i last blogged a week and a half ago, but so much life has happened that it seems like several weeks ago. the kids and i took last week off of school. i just had to have a break. i was falling apart. we went down to see Daddy one day, went to an organic vegetable farm another. we met the cousins at the park one of the days, and we went out to Burnet for a birthday party for my grandmother another day. on saturday we went up to Georgetown to run this month's Vern's No Frills 5K. i didn't do so well - 25 something, i think, but the kids were amazing. Samuel ran it in 22 minutes, and Margaret in 24! this coming saturday they have a city-wide kids' mile event that they run annually. Samuel almost always medals. i think he might win his division this year.
i've been trying to get out and do my long runs on sunday afternoon. long right now means 6 miles. some days are good and some not so good.
we've been back at it with school this week, and like my running, some days are good, others not so good. i'm trying to view each child as a person and not a task, and also to focus on learning and not just accomplishing.
a new farmer's market opened in our neighborhood yesterday. it's located in the YMCA parking lot, the same Y that we spend the majority of our life at, so this is a good thing! we went to the grand opening and i can see this becoming part a regular part of our weekly routine.
Hazel is growing by leaps and bounds. i need to take her in for her four month well check. since we aren't vaccinating, i haven't felt the urgency to get her in, but i would like to see how much she's grown and we don't have a scale of any sort in our house. people keep telling me that she's going to grow up really fast because she has so many older sibling to watch all the time. i think it must be true. she's so alert and loves to be in the middle of the action. she's almost sitting up and grabs at whatever she can get her hands on. she scoots all around in her walker. yesterday William taught her to stick out her tongue. it is hilarious to see her imitate the kids in this. we just love having this little munchkin in the family!
we've been spending a lot of time gardening these days. we've been blessed with so much rain the past couple of months. those parches days of summer are but a distant memory.

we got a moby wrap the other day. we like it!

i have lots more pictures to share, but will have to get to those another time.

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

Susan J. Bissonette

really good stuff.


also, here are some pics from Brian's phone of the Rodeo Rumble kids' race this morning. they moved the thing into the arena since it was stormy outside.









i ran Hazel around the track with the 3 & Under crowd. let me tell you, it's hard to run in that dirt in boots!

and now we're gonna to have a cozy day by the fire and get a lot of inside work done.

we've found Hazel like this three times today. she just lies there smiling at us.

and here she is, four months old this week, and showing that she's bigger than her orange bear now.

it was this on this day last year that we discovered she was for real. i kept wondering if i was pregnant, but all the tests i took were inconclusive. that was back before my bike got wrecked, and i decided to take a long bike ride across town that morning after i got the kids off to school. i stopped in at a Dollar Tree and bought three pregnancy tests (i had bought 4 the week before). i raced back home and did all three tests at once, and lo and behold, they were all positive! what a wonderful day that was! =)

rockin baby

Hazel was trying to make her getaway last night before we headed out on our date. i guess she wanted to stay and watch Toy Story 3 with the big kids instead of going out for texmex with mommy and daddy.

there's our Scandinavian baby. she's so fair and blonde/blue eyed. funny that two dark brown haired/brown eyed people came up with her. ah, we sure do love her. she's been talking like crazy lately. i shot a video of her, trying to catch the chatter box in action. of course she didn't perform for the camera. maybe another time. she's scooting around in her walker and picking up things and just really coming into herself. it's really cute how when we're in the car and everyone is talking at once, she starts squealing and jabbering away, too, offering her two cents. it makes everyone laugh.

today she's four months old.

yesterday was just about the hardest school day ever. i was ready to quit the homeschooling thing for good. on top of it, i was having a really bad colitis day. i felt awfully distracted, which i'm sure contributed to the kids' behavior struggles. i just kind of had to walk away from it all and decide to make a fresh start the next day. which is what i did. i started this day crying out to God for His help, something i'd been neglecting lately. i got out and spent some time in prayer and thoughts early this morning and i think it made a big difference.

i've never pretended to have a conviction about homeschooling. i kind of wish i did, because it would make it way easier to deal with the day to day frustrations. i'm committed to homeschooling as long as we have to, though it's not my first choice.  but as long as we're doing it, i'll continue to give 100%. i'm just getting really worn down doing so.

this post has been stretched out over a couple of days because i haven't had time to complete it in one sitting. not sure if it makes much sense to the reader. oh well. yesterday was another very difficult day. i was literally sick from feeling so stressed out. thankfully yesterday was also date night, so i had that to look forward to at the end of the tunnel. Brian and Hazel and i went to El Chile, then walked around the French Place neighborhood, then shared a local brew at Thunderbird before heading home.

per my friend Heather's recommendation, i checked out that book about having a new kid by friday. i'm hoping it will help me out. i might read it to Brian every night before we go to bed. how's that to kindle the romance?=)

A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.  ~Peter De Vries

we're in our school room right now chipping away at today's schedule. i wish it wasn't so hard to keep everyone on track on mondays. i feel like all i do is crack the whip. i'm really not a very patient mom. i am so much more task oriented than people oriented. it's something i have and will struggle with all my life, you know, putting people and their feelings ahead of my plan for their lives.

we had such a jolly weekend. Brian was able to leave work a little early on friday, and we loaded up the car and went out to the old family farm house in Manor to camp for the weekend. that's where we've had our trailer for several months now. my aunt Lucy and her husband Neal, and Lucy's youngest son, Tim, were out there as well. Lucy and Neal have a big fancy-schmancy rv that they're keeping out there, too. the Farm, as we all call it, is situated up on a hill surrounded by pastureland. it's so peaceful out there. the house itself was built in the 1870's. my mom lived there as a kid (she was born in '55, not the 1870's BTW) before they moved into Austin. my aunt has started organizing monthly work days to help with some of the repairs around the place. they've been a lot of fun!

i had fixed some of a yummy meal ahead of time - homemade focaccia bread, organic spaghetti sauce and noodles, homegrown salad with homemade dressing, steamed broccoli and fruit popsicles for dessert. we don't usually eat "camp" food when we go camping, but stick with what we'd normally have at home.  it's so nice to sit down to a tasty, healthy, hot meal after a long day out in the great outdoors.

Margaret and Samuel have been studying conservation and so we decided to watch the Ken Burn's documentary on the national park system. we brought it with us and let the kids watch it while they they were cozied up together in their beds. the camper works for us now, but just barely when we're all in it together. the boys sleep on one end where the dining table is - it folds into a queen size bed. Brian, Hazel, and i sleep on the full size bed on the other end of the camper, and Margaret sleeps on the bunk above us. we're thinking we'll trade up to something bigger once we move.

we got a slow start saturday morning. other family  members started rolling in mid-morning. Thomas and Meredith came with their babies, so the kids had friends to play with. Uncle Bob - the one who got Brian and i into running marathons, came with Aunt Laura and their kids, their dog, and their pop-up camper to stay the saturday night. several others ended up coming and we were able to accomplish so much. at the end of the day Neal made a big bonfire and we sat around drinking local beer and listening to Buddy Holly. good times.

we "broke camp" early sunday morning so we could make it to church. Brian ended up taking the big kids and i stayed home with Hazel. we napped sunday afternoon and then took the kids out to run in the evening. they have a race coming up this saturday out at the rodeo so we're trying to keep them in decent running shape.

...which brings us to today. i feel like all i've done today is threaten and shame. there must be a better way. sometimes i think i missed my calling and should have been a drill sergeant instead of a mom...but then i wouldn't be mom to these precious ones.

it's the end of the day now. we just finished up a late dinner since Margaret and Samuel had boxing class this evening. i'm beat and am wondering how legal it is to crawl into bed before 8. i guess there's only one way to find out....

Our patience will achieve more than our force.  - Edmund Burke

^that's for me tonight.

we went to the Rodeo Austin Cowboy breakfast this morning.


the gang



poor momma looking awfully tired. LOL.

  
they had pancakes, biscuits and gravy, sausage, fried catfish and shrimp, brisket tacos, muffins, donuts, orange juice, coffee, milk, and lots of other stuff. there was other cool stuff, like line dancing lessons, clowns, horses and longhorns, and live music, of course. 

we're enjoying a beautiful day. the doors have been open and the kids have been running in and out. i'm feeling better today. i guess this medicine has finally kicked in. i really thought i must have colon cancer yesterday. i might still, but at least i don't feel like it today.

we're going camping in the camper tonight. =)