Thanksgiving 2016

I stood sobbing over two bowls of marshmallow salad. It started with just two tears streaming down my face but by the time I was folding whipped topping into the fluffy marshmallows and fruit I was sobbing. Making Thanksgiving dinner is a joy to me but the stress of October lingered and Thanksgiving was starting to feel like another thing I had to do. I just wanted a shower. The kids had been wild and restless for weeks. Madeline had also been a monkey for weeks. She's so wild!
Minutes before the tears fell I yelled at Ricky for basically nothing. He irritated me about something dumb and I got snappy. He told me he wasn't going to hang out in the kitchen with me if I was going to yell at him. So then I did yell at him, "I'm not yelling at you, THIS is yelling at you!" I was feeling tired (it was nearing midnight) and I was so grumpy. (Or at this point totally pissed off.) I continued on, "And don't be in the kitchen then! I don't care because "everything's" ruined now anyway."

Sigh. Stress. Sad face.

I had a hard week, and when I really think about it, this has also been a bit of a hard year for various reasons that I don't want to spell out.

Madeline has been so demanding this week and really this month. She is into everything. All day long we chase her around. She also chases me around wanting to be held. She is very needy but so very sweet. She's not a hard baby in actuality, but she keeps us very busy. This week she's been pulling cans out of the cupboard. She's wrapped the vacuum cord around her neck. She also just wants to tear massive amounts of stuff up. She's constantly wiggling from her high chair and then standing up in her high chair. When you get her down she just climbs up the kitchen chairs and the kitchen table. She falls off the chairs regularly and yesterday she fell off the table. She basically landed head first on the wood floor. I was running over to her when it happened. In almost slow motion, before I could reach her, there she toppled feet over her head just as she peeked over the edge of the table in a squat. Insane child! Most people, the kind without nine kids, probably would have rushed their child to the hospital. After only a few minutes of crying and nursing and then a half hour of playing I gave mine a car ride to make her fall asleep.I have no idea why she STILL climbs up chairs. She falls of them frequently. Kids are amazing and resilient. The human species in general is too. Also, genetics. Ricky's head and his children's heads are like bricks! I've never seen anything like it. One time Beatrice fell out of the van while we were loading it up. She was around two and I was right next to her. She talked in full paragraphs very young and insisted I did NOT have to help her up! She toppled out on her head. She still has an actual dent on her head from it. That actually scared me very badly. The sound of head hitting black top is horrid. She was totally fine. Her head dented though! Their skulls are all part metal or brick, I'm sure of it.

Picture from December 2016 (which hasn't even happened yet because this is a NOVEMBER 2016 post, remember. lol) See, told you. She's nuts. She tries to run down the slide.

You know when someone's kid gets hurt or dies from drowning, or an equally horrible thing, and everyone lashes out at the parents and calls them the worst ever? The holier than thou parents (and grandparents) come out in hoards on online comment sections preaching about how they never take their eyes off their kids ever, and this would never happen to them. Yeah whatever. Parenting is hard and kids do stuff. Not only do accidents happen, but sometimes you have these really freaking crazy kids (like Everett the bull riding fire fighter and adventurous Madeline especially) and nearly every time you turn around they are being totally insane.

So, Thanksgiving...
I sobbed while folding the marshmallows and fruit together. The small gluten free pizza I was baking for us as a late dinner was done. I cut it and solemnly brought Ricky half. He ate quietly in the dark bedroom while he finished watching TV. Afterwards he came in the kitchen and asked me if I wanted help. I had stopped crying but started again as I blurted out, "I'm so sorry I was mean to you." Tears. Lots of tears fell as big man arms wrapped all the way around my sobbing body. He's the best. This is marriage, the raw stuff. The I'd do anything for you no matter what stuff. The best stuff: like bringing your husband pizza because he needs to eat even if you are snappy and annoyed, or offering help and giving bear hugs to your wife even when she was being the mean one. No grudges or grievances to be had.

"For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish..."

Does anyone really think about what "for worse" means? I didn't really. I always just assumed it meant during hard times or illness --pretty similar to the 'poorer' and 'in sickness' thing actually. Turns out it probably means more like when your partner is suddenly a grouchy jerk to you and you show them grace and humility. When we show our worst sides we need to still work towards loving and cherishing each other. (Note: This should not extend itself into abuse.)

He forgave me. He apologized. (He didn't need to.) I cried. I felt better. Release.

We finished making marshmallow salad, jello, stuffing, and pumpkin pie together until our eyes were drooping closed. We had a nice Thanksgiving. I'm always thankful for him and for who we are together. We truly bring out the best in each other.

1 year ago~ Newborn Madeline

I was pretty busy, but I finally got my shower at 2pm Thanksgiving day after everything was almost ready. I told my family that no one eats until I shower!  Barely squeezed that in!

I was very pleased with my braided pie crusts! I LOVE making homemade pie.

 We played Pie Face (kids loved it!) and ate and ate and ate.

We all ate around the kitchen table. Big family life!

Reminds me of this gem of a movie, Cheaper By the Dozen

And that's a wrap! My calendar is cleared. I am looking forward to hibernation time. Usually in the winter we stay in a lot. We hunker down like bears. So very thankful for that.

Kid Snippets: 

November 10th
Bea (3) was looking closely at the bushes and flowers outside the library....
Bea: "Mom are these flowers all out of bees?"
Me: That's so cute Bea. You know so much stuff, like how flowers are supposed to have bees on them.
Bea: Yeah cause I know everything! Just like I know about doggies in the road and old leaves and bees in flowers! Cause I am sooo big and sooo smart, too.

And so cute too! She is great. (I have no idea what doggies in the road meant! I love it though!) Picture below is outside of the library next to the flowers. Bea decided to crawl through the bike racks, Penelope is following.

Always stop to smell the flowers...and crawl through make-shift tunnels

November 7
Bea (3) a few minutes ago at 4-freaking-am...
Bea: Mom, is it almost Christmas?
Me: No honey, not yet.
Bea: Mom is it almost Christmas?
Me: No, it's almost Thanksgiving.
Bea: Mom, is it almost Christmas?
Me: No!
Bea: Mom, is it almost Christmas?
Me: Bea, NO! You've asked me four times!! Stop asking!
Bea says nothing for 10 minutes, then she says, "Mom, I talk a lot when I talk."

(Oh goodness, I LOVE HER!)

November 3
“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.” –Plato

November 28 

Everett age (6) loves to try to cook things in front of the space heater in the kitchen. "I want perfect ham" he tells me quite seriously as he places lunch meat in front of the heater.  It actually cooked to my surprise! He was thrilled. He's been obsessed with freezing things for years. It's actually comical. If he has two cookies he'll freeze one. He freezes milk and all kinds of things. It drives me crazy but it is also super adorable and interesting how much he loves freezing things. Now he has taken a fancy with the space heater. 

Last summer he kept trying to freeze our blackberries from our bushes. We didn't have enough to freeze though! We wanted to eat them fresh. If I wanted frozen blackberries I would buy some from Costco. He would beat us to the bushes sometimes and we'd go crazy because he'd have the ripe ones frozen already without us knowing. It's pretty hilarious even though we were also not happy he was doing it. He LOVES freezing stuff to see how it changes.

November 2015

November
Penelope got a darling new prairie dress in November. I told my friend Molly that I hope Penelope never outgrows her prairie stage. Molly told me she only had one bonnet as a child but has three now. That made me smile.

Penelope (9) is so amazing as a big sister. She wanted to learn to hold Madeline alone, pick her up, change her diaper, and be able to walk around with her (to rock her or bring her to me). I was a bit nervous at first but the child is a natural mother. When Madeline wakes up from a nap I can rarely make it to my bedroom before Penelope scoops her up. Not even a poopy diaper scares Penelope off. She's so caring and loves to help out.

Penelope and I were talking about how Beatrice loves to sing and how sweet it is that she sings to Madeline. Bea heard this and started singing Rock-a-bye baby to Madeline, but it went like this: Rock-a-bye baby in the tree top when the wind blows the baby will...die. We looked at each other in horror and then couldn't stop laughing. That so belongs on that online list of 'creepiest things kids have said.' lol

In the most super cute things ever, Beatrice came up to Madeline today rubbed her head over and over and in a high pitched sweet toddler baby-talking voice said, "You are, aren't you? You are, aren't you?" without saying what she was first. So funny and cute.

Beatrice says things to me that are very unusual and amazing. Beatrice is very verbal (she has been talking well since at least 18 months old!) and she is not just verbal, but very expressive and articulate as well. She walked right up to me on at least a half a dozen different days, rubbed her baby sisters head, then pressed her head to her baby sister's head and closed her eyes, then she actually said to me, "Thank you for my baby sister, Mom." I could die from the sweetness and cuteness!

Everett asked me to teach him how to sew...
Everett (5 years old): Do you know why I want to learn to sew? So I can make a soft gun.

Penelope (9 years old): He means a stuffed gun, like a stuffed animal.

Everett: Yeah! That's why I want to learn!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote this for Madeline at one month:
Gained 2 pounds, can turn head in my direction to look for me, big, dark navy blue eyes, wakes every 3-4 hours like perfect clockwork to nurse, loves to snuggle up, loves being swaddled, likes baths. I am in awe. I have been trying to pay extra attention to how she changes. From newborn to infant it's stunning how fast it goes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I took the kids to our first homeschool meet up since Madeline was born. It was really fun having my mom friends coo over my baby. A circle of very motherful, sweet women gathered around me asking how I am, how our family is, and marveling at the wonder of such newness. It was sooooo sweet. Many echoed what Ricky and I keep saying each time... "How can we forget how tiny they are?" and "Why doesn't the newborn stage last longer." Oh newborn babies, what absolute love and hope you bring to the world.

Postpartum thoughts I wrote down in November:

November 10, 2015

Whether I like it or not I'm back in full swing mom mode. The world keeps turning even when you'd rather it stop a while and let you rejoice your new baby.  Ricky has the time off to take right now (paid), he just can't use more days right now when he has so many responsibilities to tend to at work. He took off a week in September for our beach vacation and then a handful of postpartum days. I can't imagine the stress he has been under. I'm sure it has been hard juggling so much. He has done amazing and I'm so grateful. In life there is always sacrifice. You will swap having family time for money or money for family time. It's the truth. The past two weeks play out like a month -or more-  in my head. I almost feel like I've been walking around outside of my body, or in a long dream where everything is muddled together. I don't say this as a bad thing per say, it's just weird.

November 19, 2015
Ricky is so loving and kind and tries to help me so much. He offered to take the day off tomorrow if it would help with the busy day I will have running kids to two appointments. He is swamped at work...you know "real work" the kind that pays bills. He doesn't think I have all the time in the world because I stay home, and he doesn't tell me to get on with life as usual with a newborn. I am so glad he doesn't act like three weeks postpartum should be long enough for me to buck up and get out of the house regularly, even though most people probably do start to think that. I feel so fragile still.

I actually wanted him to help me tomorrow but I didn't want to ask... and then he just offered. Now I'm feeling more capable and able. Sometimes it is just enough for someone to offer, to sympathize, to hear you, to see you and your challenges... and then like magic things seem easier because you feel so loved. (This reminded me of this amazing cartoon video about empathy)

^ After I wrote that Ricky was able to take that Friday off plus two more in a row. He surprised me with two of them too! This leads me to the obvious conclusion that four day work weeks rule, and they should be the standard. Now that's not to say it came easy. He got home at 8pm some nights in order to swing his responsibilities at work. I appreciated his efforts to help me SO much. Sebastian has eye therapy appointments on Fridays. It is a 45 minute drive one-way. Ricky taking him to those on Fridays is a huge welcomed help.

Thanksgiving 

Butchering the Thanksgiving bird

Thanksgiving was quiet, peaceful, and easy going. I prepped almost everything in advance.  I went easy on myself and only made pumpkin pies. The lemon meringue store-bought pie was hideously disappointing. I had to tell myself I just had a baby many times to keep myself stress free.

It was hard because my extended family is far away now. It was our first Thanksgiving without Aunt Sharon being here. I was really sad in the morning, shed my tears, and moved on. By afternoon Charlotte was weepy. When she told me I was like, "Oh no, I was already there! Don't bring me your weepiness over to me. I'm over it!" (It was funny, but I didn't really listen to the awesome empathy movie link I shared above!)

It was fun to have our fresh home grown Thanksgiving turkey. The kids helped prepare it. We butchered it a week before so the meat could rest. This makes it more tender. The kids all wanted to be involved and they were actually a ton of help. They all pitched in on feather plucking which can take quite a while.
 

35 pounds of bird

The weather in November was positively wonderful. We got lots of outside days. It really helped refresh me. I wasn't ready to plunge into the cold. (I never am!) I loved having Beatrice in June because the weather was so beautiful and the air so sweet. November being mild and sunny was a unexpected joy.

Sunny November morning nursing Madeline on the front porch

 

November Update

A round of turkey-bingo with a 7, 5 and 3 year old went horribly wrong; kids crying, whinny,  bored. Everett's jumping off the living room coffee table. I'm pretty much trying to salvage our "school" day and say, 'you're going to like this dang turkey-bingo game if it's the last thing I do' *shaking fist* ...but then snowflakes started falling across the living room window and we were all rescued from the torture. The first snow we always have hot cocoa to celebrate. Usually I don't make it when it's just a flurry of flakes that ends in 6 minutes, but today is different. Today we need a distraction. Badly. Not all the Enchanted Learning printables and Pinterest homescool pins in the world can save me from today.

It's one of those days where I am being as calm and awesome as can humanly be possible, even giving Mary Poppins a run for her money, and the children are being as whiny, fussy, picky, and uncooperative as possible. Sometimes every single minute is a struggle. Sometimes the results of awesome parenting and patience just doesn't take hold until they are older. ((lol lol)) I tell myself just keep swimming...

At bedtime tonight I told the kids enthusiastically that we'd try turkey-bingo again tomorrow. They all said "okay mom!" So tomorrow is another day.

I really don't have much time to do anything let alone write. It gets me a little down but I try to write things down here and there. This month was supposed to be more relaxed, more carefree, more balanced, less stressed. It was none of those things. I journaled some things off and on this month...

11/10/13
Layla's doing interviews around the house today. She asks me and Sebastian in a talk show host tone, "Okay now, what schools or colleges have you gone to? ...and Clown College counts, so don't be shy."

Sage and Ethan had their wisdom teeth out and it sucked, but it's over and now we don't ever have to worry about their straight teeth (which they were naturally given!) being ruined from wisdom teeth. We had their wisdom teeth out early in hopes it would be an easier process because the younger you are the smaller they are. Unfortunately for us the difference between 13-14 years old and Charlotte having hers out at 16 years old was not much.  

Chicken Surgery
Charlotte and I can now add chicken tongue surgery to our resumes.  Poor lil bird. It was time to add some young chickens to the flock again. We usually raise spring chicks but this time we decided to try fall birds. We bought them 6 weeks ago and they just got let loose with the big girl birds last week.  When you raise chicks in the spring they don’t start laying eggs until Halloween or Thanksgiving and then soon winter hits and they slow or stop laying for a while. This spring we’ll have healthy perfectly aged birds ready to crank out eggs all spring and summer.

They had only been with the big girls 24 hours before Penelope and Sage caught one and noticed she had a long red string in her mouth.  Charlotte told me she tried to pull it out but it was stuck. Upon further investigation the thread was tied around this poor chickens tongue two different ways and knotted three times! It definitely appeared to be cutting off circulation. We worked on this 2 ft. string for a half hour.  One end was down the chicken’s throat and one hanging out of her mouth.  Charlotte held the bird and I went to work and it was not easy but we got it done despite almost giving up twice.

The poor hen stayed calm and let us stick tweezers down her throat…my good 10 year old Tweezer-man tweezers!  I cannot even think of all the gross things I’ve used these tweezers for. If I even began to name the things you’d barf.  I just keep boiling them on the stove as if it’s the only tool in the whole world.  You can not underestimate the power of a good pair of tweezers…and I still use them on my eyebrows. Lol.  

To get the full effect of the surgery story you would have to hear in the background kids running, crying, fighting, and see Everett keep stealing our scissors and tweezers when we weren’t looking.  Also the sound of “mom, mom, mom, moooom, mom…” on repeat. It was nuts. The chicken survived!

  

Friday 11-15-13
Feeling very thankful thoughts today even though my house isn't as clean as I wish it was and I feel really, really behind (and our washing machine is broken and the dirty clothes are starting to pile up). Feeling thankful I have a sweet baby to care for even if the sweeping isn't getting done and the bathroom is messy and past due for a cleaning. I have kids to run to appointments and school events so my bedroom has baskets of unfolded clothes that we were able to wash finally, and important papers. The baby's changing table in my bedroom holds papers, a belly cast, a lap top computer, a toy sword, some other junk and the directions for Layla's 5k run tomorrow. Things are piling up. I keep telling myself to keep living and no stressing.

Every night I think I'll get caught up after the kids go to bed, but I don't. It's mostly because of long talks and laughter on the couch visiting late into night with my husband. Last night we laughed and laughed and laughed together like we were enjoying a date. I like a clean and organized house but I like my husband more. I also noticed recently that we just never have time to watch TV together...and it's because we spend so much time visiting with each other (after the kids are in bed) it gets way too late to watch TV. What a wonderful problem to have.

 Saturday 11-16-13

Feeling thankful and proud that when I woke up this morning I stumbled into the kitchen and saw 7 year old Penelope loading the dishwasher. I was supposed to do a monstrous amount of dishes last night but fell asleep with Ricky. Thankful that I live in a home where we care and take care of it together even if it's pretty hectic.

Today is Girls On The Run 5k day GO LAYLA!!!!

Layla finished her 5K in with a time of 35.12. SO proud of her. Her practice 5k last weekend was 34.12. Amazing pace!

Sunday 11-17-13

A beautiful day outside, but inside there is crying and screaming over: burnt finger (Penelope and hot glue, hot glue won), laundry piling up badly from broken washer, glass broken on kitchen floor, Everett hollering for some one to peel his apple, Sebastian has a birthday party to go to, the kitchen is a mess with half painted walls and a broken refrigerator, and some insane woman bought 80 lbs of apples and 50 lbs of local potatoes...like she thought she had time for that and 8 kids.

I got to retreat to the den to peacefully soothe and nurse a hungry sweet baby for 10 minutes. Back to work now.

So very thankful for a patient husband who spent 4.5 hours doing laundry last night. (And then I spent 2 hours folding it all.) I don't know how I'd get through the day if he wasn't at the end of every single one smiling at me.

Monday 11-18-13
We really need to order a new water pump for the washer, but the old one is still working --sort of. In order to get it to complete a load of laundry Ricky has to open up the washer valve at the right time and manually drain the washer into our basement floor drain two times a cycle. Then when the pump kicks on he has to make sure it's primed. Sometimes this means pouring water into a hose he has attached to the washer so that the pump primes, this signals our pain in the butt high tech front loader to start the spin cycle.

We have no way to spin the clothes dry unless the washer is signaled by the pump.  Ridiculous. We've said countless times for countless reasons we are never buying a washer that doesn't have a specified SPIN selection on it. Clothes still wet? No spin for you, you're just stuck!!! It's frustrating.

What else was I doing last night? Emptying our refrigerated foods into the freezer downstairs and into an ice chest on the porch. Yup fridge is broken now too. We got the milk out of the ice chest this morning, it's just like camping!

Sunday 11-24-13

We are still living without a refrigerator and washer. A mild but still barfy stomach bug invaded our home. My turn was last night. None of the little kids have gotten in yet, which means the barfed on laundry and towels hasn't hit yet. Life is slightly frustrating a real challenge sometimes!

Two weeks ago I told Ricky I wanted a white vintage Christmas tree. Spoiled and grateful, I am sitting near it right now as I type. We found it on Ebay. He said he loves it too and it was a great idea!

 Monday Nov 26, 2013

The crock pot leaks and I just noticed a crack. I was complaining about it and Ricky said I complained more about a broken $40 crock pot than I have about the refrigerator. Ha. Funny and interesting. 

I have been thinking all week about how refreshing it is we don't have to do anything for Thanksgiving. I'm not even making pie. Charlotte just told me, "I'm so glad we don't have to cook anything this year!" And while we love having Thanksgiving at our house we are so glad we aren't hosting it this year.

Then we started discussing pie...and how we have a pumpkin on the porch and we should make fresh pumpkin pie ...and how we should make a Thanksgiving centerpiece too.

Well so much for doing nothing! Charlotte's cutting up that pumpkin right now. Something is so wrong with us!!

Thanksgiving crafts: thankful for crafty down time with kids

We made Thanksgiving napkin holders and placemats today! Glad there were so many of us working on them or it would have taken even longer than the several hours it did! Working together as a family is so much fun. The big kids made all the napkin holders and created an assembly line to get them done, Sage made the eyes and cut beaks, Charlotte assembled hats, Ethan helped cut and glue and make the gobbler thingy. It was great seeing them work together. When they were done I glued them around the napkins.

We all hate the cloth napkins that don't absorb anything so we bought these cheap fall colored wash cloths from Walmart. (That's what we normally use day to day but I felt a little weird giving guests wash cloths but with the napkin holder it dresses them up a bit!)

Place mats made by everyone, covered in clear contact paper

Everett eating grapes as we load tons of Thanksgiving groceries