Lucky Seven

Ike and Ava tuned seven. They're birthday always makes me a bit weepy. Surely they're not seven. I remember them being so small. *sniff*. Alas, seven brings on big stuff. Ava finally can have her ears pierced, which has to wait due to the date of her birthday. Isaak can whittle wood and Ivory soap with his very own pocket knife. There were many rules and stipulations with Ike's gift. An extra tube of Neosporin and some butterfly bandages are laying in waiting for any incidents that are sure to happen.

Ike an Ava always choose extreme food for their birthday feast. This year it was gingerbread waffles with hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Top that all off with some chocolate cupcakes for one heck of a carbo-laden, sweet fest. It's great to be seven, and we're glad to have been blessed with them.

Merry Christmas!

Santa made it through the snow and mess. He surely used Rudolph this year. Isaak received a tank that rolls over men, shoots, and makes and insane amount of noise. He is so jazzed about the mayhem he can create.

Ava finally has a Lalaloopsy. For those of you who don't know, this is the hot toy for 1st grade girls. Crazy hard to find anywhere, including online. So glad Santa is an early planner.

Paige felt like there had been some Santa letter confusion. She had wanted an American Girl kitchen. But once she fiddled around with the nano, decided that it was WAY better.

Claire loved her nano. Anything to give her a leg up into big girl world. She is a teenager stuck in a fourth grade world.

Santa even managed a bit for mom and dad. It was a lovely, quiet, white Christmas around here. Lots of food and music.

Winter Wonderland

To get to church, we have to pass over the Wabash River on this antiquated, one-lane bridge. It's so neat. On rare lucky days in winter, the fog off the water will freeze to the trees by the river. Truly beautiful. It only occurs when the circumstances are just right: wind, temperature, precipitation. The other bonus, only early rises get to see this. It melts away as soon as the sun is up for more than an hour or so.

These pictures do little justice. In real life it is one of the sparkliest, natural events. It's breathtaking. Here's hoping you find some of your own Christmas miracles this year.

Ava was Right

As I tucked Ava in on Nov. 30, she informed me that Dec. 1 meant that it would snow. She said because it was December in the morning, we would wake up to lots of snow. I tried to inform here otherwise, but she wouldn't hear of it. She knew that it would snow. Well, guess who was right? Yeah. She always is.


We woke up to a good inch of snow on Wednesday. Today, we woke up to a perfect day for sledding and snowballs. My kids (Brant included) and the neighbors are whooping it up. I'm getting ready with cocoa and cookies. I have the best job out of the deal.


Of course, this snow did ruin today's plans of putting up the Griswald, outdoor, light festival. Darn. Scrooge is well pleased, but another Hamby is sad. I'm sipping coffee and humming under my breath, "I'm dreaming of a low, electric bill . . .". Cheap, I know. It's sad.

I Caved

For the first time ever, our family purchased a real tree. I am a scrooge. Truly cheap. I figure, we have a perfectly, fine, fake tree, why spend more money? I know. I'm cheap. I did put a budget on the whole event, and we came in .50 under.

I hate to admit, but it was fun walking through the farm and choosing the perfect tree. The kids started with the 12 foot, $300 tree, and we had to firmly convince them it wouldn't fit in the house. Finally, we down-sized to a reasonable, 7 foot one that still seems to take up a quarter of the front room. I do love that piney smell that it exudes.

We did end up using my perfectly, fine, fake tree in the dining room for all of Brant's Bears ornaments. It looks nice also. I've been the brakes to Brant's Christmas gusto for years. He seems to be gaining a little ground every holiday. Through thirteen years together, we now have lights inside and out and two trees. I know, I know. Bah humbug.

Because if you have four kids. . .

Since they've been in kindergarten, Paige and Claire have asked to be KISS. They reasoned, even at five, "There are four of them, and there are four of us." I finally caved this year and let them go. All of our neighbors got the hugest kick out of them. It's funny to be KISS when you only know "I Want to Rock N' Roll All Night" and "Detroit Rock City". It would completely lose the humor if they knew the rest of their dirty, nasty songs.

Big 10!

Paige and Claire turned 10! It was a fast paced birthday, as always! We went to church, ate out, shopped, and trick-or-treated all night. How fun for my double-digit girls. Can't wait to see what this year will bring for them.

Camp T for Fourth Graders

Camp Tecumseh has to be the panultimate experience of Hershey Elementary. All the fourth graders get to go on a two day campout and live like pioneers. They have been studying Indiana history since the start of school. Camp T let them put the knowledge into action. They got to fish Huck Finn-style, blaze a new trail through the woods, create a log for a log cabin (phew --that's work), make candles, etc. I was chosen (and, yes, it is a huge honor as a parent to be chosen for this trip) to teach Indian sign language. The kids loved it. My class was in a teepee and everything. The girls loved every minute and they even had their best buddies in their groups and mom in their cabin. Of course, they thought this was all just happenstance. God bless those fourth grade teachers.

In the picture above, Paige and her bff are making a candle base. They had to saw a thin log slice and then hand-drill a spot for the candle. Below, Claire and her pal are dipping candles. Both were a long process. The theme of the entire two days was lowering waste. They even weighed our scraps from dinner to show waste. They explained all the energy used to make products and how we should try to lower our energy consumption in all ways. I loved the modern theme on the pioneer life.

How to save $700, and scare the crap out of your wife

O.k. We had this big, old tree right off our deck. It was sick. I had tried a couple things to try to nurse it back to health, but to no avail. It had to come down. After a couple bids of around $700, Brant took it upon himself to cut it down. I was a nervous wreck. Besides killing my husband, the tree, if landing any direction but the one it did, could have wiped out 1.) our house, 2.) our neighbor's house, 3.) our shed, 4.) our propane tank. Awesome odds. But Brant did great. The only damage was to an old split rail fence by the woods, and he had that fixed within the day.

The kids loved "climbing" this huge tree. They spent hours out there, until the tree diminished and their play space grew uncomfortably close to the chainsaw. I'm glad he cut it down, because once we got a view of its innards, it was short to this world. The entire middle was a soft, rotten mush.

Labor Day Weekend

Another long weekend, another project. We beefed up the firepit with some scavenged stones. It's more of a pit now. A bit safer than the push-your-sibling-straight-into-the-burnpile that we had before. I loved this project because it was free. That is number one on the scale of project love for me. Wow-factor for free!
While Brant and I worked on the pit, the kids made an "Indian village" on the back part of the trail. It's pretty well established for being created by 9 and 6-year-olds. *Note the fire pit that my little peas thought they would actually get to burn. I mean, they really envisioned burning that with all their neighbor buddies. I laughed so hard I almost peed. Really, ten small children and an open blaze? Really?! Still a great little set-up complete with cinder block benches, pallet shelf, and tarp tent. Genius.

Back to School

Well, all four of my little peas are back in school. All four, all day. Yeah. It feels a bit barren around here. I saved up a bunch of projects to work on, since I'm now "unemployed" for a large part of the day. I'm sure this lull will come to an end soon. The PTA seems to zoom in on volunteers: library helper, cookie day helper, reading tutor. Awana starts up next week. It will be back in full swing again soon.

First Sleepaway Camp

A whole week without my hubby, and then a whole week without my girlies. Yikes! They loved it. I don't think they stopped talking the entire van ride home. And of course their counselor was a cutey, music teacher. How cool is that to a fourth grader. Even their CIT (counselor in training) was a cutie-pie teenager. They learned a load a games and songs. Crafts and candy. They can't wait for next year.

Farm Fun

While Brant was in Haiti, we stayed with my parents for a few days. The kids love the farm. I think they would love to do more, but I've tried to explain that farm work is usually dangerous. Dad showed the kids some of his new additions. This poor, little guy was kind of a runt and had been bottle-fed, which meant he was fine with kids swarming around him. He was drawn to people in blue jeans, because blue jeans had meant dinner for a while. He was a sweet, patient fellow, but his mom gave the warning "moo" and we had to move on.

Besides baby cows, we went to play in the river. Always fun and dirty. I still have buckets of sand in the van carpet. We tried to pick blackberries, but had a misadventure and a poison ivy scare.

Also met a very, nice man who let my kids swim at his hotel for free. Don't worry. He was there to see my sister. It was a really great time with my brother and sister and neice and nephews. The kids are fascinated by their older cousins. They don't really know very many teenagers, so their strange habits are curious to my little peas.

The only blight to the weekend (besides no hubby) was that both my mom and dad weren't feeling well. They were sports about my troop rambling about, but I think the peace after we left was welcome.

Hutch Before & After

With Brant away, I picked a couple projects to keep me busy. This one turned out fantastic. I received this hutch via Jen & Barry's basement. They had even started to work on it, taking off hardware, and some of the country trim. Sadly, it didn't fit in their house. Gladly, I took it off their hands.
I was so sad to see the lovely flowers go. Hours of sanding and stripping off peeling lacquer and....
TA-DA! So chic and modern looking. I painted the hinges and got new hardware. It really finishes off my dining room. Now if I could get the gumption to really refinish my table. Hmmm . . . always another project around here.

Erie Canal

Strange to find out, but I only live ten minutes from the end of the Erie Canal. It's agreat, little spot if you're ever here. They have hiking and biking trails, paddle boats, a museum, and, coolest of all, an actual, canal boat replica you can ride. Most of the activities were either free or cheap, which makes me happy.

We took a half hour canal boat ride. The water was so shallow, you could see the fish swim right up to the boat. Ike was disappointed by his lack of fishing gear.


We rented a bicycle built for six. It's called a surrey, which made me totally think of that corny, old song Surrey with the Fringe on Top. So as we rolled out humming that tune, we realized that a bicycle built for six is really six times the work. Laughing at our lack of ability to work together to make this thing pick up speed, we navigated through a minor trail. Only one person can steer, but everyone has to pedal. If your family has a chance, totally try to ride a surrey up a hill. It will be a family defining moment.

Pig Pile

Lately, the kids have taken to all sleeping on the pull-out couch in Paige and Claire's room. We usually only let them do this on weekends, since, obviously, they can't be getting the best night's sleep. Being twins, my kids lack that personal space bubble that other siblings have. I'm curious when or if that will ever kick in. They sleep in this piggy pile all night long, and amazingly they rotate around in their sleep. Whoever starts in the upper, left corner, may or may not be there in the morning.

Family Fourth of July

Pray you all had a great Fourth of July. We usually try to get together with Brant's family for this holiday because his mom's birthday lands on the 3rd. We spent the weekend camping, playing games, and eating (lots and lots of eating). We had a great time and the kids and the dog played so hard they slept all the way home.

Finally

Ava, at 6 1/2, finally lost her first tooth. To make up for the fact that she waited so long, she lost two in one night. I have a feeling that the second one wasn't quite ready, but she wiggled and tugged until that puppy fell out.