Grace the Inventor, Judah the Tester

Here is a working prototype for a new machine to clean the streets.  It is constructed from the highest quality plastic, adhesive strip (tape) and imported fiber bristle brushes.  It is very environmentally friendly as it is completely foot powered.  While it is quite slow on the road and the brush has no manual control and drags behind the car in a "haphazard" way, the driver is a very happy one and often operates the vehicle nude. This is of course to contribute to the "green" energy source as it is easy to over heat when you are driving the street-sweeper with body power alone.  The inventor of this new prototype poses with her newest work.

We Have a Thumbsucker Folks

Henry is pretty good at soothing himself.  Although its pretty easy to be happy when your Papa is holding you.  Here is a cute picture of him with John doing some Fantasy Baseball before bed.

Buddies

Darragh was gone all night and all day today.  She went with Grandma over to Davis to babysit Oliver.  While I heard that she had a good time, we missed her greatly!  I have to admit, there was more peace around here than usual.  Darragh tends to stir things up, for good as well as bad and it was nice to have a little change in the atmosphere.  Juday and Darragh are very close.  With Grace at school and me having to deal with Henry often, the two middle children have become thick as thieves as they say.  They often play well together for hours on end but there are days when they seem to do nothing but fight!  This is maddening as I hate to hear them hurt each other as much as I hate having to stop whatever I am endeavoring to do every 2 minutes in order to be judge and jury.

Here they are having a peaceful moment.  They both love books and will sit quietly looking at them for long periods of time.  Darragh, who is quickly learning to read, has begun doing a mix of reading and remembering books out loud to Judah.  Moments like these make my heart bubble.

End of Summer Garden

These photos are from the last day in September. We still had several tomato plants growing that were laden with slowly ripening tomatoes. They were delicious and the kids loved picking them and eating.

Judah just loves to be naked as do most 2 year olds. Here he put water in the digging area with the hose. He went tearing into the house almost knocking me down in his drive to make a newly conceived idea a reality and returned with the little dinghies from the pirate ship lego set. He and Darragh tested them out in the water for a long time and sailed bits of dirt and leaves in them across the "pond".

Laundry Day

So here are some snap shots from a typical afternoon for me at home. I was folding two loads of laundry on my bed and Henry just loves to sit and look at me (its so nice having someone completely and utterly in love with me...well John says he is in love with me and I believe him but he is too busy to stare at and smile at me all day). Judah climbed up and started reading on of his favorite books to Henry. He knows the whole story and pretty much can correctly tell it from beginning to end. Henry was reaching for the book and Judah would lift it up to show him the pictures.

Grace was sitting at my feet doing homework. My dad always had a rule that we had to sit at tables or desks in order to to our homework. I may enforce that some day but for now she is motivated to doing her work and seems to do better wherever I am so that she can ask questions and be with me. Her printing is getting very good and I love to see what ideas she comes up with when having to make up and write sentences with her weekly spelling words. It is hard to read the page but this is an example of what she writes. She is not timid to just start writing and depends on inventive spelling unless she knows the word.

Here is how he takes a study break...she even taped a bell to the ceiling at the top of the door jam so she could climb up and ding the bell.

My Happy Place

I have a Happy Place. Let me explain it to you. I sit on the left side of a large, soft but firm rectangle that is covered in a few different fabrics. I spend about 9 hours a day on it with a few breaks to check on the kids when they need me and feed the baby etc. I like to remain very still for hours at a time and I do my best not to think about anything at all. I even turn out the lights to keep the distraction down to a minimum. Ok, its my bed. Bed just didn't sound very interesting. It's not really the sleep that is my favorite part though. Ehemm.....not the sex either but that IS good and fun but is not my Happy Place still. Before we had kids we would spend most Saturdays in bed for hours. We would have several cups of tea spread over the whole morning and we would read together or separately, scan the paper, do crossword puzzles and congratulate ourselves on our intelligence:) Sex would me mingled in and amongst those activities as would more sleep and we would finally get up around lunch time. Those days are far behind us now but the echoes of those special times appear in other places and moments in my life.
Now, my Happy Place usually appears around 9 or 10pm when I get into bed. John has to be there in order for it to truly be The Place. If we get into bed around 11pm the Happy Place is gone since sleep is already due. I must be wearing my red night dress (short with crisscross frills on the front and super stretchy and soft). My bedside table has my glass of water, my bible, a good escape book like the Outlander series, my clock (I've had on my bedside table since 9th grade) and my lamp that shines light for reading but not all over the room so whatever babies are sleeping with us stay undisturbed. (our babies stay in the room in bassinets or cribs until about 12 months.) John usually reads or has the laptop doing fantasy baseball or email etc. There are lots of pillows to prop us up against the headboard (I would LOVE to have a bed with a padded headboard that leaned slightly back to facilitate sitting up comfortably in bed). On my dresser next to the bed we have an electric kettle to boil water for tea. Before bed at night I make sure that the kettle is full of filtered water and that there is a little jar of milk for the morning. This way we don't have to walk past the kids' room early in the morning and wake them up before we have had our tea. Sometimes we have chamomile or peppermint tea at night in bed and sometimes we have a little scotch. (I love to have scotch while I read my Outlander books since they are set in Scotland and everyone is always drinking whiskey in the story! (I sound like an obsessive fan of the series....be assured that I am. Romance, adventure, history, GREAT writing, sex, science fiction...not science-fiction-sex....that would be weird, and lovable characters...who doesn't like all that?!)
So, sitting reading with John after a busy day, feeling our legs and feet touching warmly under the covers, smelling the familiar man smell from my husband (nothing gross just the familiar scent of a beloved spouse). The knowledge that our children are all safe in their beds (as my Dad used to say, "all of our hearts beating under the same roof"...we are so alike Dad. ) gives me a peaceful feeling that all is well in the world.

Simplifying

Time for a new start at blogging. I have been paring down my life so much in hopes of getting rid of things that draw too much attention away from my marriage and family. I said goodbye to Facebook as I found myself logging on 3-4 times a day (usually while nursing Henry) and I realized that I was missing out on being present with my baby son. I was close to cutting out Craigslist but decided to keep it since I am always able to find cool usable items in the "free" section. Just today the kids and I made a trip to another house on the other side of town to get a cool rocket tent for them to play in as well as a guitar video game (I am already planning for cold weather and 4 kids stuck in the house...eeep!) I got rid of lots of extra toys that the kids didn't really play with much but ended up strewn about the house and required too much effort on my part (cleaning or getting the kids to clean) them up. I am even getting rid of clothes that clog the kids' drawers. They have more than they really need and I am pretty good at doing laundry frequently that they never seem to get to the bottom layer of clothes in the drawer before the clean clothes are washed and put back on top of them. I have cleaned off my side table from the stacks of books I had sitting there waiting for me to read. It got to the point where I became stressed out just to look at them. Now I have my bible and my current escape, Diana Gabaldon's latest Outlander saga An Echo in the Bone. (LOVE that series!!)

I have a bag of clothes waiting for the next clothes exchange party that my friend puts on every six months or so. We all take clothes/accessories and lay them out to trade, try on and take home. The left overs go to a women's shelter or salvation army.
In simplifying and paring down, I am also adding a new element that I plan with great hope to maintain: blogging. I have always appreciated my friends; blogs and have envied the fact that they have taken the time to write and record this part of their life. I haven't given it priority but now will. Life gets so complicated and filled with clutter and distractions but there are things worth investing time in. My goal is to simplify my house and life so that I can spend more time doing what is most important: drinking wine and reading a good book by myself. Oh whoops! I mean taking care of, spending time with and loving my husband and children.