The Singing Bees' life at the Farm

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Listening to Hair and Adventures in the Snow

Last night, Havala leaned over Lily, who was sitting and eating hummus after a hard day's work at Wendy's. Hava breathed in deeply and said, "If I listen really closely to your hair, I can hear you eating."

Ummmm....

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Piper and I were enjoying our Indian food spread. It was slightly cold, because it had made quite the trek:

-home from Athens (25 minutes away)

-from our car to our house--up and down our icy, snowy driveway...along with the rest of our groceries

-sat on our counter-top while we put away aforementioned groceries, had a quick scripture and prayer (hosted by Drew and Hyrum) and cleared off enough of the table to eat.  Star of India.  Delicious. Worth the wait!

(Trekking the week's worth of groceries from the car parked near our barn all the way down and up the hill to our house--some of it on the sled--reminding me of hauling groceries home by foot in Hungary. My arms felt much longer when I arrived home.)

*********

It's been an interesting week.

After going to insanity and back again (check out mylazarusquest.blogspot.com post for that story), I called it a week and we had a “party day” Thursday with games, food, and the making of Valentines.  We watched a new (unliked) version of “Secret Garden” (Colin Firth doesn't always disappoint but this time...), the kids played outside and we all did some dog training, with the littler ones helping us train them on what not to do, lol.

Friday, the older crew arrived home.  Lily had gone back to Medina with Quinn for an MRI and blood work.  Her feet have been swollen to varying degrees for about two years now and we are checking things out to see if we can do something to help. Hyrum tagged along so he could hang out with friends there and Drew regularly make the pilgrimage with Quinn.  It was just Piper through Penelope and all the fun in between keeping me company. It's amazing how small a group seven kids seems when it means seven other people are gone.

These two darlings got creative using a little left-over dough from their creations that day.
Piper loved watching the oil heat up.
Maia captured two of our cats snuggling.
Arm-wrestling!


Piggy-back rides at the breakfast table...only these boys!



We did indoor workouts, made yummy treats.  One day, Piper made homemade bagels, Hava and Maia made from scratch French fries and turkey roll-ups for lunch, and Piper made donuts for dessert.  It was not a good healthy day and we all felt it...but they were yummy!  The next day we "purged" with oatmeal for breakfast and lentils and homemade bread for a late dinner right before Primary days for Xai and Maia over Zoom. (Their teacher is awesome with it!)

The kids played "icka-keebas" and made "nests" on the upstairs landing (delightfully out of my view so they could stay there ALL week)...

...tons of paper airplanes...




...played games...
...chilled...
...posed for Valentines' card pics...
and dressed up and acted out "Dwight in Shining Armor" scenes  (BYU-TV...check it out!)



It ended up being a wonderful week.

*********

We got a lot of snow (like the rest of the country...can you say "Second Coming" everyone!!!).  It meant that I was unable to use our van. I started to on Wednesday night at the end of my "melt-down" crazy time.  We were out of dog food and I was looking forward to a little excursion to town for a change of scenery. I had to laugh and cry hysterically as my van basically slowly slid the first 20 yards down our driveway until I put the emergency brake on and decided it wasn't worth risking sliding into the creek at the bottom of the hill.  (Our van sat there until Friday when Quinn tried to take it the rest of the way out the driveway and only succeeded in sliding it about 30 yards further before he did the same thing I did.  Sigh.)

It also meant that the kids tried out hill after hill on our property...unfortunately including our driveway "hill" which is the most clear hill around (and which makes it even more slippery).  Yesterday I enjoyed it too by going out cutting down briars, do some dog training and basically hanging out with my pals Eli and Liesl.  Eli is my little buddy in his cute five year old "mommy pal" stage. (Love it! Check out Clousen's "So you want to raise a boy?" for more clarification on that stage.  So insightful and accurate!)  He loves to make sure he knows where I am at, confide in me, get my advice on everything, watch everything and basically pal around all the time. He is super cute.

At one point, I heard Xai's blood-curdling scream.  It curdles my blood a lot less these days due to the frequency with which he uses is, from actual injurious situations to differences of opinion to the onslaught of imaginary leagues of deadly germs from his brother's licking.  So I didn't give it much heed. I slowly made my way over, anticipating scolding him for yelling at his brother but it seemed the little tyke actually had a legitimate claim to my sympathy: he had taken a "sledding path" that his little brother had used just before him and diverted off of it, crashing through tree starts and mini-bramble bushes.  I used my handy-dandy cutters to make my way down (and give him a thorn-less way up).  When I triumphantly showed him the path (all the while reminding him of the "boy who cried wolf," he was happily oblivious to both my triumph and my lecture.  He had recovered, it seemed, and not learned, because I soon left him and Eli pursuing his "cross country" path down even further to where it had a somewhat precipitous conclusion (in my mind for kids this age).  But they would have none of my reigning them in!  I made my way back up the now cleared path to our driveway, my mom's desire to keep my kids from any kind of harm battling with a relief that at least we didn't have neighbors to worry unduly about the adventurous kiddos.  Ironic.

Later that day, Xai arrived in the house, breathless.  "We almost died out there! Liesl and Eli and I kept having to save each other!!"  Well, apparently it wasn't scary enough to necessitate anyone to come in any earlier :D.  Liesl and Eli casually strolled in later, anticipating hot chocolate and the movie that I told them they could watch when they were done playing outside.  The dogs were taking a nap in their crates during this time so it was fun for the littles to just explore without worrying about too much puppy love.

It was good to be outside today.  Good to be without a schedule looming over me.  Good to just be able to work on the land, dream about what we will do with it, breathe in the cool air and watch my kids grow, explore and learn, stretching themselves and discovering what they are capable of.  Maia and Havala explored all over, finding a small cave-like area on the border of our property and our neighbors.  Maia took off her coat at one point at the beginning (yes, there was snow on the ground) and put it up in a tree to keep it from our playful Kujo.

Hyrum and Lily came home to full days of work at Wendy's and basically crashed when they got home.  Whew. Their work has been scheduling them for some crazy long hours, which will have to change, but for now they are surviving and starting to save up for those things they hoped to earn from my wallet, lol.

It is so wonderful, as always, to have Quinn back.  He is making so much progress on getting licensed and good to go here in Ohio. I hope he will be able to stay here with us more soon!

No comments:

Post a Comment