After the Storm

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, Shawn was busy at work last night after a storm downed power lines and trees all over town. Here are a few pictures he took today of some of the damage.

This tree fell into the parking lot of the firehouse. In fact, that is one of the fire department's city vehicles underneath the tree. Interestingly, the guy that Shawn worked extra for had been parked in that spot earlier in the day. When he left to attend his son's school event (which is why Shawn was subbing for him), he moved his car. When he came back, he couldn't believe his narrow miss.

The back side of the tree in the firehouse lot.

Another downed tree in H'ville.

More wind damage.

On an amazing side note, our ginormous sunflowers (probably 10-12 feet tall) did not break or get damaged in the storm!

Trying to Make it Another Day

Life as a stay-at-home mom is not all that glamorous. We are expected to look after everybody in the house, to nurture, comfort, feed, clean up after and be there for several human beings. This is all in addition to our outside social commitments, extended family and such.

Yesterday was rough. Shawn was supposed to work an extra three hours after work to cover for a guy he works with. Nearing the end of three hours, a big storm rolled in, downing power lines and bringing with it lightning that struck a house in H'ville. Shawn was called out with his captain to fight a structure fire. It was a relatively small and easy to put out fire, but afterwards they had many calls due to downed power lines, lightning strikes, fallen trees and fire alarms. Shawn said in all they had 23 calls to the Emergency Management Services department last evening.

Being the ever dutiful wife (ha!), I thought I would wait up for him. Okay, so really there was a late episode of Cold Case Files I was watching. He came home at almost 1, exhausted. I, too, was exhausted as the kids had been very demanding all day. We lay down in bed and Shawn said he wasn't feeling quite well. Fast forward about 30 minutes and Shawn is majorly laid up in the bathroom with some kind of food poisoning (or perhaps the exposure to the smoke of the fire and working 16 straight hours?). He felt better after his bathroom trip, but I was wired and worried that my kids or I would get sick, too. I guess it was something he ate at work because all of us are okay. Today he is much better.

But of course since I got about 3 hours of sleep (Claire slept fretfully), today the kids are whiny and cranky. I'm still exhausted, but I know that if I lay down I will be needed by somebody again.

I have to remember over and over that God is the only reason I can do any of this. I need Him so much right now because sometimes days are a struggle to get through. I know this is only a season of my life and thankfully, there are times when it doesn't seem like so much work. There are days when I so love and enjoy being a mother and a wife; running an entire household, tending to those that need tending.

Lord, help me get through this day that doesn't feel quite so warm and fuzzy.

Our Garden--The Saga Continues

Carrots we picked from our garden last night.

Okay, so our garden has been overrun by weeds. Having been in my third trimester throughout the growing season, then post-partum, tending the garden wasn't high on my priority list. Add in Shawn working lots of overtime and you get a completely weed-infested crazy jungle of a garden. It is really not pretty right now.

Last night we pulled down our corn stalks. We have neglected watering them for a while, so they were withered and dry. We did manage to get some off of them a while back, but they are done for the season. This weekend we're thinking of pulling down the bean plants, which are also done and trimming the dead parts off of the sunflower stalks and our still (amazingly) yielding tomato and pepper plants. Once we weed the carrot patch, we should be able to get a fair amount of carrots from there, too!

In the meantime, though, I cannot post any pictures of the garden as it is much too embarassing to show to anyone. Once we get it looking a little more presentable, I will post some.

So far from our garden we have had:

Potatoes
Carrots
Lettuce
Corn

Tomatoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
A few teeny strawberries
Green beans
Peppers

....and coming soon, we hope we should be able to have some sunflower seeds! Truly amazing. I guess all my praying over our garden paid off!

Pictures soon!!

More Pictures of the Kids

Kai "creatively" using his pliers.

Kai and Quinn check out their new sister. Kai decides a kiss is appropriate.

My three babies.

Claire contemplating the greater mysteries of life.

Random Pictures of the Kids

Kai earns 10 cents by helping to vacuum the playroom. He thought it was great fun--more noise is better!

Claire sits propped on the couch.

Claire watches Kai.

Quinn hogs the camera.

Daughters

Claire sleeping in the stroller at the park. She's already over 11 pounds at 3 weeks of age!

Quinn gives Shawn a smile as she swings.

The Kids Lately

Kai helped me make a cake the other night. He even got to have some of the batter! Here he is enjoying his treat.

At the park with Quinn and Claire.

Our three (!!!) children at the park.

Daddy helps Quinn do a pull up. This girl is strong and has a serious grip!

The Toughest Job I've Ever Had

Motherhood demands so much from us. That hilarious piece of parenting advice, "Try to nap when the baby naps" goes completely out the window once it's your third child. That's what I tried to do the other day once the house got all quiet at nap time. Just as I dozed off to sleep baby #3 started crying emphatically, quickly followed by #2. #1 thought this was all good fun and started talking and yelling to his little sisters; apparently he had not napped at all.


You can't fight it. It is about complete and total surrender almost all the time. No nap for me. My "quiet time" is constantly punctuated by "Mommy...mommy....mommy." Whoever said, "It's nice to be needed" didn't understand this level of need.


The standards seem impossibly high. Women are judged as mothers by everyone. Society, their families, their in-laws, friends, other women, other moms......the list goes on and on. Some days I feel just on the verge of throwing in the towel. But I can't. I have to keep going. There is no quitting this job; no two weeks' notice.

And then there are those magical evenings like tonight where Mommy and Daddy end up singing silly songs and clapping to entertain the kids after dinner. Kai says something so adorable that makes our hearts melt. I forget all about him whining or having a temper tantrum earlier in the day. I forget the stress I felt just a few hours ago because of the kids. Sometimes they just give you this smile that lets you know they love you and in their own childish way--they appreciate the investment we're making into them. When I tuck him into bed on nights like these, I forget why I thought this job was tough in the first place. I breathe a little sigh of the relief that another day has passed successfully.

Then I thank God that I have the toughest job in the world......


.....and pray for what will come my way tomorrow.

A New Experience

Last night we:

Picked tomatoes from our horribly overgrown garden, then de-stemmed, boiled, ice bathed, peeled, cut, squeezed, de-seeded and strained them. We washed canning jars, lids and rims, then heated them in hot water until ready for canning. Shawn ran to the grocery store to grab the appropriate herbs needed. I browned some meat. We simmered and boiled the entire mixture of tomatoes, herbs and meat until it had boiled down and looked somewhat like spaghetti sauce. This took far longer than it sounds like it should.

After the sauce was ready, we poured it into the available jars, then placed them in the pressure canner. Since it was my first try at pressure canning anything, I didn't realize how high the heat had to be to get the pressure going. We waited and waited for it to start working, but it took forever. When it finally did, the pressure regulator was working too fast, so we had to work with our wacky stove until the temperature was right. That, too, took way longer than it sounds like it should. THEN we had to process the jars in the pressure canner for 1 hour. By the time they were done, it was after 1 AM. All told, last night we spent about 5 hours working on and off on this pet project.

What did we yield? Well, a very, very disappointing 2 pints of spaghetti sauce and one pint of tomato juice (which neither of us like to drink). And something happened because one of them didn't seal properly. So, basically we did all that work for one single jar of spaghetti sauce. We will be able to use the other one we made, but we can't store it for long like we can the other one.

On an positive note, the tomatoes were all organic and came from our garden, as were the green peppers we threw in there. The flavor is great, too! I imagine once you get good at the whole canning thing it goes a little better.

Getting Back to Life

Claire sprawled out, sleeping. (This picture is for you, Mom.)

Grame came and stayed with us this week. Monday was her birthday, so Sunday night we had a little birthday party for her. Kai helps her blow out her candles.

Kai holds his littlest sister.

Cherri Grandparents and Claire

Grame Cherri meets Claire on the day she was born.

Grandpa and Grame admiring the newest Cherri Pip. Note how Claire's legs stick way out of this newborn outfit. I only packed newborn outfits because I didn't anticipate having a huge baby!

Grandpa holds Claire.

Claire Elizabeth.

Firehouse Tour 2

Kai and Quinn on the back of the fire engine.

Me with the kids. Note that I was still pregnant in this shot.

Here I am at the fire station almost due with Claire.

Belly shot!

Firehouse Tour

Shawn shows Kai and Quinn one of the fire trucks.

Already he wants to drive!

Shawn and Quinn at the fire station.

Gotcha covered!

At the Pool

I realized that in all the bustle, I had some really cute pictures of the kids that I have yet to publish on my blog. These pictures come from before Claire was born, so enjoy the blast from the past.

Here is Kai at the Community Center pool.

Quinn loves water!

So excited!

Our water babies at the pool.