this many

Three years ago Grant graced our lives... Now what a bruiser.

I woke up a little early Friday morning to get the table ready for Grant's birthday breakfast.  Quickly had company.  William was a good helper.

Grant loves his October birthday, pumpkins, costumes, scary things.

Took Batman and the at home kids out to lunch and indoor playground.

More scenes from Chuck E. Cheese for the birthday archives.

Bethany's an addict.

Sam's present to Grant was assembling this little car.  He dedicated at least three hours to it.  Thank you Sam!

God's hand to vikings hats

I've been thinking about Henry B. Eyring's conference talk from several years ago, October 2007, if I'm remembering correctly that Grant was just born when I heard it.  He talked about the journal that he kept over a period of years, where he would write the answer to this question, "Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?" 

Since little Sophie came home, it seems we've had a daily visit from someone, a meal, a plate of cookies, an offer to help with the laundry, a phone call,  even gift cards in the mail from the wonderful sisters in Beijing.  So when I've felt discouraged I've had to stop and remember these signs that God knows me.  I'm grateful for people who use their time, and thier energy, and resources to bless others.

One of the sisters brought by this beautiful box of apples.

 Olivia, Mary, and Bethany helped me peel some apples for a pie.  Didn't think to check if there was a pie pan or not. No pie pan in this house! The strange lives of others. What do these people do at the holidays? So it didn't look so good, and since I forgot to add butter, the juice didn't come bubbling out of the cracks like I'd hoped, and frankly, even with Breyer's vanilla bean, it didn't even taste that good, but the apples and cinnamon smelled wonderful,  so I was grateful that the house smelled like a special occasion.

See? Not so juicy and the crust fell apart because I didn't have my special towel for rolling out pie crust.  There's always next time.

Last week I had a particularly harrowing trip to Target. I had the bright idea to use two carts, one for Sophie and the stuff, and one to manage William and Grant, who have become positively unmanageable in the store. William is the shopping cart Houdini, and Grant apparently learned nothing from last month's head injury when he tumbled out of the shopping cart at K-mart, so they tore around the Target carrying two enormous stuffed pumpkins leaving me  following pathetically with my two shopping carts.  Then William's diaper gave out in the check out line.  He  handed me his wet shoes, as I scooted him forward, trying to disassociate myself from the puddle at our feet.  Three or even four other customers offered to help me manage the two carts. I said no thank you, but I felt grateful for kind people.

What made it all worth it was finding this viking hat in the one dollar bin.  Ben had a viking hat just like it when he was William's age.  I sewed a viking costume to go along with it, one of the most stressful undertakings of my life.  That was Ben's second Halloween.

So the hat went on our picnic lunch with us. You might guess from Will's face that there were Oreos for desert. Halloween Oreos even. What a fun sign of Fall. I am grateful for beautiful colors, even artificial colors.

of dependents and dependency

Three signs that I'm a Disney channel dependent parent:
 1. I have a Jonas Brother of  preference.
 2. I've got Camp Rock , that is Camp Rock Two the Final Jam dance moves.
 3. I have a favorite line from High School Musical....

Some of you already know I'm prone to line-from-movie smattering.  As I said before, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is good for admonishing, while Napoleon Dynamite thrown in at any random juncture keeps my sanity in question--it's important to keep the kids wondering.

So I really feel that it's Ms. Jarvis, not Troy that steals the show in HSM.  I love a movie line that fits naturally into any situation, particularly Ms. Jarvis's  "That's so disturbing. Go see a counselor."

You know it had to said here.

Sam enjoyed terrifying William and Grant when we went out for a preliminary round of Halloween preparation Saturday evening.

So speaking of counseling, I have a beautiful, funny and  wonderful friend who told me that going to see counselors was one of her favorite hobbies, so I decided it would be safe to try, you know for my dependency and other issues.  I now also recommend it.  I should have paid someone to figure me out years ago.

I was feeling both disturbed and disturbing Friday afternoon when I took all four of the at-home kids to Sophie's appointment with the cardiologist.  All three of the big kids were wailing at once, even prompted a friendly couple to try to come to my aid and compliment me on my "childrens' chorus".  But may I say that I love the new Primary Children's Hospital outreach center in Riverton.  They weren't even phased by our noise and clamor.  The nurse was ready with bubbles, movies, a toy to take home for each of them.  Sophie got her pacifier dipped in raspberry syrup to appease her during her first ultrasound and echo cardiogram. She was quite excited to learn about flavors.

I call her small tumor her "heart light" since the little glow on the ultrasound looks more auspicious than ominous.  The doctor said her heart is functioning fine so we just need to come back for another check-up in six months. Perhaps sans siblings.

Friday was a busy day.  We also got to make an appearance in Mary's class for her All About Me presentation.

So what about sanity? What about this crazy house of laughing and crying, and laundry everywhere, and kids wrestling in the laundry, and its always fun until someone gets kicked in the eye, and honey nut cheerios everywhere and William with his hand submerged in the peanut butter jar, and constant debates over who's turn it is to use the laptop? What about that? What kind of citizens will emerge from this existence anyway? I was thinking about that this morning, hoping that they would just be happy to come home for Thanksgiving in ten years from now. That has always been my goal.

So I have a two fold plan 1) That they always leave the house knowing that they are part of a big team who loves and supports them...even if they did have to dig their clean underwear out of a big pile in the living room that Ben called "cozy" anyway.
 And 2) That they do leave the house.  That's the best way I know to get them away from the Disney channel.

first shoot

I mentioned the CD that arrived Friday in the mail from Bella Baby photography. Here are a few of Sophie's first portraits.

Sweet Dreams!

liquid sunshine

Editing the blog the other day, Caitlin sitting on my lap, looking at her picture on the header said, "I miss that hat."

 I miss that hat too now.  It was time for a change, but I feel a sense of loss now.

 The hat, purchased at the Great Wall some years ago, was packed in a box and shipped off to Maryland, and the picture, which is what I meant, of scowl and freckles and plastic jewels, and the "owie" on her elbow is somewhere in the hopefully retrievable memory of one of the three laptops that Grant and William destroyed this summer by excessive force, fire and water, sent off to an early death, should have bought the warranty. That kind of thing. I didn't think about that until after I'd changed the header, sent that cute picture off to cyber world. I'm getting entirely too nostalgic about this.

Another thing on Caitlin's mind, "I miss China, cause we could eat in the living room."  Anyone remember the Raines carpet?  It was a  famous disaster.  I remember when the first chocolate chip fell from a hot, gooey, cookie. Then it was over.

I feel like rambling today.  Wednesday September 22  what a collection of weathers. First a clap of thunder, then a bit of rain, looked the next minute at sunshine over the mountain.  My mom said they call it liquid sunshine in Hawaii. I thought it felt like laughter through tears.

I don't look at Geraniums without thinking of Andrew Wyeth, but the Olsens' were more nicely situated.  I should take the price tag off.

My front stairs in the rain.

Front stairs in the sunshine and fall shadows.

The park and mountains after the rain.

My flag in the wind, which kept opening the front door, felt bad locking it out.

We even had a bit of hail, driving to preschool today.

Yesterday, took Grant to the doctor. His surgery was successful, the whole mole was removed and cancer free. Grant is still enjoying his bandage.

The Fed-ex guy drove up to day. Knocked loudly. Sophie's hospital photo-shoot pictures arrived. That's something for tomorrow. 

When we lived in our little housing project in Maine I used to look out the kitchen sink window for entertainment. Who was yelling at their kids in the driveway, who was chatting by the garbage, who was getting a delivery from rent-a-center, getting soaked no doubt, a big screen television they surely couldn't afford, who was getting a Fed-ex? One day we got one, and then we were gone.