No Sleep November

We are definitely in a routine with homeschooling now.  I'd say about one day a week we struggle with the appropriate attitudes that would allow learning to take place, but despite those hiccups, I have to say that I can already see big leaps and growth in all three girls since we started the year back in September.  It is exciting to watch how slow and steady increments of learning can add up to something really big.  Here we are below, in clockwise order: doing school at the kitchen table, Emma soaking her feet while reading a book, soap that my friend and I made in our crock pots outside while the kids played on a random weekday, Lucy ready to go to yoga class, and Violet who likes to "draw" as she calls it.

The girls like to help me in the kitchen.  Here they are below, mixing, cutting and arranging.  We made homemade cheese crackers, chicken pot pies, three berry pie, carrot and apple muffins and chicken stock all in bulk this past month.  It is much quicker to cook by myself, however I am hoping the positive experience I try to impart when my little helpers want to be with me in the kitchen will pay off big when they set a home cooked meal they made from scratch in front of me at the table.

Lucy and Emma proclaim that they are each other's best friends which is music to my ears.  When they are apart and come back together, they tell each other how they missed each other and have even established a secret code for when they need to discuss something that they don't want me to hear.  I am choosing to be happy about this, as one of my greatest hopes is for them to be life long friends.  In the top left hand picture below, I found all three girls snuggling in my bed one morning.  To make the picture sweeter, Lucy had a stuffed animal that I got at my baby shower for Luke to represent Luke in the sibling snuggle.  I received three stuffed animals at my baby shower - a yellow duck, a teddy bear and a grey hippopotamus.  Each sister has claimed a stuffed animal as their own, and Lucy and Emma both sleep with theirs cuddled close every night.  I often wonder how Luke would be with his three sisters.

I also wonder if Luke would have taken after Will.  Will handles his role as the only earthly male in our family with grace and humor.  In the top left hand picture below, I couldn't help but take a picture when Will called me into the bathroom to inquire as to why his shelf space keeps getting smaller and smaller in a bathroom that only he uses.

Our cat is a boy, but Will claims this doesn't count.  Charlie is such a friendly little guy and I'm guessing if he lived in our house he would be borderline annoying.  But, since we only cuddle him when we are outside, his affection is mostly appreciated.  Now that the weather is colder, Charlie comes and sits at our front door and watches us go about our day.  When Violet notices that "YarYar" is at the door, she goes to the kitchen and takes out a mini paper plate that we feed him his wet cat food on and then begs Lucy or I for the wet cat food to go and feed Charlie.  In the bottom two right hand pictures, Charlie is playing with the kids with balls and also showing Violet how to breach the security net we have in place.

 We had quite a blizzard this past month and the kids loved playing in all of the snow it brought.

Charlie followed us on the sled rides, whining the entire way for us to go back home.  Violet played in the snow for the very first time and got a kick out of the sled that is just her size and how her fingers felt stuffed into her mittens.

 We had lots of fun with friends this past month, and made sure to take a day off with them when they had a day off from school.

 Will and I attended a nice dinner for his work and the girls and I all got haircuts from Will's cousin in the comfort of our kitchen.  She even humored Violet and pretended to cut her hair so that she felt included.

We had a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving.  We played games, did crafts, colored together and enjoyed lots of food.  Violet was miraculously healthy for a brief time and we even got out and shopped the sales on Friday afternoon.  In the bottom left hand picture Violet was putting random toys into the cart as Lucy and Emma browsed.

Before November, I had offered myself into various volunteer roles and was feeling pretty excited that I was finally able to contribute to something outside of my own family.  All of the things that I had extended myself for took place in November which is when I realized that I was in no position to volunteer my time beyond my little family.  Violet was sick for most of the month and our already precarious sleep was reduced to almost nothing.  I was able to graciously get out of some commitments, but others I still had to fulfill.  This was super frustrating to me to realize that I am not capable of much besides taking care of three kids.  On my paper calendar (and in my head) it seems to me like three kids should not take up every bit of the 168 hours we are each given in a week.  But the reality is, for me, they do.  I am still coming to terms with this, but I am telling myself that this is a season in my life and it won't be like this forever.  This season of my life is exhausting mostly, but scattered throughout my days are small moments of pure bliss with my babies.  The joy comes in short bursts, strung out farther apart than I would like, but it is just enough to keep me going and to continue to put my all into this little life that Will and I are building.

Violet at 19 Months

Violet continues to blossom as our family comedian.  She makes us laugh all of the time, and her antics are always a pleasant surprise to me.  Will claims that I found Lucy and Emma equally as funny, but I have to say, there is something different about her humor and I think it is because she has learned everything she knows from her older sisters. When I ask her to do something, she will yell "NO WAY!"  and run away laughing.  When I tell her no, she will respond by saying in a very whiney voice, "Whhhyyy?"  The other day we were reading a little farm book while we were waiting at the doctor's office when she spotted the udder on a cow and started yelling, "BOOB!"  Or how about sitting in church last weekend when she started saying "ewwww" to the boy sitting behind us.  I swear she knows when I am trying to divert her attention too, as she will just keep saying whatever word it is that is getting the reaction.  Fortunately for all of us, we think she is cute so her toddler antics are funny and not tiring yet.  Yet.  Here she is below, throwing a fit.  Adorable.  And yes, she likes to wear snow boats around the house for fun.

She has been playing on her own a little bit more this past month, and loves drawing, or as she calls it, "Draw", playing with her baby dolls, with the play kitchen and her pull-along toys.  She is obsessed with Lucy and Emma's Barbies and will scream, "BARBIE" while knocking on her sisters' bedroom door.  Fortunately, Lucy and Emma have figured out that Violet can be bought off with a decoy Barbie and will leave the rest of the Barbies alone if given just one Barbie to hold and play with.

She loves reading books, and her attention span is growing as well.  She loves the book Little Quack, which she refers to as "Quack" and I love when she says the title of the book, "Moo Baa La La La."  

Perhaps the best part of her growing attention span is her new interest in watching TV.  I know that aspiring for your kid to watch TV may sound a little backwards, but keep in mind that Violet only sleeps in 30 to 40 minute increments and that my only chance for a diversion is the TV.  She asks to watch Elmo, which is a bit frustrating for Lucy and Emma who have better ideas on what they would like to watch during their screen time.

Parenting Violet is both exhausting and wonderful, all at the same time.  Here she is below, clearing the table of the counting bear manipulatives Lucy was using for math.  Sigh.

I also caught her swiping a carrot and applesauce muffin that was cooling on the kitchen table.  Imagine my pride when I saw that she knows how to peel the paper off of the muffin no problem.

When I asked what she was doing with the muffin, she responded by saying, "Are-eee" which means sorry.  How could I not laugh?  Especially when she gave me a big grin and then took a bite of the muffin!  Violet also will say "PEASE" for please and if she wants to take part in something other family members are doing or eating she will yell, "ME!"  She refers to herself now as "ViVi" which sounds a lot like "ByeBye" and she has mastered her biggest sister's name finally, calling her "Ooh-See".  Violet has started calling me "Mommy" like her older sisters do and loves making sure each member of her family is involved in whatever it is that she is doing or eating.  For instance, if I give her a snack, she will say, "Emma?" until I give her some snack to bring to Emma.  Then she comes back and says, "Ooh-See?" and on and on.  She is so thoughtful as she really does bring the food to her sisters.

This past month has been difficult with Violet's health.  She has had constant head colds and coughs since October, and then she had croup.  This was my first experience with croup and it was very scary.  I was just barely surviving before croup, waking up with Violet every 30 to 40 minutes throughout the night.  Three nights in a row of her being up all night with croup and I was done for.  Pushed over the proverbial mental cliff.  We had barely recovered from croup, when she had an overheating episode where she went from fine to a fever of 104 in a matter of minutes.  The silver lining to all of this is that we have learned some important clues to managing Violet's challenges.  We are learning more about Ectodermal Dysplasia and it's effect on breathing and sleeping.  We have been able to integrate some new techniques and I am hopeful that we will continue to find solutions.  In the meantime, it has been 19 months of very little sleep and it is hard.  I feel extremely overwhelmed when I look past today's challenges, so I am trying to stay in the present moment.  I know of far worse things that parents are facing with their kids, and that isn't to try and minimize what we are going through, but I am confident that we will find a way through this, one day at a time.  

The past 19 months have had drastic effects on my personal growth and I have Violet to thank for showing me what perseverance is, and for finding out who I can count on when life gets tough.  Violet, it is true when I say I love you more than sleep itself and nuzzling your soft chubby cheeks and burying my nose in the nape of your neck while breathing in your sweet baby scent as your fuzzy hair tickles my nose is one of my favorite ways to live present in the moment.    

The Yum and the Yuck in October

It is interesting to me how human nature cannot fully grasp the magnitude of a blessing without also experiencing the depth of loss.  I also am intrigued with how easily it is to forget gratitude, as life moves on and the pain and suffering begin to fade.  It almost becomes a blessing then, to have a life with a balanced portion of both blessing and loss as without one, the other cannot be appreciated.  This past month literally awoke me with a shock to the blessings that I have and gave me a renewed appreciation of what they mean to me when Lucy woke me up early one morning to inform me that the fan plug was on fire and to please come quick.  With my heart in my throat, I rushed to the girls room to first observe that there was no visible fire and then to quickly connect the dots with a pair of scared little girls, a charred pair of child-sized scissors and a blackened wall outlet.  Imagine my relief as the weight of what could have happened started to dawn on me.  Lucy wanted to unplug the fan next to her bed, and upon finding that the plug was stuck, utilized her scissors to pry it out of the wall.  She was not hurt and her bed, just an inch off of the wall, did not catch on fire.

Our babies, our sweet babies were okay.  Our house did not burn down.  The entire upstairs fuses were blown, but those fuses had done their job.  It was an important reminder to Will and I that even at age 6, safety reminders still needed to be a regular routine and that the only thing separating us from a good day versus a bad day is gratitude.  Pure and simple gratitude.

These three girls are my world, and even though most days I feel under appreciated and exhausted, there is no place I would rather be and no one I would rather be with.  And to share my days with these three girls in our cozy, light-filled and beautiful dream house is more than I could have ever asked for.  

Of course, my reminder in gratitude did not stop there though.  Ah, this sweet life of mine, offering me up such a balanced portion of blessing and dare I say, this time, torture!  After three years of bee keeping I am by no means an expert.  In fact, after three years, I can honestly say I have a large repertoire of things that DON'T work, and a shrinking list of things that DO work.  With that being said, after working with honey bees for three years, I have developed a sense of ease, or casualness with creatures that should be handled with utmost caution at all times.  I met a friend at the property north of here where I have a couple of hives and was proud to show her my bees.  I had a couple of tasks to complete to help get them ready for winter and *may* have been showing off a bit with my nonchalant attitude about getting stung.  Needless to say, I ended up being swarmed by angry honey bees and stung so many times that I started running while swearing and yelling "I'm trying to help you!" until I ended up falling on a gravel driveway and hurting my knee.  I had upwards of thirty bee stings and as I lay in the gravel driveway - still getting stung and trying not to cry - it occurred to me that this could be one of the lowest points of my life.  My sweet friend had a first aid kit in her car, and drove me home.  The irony was not lost on me though when she handed me a first aid wipe that said "sting-free" on it.  In the pictures below in clockwise order from the top left: Will going through great care to save and release a honey bee that was in our house (too bad that karma didn't help me), the "sting-free" wipe, my hand beginning to swell, a baking soda paste on my arm that took the majority of the bee stings, a mud paste on my arm, and lastly, the food that I had made the honey bees to help them get through the winter.

My mom has asked me several times why I even want to take such a risk to work with honey bees when you can just buy honey at the store.  Before the bee attack, I told my mom that working with honey bees is actually a very calming experience for me.  At no other time in my life am I able to focus so intently that the rest of the world fades away and it is just me and the hum of my hard working bees.  It is mesmerizing and peaceful.  The day after the bee attack, as my knee throbbed, my body continued to swell and the stings started itching like crazy and I got a fever, I was really starting to question myself about having a hobby that is obviously so dangerous.  The day after the bee incident I had to go back to the property to get my car, and to finish winterizing the bees.  I had Will go into the bees for me, as my swelling and itching and fever would not have allowed me to work in a safe manner.  Truth be told though, I wasn't emotionally ready to face the bees yet.  The following week though, I decided to be brave.  My motivation - the three pairs of brown eyes watching me, to see if I would let the pain define what I love to do.  Plus, how would I be able to afford my honey addiction or my love of all things beeswax?  My take away from this experience is that I do still love bee keeping, but just like my 6 year old, I need to be reminded of proper safety precautions on a routine basis.  May I never forget the great bee sting of 0-15, and may I always carry enough duck tape to seal off any holes in my bee suit!  Below are products that I have been making with my honey and beeswax, as well as a little girl I caught poking holes in a frame of honey comb.

Fortunately, that was the end of the drama for October.  The baking soda and mud pastes took my swelling and fever away very efficiently, and if I were to ever be stung that many times again, I am confident that if I use those old-fashioned remedies (thank you Krista and Google) first that I will be better much faster.  Once my knee started feeling better from the incident, I took full advantage of the gorgeous fall weather we had this past month and got outside as much as possible.  Below are views from a nature path by our house and the nearby cemetery.

We enjoyed many visits to the local cider mill, the girls joined Will and his parents for his school's homecoming parade, and we all enjoyed many playground trips.

Our backyard is small enough that the leaf clean up is more enjoyable than not, and the kids definitely had fun playing in the leaves.

We picked pumpkins from our garden and planted almost 200 crocus bulbs.  The crocus will hopefully come up in the early spring and provide the first of the season's food for my bees.

We have been diligently plugging away at school work and are fully immersed in our routine.  Things that make homeschooling possible include grocery delivery, as witnessed by our cat in the top right hand picture below.

I'm the kind of person who can pass hours upon hours quite easily on Pinterest.  I have had to limit my time spent on there as of late, because it just makes me feel depressed that I don't have enough time to do all of the wonderful and amazing projects posted.  We did try making mini, fairy-sized pumpkins out of acorns which was a disappointment because the kind of paint we used just wouldn't stick to the acorns.  We did have better success with good old fashioned Play Doh and finger painting - you know, the kind of stuff we did as kids because our parents didn't have Pinterest.

Our library hosted a kid carnival this past month which was a lot of fun.  Violet hit the ground running when we arrived and I unbuckled her from the stroller.  Lucy and Emma on the other hand took a while to warm up.  I thought maybe it was because they were the oldest kids there, but once they felt comfortable, they were an unstoppable pair.

Our friends invited us to an event at the Science Center this past month that was quite an experience.  The theme was color, and they had make and take crafts and science experiments all involving color, as well as live demonstrations, music and food.  We even enjoyed the girls first experience in a planetarium.  It was a night to remember shared with good friends, and it doesn't get any better than that.

Here we are below, enjoying more time spent with friends and cousins.

We celebrated Will's birthday this past month and spent time with his family.

 

Will and I are almost at the point where we have celebrated as many birthdays together as we have apart.  I am grateful to not only spend birthdays with my best friend, but to also watch the traits that I love in him, blossom in our kids.  Will's sense of humor is top on my list of attributes that I love, and our kids have definitely inherited some of his hilariousness.  In the picture below, Emma brought a hook that fell off of a hanger to Will and said, "Daddy, one of your hookers fell out of the closet."

 

We had a fun Halloween with minimal stress.  This year we just couldn't decide on a costume that we all agreed on until about two weeks before Halloween.  Fortunately for me, Will took over the job of Halloween costumes and was able to pull together Lucy and Emma as noble Robin Hoods for under $8 total at the Salvation Army.  Violet was a bee and cost us nothing as we already had the costume from when Emma was a baby.

Will even made bows (sans arrows) from scraps of wood he had in the garage.  Here we are below enjoying our annual Farmer's Market Trick or Treat.  Organic apples, carrots, homemade soap and cookies were but some of the wonderful treats they collected at the market.

With Will's magical ability to pull together costumes at the last minute for mere dimes, you would think he would have gone as MacGyver this year for Halloween.  Nope, he went as a racquet ball player.  His teammate was the Assistant Principal at his school, and imagine the fun they had popping into random classrooms during the day and hitting the racquet ball back and forth to each other and then leaving just as abruptly as they came.

Below are pictures from our mini Halloween party we had before we went Trick or Treating with friends in our neighborhood.  The top left hand picture below is of a tray of "bloody" band aids and "used" q-tips that our friends brought as an appetizer.  Violet was a huge fan of the q-tips.  In the bottom right hand pictures you can see us posing with Will's mullet wig.  I gave Will's cousin a scare when I texted her a picture of me and said I needed to cancel our hair cut appointment the following week because Will cut my hair and didn't he do a great job?  Little did I know that Will had the same idea, and texted a picture of Lucy in the wig to a friend of mine, saying that Lucy cut her own hair.  I was a little confused when my friend called me freaking out but I was able to figure things out pretty quickly.  Both our cousin and friend were pacified when we sent them the picture of Violet in the wig.

 Finally, we had a beautiful early morning family photo shoot with a photographer friend of mine.  She turns every picture she takes into a work of art, and this experience was no different.  It was such a quiet, peaceful and crisp fall morning with the sunrise shining through the trees that it made the stress of getting everyone photo-ready that early in the morning completely worth it!

I would like to say that despite the lack of drama for the first part of November that I am still appreciating my blessings to the fullest, but that would not be the truth.  However, I will say that reviewing October's pictures and writing about it has been a good reminder of gratitude and I want to publicly announce that I am attempting to be mindful each and every day, but I am human so it is an uphill struggle!  I don't really like the fact that a life with balanced portions of yum and yuck leads to a life well-lived, but I am accepting of it and would like to offer up the idea of perhaps Weight Watcher sized portions of yuck until a multi-vitamin for gratitude is invented.

My Sweet Bee Bee at 18 Months

Violet is growing up so fast but is still my squishy, chubby baby despite her growing obsession with technology.  She loves my phone and calls it a "Bye", and not only will smile for a picture but then demands to see the picture after it is taken.  Here she is below, posing with me for a selfie.

She loves playing mama to her babies, and believes all of the baby dolls in the house are hers.  "MINE!  MINE BEE BEE!" she screams at her sisters whenever she sees them with a doll.

Emma's response is usually, "Okay, fine, here's the baby."  Lucy on the other hand responds with the same aggression that Violet is putting forth.  "NO VIOLET!  This is MY baby!!!  Mooooom!  Violet is trying to take my doll!"

Violet loves playing with her sisters, as long as they give her whatever she wants when she screams.  In the above pictures, clockwise from the top left, Violet is bringing a chair to help build a fort with her sisters, waiting for her sisters while they are in yoga class, and having a dance party with her sisters.  Lucy has found a way to choreograph Violet and her limited repertoire of talents into any dance show that she and Emma are performing for us.  Mostly, it involves Lucy being the head of a choo choo train, with Violet holding on with a wide and proud grin on her face.  

Violet mostly wants to play with us and doesn't like to play by herself.  Except for when she is getting into trouble.  Below are pictures of what happens when Violet plays by herself...

....in the right hand picture below she is stuck in her sideways toy shopping cart and in the bottom left hand picture she has helped herself to a "Nack".  The top left hand picture speaks for itself.

Violet has a really great appetite, and eats most things that I offer her.  She is mostly happy to be eating whatever it is the rest of her family is eating and can for the most part manage all foods except raw veggies.  We have been steaming our veggies as of late to accommodate her and I've just assumed that this is how it will be with Violet.  Imagine my surprise when I stuck my finger in her mouth and felt what is possibly a molar!  This would be huge for Violet, and we are hoping that there is at least one set.  Either way, even if there is just the one, it will still be a great anchor for the partial dentures she will be fitted with in a couple of years.  And she could very well be chomping on raw carrot sticks before I know it.  She also popped a bottom tooth after what I thought was a week long cold.  The morning I noticed the tooth had erupted was the day her cold magically disappeared and her crankiness disappeared.  That was a pleasant surprise as well.  It is so funny to Will and I just how excited we are when Violet exhibits teething symptoms as each tooth is viewed as a huge blessing when faced with the alternative!

I've made it as long as I could without Violet knowing what candy was.  In the above picture she is having her first sucker.  She started freaking out when she saw that Lucy and Emma got a sucker after a library event so I gave her one to hold, thinking she would be content.  Nope, the next time I glanced at her she had expertly taken the wrapper off and was covered in sticky drool, happily eating the sucker.  It's all over now for us, and she comes running if she even hears the slightest rustle of what could be a candy wrapper being unwrapped.  Apparently out of the seven, possibly eight teeth Violet has, at least one is a sweet tooth!

My little sweetie loves to assign objects with their rightful owners.  She will name the family member whose shoes she has spotted, she knows which stuffed animal belongs to which sister, and she knows even that anything with Dora on it Emma likes, and anything with Strawberry Shortcake on it Lucy likes.  She also knows that I love tea.  Here she is below, bringing me a cup of her homemade tea, proudly proclaiming "TEA" as she hands it to me, and then warning me that it is "hot."

Violet communicates to us in a efficient combination of charades and the verbal form of a hurried text message.  If I ask her where Daddy is she will reply, "Dada.  Work." while putting her hand over her mouth with a disappointed look on her face.  When I ask her why she is crying after an injury, she will point to wherever she got hurt while saying "ouch" and patting her boo boo and then moving the injured body part closer to me, indicating that she needs a kiss.  I love how I can understand her though, and it helps to cut down on her fits of crying and frustration.

Below is my sweet one and a half year old bee bee, sleeping with her little bee bee.

Sweet September

After we returned from our end of the summer vacation, September seemed to go by in the blink of an eye.  My brother Joe and his fiancé Beth came to town and we had a vacation reprise while we joined them on their Michigan fall tour of the zoo...

…the apple orchard...

…and even the local art festival near our house.  We also felt right at home at our cousin's chicken themed birthday party...

…and met my parents at the local cider mill for a fall hike and Apple Fritter Friday.  We enjoyed our third annual Cemetery Walk, where local residents from the past are featured by community actors and actresses.  This year's theme was all about women who shaped our city and the most memorable story depicted was of two sisters named Lucy and Anna who owned a dress shop on Main Street.

Our sunflowers were in full bloom this past month, despite our late planting of them earlier this year.  They were not only beautiful but attracted monarchs, bumble bees and of course my honey bees.  Now we are drying their heads so that we can save some of the seeds for next year and eat the rest.  

Interestingly enough, our sunflowers captured all of our affection with lots of water and care, whereas the rest of our garden was mostly neglected.  Our two apple trees produced the best tasting apples we have ever eaten - one tree boasted Honeycrisp and the other tree had beautiful Empire apples.  It is so fun to pick a snack right from your own backyard and enjoy it right down to the core, and then toss the core to our chickens.  We made applesauce from buckets of apples from a tree at Will's work, zucchini muffins by the dozen and I perfected one of my favorite soups from a local restaurant - crushed lentil.  And best of all, everyone in the family likes it!  This is huge for me and honestly, I am so excited about this economical, healthy, high in protein, tasty soup that it may be on my top ten list of accomplishments.

There is definitely not enough time in the day to accomplish all that I want.  Between my kids education, feeding them nourishing foods, playing with them, exercising and finding time to spend individually with each member of my family, including myself is not easy.  Oh, and keep the house clean, the social calendar intact, everyone's health in order, and of course our side businesses humming along - there hasn't been a day yet where I accomplish all of my priorities.  BUT, I'm pretty certain that God gave everyone the same amount of time for a reason, and I just have to be intentional about what I do each day.  Sometimes that means rolling with the craziness as it unfolds, and other days it means saying no to things that don't align with my priorities.  Either way, I feel like I do not have the balance figured out yet and I am starting to wonder if that is just life.

In the above picture the girls are playing outside, a top priority on my list of intentional living.  Sometimes my hopelessness at achieving balance is given a boost of faith when after an especially harried day one of the kids tells me as I tuck them in at night that, "This was the best day of my life mom!"  Not only does this shift my perspective and remind me that sometimes the little moments are the biggest moments, that maybe I'm not failing hopelessly after all.  I just sincerely hope that my kids childhoods move at a slower pace than I feel like the world is trying to push us.

A wonderful milestone was achieved just days before the last day of summer, which makes me smile at a summer well done.  Both Lucy and Emma learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels, and it was an amazing experience to watch how each day they accomplished big steps until a week later they were riding their bikes like they've been doing it all of their life.

One of my dreams is to build a business with my kids so that they can learn first hand the ins and outs of entrepreneurship in a fun and hands on way.  I don't need the business to make millions, I just want it to stay out of the red and be something that we can strengthen our family's relationships with while learning an important skill set.  Lucy and Emma are very happy to help with my honey business, from stamping shopping bags with my logo, to labeling product, to assisting me with my honey bee classes.

 

We had our friends and families with kids come to a class this past month and had a blast.  In the above picture, our Uncle Fred (a kid at heart) didn't let a little mud stop him from getting his hands dirty while making seed bombs at the class.  Lucy and Emma had fun selling various products after the class, although I caught Emma saying, "I'll take your money!" before our friends and family had even contemplated buying something.  

So far we have been very fortunate with beautiful weather on the days I've had my bee classes.  Of course the day our friends and family were coming it was supposed to rain all day.  After watching the weather like a nervous bride planning an outdoor wedding I decided that there was nothing more to do, but to go clean the garage.  Let's just say by the time I was finished, my dust pan had every color and variety of bird feather you can imagine, plus the tails of several squirrels, chipmunks and a rabbit.  It seems our cat is a really good hunter.  And I don't know if I am now aware of it more or he is preparing for winter, but he has been eating about an animal or bird a day and it's kind of depressing.  I know it is what he was designed to eat, but I can't help but feel sorry for his prey.  There is a gray dove that sits alone now on the telephone wires next to our house that used to always cuddle next to its partner.

Violet and Charlie have a strange relationship.  I think Violet is jealously fascinated by Charlie and Charlie is cautiously jealous of Violet.  Violet can't handle Charlie playing with any toys and will yank them from him, which Charlie thinks is just a part of the play.  It usually ends with Violet screaming and crying and Charlie running confusedly away.  

We have found our groove for the time being with school work.  Violet is starting to be more compliant during school time, and we've found setting a timer helps Lucy to focus and get things done in a timely fashion.  Emma is just happy to do school like her big sister, and is holding her birth order spot as middle daughter in a very stereotypical way.  I have to make a point to go over and above for Emma, for if not, her more boisterous sisters will steal the show.

 We have had quite a run of sister fighting.  This fall we started back up with their yoga class and they are the only two kids in the class right now.   I was disappointed at first, as part of the point of taking extracurricular activities, especially for homeschooled kids, is for the socialization and Lucy and Emma need a break from each other, not more alone time together.  Until Will pointed out that I should ask the teacher if she could focus her classes on sister love, or in other words, to use it as a sister therapy session.  Our wonderful yoga teacher took that idea and ran with it and I am not kidding when I say that it has made a HUGE improvement in them!  They haven't stopped fighting, but I feel like the tone of the fighting has changed.  I can see more love than anger now and it is such a relief.  Here they are below at yoga class and the library.

 We have had a great month at our house, and mostly because of the harmony between the sisters.  I realize this could just be another phase, but I will bask in it's peacefulness for as long as it lasts.

Although now that I think about it, I did try one other tactic to create solidarity and love between the sisters...

 …matching outfits!  It occurred to me that schools have uniforms for a reason, so why not try out a sister uniform?  Success!  They love matching and I can't tell you how happy I am to spend my days with such adorable and SWEET girls.  The leaves are changing and so are we.  And we will continue to evolve, as we learn side by side the secrets to an intentional, peaceful and joy-filled life.