Just helpin' Dad with the yard work...

Note to aspiring gardeners: hedge trimmers are sharp!

it's all fun and games until someone loses a finger...

A quick trip to the ER and a good dose of advil later, and she's all patched up!  Her poor finger looks like a cactus from all the stitches, but the doctor said WARNING WARNING DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS SENTENCE there was enough "meat" on the flap of skin that it should heal up nicely.  She will have a smiley face scar on her finger tip, though, so we'll have fun with that. :)

This is one of those moments when as a parent you realize you don't appreciate your children's guardian angels NEARLY enough.

Birthday Week 2015!

Guess what I just found in the Drafts!

In a futile attempt to get all caught up before the baby pictures and posts start rolling out, here is a shorter post, thanks to the fact heretofore established that I am a terrible photojournalist.

So, we all turned another year older.  But how would you believe that unless I provided photographic evidence??

First, Miriam turned 13!!!!!  I am still trying to wrap my head around that one.

birthday-brownie-in-a-mug

Actually thirteen has been great!  We're seeing lots of wheels turning in her head.  Lots of questions about how the world works.  It's really fun.

AND, she's old enough to babysit her siblings (legally).  This is a beautiful age! :)

We weren't able to have an honest-to-goodness birthday party this year, due to schedule conflicts with the friends Miriam wanted to invite, so instead we went ice skating two separate times with different friends each time.  She says her favorite gift was actually a Norbertine Sister doll that a friend of Grandma B.'s made for her, and which has pride of place on her bed.  Second fave was new ice skates with soakers.  Although she really loved everything she received.

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Joseph is now 7!  For him we did throw a party, since last year his birthday got hijacked by an ear infection and bronchitis.  We invited all his best buds, and served them sandwiches and cake.

Wow, was that a loud party.

Jojo says his favorite gift was two water cannons.  He also received a couple Lego sets -- well-loved -- and a few abridged classic books -- which he devoured.  He claims this was his best birthday ever, so I think he had a good time.

Seven has been interesting.  We're seeing more evidence that he has reached the blessed Age of Reason.  There are still several frustrating things that we're trying to work with -- among them severe forgetfulness and convenient hearing -- but there are also the insightful questions he's been asking that show us there's lots going on in his head, too.  This year we're looking forward to him making his First Holy Communion!

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Mr. Pickles is also older and wiser!

Andy was allll about helping blow out candles.  He was a birthday expert by the end of the week

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By the end of the week, even the birthday banner was tired of partying!

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Instead of creating an extra post, let's add the summer birthdays here, too, while we're at it!

Daniel's birthday was in June, right after we returned home from The Great Western Trek.

 He is now a WHOLE hand.

He has really grown up... in some ways.

He's thinned out quite a bit in the last year -- you can actually see rib bones now!  I don't think we've seen those since he was first born.

He is also very responsible -- he is usually the first to do a requested task and do it correctly.  ...When he's not in a snit, that is.  But he is extremely affectionate and has a well-developed sense of humor.  He won't stay in his snits for long, especially if you can get him to laugh (which is pretty easy).  It's scary to think that if we had stopped at 3 kids, we would have missed all the delightfulness of him!

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And finally, yours truly also became OLD like Mr. Pickles.

chocolate mint cake.  yumm-ers.

It's the big 3-9 for us this year.  Just so you all know, I plan to stay 39 for quite a while.  I stayed 30 for a number of years, so I know it's possible!

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The next birthday we'll be celebrating will be for the newest family member... stay tuned!

Great Western Trek, part II

Part 2 of 3: In the Land o'Lakes

Well, we finally made it to Minnesota intact!  We rented a vacation house in St. Cloud which was very cozy and WAY more comfortable than a hotel for the week.  The house was obviously well taken care of, and lovely inside and out.  (Naturally I took no pictures. What is wrong with me??!?)

Place ye bets!

Baby #6 is due in two weeks, so it's high time to place ye bets!  The official due date is Wednesday August 5, which means tomorrow I will be 38 weeks pregnant.

This time around you have the opportunity to choose the birthday, birth weight, and TIME of birth.  All my labors happened during the night, until Andrew, who decided he wanted to come during the day!  That sure threw us for a loop regarding sitters for the rest of the brood.

Anyway, here are all the previous stats so you can work up your mathematical models or whatever (good luck):

Miriam -- born at 37 weeks 5 days (which would have been yesterday), on a Tuesday, at 1:06 pm.  7 lbs. 12 oz.

Katie -- born at 39w 5d, Friday, at 7:30 am.  7 lbs. 5 oz.

Joseph -- born at 39w even, Friday (Good Friday, in fact), at 6:15 am.  7 lbs. 10 oz.

Daniel -- born at 40w 4d (the stinker), Tuesday, at 1:34 am.  10 lbs. 7 oz.

Andrew -- born at 39w 4d, Thursday (he broke the pattern!), at 6:51 pm.  7 lbs. 10 oz.

This one -- ???  birthday & day of week?  time?  weight?

My personal feeling is that this one is also going to come a little early -- but I hope not too soon -- I'm not done lesson planning yet!  (Anyone want to help condense a Shakespeare play into 1 hour?)  And my birth assistant won't come back from her vacation until Sunday.  So hold on, baby!

Also, to add to the fun and possibly bias your guesses, I've been measuring on the large side.  But at my appointment today, the midwife estimated baby's current weight to be somewhere between 7 and 8 lbs., but I had to promise not to hold her to it. :)

THIS time we're upping the ante and offering an imaginary bag of RED VINES to the winner!  Alrighty, have at it!

Great Western Trek 2015!

Part 1 of 3: Heading West

So let's pretend we have invited you over to our tastefully decorated home (*snort*) for cocktails -- mojitos, probably -- and you have just noticed the dreaded slide projector in the living room.  Ya-hay-hayyyy, vacation pictures!  However, we did visit about 90% of our readership on our Great Western Trek, so perhaps some of you might actually entertain an interest in a selection of these.  I promise not to see/be offended by any glazed eyes for the rest.

Best Anniversary Gift Ever

Before I (finally) publish our first post about our Great Western Trek, I realized that I first needed to post about our 14th wedding anniversary last November.

So, Mr. Pickles asked for a cappuccino machine.  At first I balked (what a yuppy appliance!), but now... I'm in love.

Miriam is turning out to be quite the little barista.

So, I gave Mr. Pickles a fancy coffee machine.  Mr. Pickles gave me (ahem)... another sweet gherkin!

Once again, he wins.

Since EVERYONE was hoping for a little girl this time we HAD to find out the gender beforehand.  So we could all find out together (since everyone from Katie down was at a sitter's -- Miriam came with us), we averted our eyes at the critical moment, and asked the sonographer to write the sex down on a piece of paper.  She was very sweet about it -- even including a couple shots of Evidence, and folding everything up carefully so we couldn't cheat. :)

....Aaaaaand the big reveal (along with a certain sassy person's reaction)......

Miriam was incensed by Katie's commentary and erased it soon after. :)

After the initial shock of YET ANOTHER BOY (two sets of bunkbeds!  no food in the house!  all that smelly laundry!), we are now totally excited and having fun debating about names.  Sweet little gherkin is due the first week of August (we'll be taking bets soon!), and there are TONS of awesome feast days around then.

I say this is evidence of God's sense of humor, since I never pictured myself as a mother of boyS, plural.  But I see how having boys has been good for me -- it's made me tougher.  And boys are a little easier to figure out -- everything's on the surface for all to see. :)  I'm happy that the boys have each other to shoot/wrestle/fight with.  AND I'm glad we had the girls first!!

Desperation

I only have so much energy to expend on devising creative punishments for ignoring Mommy.  Thankfully this is helping -- there is a certain amount of shame in being asked to make a Red Mark on the white board in the kitchen where all can see.  (Although a certain nameless someone found too much creative enjoyment in the task.)

Valentine's Day -- and the Last Big Snow

(at least we hope)

Well, Winter is not letting go gracefully.  We've had a couple lovely spring days here and there, but they are vastly outnumbered by the lousy winter-in-its-death-throes ones.  I'm actually trying to plant stuff this year, but I have to wait until the silly nights stop freezing.  The bulbs are coming up, though, so there is hope that spring will eventually come -- hopefully before our lovely Virginia summer catches up.

So, Valentine's Day.  Mr. Pickles is a die-hard grillmaster.  Any day it's above freezing is fair game for grilling, according to him. 

I am NOT complaining.  Grilled steak in February?  Why, yes, please!

He finished just in the nick of time, too:

that's dedication right there.

A couple weeks later:

those snowballs molded in preparation for battle thawed and re-froze into ice balls -- they probably would have been lethal had they actually been used

sorry, Boston, couldn't help ya out

One of the things I love about snow is how bright it makes everything.  This next one was taken at night.  I had to lighten it up a bit for the screen, but this is what it looked like to human eyes.

winter morning

I never realize how much of a major highway our yard is for the local fauna until I can see all the tracks left.

won't be using that for a little while...

poor oppressed bush -- wet snow is heavy

after its release (helpful children were more than willing to beat the snow off with sticks)

it was SO bright in the dining room we had to put out the awning!

So long, Winter!  You were pretty while you lasted.  Now it's time to bid you farewell until next year.

...please?

Happy First Day of Spring...?

Sigh...

Boo hoo hooooo.....

 Although I suppose it's only just -- it was in the 60s on the first day of winter.

Andy gets shorn

So back in December, I bought a pair of electric clippers for about the price of one and a half kid haircuts.  It took me about a month to work up the courage to use it finally.  Andy was getting so shaggy that parts of his head were disappearing.

Before:

During:

What's happening to me??!?

(For the record, I did start with a towel around his shoulders.  It lasted about 2.5 minutes.)

After:

that is a lot of little boy hair.

A friend commented that he seems so more expressive.  I replied that it's because now you can see his eyebrows.

hey!  get outta my frame!

now they look even MORE like brothers

I trimmed Joseph and Daniel a few weeks later.  They both requested hair styles just like Andy's.  Aw.  These clippers are going to save us a small fortune!