Spiritual Vitamins

Take a beautiful pottery urn

Fill it with inspiring quotes and heartfelt sentiments

and give a friend a jar of Spiritual Vitamins!

New Year's Eve

Which, in our house, always means:

This year we tried out "family time" for his actual birthday. (The next day, we had a New Year's Day dinner and our friends sang to him then.) So we did things he wanted to do and ate food he planned.

For his cake he wanted cupcakes.

G-girl being goofy while D-meister opens his presents. Make no mistake: he fully knows what she is doing.

Big Brother wanting to "help" with the Transformers.


Our youngest is five now!
I still remember our first December in this state, when we welcomed him into our family.

Happy Birthday Baby

Except I think she's officially a tween?

She chose a slumber party this year instead of the chaotic backyard affairs we normally put on. She must love her mother. G-girl planned the menu and the activities (battle rings! hiking) while Mom ran waitress duty. There was a particularly sweet moment, for me at least, when the girls asked me what I was doing.

"Clipping roses. I have made you a rose bouquet for your birthday." They responded with much giggling and twittering, a little too excited about the roses.

"That's what we're doing!" they replied in unison. "Becca decided to give me a birthday bouquet too!" They'd been in the forest gathering wildflowers while I'd been getting the roses.

The girlies had a good time while P-daddy (mostly) kept the boys occupied. After D-meister went to bed, I was grateful that G-girl invited N-man to watch the movies with them. He returned the favor by being quiet as a mouse, grateful to be included. He was so quiet, I was unaware of when he went to bed.

Tired girlies who don't look very tired at all!

The girls had a blast-- staying up until about 2 am (that's when I finally gave up hanging out with them)-- and then being awakened a wee bit too early for anyone's taste at 7 am by a recalcitrant chick that had flown the brooder. They rescued the screeching peep and then were right back at the party business of giggling and chatting. P-daddy said it sounded like we had two flocks of chickens in the house.

Around 11 am, after a huge actual-birthday breakfast of sausage, fruit salad and strawberry shortcake, we took 2/3 of our guest girlies into town for the Maritime Festival, where they got to enjoy a parade and the kiddie section until they met up with their Moms. It sure was nice of the city to throw G-girl a parade and a party for her birthday!

The "Berthday" girl and her friend!

I remember little you......

She didn't do this with her cake this year....

she still gives us this expression when we interrupt her....

Happy Birthday N-man

We love you so much.

And

Thank you, all our dear friends, who could share the day with us. It meant a lot!

I remember little you.....

Happy Birthday D-man!

Four years is officially "little kid" territory!

I told him the story this morning of how he came to us, and this afternoon we will celebrate with a small group of friends. I loves my crazy-making little boy.

Pssst.

See that radiant smile?


The one in the post below this one?


The lady sitting in my yard, framed by sunflowers?


That was her birthday.


And I forgot.


Had it on my calendar and everything. I just spaced and thought it was another Saturday.


Oy vey.

Happy Birthday to me!

My inbox this morning was FILLED with Happy Birthday email!

I received greetings from Mama Drama and Diaper Swappers!

I received Birthday coupons from Fire Mountain Gems and Borders! Wheeeee!

I also woke up to two emails from real friends so that made me happy as well!


Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(I got lots more nice emails throughout the day!)

My Birthday Girl

She is eight years old today.

Eight.

The luge-line!

Marie got the luge line photo from N-meisters birthday! It's on her blog here!

Rockin! Thanks Marie!

It's a Birthday Party, Little Man!

Yesterday we had a surprise party for little N. It was our final homeschool Camp Seymour on Friday, and while I was disappointed to miss it, P-daddy was home and got to take them on all the fun things as they had a recap day. The kids shot arrows, rowed boats, handled snakes and swam in their heated outdoor pool while I stayed home to finish the cleaning and prepared the food. Technically N-man knew about the party, but with all the planning we've been doing for the trip, I think it was lost on him. Focused on Camp Seymour, he forgot completely. So it was a surprise, and a sweet, happy little smile on his face to greet us when he came home to people in his house.


The bedlam that ensued, however, made me happy it was an outside party. It was after all, the celebration for a 6 year old BOY. The Big Girls pretty much bailed and hung out with Treebeard, while everyone else ran around and played played played. At one point, the kids sandwiched themselves into a luge-line on the sliding board, 7 kids deep. We kept the hot dogs and popsicles flowing, then enjoyed an ice cream cake. It was really so pleasant, and I enjoyed spending time with the Moms while the kids enjoyed the bedlam.

He may be big for our little family but he is turning 6 on Monday. Six! How did he get six? The little linebacker baby has slimmed out and turned into a colt-legged, super-hero lovin' science boy.

Happy Birthday, Little Man. We love you!

Birthday Weekend

Today was a C-family birthday, and we celebrated with a party at Odyssey-1. So did about 936 other small children. While the Moms sat stupefied, the kids apparently had a great time. Happy Birthday Girliness!

P-daddy will celebrate his old-man-ness on Sunday. I haven't planned a party this year because he didn't seem to dig the one we threw him last year. He has, however, requested an ice cream cake. Good luck to me!

The reasons we do...

Everyone thinks her child is beautiful. Everyone.
I realize this, and here I am about to wallow in it.

My baby just turned three. He is very likely my last child, despite the last few months' surcease of my "I am so done!" ranting. With his physical demands on my body easing, with his behaviour turning from maniacal toddler to a child of my recognizable tribe, my heart has tempered its resolution to never bear another child. This is not to say I ever will. But at least now I wouldn't cry. A lot.

~I digress.~

I was looking for pictures of the very, very fine sweater and came across many of D-baby as a baby. Before the maniacal toddler-- the child we called "Perfect." This particular set always makes me smile because I remember it so clearly. As the third child in a pretty close family, D-baby never belonged wholly to me like the other two did. I never was able to spend a lot of non-nursing, non-diapering time with him, just he and I. I had other children to attend, and he had siblings who doted on him. The older children, as small as they were, really did participate in caring for this little guy. Who knows what his worldview is, having that intense belonging? I can't even begin to imagine.

Anyway, on this one day when he was about 15 months old, he and I got to take a walk together. That's it. It wasn't all that long, and we only went around the neighborhood, but on this day he and I were able to go together, alone, and I brought my camera. He's such an infant in these pictures, clearly still "toddling," and the vibrant colors of the Spring here just accentuate how tiny and young he really is. I love them.

I love him.



And then, I had to release him back to the family.

Attack of the Birthday Boy

He's THREE!

Attack of the children

I have too many cute pictures so they get an entry of their own.

Impromptu Birthday Party

Where the C-family comes down with balloons and whoopee cushions while I scramble to make a cake and hors d'oeuvre and P-daddy steals the boy away for us to shout "Surprise."

And Dougie is surprised....

And shorn....

And so happy!

Happy Solstice

We enjoyed a wonderful celebration with our friends.

Nothing went as planned, pretty much....nothing! The cookies didn't turn out, the food didn't all arrive at the same time, and it rained alllll day so we didn't do the tree for the animals.

BUT we had fun! Much laughter, and love.

But we did have 14 children opening Christmas gifts at one time. That was impressive. And then we sang Happy Birthday to and shared cake with the Solstice child, who turned three that day.

This is us prepping, earlier that day:

Lil Bit of Baking

I am really looking forward to Christmas being over.

I am not sick of Christmas decor or music, not stressed out by the gifts (much) but I can feel SAD creeping in. Unlike last year, I am not without electricity or warmth, and this year I have last year's depression episode to warn me. I am seeing the crankiness and carb-loading for what it is. I will win. It doesn't make much sense to me anyway, because I LIKE the changes in the seasons. I LIKE the dark, and I know it's transitory. But my body, whoo boy, my body doesn't like it. The spectrum light bulbs really do help, but they don't fix it.

But anyway, I associate Christmas with the Solstice, and I will love it love it love it when the days begin to lengthen again.

Today my pasty white children and I baked pumpkin bread and roasted pumpkin seeds. They actually ate their healthy dinner of sauteed chicken and wild rice pilaf. I suppose having pumpkin bread considered as a vegetable side dish will help speed matters along there.

~G~ drew out an artistic design for her big blank wall in her room. I think it's fabulous, and if we can pull it off, she'll have a rockin accent wall. I am definitely going to support her in this endeavor.

Speaking of ~G~, massive trauma today. Her surviving crab is hanging out of his shell. I hear Monty Python as I type this, regrettably, but I do have to note he's not dead yet. So he's either dying or he's molting. In the spirit of optimism, we returned him to his dark coconut shell house and shored him up with food and water. She got two crabs from Santa last year, and she has really taken very good care of them. One passed this summer,and she buried it under a rose bush. It would be most unfortunate to lose Flower so close to his birthday. She's planned a party for him, complete with wrapped gifts tucked under the tree. She made him a stocking out of felt and and has it hanging alongside ours. I feel terrible for her, really do.

Little Nathan

We are praying for this boy: my dh and I, my fellow Tenters, and the many people whose lives Nathan has touched personally. Unlike many of our Junebugs, who we've visited or have visited us, Nathan probably has no idea who I am. He's been sick most of his life with neuroblastoma. The doctors caught it late as far as the disease goes, when he was a toddler, and the resulting prognosis was 7 years. I remember vividly digging through the internet like a madwoman, trying to find anything to the contrary. I remember passionate conversations with Angie, Leti, Dawn and Kim about how certainly by the time 6 years was up, the researchers would have found something. He'd make it! Surely that was such a long time that the medicine would catch up!

As parents, we now know how fast that time goes past.

Most of us under the tent have children born within days and weeks of Nathan. He turned 7 years old in June. Every birthday he had, we'd celebrate silently as if it was our own child given that extra year. In a way, I suppose, it was. Every lost tooth of Nathan's held a different meaning than our children's. He didn't find it exciting when chemo ruined his smile. Every picture, with new hearing aids, or fresh surgical tape pointed out to us how different his life path would become. It somehow started to seem unfair that we had healthy children. We celebrated life itself when Nathan achieved NED status, and cried in devastation when his disease returned after almost 2 years. Most of us refused to turn away, despite the pain. We kept following their lives, their story, feeling as if we could provide some invisible army, some huge community that would make Nathan's life even bigger than it ever would be on its own.

None of us who know Susan take our children's lives for granted. I have never written about him before because I have always felt it was not my place, not my story. But now, his family has been given the news that "Nathan has days to weeks left, rather than weeks." They have called in hospice and the boy takes more morphine than an adult could normally handle. So I am posting because I believe in the power of positive intention, prayer, pulsing, whatever you personally call the communication your soul has with other energies. I don't ask for him to be saved, because it is too late for that. But I am praying for his parents and their ravaged hearts. I am praying for his two little sisters, who will know a loss they can't understand. I am praying for little Nathan, who is soon to leave the only life he has ever known. Nathan, who lies about needing pain meds so he can be awake longer with his family. Nathan, who said just yesterday that he'd rather do yard work his mom than sleep on the couch-- and did it.

I am praying for Grace, for everyone involved. I hope you will send some of your energy as well.

Happy Birthday to Me

I am staying at 35 this year, I think. I forget how old I am all the time anyway, so 35 it is.

~G~ made me a cheese omelet while P-Daddy brought me morning coffee in a birthday-gift wolf mug. The kids made me home-made cards and gifts. Insert throbbing heart here.

Today we all wore our all matching tie-dye shirts and wandered around the farmer's markets. I think we looked cool. We went to a bakery in search of a 1. safe 2. black forest cake and upon finding neither, came home and made a ghetto version. (But ~G~ told P-daddy it looked like we bought it from a bakery.)

We hung out a la familia today until ~G~ and I went to Home Depot where I bought more plants for the garden. And a new hoe.

I must be stopped.

Tie-Dye party

We had a party here for MackAttack's 7 yo Dominator. I did the food and Niki did the tie-dye and a double chocolate brownie cake-- with no dairy!
Fun! Educational! Did I mention Loud?