Today

Today I will.....

• continue to try to explain to Elijah why we can't do something "weawy, weawy, weawy, weawy, weawy, weawy (x5) fun" every day.
• welcome Ethan home after being gone at his dad's for 9 days! We missed you, blonde boy!
• Show Ethan how to clean out the caterpillar container and rejoice that I won't have to do it myself anymore!
• wash a load of cloth diapers and hang them out to dry, since it's appearing today will be the perfect summer day (Perfect in my mind = 70s and sunny).
• attempt to fold and put away 2-6 loads of laundry
• attempt to finish up Caleb's scrapbook through 4 months
• add a couple of pages to Ethan and Elijah's scrapbooks
• tell Elijah to stop whining approximately 5,237 times
• nurse Caleb too many times to count (therefore forgetting each time, which side he nursed on last)
• Enjoy every nursing and snuggle session with Caleb.
• Go outside with the boys
• Make sandwiches and such for our field trip/park day tomorrow - we're going to be touring Rainbow Foods and learn about "healthy" eating.
• Pull Caleb's thumb out of his mouth every 10 minutes.
• And finish vacuuming

What are you doing today?

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Brothers and sister (note the mug with Felicity's photo on the end table)

Two of our four Monarch larvae

A hummingbird visit the feeder

Our garden (trying out a new method of weed control this year!)

Diapers drying on my new deck clothesline (thanks Paul!)

5 months old and definitely Heaven sent!

Grief After A Rainbow Baby Arrives

It's pretty unusual for me to be up this late - 11pm - blogging. We just got done watching a movie and I should be hittin' the hay, but thought I try to pound out a quick post.

I remember 18 months ago, I was ALWAYS up late, reading baby loss blogs and blogging myself. Those late hours were my sanity in my very insane world. Felicity's death consumed me during that time. Though my children were fed, clothed, schooled, and the house was decent, I wasn't really all there. My grieving mama friend Sara just wrote about this too. I spent pretty much each waking hour dreaming of a baby who wasn't in my arms and thinking about getting pregnant again.

Well, here I am. My "Rainbow baby" will be 5 months on Tuesday. He is so sweet! We love him deeply. So how am I doing with my grief these days? I guess if you could watch my life in real time for a week, I'd look pretty normal to you. No crying spells or depression though I struggle with the things every mom struggles with: training my children, getting the laundry washed, folded, and put away, and getting dinner made. All normal things.

I miss Felicity like crazy, of course and I think about her every day. But these days I'm not consumed by it any more. It's a relief really, to be able to embrace the present, rather than dreaming of the past or wishing the future would come more quickly. I love taking care of Caleb in all his sweet 5 month old chubbiness. (I'll post some pictures this week, hopefully!) And I'm busy keeping up with my big boys and trying to be intentional with them in everything we do.

I don't spend my time searching for baby loss blogs anymore, though when I do come across them, I ALWAYS have to read about their baby loss. I feel a kinship with anyone who's walked this road. I can meet someone, in real life or online and instantly feel connected to them when I know we're both on a grief journey. There's so much comfort in knowing you're not alone. And it is a journey, one that won't be complete until Heaven.

So I'm living life, enjoying life, though always longing for Heaven. For now, I'm content and at peace. God is good, all the time and for that, I'm so very thankful.

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Here on the Range....

Yes, I admit, I'm too busy these days to blog, much less get supper on the table in a timely manner. (Caleb, sweet as he is, has decided that supper time is a good fussy time, usually because he's tired.) But I did find time during a nursing session to locate a new blog background, which I love once I figured out how to change my font colors - ugh!

We're feeling a bit claustrophobic with all the rain and cool weather we've been having here in MN. I won't complain about not having to run the a.c., but it would be nice to see the sun once in awhile. Tomorrow's finally supposed to be a clear day, so we're planning an outing to a special park. Hopefully I can remember my camera and take some photos of the boys.

We're also getting ready for Ethan to go to his dad's for a week. This is both a physical and emotional preparation for Ethan (and us). There's usually some behaviors that present themselves when a visit has been scheduled, though thankfully this is getting slightly better each time. He will be missed by everyone and I'm already thinking of activities to do while he's gone as Elijah may be a little lost without Ethan to play with (and fight with!).

Home improvement projects take up the weekends this time of year and now my husband is declaring war on the pocket gophers on our property. Should be interesting to see where that leads. I still regret telling him when we first moved in to not shoot one we saw, "because he's sooo cute!" I certainly learned my lesson on that one as it's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandgophers are the ones destroying our property now.

Well, I'm off to bed - finally! Have a blessed week!

Summertime Goals

Summer is here and we have one more day of homeschooling! Woohoo! I love homeschooling, as hard as it can be at times, but boy, we all need a break come summer. I applaud those who can homeschool year round, but it just doesn't work for us. We usually take a two month break from June to August.

I have many plans for what I need to get done during the summer. I thought blogging them would be just about as good as writing them done in a to-do list. Actually this way, I think I'll be more focused on completing them.

Here's the list:

• Gardening - this is hopefully going to be mostly harvesting, eating, and preserving (I'd love to get 24 quarts of spaghetti sauce made from our tomatoes). Paul laid down hay prior to planting so we're hoping the weeds are minimal.
• Read a new curriculum piece and learn how to implement it: Spell to Write and Read. At this point I'm not even sure it'll be relevant for Ethan as he reads and writes really well, but it will be for Elijah soon.
• Learn and implement a computerized tracking system for homeschooling. This is not a requirement for our state, but we thought it would help keep things more organized and be easier than my current system.
• Scrapbooking - I need to catch up on both Elijah's and Caleb's especially. I'd also like to work more on Felicity's if I have the opportunity.
• Take the kids to the park - the nursery moms at my church have organized some park days where we go to different parks and bring packed lunches. This is great for me and the boys! The other moms are a fun group and I enjoy the conversation. We're also doing some field trips which will be fun.
• Exercise - three to four times/week
• Lose 20 pounds or more - I'm in the worse shape of my life after having back to back pregnancies, not to mention all the stress after losing Felicity and carrying Caleb. Breastfeeding hasn't proven has helpful as I'd hoped. Basically I feel like my metabolism has taken a sabbatical and my hunger has jumped into overdrive.
• Blog more, but spend less time on the computer (if that makes sense)
• Go on vacation - we're currently planning on, just need to book a hotel.
• Clean out the minivan!
• Read aloud more - We're currently reading Treasures of the Snow but it's been awhile since we picked it up.
• Find good books on tape for travel time on vacation.
• Have Paul build deck clothesline for hanging cloth diapers to dry.
• Clean laundry room.
• Clean downstairs.
• Write in my journal.
• Have more quiet time reading the Bible. I was doing the 'read through the Bible in a year' program, but am currently so far behind it's gonna take me two years!

I'm sure there's much more I could add, but I'm having a brain-fart at this point so I'll probably have to come back and edit this. I plan on reviewing it come mid-August to let you know what I've accomplished.