I'm Mom to a Teen!

Our sweetheart R turned thirteen, and she is such a blessing to us all! She is so full of talent and such a ray of sunshine every day. After postponing the party for a while until we could all get well, we were finally able to celebrate with lots of family and had a great afternoon. And can you believe that R designed, made, and decorated her birthday cake?!

Happy Birthday, R! 

We love you!

Is she amazingly talented, or what?

Check out those precious, perfect little flowers she made!

The birthday girl ~ Happy 13th!

Yes, she thoroughly enjoys being taller than Mom

Best gal pals

Starting Off Right

It's a little odd to be thinking of the summer fruit season right now. But, after our year-long experiment, we realize that this Eat What You Grow plan is an everyday sort of thing ~ we always have to be planning ahead and setting ourselves up for success. For example, last year we pruned the fruit trees later than we should have, and though the trees truly needed that shaping up, we had to take off most of the blooms when we pruned. So this year we were determined to start the fruit season off right, by pruning all the trees right on time in January while everything is dormant and resting. And we did it!

Actually, Mike pruned the blackberries right after they bloomed late in the summer, and that was exactly right on time for blackberries. Then yesterday, he and I pruned the pears, apples, and peaches (bless his heart, he did most of the pruning and I stood back and pointed to limbs we wanted removed.) It was cold and windy, and pruning is always a big job here in the land of Canaan because things grow so huge here. But I know that work will pay off when the trees start to bloom and then set fruit on their new shapes. We are hoping for a productive year, and it feels great that we're off to a good start!

Do I See A Light?

Everyone is perking up. The coughs are hanging on, as they always do. But the fevers are gone and the antibiotic bottles are almost drained. Speaking of drained, so am I. Is there anything more tiring than having a sick family? Praise God everyone is on the mend.

Granny and Grandpa sent a special treat in the mail to cheer everyone up ~ fun get-well cards for each child plus gift cards to Sonic. Whoop! No one has had much appetite for anything this past week, but they all got curious cravings for fries when those cards came. And since the walls seem to be closing in on us around here, they really enjoyed bundling up and getting out of the house with Daddy for that quick Sonic run. Thanks Granny and Grandpa!

Laughter Really is the Best Medicine

I've been a parent for 13 years now, but I just figured something out today. This would have been very helpful had I realized it a dozen years ago, but I can be a little slow sometimes. Better late than never, I guess.

To be honest, it's been the pits around here this week. In addition to all the sickness going around this house, my hubby has been very busy at work, and there were a couple of days in there when I'm not even sure if we saw each other. The kids and I haven't been out at all except to go to the doctor's office and the pharmacy, and those weren't exactly fun excursions. One such visit even involved a shot, so that stunk.

Well, we are all still home together today recuperating. Daddy is home, too, thankfully. This morning he and I were trying to blaze a trail through the living room and tidy up the kitchen a little, because I've sort of gotten behind  let things go completely this week, and the place is a wreck. I'm not feeling great, and he is exhausted from a hard week at work. So, this morning I really didn't want to be doing laundry, and I know that Mike didn't want to do the yucky job he was doing (I'll spare you the details, but believe me, it was yucky.) In the middle of doing those tasks, (just about the time I was ready to get grumpy) we started laughing with or at each other, and we really couldn't stop. That wasn't too unusual, because he makes me laugh all the time. But what happened next really got my attention today.

Keep in mind that the kids are still feeling bad and coughing like crazy. They haven't slept well in days, it's freezing and raining outside, and we all have cabin fever from being stuck in this house for over a week together. But, when Mommy and Daddy laughed, the kids laughed, too. They didn't even know why we were laughing, but it made them happy to see us laughing. And that little family laugh-fest left a rosy glow on each face, despite their hacking.

For a good long while, no one fussed and no one complained. Everyone pitched in as they were able and everyone was cheerful. And it was all because Mommy and Daddy laughed.

NOTE TO SELF:
More parental laughter = happier kids

Sick, sick, sick

None of the kids have been sick in a long time, but I've taken three of four kiddos to the doctor just this week! Baby S has pneumonia, and the boys are down with bronchitis. Yuck. Poor things. So my house, which was still a bit of a wreck from Christmas-palooza, is an even bigger mess due to sick beds on all the couches, vaporizers, medicines and boxes of tissues placed strategically all over. Everyone is doing their best to drink all the liquids I insist on, but HW in particular really feels rotten and just slept all afternoon yesterday. He is some better today, but sounds awful. Thankfully, Mama and Daddy and R are still holding out and feeling fine. We are washing hands and wiping down surfaces like crazy.

It's really been cold here. Unfortunately because of all the lung issues, we had to put the whole heating with wood challenge on hold for at least a week. We don't want any irritations in the air while the kids are healing up. We really miss the toasty feeling of that wood stove heat!

I'm off to pour some juice down HW and put the baby down to nap, then I'm declaring it movie afternoon while I lie down! Thankfully, the kids got the whole super-awesome Liberty's Kids series for Christmas from Gram and DaddyDon, so that will keep them busy for a while.

What Doesn't Work for Me

Instead of making resolutions (who needs that kind of pressure?) I've decided to write down some of the things that don't work for me and my family, and then happily let those things go.  These are things I've felt like I ought to be doing, but haven't found a way to make them work for us. So here is my list of things I'm gladly letting go in 2011:

Extreme couponing doesn't work for me. If I happen to already have a coupon handy (or there is one hanging in the store right next to the item), and if I was planning to buy the item anyway, I'll gladly use that coupon. But I don't have time to clip coupons, carry them around in my purse, sort out the 39 that expired yesterday, then forget to use the remaining 3 when I get to the checkout. I just don't need that kind of aggravation. I buy store brands when they are good, buy in bulk when possible, and I don't buy convenience foods. I don't get baskets full of free groceries like the good couponers do, but it's a fair trade off. With the time I don't coupon I can play a game of scrabble with the kids.

Rebate programs do not work for me either. Take the aforementioned aggravation, multiply it by 4387, then quadruple it. I do not want to be required to shop at certain places within a certain time period in order to use certain points on certain brand items of a certain size. Rebates are so not for me.

Store-hopping also does not work. I know that some moms save lots of money by checking out circulars, comparing prices, making lists, then going from store to store to pick up the items that are the best deal that week. Since we live in the country, gas is too expensive to make that kind of shopping all over town worthwhile. Also, don't forget about the aggravation factor I keep mentioning. Do we see a theme here? I don't really like going to even one store, so I certainly don't want to go to several just to get the weekly groceries.

Menu planning also is not working right now. It actually used to work great for us. I planned four weeks of menus down to the side dishes, and we shopped from those lists and cooked and ate from those lists faithfully. But then we challenged ourselves to eat what we grow, and the menu plans went out the window. With eating off the land, my available ingredients change from day to day, therefore menu plans just don't fit our family. It's been a little frustrating trying to keep up with the meals without a good plan, but my sous-chef R and I do seem to be getting better at it every day. And I'm still hopeful we can come up with some sort of general, seasonal plan that will help in this area.

Orange you glad I finally figured out how to post videos?

The picture quality may be poor, but the star is all kinds of adorable. She's surrounded by new Christmas stuff, but fruit is her favorite toy!