Cuddle Time is the Best Time

Sometimes Moriah is so busy that she doesn't sit still to cuddle for long, but tonight she was in an extra-snuggly mood, and Jeff was the fortunate recipient of her desire to snuggle.

I'm pretty sure he didn't mind a bit.  ;-)

 Willow also got to enjoy some hands-on affection.

 She didn't mind a bit either.  ;-)

 Happy daddy, happy girl, happy dog.

Cuddle times are the best!  :)

Wordless Wednesday {First Picnic of the Year}

I Kinda Feel like I Cheated...

...because here on this Super Pi Day, the closest I could come to serving pie was this Cherry Delight...

...which is nothing more than a lite version of cherry cheeseCAKE, but it's made with a graham cracker PIE crust, so it counts.

Especially today, which was full with swimming lessons for Josiah and David, a quick stop at the downtown farmer's market for my favorite breadsticks ever (seriously. favorite ever.), a stop at the library for Josiah to ask if he could hang up a poster announcing an upcoming Junior Strings concert that he and David will be participating in (the library already had a poster up about it, but it was still a worthwhile stop, because it's good practice for Josiah to learn how to conduct such business), a stop at the barber shop to drop off Josiah to stay there the rest of the day to sweep the hair up for all the barbers, then off to drop David at gymnastics, while I and the younger three took a huge load of recycling to the recycling place (we normally don't accumulate such a massive load, but the recent, recurrent snow prevented us from going sooner), then we returned to pick up David, then stopped at Walmart to buy two things--a birthday card and a small gift for our next-door neighbor (and we actually stuck to our list and only bought two things! a rarity for us at Walmart).  And then home.  Home sweet home.

It was a good day, to be sure, but not one that left me much time for pie-making, and that's why whipping up a quick Cherry Delight dessert seemed to be the best way to celebrate Pi Day.  :)

You might think that, by celebrating Pi Day, I'm some kind of math enthusiast; but that wouldn't exactly be correct. ;-)  In fact, last evening as we were talking about pi at the dinner table, I was saying that a few days earlier, I had told the boys that pi had never been "solved," that the pattern had never been found to repeat.  "Oh, but it has," Jeff corrected me.

"REALLY?"  I was incredulous.  What kind of a homeschooler am I, if I can't even get that fact right?  *gulp*   ;-)

Then Jeff proceeded to pull out his phone and look up some info about pi on it.  As he started to read it aloud, I looked over his shoulder and read it myself...until I got completely confused...which occurred approximately a sentence and a half into the first paragraph.  ;-)

I told the boys that, if someone were to do a scan of my brain, they would likely see a completely dark area in the ______ lobe (whichever lobe it is that controls higher math thinking).  There seems to be a whole section of my mind that is completely dead.  Oh well, I guess for some people, the section of their brains that could listen to a piece of music and then figure out if it's written by Scarlatti or by Smetana isn't developed as much as mine is.  We're all ignorant in some areas.  ;-)

So if I'm not much of a math whiz, why do I even care about celebrating Pi Day?  Simply because it gives me another excuse to make an ordinary day into a celebration and, by doing so, show an extra measure of love to my family.  I don't feel like I ALWAYS have to make a pie on Pi Day, and some years I won't; but I'll tell you that my meager efforts today to whip up a Cherry Delight were amply rewarded when David, for example, said after polishing off his piece, "Out of five stars, this gets seven!" and Shav, who is not much of a dessert fan at all but who had a serving of Cherry Delight tonight, declared, "This gets a million out of a million!"

Amply rewarded indeed.  :)

She Is DEFINITELY Her Daddy's Daughter

Every night at supper, Jeff eats chips & salsa.

Many evenings as the dinner hour approaches and as Moriah awaits her daddy's return from work, she pulls out his chair at the table, climbs up on it, and helps herself to the chips & salsa set out for Jeff.  Since we normally eat pretty late, I don't mind her having this as a small pre-dinner snack.

 She has certainly acquired Jeff's tastebuds!  ;-)

 A few evenings ago when I took these pictures...

 ...I knew she was munching on the chips.

But I wasn't sure if she was actually eating any of the salsa or not.  She has in the past, for sure; but I wondered if she was on this particular evening, so I half-secretly watched her.

 I smiled big when I saw her pull a chip out of the bag, carefully dip it into the salsa...

...and then lay it on her brother Tobin's plate!!  What a nice gift for him: a pre-dipped, incredibly spicy chip! :)

She makes me laugh...

...and she is DEFINITELY her daddy's daughter!  ;-)

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday {The Hottest Toy in the Fisher Household}

I should mention:
~ Jeff's mom got this set of magnetic building toys at a yard sale and gave them to us a few years back.
~ All of the kids have played with them from time to time since then, but they have been especially popular the past few days.
~ Some of these pictures were taken by Shav.
~ When Tobin finished using all the pieces to make a long line this morning, he used his tape measure and discovered that the row he made was something like 17 and a half feet long.
~ You can thank Willow for the nice dirty pawprints on our floor that was cleaned yesterday.
;-)

Just for Today, I Was a Superhero

A while back, one of my boys asked those of us gathered around our dinner table, "If you could choose any superpower, what would it be?"  A variety of answers was given: being invisible, being super-fast, being able to fly, and so forth.  But my answer was a little different.

"If I could," I told my family, "I would have the ability to clone myself whenever I wanted.  When I needed an extra me, I could create a clone; and then when I was done with it, I could just reabsorb it into myself.  That way, I could be two places at once, doing two things at the same time.  And then, maybe, just maybe, I could actually accomplish all that I feel like I should be doing!"  :)

It's true: I often wish that I could be sitting on the couch, doing a reading lesson with Shav, but instead I'm in the laundry room, dumping yet another load of dirty clothes into the washing machine.  Or as evening approaches and I'm in the kitchen making supper, I wish I could simultaneously be in the living room helping David practice violin.  Or when I'm reading aloud from Farmer Boy to the kids, I'm thinking how helpful it would be to have another me upstairs sorting through Josiah and David's outgrown clothes.

How much more productive I could be if I could only split myself in two!  ;-)

Well, today...drumroll, please...I did.

I know it's hard to believe--I mean, I'm not really superhero material--but on the 10th of March in the year 2015, I was able to actually reach that elusive goal of cloning myself.  And my, what a productive day it has been!!  ;-)

What?  You don't believe me?  You think I must be pulling your leg?

Oh, alright, I'll tell you what really happened.  ;-)

The oldest daughter of our next-door neighbors has been staying with another Old Order Mennonite family, helping them with their greenhouse business, so she hasn't been available to help me with some housecleaning like she occasionally did last fall.

I'VE MISSED HER.  :)

While chasing our delinquent dog around the neighborhood yesterday, I spotted Rosalie on her front porch and chatted with her long enough to find out that she was going to be around for a few days; and the lightbulb came on in my head.  Maybe she could come and help me today!

Indeed she could, and indeed she did--thoroughly cleaning both bathrooms and Moriah's room and my room, vacuuming the floors of most of the other rooms, and mopping the kitchen floor.  I, meanwhile, had taken the day off school (teacher workday, you know) ;-)--but that's not entirely accurate because Josiah and David did quite a bit of independent schoolwork, so it wasn't even a wasted day in that regard.  But I laid aside my schoolmarm hat and did other things...like lots and lots of laundry, putting away things in my bedroom, gathering up a bunch of stuff to drop off in town tomorrow at a thrift store, overseeing the boys as they did jobs like carrying in wood and taking out trash and sweeping the porch and cleaning fingerprints (and pawprints) off doors and so forth, and generally working at all the tasks that are necessary for the successful maintenance of a home and family!

It was a marvelous sensation to know that, while I was folding clean socks and underwear, the tub was being scrubbed--and scrubbed well.  It was encouraging to be working in my room, digging the things out of my closet that I wanted to donate, and seeing Rosalie dusting the top of the armoire in Moriah's room--a task I don't get to in my good-enough-is-good-enough routine (ahem! "routine" might be too optimistic of a word to use there) cleaning.  It was wonderful to be putting away the Christmas candles I took out of some of our windows (a task I delay until springtime when open windows are near, because I LOVE the look of candles in the windows and I figure winter needs that extra bit of cheer, long after Christmas has departed!) while the kitchen floor was being given a good mopping.  It really was like having a clone for a short time!  ;-)

To tell you the truth, it was probably even better than having a clone because Rosalie, with her youth and vigor and experience in the homemaking arts, not only worked skillfully, but also worked quickly.  Even if I could have cloned myself, I probably couldn't have gotten as much done as we were able to accomplish today.  ;-)  And anyway, the conversation was better than it would have been if I had only been talking to myself.  ;-)

It's not unusual for me, at this time of the year, to be hit with a feeling of "I am so behind in everything and I will never ever get caught up."  I've gone through this enough times to know that, as extracurricular activities finish up in the next month or two and as our formal schoolwork gets checked off and we wind down our homeschooling to switch into summer's easier pace, I will feel differently.  The closet that I never seem to find the time to organize has a much better chance of being worked on in May than it does in March.  The laundry mountain that seems unclimbable this month will likely shrink to a molehill by the time we turn the calendar to June.  This feeling I've been fighting against recently of being hopelessly overwhelmed will almost certainly diminish as the weeks go by.  It's just how the cycle of the year seems to be for me.

But oh, what a delight to already have a sense of "my head is above water! I just might make it!", and it's not even the middle of March!  ;-)  I feel like my clone....errrr, Rosalie gave me the helping hand that I needed to climb out of the housekeeping hole that I was stranded at the bottom of.  Oh, what a feeling!  :)

I'm not a superhero anymore.  Tomorrow it will just be me, trying to keep up with all the spinning plates--and almost certainly, dropping a few along the way.  But at least--AT LEAST--for today, I was granted the gift of having my superpower dream come true.

Maybe the next time the boys ask me what superpower I want, I'll wish for the ability to fly.  ;-)

Two Bits {Present and Future Kids}

Bit #1

Today I discovered this picture lying on a pile of papers on my counter.

I had never seen it before, but I remember well the day it was taken last fall at the home of some friends.  I don't remember who took it, however; nor do I know exactly how it got to me now, because someone handed it off to Jeff last week at church when I was here at home being nurse to a sick child.  But I am SO GLAD to have it because I don't have very many good pictures of me with all my children.  I felt like I had discovered a treasure when I saw it!!  :)


Bit #2

For the first time during this pregnancy, Jeff and I sat down together tonight and discussed a few topics related to the coming baby--things like, yes, we'll find out if it's a boy or girl when we have an ultrasound (and we'll announce the result); but even more significantly, we discussed names.  A few days ago, AFTER I heard the heartbeat and felt my own heart freed up by that beautiful sound, I had sent Jeff a list of names that I particularly liked.  It wasn't a list that I suddenly put together, but rather one that I had been compiling for several years; when I heard a name I liked, I simply jotted it down and tucked it away, for such a time as this.  :)

When Jeff and I started talking this evening, he told me a girl name he liked with both first and middle names coming from my list.  Well, that was easy.  Of course I liked it, too!

But then we discussed a boy name, which was a little more challenging because there were only three options for a first name on my list, along with one option for a middle name (which Jeff instantly approved, by the way).  Jeff, however, didn't like any of my three boy names listed (imagine that!), so he opened his computer file that includes his family tree research--a massive project that he has been working on for years.  He started looking through his ancestors and suggesting names from them.  It didn't take me long to discard quite a few of those.  ;-)  But then he suggested a name that, at first, seemed like it might be a possibility (I didn't immediately shoot it down!), but then began to grow on me so much that, before long, I was actually even a little excited about it.  ;-)

It fits our criteria:
~ a family name
~ a Biblical name
~ it sounds good with the middle name I like
~ it doesn't begin with the same letter as any of our other children's first names  ;-)
~ when I googled the full name, the results didn't reveal any famous criminals with that name  ;-)

It just kinda sorta seems right.  :)

However!!!  I'm only at week 13!  I reserve the right to ponder and second-guess and perhaps change my mind a time or two or a hundred in the next 27 weeks or so!!!  ;-)

Also, if you're expecting me to tell you what the names are, well, I'm very sorry, but you are mistaken.  Ever since our 3rd child, we have kept the names secret (except for a few exceptions) until birth.  If you think I'm cruel to even bring up the subject of names without telling you our choices now, I can only say that my primary purpose for this blog is to keep a personal journal for myself and for my children.  This is the kind of stuff I won't remember if I don't record it somehow, and this happens to be my best option for remembrance.  So please understand--and check back in six months to see what the name is!  ;-)