dannell and b.g. have a birthday

Dannell's birthday was yesterday. The party was today.

This picture of t.c. cracks me up. See his missing tooth? And his uncle harassing him?

This was a very hyper crowd, giddy laughing, running around like crazy.


Luckily nobody tripped in the dirt or was slammed in the door. No injuries to report.That's my sweetie, l.c., funny as ever.

This girl had to leave before cake to go play volleyball. She's going to a Lady GaGa party tomorrow and was working on her costume. Dang, now that's a Friday night for you.


These guys are tired after a long week, hiking around that high school. James likes it, but says it's very loud there, all day long.


Okay, here's b.g. and Dannell opening gifts.



And these two ladies:



And this little peanut in a tutu.


There we go, two candles for our guy! Kari picked out those toys to decorate the cake and yes, she washed and dried them before she put them on there. It was pretty festive, not gonna lie.

b.g. looked at the sea of us all singing to him, and the look on his face was a combination of surprised and pleased, and a little bit of awe. Then he blew out those candles and we all cheered.

(His big party is on Saturday. Dan calls it the Hanukkah of birthdays, every day, for eight days it has continued. It's all good though, nothing wrong with that.)

Dannell's cake? Definitely the harder job on candle blowing.




But with assistance, it was easily accomplished.

Oh, and gawd, they were all eager-beaver again to scoop ice cream. Small children are not designed for the scooping of ice cream, but we let them. John helped.




Okay, and Dan's shirt? He bit a Lindors truffle in half and it was full of some kind of sweet syrup which flew down his shirt. He thought he was biting into a solid chocolate, but no.

Everyone who encountered him said, "Dan! What happened to your shirt?" until he had told the story about half a dozen times. He said he thought maybe he should do like a megaphone and make a family announcement about it. Will it wash out? We hope so.

Oh, the end of the night--this is shortly before John was leaving with a kid in each arm, and tripped over a carseat sitting in the entryway, and l.c. got a bumped head in the deal. Oh, yeah.

And this sweet picture of Dannell watching the kids makes me smile.

Dannell.

We have loved you since you were a girl, and are glad you stuck around and became one of us.

This family is nothing but lucky you're here. Happy Birthday, Honey.

We all love you so, Val and Jay and all the kids.

well.

I was going to talk about the first day of school and put up the pictures I took.

But the damned kids lost my camera.

They took it to do their funny little hyper videos, and now nobody knows where it is.

And we can't even call it like a lost cell phone and listen for it.

So, nevermind.

It had cute pictures of b.g. blowing out two year old birthday candles stuck in the special cream cheese filled cupcakes his parents sent.

(Dan emailed me for the recipe and they baked the cupcakes themselves.)

Ummm, and some other stuff.

ANNOYING.

Onward. The camera was not in the washing machine and will likely be found some day, and I do have another perfectly good camera.

Grrrrrrr.

Oh, wow. Here is Maria now with my camera! And just as I was about to choose some of Kirsten's summer pictures instead.

She found it in a plant outside. Well, whoop-de-dang-do.

(In a plant? I watered those plants and didn't see it. It didn't get wet?
Good Lor-ED.)

James had his first day of school today, left our little old homeschool and headed out for ninth grade. My mom was here in the afternoon and we were both eager to hear how it went.

"Fine."

He liked it okay, plans to go back tomorrow, said it wasn't as bad as he expected.

And the pictures from today. (Kirsten's pictures to come another day after all.)





That shirt is a pair of Tim's old pajamas from when he was a baby. I love that.

And here they are doing some work. b.g. kept telling us the alphabet and saying, "Twelve, fourteen!" He was working too, even when he crawled over Julia's workbook to reach the guitar.

Lydia, aka Kari also had my help learning how to make lunch--this is a primary job of the oldest kid in homeschool. We worked on it together and soup and sandwiches made it to the table.

My mom came a little later, bearing cookies and twix bars. Lydia had baked a pan of brownies already, so we were way in the chocolate, which none of us mind.

b.g. tends to eat dirt though, sand, horrible. As Lydia was wiping off his face and handing him a drink, she scolded him a little, "You must not eat dirt. Do you hear me? You could get pinworms and nobody wants those."

That's the understatement of the year.

We've never had them, so far. But when I told the kids about them, they were so astonished and horrified they accused me of making it up.

No. This is a true story. WASH YOUR HANDS. You don't want to go to Pinworm City.

On that happy and uplifting note, I will say good night. I hope the second day of school is as good as the first was, and even though it's not June, July, or August, I don't hate September.

May usually disappoints, the rain and cold wind and tendency to mud. September hardly ever lets us down. Today was sunny and gorgeous, and what's not to love?

Onward to Wednesday. love always, Val

a guy who is two

Today!

Happy Birthday Buddy!

I cannot even remember life without you.

I do know the whole family is way better because you're in it.

Thanks for being our buddy, our baby.

We love you so much, Grandma and Grandpa, all all the kids

heather, again

Perfectly charming. Wonderful. Just enjoy. love, Val

a snapshot of when

jay and james, john and dan, putting something together

Between the wooly bear caterpillar Tim has in a big water tumbler in the kitchen, and crawling around in the garden tonight, and Little Jay getting ready to go back to the dorm on Monday, I remembered this writing from a long time ago.

I wrote it for a homebirth newsletter, so that's the connection there, but it's a snapshot of life around this house about ten years ago, and life trudges forward, but here we all still are an awful lot the same.


"Hello!

Summer is always my favorite season, and this one has been very fine so far. On the fourth of July we spent a weekend in Wisconsin and our oldest daughters found monarch caterpillars.

We love hatching out monarchs, so we brought home a few caterpillars and an armload of milkweed for them to eat. Within days each one went through the intense hour of bending and flexing involved in cocooning.

We watched as the green seemed to exude from the caterpillar’s skin, until each one became a wonderful little lime green cocoon, with a sparkly row of perfect golden pin dots around the top edge.

Saturday night I noticed that the cocoons had turned dark and when I looked at them closely, I could see the patterns of monarch wings through the film. It was not a big surprise then when the kids told us in the morning that the butterflies had hatched, but it was still startling to see how huge they were compared to their little cocoons!

Jay carried the aquarium out to the wild flower patch in the garden and we carefully lifted them out on the milkweeds and put them in the flowers. Even though we live on a busy street, we sat by the garden for a long time in our nightgowns and pajamas, watching the butterflies among the bobbing wildflowers, fanning their wings slowly, drying them in the morning sun.

Late that night Dan and John, our oldest sons, came down to where their dad and I were working in the basement. It’s a cellar basement typical of old houses, but we’ve painted the walls white and the floor maroon and use it as a home office for our business.


Dan and John are moving to an apartment down by the university in the fall, and when they came downstairs, Dan was carrying the beautiful, antique maple rolling pin I had bought for them at a garage sale that Friday, accumulating dishes for them as I am.

He recounted the plot of the Simpsons episode he’d just watched, and as I listened to him, I wasn’t sure whether I was laughing more at the Simpsons or at Dan telling the story. Then he waved the rolling pin around and called it a “three dollar piece of firewood” and smacked it on his father’s desk and against the ceiling.


I asked him if he was trying to break it, and said I thought they might someday want to make cookies, and if not, then give it to Dannell (John’s girlfriend).

Still laughing, he waved the thing under my nose and said, “Mother. Do you know how much this scares me? In a few weeks I’m going to have the kind of life that… that might require a rolling pin??”

John said, “You’re feeling nervous too?” and we laughed some more. Something about this silly moment felt full of life.

I remember feeling this way when I was pregnant with John and excited friends and relatives kept bringing me things they’d picked up for the baby—a big kettle with a rack inside for sterilizing bottles? Urp cloths? Tiny undershirts and socks? It was unnerving and exhilarating all at once.

We had the same feeling a couple years ago on that last day when Jay left his job to start his own business. That van with our name on the side was a symbol of so many things.


For those families expecting babies right now, or thinking of inviting babies to join them, this leap into the unknown probably feels very familiar.

Birth would not be birth without this element, and life just might indeed require a rolling pin.

What we know for sure is that with or without cookies, nothing is ever going to be the same again."

Fun to remember, while I crawled around weeding in the roasting heat, listening to Jay and James play basketball, summer evenings I love, and caterpillars and college students too.

Oh, and the Simpsons. love, Val

a funny picture

This is Kirsten and her dog, Payton. Little Pay-Pay comes here to get babysat while Kirsten is at work, and she parties at Grandma's pretty well.

She digs holes and chews sticks, and chases Sam around the lilac bush, investigates the trash, and lurks under the high chair.

One morning she was dropped off while I was still sleeping, and she got away from Kirsten, ran to the room and jumped onto the bed and pranced all over my back.

That woke me up. The dancing and the wild kissing. (I hollered.)

She's a good dog, makes us laugh. Love, Val

september begins

It was so hot and humid that when I went outside to take a picture, the lens fogged. And that is an actual human infant, not a doll. She's a funny little girl now, almost six months old.


That little fence was erected to keep Sam out of the big window well back in her puppy digging days. Shrubs flew through the air, roots and all. But now she's civilized.

We keep the fence so the grandbabies don't fall over the edge.

Oh, and gosh he loves this old swing. Don't worry-- Julia's hair was shampooed tonight. She even asked me to do it.




After supper, I stuck to my plan and weeded that horrible garden of ours. It was about 90 degrees, and between the sweat in my eyes and the fogging of my glasses, it was a challenge, but it's done now.

Some of the plants in there must be herbs or something because the weeds smelled spicy and wonderful. I left all the milkweed in one corner because monarchs love it. There are a lot of butterflies in this garden, and besides milkweed, I'm not sure what they're attracted to, so I mostly just weeded out the swamp grass and nettles.

It looks like a perennial garden again, not just a bramble.

This is a little video of a creation Tim made with the bits and pieces of a kit from Christmas and some legos. It's pretty fun.



Tomorrow is Friday, looking excellent. Sleep tight. love, Val