The Boy Who Can Sleep Anywhere

This is my laundry room.

This is a pile of dirty clothes in my laundry room.

This is a boy sleeping on a pile of dirty clothes in my laundry room.

This is my Tobin Bear, who was so worn out from playing outside for hours and hours yesterday morning that he couldn't stay awake any longer but had to take an afternoon nap.  But why did he decide to fall asleep here??  :)

(This is certainly NOT the first time he's fallen asleep in an unusual place.  For example, here...and here...and here...and here, which includes lots of links to other posts with pictures of sleeping boys.  Goodness, will I ever stop photographing my children when they're asleep??)  ;-)

Wordless Wednesday {The End of Boychoir...for THIS Year} ;-)

The Violin Guys {Sneak Peek}

A few days ago...

 ...Emily Sacra did a photo shoot for us, which always makes me happy.  :)

 I got to see the images tonight.

 I'm beyond thrilled with them!

I'll have make time tomorrow to share more of them, I hope!  :)

First Come Blueberries, Then Come Strawberries

I LOVE fruit--so much so that I think I could probably survive just by eating and drinking things from the fruit food group and the dairy food group.  If I couldn't survive, I would at least have fun trying.  ;-)

With my great affection for fruit, it's no wonder that #5 on my list of Seven Goals for the New Year was to plant strawberries, raspberries, and some fruit trees.  If I could get all of those (plus my blueberry bushes, which, by the way, now ALL have leaves!--even that spindly little bundle of sticks that I thought was hopeless but I was willing to pray for anyway)  ;-) to grow and thrive and actually produce fruit, I'd feel like a rich woman.  ;-)  

This week I was able to spend time working on my strawberry project, which consisted of transforming this packed-full-of-lilies-and-weeds bed around the patio...

...into this: an open space with nothing but strawberry plants in it!

I transplanted quite a few of the lilies down to my parents' house, so they can enjoy the flowers later this summer.  :)

As for me, I plan to enjoy sweet, juicy strawberries!  I will be glad, however, to share them with my parents...and with Jeff...and with our fruit-loving kids.  :)

These pictures, by the way, are interesting to me because I took them on two different days; and the contrast between them is so striking to me, even though the only difference between them is that on the first day, the sun was shining.  On the second, clouds covered the sun.  The amount and quality of the light completely changed the color and vibrancy of the plants in these photos.

Planting something is always an act of faith.

Here's hoping that my faith is rewarded someday with many more of these luscious jewels!!  :)

"The Most Powerful Combination of Emotions"

The most powerful combination of emotions in the world

is not called out by any cosmic event,

nor is it found in novels or history books;

merely, it is found by a parent gazing down upon a sleeping child.

~ author unknown,

quoted in A Love Like No Other, compiled by Elisa Morgan

A Big Day for Moriah!

First she did it outside this afternoon, after she had crawled off the cloth I had spread under a tree for her to play on while I planted strawberries.  I thought at the time that maybe she only did it because she was trying to get as far away from the grass as she possibly could.  ;-)

But then tonight, she did it--repeatedly--in the living room; and by all the joyful fuss we made about it, she clearly knew she was doing something pretty special.  :)

I'm talking about Moriah standing up.  

On her own two feet.  

Without holding onto anything.  

All by herself!

Watching her stand up and then look around with a smile to make sure we had noticed reminded me so much of what it was like when Shav first stood up...although in that case, he was 17 and a half months old, and Moriah is just over 13 months.  I really do think she'll be our earliest walker.

Not that I'm pushing to get to that stage.  Each day is precious, and for now I'm simply relishing the sight of my baby girl...

...STANDING UP!!!  :)

The Boys of '09

Two nights ago, we had a frost that killed some plants in our garden - basil, pumpkins, maybe the beans? although we're hoping they recover - while leaving others unscathed - onions, peas, etc.  Today our temperatures reached into the upper 80s.  What a strange fluctuation!  

Since the weather was so beautiful this morning, the outdoors beckoned to me; and after I got Moriah tucked in bed for her morning nap, I headed out to finish the task of transplanting some lilies to my parents' flowerbed.  As always, I had a little helper.  :)  Tobin was gone with Jeff for their monthly breakfast date, but Shav stuck with me and dug in the soil with a little shovel when I used a big shovel, asked for (and received) rides in the wheelbarrow, and generally added to the sunshine of the morning.

After I had loaded up the wheelbarrow with lilies and was taking my first trip down to my parents', I rounded the corner of their house and saw my neighbor Wilma across the lane, planting some flowers in her flowerbed that surrounds her husband's business sign.  She had a little helper with her, too--her son Jason.

My thoughts flew...

I remember, back in 2008, telling her that I was pregnant with our fourth child; and that even though Tobin was still so young and we were so surprised to discover I was pregnant, we were very excited about it, too. And then she told me, in hushed tones, that she was pregnant, too.  In their Old Order Mennonite culture, they do not announce pregnancies publicly like we do or even talk about them much in the early stages, so I knew she was going against the norm to even tell me at that point.  But I was delighted for her and felt so privileged that she confided her secret to me.  Most of all, I was thrilled that she and I would get to be pregnant at the same time!

I remember, in June of 2009, walking over to her house and meeting her newborn son Jason for the first time.  As I held him in my arms, I looked forward with great longing to meeting my own newborn son or daughter (we didn't find out that time), due just a few weeks later.

I remember, in July of 2009, that when my water broke and we needed to head to the hospital in the early morning hours, Wilma was the one we called on to stay with our other children.  She heard the news in that excited phone call from the hospital that we had had a boy!!!  

I remember, that summer of '09, seeing Wilma's Jason and my Shav together and thinking that they looked so much alike...and then hearing Wilma saying that exact same thing.

I remember, in the years since then, experiencing the joys of mothering Shav and enduring some challenges, too.  I watched Wilma do the same with her son.  Sometimes I wasn't even sure Jason would survive, what with his penchant for wandering away from the house and getting close to the road and being in the way of tractors and the like.  Sometimes I wasn't sure I would survive Shav's sleep interruptions!

But survive we all did, and this morning, there we were, two mamas, each with a boy of '09.  

On one side of the lane, Wilma with her cape dress and bonnet.  On the other side, me with my blue jeans, American flag on my t-shirt, and sunhat.  

On one side of the lane, Jason with his cute little Mennonite boy hat and button-up shirt.  On the other side, Shav with his...well, take a look at him...

...let's see...with his baseball cap, ill-fitting sunglasses, t-shirt, shorts, and...ummm...snowboots?  Well, why not?  ;-)

But despite our differences in appearance and lifestyle, Wilma and I have so much in common...

...particularly our love for the wonderful, precious, adorable, sometimes mischievous, always cherished boys God gave us in the spectacular summer of '09!