Moving

We are moving our blog over to http://web.me.com/gabrielp8/p8family

I am very sorry, but I can't seem to make a live link there, which is rather trying to my already frail sense of techi-ness. I have done it before. I know how to make links, but blogger is finding them unacceptable. I even called my geek husband who was busy preparing for his day at school and only had time for a few suggestions. Which didn't work. Then I called my geek brother who was eating his cereal and who gives me free consultations. He walked me through coding the link manually after I emailed him the post in html. Which shows up live but won't link. So my apologies that you actually have to type in our new address. It isn't my fault, it's blogger's fault.

Hope to see you there!

Turkey Anatomy

It was at the lunch table that I discovered that my sons have a slightly mistaken concept as to where a turkey carries its vitals. Alex thought that you probably have to hit them squarely or you might have to shoot them at least ten times. "Yeah," piped up Greg, "and if you hit them right in the thingy that hangs down from their chin, they just plop over dead."

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Gregory is Five!

Greg is a star gazer since before birth. Unfortunately, he refused to change his position when it was time to be born, and had to be rudely extracted by C-section. This cheerful impracticality has followed him through life, afforded us much amusement, and sometimes exasperated us as well.

We were talking on his birthday and he asked, "Will I be five on this very day?" I told him that he is already five and will never be four again. "But I am still the same length as when I was four... Will they let me go to Sunday school if I am still the same length?"

This is the child who broke the tips off his brand new crayons so he could stick them between his toes for claws. He was chagrined when he saw the damage it had done, but they did make great claws.

He has a little boy's fascination with all things creepy crawly, especially "callepitters". This summer he filled countless peanut butter jars with bugginess, only to let them go later, so that they would be happy. I was unhappy on quite a few occasions when my landscaping got severely pruned, so we planted a long row of zinnias. These flowers were all his own to pick and distribute. Nearly every day he would come up to me with a dimply grin and ask, "Which hand?"


I would try hard to choose the wrong one first, then out would come my fresh bouquet. Endearing, to say the least.


We were extremely pressed for time when it came to his birthday cake, but he was delighted with his callepitter cupcakes, decorated with plenty of sprinkles. (Please do not ask why the antennae both come out the side of the worm's head. I couldn't even remember at the time if worms have antennae!)


Gregory prefers all his food to be pale and mild. Bread. Cereal. Mac and cheese. Nothing takes his appetite away more quickly than the glimpse of a kidney bean. Or broccoli. Never mind that everyone else is scarfing it down like no tomorrow. Never mind health lessons about rickets and vitamin deficiencies. And the lessons the Israelites learned when they complained about their food? That is definitely Old Testament for our Greg.


I cannot write about this character without mentioning the love of his life. Even at mealtime he is grateful, "And thank you for our food and books to read." Many a morning I get up to find him in a pool of light beside the lamp, quietly poring over a stack of Smithsonian magazines. The favorite story books are dogeared and tattered, and Greg will come up to me with an impish expression and quote a line: "Ten tired turtles on a tuttle tuttle tree."

That is our Greg. The funny little man with the grin who trips over the toys while he dreams about going to the moon on a rocket ship.

Sometimes You Just Want to Squish Them

One evening when I was busy with the baby, I heard a great deal of whispering and conspiring going on, but my mother antennae were not registering anything too suspicious, so I waited to see what would develop. I was glad I did. No florist on the planet could make a more pleasing arrangement for me, complete with a real bird's nest in the center.

They brought it to me in the usual fashion, hands behind the back, asking, "Which hand do you want?" And I played my usual game of trying hard to choose the wrong hand first. It takes so little to make a child's day, and a mother's as well. This collection certainly made mine. I pour out for my children day after day, until sometimes it feels like there is not so much left to give. Amazing how energizing a little love gift like this can be!

Olivia is two...

...for a little while already. But we can't be too prompt in our posts, or the blog wouldn't be consistent.

This is the favorite birthday gift from a beloved Grandma and Grandpa Schlabach. Olivia spends most of her days playing babies, wrapping them up tenderly, feeding them and making sure they are happy. She found her words just over the time she turned two, so at last we can communicate better. It is lots of fun for us all to figure out what she is saying in her winsome little voice from the "morning" at breakfast to the "night night" at bedtime. This is our little sunshine girl, our Gracie, who has taught us so much about God's goodness and gracious care.

Just a little update on Margarite's bloodwork. It is fine! All clear. Perfectly healthy. It feels like such a lavish gift to us from a very kind Father! Thank you for praying with us!

EMS Picnic

Some things that might happen at an EMS picnic.

• There might be conversations at the lunch table about gory calls, or bad accidents.
• They might be selling a fundraiser cookbook with a few pages of lifesaving tips in the front before you get to the recipes.
• There might be a call where every EMT on the premises rushes off and leaves their bewildered spouse and very numerous progeny behind for a few hours.
• The scheduled hay ride might be two hours late, due to aforementioned call.
  

Two Little Boys

"Once there were two little boys who liked to share. They shared everything they had. If one of them had a cookie, he would cut it in half and give half to the other boy. Always they shared everything. Then one day the one boy found a toad. Now they could not figure out how to share it, so they fote and fote over it. Finally they were so mad that they just turned their backs to each other. And that is when the toad hopped away. Probably he was tired of that conversation."

Gregory related this story that Alex read to him when we were camping at a cabin this summer. I do not know the title of the book, but I would love to get ahold of this book, if it rings a bell with anyone. It sounds very familiar. We have little boys at this house that are best friends. Some days they are so kind and sharing, it seems almost syrupy. I have noticed that these days of great effort to be nice to one another are often followed by days where they "fote" all day. (That is Greg's past tense of "fight", by the way.) One day, in desperation, I deprived them of each other's company for a good long while, which seemed to help bring them to their senses. Life is very boring when you aren't allowed to play with your brother.

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!

We Learn More

In the course of this morning, I discovered that I had a total of 2 diapers left for Olivia. Now I could break out the stash of cloth diapers that I used in the frugal days of only having one child, but I don't really want to, being from a spoiled generation and all. Or I could give my little girl a crash course on what training panties are for. There was also the option of using up the Little Swimmers. But when Gabe came home for lunch, we decided that the best idea would be to go to Walmart and shell out more of our hard earned money for cheap imports that cheat Americans out of their jobs. Well actually, the conversation didn't go quite that deep.

So here is what I learned today on my little excursion.

Walmart parking lot+ white dress on mother+ baby blowout= no shopping.

We (Alex and I) turned around and came home, deeply grateful that I had stopped at the pharmacy first, noticed that their diapers were on sale and stocked up there. At least the shopping trip wasn't a complete washout. We did have a few items left on the list. How long do you think we can make it without milk and toilet paper?

At Least I Tried

When someone I love has a birthday, I think favorite foods, gifts, friends to party with, whatever validates that person and expresses their uniqueness. Birthdays are very important to me. When we were little, that was one day when we did not have to do any of our usual chores.

When Gabe's birthday came on a Monday after we had been gone all weekend, I wasn't sure how to make it special. He was studying all day, and since our internet wasn't working, he couldn't stay home because his assignments had to be e mailed that day. I knew that trying to make a knock out meal with a six week old baby in the house would be an exercise in frustration and futility.

My Mom came to the rescue by inviting us over for grilled chicken. Now there was a lovely birthday meal, but I still wanted to bake the annual Italian Cream Cake. I only make it once a year for Gabe's birthday for a reason. It has about 20 ingredients, some of which need separated and whipped and some that need chopped, etc. etc. Also it is baked in three layers and I only have two round pans, so that in itself is a long process of about an hour.

I kept some sanity in the cake baking by limiting the amount of children that could help in each step. Alex poured ingredients into the mixing bowl while Greg, mollified by the promise of helping with the icing, played in the back yard. Olivia and Margarite conveniently took naps.

Somewhere along the line, I got the brilliant idea to make black raspberry ice cream to complement the cake. It seemed like a nice thing to do, considering I had not managed to even buy a special card for Gabe. This would really show him my love. The only problem was that I had run out of time to cook the base so I looked for a recipe you didn't have to cook. Ahh, I found the one that came with the ice cream freezer. That should work for sure.

• Cook down the raspberries.
• Drain.
  
• Scald milk.
  
• Sugar.
  
• Cream.
  
• Raspberry sauce.

So nice and easy. I made a run to Osterburg for ice. The thought occured to me that it would be cheaper just to buy ice cream, but no, this needs to be special.

Alex and I felt very pleased with ourselves as we opened the freezer to check on our ice cream. It was a beautiful purple. We did a taste test. Wait a minute. What is this? It can't be. Surely it isn't. Yup, it is butter. I didn't know it was possible, but we did it. We made butter in an ice cream freezer, and for the life of me, I can't figure out how.

The children got a bit suspicious when I told them they can have an ice cream party right then, in the middle of the afternoon. Greg and Olivia innocently ate it down, but Alex didn't think it was good. Oh well, the cake was fabulous.

Lord, I believe...

Recently I found this beautiful prayer and it has been going through my mind over and over. It was written by Phillip Brooks and is included by Elisabeth Elliot in her book Love Has a Price Tag.

"O Lord, by all thy dealings with us, whether of joy or pain, of light or darkness, let us be brought to thee. Let us value no treatment of thy grace simply because it makes us happy or because it makes us sad, because it gives us or denies us what we want; but may all that thou sendest us bring us to thee, that, knowing thy perfectness, we may be sure in every disappointment that thou art still loving us, and in every darkness that thou art still enlightening us, and in every enforced idleness that thou art still using us; yea, in every death that thou art still giving us life, as in his death thou didst give life to thy Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen."

This exemplifies the sturdy trust of the people that we see as heroes of faith. We look at Abraham and Sarah with awe and are inspired by their commitment to follow God and believe Him, no matter what came. Sometimes we forget how normal they were, how they struggled to believe, how they even figured out ways to protect themselves by lying to the king of Egypt concerning their marital status. And yet... yet there must have been an underlying bedrock of trust in the God of Heaven. They believed God. Even when it strained their human minds, they believed. Even when their first reactions were to laugh, they chose to believe.

Is this kind of faith the "opiate of the people"? Is it a brainless religion of blindly accepting what one has been told? Unfortunately, much of modern Christianity has little root and withers away when it lacks moisture. The disillusionments of life suggest that maybe God is not good after all, so why should I believe.

That is why I love the message of this prayer so much. Yes, there are hard questions. No, life is not fair, and things often seem to go horribly wrong for God's people. Sturdy faith does not deny the questions, but pours them out honestly. And finds the solid Reality of a good Father, who loves unfailingly, who redeems my life from destruction, who crowns me with loving kindness and tender mercies.

We are going through a time of testing right now. When Margarite's newborn infant screen came back all clear, we praised God and were humbled by His goodness. However, we also sent cord blood to a different lab for extra screening and that test result has been very baffling. So now we are in a waiting period...waiting for more test results. And if that indicates that she actually does have an adrenal insufficiency, is God still good? Absolutely. It is the most solid fact of our existence, but waiting is hard. Please, stand with us in faith.

Margarite Elise

She finally came, one week late, but ever so worth the wait!

Margarite Elise Peight
Born June 2, 2009 at 1:50 AM
Weight: 7 lb. 8 oz.
Length: 20 inches

This was the longest we ever went overdue, but she was our smallest baby and the birth was probably the best yet. In those long days of waiting, there were many times of giving our preferences and our baby to God. In His time, she came and we praise Him for His care over us! He is faithful and good! Always.

The difference between the first and the fourth baby is evident when you consider that I have not even managed to post a blog announcement until the baby is five days old, whereas for the first one, I had all the birth announcements in the mail by the time he was three days old!

But here she is, at last, and we love her with all our hearts.

Livvy Gracie

I forgot to add this photo to my last post. She is just unbelievably squishy and sweet. And busy. We kind of like her.

Here it is! The new toy for Gabe. The small fry are convinced we got it for the sole purpose of giving them rides.


And here is a reminder from God to us that He will never lose track of us. Can you imagine? One of these sparrows will not fall to the ground without Him seeing it. How much more valuable are we? I like to check on these fledglings in our shrub and just think about the amazing fact that our God is great enough to tenderly care for us all.




And lastly, some "eye candy". This picture just tickles me and I thought you might enjoy it too.

Small Boys and Their Toys

This year the landscaping that I have babied and weeded and fertilized and trimmed and mulched for about 5 years is really repaying my work by blooming and growing vigorously. I love gardening, especially ornamental stuff.

One morning this past week, my very busy sons had an especially energetic stirring of creativity. They made a huge puddle with water and mud and pretty much anointed themselves with the smeary stuff, so I had forbidden them to come into the house until I had time to clean them up. I blithely finished my project inside the house, and stepped outside to check on their activities. Imagine my pained surprise to discover that they had turned into nesting birds on the front porch. The nest consisted of a butchered pampas grass that had been the cornerstone of my landscaping. Around it were strewn many clematis buds for food. There were plastic eggs in the nest and the birds also felt compelled to make wings and tails out of hemlock boughs. It was actually kind of cute in a destructive kind of way. Thankfully they had enough pricking of conscience to do most of their picking on the back sides of the plants. So you can't really see the damage, except for my poor pampas grass, which is reduced from a glorious round bunch to a skinny, straggly plant.




There are days when I think wistfully of "Farmer Boy" and his sun-up to sun-down chores with his father right beside him. Oh, he had a grand life, but just not as much time to get into mischief as the modern small boy. Since school is out and the warm weather has come, Alex and Greg are out the door as soon as their chores in the house are done. Which is great, mostly... They only get those clever ideas once a week or so, and usually they are harmless enough, like building space ships in the back yard or rearranging all the swings on the playset so they have a jungle gym.

Nevertheless, I was delighted with the brilliant purchase Gabe made at a yard sale this weekend. Three cases of K'NEX!!! Hundreds and hundreds of pieces to make amazing stuff. They have afforded hours and hours of play already during the rainy spots of the last few days. They are a super way to get the creative juices used up in a constructive way. Nate, you would absolutely love them. Come play with us! ...Just don't step on the connectors barefooted.

Mom's Day

Here's our annual Mother's Day picture, with 3.95 children all ready for church. I feel so blessed and honored to be their mother, although a bit overwhelmed at times. It is probably a good thing that they don't know how often I feel like I don't really know what I am doing! I have discovered that most of my fellow moms feel the same way. Just as soon as you get one stage about figured out, you hit another one. I need much wisdom, on a daily basis... and how I honor my own mother for her years "in the trenches" and all that she poured into my life when I had no clue how much she was actually doing for me.

I have discovered that a sense of humor is a great way to deal with some of the everyday crises that mothers face in caring for their offspring. And since I like "you might be" lists, I have collected my own. Some of these I e mailed to my friends, and some are their contributions.

You Might Be a Mother...

...if you know that a band-aid and a kiss are better than a doctor most days.
...if you don't flinch when your child uses his shirttail for lack of a tissue.
...if you can meditate in the same room as a toddler with a xylophone.
...if you can enjoy reading "The Biggest Bear" for the twentieth time.
...if you can see the eternal value of wiping things all day long.
...if you have little teeth marks on your chap stick.
...if you plunge things deep down under other stuff in the trash can to keep them from being rescued.
...if you absentmindedly eat the food you just scraped off your baby's mouth with the spoon, and hope nobody else at fellowship meal noticed.
...if you can keep a straight face and sympathize with a child's distress at not being able to get his buttons into their cracks.
...if you consider it all in a day's work when there is panic in the bathtub.
...if you feel vaguely hungry at 3:00 P.M. and realize that you fed everyone but yourself at lunchtime.
...when you scrape the syrup off your child's plate onto your French toast because you can't stand seeing it go to waste. contributed by Ellen Stoltzfus
...when you can recover after seeing your child dip a spoonful of toilet water to drink. E.S.
...if you have dandelion and chickweed bouquets for a centerpiece on your table. contributed by Wilma Schlabach, one of the most joyful mothers ever, who went to be with Jesus 6 mo. ago
...if you carry stuff in your purse like bits of colored paper and strands of doll hair. W.S.
...if you hardly ever go to the bathroom without someone knocking on the door and wondering if you are in there. W.S.

and lastly,

...if you scorn the world's idea of fulfillment and choose to make a lifework out of the oldest and noblest of professions for women, you might be a mother!

Blessings to all the other ladies out there who have encouraged me in my career! If you think of more good "you might be's..." leave them in the comments! Go ahead, make my day!

The Tyranny of Things

No one has ever catagorized me as a sentimental person. I don't tend to hang onto stuff because of the feeling it gives me. When my dried roses become too dusty, I pitch them. If my favorite piece of pottery smashes, I don't glue it; I throw it away. Of course, there are exceptions to this, and I save special things the children make, scrapbook their pictures, and journal the milestones in life. I have a very special mug that Gabriel gave me during our courtship. When the handle broke off, I saved the mug and use it to store chapsticks. I am not totally devoid of the feminine impulse to cherish stuff!

But here is what I really do. I save things. I think maybe I will need it someday, so I squirrel it away. And I like to feel frugal and repurpose that old pair of jeans, those baby food jars, or that magazine with nice pictures. The necessity of making space for a sixth person in our small house helped me see just how much of a pack rat I can be. I have been rearranging furniture, going through closets, spring cleaning and finding stuff that I haven't used in ages. A bottle of lotion that I bought before we got married, over seven years ago. I never used it because I hated it, but I have faithfully stored it! Old worn clothing that I thought would make good rags in a puppy box, or something like that. Too many books that we never read, picked up at second hand stores, with titles like "How Is My First Grader Doing in School?"

It has been revealing and amusing for me to go through the house and purge. My tendency to save stuff has nothing to do with a past childhood of want or neglect, let me hasten to say! I think it is genetic, like my Grandpa who saved glass insulin empties since about 1982, according to the labels on the bottles. And my Dad who can't chuck an old National Geographic into the trash can. And my Grandma, who washes her plastic wrap. And my Great Grandma who went out after Halloween and rolled up the toilet paper that the rowdy kids had used to decorate her yard. It must be hard wired into me.

But I believe that this can also be what Tozer called "the tyranny of things". When God made the world, with all of its beauty and blessings for us to enjoy, He simply called them "things". They were meant to be useful, to enhance our lives, but never to occupy the huge space that they so often do. We are created to enshrine God in our hearts, and keep His gifts to us outside, where they belong.

I have been helped in culling through our stuff, to remember that if something is merely cluttering up our lives, it is holding us in a sort of tyranny that we do well to break.

...Does anyone out there want a bunch of cassette tapes of long ago messages? Speak up within the week!

Chiclet Is Coming. But Not Yet.

If I had known how much fun an ultrasound can be, I would have wanted one long before this! Gabe and I had a consultation with the OB who is the new backup doctor for our midwife, and for the first time in any of our pregnancies, we had an ultrasound.

It is always hard for me to picture our babies before they are born, and this time around, I am so busy I don't even have much time to think about the new baby coming along. But wow! When you see a 4D image and recognize family features, it gets pretty exciting! Chiclet is really chubby cheeked already, although only about 5 pounds yet, and definitely not ready to come out and meet us.

The tech who did the scans said she is only supposed to give people 2 photos per ultrasound, but if she likes them, she gives them more. We walked out with about 20! Most of them have the baby's hand in front of the face, but there are a few really good ones.

It is a miracle, Psalm 139 all over again. A heart with four chambers. Two kidneys. Ribs. Hair. Little hands waving five fingers. A person with a destiny...

And here's what we liked really much. We only have to pick one name! We have to be among the worst undecided parents ever when it comes to choosing names. Our first baby was 12 hours old before we settled on his name, and this is three children later. We have pretty much exhausted our store of favorites! It doesn't help that Kenny and Carma used two of them. But at least this time we are not struggling through both the blue and pink sections of the naming books.

So what's your guess? Sammy or Sally?