Testimonies and God's Hammer from on High

I love it when my family members remember things from those around us and share them.  Here are a few gems-- 

From Piper:

Occasionally, one of the little kids comes upstairs to join me for online seminary (it starts at 6:30 a.m.). Well, this morning it was Xai. He snuggled up by me and made a lot of suggestions like: "You should turn off your camera," or "You should rename yourself 'I am your best friend!'" Then I had to ask him to be a little quieter because I was turning on my mic and he conceded and scooted closer to me. After I finished and turned off my mic, he bellowed out "I WOULD LIKE TO BEAR MY TESTIMONY..." He is such a cute guy:D

From Quinn: On Saturday I was working outside and Liesl came up to me to tell me she found a dead spider. She wanted me to look at it and I told her in a fearful voice that the wind would blow the spider on me. To which she said without hesitation in her little Liesl voice, "The wind will blow it up and up and God will SMASH it with a hammer." 

Rain and Holidays

 It rained yesterday. Beautiful, down-pouring awesomeness like I used to crave in Utah.  Growing up in a desert has made the sound of the storm magical.

Apparently, I am not the only one in my family who finds it so.  We had just finished up a grueling five and a half hours of choir and acting rehearsal and I had called it good for the evening.  We did a quick straighten-up while I put the finishing touches on dinner, we ate and then I declared the evening free.  

"Maybe we could watch a movie or something," I mentioned casually, to the delight of the kids.  

During dinner, the rain started coming down even harder, beckoning.  The older kids asked if the little ones needed a bath tonight.

"If so, can we do it outside in the rain? You know, just leave their clothes on but let the rain clean them off?" they queried.

Brilliant.

So that is what we did on our evening off...let the rain pour down.

Piper and Lily both commented yesterday about how it is like everything all of a sudden turned green.  The birds are out in choruses and everything feels alive. The sound of the distant freeway have receded even further, masked by the unfurling of all the leaves in our little woods.

I love to listen to the birds outside my window, particularly this morning when I lay there snuggling with my baby, trying to get her back to sleep in my favorite way possible...nestled up against my body. There is something equally magical about snuggling a sleeping baby so the combination of bird song, rain, and sleeping baby has really set a wonderful tone for my day :D.

**********

Lily has started a new tradition of reading off all the holidays for the day.  This week we have celebrated:

-"Minimize Food Waste Day"--leftovers for dinner!

-"Blueberry Pie Day"--particularly delicious.

-"National Kids and Pets Day"--every day, right??

-"National Pretzel Day"--another yummy one with homemade pretzels

-"National Tell a Story Day"

-"National Prime Rib Day"--sadly, missed celebrating this one

-"National Devil Dog Day"--won't mention how applicable this one was

-"National Great Poetry Reading Day"--every day!

-"National Zipper Day"--or as Liesl puts it, "beezer" ("Mommy, will you do my beezer?"

It's been a riot!  Maia was sad that we didn't celebrate "National Hug a Plumber Day" last Sunday until she realized that Quinn had done a lot of plumbing work, so we felt that qualified him.  Oh, and we forgot to get out the shrimp last night for "National Shrimp Scampi" day because we got so caught up in the rain and beauty of the evening.  I am great celebrating that one a day late ;). 

Sledding and Sass

  The kids just came in from an epic sledding adventure. Apparently on one run, they all tried to go on the same run and the three little ones fell off, Liesl happily dragging behind and the boys getting their breaths knocked out a bit.

After the trauma subsided, Liesl asked Lily to carry her up the hill (which serves as our driveway most of the time). “I can't carry you because you are too heavy with all of your snow clothes on, sorry!” Lily smilingly consoled her.

Lily continued up the hill. Shortly later, Piper (who was not privy to the above conversation) came trucking by with Liesl on her back.

“See, Lily...” Liesl called out as they passed. “Piper can carry me!”

Wow. Three and distinctly sassy.

A lunch of Holy Milk and NOT Daddy Rice

 I love how the world looks through the eyes of new readers.

I just found out that we are actually drinking "Vitamin D Hol-y Milk," carefully sounded out by Xai.

***********************

Liliputian is little Zuli's lunch buddy.  Every day this week (and many times in weeks past), when Liliputian asks her, "What do you want for lunch?", Zuli responds brightly, "Palacsintak!" (Crepes.)  Whenever Quinn and I go out for dinner, the kids will make a giant batch of palacsintak that normally lasts for days after.  Thus, normally that lunch request is not a problem.

However--for whatever reason--we have had a famine of palacsintak in the last couple weeks and so daily Liliputian is left to persuade Zuli that something else will work just as well.  

Well, I had a plan.

When I heard her typical request on Monday...and then on Tuesday...and then on Wednesday I thought, I'm going to have one of the kiddos make a batch for their mom help one of these days so when she asks, voila!

This morning, the stars were aligned and the universe was at peace and my moment of awesomeness had arrived.   Well, technically Hava's because she actually made the batter, but I was the genius behind it ;).  The batter was in the fridge and the moment of triumph was here.

I gathered an appreciative audience around, anticipating victory.  Liliputian asked Zuli, "What do you want for lunch?"  Dramatic pause as Zuli's little 2 year old faces scrunches up with excitement.

"Daddy rice!!"

Ach!  Seriously :D. But I had to laugh.  This was a classic example of the result of my best laid plans of parenthood.

Busy Saturday

It all started with that shoe on the wall...

Or that pile of laundry.

It was about 8 am and we sat on the couch and worked out the schedule:
-exercise
-the Goob driving to Batavia to pick up batting for his Eagle project and buttons for his vest for the multi-stake prom that night
-kids running to the MAAC (our thrift store from heaven here in Medina)
-minimal jobs for healthiness*--including that 6 foot high pile of laundry...only a slight exaggeration.
-running to market for food
-Mom being available for dance prep by 2 pm
-start the sewing of quilt tops
-Q-dawg getting in enough work so that he could not drown when Monday rolls around
-visit to a neighbor to fix a screen door (didn't happen that I know of...crazy!)
-Q-dawg trying to fix his broken windshield wipers, since wipers are so essential in our never-ending winter
-specialized cleaning for certain areas that really couldn't be left.
-eating?
-piano lesson for youth in neighborhood
-making dinner for friends and the missionaries.

Well, the war room prep was just enough to keep up on our toes, despite the unforeseen infiltration of the one-baby demolition crew. (See older post about Zulie.)   The Goob, Liliputian and Chugger-dude made it off to the dance with a delightful group of friends on time with me madly sewing on the buttons and doing make-up moments before departure. (See pictures on Instagram.**)  The little ones got to go on a whirlwind trip to the store, with money-bags Papaya in heaven after doing allowance with me before she went (because why not add something else, right??).

Q-dawg was able to finish up his work to give him that head start, although he did finish after 10 pm because he came up to save dinner instead of working.  Lek jumped in too, both with cooking and helping bring in groceries with Piper, Hava and Maia.  The piano lesson was brief, the conversation delightful and full of laughs and the food oh so good!!
Tex Mex Chicken Skillet

And we had Happiness Cookies to top it all off, followed by a game of Categories with a "spoon full of water" and a message with the missionaries

Whew!
Q-dawg and I had a great skype talk with Avot, who is away at college in Idaho figuring out her life, (squeeze in there 5 books read aloud to the littles,) finished up the dishes that Lek had done more than half of despite my insistence on splitting it down the middle, and then settled in front of "The Fugitive" to finish it up with Lek and Q-dawg.  My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it!

Days like that are fortunately few and far between these days.  Normally I have minimal accounting to anyone's schedule but our own and, boy, can I tell you how ready I am for this Sabbath day??

And the laundry was folded and put away.


*our new motto at our house is to make cleaning not the most important priority to leave space for creating, or in other words "see how dirty we can be and still be healthy."
**if I post pictures on Instagram they automatically fill up "Chatbooks" that are printed for my scrapbooks for family history.  Cha-ching!  Feel free to tell them I recommended you.  I love 'em!

Zulie Already in Terrible Twos??

It was 3:30 pm.  I was finishing up sewing a quilt top for one of the Goob's 15 Eagle Scout project quilts.  The house was relatively calm.

I still had some shopping to do before the sister missionaries came for dinner along with some dear friends.  One of the sisters is from Texas and had missed her Tex Mex so I had googled a recipe that I was looking forward to making.

Enter Zulie.

Bag of chips: dumped on the floor and stomped on.

As I went to clean it up, I noticed the waft of poopy diaper.  Later!  I hurried to sweep up the chips.

Container of Ajax Bleach: half of it happily dumped out on the front rug, as Zuli appreciates the way the puffs waft up in blue clouds.
Potted plant above the couch: scooped out all over the bookshelf and back of the couch and in between cushions.
Container of colored pencils left out by Papaya who is sweetly vacuuming up all the dirt off the couch: dumped out all over the other rug, complete with all the shavings from previous sharpenings.
Container of colored pencils left out by Mommy as she went to try and put the quilt blocks away before Zuli got to those: dumped out again.

All this happened in under half an hour.  Terrible twos here we come!  

Family Visit and Home!

Picking up where the other one left off...

The family visits the hospital!  These pictures of Liliputian and the Goob says it all.  The hospital shook as the van drove up,...once it did.  Tova was driving and the Goob was navigating so it took them awhile to find the place :D.

                                         Mom had the baby  the Night Before (Hava)

Binks is super sweet and gentle with her...at least for now :D.  I think he has enough attention from everyone else that he hardly notices Mommy's lap is a little more preoccupied.  Maybe he is just happy that I have a lap at all again?

After many tries, everyone except Zulie is looking!  Well, everyone who is here.  Missing my Lek right now something fierce.

 The kids get their turns to hold her:

They were here for a long time so they were each able to take their time enjoying her.  This did make it a little tricky keeping Binks occupied.  Right now he is showing me the baby in his tummy.  His might take a bit longer to "emerge" than mine did.

No touchy...

Quiet moments awake after the fam is gone:

My favorite kind of shots.  I have such a dear husband...

Getting ready to come home; the calm before the storm.

At least the storm is super cute!

Papaya is dressed up as Ebenezer Scrooge for Halloween!

Even though it is blurry, I had to keep this picture.  Spooners body posture says it all!

And, yes, he did dress himself.

Fun present from a dear friend made entirely out of diapers and baby supplies:

Yes...she never gets laid down, at least during the day.