The baby

I know we've been calling Eva "the baby" for 9 months... but now that she is almost here... i look at Wes and think that maybe i "dethroned" him too soon. Curt has been getting up early with Wes for the past couple months so that I can get an extra half an hour of sleep but this morning was different. Curt had been out until almost 1 am picking up a friend of ours at the airport and was so tired. I rolled out of bed and bundled Wes into my arms, heading to the kitchen. He was cranky...and the house was full of sleeping people.
"Do you want toast?"
"no"
"yogurt?"
"no"
"Want to go in the hot tub?"
"no"
...and then i remembered the other day how Curt had taken him riding horse and Wes couldn't quit talking about "baby horse".
"Do you want to go quading out in the field to see the baby horse?"
"UP!!!! (yup) SHOES!! 'mon!! (come on!) 'mon!!" I downed the last of my breakfast and we headed out. The air was cool and the quad was covered in wet from the night so I wiped off the seat and plopped Wes in front of my solid baby belly and headed out. The fields looked empty. I guess even the animals wanted to sleep in this morning. We drove past the garden and the stallion's pen and Wes jabbered away, pointing at the sunflowers, and "Nitro". We pulled up to the shed and a handful of bunnies skittered underneath. (Curt released a few 3 years ago and they thrived....and multiplied). After opening and closing gates, we drove into the field. One goat sauntered out of the shed, then 3 pigs, then the dog. Wes was in his glory waking up the world. We drove around the west fence until suddenly Wes started pointing and hooting. "Horse! Horse!!" He had spotted the group of horses on the eastern fence line. We drove over there and they took off running. "Ohhhhhh! Fast Fast!" We spent the next 10 minutes just puttering around in the middle of the horses. Wes jabbered non-sensically when one horse nibbled on the fence and grass and made big chewing actions to mimic her. Then the baby horses tried nursing and he said "Awwwe! Baby." And then, of course, a horse having a bowel movement is a *thing to behold* for a child and the vocabulary words are, of course, the favourites: "POOOP!! BUM! BUM!" On our way back to the house, we saw the cat and her batch of kittens so had to stop for that too. "Down!" I let him down and turned off the quad. He marched right up to the mama cat, cupped her face in his tiny baby hands and kissed her full on the lips. (Do cats have lips?) She closed her eyes, stretched and strangely seemed to enjoy it. Then he picked up a kitten and asked "home?" No, we couldn't bring the kitten home. "Tay, Bye!" He put the kitten back with it's mother and marched back to the quad. His mood had improved greatly in the time we had been outside. So much about him is still so little, but i see shades of my big boy Darren... and big sweeping brush strokes in him resembling my husband. The baby is becoming a boy.

Job description clarification and blessed release

Curt and I went to the homeschool convention this past weekend. Together. Just the two of us. In Red Deer. Alone. I can't remember the last time it was just the two of us alone together but now that it's over I'm thinking that we were maybe missing out a little by not sneaking away every now and then to just have some extended uninterrupted conversation. There are so many things I want to blog about especially considering that so much time has passed since my last entry, but this is *one* of them.
Ephesians 2:10 (New International Version) says:
10For we are God's workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
I was sitting in a "Part Two" session at the homeschool convention when that verse was brought up by the speaker. When she read the verse I automatically thought of *myself* (as we all do i suppose when we hear that verse). God is talking to *me* in that verse. "I am God's workmanship...". The speaker went on to use the word "masterpiece" in the place of workmanship... and it was then that i realized that she was talking about our children being the workmanship and masterpiece of the Lord. How many years have I been a mother...and all this time I've been reading the Bible as if it is directly speaking to me... but not letting it sink in that it is also speaking individually of each of my children? It was then that my faulty thinking hit me dead center. I somehow had the idea that as God formed me and worked in me and changed me... I would work in/with my children. So wrong. My children are God's masterpiece. Not mine. At that moment, a memory from the past week came flooding back. I was driving with the kids from the pool, Darren was in the front seat and the Christian radio station was on. The chorus of a popular song was repeating. It referred to Christians as being the body of Christ. :
"If we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them
there is a way Jesus is the way."
Darren had looked at me and said "Mom! This song is so powerful!" He went on to explain the lyrics to me and what they meant to him. I was impressed that he would be able to grasp the concept and articulate his emotions so well.
When that memory came back to me, i realized that God was revealing ways in which He was working in Darren. Although i will play a role in my children's Christian maturity, God is also at work in each one of them. There will be conversations of which I won't be a part. Those conversations will be between God and my child...alone. These children are not mine... they're God's. They need to follow Him. Gratitude, relief, sorrow, a lifting of a burden i wasn't supposed to be carrying in the first place. It is a blessed release when you know He will continue to carry the burden. May God give me the grace I need through these pre-teen/teen years to give each of my children a blessed release into the care and keeping of a Heavenly Father who cares enough to remind me that we are working *together*.

The Great Outdoors

Maybe I haven't been outside for awhile. Yesterday, when I took Wesley outside for a romp in the snow the other kids spied me and started running at me and cheering. "MOM IS OUTSIIIIIDE!" They said it like it was some kind of impossible miracle and my mother-heart twinged with guilt (as it is prone to do). I used to *live* outside with the kids building forts, catching frogs, making bows and arrows. I would even take them skidooing. Over the years it seems like I've become a bigger and bigger wimp....and (shudder) indoorsy. In that moment of cheering and guilt, i decided that I was going tobogganing with them. "Let's go sledding guys!" They cheered....and I wondered if i would regret my bravado. I was wearing Darren's camouflage overalls and his extra pair of boots which were clunky and too big for me but I started inching my way down the icy hill to get the toboggan, Wesley balanced on my bulky hip. "Having fun" requires a lot more work than it used to. "Mom, we don't toboggan on this little hill. You gotta walk to the BIG hill with us. Dad scraped it out with the bobcat!" "Oh, okay." It was getting hot and i laid Wes on a sled and pulled him behind me. After a short walk to the back field filled with snow and horse manure, we found ourselves at the top of a HUGE hill. Curt had scraped away a sliding hill that was wide with ridges on either side and wild bumps to start it off. I got nervous. "It's okay mom. I'll give you a push to start you off." says Darren. I should have known better than to agree to a 12 year old boy "starting me off". Especially considering that I am pregnant and holding a one yr old on my lap. Darren obviously didn't think of those things. Wes and I got on. The sled threatened to slide out from beneath me and Darren firmly placed his hands on my back and RAN as fast as he could, pushing. I begged him to quit. "That's good enough DARREN!" He gave one last mighty heave and Wesley and I were racing and spinning on a blue plastic disk down the hill. I screamed. So did Wes. The kids cheered. It seemed like an absolute moment of insanity. Twirling Alberta skies and snow and mother and child hurtling through the wind. The ride went on for about a 1/4 mile before my dragging boots finally brought us to a stop. It was in that moment i decided "I've got to do this more often." My second run was solo and i went completely off course careening onto my back and soliciting howling encouragement from the kids. Sadie's contagious laugh is too good to miss. I've decided to get out more... even in this Alberta winter, even with little ones that need a 10 minute bundle job each. There is something like good medicine that can only be found in spending time in the great outdoors and I need me a little more of that.

How we do the Christmas shopping

My sister did a couple of posts explaining how she does certain activities with her family of 8 and I thought since it's Christmas, I would share how we do Christmas in the present department for the kids. We do get comments about how crazy it must be with 6 kids and buying presents for everyone, but in reality, it has been made fairly simple with a couple of traditions that have grown over the past few years. I hope the traditions will continue to improve and change over the years as the kids get older (maybe hand-made gifts) but at this stage and these ages, this is simple, peaceful and the most fun for everyone involved. Here it is: Curt and I buy one present for each child, and *sometimes* one for each other. When it gets close to Christmas, the kids and I pile into the vehicle and head to the local dollar store. They pair off and buy for each other. One item for each of their siblings from the dollar store. When they have their presents, they either buy it on their own, or if the store is full, they pile it in my cart under my coat so no one can see and I pay for it and they pay me back at home. (Somehow, it is more exciting for them when they can say they chose the present themselves and bought it out of their own money.) When we get home, each one comes to my room and tells me what they bought so i can get it from the bags for them. I give them a roll of paper, scissors and tape and they hide in their room wrapping and labelling all their gifts. the end. :) merry Christmas

Ellie's Salon

Mom and Dad are visiting. After supper, during which Grannie wore a card-stock, home-made crown that someone lovingly placed on her head, Ellie crawled up behind her at the table and started to comb her hair. Grannie never flinches when the kids begin playing "beauty salon". I hope i can become as gracious as her someday. Anyways, as i was talking to Grannie, I noticed something.

"Umm, Ellie, Why are you combing Grannie's hair with a plastic fork?"

"I know! See, I made it into a brush!" She had bent back the tines so that it made for a "better brush". Then she placed the crown back on the top of her head. "There! Perfect!"

I think my mom must be the best sport in the world.

(pic of Ellie and Grannie during a beauty-fest last spring)

Learning (on the fly) to sketch with the kids

I have never taken art but have always wanted *deeply* to be able to "do" art. When we've done read aloud during the course of our home school i always got the kids to draw or do an art project while they listened. This year we got good sketch books and pencils from Staples and started watching YouTube videos to get some inspiration. Yesterday, during fiddle lessons, we drew from reference pictures i had printed off of the Internet. I am always shocked when something turns out better than i expected when it is something i have no training in doing or teaching. Anyways, here is my unfinished fish with the horrible tail and some of the kids' sketches. Carrie (10), Ellie (6) and I all did the baby face. Robin's is the birds from a folksy picture and Darren's is the eyes. Carrie did a foot that she is quite pleased with as well. I will have to take more pics as she did not think that the baby face was her best one.

Baby Board Books

I am a little bit of a sucker for baby board books and recently discovered a new favourite so I'm putting my plug out there. Every one of my kids are in love with this series by Leslie Patricelli. (Even the ones in grade 5 and 6) They are hilarious. Mostly because they are so true to life. They picture baby doing/eating/discovering various truths about life. "Burgers are Yummy...Boogers are yucky." We found ours at the local Walmart and now my eye will be peeled wherever I go. I noticed that there are more listed in the series. Anyways, these would make a great shower gift for a new mom...or for yourself if you have a thing for kids books like I do. :0)

Who wants to lick off the beaters?

While studying Australia, we found a dessert recipe called Lamingtons that we thought we would try out. It was an eggy white cake, cut up into tiny squares, drizzled with runny chocolate sauce and rolled in coconut. I'm sorry, but anything drizzled in chocolate and kissed with coconut makes me dizzy. YUMM. As we were drizzling chocolate on the forked squares, Sadie accidentally drizzled chocolate all over her dress and leg. She cheerfully yelled out, "Who wants to lick off my leeeegs!!!"

Sadie's new 'do

Despite having a recieving blanket tightly tied around her head as she helped paint the playhouse, Sadie still managed to get paint in her hair. She decided that instead of combing it out, i should just cut it. She had already given herself some bangs a couple months ago so I agreed to finish her job. :) I'm a big fan of the 3 year old "bob" haircut anyways. Less knots and...it's just plain cute.

losing momentum

We started off the day with a bang. We had my sisters' family over for the day yesterday so this morning had a big breakfast and waved them off. Curt announced that we were going to pick saskatoons at the neighbors U-pick farm. 45 mins later we came home with 30 lbs of berries. I started rinsing, getting them ready to freeze. Cousins dropped in as usual, I went grocery shopping and then we got a phone call that the next batch of company was coming over. The kids started their "chore packs", a little deck of cards they go through at different times of the day with their chores printed on them. I called to Robin that her laundry was ready to go up to her room. She shrugged, looked at the measly pile and groaned slowly... "Ummm, I guess I'll just give those clothes to Ellie..."

swimming lessons

Ellie ~

Tomorrow is the last day of swimming lessons for the kids. The 4 older ones were in formal lessons while Wesley, Sadie and I puddled around in the kiddie pool for the week. We made a HUGE bucket of cookie dough for the fridge so that we could make fresh cookies each night for snacks after lessons. I'm thinking of signing up for another week as it was such a success. Keep your eye on your cookie Robin!!!

After lessons today, Robin found Sadie in the baby pool and got a huge welcome.

You say tomayto I say tomahto...

Sadie and I were up making cookies tonight and she had the job of whisking the eggs in the bowl. She took a couple eggs out of the carton and began to sing: "....Butt--eggs.... Butt--eggs..."
I looked over and she was making the eggs dance to their most humiliating lyric.
"Sadie, put the eggs back in the carton."
"But mom, these eggs come out of the chickens' butt right? That's why they are butt eggs." I looked over at her and tried to be scientific. "Actually, it kind of comes out of the cloaca..." She stopped swirling the eggs and stared at me for a few seconds before announcing: "And that is a butt."

The mystery of the missing eggs

It may be old news, but i had to add this story to my blog as i wanted to remember it for the kids' sake. I had great laying hens. They laid white, brown and green eggs. I never knew what i was going to get and i loved the beauty of the little pile of varying eggs that the kids would bring me each morning or evening. I would wash them, put them in a carton and they would usually be used before the case was filled. This is all in the past tense. There is perhaps a little bit of history that needs to be filled in. The last group of laying hens we got were "rescued" from an industrial egg farm and they looked like they'd lived 100 years in the 1 year they had survived their cramped quarters at the farm they came from. We let them roam free in the summer and they laid where they wanted. The kids would go out every day to find the favourite spots and bring in the eggs. We had roosters too and the kids always hoped that one of the "rescued" hens would miraculously decide to go against all they had lived up to that point and actually lay on her prize and become a "cluck" (mother hen). None of them ever did. We hatched out two more batches of laying hens in the living room incubator and bought some fancier varieties to mix up the hen yard, so ended up with more roosters than we wanted. Curt took all the roosters over to his dad's place. (I'm sure he appreciated that cacophony!) Eventually we took a big bunch of them to the auction and sold them to the thrill of the kids. Well, this spring i was enjoying my little handful of daily eggs. It was perfect. Not the HUGE bucket loads we used to get that i had to clean, but about 5 a day, all different. Suddenly though, the eggs quit coming in. The answer was always, "There aren't any out there." or "No eggs today!" I wondered what was going on and finally was informed that my husband and children had conspired against me, had taken the lot of my hens over to Grandpas place where they had access to roosters and were determined to get one of the laying hens to hatch out her own batch of chicks. Not long after that confession, there was excitement. Something had hatched over at Grandpas. Fresh chicks. No incubators with artificial heat and humidity set to the absolute perfect mix, rocking the eggs day and night in my living room, just mama hen, papa rooster and the perfect design of God. Life contained within that shell, sustained by the life of their mother sitting patiently and waiting. New life is so shockingly complex and yet so simply beautiful.

John the Baptist and (needless) Wilderness Survival

The other day i popped my head out the garage door to call the kids in for chores. I was stopped short just as i started yelling the list of names when i saw Darren and Carrie standing just outside the door with huge grins on their faces.
"What are you smiling about Darren?"
"Nothing... Is it true that you can eat grasshoppers?"
"Unfortunately yes... now you'd bet.... " I looked down at Darren's hand. He was holding something.
"Darren, did you eat a grasshopper?" (He's 11!)
"Not yet....." (smiling) I stopped and looked at Carrie (almost 10). She was giggling and chewing something.
"Carrie!... Are you eating a grasshopper!??" She grinned at me and kept rolling something in her mouth! Darren laughed and popped the little something that was in his hand into his mouth!
*I screamed*
Darren chews and says
"What?! You just have to take off their wings, legs and head and they aren't that bad... i saw it on a nature show." He grimaced. I kept hooting disgust and Carrie opened her mouth to reveal a Wurthers butterscotch candy! She hadn't eaten a grasshopper after all! Darren didn't seem to care.
"They would be better with wild honey like John the Baptist ate them...now that would be really good!" I hooted again and forgot about chores and went inside. 5 minutes later Ellie comes in the house (she is the resident tattler) "Darren's eating grasshopper butts." "Thanks for the heads-up Ellie."

Nothing can separate us from His great love...

Had a dream about the kids last night. (For those of you who don't normally read my blog, you will need to know, for the sake of the dream, that i have a son with epilepsy and a newly diagnosed 3 year old with "partial central diabetes insipidus")
Was on a long journey to get help for the sake of my children.... sleeping in shallow ditches and hiding from the enemy at night. When we got to where we were going, it was a large open field we waited in. Darren and I were the focus of the dream at this point. We were sitting on a long, wooden bench. Behind it was a curtain where thieves were stashing stolen items. We were surrounded by thieves and robbers and they were a part of where we were coming for help. A loud speaker announced that Darren was buying something. A Daniel Boon lid for something we didn't need or want... 40$ (everyone around laughed.) We were shocked. We didn't ask for, nor want that item, nor want to spend that on a worthless item. The loud speaker announced that we were paying 50$ so our change was going to be one dollar! We were being cheated...over something we didn't even ask for. I took the kids to the "cashier/receptionist" to clear things up. It was confusing... and they didn't want to listen or help. As i was dealing with the lady, Ellie, my 6 year old pointed out a little boy who was standing by the doorway and said to Sadie, "Look, that boy is about your size." As my back was turned, trying to deal with Darren's issue, Sadie went over to meet him. I turned around and a crowd of people were sweeping out the door... and her with them. I asked the lady to wait and ran to get Sadie. When i came out the door, everyone was gone, Sadie was so tiny and in a hospital gown, smiling and gliding towards a nurse in an open doorway. I sobbed, knowing that she was going to die and yelled out "no!"... The nurse was kind and brought me along with Sadie, but when i went through the door Sadie was "gone"...all there was left was to find out why...the dream went on with the process of brain scans, extremely detailed pituitaries with salt crystals floating out of holes along it's scaly length, conversations with doctors with Wesley in my arms and the other children standing...waiting....
Today a package came with the kids' math books for next year and in the package was also a CD that I had ordered because of a song i had heard on our local Christian radio station. I put the song on repeat as i did laundry and sobbed. God's timing is perfect. He knows the fear of a mother deep in worry, who feels "robbed" by illness. Just a timely reminder from God that we are not separated from Him, even in our sorrow, even in our worry, even in our work. He is in the middle of it with us. We belong to Him. Here are the lyrics...I also added it to my playlist.
Not angels,
nor demons,
no power on earth or heaven
Not distance,
nor danger,
no trouble now or ever
Nothing can take me from your great love
Forever this truth remains
I belong, I belong to you
I belong, I belong to you
Not hardship,
nor hunger,
no pain or depth of sorrow
Not weakness,
nor failure,
no broken dream or promise
Nothing can take me from your great love
Forever this truth remains
I belong, I belong to you
I belong, I belong to you...

Mewling on a Monday

Yesterday, Curt's cousin Jeff and his wife Jessica Jespersen (yes, that's right... and there are more of us by that name too in this family :)) Came over to see the baby goats. Our Manx cat came up for some loving, rolling onto her back as the kids pointed out the bare spots on her tummy where she had shed in preparation for kittens. She looked like a hairy, hard little watermelon rolling around at our feet, so today was no surprise. I sent the kids out to play this afternoon only to have Robin run into the house breathless about 15 minutes later. Carrie had been walking past the pole shed and had heard loud mewing. She ran into the storage corner and sure enough, there were kittens. There was a problem though. Mama Cat had delivered on the wire mesh and the babies had fallen through to other levels and also to the floor as she delivered. Carrie gathered them all up as Darren prepared a straw box and rescued the lot of them to the garage. They were all still soaking wet, tiny and beautiful.

Wedding and a birth

We attended Curt's cousin Billy's wedding (to long-time girlfriend Shelly Dupasquier) today (beautiful!!) and left the kids home with some of the older cousins and a plan for them to hit the bush for a picnic. I had made up a huge batch of chicken and potatoes. When we got home, the kids were watching the goat give birth! Twins. It's been an exciting day around here. :)

Curt moving mom and babe to birthing pen and hauling water with "Rosie" the piggie looking on.

Carrie and Robin discussing whether or not she was going to have a second babe.

Waiting for #2 to arrive.

Some of the cousins.

Forts on a Friday...

Robin's fort walls.

The Jespersen kids.

Ellie

Sadie painting in the bush.

Carrie's fort with their old sign Darren painted when he was in kindergarten. "Wolf Den Tipi"...and her moose head.

Darren's tadpole rescue of the day. The ponds are drying up and these little ones needed a rescue.

Darren clearing some dead branches.

Carrie showing how her antlers make a good seat.

Workout Wednesday

Well, maybe not a traditional workout, but doesn't blasting the Barra MacNeils and singing/jigging around the piano count? Grampsie came for a visit this week and on the last day, he arrived with a tiny toy fiddle that plays set tunes when you touch the bow to the strings. Sadie was delighted and prayed at dinner that she would learn to play her fiddle really well. Tonight, Curt was at ball with the 4 older kids and I stayed home with Sadie and Wes. I set Wes up at the piano to accompany Sadie and then blasted the Barra MacNeils. She praised Wes up continually for his most excellent piano playing and enthusiastically kept up to the blasting tunes. Very fun. I think her little violin was probably playing "Ode to Joy"... but who could tell. :) I will try to find "Don't Call Me Early" by the Barra MacNeils and add it to my play list so you can have a taste of what our evening sounded like...minus some stomping and hooting, piano hammering and electronic Ode to Joy sounds. Warning! It starts off with some accordion but don't worry, it gets better. hee hee (just kidding mom)
...Arg, could only find "Christmas in Killarny" but it's just as fun. ENJOY the instant party brought to you by the Barra MacNeils.

Carrie's Ball

Carrie's pitching last night was on FIRE!! The kids are only allowed to pitch for 2 innings so she pitched the first two innings. One guy made it to first base, no one made it home, and she pitched 6 strike-outs! woo hoo! Her thrilled coach wrote on the winning game ball for her and gave it to her:

"Toxic Sox"

Carrie Jespersen

2 innings

6 K's

06/02/09

...Another item for her treasure box.