Christmas Preparations and Pony Riding

Its hard for me to get good pictures of the girls on the ponies because I'm usually busy brushing them, picking out their feet or leading them around, but here are a couple from a three mile ride we did this week.

Also, here is the 1st wreath that Francesca and I made out of woodbine growing on our house, pinecones from our Christmas tree of long, long years ago and clippings from this year's Christmas tree. I'm in love with making these felt flowers. I think they're really beautiful. Francesca went a little crazy with the pinecones because glue guns are such fun, but I think it turned out okay anyhow.

Packing in all the Fall Fun

The day after the violin concert, Monday, we went for a morning walk, went for a post lunch bike ride, picnicked on the side of the road in someone's orchard then came home and rode ponies. My bet is that Francesca was the only child doing all of this on a Monday, in her fancy concert dress. The fall weather has been so nice. 'Four Seasons' in Palisade rules.

The Sweet Tantrum

Julian is really a gem 99.9% of the time. Lately though, he's been trying his hand at tantrums and its just so stink in' cute! He JUST turned 2 and he is such a perfect specimen of being a sponge. He's soaked up every ounce of girlish drama that he sees from his sisters and lays it on. Here he is having one outside the door, where he wanted me to nurse him outside, instead of inside:

And here he is just after having a tantrum in the straw outside the barn, probably for the same reason, "Ninny Time!"

And here is Julian, his sweet little self, all smiles and sunshine. He's also figured out that he can easily get what he wants simply by flashing that smile and saying, "Please mama. Peese?"

Violin Concerto #2

Francesca and Cecilia had their fall violin concert on Sunday evening. It was so adorable. The kids were amazing. I was a little taken aback by their bold, fearlessness on stage, Francesca didn't seem in the least nervous up there. She played her solo beautifully and Cecilia did a great job playing two of the five variations of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Start that she knows.

And now, for mommy to get serious about practice? We are really crappy at practicing our violins. My excuse has in the past been that they're young . . . but now . . . well . . . now I have the excuse of Princess and Snowflake, whom we are now excited to get outside and see every morning so . . . maybe a bit of practice BEFORE we run out the door to the ponies and chickens every morning, hmmm?

Cecilia is Five

We had a birthday party with 14 children and I'm sure that Cecilia, the middle child people pleaser, was mostly concerned with whether or not everyone else had a good time. She gave me a report afterwards on who she didn't play with and her regrets about that.

All she wanted was a party at Riverbend and at the last minute, we changed it to a party here because it was a bit chilly. Tomorrow, I'm taking that kid to the park! Didn't I used to take Francesca ALL THE TIME when she was little and now . . . its once in a blue moon. Granted, our house is a park, but still. Kids love a good park. Turning five, Cecilia seems to have shot upwards and all of a sudden, her face looks different, too. We're homeschooling and she dives into any kindergarden stuff we do, songs, dancing, baking, whatever, she loves it. Hopefully Steiner's "Season of the soul" will bring mama's soul some improved organization and planning.

Cecilia is the only one who can catch the rooster, Ben. She leads the "stubborn" horse, Princess around like they were born together. She knows! Cecilia naps sometimes. She loves her sister and her brother but be there no mistaking, Cecilia runs the roost. We love our Cecilia.

Birthday Season

I can't believe Julian is already 2!

He's such a divinely sweet boy. The girls love to play this game with him where they ask him if he's going to be this type of boy or that type of boy and he repeats whatever they say lastly. For example: "Julian, are you going to be a mean boy or a sweet boy?" Julian, "Sweet boy!" This game gets out of hand occasionally, when they offer up ornery things, but his top two choices are "Star Boy," and "Sweet Boy." He's talking and singing all the time (unless you're here, then he will clam up and want to nurse the whole time, but I assure you, he is really, really chatty and friendly. Really!)

Happy Birthday Star Boy!

Ponyland

When confronted with the question, "What will we do, since our daughter is planning to ask Santa for a horse for Christmas," we did what any sensible parent would do. We beat Santa to the punch and bought ourselves some ponies.

The girls and Julian were so awesome as we prepared for the ponies. They played in the back of the trailer and out in the field while Julian played either with them or in the driver's seat while Andrew pounded posts and I sighted the posts and strung the line of the electric wire. They were also awesome while Andrew and I bucked hay and sang, "Goin' on a hayride, we're goin' on a hay ride, the cows are in the corn and the pigs have gone to Dover."

Holidays and Roosters and Ponies, Oh My!

• Julian turned 2 today! I'm so thankful that he was able to get his breath into his lungs on that dramatic entrance in to this world. Now that I've been sleeping next to Julian for the past 2 years, he has a bit of sleep apnea, like his mama and breaths much easier on his side, like his mama. Maybe he took awhile to get going due to apnea? Who knows. Maybe babies having a hard time getting going should be held on their side to breath? I don't know. We're so glad he chose us to be his family and we love him more every day. I really love him more today, now that he's sleeping in his own bed. Its so nice not to have a skull, elbow or heel pressing into my spine all night.
• The air is thick with frenzied madness of costume preparation. Gone are the days of dressing up for Halloween night, not we must dress up every day, for a week ahead of time. We're each preparing three costumes . . . wings to be made, boots to be found, wings to be repaired and hats to be re-fitted. Francesca made a kangaroo baby to go in her pouch and dressed in her kangaroo costume all day. Bouncing on the furniture abounds.
• Thankful that Eve, the Halloween fairy will kindly visit and take all the candy, leaving a gift. My dental insurance will be thankful, too.
• Our new rooster seems nice, but I'm still weary. He's begun attempting to hump the hens and falls off of them, they turn around and give him a good pecking and he runs away. I feel like I'm watching a little teenager out there and wishing that he's gay and friendly as opposed to horny and aggressive like our last rooster.
• Our pair of ponies should arrive Friday. I'm secretly hoping that this will suffice as my insurance to never have to take my children to Disneyland/world/whatever. I know that sounds so Mr. Burns, but Disney drives me crazy. Thank goodness my children don't have a clue what Disney or any of that crap is. Pony rides galore in two days and counting. Francesca is pretty certain that she is going to just get on and ride away, all the live long day. We shall see. If her confidence during her last two riding lessons is any indication, we will probably have to keep the ponies under lock and key.

"The Harvest Has Come!"

While our Palisade Branch Library was closed last month, we hosted story time with a few friends at our house. I was reading this great book about the harvest and Cecilia, overcome with emotion jumped up and, very dramatically said, "The harvest has come." (Imagine Cecilia as Abraham Lincoln, giving a speech.) It was hilarious.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the pumpkins we grew in our garden, the bazillions of gourdes, some of our first eggs from the Silver Laced Wyandott chickens, green tomatoes that I wish would hurry up and ripen and our friendly garden spiders. Although the one with the gigantic white abdomen could actually be a Western Widow Spider, not as venomous as the Black Widow but every bit as huge. Hopefully all the spiders are whispering of our kindness to spiders, especially the ones that keep biting me while I sleep, right this minute.

Calabash

I've recovered from my McCruelty (I'm Hatin' It!) lapse in judgement and have been making bread every day since in penance. (What am I Catholic? No, we were just out of bread and the girls and Julian love playing with the dough.) Especially Julian, "Mo pay do!"

I had no idea we had so many gourds growing out there in our garden. We must have brought in about 25 or 30 ladle gourds, some of them as long as Cecilia and Lagenaria gourds (bird house gourds.) I'm not sure if they've had a chance to "harden off" at all so lest they all freeze and be ruined, we have them all in the basement to cure. However, I just read that that's now such a good idea so we'll have to move them to the barn tomorrow. Evidently, the lengthy curing process can be a bit messy and smelly.

We had the most gorgeous spider in our garden all summer and we're sad to see her go. She looked a bit sluggish today from enduring the cold last night. Hopefully she had time to make an egg sack. She looked like the spider from Miss Spiders Tea Party, yellow and black zig zaggy patterns.

Dinnertime

Its probably bad that Julian can now say, "Happy Meal! McDonalds!" when he can't say Francesca or Cecilia. That's bad, huh? What can I say, for all my home schooling, cloth diapering, organic eating, home birthing, I'm not Perfect Mom. And when I'm driving home from Spanish Co-op on the Redlands and I have three starving children in the back seat, have to stop for gas in Clifton and am so hungary myself that I can't think of what to eat once we get home . . . we went to McDonalds. I haven't gone there in so long that I was stupified at the intercom. The choices!

If the worst thing I did to my children today was feed them a Happy Meal, then so be it. I was leaning towards Taco Bell because I could've stuck to my fake vegetarian diet, but Francesca and Cecilia would have nothing of it. "I want a McDonalds hamburger because they taste like candy!" she exclaims from the back seat (thanks Granny.) How do they do that? Get a hamburger to taste like candy? Is there crack in those Happy Meals? Do you think they put something in them to make kids addicted? Ground up tobacco in with the hamburger? "And their buns are so soft!" she says dreamily. How do they get those buns so soft? I know why my buns are so soft, its because I just macked down on that deep fried chicken sandwich (not vegetarian.) I was actually thinking, "Man, I hope nobody sees me in the drive thru here. How embarrassing."

Fortunately, parenting isn't a checklist or a goal, its about just being present and mindful every day. When at the end of the day the children are saying, "This was the fun-nest day. Even though it was rainy, it was still really fun," mission accomplished. Now to work on that self acceptance. Mommy guilt is such a biatch.

Lake Powell

Hope

I love the fall. I don't know what it is about the fall, the cooling off, things slowing down, turning my energy to inside the house instead of to the yard and garden . . . I think there is a real nesting feeling about autum. I love it. My tomatoes are flopped down on the ground, the pumpkins are all orange (and in tack, thanks to tons of diatomaceous earth) our ghords are off the hook, our chickens are fat and ready to lay any week and our foxes are back. They're looking for chicken dinners but our coop is predator proof, sorry foxes.

We're embarking on our 1st grade year of home schooling and getting over a nasty virus, thanks to Chinese herbs.

The question of the moment is what type of farmers do we want to be? The possibilities seem endless. Goat herders, raw cow milk co-opers, chicken ranchers, peach farmers, cherry pickers, cowgirls and cowboys, pony riders, sheep sheerers, pig petters. vegetable garden slavers, hay sellers or lavender dryers? The urgency of summer seems to be leaving me and the lovely slowing down of fall is setting in . . . thank goodness! I don't have to drive myself insane anymore trying to decide. There is time. There is time for me to mull it over, to see things in my mind's eye.

Due to home schooling, I've found myself more often than not, surrounded with uber-Christian types. They're my friends and we politely mind our manners amongst ourselves. I'm not sure how or why, but lately it seems like I've found myself asking how I would explain my non-Christian status, just in case the subject were to come up and I think my answer would be that I have too much hope to be a Christian. Although I think there are a lot of less than perfect things about the world, I don't exactly think we're all going to hell in a handbag any minute now, like my "its a sign of the times," friends.

I'm saving seeds for next year and for gifts. I'm making lists of all the things I want to plant next year. I'm guiding Francesca in her school journey and practicing violin with both girls, thinking about their next concert. I'm watching Francesca's 2nd front tooth make its way to that hole (finally.) I'm watching Cecilia grow so big, right before my eyes, how did she get so long and strong? I'm hearing Julian talk and babble and sing, all day long and loving every minute. I'm soaking up that look of love and magic in their eyes as we make plans for a treasure hunt tomorrow. I'm mulling over (and over and over and over) the hows of being this type of farmer and or that type of farmer and in that, there has to be so much hope. A friend was saying something along those lines about how in farming its either one thing or another (the frost or the fungus) but I think she was also saying that you just have to have hope. As opposed to that other icky stuff, may we all embody hope. "Hope is the thing with feathers . . ."

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

And who has time for 1,000 words anyway?