What I Love about Being A Mom

In No Particular Order Of Priority

1. Having a baby snuggle under my chin
   (Negative is, I get a lot of zits there...)
2. Being able to go to playland at McDonalds
3. An excuse for having a tummy... But for real, it's not baby-fat, it's fudge-brownie-how-I-cope-with-kids fat. 
4. Food... I happen to have a secret love of rice cereal (I'm serious)
5. I can SING, and they not only don't care, but like it.  Blake Lee was humming along today, completely melted my heart.
6. I love worshipping God with my kids. Raise hands, sing, pray, I am least self-conscious, and most God conscious then.
7. I make better biscuits. (think it has something to do with not having time to over-work the dough)
8. Insomnia doesn't happen around here.
9. A reason to paint a bedroom tangerine
10. Little brown shoes, and teeny pink toenails
11. Belly laughs
12. Big words out of her little mouth
    "Driving me crazy" - reciting to herself while picking up laundry
    To uncooperative toy "Listen to your mother!"
    "Oh My" >Here she pauses, I'm sure debating whether she wants her mouth washed out with soap, or not< "Goodness"

So much to appreciate if I choose to do so
       I snuggle in with her and watch the moon come up, she tells me that "it looks like rain" in true Farmer's Almanac style.  I pick him up and his tears stop. It's brutal, hard this whole mothering thing. But it's not thankless.

 

Pumpkin Picking

Gorgeous Morning
Had our homemade Hot Pepper Jelly on eggs for breakfast
Bronz needed to have some work done on the car, so we drove it into town, and then talked him into buying his girls some donuts. Yum yum
We sat at the picnic table and enjoyed this perfect morning while Bronz ate apple crisp.
(Our treat for him!)

I started Ann Voskamps book One Thousand Gifts this week...
It is an easy day to be thankful.
I look around and see beautiful, not ugly beautiful.
Thankfulness is a response this morning, not a choice.

 

This little cutie happens to be four months old today

 

Bronz planted a pumpkin patch in our feed lot, once the cows were on pasture.  So we picked them. Kamie was our spotter, Bronz cut them off the vine, and me, I was the baby holder, well most of the time.

Except when I was doing important things like running for the camera or ducking under the fence.

 

We even took our Family picture for September...

Happy Harvest Everyone!

Good Busy

 I'm thankful for 'normal' busy, racing from here to there, sopping up whatever just landed on the kitchen floor.  Doing a quick intervention between Kamie & a basket of eggs. That's been the life lately. 
I spent my Friday with the lil brother-in-law, that guy is a riot.  We were listening to Tim Hawkins, a comedian, and he was coming up with his own parody titled "Things you don't say to your sister-in-law" Including 'Your feet are three feet wide', and 'your breath stinks'. ...If you want to live a long and healthy life... A school assignment was to write a short story using certain spelling words.  "Is it okay if I write 'Once there was a boy who had to write these words >spelling words< and he got very sick.'"
Friday night we packed up and had a girls sleepover. Relaxing, and crazy me, I actually went to bed before midnight.  Something about two kids and the rarity of synchronized naps, I guess.
The rest of the weekend included down time at my Mom's, shopping, fun bonfire at a neighbor's, Sunday dinner with a friend, and some salsa makin'. 
Really wasn't sure which pile to tackle first this morning... All while keeping Blake fat and happy, keeping Kamie out of trouble, and getting some school done with the brother-in-law. (Doing some 'subbing' due to work scheduling) 
Happy to report that:
Quite a few of the piles are smaller. (in the interest of fair reporting, some are larger, namely the laundry one.)
School went great.
Kamie took a three hour nap.
I canned the salsa.
One batch of hot pepper jelly, completed.
Only rubbed my eye once after cutting up jalapenos. (But, really who would do that twice)
And I'll end with a confession.

I actually like Mondays.

Stuffed Tomatoes

 

We're all about tomatoes this week. A friend of mine picked up 14 boxes for me at a produce auction... for the grand price of $76

We had a canning day and put up 45 quarts, froze 100 lbs.

Soup, sauce, grilled, fresh... We've had them

Today I decided to get kind of 'foodie'. 

And so I stuffed them.

Cut the top off of tomato

Hollow out

Sprinkle tomato with pinch of salt

Put about 3 Tb of filling in

i.e. mushrooms, peppers, onions, rice, cheese, bacon

I cooked up some brown rice, with some of the previously ousted tomato, then added green and red peppers, side pork, garlic salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes

Top your custom filling with an egg, cracked directly into tomato

Sprinkle with more salt and pepper

Parmesan Cheese

Fresh Parsley

(my only herb that has survived the drought)

Bake in a 425 Oven

Baking time is somewhat subjective

I like my eggs over hard

So they spent 40 minutes in there

Yummy, I added a dollop of sour cream before serving.

Duh, of course I made this while Bronz was gone.

Bike-Like Faith

Last week I wrote about faith, a few hours later I was tucking Kamie into bed and asked her what she wanted to pray about.  Usually it's a rotating list of favorite family members, neighbors, and their animals. (I've prayed for dogs, kittens, donkeys, Abe the calf...) This night though, she told me to pray for a bike.  Kamie adores bikes, and 'more bicycles'. Commentary after seeing a semi, or more like every semi goes like this. "Meme scared of semi's"  "Meme like bikes". But this was the first time she'd wanted to pray for one. 
I prayed for a bike. 
Next day we went on a three county garage sale spree. Sure enough as we pulled in I spotted a pink bike, with a helmet, needed a new inner tube on the front tire but other than that was in pretty good shape, and they wanted a grand total of $1 for the ensemble.
Ever feel like you just got a hug from God?

When Cliches Don't Cut It

I've had a lot of hard questions circling in my head.  I keep struggling for answers, and finding that I can come up with solutions if I focus just on the outcomes of people. I can also get answers if I look at the Bible, but the two aren't meshing. My people solutions look very different from my God solutions. This is hard. 
I keep wrestling. 
When younger, I'm pretty sure I would have just gone with a pat "All things work together for good to them that love God." And then attribute wayward children, hurt marriages, bad things... to a lack of love of God. I'm not so sure now, people that genuinely love God are suffering these very things. Did they go wrong? Or someone else?
I believe God's word is true.  So did He mean something different by the good things he promised for those who love Him? 
I keep wrestling.
How can I keep myself from falling... If these people who I respect, can't stand? I know as well as anyone else that I'm just as prone to sin as they are.
Then it hits me - Faith.  Faith is what we hold onto when we don't see, when it doesn't always makes sense.  I know enough about My God to know that He is True. That He is Trustworthy. That He is God. 
These things still don't make any sense.

I continue to search for my answers...  And I have peace, because I can trust God, because faith is a choice. And I choose.

In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer,

I have overcome the World. ~Jesus

Apple Cake

Yumminess...

I make this almost every fall for Bronz, cuz he likes it, the recipe is super easy, and it's topped with a butter sauce. Umm Yeah!

It's out of a church cook book we received as a wedding gift. One of those churches that's been around forever... 1879 to be correct. And has its own collection of folklore.  I think the best story an older guy, named Bill told us.  He was attending a wedding there, and arrived a tad late, as he came up some kids asked him to open the door for them, since their arms were full. Full with bags of pigeons they'd caught.  They released them into the basement, where the reception was to be held.  I guess the birds were about as happy about the whole deal as the church board.  The police showed up a couple days later at Bill's and told him that the church wasn't going to prosecute, but demanded all involved attend a board meeting.  (That could sure cut down on crime!)  They were thoroughly chewed up one side and down the other, until finally there was a demand for an apology.  Everyone looked at Bill, since he was the oldest, Bill being innocent of the matter wasn't going to apologize, so after several long minutes of silence, the board told them to catch the last two birds in the bell tower and never do anything like that again!

So here's the recipe:
Apple Cake
Stir and let stand until juicy:
3 cups diced apples
1 cup sugar
Add:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix and put in a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 until done.
Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 heaping tablespoons flour
1 cup water
Cook until clear, add 1 stick butter.
Pour over warm cake.
Enjoy with whipped cream, and a hot cup of coffee.

Of Peaceful Sunday Nights & Cows

Kamie quietly tucked into bed, Blake cooing, me enjoying Sunday night.  Then my phone started ringing. Bronz’s ring. Since I didn’t answer he hollered up the stairs for me. (What I realized later was that he called my phone, while holding it at the bottom of the stairs…)

>sweet,nagging wife tone<  

Could you puh-lease not call me when I’m putting the kids down.

We’ve got a cow in heat.

(Note: There’s just not a very delicate way to say that, now, is there?)

>groan<  I love you  (Someone crown me quick)

What that means, is  Bronz has to AI the said cow, so we can have a little calf without keeping a bull around. If you need more info than that search engines await.

I grabbed a handful of chocolate chips, and a plaid insulated shirt (have to have the uniform for the job.) Stuffed my sweats into boots, which had their inaugural use under a white poofy dress with rice being thrown at them. Let me tell you, they’ve seen a lot rougher stuff since.

Me:        Aren’t you glad you’ve got me to help you?

Him:       Why don’t I help you, instead?

Me:        Are you sure you mean that?!

Him:       Silence.

Me:        I didn’t think so.

Me:        Well, I’ll do just about anything as long as you like my sweats, cuz they’re super comfy. (No one's ever accused me of staying too close to the topic at hand.)

Me:        How are we going to go about this?

Him:       Well, I’ve got an idea… It might be a dumb idea…

Adeline was the girl we needed to ‘take care of’… She happens to be my favorite, and is really tame. We herded her into the chute, Holding Blake in one hand I pulled the lever to clamp her in.  The cows are always fascinated by our babies, so maybe he had a tranquilizing effect as well.  Whatever the case it went very smoothly and I didn’t have to point a flashlight at nether regions, so happy girl here.  We only had one cow get out, and we were in the house by ten thirty. Not bad. Oh and I got a back and foot rub out of the deal. Not bad, not bad at all.

Aww... Can't wait to see our kids in white jeans in the show ring

The Challenging Child

I mentioned earlier that Kamie has had a Major attitude switch.  She has been demanding, frustrating, angry… etc.  The attitude started popping up about a year ago.  We drew battle lines on January 2, when she started crawling out of her crib. I thought that two weeks of consistent training should do it. (bahaha)  8 months later…

While she was generally better around other people, that wasn’t always the case, so I stayed home from lots of events to avoid gigantic temper tantrums. It might even have been funny if it wasn’t my child saying  “Meme push little kids”,  “I doesn’t like you mommy!” or have you asking “Why did you go potty on the counter?” (btw her answer, after shrugging shoulders was “Meme naughty”)  the worst part was how angry she was, at me and the world. The stiff back. Waking up in the middle of the night and hitting at me, while crying for me.

We had a break through… I hesitate to say the difference maker, cuz if you’re a mom going through this, and are at the I’ve-tried-everything point, it might just be frustrating…

But…

I took away things, I wasn’t sure if she would get the concept, but she did – and a Eureka attitude change resulted.  Favorite blankie, (covered her with a different blanket) pillow, stuffed animals etc.  I told her as I laid her down, that if she got out, Xyz was going to be gone until – either naptime was over, or I decided that her heart was happy.  I started with something she liked, and had her absolute favorite object be second to go. This gave her a bit of undeserved grace… she could tell I was serious. It kept me from continual warnings… And since it was only one object before her beloved red blankie… It also kept the timing short, so we weren’t spending the entire afternoon taking away inanimate objects.

So there you have it.  I’m really not sure if that was what changed her, or the fact that her little stubborn heart realized I would be blocking her at every turn, and she might as well give up. 

I cannot believe the change in her.  She’s happy. We can play together. She helps me.  Tantrums are waayy down – frequency and Richter scale.

Since you’re in the battle for the war….

1.       Train up a child in the way he/she should go.
This is your command. It helped me to continue, knowing that I was doing my job as a parent.

2.       Find Neutral Ground
We had the park and the car… Both Kamie was good in. It was very necessary for me to have some ‘breather’ times. Unless you’ve gone through this, you have no idea how demoralizing 8 months of consistent training with 0 visible results is.

3.       Get Support
Someone who is a little ahead of you… but not so far that they’ve forgotten the grittiness of it all.  A good friend, that you can call anytime or better yet who will call to check in on you –And the more you have the better.  I needed every single last one of mine!

4.       Avoid Detractors
Good friends, family… People you love, who love you. These are the ones who tell you what you are already doing in a knowing voice… Be consistent. Love them. Spank. They must have just had 3 easy – peasey kids. (Yours isn’t of the milk toast variety!) There will be other times to be close to them… right now it will just hurt your relationship, Cuz frankly, they are annoying, and you are over sensitive.

5.       Man Looks on the Outward Appearance
Now this may just be me… and how shallow I am, but I could deal better with Kamie if her hair wasn’t as messy as her ‘tude.  So I tried to dress her up, do hair and put lotion on her.  If we were having a good day I could care less what she looked like!

So while I’m completely overjoyed and feel ready to take on any parenting challenge…

I realize that

I have an end in myself

Nobody has it all together. Not everyone knows that (Don’t be the first to tell them)

Your child will act on their own free will

Coffee is wonderful

The Purgatory of Parenting

I've said it once, I'll say it again. 

Car Seats.

It really doesn't take a lot of explanation. Anyone who has buckled any child in knows it.  They are the price you pay for every mom misdeed, that cup of coffee you finished before picking up wailing infant, the day you forgot to take your pre-natal, the time you gritted your teeth and wished yourself on some abandoned island sans diaper bag.

Ever lugged one anywhere? They have to be carried three feet from your body like your arms needed toning, or something.

But today's chore is the absolute worst. 

Bravely, I say that I'm going to clean the car. 

Knowing that it entails taking apart two car seats...

which is really easy enough,

Washing them. 

FYI mine have been dried even though they tell you not to -

and didn't shrink. 

(Aren't you thankful that I discover things like that?) 

They probably just say not to dry so you take a.l.l day to wash them,

Or maybe it damages their hidden cameras. 

Can you hear it, The diabolical laughter?  As they watch yet another poor guilt stricken mother, agonize over the wretched hunk of plastic.

The putting-them-back-together is what gets me every time. 

I hate it. With a passion. 

Took me at least 40 minutes, and the manual the first time. That threader thingy they send along, does not work. Use a little pickle condiment spear. 

Mebbe I'm the only one so challenged.  Cuz' I set a timer for my 12 year old brother-in-law, he had it together in ten minutes. With a glance at the directions when he was finished to make sure he 'had done it right'. The boy is genius. Unfortunately (for me) he isn't around today.

The dryer just beeped. Wish me well.

 

What's a Blank Canvas?

I was just overjoyed that I had a great Big blank canvas, and an afternoon yesterday.  The big decision was whether it was Kamie or me who painted. Kamie won out... I took scotch tape, (masking tape would have worked better, but we are out and I'm all about innovation - like who needs a screwdriver when you have a knife?)  wrote LOVE, and gave her a brush... She picked out red paint and had a blast. 
During naptime I painted with black paint around the border... Then my rectangle o bugged me, so I touched that up with paint to make it an oval, and lined all the letters with a black magic marker.
When Kamie woke up she held it up against the kitchen wall, and told me to put it up. (Enter: hot glue gun) So we hung it nice and low where she can look at it.
This morning I added 1 John 4:19 - cuz it still looked a little 'blank' to me.

Ribbon, to line up my lettering

 

 

Kamie loves her masterpiece!  (Now if you want real art... check out my absolute favoritest artist -next to Kamie, that is!)

Family Love

One word to describe Dad's birthday party weekend?
Aah
Watch the kids try new and different adventures (crisco water slide... off of trampoline and into ditch.) Swings, perfectly engineered to dip little one's feet into water.

Sit and talk with the sisters, compare pinterest ideas... and pipe dreams of the big brick building we would turn into some sort of women's retreat- exercise, crafts, food, book store... I don't think we realized that we were just describing Dad & Mom's place on a larger scale.  
Laugh.  At the kids, at Caleb & Hayley trying to best one another with their ongoing rivalry, with each other.
The happy tears that there's been major attitude breakthrough with The Kamie.  And that 'shared feeling' cuz everyone knows what a tough time we've had, and they notice the difference, and they tell me...

We know this euphoria is here. And we enjoy it. We don't know how long things will be this good. The little orange dot on the family thumbprint tree... which isn't a thumbprint. The urgency to take another picture, hug each niece and nephew, write goofy saying on the basement walls, listen to a sister, put up with football games blaring from three vehicles.  Let fireworks wake up the two year old.  It's this feeling that we know life is tenuous, people are fragile, relationships are even more fragile. We've seen broken. So we handle gently. We may have to walk through the shadows in the valley with another brother or sister. This side of heaven there will be hurt, and temper tantrums, and work (and silage bagging), but the fellowship, the love... that gives us the taste of the other.  So that's really what the weekend felt like-- just a little bitty part of heaven.