a children's halloween

As you can gather by the captions, my children really took charge of Halloween this year. I had a lot going on with work deadlines and bronchitis-that-may-or-may-not-have-been-pneumonia (according to my doctor, so we treated it like pneumonia just in case, I never got a chest x-ray to confirm), so we decided early in October that Elisabeth would sew the costumes (she wanted to, anyway). She is awesome at sewing and did an incredible job! My sewing machine broke on her mid-way through and needed to go into the shop (it was overdue for a service, anyway), so we had to borrow my sister-in-law's VERY different machine to finish up, and she did a great job adjusting to the unfamiliar equipment!

I was excited that my crew agreed on theme costumes again this year (last year was a Halloween-Christmas mashup that I never posted about here), and Peter Pan is an especially fun theme. Of course people are always confused about one member of the group, so this year, no one seemed to realize that Elisabeth was Wendy Darling.

I took more photos but this is all I had the patience to edit online (still waiting to repair our iMac with all my actual photo software on it). I am so proud of Elisabeth's work on these costumes, and her patience both with the process and with hovering (and occasionally nagging) younger siblings.

I was also excited that these costumes turned out to be very affordable! We used lots of coupons and sale fabrics, and we already had all the notions, thread, elastic, etc., that we needed on hand.

Patterns used were McCall's 3051 for Wendy, Simplicity 7784 for Peter Pan, Simplicity 2872 for Tinker Bell (I really liked this pattern's take on the fairy costumes—rather than a literal translation of the Tinker Bell look, it loosely applies it to cute dresses, which really expresses my costuming "philosophy", if I have one, that costumes should give the impression of something more than look like a literal copy of it), and Simplicity 9844 for Captain Hook, which you can see looks about 1,000 times better when made than it does on the pattern envelope. It is so cute and John is my only extroverted child, so he was quite into the entire process of dressing up and parading around the neighborhood. He got tons of attention and soaked it up! We couldn't find the old pirate hook we had from Nova Natural many years ago, so we ended up having to pick up a plastic one at the last minute.

Anyway, altogether we had a great Halloween with much merriment, and I was so happy that my children took a lead role in decorating, costuming, and pumpkin carving this year. As bittersweet as the whole growing up thing is, it is a joy to see the traditions we have set up really being owned by them as they get older.

Happy Halloween!

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Two birthdays

Yesterday I turned 37, and today my sweet Fiona Catherine is 6! We've been enjoying intermittent heavy snowfall over the two days, which we both love. Most of our other birthday plans have been postponed due to weather, which is kind of ok because it prolongs the celebration just a bit longer!

I'm a little speechless that this sweet baby is now a big six-year-old girl. It's so wonderful and bittersweet all at once.

From that golden morning when she was born to this happy sixth birthday, she has been, and continues to grow into, a quiet, confident, gentle, so very funny, bright, humble, honest, and tender girl. she has always seemed like a flower to me, delicate and yet so resilient, too. Everyone always says this, but I really feel so blessed and deeply fortunate to get to be her mama. To carry her in my body, and to get to know her in all the quiet moments of childhood that mamas do, as well as the many joyful and ebulliently loud ways, too. She is so very precious to me.

Happy birthday, my little lady! I love you so!

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winding down

On Saturday I floated on my back in a pool of cool blue water and watched clouds slowly drift across the dome of blue above, and thought and thought, about everything—and nothing.

It was our last day at the pool for the summer. This was a summer of immense growth for all of our children, watching swimming "click" for the middle two, witnessing our baby's first words ("doggy" was the first!), and the sudden transformation of our eldest into a very mature and grown-up young lady.

I usually hate the month of August, but this has been a surprisingly good one so far. We are still struggling financially, but it hasn't been too hot and my usual August blues haven't paid a visit. In fact, the winding-down of summer, as many of our friends have returned to school this week, is a little bit bittersweet. We will not start our "homeschool year" (in quotes because I use the term "school" loosely) until sometime in September. We usually like to start around the 8th or so, but I think we may be just a bit later this year depending on several factors.

I'm reminding myself not to wish away any time, as the time here with these children passes too quickly, as things are always changing, and just as soon as we thought we had something figured out and settled, that time, too, moves forward.

So even when I'm feeling tired and a bit uninspired in general, here is my baby, ever closer to his first steps, his little words bubbling up with such joy. It is a reminder that even as summer seems to be passing away, here and now there is something fresh and so beautiful.

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just my baby and me

My husband took this crazy crew camping and left John and me home for a few days.

Last year, he took the three of them camping just a few days after John and I came home from the hospital, and I spent the whole time on the couch, nursing my new baby, avoiding going up and down stairs, watching the entire first season of House of Cards, eating Chicken Divan that I'd frozen a few months before, visiting with my midwife, and resting.

This year I opted to stay home again because my back doesn't do well with laying on the ground, and while our time at home has been a little bit less "glamorous", it has been so nice, too. I've done a good bit of housework, but I also managed a couple of naps with baby John, read just a bit, spent some time praying and journaling, took some silly quizzes on Facebook, killed a really creepy fly-spider hybrid, and played a ton of peekaboo.

It was nice to have this time, and I really needed it. But I've missed them, too, and the house has been dreadfully quiet. So I'm really looking forward to seeing them this afternoon!

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Springtime

Spring is such a short season where I live, just a brief transition between winter and summer. This year has been an especially lovely (if short, as always) spring, with so many trees showing off their best fragrant blossoms. We were fortunate this year not to have a late-enough, cold-enough, heavy-enough snow to ruin all the blossoms before they had the chance to bloom. With Easter being late this year, spring has felt especially delightful, almost like an indulgence!

With it, spring has brought piano recitals, and baseball, and fairy houses, and outdoor meals (as many of those as we can manage!), and my graduation and Mother's Day this coming weekend. Every season has its own sweetness, doesn't it?

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uncommon grace