Rainy day Sawyer

We do a lot of karate chops, high kicks, and hi-yah's on rainy days. And there's been a lot of rainy days lately. Thank goodness for indoor imaginations!

Thank you's

Teaching thankfulness by doing. He grumbled and complained at first. But then it caught on and he wanted to do each part on his own completely. One moment learned... one more action that will hopefully embed itself into his heart.

Snow Day

Taking advantage of a rare sight... snow! 7:00 in the morning and the boys were outside.

One usually gets cold before the other and prefers to watch from the inside where it's warm...

next to baby.

Snow piled clothes all across the floor but no one minds on such a special day.

Rosy cheeked boy fresh from the (inches) of snowy tundra.
Pure joy.

The 6 year old

As of Monday, I officially became the mama of a 6 year old! While we are having more moments like this:


And continue to have moments like this:

Rest assured. There is also plenty of this:

and this:

yep:

and definitely some of:

And like the amazing boy he is... after a busy day of that... there's always room for this:

Happy birthday Ian.

Framed magnet board

In need of some type of controlled space for the boys to hang their artwork, I found this tutorial here for a DIY framed magnet board. It's a big metal sheet covered with fabric and framed. Easy. (BTW...I love the colors of that play room and I'm seriously thinking about stealing the wall color for the boy's new learning/play area!) I hung this up in our hallway in between the new learning area, the kitchen, and the living room.

I made this one really big... 3x3 foot. Mostly because I had mistakenly bought an aluminum piece of metal sheeting first thinking it was lightweight and would work great on the wall. I cut the wood with a miter saw and painted it and even sewed the fabric pieces together before I realized that magnets don't stick to aluminum! Oops. So we had to search high and low for a steal metal sheet that same size. Home Depot had ones that were 2x3 which would also be a great size for this project. Anyway.. here's the pictures... I'm so happy with it and the boys just love it!

Simple

Potage Parmentier ... hmmm, delicious.

Reminds me of this
and this
and this here
and other simple, pretty things.

I like simple and pretty.

Saucin' apples

53 lbs of Hood River apples. 15 quarts applesauce and 2 gallon-sized bags of frozen applesauce cubes for Gavin. Done.

Trick or treating...

...with a fruit bat and Indiana Jones!












This year's costumes were truly homemade. Though some coughs and sniffles threw our plans out of whack this week, we still managed to come up with some dress-up ideas that the boys really loved.

And a cute blurry picture of Gavin (in his little red bear hat!) and Jeremy (as himself).

Knock knock knock

And my 4 month hiatus is over... now. I'm not sure I meant for that much time to pass without saying a word but I needed the time away. I've thought about this teeny tiny corner of the world and about what I wanted to do with it. Leave it? End it? Continue? I decided that it only mattered to me and when I look back I see a journal of our family and I know I can't let go yet. So I'm going to continue. But I'm keeping it simple... more what it started out as. A lot of pictures... a lot less talking. I love having a space to document the every day of our lives but I do not have the capacity in time or thought to sit and write what's really in my heart about all of this here. Some people do it gloriously well and I'm not one of them. But I hope that maybe, it will come through in the pictures I take.

So I'm back... with a new header! (Thank you Jeremy my love) and I'll be tweaking things here and there. In the meantime... it's Gavin! Happy Gavin. 6 months and counting...

Summer

Oh my

Has it really been over two weeks since I've posted... or should I admit... even thought about this space here? Not surprisingly, life is busy right now and I don't have the fortitude to remember everything I like keeping up with. So little tiny places get neglected... like here. But I want to keep posting. I'll just have to settle for little bits here and there.

Our June is going good even though we all still feel wet from this rainy season that just won't end. I have all of my canning and jam making supplies ready to go, I'm just waiting for two full days of sun so I can pick my strawberries (did you know? pick your fruit after at least two days of sun because the sun brings out their natural sugars and makes them oh so sweet).

And I've been bookmooching like crazy. It's been a fun way to get rid of old books and get new (to me) books in return. Plus, I love knowing that some of my books are headed across the country, or even to a new country, to a new home. I find the thought of it a bit... romantic. That something I read in my quiet time is now being read by someone else and tucked away on their shelf at night. Between that and my library holds that keep coming available, I'm reading quite a bit.

We finally made it to the beach and rented a cute little cottage right on the water. It was perfect and cozy and made me so glad we decided, spur of the moment, to go. The boys loved it of course... we all did. And it brought on more conversations of traveling and how we just need to get up and go if that's what we want more of. It made me excited about schooling at home because it leaves us more time to travel and gives us a lot of potential learning material. Maybe not right yet... but Scotland... we have our eye on you first.




Gavin is sweet and beautiful and amazing and everything I love about babies and everything I love about my babies. He's two months old (I KNOW!) and he's taking naps during the day now and smiling all the time. He recognizes voices and responds to us. He endures his brothers' bumps, hard kisses, and smothering hugs. And we love his bright eyes, cooing noises, and bubbles he blows.




Right now, Gavin is sleeping upstairs and Jeremy and the two older boys are playing XBOX Lego games. I'm sitting in a darkening office listening to them talk and reason and strategize with one ear perked for Gavin's first whimpers to let me know he's waking up. My days are busy just like most moms with little kids... filled with errands, cooking, cleaning, diffusing arguments and fights, doing laundry, and taking a break on the couch regularly to nurse a little one. But it's good. So very very good. Some days are really hard. Some days I wonder if I can do it at all and then I pray, quietly to myself, for the stress to stay away, for grace to come in it's place, and for only kind words to come out of my mouth. Most days I succeed... some I don't. But it's getting better and I'm getting the hang of it and I feel like we're all in it together which is what I want most of all. Life is good.