Eighteen Years Ago Today

I was experiencing my first home birth.  Rebekah Jane was ushered into this world in the privacy of my bedroom.  I loved the experience, and I love my little girl.

Rebekah had a fine covering of blond hair unlike any of my babies to date - it was a soft blonde, not the near white of my other "dutch" babies.  And she had a nice amount of it too!  When she was born she was mad at the world.  The midwife commented on her little attitude even.  But she was a very good baby...most of the time.  Very early I wrote in her baby book that poem about the little girl with the curl...and it was very true.  She was such a good baby, content to do whatever I set her up to do whether it was hanging out in her highchair or sitting on a blanket playing with her toys.  She rarely complained.  She was adorable chubby as a baby, but that didn't last long.  She was probably our chubbiest baby and resisted any attempts at a bottle of baby food until she was over a year old.

Rebekah's First Birthday!

All dolled up for a wedding!

She was my latest walker, as she waited to walk until she could do it perfectly.  She spent a long time perfecting her fall before she was willing to take those first steps.  Just after learning to walk, she fell off our coach and her arm was broken.  She didn't let it keep her down for long though.  She was walking again in no time.

She was a beautiful child - lovely hair and a face that had the look of a princess in the making.  She was very loving and showed signs of being an artist at a very early age.  She was very creative, even in the areas of mischief!  I have lots of funny stories about the adventures of this little girl, who we lovingly called "Becka Baby" until the nick name was no longer appropriate.

She was quite the little leader.  She loved to come up with creative ideas and get the other kids, especially Rachel, involved with her fun play.  They would spend hours and hours playing house or riding bikes or trying to build forts in our woods.

Rebekah has grown into a tall, graceful young lady.  She still has remnants of her childhood showing up here and there - she loves to goof off and loves taking time to play with girls much younger than herself.

Her favorite activities have always been drawing and  creating things.  Her jewelry is amazingly original.  Her drawing covers many different media, but she excels at caricatures, cartoon and anime!

She loves to create her own style of clothes. True to her artist's nature, many of her clothing choices have flair!  Bright colors, feather accents and a fedora hat are just a sampling.

She is really good with her younger brothers and sisters, and is always ready to give her dad a hug when he comes home from work.  She has made rag dolls for Esther, which Esther loves more than anything.  She also makes little cloth dolls that look like ginger bread people too!

One of her other talents is face painting, but it doesn't stop there.  She's been known to paint hands, feet, ankles, shoulders, biceps   Her temporary tattoos are amazing!

She also has quite the sense of humor.  She can really hit the nail on the head, especially with puns.  She loves to laugh  and be a little goofy - she's good for our family!

Although she's turning eighteen, and has become a beautiful young woman, she still has the heart of a child - innocent and loving.  She wants to grow up, but all in good time, my dear, all in good time!

This is the first of what I hope to be Birthday Highlights - I'm going to make a blog post dedicated to each child, talking about their childhood, character and interests.  I hope you enjoyed it.

A New Year is Upon Us!

OK, so I've been busy...for some strange reason.

December was a busy month, but my biggest reason for not blogging was that I was lacking energy and motivation.  I just didn't want to spend the time to blog as I was having trouble finding the time to do more important things like plan for Christmas, do Christmas activities and such.  I was struggling with some physical challenges, most of which I have overcome now.

I've also been thinking about blogging and wondering if it is really worth the time.  Does it really matter to anyone if I blog about our life - I don't think we're all that interesting, really!  I haven't had a comment on my blog here in months.  I might just lay off doing this.  If  you like reading my blog, please leave a comment to encourage me to continue.  I do enjoy blogging, but I don't want to do it just to toot my own horn, so to speak.  I need to know if you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it!

Speaking of writing - I'm writing a chapter for a book about women's fertility in the 40s!  I get to write about all my childbearing experiences and then answer questions that were submitted by prospective readers!  I'm not sure what the book's title will be, but it will be published electronically.  It will be published in June - let me know if you are interested in knowing how to get the book!

So here are some high lights of the last month:

First off, here's what happens when the kids steal my camera - I get great photos that I wouldn't have otherwise, but I have to dig through hundreds of goofy/unusable photos to fine the gems!

 Wow - This photo was amazing, but scary at the same time, know what I mean?

Carese has been crawling for about two months now

Esther loves to help me fill my daily vitamin organizer - this time Elizabeth was helping her too!

Elizabeth and I had a very special birthday - 12-12-12!  We had a lot of friends over and had a 12 themed party - dozens of sandwhiches and cookies, and we sang The Twelve Days of Christmas at 12:12:12!  

We even found matching skirts for her and her best friend to wear!

This year I directed the church choir for the fall and Christmas seasons, and I so enjoyed it.  Jessica did a special braid for the day that the choir sang for the service!  She's getting amazing at doing great braids!

Great long, fingerless glove for the big girls from their grandparents!

The boys got cool black ties from the grandparents!

Carese's unique balancing act!

She was so ready to walk!

Esther decorated one cookie and then went to eating the chocolate chips!

Christmas Eve Caos!

Little girls and dolls at Christmas, they just go together!

Our New Christmas tradition - Shooting Practice.  Daryl is our gun safety guy, he's always close by to make sure we are all being as safe as possible!

Post Christmas Breakfast - notice that Carese is fast asleep!  I think Esther had too much to eat!  LOL!

 

Esther got lots of help unwrapping!

 

Esther LOVED the nerf gun - only problem was she kept shooting her daddy!

So sweet!

Pure awesomeness!!!

Our favorite family pasttime - a game of Nerts!

My artsy girl getting a very unique gift - gummy snake, chocolate covered insects and a sucker with a scorpian in it!  She took it well!  She also got a very nice gift too (I've forgotten what it was though)

This gift was a big hit with everyone!

Daryl teaching the girls how to aim and how to be safe!

Goody Bags on Christmas Morning!

We even got a White Christmas!

I even got to do some target practice!

More snow after Christmas and that's Esther out running around!

Did I mention that Esther liked the snow?

And the yummiest Christmas Tradition - Nanaimo Bars!

Hope you enjoyed the update!  Please keep Esther in your prayers as she is having her tonsils and adenoids removed on Monday - she'll be down at Children's in Seattle for at least one night.

For Unto Us a Child is Born....

Please, have a safe and blessed holiday season, and remember the real reason for Christmas is that the God of the universe loved the human race so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to earth as a little baby, fully man and fully God, to live among us and to take our sins on Him and die in our place to pay the penalty for sin. Then He conquered death and rose from the grave so that we could have eternal life. 

All you need to do is confess that you are a sinner and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. He will forgive all your sins, and you will receive the gift of eternal life. But it's more than just a prayer prayed once - you need to make Him Lord of your life. To learn more, please read my blog post about how to be saved and how to make Christ Lord of your life.
http://mydaughterslisten.blogspot.com/2011/07/first-things-first.html

The Blessings of Family on Thanksgiving

Every year that we are blessed with celebrating Thanksgiving at home, we try to invite at least someone to share it with us.  This year, although we tried hard to find someone who did not have a place to go to for Thanksgiving, we were unable to find any guests.  This turned out to be a good thing as I ended up being quite sick the days before, so our pre-Thanksgiving preparations were not quite up to our normal.

Despite my being slowed down due to my bad cold, the day went really well.  We had french toast for breakfast and while the pumpkin pies that Jessica made from scratch (well, the pumpkin puree came from a can) baked.  Then once the pies were finished and I had cleaned the turkey, Jessica did the final prep on the turkey and it went in the oven.  Most of the morning I was working on dishes as I was a little behind, even after the kids had done a lot of dishes for me yesterday.  We seem to generate a lot of dirty dishes around here!  I was able to finish all the dirty dishes by noon, just around the time that Jeremy and Jason showed up.

They came bringing supplies for our traditional punch (7-Up + frozen fruit juice concentrate) plus their disk golf basket.  So for a while nearly everyone was outside throwing disks and they had a lot of fun. The chickens were definitely wondering what in the world all the commotion was about! Esther loved it - she even brought me her sister's boots and coat, so I helped her find her coat and boots.

By the way, Esther can put her own coat on now, and can put her boots on without help too!  She loves to put on her siblings shoes and boots and tramp around the house in them.  Elizabeth's rubber boots that look like cowboy boots are her favorite!


Once the disk golf spree wound down, a few took up archery practice while some of us started a game of Nertz (a family favorite card game, kind of like speed group solitaire).  We also had some traditional popcorn to stave off hunger.




We checked on the turkey, and it was already done, 2 hours early!  So the rest of the food preparation hit full tilt.  Jessica worked on the potatoes while Rebekah and Rachel sliced apples for the apple pie.  Once the potatoes were on the stove, Jessica took over and made two apple pies while I started the gravy and then the stuffing, while Reuben got the corn in the microwave.  Rachel made the first batch of punch too.

While we were busy, some of the others were enjoying some down time in the living room, taking care of the little girls while we were busy.

The meal was great, and everyone said it was one of the best turkey dinners.  Afterwards we used the name cards from a Thanksgiving set we got years ago from Family Life Today, and had each person read the quote and answer the question on the inside.  It was lots of fun (funny things said and shared) but also very meaningful.

After cleaning up the meal, we played another game of Nertz, then we had our pumpkin and apple pies, ice cream (a rare treat for us that Daryl went out and got the night before) and whipped cream.  Then we played a new game for our family that the boys taught us this summer, 7 up 7 down.  Reuben nearly won, but Jeremy came from behind to win in the end.

We ended the day watching Lord of the Rings, Two Towers (we started a LOTR marathon of sorts Tuesday night, but we only get 1/2 a movie (extended edition) in each evening.

photo of Esther helping with the dishes today, sheWe had a great day, but I'll leave you with a was doing a great job!  And earlier today she helped me put my vitamins into the daily pill organizer that I use and she was doing a great job too!