Dear Mom and Dad,
It’s almost lunch time here and Anna is nearing the end of her schoolwork for the morning. I bought myself a half hour of quiet time from Carolyn with a bowl of Kix that’s hard for her to get her hand into. I gave Jordan one too and he had fun shaking it, stuffing his hand in and banging it. Until just a week ago, he would have given up and not tried. It’s really encouraging to see him trying to do hard things.
The rain has really begun over here. Everything outside is soaked and 80% of the leaves have fallen from the trees. I love the indoor coziness of winter, but I am eagerly anticipating the spring too which seems so far away. We hired our neighbor to mow the blackberries out of our “garden” area. I am so anticipating gardening, but know I won’t be able to do much for awhile. At least the brambles are cut down to manageable size now. We keep trying to look at our property and imagine a successful ditch pattern to help with the constant runoff. Then we have to figure out how to actually get those ditches in the ground. We have neither the muscles or time to dig them… but it’s on the list! 🙂
I’m wondering how much it’s going to cost to keep our house comfortably warm this winter. There is so much house to heat!!! I keep trying to figure out how I could close off a portion of the house so we could primarily heat the living areas during the day, and then let it get cooler at night. But at night neither Jordan or Carolyn stay under blankets yet… though I guess we could get space heaters for their rooms. During the day, the thermostat is in the hallway that leads to upstairs… and the upstairs cannot be separated since we have the big formal entry. Ah well. I puzzle on it now and then, but haven’t figured it out, so keep pushing it aside again.
I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year! The Mellingers will come to our house and stay overnight before Christmas. Then on Christmas day, Brian’s family Christmas is coming to our house this year! Hooray! I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving too, but with a mix of eager anticipation and dread. Jordan will be overwhelmed, Carolyn will be clingy and there will be no Grandma and Grandpa to help. And then the drive home…. ohh… hope that goes ok. Not much in my easy happy life that I dread more than a 3-4 hour drive in the dark with screaming, crying kids. I’m praying they sleep and are peaceful. If that happens, then Brian and I will have a sort of “date” together as we have quiet time to talk. 🙂
Let’s see… what else do you need an update on? We officially joined our church last week! They have a pretty informal church membership, but we were glad to make the formal commitment to our local church body. Next thing we may do is ask for some feedback on dedicating our children at church. We are actively looking for an older Christian couple or two to take us on to advise, encourage, teach and hold us accountable. I don’t know what the Lord has planned to fill that need for us… but we are eager to make more close relationships.
LOL – I had to turn around, because Carolyn was making funny sounds…. she was high-centered under the table. hehehe
Jordan has come down with his first sickness in a long time. He has some kind of cold. He’s not eating well and today developed a barking cough. Hope he gets over it quickly!
We do school five days a week most of the time. Jordan goes to preschool five afternoons a week most of the time. I try to take a rest in the afternoon… it starts as me forcing myself to be still and quiet for 20 minutes. This is me trying to find my clarity of mind in the afternoon. It’s so hard to be still and quiet! BUT – when I do… I usually wake up an hour later. lol I do this right after Jordan goes to school and Carolyn is napping. The girls do crafts or read books and it seems to be really helping! I also have been NOT eating any sweets during the day and I’m sure that has helped too. This Saturday, Brian has Men’s Breakfast and then he is going to rake leaves off the church parking lot. At 1pm, Anna has a birthday party at our neighbor’s house. At 2pm, there’s a baby shower. That’s a little busier than our usual weekend…. but when we’re less busy, Brian gets to work around the property. It gets dark around 4.
Ok, it’s time to make the kids’ lunch. Probably peanut butter and jelly for the kids or homemade macaroni and cheese. Hopefully I have some rice and meatballs left over from dinner the other night for me.
I love you and miss you,
Rachel
Carolyn eating Kix out of a bowl… Jordan chasing down any escapees.
Eating the fruits of their labors… ginger cookies!
Patient, loving, playful man with his youngest children.
This big, carpeted room is such a blessing! Especially now that constant wet weather has set in. Even the big girls don’t want to play outside much.
I realized the other day that I had finally mastered the art of clothes layering. I am tres chic, yes?
Anna is learning cursive! My letter on the left, hers to the right. She is better at this than prin[caption id="attachment_9267" align="aligncenter" width="500"]
High centered- lol!
My little whiner. lol She is a tender sweetie, truly. But she also has mastered the art of the whine.
Carolyn signing:
Dear Rachel, Thank you so much for this update and the pictures. Yes, certainly tres chick, but your own personal flavor! Good to hear something about each one of your children. Don’t ever forget how important it is the job you are doing. And even though you may not do it perfectly they will know that you love them and love each other, and that covers over a lot of our mistakes as parents.
It is so hard to visiualize the short colder days there and Thanksgiving right around the corner when it is so warm and summery here. Although for the locals, it isn’t so warm though. I would like to get a thermometer, so I would know what the temp is.
We have been very busy here the last few days. I hope to get a post done on the blog or at least an update to you kids. Today I feel very weary because there are so many needs and I can only do so much. A young man stopped me on the street today and told me about his bad health, and each of his sisters bad health. He is looking at me hoping for some glimmer of hope for some help. And it just seems pretty lame to just say I will be praying for you. You know they think you have tons of money and you are being stingy and not helping them. Very hard to know what to do. But, I have had a short nap and am feeling a little better now.
Thanks again for taking the time to fill us in on the happenings there, it really does mean a lot! I love you both tons! Dad