Babies, Books, and Butter Making a home with little ones

This is because of a jewelry meme a friend suggested, taking a picture of your favorite piece and writing about it. I didn’t actually pick my favorite, because that would probably be some very plain white gold hoops that Jake gave me. I love them, but they have no fancy story behind them.

The piece I have with the best story behind it is my great grandma’s watch. It’s a wind up and still works. She graduated high school in 1929, right into the Great Depression, and this watch was her high school graduation gift. She remained employed during the Great Depression because she was such a hard worker. Her favorite story to tell was about her first job (I think) working in a store, where they had to let go helper after helper because they weren’t making enough. Finally it was down to her and one other girl, and in the end the other girl was let go. She was the only employee they kept, because she worked so hard and could do the sums at the cash register so well.

She also owned a movie theater with her husband in a tiny town, and she would drive a long way to pick up the reels. Her son, my grandpa, doesn’t like popcorn to this day because he minded the popcorn sales as a kid.

my great grandma's watch

I didn’t realize how dirty it was till I saw this picture. The watch is very small and the dust under the glass isn’t noticeable when you wear it.

I did this with my hand because it's just better to admit that hands photograph oddly and run with it.

I don’t wear it a ton, usually just for special occasions, because my Great Grandma was a tiny person and I’m a big person, and the watch is tight on me. My Great Grandma died in our home when I was 16, after living with us for a couple of months after having a stroke.

Goodwill finds

4 mugs and a tea pot (might only be for decoration, but it’s so cute) and a puzzle for Jubilee, and a nice shirt for Jake. Total: $7. It’s hard not to splurge.

This picture does not to justice to how incredibly tiny that striped mug is. It’s itty bitty, yet serviceable. Jubilee has staked an adamant claim to it just short of carving her ‘x’ into the side. (What I mean by that is that I intended it to be a mug for the kids, and she was trying to run circles around me and get me to call it hers. She has settled for calling it “My little coffee mug,” with solemn eyes directed at me.)

We were married almost 5 years and one month ago. July 30th.

And Joanna messed my brain up by getting married on the 31st. I’ve been having trouble remembering the date ever since.

wedding

I got married barefoot. I didn’t know what my hair looked like till I saw our wedding pictures. I just trusted my maid of honor and her years-proved worth with hair.

first anniversary

Three days before our anniversary we found out Psmith was baking inside. And then Psmith turned out to be Jubilee. She’s not really a female version of Psmith, though.

second anniversary

We went to Houlihans and took a picture of a woman with a mullet. We could not figure out how to get a picture of us with the mullet woman in the background.

third anniversary

We went to Red Lobster and I had not really dyed my hair red. I was pregnant with Thomas.

fourth anniversary

We had a lot going on then. Crazy times. But fun.

fifth anniversary

And here we are now. Awfully happy.

And a contented woman is a dangerous woman, you know. To the other side.

Well, I like fireworks and I was looking forward to seeing some. I did actually end up seeing some, sitting in the driveway watching neighbors behind the barn set some off. This means I got to test the firework setting on my camera. Test it, while holding Thomas, who was a little nervous, and I couldn’t see where my camera was pointing.

at least I know the firework setting on my camera works

And then I got really sick for the actual 4th, and I wasn’t too hot on the 5th either, and I didn’t feel normal on the 3rd, and…basically I missed all the partying. Oh well. I saw the backyard fireworks on the 2nd, before I was sick. Yay!

And being sick is weird. I don’t get sick often. I sick enough that I didn’t even want to read, the first day, I just wanted to doze in a coma-like-nothingness. I was so thankful that my sister-in-laws took the kids to church *and* to night church, meaning I had hours of absolute peace and quiet. Which was good, since when you can’t walk your childcare skills are poor.

up

Jubilee has gone from being basically terrified that we, torturers of parents, wanted her to put a foot in the water…duh duh…. to leaping into anyone’s arms (hopefully they’re looking and taller than water level) and even tip-toe walking in the shallow end. She is very, very seriously aware of prohibitions about the pool, though. When we read one of her books that shows two kids leaping into a swimming pool she always tells me “They should not be in the pool without their parents.” Ok, Safety Girl.*

I finding it hard to get out to walk right now. It’s a compounding of several factors, but basically it’s too dang hot most days. I normally walk early in weather like this, but that requires being up early enough to go walking early. And…and…I’m lazy. And my kids fuss. And waa me.

little buddies

These two are Miss Whimsical and her Shadow. He watches, imitates, and sometimes bites.

She is very into coloring right now. Her coloring took a leap in the last couple weeks from random scribbling, to actually studying the lines and coloring in them. Her pictures are very bright and colorful.

*Ah…sweet memories. Safety Boy/Girl has become a family joke ever since my bewildered brothers returned from a bike ride, slightly miffed, many eons ago. They were riding bikes, wearing their helmets, and passed some (unknown) kids in a yard. The children felt it was their duty to mock my brothers (as their older, cruel sister at the time I also found them highly mockable)** and they had shouted “Hey! Safety Boy!”

**I do not know if I mean that I was their older, cruel sister at the time, or if I only found them mockable at the time. I’m not sure if any of these factors have changed.

I’ve been learning to sew over the last year.

Well, that seems like way too little fanfare.

ATTENTION UNIVERSE: I, WHO WAS NEVER GOING TO LEARN TO SEW, CAN SEW STUFF. Like, real stuff.

Better.

I never had anything against sewing, I’ve always admired it in others, but it just never attracted me. And somehow people have asked me for years about things “Did you sew that?” and it was always “Oh no! I don’t sew.” (I guess looked like a seamstress?)

First I typed ’streamstress’ which I like the idea of, also. I wield my mighty colander and hot water and I steam well. I steam very well. I can steam anything so good your head will spin. *solemn nod*

After a month or two of service, it passes the practicality test. And it seems to go with all my outfits.

Anyway, yeah. I made a purse.

Note the hand-sewn button holes. This stitching brought to you by my sewing machine threatening to sew a button to my forehead if I kept trying to sew a button hole with it.

I made a cover for my black leather camera case, because it was so boring. And the velcro on it tore (through sheer bulk use, I think) so I had to mend it anyway, so I made it more interesting. My dad said I’m going to end up embellishing everything I own. My children should look out.

Doesn't everyone else see bits of flotsam and think to put them in their hair?

Not sewing, but I do hot glue bobby pins to things so I can wear them. People around me are learning you just never know what I’m going to be wearing on my head.

See? Stuff and My Hair.

And I made a dress! A rocking dress that is a 50’s style! And it’s a heavy linen with purple plaid. And…I have no pictures, despite the fact I wore it to church. Along with pearls.

Sometimes I feel weird grabbing people by their collar and demanding they take a picture of me….no no! Another one! You got the angle wrong. (Yeah.) But I have a hard time taking pictures of myself. I don’t mean vanity-wise, I mean I physically have trouble figuring out how to do it. I have no tripod and no self-portrait skills.

Considering how vain I am, this is very, very good. (I wish I were kidding.)

Lets wander away from all that. Doesn’t this site just make you sit and drink in the colors? Or have a seizure, or wander away if you’re male. But I dig that style. It rocks.

At a church for the kids' piano recital. It was lovely.

I love stained glass.

There is a sad dearth of stained glass in churches.

I want to see fireworks. I hope I can find some somewhere. I have no misplaced dreams of actually Big Exciting ones, but something halfway decent would be nice. I love living somewhere country and small and nowhere, except for the fireworks. Plus I live somewhere were it’s illegal to sell anything other than smoke bombs, and my 9 year old brother can make those with green leaves. Pfft.

From my aunt's back yard.

I also like water.

Too busy playing to really pose.

And my kids. Jake and I went on a date tonight. Pizza with extra cheese and then walking to the side walk Dairy Queen. I strong-armed Jake (Let us pause for laughter….I know. The idea of me strong-arming anyone (either physically or mentally) is a pretty rich picture. Heh heh.) into splitting a Peanut Buster Parfait and it was as awesome as I remembered.

Anyway, Jubilee was fascinated by the idea of a date and managed to exact a promise that Daddy would take her on a date. She thought this was an excellent and most necessary idea. Like, perhaps tomorrow after we wake up.

A very hot Tabitha at the park gives me a Look.

Tabitha and Jubilee are a hilarious mixture of best friends and loathed antagonists. Sometimes within the same hour.

Another park pic.

Hams doesn't begin to cover it.

We went to the park about a month ago. Chris took everybody spur of the moment and then we had shakes afterwards. Which was good because it was killer hot. You can’t see in this picture how immensely sweaty Jubilee was.

After heat advisories all last week this week has been AMAZING weather. Incredibly cool, sunny, windy, fresh, I mean to say. I do mean I say, I say, I say dash it. I mean to say, dash it! As sometimes Wodehouse characters emphasis their feelings.

And unrelated to everything before, I took this picture a couple nights ago just moments before an opossum… a opossum…writing ‘a opossum’ looks incorrect, but saying ‘an opossum’ doesn’t work either.

Anyway, one of them thangs.

…lunged toward me, growling, from the grass by my ankles, and menaced as though to bite. My feet and body were twisting into an incredible midair (and mid-road, luckily no traffic) leap of about 5 feet unintended covered distance even as my head was turning to see what was growling and rustling and lunging. There was an awkward pause as the thing tensed as though to jump me and I wildly wondered what to do with a cat-sized badger thing. Is it like a dog? Do you stare it down (or, as my mom so wonderfully put it “Can you psyche a possum?) or growl or run like the wind or what?

As my idiot brain pondered and the idiot creature growled my feet kept walking and the situation resolved itself by sheer distance, although I was still walking away from home and thus had to pass the same spot on my way back. And yes, I was a little jumpy.

There was a lurking creature shortly thereafter.

I simply must go grocery shopping tomorrow. Tonight for dinner I felt like I was about to resort to Emergency Bachelor meals, except that with my current metabolism I would die if I ate that little. Anyway we found a package of hotdogs that didn’t get eaten during the weekend, so we ate some of those. Which, when you’re very hungry at bedtime, taste great. Or at least adequate. Jubilee must be growing right now because she ate about as much as she normally eats in two days’ time this evening. And she put herself to bed.

if you're wondering what's behind the hydrangea, the answer is a iron bed headboard

I tried swimming in the pool to exercise today instead of walking, but I don’t think that will work normally. I was too paranoid watching the kids to really swim much or well. Plus, um, I’m in terrible swimming shape. Like, seriously whoa pathetic. I guess doing nothing but walking for almost a year is not doing much for my aerobic acumen. I kind of already knew that but I was pretending I didn’t.

We will forget the soccer incident a couple months ago. Right, Naomi?

this is the sight I watched today while I took down laundry before the rain hit

there are several pairs of geese with babies on this pond, one pair has 13 goslings!

we hiked past the pole barn

In other news, I choked on a sugar snap pea I had just picked from the vine and had a lovely pantomime as I tried to smile at the kids (no reason to freak out a 3 and 1 year old) and determined I couldn’t die there since we were by a swimming pool and that would be so unsafe. For the kids I mean. Not me if I were dead.

But I lived. And they thought it was funny.

Thomas thinks any aerobic movement by Mommy is hilarious. I guess it’s a rare sight.

Jubilee explored the corn in dress-ups that she sneaked from her aunts.

Anyway, we were outside this evening and it was lovely and comfortable.

it was very pretty by the corn

my 3 year old curls up with a sewing book while dozing off?

Jubilee’s doll blanket was knitted by her great-grandma. So she stopped stealing the towels out of the kitchen to wrap her babies. We both win.

Spur of the moment Jake’s sister and her family came to visit! It was much good summer fun. This entire post of pictures is brought to you by Shelley’s camera. I didn’t take any of these.

Someone obligingly gave Thomas a mohawk.

Mid-air high fives were exchanged.

Um, other things went on. I have no idea what they were doing.

I cleverly decided to remove the laundry I’d hung up the day before. (Side note- I’d been driven crazy for years by swim shorts and one day saw a friend wear men’s swim shorts. I was like, “Brilliant!” I know they look huge but I actually like that a lot.)

People got wrapped in large bright towels.

People scrubbed chlorine out of their hair. And got a little hammy for the camera.

Ok, a lot hammy.

Thomas wanted to have all the pickles. Not because he would actually eat them but because he declared they were balls. He does the same thing with olives. And tomatoes. And anything vaguely round-ish.

There was ice cream bliss.

Much bliss.

There was cereal for breakfast! Jubilee was enthralled about this. (And we do not normally drink 2%. We’re finishing milk for friends out of town.)

Everyone was delighted that Daddy took a rare (and much needed) break to rest and hang out. It was so nice.

And we all got to laugh at Janelle’s extremely proper English. She sings “Bad boys bad boys, what are you going to do? What are you going to do when they come for you.”

We went to a wedding last week that was so much fun. I’ve grown up with both the bride and the groom and we’re close to both families. Woot!

Did I mention the bride is an awesomely cool person? I would share more pictures but I don’t want to invade anyone’s privacy. They packed beautiful picnic baskets that each family took at the reception. They had tables to sit at, but they also had a lot of lovely quilts to sit on the ground. We chose a quilt. They had face painting for the kids and Jubilee asked for a white horse. Each family got to take home their beautiful little basket and ours is now holding the bread in the kitchen. I’ve been at a loss where to put our bread for years, honestly. Plus we do like to eat outside and we intend to continue using it as a picnic basket.

I was going to post a picture of the baskets, but my internet just almost stopped working. I’ll post it later if I remember.

wedding cake made by, yeah why not, the mother of the bride. It was SO delicious.

Amazing, isn’t it? It had a raspeberry center. I used to hate wedding cakes, but now I understand that that’s just because most purchased ones taste nasty. We didn’t even have a wedding cake because of this! Now that I’ve been to several weddings where someone made the cake, I plan for us to have some kind of awesome cake for a wedding anniversary some year. One wedding it was chocolate and strawberry and I seriously wanted to eat piece after piece. It was so incredibly unbelievably amazing. Taste should SO WAY come before looks. And I am not a cake person. I would chose something else over cake any day.

We had a pet! For all of two days. Then he died.

Jubilee found this fellow in the garden. We gave him lettuce and a strawberry, but he ignored both and died. I think he was sickly even before he entered our home because Jubilee caught him two days in a row in the same place. Oh well. He was cute for a day.

there was a lot more fog when I woke up but on 6 hours of sleep I didn't care for a while

When I woke up all I could see out the windows was white.

the birds have seen better

at the end of sunset walk he gave up

He was fussing for two miles during this walk and fell asleep while we walked down the driveway. Oi. “I’ll show you mom. I’ll GO TO SLEEP. So THERE.”

And would someone explain why my 16 month old son just drank most of my decaf chilled coffee? No sugar, just milk. And it was made strong. Crazy child.

So pictures! A lot of ‘em. What can I say? I command your eyes.

Mom had a rose bush that looked photoshopped, there were so many roses. I’m telling ya, it was crazy.

a study in lines

One of the many sights I’m treated to on my walks.

I wish I could give this farmer and hug. I just LOVE the lines in this field.

Yep.

These were growing right in front of a horse pasture. When we first started walking the horses would rush over and beg for treats but now they ignore us. We never had treats.

wild....wheat? seed? whatever this stuff is, I've grown up picking it

another study in lines

Sometimes I can see these things better with my camera than with my plain eyes.

De boid. He watchin' you. Or ignorin' you while eatin', see?

This guy is our desktop picture right now. Heh.

that dog...

That field, over on the far right, is where my butternut squash plants are planted. The fence is broken so they aren’t using it for the horses. Perfect for me!

I bought some yellow cloth while on a date Monday, and I'm going back for more

I need to take a picture of what I do with my yellow cloth. It’s the center of my hand stitched flowers. They’re so fun to make!

chalk laundry

I don't mind the laundry

These lilies make me think of the flowers we did for a wedding last year. The red lilies weren’t too hard, but the white ones? We had to remove every little speck of pollen because it was staining the flowers. (After every wedding we always vow not to allow any future brides to choose that flower again.)

another favorite fun is puddle stomping. And Jubilee thinks it's funny to sit on this post.

Somebody-who-shall-remain-nameless (Caleb) shoots baskets while standing on the post. She won’t stand on it, but she loves to sit on it. (This was not a posed picture.)

he was ready for a nap so she cuddled him

It was so, so cute.

my beautiful chicken broth

Thick wonderful marrow broth! The secret is to simmer the broth forever and ever and ever. And this time I saved some roasted vegetables (I knew we wouldn’t want to eat the leftovers) to throw in the broth, and it made the stuff smell so nice. The picture does no justice at all to how incredibly dark and lovely this stuff looks.

we were watching a mother and her ducklings before going on a walk

And these last pictures are from our walk yesterday. My dad says I live in a photographer’s dream and I think he’s right.

I stalked through the tall grass because I thought it might be chamomile, but I don't think it was.

I like the levels of color