Last week was pretty busy, with one thing happening after another.  Thankfully, I had something to look forward to:  a get-away with my sister Amanda!

We left Friday morning and came back on Saturday afternoon.  We spent pretty much the entire time talking, shopping, laughing and eating.  And being extremely silly.  Amanda has three children and two of them are toddlers, and I have six children, so it was a time of wonderful refreshment for both of us.  Plus, it was just so nice to spend a long chunk of time with each other.  I’m always so thankful to God for Amanda.  She’s been such a blessing to me in so many ways.  This was the first time the two of us traveled together for a mini-vacation.

We stopped at a spa and got our nails done.  Boy was that a treat.  Oh I forgot to mention, that of course we took Seth with us.  He was a joy to have along, but he did get a little ornery at the nail salon. 

I chose BRIGHT PINK polish for my nails, and Amanda got a French pedicure.

Seth looks cute even when he’s ornery, doesn’t he?

We stopped at several shops….Yankee Candle, and the two antique stores we visited were my favorite ones.

We spent the night in a hotel.  Seth fell right to sleep with no problems and Amanda and I each got into our own beds and watched TV until 10, when neither one of us could keep our eyes open anymore. 

One of the shows we watched was “What Not to Wear” and the next day Amanda got all inspired and decided that it was time for me to update my wardrobe….so, after a power lunch at the Crackerbarrel, we headed for the mall.  Truthfully, I was quite grateful for her help.  Shopping for clothes has NOT been on my list of priorities for a long time.  And who better than a sister to be honest about what looks good and what doesn’t?  I’m older than she is but she can be pretty bossy at times, too.  Ha ha….

Here are the outfits that she picked out for me, and that I bought.  We came home and I tried everything on (again) and she took the pictures.  Everything is new, except for the shoes.  Lots of laughter here, too. 

(really random info): I don’t normally answer questions publicly unless they are very important.  Last week I was asked if my husband, Rich, had teeth.  Apparently one of my bloggy friends noticed that Rich never shows his teeth when he smiles and so she wondered, “does he have any”.  My first reaction was to write something like, “You guessed it!  I’m in love with a toothless man!” but I wasn’t sure if anyone (Rich, most of all) would get the joke.

The answer to the question is yes, Rich does have teeth.  He just doesn’t like to flash them in a smile.

Amanda and I made him try for us this weekend, though. 

See?  Perfectly nice teeth!  I love you, honey! 

So, that’s the story of my weekend trip with Amanda…..we plan on trying to do more outings like that.  I think it’s important, now and then, to get away from the daily routine and do something totally different.  I came home recharged and ready to settle down with the children and the housework again.  And I’ve read enough about the benefits of laughter to know that I got LOTS of good out of all the giggling the two of us did this weekend!

I love you, sissy!

“If I go outside my eye feels like it’s burning in oil.

If I go near the chickens, I’m as nervous as a hyperventilating crayfish.

I think I’ve had 6 different kinds of drops in my eyes, don’t you think Mom?

And I’ve had about 5 different people look in my eye.”  ~Jacob, age 12

in Jacob’s own words:

“I’m wondering where to start.”  (long pause)  “Okay.  This morning we had just got back from walking the dog to *Mr. Smith’s house and I said to Grace and E, ‘Let’s go and see the chickens.’  So we went in the garage and I opened up the cage to get out Red, because she is my chicken.  So.  I put Red on my shoulder and she was peeping and looking down at the cage to call down to her friends to come and rescue her.  And before I knew it, Red had poked me right in the eye with her beak.  Hmmmm.  So I put my hand over my eye and said, ‘ow’.  And I asked Ethan to get Red and put her back in her cage.  And then I went up to the house and told Mom what had happened.  An hour passes.  Mom tells us to go outside and walk in the woods with the dog. (laughs)  To bring back a treasure.  So.  We went outside to walk in the woods with the dog to bring back a treasure.  This is turning out like a Lemony Snicket story.  We saw a mallard duck (laughs).  When we got back home, my eye was really hurting so Ethan asked me if we wanted to keep playing around the yard or go to the dam but I said, ‘No, I want to go back to the house because my eye is really hurting.’  Um.  When I got into the house I told Mom that my eye was really really hurting so she made me lie down on the couch and she looked in my eye and then she called *Dr. Jones to try to get me in for a doctor’s appointment so they could look in my eye.  And Mom said that we would be able to go right to the doctor’s office and I was really surprised because it normally takes three or four days to go to the doctor’s office.  So.  We got to the doctor’s office and waited in the waiting room while Mom signed me up.  Then, we got into the doctor’s office and *Dr. Jones came in after Mom had changed Sethie’s diaper in a record time of 2 minutes flat.  So *Dr. Jones looked in my eye and he simply could not believe that it was pecked by a chicken.  He put in some numbing eye drops and put on this sort of stuff that made my scratch turn orange so he could see where it was.  And so it turns out that I have a scratch right across my eye and I cannot to this moment in the day figure out how Red scratched me across the entire eye when I thought she had given me a quick jab.  So he said that he was gonna have to call a more professional eye place because he couldn’t tell how deep it was and so he called them and then we left and went home and got lunch and then we got back in the vehicle and drove to David’s school and picked him up.  And then we went to the eye doctor in *Crazy Town to see how deep my scratch was.  We got there and we waited in the waiting room and then we went into the doctor’s office and they checked out my eye and then they put in some more numbing and the lady who was the doctor was gonna look into my eye with this sort of machine but she couldn’t quite make it out so she had to put some more of the orange stuff in my eye so she could see the scratch better.  So then we went back to the machine but she couldn’t get the light to work, it had to be a medium shade of blue.  So we ended up having to go in the next room to use that machine.  So she checked my eye and then we went back into the room where Mom was and then the doctor told Mom that it wasn’t too deep.  And so Mom asked the doctor if it was clean.  And I forgot what the Doctor said about that but she did say that it wasn’t as bad as the person who she saw that got hand sanitizer in their eye.  Then the doctor told me that she was going to put in some disinfectant drops and then after she put in the disinfectant drops, she had to put in some more drops to dilate my pupils so that she could get a better look.  She put in the drops, 2 in my smashed eye and one in my normal eye  and said we could go in the waiting room to wait for 20 minutes to wait.  So then, after 20 minutes I went back into the hall and a different lady took me to a different machine and looked in my eyes for some reason, I don’t know why.  We went into the office and the doctor looked in my eyes and put more numbing in and then we went out and she gave us more drops to put in my eyes if they were feeling irritating or dry and then we set up my next appointment.  And then on the way home we got McDonald’s.  And then we went to Rite Aid and got some different drops that were to keep my eye from getting infected.  And then we got home and we put the drops we got at Rite Aid in my eye and then mom made me tell this entire story and that is what you might call the end.  I got to go to the bathroom.” (exits)

*name has been changed to protect the identity of the innocent.

My husband is away tonight, so I am taking the liberty to sit and write now that the children are all sound asleep and things are finally settling down for the night.  I rarely get to blog without constant interruptions so this will be a treat.

Today was our last day of summer vacation.  We spent our time doing what I love best, spending the day at home.  I would say, “having an ordinary day” but honestly, is there such a thing as an ordinary day? 

It began when Seth woke me up this morning at 5 and I brought him to bed and nursed him.  He fell back to sleep until 7 and at that time I went for a short walk with him, because the morning was so cool and peaceful. 

We came back home and I made pancakes and sausage for breakfast.  Seth can eat a little “cake” now, and it’s a very nice feeling to be flipping pancakes for six! 

We usually give a pancake to the chickens.  It’s just a thing I do, copying someone I admire, and read in one of her books (Tasha Tudor).  The girls are so funny when they’re excited over a bit of pancake!

Our major chore of the day was sweeping and cleaning the garage and cleaning out the chicken’s cages.  We have a shed coming, to use for a chicken coop, but in the meantime the chicks are all in the garage.  The older group of 8 are in the dog’s kennel, and the 5 young ones are in a rabbit cage.  The children worked hard for me and we got things nice and tidy again.  Rich will be pleased.

I went for a short walk with Davy, who had a bee in his bonnet about monarch caterpillars.  We searched for milk weed, and found some, but did not find caterpillars.  As I was with just David, I took the opportunity to snap his picture. 

He starts first grade tomorrow, and unlike half-day kindergarten, he will now be gone for a full day.  My heart aches to think about him gone away from me and I wonder, “Did we make the right choice to send him to school?”  I do second guess, which is why I am thankful for a strong husband, who has no doubts that this is the best for David.  Next year, Lord willing, I will homeschool him with his older siblings.

Seth is continuing to crawl more and more.  When David and I got back, and I opened the door to go in the house, Seth (who was being watched by Jacob and Ethan) started crawling toward me right away and made his way out to the porch.

Just a little note about his overalls.  They used to be Ethan’s.  I bought them for Ethan (my second born) the day I found out I was having another baby boy.  That was almost 12 years ago now. 

I hated to do it, but today I let Seth cry himself to sleep for his nap.  I usually nurse him or rock him.  But, he was fussy and didn’t want to do either of those things and I was hungry and hot and needed to have a break.  I left him in his playpen in my room and went out on the porch.  Ethan came to tell me, “Seth is wailing”, but I said, “He’s just going to have to wail”.  Poor baby.  But……………(a mama needs some space now and then)…….(and all the others were having quiet time in bed)………(I had to seize the opportunity)………..that ice cream sure tasted good!  I got some of my book read, and did my devotions, too.

And Seth DID SLEEP.  Like the sweet baby boy that he is.  Although he did cry loudly in protest!

Oh, those arms!  Those toes!  That sleeping face!  His baby stuff in the corner!  What a yummy love.

When he woke up I was reading to David and Caleb and Jacob got to him first.  Jacob is the “Little Papa” of the family.  At one point today, when Seth was in the livingroom with the boys and I was in the other room, I heard Jacob say, “Be careful!  Sethie’s very fragile!  Sethie will crack!” And then in walked Jacob to me, with Seth in his arms, and he was kissing Seth and said to me, “Seth almost hit his head on the bricks!”  Jacob rescued him. 

I also had to rescue Seth today.  He had crawled to the stairs and got stuck standing up and didn’t know how to get back down.  He made “come rescue me, Mama” noises until I came.

Grace and I also found him here this weekend.  This baby boy is amazing.  None of my other children moved around like this so early.  He’ll be 7 months old next week.

Dinnertime is so hard when Rich is not home with us.  I usually yell and say, “Alright, no one say another word!” and tonight was no exception.  Grace disappeared right as we were about to eat so I had to find her and for some reason they were ALL full of it, laughing and carrying on like the 3 stooges were in the room or something.  I did a lot of groaning and tried to be patient.

Seth LOVED eating mashed potatoes for the first time.

After dinner I had some blessed quiet as I cleaned up the kitchen and the children all went outside.

When I was done, I grabbed the baby and headed out to see what they were up to.

I jumped up and down shouting, “They all smiled at the same time!” after I took this one.

If you lean in close, you can see Seth’s mouth open round and wide.  This was his first trip down the slide.

We all went back to the house and I slowly but surely got everyone to bed, after reading several chapters of Homer, which I am DETERMINED to finish reading out loud to the older children.  We enjoy the book, it’s just so hard to find the time.  But, where there’s a will, there’s a way!  Tonight we read despite the fact that the boys were tempted to play battle with their bionicles and not pay attention, despite the fact that David was sitting in just a towel, despite the fact that I had to keep swatting (nicely) at Grace because she was chewing her nails right next to me, and despite Seth’s busyness.  I had to stop and change a diaper while reading details about the battle of Troy!  Ha ha, life as a mother is NEVER ordinary!  Praise God!

Caleb James

Caleb turned four years old on July 9.  He likes to tell stories, he still likes to play with Thomas, he likes playing with his big brothers and his sister.  He loves to color and look at books.  He still cries too easily, disobeys more, and needs Mama more often than the others.  He’s four, so that’s okay.  He has his Papa wrapped around his little finger (Rich calls him, “my Caleb”)  He’s had a big year, because this year he turned into a BIG BROTHER.

See how big?

After I took this next picture (2 months ago), he hopped up and said, “NOW I can be on YOUR COMPUTER!”

Caleb got a new bike for his birthday!

July 9, 2009

Inspired by my xanga friend Lazonya, I bought a “cut-up cakes” cookbook and let Caleb pick out whatever cake he wanted for his birthday.  I thought for sure it would be the train…..but,

he picked a watermelon cake.

Soooooo easy!  He loved it.

Caleb went through a Buzz Lightyear stage this summer and dressed up like this almost every day for a week.

He’s a fun little guy.  He talks so much, and still says funny things.  The other day he said, “Don’t SUCH BE a PARTY POOPER!” 

“Mom.  Caleb has YELLOW HAIR.  YELLOW.  Will Seth have yellow hair?  I hope not.”  ~David

We decided to let Caleb grow hair.  I find, with having so many boys, that the buzz cut is quite convenient and much easier.  But Caleb has such nice hair.  Unfortunately, Rich took him for a haircut on Saturday, just to get it trimmed a little around the ears.  I was shocked when they came back and he had a buzz cut again.  Apparently  it had to be cut short to even out a spot that David had cut off last week with scissors.

This was an exciting weekend for me, for my whole family actually, because my friend Christie came with her family.  They arrived Saturday and left yesterday.  She and I have been friends for almost 10 years, ever since Rich and I lived in Pennsylvania for 8 months when Grace was our baby.  Our families lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same church.  Christie and Ross have four children and this is the third year in a row that they’ve stopped by on their way back home from a vacation in Canada.

The children play like crazy and the adults talk and visit.  We love them! 

This is a post from two years ago, from their first visit.  (with more details about Christie and her friendship to me)

Pictures from this year

Caleb (with his new hair) and James played so well together. 

Cameron fits right in with Jacob and Ethan….this year they spent a lot of time outside and discussing “Star Wars”~

And it’s so nice for Grace to have GIRLS to play with.  This is a picture of her with Sophie.

Ross & Christie, Katie, Cameron, Sophie, and James

Christie and me

And this year I set up my tripod and took a picture of all of us. 

Yeah, it was fun making pancakes for 10 children yesterday morning!  I still couldn’t convince Rich that, “See honey?  We could fit 10 kids around the table!”  Ha ha…….

A couple more pictures from the weekend:

I’ve been letting Seth sit and splash in the pond.  He loves it.

Well, I should call it quits for this post. 

I hope all of you have a wonderful week enjoying God and His many blessings!

Today we go and visit David’s first grade teacher and classroom so I’ll be posting some pictures of that tomorrow.

Love, Shanda

Our Seth turned 6 months old on August 2.  I took a bunch of pictures and this was my favorite.  Happy Boy!

Here are a couple more from that day.  Jacob took them.  I can’t believe my baby is half a year old!!

It’s been another hot day here.  I took the children to Costco this morning.  I put Seth in the Ergo carrier (which I am still loving!)  in front of me (in the perfect position for kisses now and then) and pushed Caleb in the cart.  We left with TWO carts of groceries.  My husband can finally find all his favorite snacks in the cupboard again.  The outing went well, and on the way home I stopped at a farm stand for fresh corn on the cob, which I served at dinner time, with chicken enchiladas.  My brother Isaac came over to eat with us and it was nice spending time with him.  He’s coming over again tomorrow night. 

One of my favorite parts of the day?  When the children and I ate hotdogs at Costco, and lil’ Seth would gently look UP in my face as a poked a tiny piece of bun in his mouth.  He would look right into my eyes and smile with his perfect little face, with that baby-soft smooth skin.  Every once in a while he would reach up to touch me with his hand.  And I would laugh and brush my crumbs off the top his head and give him a kiss.  He loved those bits of bun, like a little bird in the nest, eager for a meal.  Moments like that in the midst of chaos………are so very special, like a gift.

I don’t want to say it, but can you believe, that SETH IS CRAWLING NOW?  It’s just all too much…he does that belly flop sort of crawl.  And he’s getting himself all dirty, too.  It just doesn’t seem right to have my BABY crawling around on the floor.  He found a little rock today on one of his trips around the room.  I didn’t know he had it until I was feeding him cereal in his high chair and I saw that he was holding it tight in his little fist.  He didn’t even know what it was, but he was keeping it.  Mean Mama took it away but he didn’t notice.  Soon he’ll be putting those exciting small finds in his mouth.  Scary thought.  Oh my, it will be quite the job to keep the house baby proof with everything that goes on around here!

Well, I’ve just put Seth to bed, after nursing him to sleep.  All the other children are in bed, too, tucked in after a busy happy day.

And now maybe I can finally go spend some time with my husband! 

It’s too hot to do anything today but sit around gabbing with a girlfriend as the children run wild outdoors and eat 50 popsicles in one day.  So, that’s what we did.    My friend Kathy came over with her five little ones, and it was good to visit and watch them all swim and run around as the two of us talked and played with our babies.  One last big half-day visit before school starts! 

It’s so hot/muggy outside and we don’t have A/C in our house.   I’ll be happy when it rains (maybe tomorrow, so the weather man says) and I may just go outside and run in it when it happens.

I put up a new header here on the blog today.  I took the picture a few weeks ago, at a garden that my sister and I visited with our children.  I thought the flower was pretty.  It looks like a black eyed susan but it’s a bit smaller and I think it grows on a vine, does anyone know the name of it?  I designed the header using photobucket and I sat and looked through one of my journals to chose a verse for it (as I do my devotions I like to copy down verses that bless me that day).

I took a bunch of pictures over the past few months, as you can well imagine.  I thought it would be fun to post the “group shots” today…of the six children together.  It’s gotten sort of hard to gather them up and tell them to hold still so I generally just take one or two and then call it “good enough”. 

This first one is probably my favorite.  It was taken on July 4th (as you could have probably guessed) and I was so happy to dress the boys all alike for the first time.  This was Sethie’s first t-shirt and I thought he looked so yummy!  I like the flag in the background.  This was taken on our porch:

This next one was taken at Old Sturbridge Village.  I was alone with the children on this day.  I only took one picture because I was pretty nervous about David holding Seth.  Too bad Grace blinked like a pirate right as I took the picture.

One evening, I noticed a gorgeous rainbow outside and I quickly lined the children up to look at it and took this shot:

Very soon Seth was able to sit up by himself and get in the right position for a group photo.  Or so we thought.  Oopsie!

We tried one more time.  I took this while sitting with Rich at a new ice cream place that we discovered, a place that has plenty of room for the children to run around. 

This next one was also taken at Old Sturbridge Village.  On this day, Rich and I had taken them to see an American Revolution battle reenactment.  We were feeling all patriotic so they wore their flag t-shirts again (5 dollars a piece from Old Navy, what a deal!)  We had a hard time getting Caleb to smile at first because he had just gotten a scratch on his ankle, with blood on it (he hates seeing his own blood)……so, Caleb’s smile is forced here, still so cute!

The last two were taken in Plymouth, MA, just a few weekends ago.

Here they are, in front of the “Mayflower II”. 

I bought the boys their shirts from The Children’s Place.  I just love that they carry sizes for all the boys.

And this one was taken at a nice park that we stopped at before heading home that day.

What a gang!

I can quote Rich here, “The six kids I can handle.  It’s the wife that tires me out.”  (!!!)

Shocking, wouldn’t you say!?  I hope he was just teasing!

Have a wonderful evening, all!

Love, Shanda

Dear friends,

I’m very excited to be sitting here typing again!  Rich and I set the computer up last night and all during this extremely busy day I’ve been looking forward to putting up my first post after an absence of two months!

How can it be that next Wednesday begins another school year and that this is our last week of summer vacation?  I just sat and looked through all the photographs that I took in the past few months, and as I did, a smile appeared on my face.  Yes, it’s been a lovely summer.  Nothing very amazing, just a nice, family summer with many sweet memories made and many just plain ordinary busy days of managing my home. (ups and downs and all)

I thought taking away TV and computer would give me a feeling of “more time”….but now I can say that we quickly adjusted to a new schedule and very soon I was wondering where that “more time” went! 

I will be working on putting up a post very soon of my favorite pictures and stories from the summer.  In the meantime, here are a few photos that I took today.

As you can see, we now have chickens! (13 of them!)

I can’t wait to hear from you all and visit your sites.  Have a lovely evening!

Much love, Shanda

“Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love
and to work
and to play
and to look up at the stars.”

~H.VanDyke

Here’s one last little peek into our world here…

And, our summer plans…..

Reading, quietly

Playing (lots and lots), laughingly

Singing, brightly

Vacationing, daringly

Learning, carefully

Walking, steadily

Observing, widely

Visiting, adventurously

Growing, quickly

Loving, boldly

Praying, peacefully

Praising, joyfully

Breathing, slowly

I just wanted to hop back online one last time.  I read through all the comments/messages and I thank each of you for writing to me.  Have a wonderful summer. 

“God be with you till we meet again;
by his counsels guide, uphold you,
with his sheep securely fold you;
God be with you till we meet again.”

~J.Rankin~

Love, Shanda