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We interrupt the regularly scheduled broadcast of coverage of the Fisher family's activities during the COVID-19 pandemic to bring you a pleasant change of topic...

I had a birthday!!!  :)

I will write in more detail about the birthday when I get to Day 21 (April 1, my actual birthday) of my quarantine journal; but for tonight, let me share some pictures of the cake...

...the cake which got made a day late...

...but who cares because for once, we're not in a hurry to go anywhere!  So if we have cake on April 2nd instead of the 1st, nobody is bothered in the least.  :)

My earliest and most unchanging favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip; and if that ice cream could be a cake, it would be this one.  :)  We call it Shank cake (the reason is told here), and it's loved by everyone in our family--unlike some of my other favorite cakes, like coconut cake or German chocolate cake.  How someone could NOT like homemade German chocolate cake is beyond my comprehension, but there are actually some people sleeping under my roof tonight who claim that it is true!!  ;-)  Goodness!  Just because it has coconut in it!  ;-)

Well, since we're all sort of stuck with each other now, I wanted to have my birthday cake this year be something that all the family would enjoy, so Thursday late afternoon, Moriah and I got to work, mixing up the batter for this bit of deliciousness.  Later that night, after Jeff and I finished our online d-time with our good friends Ben and Melanie, I whipped up the icing and assembled the cake; and when the younger kids finished watching their episode of Redwall, we all gathered in the dining room for one last part of my official birthday celebration.

When Benjamin saw the cake, he exclaimed, "IT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL!!"  :)  He's good for my ego.  :)

Moriah asked if she could put the candles in place; and because we only have one numeral 4, she had to use four individual candles for the second digit of my age.  Tobin and Shav got the honor of lighting them.

I think here, Jeff was pointing out that the wax from the red candle was dripping down onto the icing because it was taking so long for them to sing "Happy Birthday" to me.  :)

Oh well, it's not really birthday cake unless it has a little wax on the icing, right?  ;-)

Benjamin was pretty excited.

Pretty adorable, too.  ;-)

If I had a way to do so, I would share a piece of Shank cake with each of you who is reading, so imagine that you're eating a slice of cake while you read on to find out...

Eight Random Facts about Me!  :)

1. I love the sight of a house sitting catty corner on a lot.  Since 99% of houses are built squarely on their piece of land, the rare ones that sit diagonally always catch my eye--and my admiration.

2. I'm not doing any of this nowadays; but when life is normal and I am able to prepare a meal to take to someone (that has, for example, had a new baby, or is sick), I have discovered that it is certifiably impossible for me to make the meal, get out the door on time to deliver it to them, and keep a clean kitchen.  One of the last two items has to go!  It seems in such situations, I am ALWAYS in a rush, and I end up leaving the kitchen looking like a whirlwind has swept through it.  At least the people receiving the meal don't know (or care!) what the appearance of my kitchen is at that moment!  (But if I ever bring you a meal at some point in the future, you already know the secret: that when I appear at your door, my kitchen is A MESS!).  ;-)

3. During the past 12 months, I finally made peace with my nose.  ;-)  That has always been the physical feature of myself that I liked the least, but this past year as I looked at other people's noses, I realized that I would actually rather have my nose than some of theirs.  Shocking, I know.  ;-)  I do consider it a sign that I am advancing in wisdom and maturity that I have, by the grand old age of 44, reached this stage of actually being grateful for my own nose!  ;-)

4. And speaking of appearances...  It was no surprise when I started to go gray; with the genetics that I have, there was no way around it!  I remember my mother with brown hair...but that was because she had it colored...until one day she stopped doing that, and we were happy.  I loved her gray hair--still do.  Going back another generation or two, I only ever remember my grandmother and my great-grandmother having beautiful gray/white hair, although of course in their younger years, they had brown hair (I guess it was brown; I'm honestly not sure!).  So I completely expected to turn gray myself, but what I DIDN'T expect was to like it so much!  I really like my hair--and not just because of the haircut Jeff gave me recently (although I like that quite a bit, too!), but because of the color, this mixture of diminishing-brown and increasing-gray.  My one hesitation about gray hair was that I didn't want to be completely gray while I was still bearing children; but since Benjamin is four years old now, I guess I don't mind if it all goes gray at this point!  But meanwhile, I'm liking the highlights of color that my head naturally produces (and to think that some women pay a lot of money in a salon to get highlights--hahaha!!).  ;-)

5. Speaking of getting older...  :)  In general, life is getting a whole lot easier (current pandemic notwithstanding).  Why?  Because having kids who are old enough (and mature enough) to babysit is a GAME-CHANGER!!  My vivid memories of being a mother of young children who had to take them all everywhere I went are an ever-present reminder of just how tough it is to be a mother of young children--whether you have one or two or half-a-dozen.  Now that Josiah and David are old enough to watch their younger siblings, it's A WHOLE NEW WORLD, folks.  I can go have lunch with a friend, go to a Bible study, go to Aldi for groceries, go to the dentist for a root canal, and other assorted fun(?) activities ALL BY MYSELF.  (Of course, not at the current time with our self-quarantine, but when life is normal.)  I am so grateful for my old-enough, mature-enough, competent-enough, loving-enough big kids!!  Jeff and I never want them to feel taken for granted as built-in babysitters; but at the same time, it IS a way they can help the family.  Our plan at this point to try to strike the right balance is to pay $2 an hour for babysitting of younger siblings.  If Josiah is away, for example, and David is in charge by himself, he gets $2 an hour.  If both Josiah and David are here and are involved, they each get $1 per hour.  It's not a lot of money, but it gives them some pocket change (or gas money, if you're a teen driver who is learning firsthand how quickly gas tanks get empty in cars!).  And it is a HUGE help for me.  Seriously life-changing.

6. I do not understand the allure of Disney World.  I like amusement parks as much as anyone, but Disney, with its exorbitant prices??  I just don't get it.  Besides the outrageous cost, the thought of standing in a long line for somebody dressed up like a character from a Disney movie to sign my kid's autograph book makes me break out in hives.  YOU'RE NOT REALLY CINDERELLA, YOU KNOW.  There are about a thousand other places I'd rather be.  But I know there are plenty of other wise, wonderful people who absolutely love Disney, so it must be that I'm just missing something about how great it is.  ;-)

7. When it comes to how much sleep I get, I have three voices in my head.  One tells me that I should stay up late and talk to my kids who are night owls because teens especially tend to stay awake later and be available for conversation at that point in the day (partially because earlier in the day, younger siblings are prone to interrupt or be so noisy we can't even hear ourselves think!).  Another voice says you need to go to bed early so you can wake up early to have your quiet time with God.  And the third voice incessantly reminds me that for my health--especially my brain health, because insufficient sleep can raise the risk of Alzheimer's, which is a concern anyway because of my family history--I need to make getting enough sleep a priority!  Which one do I listen to?

8. I started this list of random things with a comment about houses, so I'll circle back around and end with the same theme.  Undoubtedly, my absolute, all-time favorite feature of a house is a front porch--a nice wide one with enough room for a couple of rocking chairs, a swing hanging from the ceiling, and a stand to hold a pitcher of lemonade and a mancala board in the summertime.  Oh, and flower boxes of geraniums along the front of the porch.  :)  The ironic thing is that I have actually never lived in a house with a front porch--visited, yes; lived, no.  Ridiculous, isn't it?  ;-)  My deep abiding admiration for front porches must come entirely from my maternal grandparents' old farmhouse with a--you guessed it--wonderful wide front porch.  Some of the sweetest memories of my childhood come from that farm and that house and that porch.  My love of front porches is so strong that I honestly don't understand why builders build any houses without a front porch--haha!  But all kidding aside, it is so strong that I literally have to guard my heart against front porch envy.  In fact, every time I confess sin, front porch envy could be on the list!  I have high hopes that when I get to heaven, the home Jesus is preparing for me will have a front porch.  It would be fine if it's small (I really love the idea of tiny houses), but I sure do hope it has a front porch.  :)

And maybe a pitcher of lemonade.  :)

And maybe a Shank cake.  :)

Snow Day! In the Spring!

Blogging has fallen so far down on the priority list that I hardly know how to resurrect it!  And yet, I can't convince myself to let it go entirely.  I feel as if I ought to do some kind of a catch-up post; but lacking the time to do justice to that, I'm going to simply dive back in with a simple, picture-heavy post.

This winter was sorely lacking in snow, but today--much to the delight of all of the residents of my household--we finally got a sizable amount!  

Yes, it's officially spring.  :)  

No matter.  We'll take snow anytime, in any season it decides to arrive!  :)

We don't have any kind of sledding hill at our new home, but the snow today was perfect for packing, so snowmen were made and snowballs were thrown at each other, and all that lovely white stuff was heartily enjoyed before the temperatures warm in the next day or two and the snow disappears.

This was the first time that Benjamin had really been out in snow, and he had a ball traipsing around in it.  Now there are eight of us in the snow-lover category!  :)

Wordless Wednesday {Under the Kitchen Table}

The Way They Play

For the past few days, I've noticed, more than I usually do, how my children play.

I'm not exactly sure why this stood out to me now--maybe because, when I walked into the living room and saw this...

...I happened to think that it's a little unusual for Tobin to be involved with setting up an imaginary world like this.  Oh, he certainly does his fair share of LEGO-building, but what he really loves to do is be outside, so to take the time to set up train tracks, pirate characters, animals, construction paper, and so forth is not the way I normally see him play.

Maybe Shav did all the work, and Tobin just jumped in and joined him.  ;-)

They seemed to be having a blast playing and creating together, and it made me more conscious of how my children play--because a year or two or three or ten from now, they won't be sitting here playing with this stuff!

I have long thought that one of the advantages of having a large family is that the older siblings get a chance to play with "little kid toys" at more than one stage of life.  Every time we have a new baby, the cycle of toys starts over again, and the infant toys are brought out, followed by the toddler toys, and so forth...and wonderfully, all the kids get to play with whichever ones catch their eye, without someone accusing them of being immature.  Take this train set, for example: most (perhaps all?) of those pieces came from Jeff's mom who gave them to us when Josiah was just a little tyke, and all of the children have played with them as they've come along in the family.  While it's true that Josiah and David don't normally sit down and get out the Thomas the Tank Engine stuff, they sometimes end up getting it out and building a track for their littlest brother to enjoy.  And don't tell me they're not enjoying it in the process.  ;-)  That's the way it goes for all the toys around here!

And so, when I saw Shav and Tobin with all the various toys they pulled together into their world, it put a smile on my face.  I love that they're growing in maturity and responsibility and all that good stuff, but I also love that they enjoy getting down on the floor and creating something like this (and having time to do so, but that's a whole other topic! can I just say thank God for homeschooling and the flexible schedule it provides!).  :)

With these thoughts in mind, I kept my eyes open the past couple of days to observe how my children play, what brings them joy, how they choose to spend their free time.  Here are a few glimpses of what I saw...

"Where's Benjamin?" is a thought that goes through my head multiple times a day; and this morning when I asked that, here was the answer. 

Benjamin was having a great time standing on the stool and playing in the water.

It reminded me SO MUCH of Shav doing that when he was about 26 months old, Benjamin's current age.  :) 

Later on, Shav and Tobin came to me and asked if they could sail their boats in the bathtub. 

In the past week or so, they had, completely on their own, made these boats, using a saw to cut the wood, creating a mast, figuring out how to affix it, even adding sails. 

They want to go sail them on the neighbors' pond, but haven't had a chance to do that yet.

The bathtub was a decent alternative--not quite the high adventure of sailing on a pond, but with the added tumult of washcloths occasionally being dropped on the boats, it was dramatic enough.  :)

I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite books from early childhood, Scuffy the Tugboat (anyone familiar with it?), as I watched my sons sailing their boats in the tub.  :)

I didn't take any pictures of this, but after I had put Benjamin in bed for his nap today, the other five kids played a more energetic game: Active Shooter, which is their version of the age-old good guy v. bad guy battle that all kids seem to play at some point or another!  They also played a version of Capture the Flag--well, it was Capture the Purple Hippo, to be exact--and nerf bullets were flying.  I always enjoy seeing all of my kids (all except the youngest, in this case) participating in a game together; truly, having the time and opportunity for things like this is one of the significant reasons we homeschool.

After supper, I caught David playing the piano.  Out of all the kids, he's definitely the one most likely to sit down and play; and on some days, he spends quite a bit of time tickling the ivories.

Maybe Benjamin will take after him.  :)

Even later, after Benjamin and Moriah were in bed, the four older boys played a couple of games together, the first being some kind of roll-the-dice-and-exchange-money game (fortunately, pennies were the currency being used this evening, so nobody went broke) ;-) and the second being Dutch Blitz.  I was in other parts of the house doing various tasks, but I could hear their laughter ringing out.  Now that's a sound that does a mother's heart good!

From this post, it might seem like all we do around here is play.  ;-)  My kids will assure you that's not the case!  :)  But between all the moments of doing math lessons and putting away their clean laundry and loading and unloading the dishwasher and reading science books and taking down recycling and getting the mail and emptying the trash and doing economics homework and so forth, there are many moments of play.  And tonight, I wanted to capture for the future what that play looks like for my children here in the present. 

These moments--of train tracks on the floor and boats in the bathtub and nerf bullets getting lost under couches and behind bookshelves and LEGO pieces, always LEGO pieces everywhere--may be messy.  But they are sweet and precious and irreplaceable, and my eyes have been opened afresh to the wonder of it all.

The Tradition Continues {Thanksgiving 2017}

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the year.

Ah, Thanksgiving--when we gather to eat and celebrate and make memories and recognize the blessings...but we don't have the work (even though it's joyful work) of preparing for Christmas with all its many (wonderful) tasks.

I really do love Thanksgiving immensely.

As we've done in past years, we headed north first thing in the morning to spend the day with my brother David and his family; and, as always, it was a completely delightful day.  Well, except for two things...

First, Jeff was not feeling well, and even entertained the idea of not going.  I'm so glad that he decided to go, but unfortunately he felt even worse this morning and has continued to be pretty miserable all day (even to the point of not going to work today and cancelling all his appointments for tomorrow--something he NEVER does).  Also, my brother David wasn't feeling up to par either; and, in fact, his voice was about an octave or two lower than it normally is!  ;-)  The first time I heard him speak yesterday, I thought, "That is not my brother's voice!"  ;-)  I wish that both of them had been feeling better.

Second, when we got to their house and were getting out of the van, I stepped out, the diaper bag slung over my shoulder, then heard the alarming sound of something falling and glass breaking.  It was my camera!  :(  I had put it in the diaper bag, and I thought the latch was secure.  I was wrong.  When it happened, I assumed the camera wouldn't work at all; but when we looked at it, Jeff quickly ascertained that the only thing that broke was the outer glass of the lens.  The knowledge I have about lenses could just about fit on my fingernail, so I don't know how it all works.  But apparently there is another layer of glass (maybe more than that?), so the lens actually worked okay, despite the breakage.  Why then is there that extra layer of glass in the first place?  I have no idea.  At any rate, I was not at all confident that the camera would work well for any pictures yesterday after suffering such a gravity-demonstrating incident, but was relieved when I got home and downloaded the pictures to see that there were some acceptable ones.  Whew!  I will certainly be more aware of the need to thoroughly check the latch of the diaper bag from now on!

Well, that's all the negative stuff.  Time to change gears and get to the celebration!

BY FAR, the very best part of the day was having three new cousins there!!  Last year, we sat around the table and talked about the swiftly-approaching adoption of three siblings from Colombia; my brother and his wife Lori were due to fly to Colombia soon after Thanksgiving.  This year, what joy to have them there as part of the family!  Adoption, especially of older children, is such a life-revolutionizing event; but I'm extraordinarily proud of my brother and sister-in-law for their awesome (in the true sense of the word) commitment to loving and training and walking with their children as they deal with some pretty tough stuff.  They are definitely heroes to me!

Due to a variety of reasons, we had actually not met Dilan or Evelin, the oldest and youngest of the new group.  We had met Melany when she came down with Lori to visit their other daughter Elizabeth at a nearby college, but hadn't had the opportunity to meet the others.  It was so great to finally be able to do that--an extra reason for giving thanks!

The day went as it usually does, the old familiar pattern being exactly what we love to do.  Feasting, conversing, relaxing, playing--it's just right.  I am incredibly grateful for Lori and all the work she puts into making it such a special day for everyone!

Moriah and Evelin are fairly close in age and had each been so excited to meet the other in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.  When we got there yesterday, however, they both acted pretty shy at first, which surprised me because Moriah is usually more outgoing than I was as a little girl.  But after a while, they overcame their reticence, and I enjoyed watching them play together.  I am quite sure in years to come, they will treasure these chances to be together.  :)

Benjamin found a LEGO buddy in Keith (who is married to Lisa, who is the sister of Lori..."framily" is the term that fits us, I was told yesterday, since we're not officially closely related enough to be family, but there's a connection).  :)  At any rate, Keith built "tractors" for Benjamin who carried them around for most of the rest of the day (even in the group photo we took later).  :)

The pool table was a hit.

My "official" job is to be the photographer, so while others are running around cooking or washing dishes or putting things away, I stand around feeling mostly useless but with a camera in my hand (and usually a baby or toddler, too!).  I'd say I have the better end of the bargain!  :)  Here we were getting ready for the group photo that I always cajole everyone into taking.

Some day they'll thank me.  ;-)

It wasn't really as warm as it looks.  Most of us just scurried outside without our coats on to take the picture and then scurried back inside to the welcome warmth.  But Benjamin thought it would be a good idea to stay out a while longer.  :)  At this point, I had put my other camera away but snapped a few pics with my cell phone.

He loved Aunt Lori's chickens!

Moriah and Evelin blew some bubbles.

Bananagrams was the game of the day.  :)  I should mention that Jacob's fancy hairdo was done by Melany...and he was a good enough sport to leave it in.  ;-)

As evening fell, we got ready to head south again, and I put my youngest two children in sleepers so they could get comfy for the long ride home.  Moriah was really tired and was happy to snuggle with Aunt Lori.

Of course, having the camera out attracted some photobombers. It happens. ;-)

And last but not least, no Thanksgiving would be complete without a picture of the Davids!  :)

With that, we headed out the door after a final round of hugs and goodbyes, and for once, Jeff, who usually does all the driving on Thanksgiving, let me drive home while he slept (tried to sleep?) in the back seat.  After we played our normal round of What Was Your Favorite Food to Eat This Year (top answers were turkey and mashed potatoes, but brussels sprouts made a showing, too...oh, and the maple fudge) :), the van quickly descended into quiet as most of the riders fell asleep, our memory banks holding a fresh deposit of warm, happy moments of family togetherness.

Thanksgiving is just one day a year, but what a day it is!  It's not the only day we give thanks, since we try pretty hard to keep gratitude as a theme of every day.  But it is the pinnacle of the Thankful Mountain we strive to live on!