Hen's Train Cake

Two 9 inch chocolate cakes, cut in half and made into hills with track.  I used the "Perfectly Chocolate Cake" recipe from the back of the Hershey's cocoa can, except I used organic ingredients, sucanat instead of sugar, and coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.

 The train is made up of sugar cookies sandwiched together to make a front and back to the train.  The boys helped me decorate the train cars by lending me a book and instructing me on cattle cars, and boxcars and tenders and the like. (phew!)  It was really fun to make!

Happy 2nd Birthday Little Hen!  We love you!

Two!

Our littlest mancub turned two this week!

 He's had a splendid time this week playing outside.  All winter he wanted to play outside with the bigger boys, but then when it actually came down to it, he would get frustrated about walking in the snow and downright mad about falling into the snow, which is inevitable when you are two.  This winter was a winter of cold, icy, hard-to-walk-in snow.   And now the snow is almost gone and the season of mud has arrived!  A boy's favorite season!

We are celebrating Hen's special day this weekend with family, but couldn't pass up the chance to make chocolate cupcakes on the actual day.  The littlest boys and I made these, while the older two were at homeschool co-op.  It was fun, but I'll admit Owl and Hen were not very into helping make them, but were very into helping to eat them.  Ah, well...

He licked the chocolate buttercream off the top and tried to grab a second one, because isn't that what you are supposed to do?  The cupcake must just be something to put the frosting on for ease of holding and licking!

Today we walked to the local bookstore and when we walked into the children's section Hen spotted Arnold Lobel's "Owl at Home".  He pointed to it, and promptly said, "Owl at Home! Owl at Home!" The bookstore owner knows us and has been the supplier of books to our oldest boy (voracious reader) since he was 3.  When he heard Hen's response to seeing the familiar book he said, "Another one? How old is he?"  "Two", I said sheepishly.  And yes, we've got another one, whatever that means.  Having  children like this (bright, gifted, amazing?  i don't know what to call it?) seems "normal" to me now, and it's funny to be reminded how not "normal" it is for a just turned two year old to be talking in sentences and starting to sound out words in a book.

What a crazy journey we are on.  Parenting.  Loving.  Living.  I'm so thankful for this time I have with these Little Men.  Someone I know says, "Normal is just a setting on your dishwasher" and I am finding that is so true.

It's That Time of Year Again

It's that time of year again....

where the sun shines brighter and warmer and the snow gives way in most places except for the big hills left from plowing.  The boys revel in it, hoping for sun and spring, and loving the wet, messy snow too...how it packs into snowballs so well now and makes icy paths for the sled to go even faster.  

It's that time of year again....where little boys find things so interesting they just sit and watch, putting aside momentary differences to watch the changing season.

It's that time of year again....where the hens wake up from their winter survival mode, they rediscover fresh air and sunshine and become emboldened by it, scratching even in the snow for treasure and life.

It's that time of year again...where the man must trim back all that isn't wanted in order to make room for more growth.  He works hard, breathing in the freshness, the sunshine, loving the trees enough to prune them back.

It's that time of year again, where the wife watches it all in amazement, praying he won't fall from that tree, praying for growth, looking to her own heart, pruning it back and letting things go to make room for growth.

It's that time of year again....where we hope for spring, we play as if it were spring, but the cold air makes us give up after only an hour and we come inside to warm up and be together. 

And this morning....I saw the crocuses have poked their little heads up.  Spring is on the way!

Saturday

Hurray for Saturday!  Hurrah for Saturdays that don't involve sickness or carbon monoxide!  Hurray for sleeping in because it's Saturday, not because you are too ill to get out of bed!

Oh, and yeah, don't be fooled.  The littlest man didn't sleep in.  No way.  He was up at the crack, but I didn't mind too much.  He's on the way to health and I'm so glad.  He is still feeling tired and needy in the afternoons, we all are really, but it just is so good to be mending and all home together.  I love having Saturdays with my J home.  

We went out for breakfast today, and went shopping.  We came home and played.

I got outside for a brief walk by myself.  The sun was out today, but it was cold.  Only in the twenties I believe.  Brr.

morning glories still clinging to the fence

my beloved hydrangea bush...so pretty even in the winter...

And look!  Today my basil finally sprouted!  It took forever!  I think it was stalled because of the doors and windows being opened for so long last weekend.  I think any dip in temperature like that can make the seeds rethink things. :)  

Today we had a friend from church stop by.  He is one of our volunteer firemen here in town, and he was here helping us last weekend.  I hadn't even realized he was here while it was happening, because there was so much going on, but I was glad to hear that he was the one who took Millie out of the house and who interacted with my father-in-law.  He is such a nice man.  Today he brought fire helmuts and coloring books over to the boys.  They were delighted! Although maybe not delighted with me when I asked for a picture.  Awwww mom! said the eldest boy.  

I guess he is perhaps getting a little big for such things.  Crazy how fast it goes.  That's the thing with parenting...you're always moving at the speed of life.

Time for a New Toothbrush

We woke up to a winter wonderland this morning, although it didn't really seem that wonderful.  Just yesterday I had witnessed two male cardinals fighting over a female, and I thought for sure this meant spring was on the way.  Oh, how quickly a gal can forget that she lives in Wisconsin.

Today was a much better day than the previous few, in many ways really.  There were chiropractor appointments (Badger had his first adjustment today and loved it!), a quick dash to the grocery store that seemed fun because we haven't been anywhere in ages, and lots of good play times.  The boys even spent a good hour outside building a snow fort and having a snowball fight.  I was so glad for them to be able to get outside.  Of course we were greeted with many coughs and a bit of wheezing upon returning indoors, but it was worth it.

The thing is, that even though we are getting better, we are still in this funk.  You know, the kind that settles in every so sneakily.  The kind that comes from not being purposeful in your interactions with one another, because you are too busy, or too sick, or too prideful.  The kind that comes from not doing laundry for five days, not having cooked in forever, and no one really hungry anyway.  And for us this time too, just the funk of not feeling safe in our house.  Yeah.  Funk.  Now, see, in case you were not aware of the funk, you've been introduced.  Hopefully at your house you live in a world of bliss, in the land of perfectness and funk does not know your address.  He totally knows ours, as he is a frequent visitor of the uninvited sort.

The worst part about it for me, is that I can work all day at repairing the funk and be making some real headway towards shoving it out the front door, and it can fly right back in when J comes home.  It's not that he is some kind of ogre.  Just a normal man who has strengths and weaknesses like the rest of them. He feels the funk deeply, being a creature of habit like he is, and can unfortunately not have any time during his day at work to battle the Funk at all.  So when he comes home it still has its claws sunk deep into him and he walks in with this heavy burden on his back looking to me for help.  Afterall, I am his loving wife and helper, nothing could be more natural.

Yet, the wife doesn't always see it this way.  (ahem)  See, I've been battling Funk all day and was desperately tired almost to the point of despair, watching the clock counting down the minutes until my helper came home.   I was misled by the Funk and had listened to it all day telling me that as soon as Papa comes home it will be better.  He is stronger and will be able to give Funk the final shove out the door and all will be well, I thought.

So....that is how it went today...he came home late, we attempted to eat leftovers, and then he complained about the little pieces of garbage that were on the floor because the trash had not been taken out properly and I lost my temper and said mean things in a less than polite tone.  The kids giggled at the supper table (which means it wasn't a bad fight) but still.  He was really mad that I lost my temper, and rightly so from his perspective.  And I did feel really justified when I was saying those mean things, but good grief I don't anymore.  The point is, that I think he might've flushed my toothbrush.  Not that I've known him to do that before.  In fact he is always so calm, but that is why I think he would do it. LOL.  All I know is that my toothbrush is wet, and I haven't used it since morning.

And all of this mess, somehow leaves me in awe of marriage, which I know is a very strange spot to end up on after all of that.  Yet....what kind of relationship is it that can sustain a toothbrush flushing?  I'm not even mad about it.  And it's not because I don't know if he did it or not, I just really have come to the point that I can handle it with ease.  The Funk comes with interacting with one another sometimes but it doesn't ever win.  We are so much one unit now, that there is this incredible flexibility.  Like somehow our union has made us more able to withstand outside pressure.  We can bend in one direction like crazy but we don't snap.  It's just amazing to me.  And we are just ordinary people.  It must be that marriage is just designed really well.

Home Again

We are on the mend.  And home now.  For those of you who maybe haven't heard yet, I apologize for not calling each of you, but we were preoccupied just getting better.  What happened?  We had carbon monoxide in the house on Saturday and were taken to the hospital for treatment.  We are doing better now though and I thank you for your prayers and support during this rough time.

I thought I'd share our story in case it helps any of you.  I pray though that you will never have to know these things but just in case you do, here's our story.  First, we have the flu.  We started with it on Saturday morning.  Fevers, vomiting, coughs, the whole nine yards.  Because of the fevers it was hard to know that we also were being exposed to carbon monoxide.  We just kept thinking we were so sick because of the flu.  Finally in the afternoon I lay down for a nap, and as I lay down I just had this feeling about it being CO poisoning.  But I just brushed it off and took a nap anyway.  When I woke up several hours later I had a screaming headache.  I came downstairs to find all the kids really lethargic and Joel was sick too.  Then the dog threw up.  And I realized something just wasn't right.  See the thing about CO sickness is it can be disorienting.  So make sure to always have working CO detectors in your house.  They need to be replaced every two years and check the battery every six months.

At this point I asked J to check the CO detector (which wasn't working) while I called poison control.  I just wanted to find out what the symptoms were.  The nurse at poison control was super helpful and suggested that we just get out of the house and drive into the bigger city nearby to get a new CO detector.  He said if we felt better once we were in fresh air to just go to the emergency room.  So we bundled up all the boys, opened the windows for the poor dog and drove into the city.  J and I noticed that we did feel better after the drive in.  But we decided to just purchase the new detector and go home and plug it in.  It was so hard to know what was going on with having the flu at the same time.

When we got home the new detector went off immediately so we called the fire department and they came right away.  They pulled us all into the ambulance to check our CO levels and we all had elevated levels.  So they took us in two ambulances into the hospital.  It was so scary.  I felt so bad that I hadn't followed my instincts earlier.  Watching little Hen with the oxygen bag on and little Owl, who by this time was barely awake.  Ugh.  It was horrible.

But the goodnews is that it was totally treatable and although we did have elevated levels it could have been much much worse.  They treated us with oxygen for a couple of hours until our levels came down and they sent us home.  Well not home actually, to J's parent's house.  The firemen and our local utility company had checked our house out and found nothing.  Isn't that strange?  And even today, we had a furnace guy come and check out the house again before coming home and he found nothing too.  He did install an extra fresh air vent into the house though and I feel much better about things now.

Anyway, here's what I learned about carbon monoxide in case you'd like to know.  First of all, not all CO detectors are reliable.  The fire department suggested that we get the kind that plug in because they are super reliable.  Also, detectors should be installed lower to the ground, because CO is a heavy gas.  This is one of the reasons that pets usually get sick when there is CO in the house, because they are low to the ground.  When all of this was happening our kids were all sleeping on the floor, which is the worst place to be.  If you think you might have CO in your house, it's best to just get out.  Open some windows and doors and just get out.  CO poisoning can be disorienting so it's best to just call someone for help.  Don't just brush it off.  I keep thinking about how we could've all just kept sleeping that night.  We are so blessed to be alright.

What They're Up To

I hope you'll indulge me, as I feel I need to take a moment to think about my brood and celebrate some of the growth that has happened these past few months.  I find that our days get so busy, and we get so "in the flow" that I forget to stop and celebrate the growth.  Yes, it's just normal growth, but it's life!  And it should be celebrated.  :)

 Hen.  Hen is going to be two soon.  Hard to believe, but true.  I snapped this photo of him today.  He LOVES the wooden train set.  In honor of his birthday, and perhaps also so that we could be a little more productive with other projects while Hen is busy, we moved the train table back into our main living area.  He was thrilled.  The boys think his birthday cake should be a train, and I am trying to wrap my creativity around that idea.  I guess we'll see what I can come up with.

 Hen and Owl are learning to be brothers.  They seem to be at a stage that they either adore one another or abhor one another and I feel like I can not leave them alone for a second for fear of someone getting hurt.  It can be a challenge, but I'm so glad that there is passion between them and I am hopeful that they will work through this and be the best of friends.  Owl loves being a big brother, so long as Hen doesn't take something that is his.  LOL.

 Owl is learning how to read.  He mostly likes to memorize things, but is starting to understand the sounds and even some words.  He loves the idea of knowing how to read and "reads" me books before naptime.  It's adorable.  He's adorable.  For the most part, he spends his days being quietly busy.  He is active and talkative and will sit and work on a project for a good long time.  He also loves to run and often can be found running from the front to the back of the house, saying, "Mama look how fast I can run!"  :)

 Cricket.  Cricket is growing up so fast.  The change between six and seven is huge.  He is more dependable.  More self aware.  More capable.  He's still the same goofy, happy child, but he is more thoughtful about other's feelings now.  He is learning some self control in a few areas that have been hard for him.   He's thriving at homeschool co-op, and is glad that he recently auditioned for a singing solo in the musical and got one!  Whoo hoo!

And Badger.  Badger also will be singing a solo in the musical.  He has memorized every song already and is figuring out how to read music.  He is learning to be a kind and patient brother, and is often helping me with Hen.  (Hen's favorite lap is Badger's) Another really huge thing for him, is that he is starting to understand the responsibility he has for his own learning.  I think because he started reading so early, he became used to me "feeding" his brain for him, since I had to preread many things before giving them to him.  I also have had to "feed" his brain to keep him from getting bored and cranky.  Now, he is learning about his own need in this area, and is willing to put some work into his "learning time".   He's starting to understand that in order to learn some things he's really interested in, he'll have to learn certain less desirable things first, and he is willing to put some effort into these kinds of things.  I feel so proud of him about this, because I don't think I figured this out until, well, yesterday.