Golden Moments

I wanted to post three days ago, but I was trying to learn how to edit the video, with help from my resident digital videography expert (Cameron). With it being Fair week and Homecoming weekend, life was busy. Ok, so it's still not edited. Let alone posted.

Our big news, is that Emma is now walking!!! Video to follow.

It's not her preferred method of transportation, because crawling is still so much easier and faster. Life will change at the Haven again when she is walking full time, though! It is just so fun to watch her wobble. I've known she "could" walk for a few weeks now, but she's just realizing herself that she can. Isn't that the way with everything in life? It's not until we realize ourselves that we can DO IT, that we accomplish what we want. Sometimes we surprise ourselves.

Yesterday was the first day in like, well, EVER -- that Emma wore shoes. With the hot summer and her being a baby, we've not worried about shoes. She spent a good 15 minutes trying to figure out what was stuck on the ends of her feet, and trying to kick, shake, or rub them off!! I envision one day she will be the shoe maven like her mom and sisters.

One quick shout out to Elder Huffaker in Jamaica -- he doesn't get to check the blog too often, but we want him to know how proud we are of him, and we're looking forward to hearing great things from him and his new companion!

Competetive Parenting

Yet another Emma post; she changes so much faster than the teenagers do, it gives me more fodder for the blog.

Being parents again at a later age sure affects our parenting style.

A couple of months ago, I was having a conversation with another parent, who has a baby very near to our Emma's age, and they were very proud of their baby's accomplishments (And rightly so, as their little girl is growing admirably.). What made me giggle was the comment directed to me.

"Isn't it interesting," they carefully said, "how very different babies of the same age can be?"

They meant to gently console me on my baby's apparent lack of growth and maturity in comparison to their baby's advanced level. They sure didn't want me to feel bad because my baby isn't as far along as their baby is.

Which would be fine......... if I needed consoling!! Bwahahaha!!!

What they didn't understand, and what I didn't bother to explain to them, is that I really couldn't care less how far "ahead" of Emma that their baby is. I'm not trying to be nonchalant about it....... I really just don't care!!

We are in no hurry for Emma to reach her baby milestones. We are enjoying her at every step of the way and she can just take her time growing up. When we were younger parents, perhaps we were more competitive, but not any more.

Of course, we encourage her and teach her new things. And she is one smart cookie! Smart enough to start crawling on her own terms, learning to negotiate stairs when she was ready, and responding and joining in the fingerplays and songs we teach her.

She is a featherweight by anyone's measure -- and with her tiny bird's appetite, she'll probably stay on the small side for some time. We're ok with that.

She's also beautiful and has her own personality and her ways of expressing herself, and we love her just the way she is.

But for those of you who may be worried about her, please know that she is fine, and here's a run-down of her "tricks":

She plays pattycake well, and loves other songs and fingerplays. She is quite the musical child and loves to bounce to any rhythmic songs that have a good beat.

She claps her hands, smacks her lips (kisses), clicks her tongue, blows raspberries, blows bubbles, gives "high fives"(photo below), waves hi & bye-bye, and says something that sounds a lot like, "hi, Dad". (She has her daa's and maa's sounds down pat right now) She smiles at almost everyone she meets, and is very friendly to total strangers.

She is on the verge of walking, pulls herself up to a stand and can stand alone for a minute (another photo below), but still prefers to still cruise along the furniture rather than to step out on her own. And we're ok with that, too. She'll be walking soon enough and woe be unto us when she does!!

These pictures are a sampling from the other day, when Aunt Penny came to visit and introduced Emma to dirt. (Wouldn't you know it would be Penny that would do that!!) Then she had to explore the gravel in the driveway as well. My favorite photo is the closeup of her clapping... every once in a while I get a photo I just love, and that one is a keeper.

I Love a Parade!

When I was young, I have memories of going on occasion to the home of one of my mom's friends. There were assorted reasons why, sometimes because Mom couldn't be home when I would arrive after school. This friend was older than my mom (which is saying something!), and had two poodles & the house smelled odd. Once, when I was about 10, I told her she could turn on the exhaust fan over the stove to help un-steam the kitchen windows. This was a new concept to her. Sometimes Mom dropped me off there, and sometimes Mom's friend would pick me up and drive me either to her house or mine.

I dreaded those days.

It was bad enough that the car she drove was an old beater station wagon. The Brady Bunch style, but in worse shape. Even in the 70's, this car was bad. I can't remember the color - maybe I blocked it out. Or maybe it was just too nondescript. I do remember the engine had a pretty loud idle on it.

But the truly embarassing part about it was that Mom's friend never drove the speed limit.

Ever.

She always drove so S-L-O-W-L-Y, that cars would back up behind her. They would tailgate her. Then, if they got to a reasonable spot, not necessarily legal, they would pass her. As they passed, they would raise their arm in a most derrogatory gesture, and yell things equally unpleasant.

I wiggled lower in the seat or pretended I'd dropped something on the floor, because I didn't want to be seen. But Mom's friend had no problem with it. She would yell loudly, "I love a parade!!", and wave back. Did I mention she drove with the windows down?

Well, I enjoy parades now, but that's because my kids are marching in them!

Here are a few quick shots of my band kids in the annual parade last Saturday, and Todd & Emma spectating.

Darcie was able to march because there were a lot of kids missing for sports & such. The junior high always goes casual, not having real uniforms. The high school's brand new uniforms haven't arrived yet, so they were uncharacteristicly casual, too.

Alyssa missed the parade because she had a volleyball tournament that same day. My action pictures of her are a bit blurry, because I still haven't got down how to take good movement shots in a gym.

I never watched a live parade as a child, but watching our small town parade this weekend sure beats being "in" one, while sinking low in the back seat of an old beater station wagon!

September Harvests

Other people blog about travels and adventures and projects and exciting times .... Ha! We're such at-home bodies, we blog about the Haven!

September is that time of year when the garden usually starts winding down, except for the weeds, which seem to just take over! It's pretty satisfying to see the produce ripen and be picked and eaten, especially at the end of the season when I'm just surprised to see these plants haven't given up! All garden credit has to go to Cameron and Todd, who are the primary caregivers in this case. Also, we subscribe to the "only plant what you will eat" philosophy, so if it seems our garden is missing something, it's probably on purpose. Plus, there's a couple things that, even though we eat them a lot, we have learned are more trouble to garden than we have time for, thereby making it more worth it to get them at the grocery store.

So, yesterday I took Emma out for a walk in the sunshine and to check on the garden, and here are a few shots of what we found. Be impressed that any photos that don't have Emma in them were taken with her on my hip.

Tomatoes -- the cherries seem to have exploded and have gone into production overdrive. We can't come close to eating all that's here. (We give a lot away!)

Cantaloupe - I think all of us were surprised at how well this plant performed. Maybe I was just uninformed about its potential.

Jalapeno peppers -- These look better and better the older the plant gets. Actually, the same thing goes for the bell pepper plants, too. (No photo included) No wonder these things thrive in the South.





The story behind the pumpkins is interesting. We were excited to watch the pumpkins forming and taking on the orange color. Then, for reasons unknown, the plant itself began looking sick. Then it looked REALLY sick. We asked around a little, and one of our more-experienced gardening friends (Ok, so he's a fair bit older than we are!) -- he suggested that it might be a worm. There's some sort of squash bug (Doesn't everyone like Squashed Bugs?)..... which eats the plant at the roots, and kills the plant in the process. Which sounds exactly like what we have. And as the plant died, the weeds took over. In the photo, which incidently has an 11-month old baby conveniently located for size comparison, the green leaves you see are weeds, and the dead brown stuff is the pumpkin plant. We don't know yet if the pumpkins will be harvestable or not. We were hoping that this could save us some cash on the annual jack-0-lantern investment, so we'll see.





The grapes are just coming into their own for the year. I am looking forward to juicing these babies this year, since I bought a new steam juicer earlier this summer. It will be a new experience for me.

This picture of the raspberries is my absolute favorite, and I don't know why.

The raspberries are of course, on their second picking for the year. And these babies are huge! I'm hoping the plants will have matured enough by next year to get enough berries to make raspberry jam -- my goal.

Other still-producers in the yard -- the full-size tomatoes are doing quite well. The previously mentioned bell peppers keep going, too. We had 3 plantings of corn, and while we've gone through the first two, the 3rd planting is ripening now, and it's the tallest of the stalks too -- about 8 feet high, I think. The cucumbers did not get a photo op, since they were hiding under the leaves and I was holding a baby. The peach and nectarine trees are pretty young, and the peaches weren't photo-worthy (being on the ground!), and the nectarine photo didn't make the cut.

I'm sure we only have a few more weeks of garden to enjoy, and I can't help but being thankful for the blessing it has been to us. Not that we would suffer or starve without it, but the wonderful taste of fresh veggies, plus the chance to preserve it inexpensively, plus the life lessons my children have learned from working out there, is what makes it invaluable.

P.S. Big shout out to Katie, who singlehandedly has doubled my listed followers! (Wish the lurkers would list themselves. I know you are here!)

Thirteen Years Ago...

For the past 13 years, this first weekend in September has been wild for us. We jam three birthdays in three days, and try really hard not to get a huge sugar buzz off it.

Today, we ushered Darcie into her teenage years, although she's had a teenager's attitude for a while now! So to commemorate, here's a peek into what we were doing 13 years ago today.....

Actually, I was kind of sweating it, because I didn't want duplicated birthdays. Even though I wasn't due yet, 2 out of 3 kids had already shown up before their due dates, so I didn't want to take any chances. Here's the direction my thoughts took back then:

Sept. 5th

"Please not today, Baby. Hold on, and don't come now, because it's Brandon's birthday."

Sept. 6th

"Ok, so please not today, either. It's my birthday, and I'd hate for this child to have to share a birthday with its mother." (We didn't learn the sex on any of our kids before they came.)

Sept. 7th (just shortly after midnight)

"Ok, we made it past the birthdays. So any time now, would be fine."

So Darcie wasted no time, and showed up in the wee hours that morning. After a super short (they call it "precipitous") labor the last time, we hurried to the hospital for her arrival. To this day, we still remember it as the one that we laughed through labor there.

It's not nice to laugh at another person's misfortunes, but we truly could not help ourselves. Because as we were there in the birthing room, we could hear -- from down the hall, another laboring woman. It went something like this:

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" (pause)

"(imaginative expletives)" (pause)

"(imploring cries for someone to hurry things along, with more imaginative expletives)"

We assumed it was her first baby. No, it was her second. She must have slept through the first one. We laughed until it hurt, which was during my contractions. There was one doctor, who was going back and forth between her room, and ours. Most of the time, we waved him off, and he would go back to spend a bit more time with her.

The other memorable thing about Darcie's arrival, is that she came "sunny side up". (Meaning, she was face up, instead of face down) In the middle of pushing, the nurse next to me started shaking my arm, saying, "Open your eyes! Open your eyes!!"

(Umm, I'm a little busy here -- working hard, you know. They call it LABOR.)

But it was the first, and only time I looked into my baby's face as she was being born. Pretty cool.

As you can see, Darcie is growing into a very beautiful young woman. That wonderful hair color is all hers; it lightens during the summer, and deepens during the winter. Today, she expressed that she wishes it were darker (redder). I'm not sure she realizes how unique that color is. She enjoys many different things, including sports (softball, volleyball, and soccer), music, art, reading, and video games. This year, she is in Jazz Band, starting a new instrument, the baritone sax. Darcie is also on the 7th grade varsity volleyball team, and enjoys that a lot. Since Emma has come along, Darcie has been an amazing help with her, and can work wonders with the baby like no one else. She likes to think that I'm blissfully unaware of her yogurt obsession, but thanks to a blog -- now everyone knows!

Happy Birthday, Darcie! We sure love you!!

Maybe Blogger Doesn't Like Me

I could not figure out how to get my post for today at the top of my postings. I keep thinking there's got to be a way, but I could not come up with it. So please scroll past the "Clear as Mud" post to get to the most recent post for TODAY. Thanks!!

Clear as Mud

(Scroll down for adorable baby pictures, if you've already seen the rest)

Sometimes you don't realize how awkward something is, until it's fixed.

This is the only photo I have of our Mud Room bathroom. It sits just off the kitchen. The counter with its shiny brown laminate and yellow sink are on the left. On the right (out of camera range) is a small closet, then the open shelves you do see. On the floor is a green patterned "kitchen" carpet, with inexpensive gray vinyl in the inner room. The inner door opens to reveal open shelves on the right, and the yellow toilet on the left.

The inner door does not open fully because it hits the toilet that is there, and you must go in and close the door to get to the toilet.

Awkward! (And VERY dated.)

What you can't see is the smell in there. And Hoooo-Doggie, it's potent!! In a previous life, this room was home to cat litter boxes and their feline donors. We are pretty sure the aforementioned felines were in this room for extended periods, and were not necessarily accurate in aiming their excretory functions.

Yeah, they peed on the carpet. Airing the room out did not begin to help.

Well, this was the Mud Room, as it stood when we moved in. After 2 years of keeping the door closed, we couldn't take it anymore and tackled it, down to the studs and subfloor. Then it stood again for nearly 4 years. Amazing how a remodel project loses all priority when the family can survive without the room!

Last spring, the Mud Room finally got its new lease on life, and these amazing shots are the "after" photos. Todd majorly moved the plumbing, and added a walk-in shower. (It helps when the room below is an unfinished storage room!)

I don't think I can express what a huge difference there is in this room! Sure, you can see the cosmetic stuff. But the room feels so big now, because the closet is gone and there's no little inner room. Suddenly it's light, bright, airy and spacious. All the opposite of what it was before.

So the first photo is the same view as the original - from the doorway. We [read: Todd + the boys] removed the closet, sound-insulated the room, and moved the sink and toilet to opposite walls, The photo doesn't do justice to Todd's extensive tile work.

The second shot is looking back toward the doorway, with a better view of the counter. I'm going for the sand-and-sea colors, leaning towards a lighthouse theme. It's getting there. We regret that we could not find the sink locally, and we did try. One would think that a simple drop-in, undivided, deep sink would not be that much of a challege! We were specific about it, because this is a mud room, and the sink needed functionality (is that a word?). I wanted to be able to stick a spigot cooler under the faucet and be able to fill it. I wanted it big enough and deep enough to soak items in it. At the same time, we wanted the sink and the whole room not to outgrow its identity. This is a Mud Room, not the Taj Mahal.

Well, I love the sink, and although it's perfect for a mud room's needs, I admit that our current, most-often use of it has very little to do with mud, and a whole lot to do with the baby. Because.....

Bonus! It also makes a perfect baby bathtub that saves hugely on Mom's back!! Emma is a water baby (like her siblings), and loves her baths. It's one of the phrases she recognizes: "Do you want to take a bath??" She laughs and laughs at that.

So here's Em, doing double duty by not only demonstrating the bathtub function, but also her very talented rendition of "Patty Cake." Sucking on the washcloth is a big part of the bath experience for her. Yes, she's teething.

Moral? Patience is a virtue. No. Time heals all wounds. No. Marry a guy with a pronounced talent for all things related to supplies from Home Depot! Absolutely!!

20 years Ago.....

(This post is meant for Saturday, September 5th; if Blogger messed that up, then please disregard the datestamp!)

Today is Brandon's birthday.... his first one not at the Haven. It's hard to believe that he turns 20! I thought I would share what was happening in our lives, 20 years ago...... the picture begins swirling, blurry scenes flash as we go back in time......

Ok, so forget that. To tell the whole story would be way too long. Trust me: I started typing it all in. So here's the Reader's Digest Condensed version:

I played volleyball the night before he was born. I also packed my hospital bag the night before. In subsequent births, we found packing the bag is some sort of bizarre trigger. Go figure.

It was a fairly short labor, four-and-a-half hours total, with only the last 40 minutes in the hospital. I had no idea what to expect, and so didn't identify labor right away. The hospital almost didn't take us when we called. Fully dilated on arrival, they summoned an OB doctor (who was leaving) to catch. Todd was a trooper, and was surprised (and to be quite honest: secretly thrilled) that it went so fast. It was the complete opposite of what we had prepared to expect.

Brandon came at 8:41 am, 6 pounds, 11 1/2 ounces. He had one spot on his head where his skin had not finished growing together.... which looked like an open wound... less than 1/2 an inch. To this day, he carries a scar there, and the hair doesn't grow. It's like a built-in bald spot!

Our birth story had spread around the Maternity wing, and later that day, nurses were saying to me, "Oh, so YOU'RE the one who came in and didn't know she was in labor!" I'm not sure if that's something I want to be known for.

Today, Brandon is an awesome young man, and that's my totally biased, completely true opinion. He has always been an achiever, with great grades through school, cool extra-curricular activities (shall we say he has a flair for drama?)..... earned his Eagle Scout rank at 13, is a hard worker, and is of course, now serving a mission on Jamaica. Please check his mission blog for up-to-date posts on his mission.

We are so very proud of him, we'd bust our buttons if we had them! So Happy Birthday, Brandon! We hope you have a great day!