Our favorite four year old!

I’m continuously awed and humbled that my Father would allow me to be a mother.  At times I feel breathless with the responsibility of it all and want to cry out, “Why me?  I don’t deserve all this!  I’m so unworthy!”  I’m unworthy of the joys, the honor, and the opportunity to die to myself that motherhood brings, but oh, I’m so thankful!  Every time one of my children celebrates another year of life I go back in my mind to the very moment I met them and I just can’t believe it all over again!  Besides the gift of salvation through Christ, is there any better gift Yahweh could bestow?  I’ll take it.  Call me “greedy” for His good gifts, but oh, I love them so much!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATHARINA!

Sweetheart, we are so blessed to have you in our home!  How we love you!

A bonnet and an apron:  two very useful tools for a hard-working prairie girl!  The apron is to encourage her as she learns to serve others and the bonnet is to keep the sun off her face while she picks beans, weeds the garden, rides her bike, makes mudpies—– you know.  The usual.

I know some sissies who think she’s pretty special!  Even if it does embarass her a little!

Kate is well known for her daily deliveries of mud cakes, mud cookies, dirt pizzas, and other such dainties.  She almost always has black, Nebraska dirt underneath those fingernails.  In her honor I thought I would try to trick surprise her with an Oreo dirt cake.  I was hoping for a pout or a whimper at being presented with dirt for a birthday cake.  However, I got this little smile.  After tasting it she informed me, “It tastes pretty good, Mama!”

Caleb enjoyed the dirt.  No, wait.  He always does.

Katharina received a slew of presents in the mail from grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Now she thinks, or hopes, that every vehicle that passes is a delivery truck!  How wonderful to know that people so far away still think of you on your special day!

Compare the above picture with the one below, taken on her third birthday.  Is it just me or does she look so very much more grown-up? Oh my, it really was a blink and look at what happened!  How I pray that I would use this precious, short time I have wisely!

Thank you, Father, for such a delight!  Help us to continuously, moment by moment, word by word, action by action,  point her to You.

A Festive Fourth

We had such a memorable Independence Day!  A sweet “young” lady in our little town has adopted us and invited us to a celebration in Liberty, Nebraska, (how appropriate, right?)  It’s a tiny little town that likes to do it up big on the fourth.  There was a big community dinner (people around here cannot get together without food),  and then lots of socializing and fireworks.  As you can imagine, the children were very excited about the day!  No one, however, was quite as enthused as Lauren.  She literally laughed the entire time.  At every. single. firework!  She’s such a hoot!

Sisters shared secrets…

Little Man liked it… at first.  At least the small ones.  After they started booming, though, he and mom got to take a trip into the community building and watch from the doorway.  Even now, several days later, he will tell you, “Boom, boom, hot!”

Momma’s blessings:

After dinner and fireworks it was time to … eat again!  What else?  Free ice cream this time.  I’m telling you, Nebraska’s not bad!

Hope your day was filled with the love of family and the peace of Christ, as well!

Projects, plans, and plain hard work…

I’m a little overwhelmed.

Did I say a little?

It’s pretty humbling to realize how completely insufficient you are for most EVERYTHING you need to do, isn’t it?  (Maybe no one else feels that way?)  Thank goodness I have a high priest who can sympathize with my weaknesses, though I’m sure He has to be chuckling at me from time to time as I try to do and learn everything the hard way instead of pleading CONSTANTLY for wisdom on what’s important right now and what’s not.

And when I think of my dear husband’s to-do list…. well, he seems to hold up much better than I.  I think that has to do with perspective, really.  He’s ecstatic about all of his projects.  I’m having to pray earnestly to be thankful and content with all I have to do.  You see, he likes to work.  I am naturally lazy. And folks, I ain’t got no room to be lazy no more.  I have always wished I could love working and really find joy in it and now my Father is giving me a crash course in “Tough up and get on with it and like it 101.”  And I’m glad.  (Most of the time!)

So here’s a sampling of Josh’s projects.  Not that I won’t help with them some, but being seven months pregnant limits my involvement somewhat.

Build a fence for our soon to arrive Jersey.  (Yay for milk!)

Dig a root cellar before our crops come in.

Paint the exterior of the house, because there’s not much paint left on it!

Build supers for the beehives.

Build more chicken tractors.

And then there’s the garden to be weeded and veggies that are starting to be harvested and needing to be preserved.  This garden is massive folks.  See the children lost in the corn out there:

So far, we’ve had all of the lettuce, spinach, and radishes we can stand.  We’ve been able to preserve 19 quarts of saurkraut and I’m in the process of pitting and freezing around five gallons of cherries.  One great thing about living out here is that nearly everyone has a fruit tree or two, and nearly no one wants to be bothered with picking or preserving all the fruit.  Once they know that you are willing to come, you’ll usually get all the invites you can manage.  We are so thankful for this since our own little orchard has just been planted.

Add to this homeschooling, child training, figuring out how to get diapers clean by handwashing, 100 degree weather with no air conditioning, and the usual pregnancy tiredness, and yes, I’ve cried a few times!  However, it usually only lasts a few minutes and my Father graciously reminds me that I have to be one of the most blessed, loved women there has ever been!  Seriously, I am wondrously happy the majority of the time, learning to find my rest and strength in Him, laughing at how far he’s brought me.  He is so good!

Barefoot and pregnant in my summer kitchen!

I couldn’t resist that one!

I know this blog has been woefully neglected as of late, but I’m pretty sure this is one of the busiest seasons of my life!  So, while I may have dozens of things I’d love to share floating around in my head, there’s not a whole lot of time to sit here and get it all down!

My summer kitchen has been completed for a few weeks now and we have cooked every meal there since.  Adjustments are a major part of my life at present and this one has been pretty big.  Ok, well, I can’t complain since I have a Beloved that tends the fire for me, but I’m just not used to walking back and forth so much while preparing a meal and on these poor pregnant legs….  (can you hear the whininess dripping?)

Tada!  A few pictures of our Father’s provision and my darling’s hard work:

My “new” Home Comfort wood cookstove.  She’s really sweet!

Oh, the kitchen is completely screened in, btw, to keep all of the pests out.  And speaking of hard work, check out this picture after my dad and Josh chopped and split wood for a week:

I joked with Josh that he was out paying our electric bill while he was cutting down trees.

Here are a couple more pictures:

One project down, about 50 to go!

This Old House…

One consolation when living in an old, slightly rough, very out of date farmhouse is the excitement you feel every time something gets done.  Sometimes I’m tempted to look at it the wrong way and think, “My, now that that’s finished it sure does make the rest of the place look shabby!”  I wish I didn’t do that, though.   It would please my Father so much more if I were just  thankful for every little improvement because I know that I don’t have to have any of them, nor am I somehow entitled to them.  Good grief, how rich I am just the way things are, anyway!  I want to soak in the blessings and not dwell on what I want to do, or get, next.

My dear parents are here and are blessing us so very much with their fellowship and their gifts of service.  I’ll be sharing with you soon the magic my dad and Beloved have worked on my summer kitchen.  That deserves a post of its own!  Today I want to show you what my mother has done with my bathroom!

It would have been much more dramatic and extreme home makeoverish had I remembered to take some before pictures, but alas, I did not inherit my mother’s interior decorating gene.  I just like things to be neat and organized.  (Not that everything in my house is!)   The only decorating preference I have is “bright colors.”  When you live in a climate that hands you a very colorless landscape five or six months out of the year, having a bright, cheery environment indoors will really lift your spirits.  At least that’s my theory!  So I’ll give my mom a color, she’ll rummage through my very limited stash of,er, decorating stuff, and really pull off something pretty.  (Can you tell that I am not a decorator?)

OK, think empty, beige walls with a towel covering the window.  Yep, I’m that stylish.  And then my mom shows up:

And Mom says you really need to have a place to just sit in the bathroom, too.  OK, sounds great to me.  I always thought that was just one more use for the toilet!  Anyway.

Cheery, no?  Thanks, Mama!

See! I really am expecting!

I had someone comment recently that I didn’t look like I was really expecting.  Well, there’s no hiding it now!  I’m 26 weeks along now and finally have that unmistakeable bump.  And I love it!

And the excitement is growing all the time!  Rather than becoming ho-hum, the more pregnancies I have, the more I am simply awestruck by every little detail.  This is miraculous, folks!  What an honor to be made a woman and to be able to carry a new life!

So, all you belly readers out there, boy or girl?

Katharina Elise…

You’ll only be three years  old for another month and my mommy sentimentality has been working overtime lately.  I had a difficult time falling asleep last night because I kept thinking of a wonderful scenario, and I thought you ought to know about it.

Heaven is incomprehensibly wonderful simply because of the fact that we’ll spend eternity there in the very presence of Christ.  Period.  But what if there are other wonderful things in store that we can only imagine or could never even dream up?  What if our Father is planning up individual joys and pleasures for each one of us?  What would be one thing we would like?

I have always, always mourned and lamented the passing of time.  What if, during our eternity worshiping Christ, He gave us the gift of a little time back?  Here is what I would do with some of mine:

I would notice the feel of your little hand holding mine more often— you’ve always been a tight-hand-holder.  I would really study every picture you drew instead of just glancing and saying, “Oh, how nice, sweetheart!”  Every time you asked, eyes wide and imploring, I would let you sleep with me.  And there would never be a time that I didn’t have the time to read you that book… again.  Just sitting, watching you play, marveling that my father gave you to me, would be my favorite pastime.  Cataloging all your facial expressions might take half of eternity, but I would like to try!  You are, by far, the most animated child I’ve ever had!  And there’s no way that I would ever be too tired to sing you your bedtime song, ever again.

Lots more kisses.  Lots more toting you around on my hip.  Remembering your precious mispronunciations.  How soft and wispy your baby hair is.  Your pouty lower lip.  Writing down some of the stories that you and Lauren act out.  Reliving it all, over and over…

Ahhh, it would be a dream come true for your mommy, Kate.  But I want to, by God’s grace, do all those things to the best of my ability right now.  You’re worth every bit of it.  Night, night, darlin’.

Sweet surprise!

Pop and Grannie and Uncle Matt came for a short, but oh-so-sweet visit this weekend.  This was Beloved’s birthday weekend and they wanted to surprise him, which they surely did.  And, well, you know how predictable and wise with a camera I am NOT, I didn’t get a picture of the look on his face when his mom and dad got out of the car, or of his surprise when his brother came walking down the road (they dropped him off before they got here).  Let’s just say, he was made to feel pretty special, which he most certainly IS.

I did manage to get some pictures of the children with them.  I was completely surprised at how quickly Caleb took to his Pop.  He had been in that ornery little “Don’t look at me and don’t even THINK about touching me if you don’t reside in my home” stage, but he enjoyed his Pop very much.

Caleb brought him a book after dinner and climbed onto his lap:

Then they commenced to play a tune or two as an after dinner treat.  Pop plays so well that Caleb didn’t even mess him up that badly!

Miss Kate absolutely took over her Uncle Matt.  You know what they say about books and their covers and all, this man is absolutely the sweetest, most tenderhearted guy you can imagine.  He never tried to get rid of the little booger, but was happy to oblige Her Royal Bossiness’s every whim!

She stayed with him until she fell asleep:

And she cried and hung on to him when he had to go:

Grannie was the honored recipient of Ashlynne’s  story readings.

And many hugs!

We got more work done on the summer kitchen:

We all enjoyed watching Planet Earth together, which they brought Josh for his birthday:

Thanks so much for coming!  I mean, there was no pressure or anything, I know.  Oh, and again, no pressure, Kate wants to know how come you can’t build a house in the corn field across the road.

We love you so much.  Thanks for the long, long drive!

Beloved is home and other updates…

We weren’t expecting this yet.  I was only dreaming of it in my mind.  I was once again amazed at the providence of God in our lives (when will I stop being surprised at Him?).  God has opened the door for Josh to be at home with us full time.

This is what we have prayed for for years.

I am not scared.

I feel completely unworthy to have just exactly everything I’ve ever wanted.

I may be naive, but I’m excited about having to actually trust God to supply our day to day needs.  (Through our working together, of course.  We’re not applying for welfare, just in case  you wondered!)

I feel like I’m on some kind of honeymoon.  With five children.  And another on the way.

Yahweh is so good to us!

As a result, the industry going on around this little homestead is making my mind reel just a bit.  I am not accustomed to so much… progress around the home.  My man has to be one of the hardest workers on the planet, but after working 10 -12 hour days of manual labor he wasn’t very motivated, or able, to get nearly what he wanted to accomplish at home.  Now he never stops.

See, he’s building me a summer kitchen for my wood cookstove.  With a handsaw.  He’s the man!

Going up!

Having a kitchen outside the house will enable us to  use a non-electric cooking source whle not heating up our house to unfathomable temperatures in the summer.  We also plan to do all of our canning and processing here for the same reason and we’ll probably process the honey here as well.  Oh, and the laundry, too, in the summer.  Very multi-purpose, but I’m just going to call it my summer kitchen.  I like the way it rolls off the tongue!

Josh has also installed five new hives.  We’re hoping to grow a bit each year.  According to Josh (I don’t have a suit therefore I stay away), we are shaping up for a good harvest, so far.

The gardens are coming along wonderfully.  We’ve been blessed with lots of good rain and sunshine.  It really is humbling for us to realize how utterly dependent upon God we are.  We notice the sun.  We pray for the rain.  We get excited to see our corn spiking.  This, Lord willing, is our food.  We have to tend it well, pray for God’s blessing on it, and be thankful for it.  We need it to feed our family.  We need Him to grow it.  The lessons for our children in just this aspect of our life are uncalculable.  It’s a wonderful way to live!

One very wonderful perk about Daddy being home all day is the level of involvement he now has in the practical matters of the household.  Don’t get me wrong, he has always been a very involved, overseeing head of our home.  Only now, he’s here to help me enforce things.  I’m not the only one disciplining and training all day.  Do you have any idea how much that helps me? He’s always been Mr.  Eagle Eye Consistency when it comes to discipline and I’m afraid I fail a lot in that area.  When you are so busy, you tend to ignore the squabbling upstairs or the whining in the yard.  Daddy doesn’t.  And now he’s not letting me either.  He also told me the second day he was home that I was doing far too many things that they could be doing and I needed to make a list of what needed to get done each day and he would be glad to help me enforce it.  (I’ve always been good at the lists, but not the supervision to enforce it!)  Well, this morning, he had the girls out of bed before I was, beginning their morning chore lists.  I like him, a lot.  I’m feeling a partnership developing here, where I’ve been so long accustomed to handling things myself  and praying for him to get home and help restore the peace.  Our roles in parenting are still very distinct, of course, but it’s wonderful to have equal time invested in it!

So, you would think the children would start thinking they were getting a raw deal here, but surprise, surprise, they take very well to gentle consistency and I’m seeing an improvement in attitudes and joyfulness already.  It’s becoming quite the chore to separate them from him.  He has to force them to come inside to work on their lessons or wash the dishes.  They stick to him like cockle burrs on a long-haired dog.  Rachel, in fact, has assisted him almost every step of the way on the summer kitchen.  Do you suppose she’s learning any math or geometry out there?

I’d better get some lunch going.  That man of mine expects to eat regular-like.

Thanks for coming to visit!

My Mamas

Every mother is special, sure.  But there’s no one quite like your mother and your mother in law.  It really stinks to not get to see them on Mother’s Day, let me tell you.  Since these two lovely ladies both know that I barely remember what day of the week it is anymore, let alone when an important holiday is coming up, I’m sure they both thoroughly expect me to not remember this one.  Does an online ode to the most important mothers in your life count?

My mother in love:

How I love this lady.  From day one, she has treated me exactly as if I were her real daughter.  Well, spoiled me is more like it.  You can never out give her, you can never out love her.  I have no idea what it’s like to have a meddlesome, annoying mother in law.  She’s a jewel!

Here is a lady who gave birth to five children in five years, homeschooled them all through high school, and I’ve never once heard her complain about the time invested in them or what else she could have done or been.  Inspiring.  And how she even fed them all in those early years, I’m not sure, but I have heard some pretty amazing tales from my husband about how far his mother could stretch one chicken per week!

Of course, I think her biggest accomplishment lies in the son I’m honored to share my life with, but then again, I think there may be some bias there!  I’m sure, like I do, Debbie must have fretted and worried about her “failures” or weaknesses in mothering and how it would affect her children.  I only pray that God’s grace would enable me to raise up such a son as she did.   I love you, Mom!

My Mama:

My mom has never had great material possessions, but it’s never mattered to her.  There has never been any doubt in my mind that she regards herself as extremely rich.  I can’t count how many times I heard from her during my growing up years that she would rather have all the time she spent with us at home than all the fancy, silly stuff she could get out in the world.  Her contentment and joy in her family left a deep impression in my life.

As her only daughter I was the recipient of so much wisdom when it came to womanhood.  She was the one person I could turn to when the world scoffed at my old-fashioned ambitions.  She told me many times, “Nothing could make me any more proud than for you to be a wife and mother.”  All the pressure from friends, family, and college recruiters meant nothing.  To her I wouldn’t be “wasting my mind”.  I didn’t have to “prove” myself to the world and compete for status and money.  She was proud of my goals and she was my best friend.  Who cared what everyone else thought!

I love you, Mama.  Thanks for all you did do instead of all you could have done.  It has meant the world to me.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Her children rise up and call her blessed….

Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all!

Proverbs 31:28-29