  The other day Lucy and I were locking horns as we were trying to get everyone in the car to get someplace on time.  As I was buckling Violet into her car seat, I leaned over her and put my face right next to Lucy's and asked, "Who's the boss?"  Silence and a cold stare back from Lucy followed my stern question, so I asked again, "Who's the boss?"  Silence and more icy stares from Lucy until Violet piped up and yelled with glee, "MAMA!!!"  We all burst out laughing and it's safe to say that Violet saved the day.

A couple of days ago, Will came home from work and settled onto the couch to catch up with the girls.  He put his feet up on the ottoman and Violet waddled over and for some reason sniffed his feet which were resting right at her nose level.  As soon as she took a whiff, she recoiled in shock yelling "EWWWWW!"  We laughed so hard that now every time she feels the need to insert some humor she will stick her feet in our face while saying "Ewww" or she will sniff our feet while showing huge disgust.

For better or worse, we can't help but describe Violet as our Wild Card.  Will and I find ourselves telling a story of something we thought we could do and then our surprise as to how Violet foiled our plan.  Things that we assume are simple tasks are often far more complicated with Violet in tow.  A simple trip to the library?  Sounds fun, let's go!  The reality - leaving the children's section with a screaming Violet and apologies left and right to the little boy she yanked a toy from, the books all off of the shelves, and the general volume of noise that surrounds her with me dictating to Lucy and Emma on how to best clean up her wake of destruction while I remove her from the situation.  Or how about the other day, how Lucy, Emma and I thought a trip to the craft store would be a fun diversion in our free time.  Wrong again!  I bought each of the girls a ball of yarn as the exciting first step in teaching them how to knit.  Then we got sidetracked in the scrapbook paper aisle, looking for cute paper to mod podge on top of old baby food jar lids.  The next thing I know I look down and Violet is a tangled mess of yarn in the shopping cart.  I try taking the yarn from her and she starts screaming at the top of her lungs a new word, "MINE!!"  I decide that it's time to go and as I try pushing the cart with my screaming child in it to the check out line, the cart stops dead in it's tracks and I realize there is a trail of yarn wrapping around and down the aisle we just came through.  After Lucy and Emma tracked down the trail of yarn and came back with the end of it we high tailed it to the check out line and of course there was a long line.  No one made eye contact with us as Violet continued yelling "MINE!!" and Lucy, Emma and I tried untangling the mess she had made so that we could pay for the disaster.  When it was our turn, the cashier laughed out loud at the mess and offered me a pair of scissors.  Clouded by my own frugal judgement of wasting the yarn I declined the scissors, and instead said yes to whatever knick knack impulse buy Lucy and Emma asked me for in the check out line.

We got out to the parking lot, found our car and as I tried getting Violet out of the cart I realized that she had knotted herself to the seat.  I wanted to kick myself for not accepting the scissors when they were offered because now I was left with two options - going back into the store with the still screaming Violet to make a fresh new scene with what was left of my dignity or to detangle her myself in the privacy of the oh so public parking lot.  What felt like ten minutes later, with Violet screaming "MINE!!" for all to hear still, I finally got her free and strapped her into her car seat.  My stubborn and cheap self still didn't know when to call it quits though, so I spent another ten minutes detangling the yarn.  In retrospect, I should have just left the cart and gotten in the car and never looked back as the stares and the sweat and the screams were just not worth it.  Hindsight is twenty twenty.  It's a good thing this kid is so cute.

At Violet's well visit this past month the doctor asked how many words Violet knew.  I realized just how much she knows when Lucy, Emma and I started listing them off: hot dog, pop for Popsicle, box for juice box, stuck, up, wow, ow, mine, hi, bye bye, nack for snack, slide, nigh nigh for night night, wawa for water, boat, duck, socks and rocks!

Violet can also point to all of her body parts when you ask her - belly, toes, feet, legs, nose, eyes, ears, hair, etc.

She is our feisty, funny girl and knows exactly what she wants and doesn't back down for a second.  Here she is below staring down one of our chickens.  "Bawk bawk" is what she says when she talks about chickens.

She has gotten really confident on her feet and can even run now.  I no longer feel like I need to be her second shadow to keep her from scraping her baby skin on the driveway.  I am amazed to say that I even feel comfortable with her on the slide all by herself too.  I mean, she's already figured out how to go down face first, which is far more exciting than feet first.

This kid defies all expectations.  She is a full time job and I love her so much.  She is our Wild Card, and is whoever she wants to be, that is for sure.  I can't help but feel amazed and proud at this child that has been entrusted to us.  Violet, you keep life interesting and are exactly what our family needed!

The Yin, The Yang and July Metamorphosis

Will had the entire month of July off, which we had all been looking forward to for months.  We made a summer bucket list of things that each family member wanted to do to enjoy our time off to the fullest.  Top on our list was spending time outside in our own backyard.

I must say that we sure had fun, enjoying lots of popsicles, ice cream cones, the kiddie pool, and slip and slide as well as the majority of our meals outdoors.  In the bottom right hand picture you will see that even I enjoyed the slip and slide - much to the delight of my children and the shock of my husband and probably neighbors.  Let's just say it was an amazing good time but I paid the price the next day when I could hardly get out of bed and my arms hurt so bad that just swinging them as I walked brought tears to my eyes!  Totally worth it though and now I think slip and slides should be considered as a valid addition to any good cross training program!

We decided that we didn't have the energy to deal with Violet's car ride screams long enough to go anywhere on vacation, and so we utilized our backyard as the sweetest vacation spot around.

We had an amazing crop of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries this past month to the point where we were considering putting up a U-Pick sign in our front yard.

Being the thrifty folk that we are, we diligently picked, canned, froze and ate every last berry.  It was definitely quite a responsibility in our otherwise month long vacation.  Violet has become a berry picking pro and helped quite a bit by eating them as she picked, making less berries I had to find a way to preserve.  At the beginning of the month she would pick and eat berries even if they weren't ripe.  By the end of the month, not only did she know to only pick and eat the ripe berries but if she accidentally picked an under ripe berry she would throw it to the chickens.

Charlie enjoyed all of our berry picking, and would sit under the raspberry bushes and bat at our legs and feet as we picked.  He's been kind of a nuisance actually, and unless he gets his share of love and attention he is very persistent with his demands.  I'd say I yell his name almost as much as his three human sisters!  Almost.  And at our house that equates to a much loved member of our family.

Also part of our family, if but temporarily, are a bunch of toads, four tadpoles that are almost frogs, and a couple of black swallowtail butterflies.  We found caterpillars in our garden and decided to put them in our netted butterfly garden to help protect them until they became butterflies.  One by one, they all turned into chrysalises after eating an amazing amount of dill we picked for them from our garden.  The first four chrysalises hatched into beautiful black swallowtail butterflies.  We learned from our field guide books that the first butterfly was a female and the next three were males.  Charlie unfortunately injured the female when we released her but the silver lining was that Lucy got to play with her for an entire day.  We locked Charlie in the garage for the release of the next three and after they fanned their wings for a bit on our finger, they flew away.

The netted butterfly garden sat in the center of our dining room table and we observed them in every stage of metamorphosis.  After some emotional months at our house as we came to terms with Violet's diagnosis, it was so nice to have such a beautiful reminder of the miracle and beauty of nature in the center of our house.  Then we started to get wasps in our house.  The first wasp was on the bed when I was getting Violet up from her nap and stung me several times.  Picture me swatting at the wasp with a book, yelling "DIE! DIE! DIE" while Violet clapped her hands excitedly, thinking I was putting on a show for her.  I cannot even begin to describe the mama bear instinct that was fueling my adrenaline - imagining if that wasp had stung Violet!  The wasp eventually died but I was uneasy still.  I had Will check the house for cracks or nests to try and figure out how the wasp got in the house.  The next morning we woke up and found the same kind of wasp in the butterfly garden.  We let it go outside but the following day there was another wasp.  Finally it occurred to us to do some research and we discovered that there is a parasitic wasp that lays their eggs in the caterpillar and it doesn't emerge until the caterpillar goes into it's chrysalis.  At that point, the caterpillar becomes the wasp's first food until it emerges as a full grown wasp at the same time the butterfly would have hatched.  Talk about a major shock to our feelings of hope and beauty that these butterflies had brought to our house.  Especially since we were viewing this process with so much meaning and symbolism.  After some serious thought and discussion with a wise mentor, I have decided that the emergence of the wasps did not trump the symbolism.  In fact, I believe this experience is even more symbolic to our family.  The fact that this is not heaven, but earth and that yes there is great beauty, but there is great unjustness and pain too.  This is not heaven may seem obvious to you, but to me, this was a break through moment as I come to terms with the unfairness of two of my four children having rare birth defects.  As unfair as it seems, I am now coming to terms with the fact that on earth there is yin and yang in all things and that both play an integral, necessary part.

And so, here is more of the yin and the yang.  While Lucy and Emma have no qualms about honey bees or caterpillars or playing with frogs, they are very fashion conscious.  Here they are below applying make up to each other with a set of metallic crayons, some water and an empty tic tac container.  I have no idea how the tic tac container plays into this, but somehow it does.  In the bottom left hand picture below Will is proudly displaying his painted toes.  

Will has been cleaning out the upstairs of our garage as part of his bucket list (don't worry, to him this is fun) and the girls capitalized on this and made a play area in an otherwise off limits part of our garage.  They loved it up there until the weather started heating up and it felt like 100 degrees under those rafters.

The girls and I enjoyed lots of treat making this past month from granola bars to rice crispy treats, fresh squeezed cherry limeade, and homemade chocolate cookie ice cream sandwiches.  Take a guess whose bucket list those items checked off!

Will also fixed the dryer and I proudly watched, feeling a renewed sense of why I am so lucky to have married him.  Fix something yourself so I don't have to pay $100/hour to a repair guy who doesn't take off his shoes when he treks across my carpet and I will swear undying love to you for the rest of my days!  In all seriousness, I am in awe and appreciation of Will's talent of fixing just about anything.  He also figured out how to install a recessed light in the china cabinet he installed when we moved in five years ago.  To make these home improvement tasks even sweeter, I enjoyed watching Emma have fun helping Will.  I'm not going to lie, it would make me so proud if our kids got even a fraction of Will's home improvement abilities.

We took lots of walks this past month to our favorite places - the library, the post office, the bank and the cemetery by our house.  

 We enjoyed picnics at the property north of us that I have some of my bee hives at this year, and we also enjoyed exploring the area near the property, visiting my cousin's roadside stand and a barn filled with antiques. Both Will's and my parents joined us for picnics at the bee yard too, adding to the feeling of fun.  In the bottom center picture, is my cousin and I, both beekeepers.  Neither of us would have guessed this shared love when we were kids growing up together!

Something that has been on my bucket list for many years is to have a table at a craft show.  This year I signed up for my first show - the Honey Festival in a town about an hour away.  It was a ton of work prepping for it and I learned so many things.  My family was amazingly supportive and helped me from wrapping my yard signs in kraft paper to helping me make hundreds of clay seed bombs in an assembly line fashion to sell along with my yard signs.  The morning of the show Lucy almost made me cry when I confessed that I was nervous.  She told me, "Mom, the hardest part is showing up and you already did that.  No matter what you sell, we will always be proud of you."  This is similar to what I told her and Emma before their dance recital and I have to say that I had no idea that those words would help me too.

My sister in law shared the table with me and sold her lovely embroidered necklaces.  Neither of us sold very much, but Lucy had a bucket of rubber band bracelets that she had made and she sold out!  It was crazy chaotic with six kids six and under between my sister in law and I, but made entirely possible by our wonderfully supportive husbands who kept the kids happy the entire day.  After the show was over, I treated the whole family to ice cream for dinner.  It was an amazing day, despite selling less than I had hoped, and I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have such a supportive husband and kids.

While we were out of town for the honey festival Lucy lost a tooth.  Fortunately we had the inspiration to leave a note on a paper plate in the window of our hotel room so that the tooth fairy still found us.  Lucy lost a total of FOUR teeth this past month and has the cutest little grin now.

Once the Honey Festival was over we enjoyed lots of social visits with friends and family.  I am quite nervous of the look that Lucy and her friend gave me in the bottom right hand picture.

We enjoyed a program put on by our local downtown business development called Outdoor Explorers this past month, where thirty-some participating businesses offered collectible pins upon completion of summery, fun activities.  In the bottom pictures the girls met a fire fighter, made a musical instrument, drew a picture of a butterfly...

 …made sock puppets, found out the name of a favorite statue at the library, made macaroni art and put their hair in a crazy hairdo.  It was a great way to get out to lots of businesses we would have never had on our daily path and it was a fun activity that we did with friends.

We also did tie dye for the first time with friends and had a great time, despite me having green hands for several days afterwards.

I attended a retro themed wedding shower and wore a 1950's apron I had found at an antique store, enjoyed a mini Farmer's Market in our downtown, attended the Lavender Festival with a friend and ran into several more friends while there, and the girls had fun at Fairy Princess Dance camp.

 We enjoyed several birthday parties...

 …and celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary as well.  This past year has not been an easy one for Will and I dealing with Violet's issues, my broken tailbone, homeschooling and Will's crazy work schedule.  Because of this, Will's time off this past month has been an appreciated time for us to reconnect as a family and to just relax and have fun together.  Will and I managed to get out a couple of times without the kids and enjoyed some picnics and bike rides almost as carefree as our days before kids but definitely much, much more appreciated!

Eleven years, one halo and five pairs of shoes later, we are ever so grateful for the life that we have, and for each other too.  If I never check another item off of my bucket list, I will still have accomplished more than I could have ever imagined with my mate in life and my four beautiful children.  Life is tough but life is also good.  The yin, the yang and the metamorphosis.