A Matter of Ancestory

Today became other than I planned; my to-do list is largely unchecked, but I watched loads of British Period Drama and held my three-month-old niece for hours. I would say these were changes for the better.
Babies & BBC > Housework. Everyday.

Today also included a few minutes of definite hausfrau-ness. I'm all for feeling my UK heritage every chance I get, especially when those chances involve shortbread. But when you're out striding through fallen leaves in a pair of rubber boots, breathing deep lung-fulls of crisp air, headed to the late-producing vegetable patch to harvest some carrots and greens... well, that isn't a time for dainty dreams of English tea parties. That, my dear friends, is when you pretend your name is Marta Frieda Berta and you hike up your imaginary skirts with your work-worn hands and attack vork vit many vigors.

It's great to be German on a fall morning.
Just ask these Ruffer girls.

You have never seen a prim little Anglo-Saxon girl tackle a spread of leaves with the enthusiasm mustered by these daughters of the Deutschland.  
I know it looks like the girl in the polka-dots was about to assail her cousin and sister with that rake, but please accept my assurances that I would never have merely taken pictures while that happened. I know the powerful swing of which this Germanic kinder is capable.  She looks like she was turning her plowshare rake into a sword club, but I do not think that was the case...

Of course, I'm not too sure, as immediately after snapping these photos I was reminded by the infant cradled in my [non-camera] arm that we had an appointment with some rather stuffy characters in long skirts and veiled hats. And there was also some shortbread hidden in the cupboard...
One can only handle so much hausfrau in one's life. Eventually, one must stop play-acting.  One must listen to the British accented voice in one's head. In the end, one does have roots beyond the sort in the vegetable patch, and afternoons (of any season) are made better by ancestors of the British Isles.


Let us not lose sight of who was on the winning and losing sides of both World Wars.

Hot, Irritable and Blessed

I'm afraid that I have been letting This Heat wave to negatively affect my attitude.  Everyone is out to irritate me.  I don't feel like cleaning up after my children in this ever-stickier house.  I'm tired of not sleeping well. Whah, whah blessed whah...
Remember how much I love lists?  Well, this morning is obviously the right time to make a "Count Your Blessings, Honour" list.  I recruited my oldest three children to help me and we sat around the kitchen table with the littlest wandering around our legs.  I think the setting may have influenced our list a bit, but here are

25 Blessings

(not listed in order of importance)

1. Food - we have plenty to eat!
2. Shelter - our house
3. Sauder Village membership
4. Piano Lessons - we can learn music
5. Money - we have enough for our needs
6. Jesus - God the Son who paid our sin debt
7. God - who loves us completely
8. Friends
9. Air Conditioner
10. Syrup - to make pancakes & waffles even better!
11. Dishes - we don't have to eat on our bare hands or the bare table
12. Toaster waffles - breakfast can be fast & yummy
13. Family
14. A Kitchen table - that moves around easily for cleaning the floor
15. Cupboards - to hold our dishes & food
16. Babies - to reproduce us (so the human race keeps going on)
17. Refrigerator - to keep our milk cold
18. Pitchers on the ball field
19. Mommy - she gives us food and reproduces
20. Teeth - to eat with
21. Milk - to give us strong bones
22. Daddy - he is fun
23. Fans - to cool us off
24. Books - help us learn
25. Dolly our puppy

Can you tell which person contributed which item? 

 Hint: I don't use the word "reproduce."

Not a Real Blog Mommy

I feel as though each time I actually do click "PUBLISH POST" I must re-introduce myself since such great amounts of time lapse between entries. [Hi, My name is Honour, I have a lot of kids in a big house. My kids say funny things and entertain us endlessly. My house is old and a constant source of work.]

What keeps me from writing? There is no shortage of inspiration around here. There's this cute little Lover of Standing...

Can you see the delight on her face? Doesn't it make you want to go find an ottoman and hold on to it? I had no idea furniture-assisted standing was such a wonderful thing. Imagine what she'll think when she can be up without help! And how about that helpful boy in the background? I have no idea what I would do without him around. He makes me smile.

We've also had a slew of Birthdayness going on lately.

Someone is always celebrating around here. More cupcakes coming later this month.

We also have been watching a LOT of this:

I'm sure that my esteemed readers (thanks, Mom & Dad) will recognize this activity. All three of my oldest children have chosen to play parks & rec sports this season. So four afternoons out of the week find us watching soccer, soccer and flag football. I'm ready for it to end. Very ready.

So I'm not lacking inspiration, just time. What is it that takes up most of my time?

Life.
Messy.
Silly.
Sometimes Irritating.
Always with lots of Laundry.

Let's walk through this picture, the one that "Real Blog Mommys" never show.

Upper left hand corner: a Fall Dress I made for G.Baby. I am so proud of this dress, since I got all creative-and-adaptive with it, only loosely following a pattern and adding touches of my own. Full of vanity, I love every compliment that she receives while wearing it. If I were a Real Blog Mommy, I would have already posted a charmingly upbeat tutorial with lovely pictures of each vintage button (really vintage - rescued from the trash!) and a link to my etsy shop where you can purchase one for your own darling infant!
Is anyone picking up on my little burst of jealousy here?
Moving on.

Middle background, behind Baby's head: a Stack of games for the "Family Game Night" we never had. [Sorry kids.] A Real Blog Mommy would have not only held "Family Game Night," she would have coordinated clever snacks and had a meaningful lesson to go with each game. And invited the neighbors.
And taken great pictures.
And posted about it the next day.
Let's keep going.
Center of picture: Four baskets of laundry, in various stages of folding. Real Blog Mommys do not mention laundry. Their children are clothed at all times in adorable, hand-crafted togs that never become soiled.

Foreground: Playdough. Not homemade (as a Real Blog Mommy would have) but a true obsession of the green-dressed beauty. We take playdough to soccer games. To the grocery store (it stays inside the diaper bag there). To Grammy's house. She loves playdough. I hate it; it is messy and the colors are always mixing themselves up.

Foreground: The Boxcar Children. One of my favorite bits of children's literature. A Real Blog Mommy reads to her children nightly. I am just thrilled that my children are independant readers so they can fulfill their reading requirements for school with minimal involvement on my part. I just approve their books, initial their charts and smile... And then scramble at the end of each month because I remember that my kindergarten student isn't actually reading yet (although she interprets the pictures wonderfully and provides much more interesting dialogue than the authors provide) and we have to read 30 books before bedtime so that she can get her reward from her teacher tomorrow.

Center: Much-cuddled (if diaper-neglected just the teeniest bit) Baby. Caring for my children and trying to make our home a clean, loving environment for growing those children up takes up the majority of my time. I do not have a "real" job and I have absolutely no idea how "working mothers" actually hold their lives together. I seem to struggle just to find my way out of a grungy t-shirt. Our home is constantly messy and always enduring one improvement or another. We know from pictures that Real Blog Mommys have lovely homes, white teeth, well-behaved children and sew, cook, homeschool, publish books, run an etsy business, volunteer, and photograph their every perfect moment.

I suspect that they also have maids and nannys hidden outside the edges of each photograph. This suspicion maintains my feeble grasp on sanity. That and the fact that I absolutely love my life, messy, silly, sometime irritating and full of laundry.

PS -- for those of you that are worried, G.Baby spends almost no time on top of the dining room table. She is the only part of this picture that was posed. W.Beans and the various props happened to be there already and I just plopped the baby in there and snapped a few pictures. I promise.

Baby Tears

I'm extra-tired today.
That explains why I nearly cried.
I was holding Baby, and she was not crying.
Sometimes the perfectness of rounding little arms and legs, the brightness of two round eyes edged by fragile eyelashes, the cooing "O" of a mouth, the wispy hair... well, sometimes the beauty of my Baby makes me cry.
Maybe because she is so sweet. Maybe because a baby is so hopeful and pure in this ugly, evil world. Maybe because I love all five of my babies so much I hurt.

Or maybe because I am tired.

Wardrobe {FUN}ction

I was trying to tell G-Baby that she looked extra sweet in nothing but a soft blankey...Or atop a hand-made quilt.

But she didn't so much feel the same way I did about it. So I gave her a shirt. Now, I don't know if she was just cold, or if she was upset about the big Zero (the logic of my argument that she wasn't one month old yet, so she couldn't wear the number 1 yet was lost on her. Actually, after the mess of that run-on sentence, the logic is lost on me too.)

Maybe it was just the cold, because here she is, five minutes later in peaceful slumber:Or maybe she was just worn out from all that screaming.

You would think that by the time I brought home my third daughter, I would have learned my lesson. Girls have definite opinions about thier clothing, and these opinions are not usually founded upon Good Reason nor Common Sense.

Good Reason & Common Sense: if a dress is scratchy, don't wear it.

Norah's opinion: If a dress makes you feel beautiful, wear it and ignore the discomfort!

Good Reason & Common Sense: If it is cold enough for snow boots and long sleeves, it is not warm enough for hawiian print shorts.

Willa's opinion: if mom can bum around the house in sweatpants and a grubby t-shirt, a two-year-old can make any outfit work.

Endeavoring to Update the Blog

Baby has arrived!

Ginger Elaine 6 pounds, 14 ounces; 21 inches long.

Welcomed by a whole bunch of people who took an immediate liking to her.

Already growing at a ridiculously rapid rate.

I confess, I was a little concerned about how Baby #4 would adjust to Baby #5. She has proven herself to be a marvelous Big Sister! No jealous tantrums, very helpful with bringing baby wipes and diapers, flashing that dimple and using a very high-pitched and soft voice to say "Hi" to Baby Sister every chance she gets. The best part? She hasn't tried to pick up our bundle of joy even once!

I'm a little overwhelmed, even a bit weepy when I think of everything that God has given me. He has poured out so many lovely, wonderful blessings in my life. I do not deserve even a fraction of all He has lavished on me. Why is He so nice to me?

One more note: I'm not going to go into the full "birth story" here; it was pretty strait-forward and basic. Typical "in pain you shall bring forth children" stuff, but throughout the whole process, slices of Psalm 91 kept running through my mind. Just another gift from my God: peaceful refuge in the midst of work, reminders of His constant presence through out my whole life. Even in the after-delivery recovery stage where everything is emotionally out of proportion and I am overly exhausted, He has been my safety, my hiding place, my joy in the messiness.