Month: November 2010

When I was growing up, TJ would always sing silly songs.  One that comes to mind is “Heap Big Smoke but no fire.  Him make big smoke, him make a lot of smoke, him big smoke.”

Carter came home school on Tuesday before Thanksgiving wearing an Indian head dress and a matching vest cut out of a brown paper shopping bag telling of tales of a Kindergarten feast of lemonade, grapes, apple slices, cheese sticks and other traditional Thanksgiving fare.  (Actually, I didn’t glean all these details from him, but we were all asked to supply items from a list so I saw the menu in advance.)  And his wonderful teacher sent out pictures from the event so I could see a glimpse of what life must have been like when the Mayflower landed at Towne Meadow and the natives sat down to dine with the pilgrims.  ADORABLE!

White Rapid is third Indian boy from the right

All the guests at the Thanksgiving Feast – White Rapid is center of middle row

The Thanksgiving Feast – White Rapid is far left between two pilgrim girls

Here are the names submitted to the Indian chief pending approval:

Carter will henceforth be known as: White Rapid
Kiefer will henceforth be known as: Wild Feather
Griffin will henceforth be known as : Quiet Storm
Fletcher will henceforth be known as: Little Big Wind

Him make big smoke, him make a lot of smoke, him big smoke! 🙂  (I crack myself up!)

At the dinner table that evening, Carter & Kiefer both wore their Indian Head Dresses…

White Rapid & Wild Feather (with his head dress on backwards!!)

He looks like an Indian Chief, doesn’t he?

There’s something about being sick that is always a bummer– you miss out on a nice day outside, don’t get to play, don’t get to see your friends that day.  But when you’re sick on your birthday, that’s just even tougher.  So when Kiefer had a 102 fever on his birthday, we tried to make the most of it!  When I was up with him at 4:30 a.m. and he was burning up and said he was hungry… we came downstairs in the quiet of the pre-dawn hours and we made a birthday pancake as big as a plate, complete with colored sprinkles applied by the birthday boy himself and featuring a lit candle.  Of course, he only ate one or two bites, but I got to sing to him first thing and celebrate when that sweet boy came into our lives.  Happy Birthday, Kiefer!  And for Kiefer, he had a great day!  He got to lay around all day and watch movies and suck his thumb and snuff his blankie…  is there a better way to celebrate?

Carter and Kiefer are wired to work!  It’s very interesting to see.  When they’re outside playing in the yard, they’re always coming up with jobs or work they need to do.  They’ll build a new road in the mulch pile, hitch up a train to the truck, but yesterday they provided a new service. I overheard Carter saying, “We only offer this service in the fall…” and I had to run and grab my camera.  We have more pine trees in our backyard than poplar so we actually don’t get many leaves that fall, therefore, not many leaves to rake, which is fine with us.  But I think the boyz would prefer we had a few more, in fact, they were working to make sure we had a few more.  They got out the step ladders from the garage, connected themselves to the top rungs with bungee cords as their “Harnesses” and they raked leaves OUT of the tree! That’s when I heard Carter’s sales pitch.  They were offering a leaf falling service!

Not enough leaves on the ground? Speed up fall with our  leaf falling service (note safety harness!)

“We only offer this service in the fall”

Safe & effective

When you gotta reach those tough to reach places, sometimes the only place to put your ladder is right in the middle of the bush!

Now moving onto the next job

The house needed “painting”

Those Jay Boyz get the job done right!

But when they tired of that, they moved on to “painting” the house with Jim’s roller brushes and buckets of water.  At the end of that job, Carter ran to me soaking wet and I was convinced he fell into his bucket, instead he had accidentally dropped the hose and it sprayed him! Occupational hazard.  Good thing it wasn’t an OSHA violation!

How is it possible that my baby is already 5 months old?  I can’t believe how quickly time is passing!  It seems like just yesterday that we just brought him home from the hospital… that I was just pregnant not that long ago.  But that’s the thing about time. It passes whether we pay attention to what time it is or not!  It’s a good thing we don’t measure all our ages in months… Fletcher’s nearly a half-year.  Carter’s almost 72 months… I will be 456 months old soon!  That’s a lot of months.  Days add up to weeks, weeks, months and months pass all too quickly into years.  The choices we make today matter.  Am I living today to the fullest?  I’m certainly trying!  This blogging tool is just one way I’m trying to harness the moments and capture the memories before they fade away too quickly.  There’s so much more I want to do, desire to accomplish with my time… I seem to be doing the same things over and over again: laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, caring for children and their ever changing needs (or needing to be changed! (in more ways than one!))  But my prayer is and should be to do even these repetitive deeds with as much love and grace as possible.  Am I praying more today than I did yesterday? What is the fragrance of my love offering to my children?  And little you… how can it be that you’re five months old today? I feel I’ve just met you… and at the same time that I’ve known you much longer than just five months.  We’ve been through a lot together already.  I can’t imagine my life without you! How blessed am I to have four new smiles in my life?  What a huge responsibility I’ve been entrusted with.  This is the most important job I’ll ever have. I want to do better than my best.  Love beyond my limits.  To the moon and back.  The only way that’s possible is with the grace and gifts given from above.

I just love little baby feet!

And the way a happy baby puts his feet up in the air!  Just hanging out!

He’s already a devoted thumb-sucker!  And I love how he’s figured out how to smile with the thumb still in!

Soooo sweet!

They don’t stay little long… especially my babies!  Such a big guy!!

We had some special friends to dinner the other night and I made my Grandmother’s recipe for homemade apple pie – including homemade crust.  As I used her rolling pin, antique pie pan and referred to her recipe, I couldn’t help but think of the countless pies she made for others.  She would bake people’s favorite pies for their birthdays – double crust apple for TJ, blueberry for Uncle Leonard, pumpkin for Bradley… and she would nearly stalk them to make sure they returned her pie pans (but wouldn’t imagine using a tinfoil pan!) Even when her fingers were completely numb and her hands were so hard to manipulate she would still peel the apples, core and cut them into slices and nimbly work the edge of the crust.  I’ve learned baking and cooking are a way to show people how much they mean to you. That you’re willing to go to the extra effort to make the crust from scratch, to peel and core the apples… to bake the love in.  It tastes better that way!

Rolling out the dough with Grammy’s rolling pin

Grammy’s Blue Bird antique pie pan

Grammy’s “Fool Proof” Pie crust

“Home is where your story begins” sign in the background

A sink full of skins

Grammy’s secret ingredient: Harvey’s Bristol Cream

YUM!

Carter making his pie

Carter joined the fun in time to make his own little pie

Carter enjoying apple skins

Carter likes to make his own pie with extra apple skins baked in

Kiefer enjoying long apple skins

Baking the love in!

“Look, Mommy!  It’s the number 6!”

“Looks good hope it tastes good!” And it was delicious!

Kiefer has adopted a new friend.  His furry little yellow puppy dog that he calls “Abby”.  This week he came to me holding the puppy’s ear and said, “Mommy, can we superglue his ear back on?”  No, we couldn’t glue it, but we could sew it.  So fortunately, we had a window of time in the afternoon when it was just the two of us and we went down to the sewing room and fixed it.

So often projects get pushed aside and I don’t have or make the time to fix them.  I tried to stop what I was doing just then to fix it because it was important to Kiefer.

I also couldn’t help but think that I’m grateful for the simplicity of childhood.  That so often the “tragedies” that the ball and lose it over aren’t actually tragedies at all. I try to gently say as much in the midst of their agony, “Oh…, at least this is something we can fix.”

After attending a funeral this week of my dear friend’s brother who died very suddenly and unexpectedly – I’m grateful for the little things that I can fix.  Loss does help us put our life in perspective.

You never know what you’re going to find around the Jay household on a given day.  This morning, it was a train show… set up in our front hallway.  Trains one day, puppet show, airplane show or chimney sweep show the next.  I love that they get all wrapped up in the thing d’jour.  Every day it’s something new but always entertaining! And worth the cost of admission!