December 2016

December was an incredibly busy month.  Every year I put a note in the Christmas decoration bin so that when I open it up next December, I will be reminded of things that worked and things that didn't work.  A long-standing note that I continue to agree with every year is to not make Christmas cookies.  I love baking, and bake all year long so for this chapter of my life, it just doesn't make sense to add that to our already full schedule.  Someday I hope to bake more around the holidays, but I'm thinking it will be several years out still.  We did manage to make meatballs in bulk on New Year's Eve for part of our New Year's Eve dinner, and I made chocolate chip cookie bars for Santa (a nice, quick and easy cookie as no time is spent forming cookies - you just pour it into the pan, bake and tastes exactly the same!)  Will also surprised me one night and made rice crispy treats with the kids.  I was busy making items to sell for the holidays for Harding Honey and so there was still plenty of time spent in the kitchen.  We also got our annual order of a 1/4 of a cow delivered for our freezer and scrambled to make room for that.  We know the farmer, and watch in amazement every year as this tiny woman backs up her trailer into our long driveway with no problem and hops out and lifts the heavy boxes like they are nothing.  The first time the cattle trailer backed into our driveway, a neighbor came outside, worried that we were adding more livestock to our backyard.  We watched this same neighbor get hooked up to city water and a new roof this past month, which provided lots of interesting things to watch outside of our windows.

Last year I wrote a note saying that it could be a good idea to take a longer break from homeschooling to be able to pull off all of the holiday traditions and festivities.  I couldn't bring myself to get behind on our school schedule, but I did make sure to not include any new projects or introduce any new topics.  I think next year I really do need to try and scale it back even more.  Part of homeschooling is involving my kids in real life activities and being involved in gifts, cards, cooking and holiday parties IS learning.  I did get creative to keep my exercise routine going despite our busy schedule though and I am continuing it now that the holidays are over - spelling, handwriting and some reading are the perfect topics to accomplish next to me while I am on the elliptical in our basement!  AND - if you get up too early, as my kids tend to do - the new rule is we start school straight away.  As you can see in the bottom left hand picture below, Violet yawning in the background while her sisters work on their school and I burn calories on the elliptical.  One morning we finished school before breakfast so I treated them to breakfast at the cider mill (top middle picture).  It was too cold to eat outside, so we enjoyed our cider and donuts in the car.  In the top right hand picture below, the girls are enjoying art class and in the bottom right hand picture below, I am enjoying a hike with Violet and a friend while our kids were in a class at the nature center.

In the pictures below in clockwise order from top left: Lucy and a classmate doing yoga, Violet trying out a yoga pose at home, Lucy doing the same yoga pose at home, Emma doing a handstand at yoga, Lucy and Emma at art class, Lucy working hard on her print making during art class, a line up of the prints made in art class, some socializing after art class, and finally, Emma and a classmate doing yoga.  Not pictured was time spent in swim class, dance class, catechism, vision therapy and piano lessons!

We saw lots of friends this past month, and in clockwise order from top left: a friend's birthday party, a winter solstice celebration that was an absolutely lovely way to begin our winter, friends taking a brownie break in between putting on a show for us, Lucy with friends after watching one of the sisters ice skate performance, Emma and Violet cuddling our friends' baby, a friend making us lunch, and finally, Lucy and Emma with a friend, watching the ice skating show.

Lucy and Emma had their holiday dance recital this past month, and danced to It's a Small World.  They did an excellent job, and much fun was had by all.  In clockwise order from top left below: Lucy, Emma and Violet with their babysitter who also danced in the recital, Lucy and Emma with their classmates before the recital, Lucy and Emma with their beloved dance teacher after the recital, Emma representing Egypt, Lucy and Emma's cheering team for the recital, and Lucy representing Spain.  In the center pictures below are the girls coloring with the fellow dancers while waiting for their turn to go on stage, and Lucy and Emma with their friends who also danced in the recital.

We also enjoyed a St. Nick party at our church this past month which is always a good time.  The girls get a chance to tell St. Nick what they would like for Christmas and Lucy told him a heart locket and a snow globe, Emma asked for a surprise, and Violet held tightly onto me while she bravely told him she would like a chocolate Santa.  Violet is not a fan of Santa, and so we talked about our meeting him in advance, and she told me she wanted to tell him what she wanted for Christmas, but didn't want to sit on his lap.  I agreed to hold her while she told him what she wanted.  I was so proud of her bravery as she held tightly to me and spoke clearly to him.

I felt like we were barely home this past month, but when we were the girls enjoyed fort making and bead art.

There was of course plenty of Lego play, reading stories and general sister annoyances.  In the center picture below, we drove to a family holiday party about 25 minutes away.  When we arrived and I opened Lucy's car door, she had decorative tape all set up on her door and a mini craft studio going.  I couldn't help but laugh, but geez - it took almost five minutes for her to clean up enough so that she could get out of the car.  That sums Lucy up though - using every spare moment to let her creativity flow and her uncanny ability to make any little space her own.

Emma lost her first tooth this past month and was super excited until she realized that the gap left by the missing tooth was bleeding.  She did NOT like that, and in the top, left hand picture below, Violet was just as disturbed.  Once the bleeding stopped, Emma was all smiles though.  In the top, right hand picture below is Emma at a hearing test.  She needed a recheck from her five year well checkup and we finally got around to having it done.  She passed no problem, which was great news.  Our Emma seems to have entered a new phase of her personality though, and I swear it began when she lost her tooth.  Our sweet and easy-going child has become somewhat of a trouble maker, and enjoys annoying her sisters for attention, not caring that it is negative attention.  The bottom right hand picture below showcases the piece of gum she got in her hair and then made worse because she tried getting it out herself.  I used peanut butter to get the gum out, but had to fight the urge to just cut off that piece of hair as earlier that same day...

...I was trying to get the girls ready for a mini holiday dance recital at our local senior citizen community center when I found a pile of hair in the garbage can in my office.  I called all three girls into the office and asked whose hair it was.  Lucy immediately started acting dramatic and shocked and so I pegged it for her right away.  Emma stood there, saying nothing.  Violet came in shortly after I was about to launch into Lucy about her being old enough to know better.  Violet then announced, "It's ME HAIR!"  Sure enough, there was the missing chunk on the side of her head.  This made me so sad, as Violet is already hair challenged, and for that much to be just cut carelessly off, really made my heart sink.  So I started lecturing Violet about how she is too young to use scissors and from here on out the scissors will be off-limits for her unless I am with her.  I also reminded her that scissors are for paper and that only certain people are skilled enough to cut hair - and that does not include any of us!  Flash forward a couple of hours, and I am showing a friend of mine the side of Violet's head while we wait for Lucy and Emma to come on stage for their dance recital.  I told Violet, "Tell Ms. Bonnie what happened to your hair today."  And Violet responded, "Emma cut my hair!"  Picture me, seeing Emma's sweet, smiling face on stage moments later as I try to process exactly how and what will be done when she gets off that stage!  To me, the worst part is that she had no remorse about her little sister taking the blame.  We had a conversation about bravery, and how it is always better in the long run to be brave FIRST and to tell the truth, as scary as it can be.  Emma's consequences lasted for several days and were much worse than if she had been brave FIRST.

My sister was in town from the east coast for the holidays, and got here in time to join us for our yearly tradition of decorating Luke's grave blanket.  This year we made sleds out of Popsicle sticks.

The girls helped stuff, stamp, seal and mail our Christmas cards and we also continued a tradition we started last year of taking each sister out shopping individually to get gifts for the family.  I had the fun and fortune of taking Lucy and Emma out and I loved seeing the differences of their shopping styles.  When Emma and I went shopping, she had a plan and was a girl on a mission.  Each time I paused from the mission to browse at something shiny that caught my eye she would tell me, "Mom, I can tell you are really in to that, but let's go!"  A couple of days later, Lucy and I went shopping and I realized that Lucy and I shop the exact same way.  We ran super late from too much browsing, and then had to go back out again another day as one of the places on our list closed before we got there.  Shiny objects were our undoing apparently and we had no one to keep us on track!

Will took Violet shopping, and her style was that she picked out something for everyone, including herself.  The best was when Will helped her wrap it, and she had him write on the gift, To Violet, From Violet.  And man, did she love those chocolate whoppers she got herself!  I did most of my shopping online, and was a little worried when all of the packages seemed to arrive on the exact same day.  I thought it would be better to just let Will know (I was being brave!) in a text so that he wasn't so shocked (and I didn't have to feel like I was hiding anything) when he came home.  What did spouses do before texting?  It is such a great way to let someone in easy on a piece of news.  Every year Will makes something with wood for the girls' Christmas present from him.  This year he made doll high chairs and they turned out great.  I sewed little cushions for the chairs as my contribution.

Lucy performed in our church's Christmas pageant and was so excited when she was given the role of Head Angel.  Will and I had a laugh in the pew as we watched our girl smiling so big that it made the shepards around her uncomfortable.  They kept stealing surprised glances at Lucy's big grin and Will and I pictured them wondering why someone would happily participate in this willingly, without the pressure of their moms making them.  Our angel definitely shown brightly, and confirmed what Will and I have already suspected - she was made for the stage!

Christmas Eve mass is one of my favorite celebrations of the entire year.  And, because of Lucy's role in the pageant, it was the first year we got an actual seat.  It was a lovely, quiet evening and such a wonderful part of what makes Christmas Eve so special to me.  It is a sweet pause in such a busy time where I can just bask in the beauty of my family and be surrounded by beautiful music, twinkling lights and an atmosphere of love and anticipation.  We arrived about an hour before the service started so that Lucy could get dressed and ready for the pageant.  I had brought a bag of Christmas books to read to Emma and Violet in the pew, which is a special, hushed experience as well.  I am a little sad that I had no tangible connection to Luke this Christmas but as always we included him in our Christmas card.  See below, my little stacking dolls.  Some people wondered if it was a pregnancy announcement or if the tallest stacking doll was me, but it is in fact Luke with his three sisters and my dear friend designed it for me.

Every year we place baby Jesus in the empty manger in the center of our Advent Wreath and then Santa leaves chocolates and candies in dishes around our display.  This year, Santa left a tiny angel among the candies and Lucy is certain this was Luke's gift to us this year.  I did notice that our traditional picture at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning before we head down to see what magic Santa left us included the cross with Luke's name on it in the background.  See bottom, left hand picture below.  Lucy also held tightly to her Luke Duck, which is one of three stuffed animals we got at Luke's baby shower (and as it turns out one for each of his sisters - a duck, a teddy bear and a hippo) and was Lucy's way of having Luke be a part of our Christmas day festivities.

The girls were so excited about all of their presents.  They were surprised and happy with the doll high chairs and Santa brought them exactly what they had asked for.  Once Violet unwrapped her giant chocolate Santa, she sat contentedly eating it as the happy chaos swirled around her.  Emma's surprise from Santa was a marble maze and Lucy was pleased to see that her snow globe had an angel in it which she told us she had secretly hoped for.  She will be putting a picture of Will and her Godmother, Aunt Jane into her locket.  I am okay with my sister's picture instead of mine in that locket, but believe me when I say if she had chosen anyone else I would have been hurt!

The girls got Calico Critter triple bunk beads from Santa, new quilts for their beds from me, books and movies, new matching pajamas, swimsuits, and Violet got a baby doll carrier and her very own yoga mat from Santa as well.

I guess Violet gets her shopping traits from me, as I bought myself two things and put them under the tree for myself as well - seeds for the garden and a stainless steel water bottle - both bought when I was buying seeds and a water bottle for Will.  Will got me a real, Russian Stacking Doll and a highlight of Will's gifts were a package of Hershey Kisses and Hugs from Emma because Will is always telling her that all he wants for Christmas are kisses and hugs.

Charlie was fed wet cat food on the porch, and we left the front door open so that he could be a part of our holiday without making me sneeze.  We had a lovely, relaxing day and I enjoyed looking up my essential oils that Will got me while sipping hot tea next to my salt lamp while Will worked on the scratch off lotto tickets that he got.  We took a walk and dropped off little homemade gifts to some of our neighbors and the girls played with their presents.  It was the first holiday in a while where the girls didn't get big Lego sets.  Will and I have always loved how the Lego set building keeps them happy and occupied for hours and were a bit nervous this holiday that we would be missing that.  Will ended up buying them a bunch of specialty piece Legos including Lego instruments - think tiny guitars, saxophones, microphones, etc. and little treasure chests, ladders, unique hair for their Lego people and he even did the same with Duplos for Violet - a teapot, a little girl, a bed, etc.  This was almost as good as getting a new set and kept them happily occupied too.

Later that day we went to my parents house where I discovered that my sister's text earlier in the week asking "can you do potatoes" meant, can you bring them to Christmas, and not, can you eat them.  And so my parents frantically peeled up some potatoes they had on hand and I tried not to be too embarrassed as the memory of bring an empty pie shell to Thanksgiving was still weighing on me.  We enjoyed Christmas with Will's family earlier that week as well as a Christmas party on my dad's side of the family where we lined up the great grandkids for a picture.  We had lunch out with my brother after Christmas and then on New Years Eve enjoyed lunch with Will's dad's side of the family.

After our New Year's eve luncheon with family we headed home for our own little New Year's Eve party.  We usually play games, watch a movie and have a picnic dinner of appetizers in the living room.  Things started off great, as Violet even took a nap on the way home from the family luncheon party, buying us more time that evening of her being happy and not cranky.  We had a lovely picnic and enjoyed a movie and then decided to bring Charlie in for a little bit before we played games.  It was at this point that we realized Charlie had a wound on his shoulder and we needed to get him to the vet as soon as possible.  

I spent the last couple of hours of 2016 with Charlie at the Emergency Vet in town and thankfully had my sister-in-law who is a vet in Florida on stand-by so that at least I knew the vet who looked to be no more than 18 years old was doing right by Charlie.  He ended up needing extensive surgery as the wound was a cat bite and had festered and created an infection that wrapped around his shoulder muscle and went down into his leg.  Thank God we got him in and they were able to fix him up.  Our sweet and loving cat purred the entire time and was a very good patient.  The ten days after when we had to lock him in the garage until the drainage tube, sutures and cone of shame came off of his head were another story though.  He wanted out so badly and by the time the ten days were up, the upstairs of our garage only needed some strewn red solo cups to make you think a ten day frat party had just played out.  Spilled liquids, dumped boxes and buckets, kitty litter everywhere... I would like to say some of the mess was because Charlie was clumsy with the cone on his head, but we could hear him throwing fits to get out whenever he heard us below him in the garage.  We made sure to visit him often throughout the day, but as the days went on it became harder and harder to leave without him escaping.

2016 ended with a bang, that is for sure.  Two days before Christmas, Will had taken one for the team when Violet got up before the sun and he took her shopping so the rest of us could sleep.  I got a call around 8 am when his car wouldn't start and he and Violet were stranded in the grocery store parking lot.  We picked them up and over $600 dollars and a couple of days later our car was fixed.  Will also washed two weeks of dress clothes - which is all of the dress clothes that he owns - with two pens.  He found a pen after he pulled them out of the washer and threw it in the garbage and then his unmarked clothes in the dryer.  When the dryer had finished, he was shocked to see that some kind of twisted blue ink spin art had taken place and ALL of his clothes were covered in blue ink.  There was a second pen in one of his pockets apparently and we found it broken and still leaking ink in the dryer.  Thank God for Pinterest, as I found that rubbing alcohol takes ink out of fabric and then, thank God for Costco, as it took a full bottle of rubbing alcohol for each shirt and pair of pants to soak in for about a half hour.  It worked, and it was under $4 for a pack of two bottles of rubbing alcohol which is cheap compared to buying an entirely new wardrobe.  I was a little self-conscious when all six two-packs of rubbing alcohol were on the belt at Costco, but the cashier didn't seem phased.

The day after Christmas Will had his annual kidney x-ray to monitor him for kidney stones.  He has passed about 12 so far in his lifetime, and we believe they all came about when he was sick with colitis in his early twenties.  We were so excited when a couple of years ago he was finally down to only one stone, and it was low enough in his kidney that the doctors were pretty sure that it wasn't going anywhere.  Imagine our shock when his x-ray this past month revealed seven new stones of decent sizes.  It was so disappointing to see, and especially since we know the pain and suffering involved in just one kidney stone.  We are fairly certain that his latest bout with colitis has brought on the seven new stones but it does seem so unfair that three months of colitis equals seven stones when he had colitis for about five years last time and got twelve stones.  After talking over his options with his urologist, we have decided to proactively tackle the biggest two stones with outpatient procedures to break them up rather than wait for the stones to start moving on their own causing all sorts of damage.

2016 definitely did not go easy on us, but I will not say that it was a terrible year.  How can I, when I got to celebrate my babies turning 8, 7, 5 and 2 while watching my three youngest children grow, learn, laugh and love?  And I was able to spend another year of growing, loving and laughing with the love of my life, Will.  My little family is so incredibly blessed and 2016 only served to bring us closer together and to help us not take a single day with each other for granted.  Our lives are not perfect, and the challenges sometimes can seem so exhausting but there is always hope to be found and I have been given a life in which I can't help but be so very grateful.  I can honestly say that there is no place I would rather be, and I am ready for 2017.  Bring it on!

Violet at 32 Months

Violet loves playing dress up and twirling in "spinning" dresses.  Usually she is playing dress up by herself, but every so often, Lucy and or Emma will join in and help dress her up.  It is a little sad to me that Violet doesn't have the built-in side-kick that Lucy and Emma have in each other, but I am hoping as she gets older they will share more fun together.

In the meantime, while Lucy and Emma are off playing together, Will and I fill in as Violet's playmates.  She really leaves us no choice, as she drags us by the hand and tells us how to play.  Below in clockwise order from the top left: Violet playing baby with Will - Violet is the mom and Will is the baby, Will bringing Violet inside from playing in the snow because she peed in her snow pants, Will playing baby again and wearing baby doll shoes on his big toes (put there by Violet) and finally, Will holding all of the babies.

Lately, Violet's favorite pastime is making Will or I her baby, and it can be frustrating for us as she won't break out of her "mom" character - even when it's mealtime or bath time or bedtime - she insists on feeding us, bathing us or tucking us into bed.  Here she is below after the "peed in the snowsuit" incident.  Violet will play in the tub until she is shaking with cold, which is a good long stretch of time for me to write a blog post.

I don't need to convince Violet to be the baby when she wants milk, and trust me when I say that I cherish every moment of it!  I've mentioned before how difficult feeding was for Violet when she was a baby, and so despite her being closer to three than to two, I have no problem when she demands to be held like a baby and curls up on me.  I can't help but wonder if she is overriding traumatic feeding memories from when she was younger.  I think it is also helping me to override the traumatic memories I have as well from when she was a baby and feeding time was so difficult.  One of the best parts of being a parent is the bond that comes with feeding snuggles and I did feel like Violet and I were robbed of that the first year of her life.

I called Violet's occupational therapist from when she was a baby and let her know that Violet ended up being diagnosed with Ectodermal Dysplasia.  The front desk staff never let me through to talk with our old therapist, but I am hoping she got the message.  Interestingly enough, through much trial, error and tears we did finally find the right muscle stretches that helped Violet to eat and now that we know exactly what we are dealing with, it makes so much more sense why those particular exercises helped!  Our therapist was so patient and kind as we tried to unlock the pieces of the puzzle for our Violet!

Earlier this past month Violet started complaining of tooth pain.  She has one bottom tooth that is growing on a 45 degree angle and looked to be pushing into the tooth next to it.  Will and I were worried that she could lose both teeth, and since she is already missing so many teeth we were concerned about what would need to be done to save one or both of her teeth at such a young age.  New friends of ours that we met at our first Ectodermal Dysplasia conference this past summer put us in touch with their trusted dentist who is very experienced in Ectodermal Dysplasia.  This dentist's level of personal care was probably the best I have ever experienced in the medical field.  He got us in touch with a colleague of his at Children's Hospital and we got in within the next business day.  This is a feat in itself, as typical waiting lists at Children's Hospital can be months.  Violet was seen by the head of Pediatric Dentistry and had her first set of x-rays done.  This was a big moment for us, as we had no idea what the extent of Violet's missing teeth will be as she is still so young and we've been trying to hold off on x-rays as long as possible since there is nothing we can do right now with the results anyways.  It was a scary moment when we saw her x-rays and solid proof that she is missing most of her adult teeth.  Sometimes it's better to not know the future as hope was traded for resignation at that moment.  The dentist was encouraged to see that she does have solid anchor teeth which will provide the support she will need when she has dental work as an adult and so we have found our hope again, and this time that hope is that dental technology will advance a great deal by the time Violet is ready for her dental work and that it will be as smooth a process as possible.

Come to find out, the tooth pain Violet was experiencing was a popcorn kernel, stuck in the back of her tooth, down in the gums.  What a relief to know that it was something that was easily fixed!  Picture the nervous, relieved laughter when the dentist showed us the kernel, removed by a simple piece of floss!  We were given lots of great tips on how to care for the triangular space created by the angled tooth next to the straight tooth and all in all, were happy with the knowledge we gained and the quick fix to Violet's tooth pain.

Here is our girl below, playing.  As you can see, she is starting to sport the cutest little pony tail.  She also is officially over taking naps.  She not only can take the baby gate down from her bedroom door, she also knows how to unplug her baby monitor.  I guess you could just say I am done fighting her for naps.  If we are driving anytime after 4pm, you can be sure she will fall asleep and then go to bed around midnight but otherwise, naps are over for Violet.

Violet's favorite thing to say is "I oh no" which means "I don't know" when we ask her why the house is a mess, or where her socks are, or why she pinched her sister.  Violet is very good at imitating us and will mimic our voices, our tone and even our mannerisms.  My favorite this past month was when she told me, "Mom, why you say, huhhhh (think long, exasperated sigh), Violet."  Well, Violet, when you ask to use a public bathroom for the fifth time in one shopping trip, I get a little exhausted!  Thank goodness you are always making me laugh with your humor and your perspective!

#thankful in November

November was nice to us, and we were able to get outside and watch the season slowly turn from fall to winter temperatures.  There were a handful of days that hit 70 degrees, and so we made sure to spend some great time outdoors.  Here are the girls below on a walk near our downtown.  Each of my daughters is wearing her favorite dress (that they would wear every day if they could) and each one is posing for the picture in a way that represents their personality so perfectly!  Lucy, with maturity and class, Violet with feisty silliness and Emma with sweetness.  Notice the patch of wildflowers we found on the hill near Emma's feet that was a welcome sight for me as I have been worried about my bees with the warm temperatures, but nothing in bloom for them to eat.

Charlie has found a new way to be close to us when we are in the house - in the top, left hand picture below he is at our kitchen window ledge, which is about six feet off of the ground.  Every time he jumps up there to watch us, it freaks me out a bit.  In the bottom pictures below, Violet and Charlie were playing a fishing game together.  

We were able to get a family hike in on the last day of 2016 that would be above 70 degrees.  It was a push to get to the trail after Will got off of work and before the sun set but we managed!

 The girls and I got a lot of walks and bike rides in, and even had a few last picnics outside with Charlie before the winter temperatures came.

Here they are below after a walk on our main street with no jackets in November!

 We knew the weather would get colder eventually, and here they are below with our very first snowfall for the season.

 It was a little chaotic the day that it snowed, scrambling to find all of our winter wear, and finding out what fits and what doesn't.  Who wants to plan ahead for snow when the weather is warm and balmy?    Just when we thought we didn't have any boots for Lucy and needed to add boot shopping to our to-do list, we realized that friends of ours had given us their daughter's old boots last year and as luck would have it, they fit Lucy perfectly this year.  How nice to NOT have to go to the store and to be able to play in the snow despite my lack of seasonal preplanning!

Will has been feeling better this past month, and so we have gone from survival mode to thriving mode once more.  Proof of our thriving is the fact that Will cleaned out our oven one night (first time we have EVER cleaned our oven!) and I even went to the store and bought vacuum bags!  If you ever want to feel like you are in control of your own life, clean your oven and go and buy vacuum bags.  But once you put the new vacuum bag in the vacuum, put the vacuum back in the closet.  I was so satisfied with the new vacuum bag, that I called it done and left it out - just in case I felt the urge to vacuum later.  Several hours later, Violet decided to ride the canister part like a horse and peed on it.  One fried mother board later, I no longer felt like I was winning at adulthood.  Fortunately, the vacuum technician didn't know what questionable liquid had spilled on the motherboard and it was replaced under warranty.

Here we are below, winning at life: relaxing indoors as the weather is now cold and it gets dark before dinner time.  We've spent a lot of time in our pajamas this past month because when it is dark outside, I just feel better in pajamas.

I love cooking seasonally, and this month I made my favorite cranberry and pear sauce that I've missed since fresh cranberries were in season last year.  I made a jar of elderberry syrup when my kids got sick, and I hope to make it next fall BEFORE my kids get sick.  I made turkey pot pie in bulk from leftover Thanksgiving turkey and stocked the freezer, roasted and processed all of the pie pumpkins from our fall decorations outside, made a huge batch of banana and yogurt pancakes (that my kids are now sick of and whine that they hate pancakes - seriously, where is the gratitude!?), made a pot of chicken and spinach Alfredo pasta on a night that Will was working late (dairy isn't the best for him) and have enjoyed finding reasons to use my favorite fall and winter spices - clove, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon - in everything.  I also have been using for the first time cardamom, and am LOVING it.  Such a great time of year for this cozy and delicious smelling spice.

I came up with a new hashtag #riskybiscuits after I made heavenly buttermilk biscuits when my kids were sick and had to decide if it was worth risking the potential germs and eat that leftover biscuit from their plate or cry softly to myself as I threw it out.  The decision was made for me when Will came home from work while I was putting the kids to bed and threw it out - gluten and dairy in a biscuit was a no-go for him, and so he had no emotional qualms wasting such deliciousness.  I never did get sick, so maybe it was for the best.  God knew I couldn't handle such a decision.  Also, the kids and I are now teasing Will that Risky Biscuits was what he was called in high school.

We had a good month of homeschooling, and enjoyed in clockwise order from top left below: piano lessons, making a fort at our chiropractor's office while most kids are still in school, having a lantern walk and bonfire with friends, art class, and working on geography.  Geography is one of the subjects that all three girls do at the same time which makes it fun.

Will and I treated the girls to a play at our local community college's theater.  It was about the Ugly Duckling and was called Honk Jr.  I worked it into our lesson plan for the week prior and the week after, including an entry in their journal about it, the social lessons discussed as well as many readings of the book.

I processed all of my beeswax from the 2016 season by melting and filtering it several times until it was clean enough to make ornaments and to use in my Harding Honey products for the upcoming year.  My bees didn't have the best month, as the weather was so warm, causing them to come out of hibernation only to find no food sources for them.  I hope that they will be okay through the winter now and only time will tell. Below in clockwise order from top left: melting and filtering my beeswax, the melted wax, beeswax ornaments, holiday soaps, and my bee hives, ready for winter. 

We enjoyed a family wedding this past month, lunch with friends, a belated birthday party at the local indoor playscape with friends as well as time at our nature center science class with friends, complete with hikes and exploring.

 We had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, which started with an annual visit with friends that I've known for almost my entire life.  I made cranberry pear sauce and several different pies on Thanksgiving including sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie and apple pie.  I even served my family mini apple pies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it for their pre-Thanksgiving dinner lunch after they finished watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.  Lucy was so into the parade that she could hardly contain herself and would excitedly tell us facts about each float as it rode by on TV.  The following day, she announced to us with her purse in hand that she needed a ride to Michael's Craft Store as there were several Door Busters that she had her eye on.  We blame the parade commercials, as we have never talked about Black Friday shopping, and had no intention of going out in that madness.  Needless to say, we took her to Michael's, and sure enough, she knew what the good deals were.

 We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving this year, with pies and cranberry pear sauce in hand.  Imagine my shock when we unwrapped the tinfoil from the pies at dessert time and I realized that I had accidentally brought one of the empty pie shells I had made for the turkey leftovers I was going to make turkey pot pie with the following day.  Oops!  I would have sent Will home to get the missing sweet potato pie, except I had already sent him to CVS after dinner for an emergency bottle of dye-free liquid Benadryl.  Come to find out, I think I may be allergic to turkey.  I had a fairly bad reaction after dinner, and fortunately CVS was open on Thanksgiving day.  My kids enjoyed building with the vintage Legos in my parents basement all night, and I was recovered from my allergy episode in time to have a small dessert plate before we went home.  Thank you liquid Benadryl!  And Will, and CVS... #thankfulonThanksgiving.  All joking aside, this Thanksgiving, I am especially thankful for Will and his health and humor coming back.

We also visited with Will's family over Thanksgiving Day weekend, which was a great time as it was the first time we were all together since his mom had her quadruple bypass surgery.

We decorated for Christmas over the Thanksgiving weekend as well, and really knew we were winning at life when we thanked ourselves for having all of our decorations in three boxes counting the new tree we had purchased the Christmas before that is pre-lit and assembles in three pieces.  Since you now know that we never change our vacuum bag or clean our oven, you can understand why streamlined Christmas decorations are just right for us.

 

We are excited for Christmas, and are hoping to have a very relaxing holiday with good health, good memories and good cheer!  We have so much to be thankful for this year!

Violet at 31 Months

I've enjoyed writing monthly blog posts for each of my kids during their first three years of life and I've found as they approach their third birthday, their changes slow down and they have integrated themselves so completely into our lives that it's hard to come up with enough things to make a blog post about!  Based on the number of things I have for Violet's 31st blog post, my baby is growing up.  Probably the biggest change this past month, besides the fact that she seems so tall to me lately, and her hand in mine feels so much bigger, is that she is talking so very much.  Her chatter is non-stop and she is listening to what I am saying too, even when I'm not talking to her.  And her questions!  So many questions!  "Why did you say, 'oh no' mom?" Asked after I dropped something in the kitchen.   The other day Lucy and Emma got in trouble and I told them to take care of some things around the house which they weren't happy about and were exhausting me with their attitudes.  Violet then followed me into another room and asked, "Why you not talking to me mom, I not grumpy right now!  Lucy and Emma grumpy, but not me!"  Thank you for that Violet, thank you.

And probably the most telling story of how much Violet is talking and listening this past month happened when I was talking to Will on the phone, pulling into our driveway right before lunch.  I looked behind me and saw that Violet had fallen asleep so I mentioned to Will that I would probably leave her in the car to finish her nap while I made lunch and commissioned Lucy and Emma to play outside until she woke up.  Violet's little voice piped up from the backseat, "Why you leave me Mom?  Why you leave me in the car?  You hurt my heart!"  Of course this broke my heart and I immediately scooped her up out of her carseat and apologized while I brought her into the house.  Once inside, she told me, "My heart is broken now mom" in the saddest little voice.  Oh Violet, my heart too.  My heart too.

And since I am all chatted out thanks to Violet, I will leave you with these pictures...

...Violet proudly pushing a stroller and a baby doll while we browsed at our local Salvation Army where we spend our time while Lucy and Emma are at dance class...

 ...Violet enjoying my veggie soup to the last drop (and me thinking at least ONE of my kids eats the healthy food that I make)...

 ...and Violet playing with me, which entails her telling me exactly what to do and when to do it and sparing no words when I don't follow her directions as precisely as she wants.

Our little chatterbox is lucky she is cute!

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.