If May Were a Person...

...I would hug it and kiss it and never let it go.

I ADORE MAY.

Why?, you ask.  I'll tell you.

~ With our formal education winding down for the school year, we happily switch gears to our more relaxed summer mode of learning.

~ Beauty is bursting out all over.  May is such a gorgeous month, and the visual displays of loveliness outside make my heart sing.

~ Because warm weather is still fairly new for us in May, we eagerly embrace time in the great outdoors.  Later summer months find us used to the joy of warm days; but in May, being able to run outside basically any time we want is still fresh and exciting.

~ Our extracurricular activities all but disappear in May, bringing a welcome sense of completion as well as extra free time in the schedule.

~ With more time to fill in whatever way I choose, I inevitably turn my attention to household tasks that have been neglected; and my home-loving, organization-appreciating, always-nesting self delights in bringing order to places where chaos has found a footing.

Are five reasons enough?  :)

Perhaps they are sufficient to explain why May has come to be quite possibly my favorite month of the whole year.  The beauty and peace and lack of stress and warmth and sunshine and abundance of time at home and moments of playing together--all of these combine to set May apart from any other month.

Well, isn't June just as wonderful?, you might be thinking.

Yes, and no.  Many of May's best attributes continue into June and beyond, but something significant happens in June: the pace of life picks up.  More boxes on the calendar have ink already in them, and knowing that some big events are on the way (even if they are events that I am truly excited about) already heightens my stress level, even if by just the teeniest amount.  Plus, our garden harvest begins in June and continues fairy steadily through the next few months (as a matter of fact, Jeff picked the first of our peas tonight).  I am grateful--absolutely!--for the harvest; and seeing the wide variety of fresh, healthy produce growing right outside my door never ceases to make me feel like a rich woman!  :)  But if that luxury of produce is going to be preserved and not go to waste, I will be spending hours and hours in the kitchen, doing the work of freezing and canning.  I don't regret that, I'm glad to do it, and I savor the time spent together as a family, working to preserve the harvest.  But it does add something to the summer schedule that the merry month of May gets to skip along without, for the most part!

Let me confess something: last night, as I put the kids to bed on the last evening of May, I actually caught myself feeling rather glum.  I wasn't ready to wave goodbye to May, and I surely wasn't ready to say hello to June.  Fortunately, however, after I took some time last night to take down the calendar from the wall and write in a number of special events that are coming up, my spirits lifted; and I was reminded of so many wonderful things to look forward to.

But even though I never want to wish my life away, can I admit that I'm already looking forward to the wondrous day when the calendar is once again turned to the spectacular month of May?  :)

Because I cherish May so much, I couldn't let the month depart without a glance over my shoulder at the things that made this particular May unique.  

Like the hail that fell on the first day of the month...

The hailstones weren't big enough to do any damage, and the whole thing didn't last very long; but we enjoyed the chance to see a weather event that rarely comes our way.

All the rest of these pictures were taken on May 9, a lovely Saturday evening that we spent outdoors.  I was enjoying the evening so much that I decided to just walk around the house, camera in hand, and see what bits of beauty I could capture.  I found a few.  ;-)

 Blossoms on a blueberry bush...does this mean we'll actually get fruit from it this year?  :)

 The last of the lilacs were lingering on...

 The sweet little chicks from this post?  Well, they grew up and turned into these black chickens.  Not quite as cute as they used to be.  ;-)

 The peonies weren't quite ready to open...

 ...and I noticed that some ants had decided to invade.  A week or so later, these peonies were in full bloom and were gorgeous.

 The strawberry plants I planted a couple of years ago...

 ...have turned into this.

Lily of the valley...

 ...one of my favorite flowers.

As our time outside drew to a close, I walked down to the grapevine to see what I could see.

 Ah, yes.  The promise of an abundant grape harvest to come, if all goes well!

Thank you, May, for all the many, many moments of peace and beauty you gave us this year.  My heart is at rest, filled to the top with contentment, when I think of you!

The Golden Second Trimester

Sometimes I almost forget I'm pregnant.

It's not that I forget that, Lord willing, we'll have a new little baby boy in our house when September comes.  Oh no, he is never far from my thoughts; and my conversations as well as my daydreams reflect that.

Tobin asks, "When will choir start again for me?", and I answer, "Very soon after the baby is born."  Moriah wonders why she won't be sleeping in the crib for much longer, and I tell her that the new baby will be needing it.  I see the as-yet unlabeled white bin in the laundry room that I'll put the baby's clean clothes in and make a mental note to print out his name for that sometime.  I think about what food I'll be able to can or freeze this year and remind myself that I need to make applesauce during the summer instead of waiting for the fall, and also when the sweet corn is coming in, I'll be preoccupied with other things and won't be available to help with that harvest.

A dozen or more times a day, I think about him; and joy and anticipation accompany such thoughts.

But even still, I forget I'm pregnant.

That's the beauty of the second trimester.  :)

For me, the fatigue in the first trimester is so often overwhelming that I can't possibly forget for long that a brand new baby is growing in me and zapping all my energy.  And then as the end of the pregnancy draws near, the physical changes are so attention-grabbing that it's impossible to ignore the cause.  But here in this second trimester, I've been feeling so good that it's easy to act as if I'm not even pregnant.

But then, from time to time, reality kicks in; and I'm reminded--usually forcefully--that there is indeed a living being within me who has changed me from head to toe.  Sometimes that reminder comes in the form of Braxton Hicks contractions; and in this pregnancy, I've noticed that they often grab hold and DO NOT LET GO for quite some time.  I try to shift my position and stretch and push on my belly and otherwise convince my muscles to relax; but often, the contraction lasts and lasts and lasts.  It's not that it's so painful, but it is noticeable!

Once in a while, heartburn will be the affliction that reminds me that I'm pregnant; at other times, it will be dizziness.  Still other times, it will be the clumsy way I bump into things, forgetting how big I've grown!  :)  I suppose the most frequent reminder comes when my energy level takes drastic dips.  I can be going along through my day, feeling energetic and inspired; and suddenly it's like a train coming to a crashing halt.  I completely run out of steam; and when I do, nothing really revives me until I give in and lay down for a nap.  Fortunately, even if I only get 30-45 minutes of sleep, that usually does the trick; and then I'm ready to be on my feet again, able to function.  But this is different from how I was before I got pregnant, since in those days, besides Sunday afternoons which are just made for napping, I rarely took afternoon naps.  Now the tables have turned; and it's a rare day that I don't try to sneak in some moments of horizontal rest in the afternoon.  :)

At my appointment this past Wednesday, the midwife I saw was Ann, whom I happen to know through our boys taking violin lessons together, as well as through the midwife practice.  We had a delightful time chatting--most of which had nothing to do with this pregnancy ;-)--and we talked about what a blessing it is to have an uneventful, "boring" pregnancy.  I really am grateful from the bottom of my heart that everything has been so routine and normal during this pregnancy with no real bumps in the road or hurdles to cross.  Indeed, it is a huge blessing!

At that appointment, my weight was up to 169 pounds, my blood pressure was 124 over 66, and the baby's heartbeat was nice and strong at 151.  In a month, I'll "get" to do the lovely one-hour glucose test (which I actually did early in this pregnancy because of my age--the first time I've ever had to do it twice in one pregnancy); and a few days after that, I believe I'll be getting the rhogam shot that I've had SO MANY TIMES because of my blood type.  And so, time rolls along; and even though it currently feels like there is oodles of time left until our new little guy makes his appearance, I'm probably going to blink, turn around once or twice, and then it will be time for him to be born.  ;-)

Early on, when people found out my due date was in September, they warned me about having to endure the summer heat at the height of my pregnancy; but because I'd MUCH rather be hot than cold, I'm not too concerned about that.  The past few days have been pretty warm; and by suppertime, the kitchen has been heated up higher than is comfortable.  But one of the wonderful features of this house is an attic fan that does a terrific job of drawing cool air in through the windows and lowering the temperature in the house, without resorting to using the air conditioner.  My parents sure were smart when they decided to have that attic fan put in.  ;-)  The past couple of evenings, I have been so happy to sit down at the supper table and feel the cooler air from outside blowing in on my face.  I'm glad my spot at the table faces the open window.  :)

One really good thing about being pregnant in the summer is how easy it is to dress.  Since my last baby was born in April, I didn't even get a chance during that pregnancy to wear my most-summery maternity clothes; and to tell you the truth, when I first pulled out my boxes of maternity clothes this time around, I initially thought that I liked my winter maternity clothes better than my summer ones, and I was a little disappointed that some of my warmest maternity clothes--sweaters, for example--I wouldn't be able to wear at all during this pregnancy (and since I'm pretty sure this is my last, that means I wouldn't be able to ever wear them again).  But as the temperatures have risen, I have discovered that is it so wonderfully easy to throw on a pair of maternity capri pants and a sleeveless shirt, for example, and be done with dressing!  Oh, and maybe a pair of flip-flops, too.  :)

So as you can tell, I'm enjoying very much this golden stage of pregnancy and giving thanks frequently for how good I feel!  But the best part of all in this second trimester is the feeling of my baby moving inside me.  Not yet strong enough to cause pain but already big enough to be noticeable very frequently, this little boy's motions are bringing me much delight.  Is there any other feeling like it in the whole world??

~ photos of me were taken last Sunday, when I was 24 weeks along, by my favorite five-year-old photographer...ummm, that would be Shav, in case you weren't sure to whom I was referring  ;-)

It's Not the Fourth of July, But...

...that didn't stop Jeff from setting off some fireworks tonight.

All I knew was that Jeff was sitting outside in the delightful evening air, keeping an eye on Moriah as the kids played; and the next thing I knew, Josiah was running inside to get a lighter and tell me that Dad was doing fireworks!  I hurriedly washed one last pan, then dumped my dishwater and headed out the door.  Didn't want to miss the show, you know.  ;-)

The amount of knowledge I have about how to take photographs of fireworks couldn't even come close to filling a teaspoon, so don't expect any technical perfection here (not that you should ever expect technical perfection from my photos).  ;-)  But I did have fun trying to capture the moments and preserve the memories.

 Some of the photos turned out darker, like the one above, and some were lighter; and that, combined with excited boys who weren't exactly standing still, led to such phenomena as Tobin appearing as a ghost.  He's see-through, y'all!  ;-)

 These are all SOOC, by the way (except for the one black & white photo).  At least, I think I can still claim that, although I did crop some of them.  Hmmm...can I really say they're Straight Out Of Camera, if I cropped them but didn't do any other editing?  That's a question for my friends who are real photographers!  ;-)

 In the next two, I especially like how Josiah cloned himself to make the effect even better.  If having one Josiah around is great, having two must be AWESOME, right?  ;-)  (But wait, I'm the one who wanted to clone myself!!)  ;-)

The funniest moment of the evening occurred when we heard a siren approaching; and one of the boys (who happens to be the most conscientious of them all), thinking perhaps that a member of law enforcement was coming to arrest--or at the least, chastise--us for having fireworks, BOLTED into the house, exclaiming his innocence all the way.  :)  Of course, we were all laughing about it--and even more so when we saw the siren actually belonged to an ambulance, not a sheriff's car!  :)

Fortunately, there's no law against having fun and making a memory with your family...

...even if you are using fireworks AND IT'S NOT EVEN THE FOURTH OF JULY.  :)

The Livin' Is Easy

♫ "Summertime" (well, not officially, but who wants to wait until the latter part of June to start living life in the summertime fashion?)...

 "...and the livin' is easy!"  ♪

This is the soundtrack for lazy afternoons, eating popsicles in the front yard and watching the world go by.

But don't take my word for it.  Sing it, Kathleen!  :)

Wordless Wednesday {Shav Is a Sweet, Sweet Big Brother}

Birthday Cake, and Other Memorial Day Treats

As I mentioned yesterday, we postponed my dad's birthday cake by a day for a very good reason...

...my brother Doug, his wife Lisa, and their son Nicky were in town and could come out to eat a lunch of tacos and watermelon and cake with us today and make our celebration even better!  :)

 We occasionally see Doug as he travels through our area (he's a truck driver who has traveled to all 48 contiguous states and has had many adventures along the way!), but it had been 8 years since Lisa and Nicky had been here.

You can imagine how much my nephew had changed in those 8 years.  He grew up!!  :)

 Moriah got some Aunt Lisa time...

 ...and Josiah and David got to play chess with Nicky.

We're so glad they could be here!  :)

Jumping back in time a day, the boys remembered how we camped out last year in our backyard and were EAGER to repeat that adventure.  I was nearly as eager, and Jeff a little less so, realist that he is.  ;-)  I suppose he was remembering the less-than-optimal sleeping conditions to be found in a tent.  :)  But he was a good sport and put up the tent on Sunday afternoon anyway.  :)

 I didn't take very many photos at all; but when David rushed into the house and told me that the tent was going up and that I'd better come take some pictures if I was going to take any at all, I did grab my camera and strolled outside to document the occasion.  :)

 Of course, Puppy got to sleep in the tent, too; Moriah made sure of that.  :)

 I really do appreciate Jeff's willingness to set up the tent for us--a task which I know nothing about.

When it was completely dark, I realized I'd like to have a picture of all the kids, so I turned the flash on the camera and aimed it in their general direction, unsure of what I'd get.  This is the result, and I was pleased because, hey, they're all in there!  :)

The funniest moment of this particular adventure came after we had been in the tent for a while.  I had read a chapter from By the Shores of Silver Lake to the kids, and David had read Love You Forever ("it's tradition!" he said, remembering how we had read that book in the tent last year; but of course, I couldn't read it aloud because of my propensity to cry!).  The kids were in various stages of settling down (a process which took quite a LONG TIME for certain members of the clan!) when clear as a bell, Josiah asked, "Could you repeat the passage?"  Not having any idea what he was talking about, we asked him what he meant, only to discover that he was sound asleep.  :)  I could hardly believe how distinct his words were; his voice didn't even have that sleepy vagueness to it!  But sure enough, he was talking in his sleep; and when we told him about it this morning, he had no idea that he had said it or what he meant by it!  :)

Another thing that made me smile last night was how Moriah took her glow stick (Jeff had given each of the kids one) and put it down the front of her sleeper.  It illuminated her whole tummy and chest area, and it sure made it easy to spot where she was in the tent.  Not that you could have missed her!  She was a bundle of energy and seemed to think that it was the perfect time to laugh at David and Tobin's antics (I believe they were making funny faces at each other) and to do somersaults on the air mattress that I was trying to sleep on!  I thought at some point, she would surely crash and fall into a deep sleep; but I don't think she ever did.  It was quite a restless night, to say the least.  :)

Around 2:00 a.m., Jeff woke me and said I'd better go in the house so I could take care of Willow--an arrangement we had previously discussed--so I left my cozy nest of blankets and scurried through the chilly air into the house where I then fell asleep on the couch.  At some point, David brought Moriah inside; and I must have taken her up to my bed to lie down with her there and see if she would conk out.  She laid still as long as I did; but as soon as I stirred, her eyes popped open.  Before I got to the stirring stage, however, Shav must have come in because he ended up on the other side of me in my bed.  When I went downstairs in the early morning, I found David on the little couch and Jeff on the big one.  I forget where Tobin was at that particular moment, but I do know that Josiah was the only one who was still in the tent!  He fell asleep first last night and ended up sleeping the longest in the tent which qualifies him for some sort of award, I suppose.  :)

As you can tell, it wasn't a very restful night; but it WAS a special one.  Sometimes making memories means giving up a little sleep.  Or a lot of sleep, as the case may be.  ;-)

He Told Us Not to Make a Big Fuss...

...but you just can't let your dad turn 75 years old without at least mentioning it!!!  :)

So, in honor of the occasion, how about a walk down Memory Lane?  :)

First up is a photo of my parents on December 3, 1995, at a Victorian Christmas Dinner at Messiah College.  Despite the three hours or so that it took to drive from our home to my college, my parents very faithfully made the trip for a variety of functions I was involved in; and I was always grateful for their presence at such events!  :)

 Next is a photo of my parents on November 29, 1996, at a party they threw to celebrate my engagement to Jeff and my brother David's graduation from college, as well as his then-girlfriend Lori's graduation, also from Messiah College.  Just over a month later, David would propose to Lori; but at this point, they weren't officially engaged.  We were delighted when they did--finally!--become engaged.  :)  Another reason for this occasion was so that our Virginia friends could meet this stranger from California who had stolen my heart and would soon take me away to the West Coast.  ;-)

I'm not sure of the date of this next picture, but I'll tell you the story.  A mysterious odor had invaded my parents' house; and despite their best efforts to locate and eliminate the source, they were unsuccessful for quite a while.  Finally, someone had the bright idea to turn the recliner over to check what might be underneath; and lo and behold, a dead mouse was found.  My dad had the honor of dealing with the varmint, and Mom apparently found the whole thing hysterical.  So did do I.  :)

My dad has a soft side; and in this case, it came out in an unexpected gift of red roses he brought home for my mom one night.  What a sweetie.  :)

You might be wondering if we had a cake for this momentous occasion of 75 years of life, but we did not.  Not yet anyway.  That will come tomorrow when others of the family will be joining us.  :)  We did, however, have meatloaf, by Dad's special request, for lunch after church.

And tomorrow the celebration continues!  :)