2015 is already half over!

R, aka "Squishy," went from a wee peanut to a bit of a porker.

Early June:

Late June:

We were visited by Papaw and Juju: a huge treat for all! Thank you for coming to see us! That's not an easy trip.

We had other visitors from Texas, too.

We celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary by going to another wedding (it'll be easy to remember their anniversary!).

Since we decided we're not moving, all the things that we put off doing had to be done. We did boring things like replace the water heater (ka-ching), the dishwasher (ka-ching), and then we also had to cut down a giant dying tree in the back yard (ka-CHING!).

 

We celebrated my birthday by having Bella Nashville Pizza at the nearby Nashville Farmer's Market. It was muy delicioso. The weather was relatively nice ("hot", as opposed to "face-melting") so we ate outside at the Bicentennial Mall. I noted a fellow park reveler enjoying the day in a hammock. Filing that idea away for later.

 

It still feels like we're very much underwater with the new baby. Hopefully we'll start catching up on sleep in a decade or two. R is constantly surrounded by sisters that talk, sing, coo, and touch her head. It's amazing she ever sleeps at all.

We have harvested cucumbers and hakurei turnips. Sugar snap peas are pretty much done. The tomatoes are not yet ripe and the corn won't be ready for a few more weeks. Blackberries are just starting to turn. We have a little blueberry-feind that cleans off the bushes before anything gets properly ripe so while I assume we've gotten some blueberries I haven't any evidence to confirm that.

The early summer weather has been pleasantly mild, lending itself to playing outside and laying about in hammocks.

 

Sure, it's a little late for a May wrap-up post. I'll grant you that. But, in my defense, we've been a little busy. I also don't remember much about May. I'm pretty sure A was just making sure new baby R was fed and diapered while keeping J and C alive. We didn't do much else.

Still, we did do some things.

First, R arrived.

Obviously, kind of a big deal, that. The older sisters were tickled pink.

We also celebrated C's third birthday. Can't believe this kid is getting so big. There's nothing like children to remind you that life is short and soon we're all gonna be dead. Poppy came to visit and we had ice cream at the pied piper. A made strawberry pie.

We also managed to get a few tomatoes in the ground just before R joined us. This means we'll have at least some tomatoes this year, which makes A quite happy.

We were also pleased to return from the hospital and find the garden covered up with strawberries!

These were runners from last year so they weren't quite as big, and due to the deluge of rain they weren't quite as sweet as last year, but they were still quite good and we got more of them than we would eat!

I also took the girls to go see "Fancy Nancy" at the Nashville Children's Theatre.

Otherwise, we just spent a lot of time outside and enjoyed the nice spring weather.

I really can't wait to get to know this little squishy, bald-headed person!

Our friend Lane Hamilton was kind enough to take maternity photos for us. Good timing, obviously, since R is now here! Here are a few of the photos we liked. Lane is building a business of taking maternity and infant photos. She is obviously very good at it! You can see more of her work at LaneHamiltonPhotos.com.  She posted more photos from this session here.

It's been a busy day! Happy birthday, R!

It has been pointed out that I didn't do a March 2015 post. Oops. Here's a photo from March. We dropped off J at a friend's 6th birthday party. They went to the theater and saw "Cinderella." This was a photo the birthday-girl's mom took; she said the whole day was pretty much this silly.

April brought a green yard, which we took full advantage of. Even Wilbur enjoyed it.

We caught a swarm of bees, so we now have 3 beehives. J helped take photos of me catching the swarm on a plum tree.

We had to assemble and paint new hives. J was happy to help.

We haven't gardened as much this year, but we did get 30-35 tomato plants into the ground.

We also had a friend come by and take some really great maternity shots. I will post more of those later once she is done getting her website up.

We also had some really interesting developments as far as the house goes. In February, we got a really good offer on the house that seemed to make sense for us. We entered into a purchase contract with a developer and started looking for a new place. We put a few offers out, but none of them were accepted (even though we offered more than asking). As we got closer to new baby time, we started to realize that buying was going to be disproportionately more difficult than selling.

At some point we noted that the developer was late on an extension check, so we decided to notify them that we were canceling the contract for late payment. They were not happy about that (to the point of becoming physically threatening), and are not in agreement that we can cancel. There will probably be litigation involved. We're willing to fight it, though, as we feel that a late extension payment is a material breach of contract. Nothing is black and white in legal matters, so who knows what will happen. We're really hoping (and praying) the developers drop it.

Adult decisions are hard. Pray for us, if you think about it. It's a minor thing in the scheme of things (we're thankful for our health and well-being) but still stressful.

This year was quite exciting because it was the first year that J could really take part in the Passover Seder, reading along with us and indeed reading the four questions for us to answer.

Last week we found some friends who were willing to celebrate with us. I took a half-day off of work to prepare. The night before I went scavenger-hunting for all of the necessary foods (lamb, matzah, etc). We still had to fudge a few things. I used radishes for the bitter herbs and we had a paper lamb shankbone.

We had masks for the girls to wear to talk about the 10 plagues.

We read about the Seder meal from a book that A picked up. J helped make sure that I had everything properly set out on the Seder plate. We used a haggadah from one of our favorite books on the subject, A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays.

 

A also made an excellent dessert which should henceforth deemed part of the official family tradition: macaroons.

A great night of stories, worship, thankfulness, food, and friends. I can't wait to do it again next year.

Yesterday A was working on J with her Miquon math lessons. They had a series of math problems that looked something like this:

6 - 3 = ?
5 - 3 = ?
4 - 3 = ?
3 - 3 = ?
2 - 3 = ?

She worked thru the set of problems until she got to the last one. She sat and stared at it for a while before looking at A and saying, "This one is different. This is on the other side of zero!"

It's rather neat, I think, to see someone's mind run into these new concepts.

A few months ago, our farmer friends at Hungry Gnome Farm gave us a rooster. It was harassing their hens and the intent was that we would it in the freezer. It was such a pretty rooster, though, that I was really hoping that we could keep it around long enough to get some chicks.

Alas, as the weather has gotten warmer he has gotten much more vocal. The crowing has been pretty much non-stop. As I don't want to create enmity with our neighbors, he will have to go. However, over the past weeks J has grown fond of the rooster. She can't really pet it, but she feeds him with the other hens and he has a name. This morning as I was explaining that I was going to have to put him in the freezer, she was quite upset about it.

"You can't kill our rooster, he's so beautiful!" she said.

"How about I keep a few feathers for you?" I asked.

"No, I like the feathers just where they are," she sobbed.

Later I asked if I there was anything that I could do to make her feel better about it.

"You could not kill him," she wept. Later, a chocolate was accepted as a valid substitute.

We drove out to the old rental place to take another photo with the daffodils. The ground was really soggy thanks to all the rain and snow, and the flowers were looking a little beaten-down.