I have noticed that when men say they want to "do a bit of digging" they usually mean "make massive holes and pile the dirt somewhere else for a while". This applies as well when they want to "scrape a bit of snow" off the lane. I used to watch in amazement as my Dad painstakingly, methodically removed the snow on our farm lane with his skid loader. Never mind that we needed to leave for church in 15 minutes. This was a job that needed to be done properly, no quick pass and leave the rest.

It's like the world turns into their sandbox and every scoop of the bucket makes them feel more possibilities: "Hmm, I could pile this over there and then move that over here... maybe bring in some creek rocks and landscape that spot right there by the lane..." This seems to be completely involuntary. Something we uninitiated females struggle to understand. But that's O.K.

So this summer when Gabriel said he wants to fix some of our landscaping bugaboos, I walked around outside with him and tried to keep up with his envisioning. First he borrowed my Dad's Dingo, which is basically a tiny digging machine on tracks. I tell you, it was astonishing what that little workhorse could do. He cleaned out underneath our deck to make it usable for parking lawn mowers and bikes. The excess dirt went on a pile under the shade trees in the back yard. Then a kind friend loaned us his skid loader, and so our new parking spot became reality, with a long slope of topsoil slanting down to the back yard, waiting to be seeded with new grass. The neighbor lady got 2 loads of shale hauled in so that we can fix her lane when we finish ours. Another pile of dirt. We hope to extend our picket fence about 50 feet along the road front to give the children more safe area to play, so we graded and redirected the lane to the back of the house. At this point I am kind of hoping we can refrain from borrowing a bulldozer.

Since we are literally surrounded with dirt this summer, every time the children step outside they head for the summit of the nearest pile and set up camp with whatever toys happen to be the favorite at the moment. It ought to say something that in three days we went through 18 pairs of pants at this house.

So I was completely flummoxed when Gregory made a wistful proposal: "Mama, if we ever move away from here, could we get a property with more dirt?"

Margarite Elise, 2 months

People ask me how we are adjusting to a new baby in the family. Now that Margarite is two months old, I thought I would post a photo of a typical expression on her sweet little face. She is not only good, she is angelically so. For me, the novelty of having such a happy baby is still new every day. I feel an urge to pinch myself to be sure it is true every time she falls asleep on her own. She coos and grins and gains weight like a good little baby. At 2 months, she weighs what Olivia did at 6 months. It is truly a miracle for us!

So the adjustments to the new baby have been easy. She just sort of slid into her spot in the family with very few ripples. We still do not have conclusive results from the testing we did 6 weeks ago, but we are at rest and happy to report, all is well. Glory be to Jesus!