I agree with Dickens: "I love these little children. And it is not small thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us."
This morning I got an early start and was quietly reading my scriptures around 5 am. I heard a loud creak as Xai's door opened. He stumbled out, eyes bleary but I could tell he was a little agitated. He poked his head over the railing from the upstairs and exclaimed, "I think it is the three days of darkness before the Second Coming!"
"I'm quite sure it's just really early in the morning. It's 5 am, buddy."
Pause.
"Oh. Okay! Can I snuggle with you?"
Love my little buddy.
Eli just told me that a movie made him laugh so hard, he couldn't swallow his popcorn. So cute!
Yesterday, he was also telling me about his pre-school experience. He apparently couldn't get the colored bubbles to yield the colors he wanted. At one point he said, "Surprisingly...." Really? "Surprisingly"?? He's six. It was adorable!!
All spoken without his two front teeth, which make it all the sweeter :D.
Today Liesl, Penelope and I walked over to Oma's and Opa's (I love that they are close enough to do that). We braved the onslaught of the most current ladybug invasion--apparently they come here to die by the thousands. I foolishly took our two seater stroller and put Liesl in the front. Boy, was the hill up to my parent's a doozy!
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I also "played" Ticket to Ride with Liesl today. "Played" in the loosest sense of the word. We were there at the table and all the pieces for Ticket to Ride were out. However, I am quite sure they have never been used the way we used them. When I first got there, Liesl had arranged the numerous colored train cards by color. And decided which she was using. And which I was using.
I could tell from the beginning this was not going to be our ordinary game.
I asked her from the outset, "Do you want to play your way or the way the 'map' tells us to play?" ("Map" is her word for "instructions.")
"The map," came the first, second, third, fourth and fifth response.
However, by the time I had been sternly corrected for playing the wrong way that many times and more and I had asked my clarifying question again and again, the sixth answer was much more of a relief."
"My way," Liesl finally decided. Whew.
Her way apparently meant playing "the most beautiful ones." And collecting as many train color cards as she could and arranging them into pretty piles. And not playing a single train.
I happily played route after route. However, seeing that the train color cards were not going to be replaced due to my hoarding little four year old playing buddy, I wisely asked, "When is the game over?"
After a thoughtful pause. A very short thoughtful pause. "When I win."
Easy.
"You win!" I cheered.
With big blue eyes wide with wonder and delight, Liesl replied, "I did???"
Pause.
"How?"
Shoot.
"Because yours is the most beautiful."
Sweet.
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It was much less pleasant later.
Penelope was overtired and wouldn't settle down.
Liesl and Eli were both raging over me not being in there to snuggle with them (after being in there for 30 minutes before that reading books).
And Maia and Piper had agreed to play Splendor with me.
Well, I was already on at least two children's least favorite list no matter what I did.
When that happens, I get angry, which my therapist said is a manifestation of sorrow and fear. Looking back, I can see that I was super sorry that I couldn't meet the needs of all of my children. Physically impossible. So I was sad. And I yelled. Not the best choice.
I played the game. Quinn put Penelope to sleep, and Liesl and Eli went to sleep with varying degrees of discontent. (I promised Eli I would snuggle more in the morning.) Sigh. Working on reconditioning my responses.
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I did play a really quick, fun game of Scattergories with Quinn, Lily and Drew after that, in which we learned that "taupe" can be any one of a number of different colors. We've decided to put down "taupe" as our eye color on our driver's licenses. When the police officers refute it, we can have them Google "taupe" and be enlightened as we were tonight as to the very generic meaning of that color word.
It felt good to laugh.
Tova and Zoe
What you don't see is Quinn standing behind Penelope, holding her on :D
I knew it was going to be a great morning with Liesl when she came out wearing her Wonder Woman power outfit.
She always makes an entrance with powerful 3 year old punching moves and a glisten in her sparkly blue eyes.
At the breakfast table, she took her super human powers to a new level--
We had just finished reciting our current poem, "Carry On!" by Robert Service, so the room was charged with energy.
"Okay, Wednesday's Child," Dad calls out, "What song are we going to sing?"
Xai was quick on the uptake, acknowledging his role on this day, called out: "Our Father has a Family!"
So we started singing, Biesinger style. It involves a lot of snaps and claps and a very dynamic energy. Caught up in the emotion of the entire morning, Liesl leaned over to Hyrum who was sitting next to her and whispered fiercely in his ear, "Watch this!!"
She brought her pudgy little arm around with her sweet fat hands right next to his ear. Arm trembling with the effort, she rubbed her finger and thumb dramatically together. After a few seconds of heroic effort, it happened.
She SNAPPED her fingers. Kind of. :D But she was SUPER proud. And so were we!
Our favorite little super hero is coming into her own powers, one power at a time.
We have been reading and discussing “Dare to Lead” by Brown as a family (older kids and parents) and discussing it. Actually, I bribe them to participate: all those who read it are able to attend a discussion at a local restaurant. We read a section a week. I have really loved it. And I think they are too.
One thing we are focusing on this week is the burden of perfectionism and being kind to ourselves. This has so much application: numbing, anxiety, stress, unrealistic goals and expectations accompanied by negative self-talk when they aren't met, numbing addictive behaviors, etc. I have appreciated the perspective and being able to use it this week. Just yesterday I stopped a lot of impulsive eating and snacking because I thought, “What is really driving my desire for food right now?”
Also, Brown emphasizes that “clarity is kindness.” Not being rude or abrupt. Just clarity in expectations, communication, expression. I have been able to use that in my communication with the kiddos. If something is not worth communicating clearly, it must not be worth saying or expecting. Voila!
I am working like mad to get all the costumes and props ready so that we can start rehearsing with them. It is a HUGE task, especially since I am trying to keep up our C4! Class (which was particularly amazing this week thanks to the unleashing of so many of the kids and their personalities with opportunities to present and share). They are truly inspiring each other and creating that safe and energetic environment of learning that I know can happen when operating on the guiding principles I have always used with groups:
-let the kids lead and teach
-ask lots of questions
-get them involved in different learning styles
-lots of group activities and challenges
-create a safe environment of love, respect and decency.
We have some kind of animal wandering our property making loud banging noises...like on metal. I am not sure what it is!
Quinn is working crazy hard. He is trying to spread out his appointments, but people are coming in with offering $500 rush fees! I trust that he knows what he is doing. He does take time out for us. He came to Piper's track meet with all the rest of us to support her in Alexander (she took 12th place with about 60 girls!) and went to the youth activity last night. He is a good man. We are both a little crazy with stuff right now. Do we live on a farm? Kind of :D.
September 23, 2021
“It smells like snow!” the kids yelled excitedly as they came inside yesterday. What a great way to kick off autumn! Quinn, Lily and I just got back from Alaska, where they are enjoying the tail end of their fall and it was magical. How beautiful for balmy, humid Ohio to make that transition so quickly after we returned :D.
Penelope has graduated to walking solo. All over. All the time. She has that cute little wobble and walks with her hands above her head most of the time too. Precious and absolutely adorable. I am so grateful that I can be a stay-at-home mom to capture these moments...and for kids who like to capture them on camera as well!
My “f” key is
trigger sensitive this morning so I apologize for any ones I miss.
Yikes!
Yesterday we received our dressers in the mail that I was
so excited about!!! Until I found out that they required assembling
:(. Fortunately, Hyrum is the man of assembling things well and we
worked together on it, fixing up one and getting the second ready.
Piper has been enjoying competing in cross country, although she pushes herself a little hard mentally afterward. Hyrum is LOVING football (no surprise there). Hava is enjoying keeping up with her older two siblings with her school load. Maia has blossomed in her responsibility and maturity and loves math now that we found “Prodigy” which turns it into a video game, lol. Xai continues to be a treasure with his spontaneous hugs and snuggles and willingness to be a great helper. Eli is a storm cloud of emotion most of the time.
October 4, 2021
Had a great time watching conference!
Reminded to repent daily. God told me to repent of not being hopeful. So that is my new thing to focus on, hope!
I also need to be kinder to Maia, poor dear. She is SO like me!! I am hard on her like I am hard on me. I need to stop and love us both more purely.
I loved the conference talk that was about the bike team of England changing be degrees. I think that one and the one about repentance were the two to help me answer my questions. I also got the impression to not take so much on and just let it flow :D.
Yesterday Quinn mentioned that he misses our family choir practice and going on Sunday walks. Huzzah! I love them both. As we prepared to go, Liesl said to Daddy: "Are you so excited for me to tell you funny stories on the walk?" She is such a dear! Piper and Hyrum ended up going with Liesl, Quinn and I. The cats followed, which was kind of funny. (One ended up staying up at Dad and Mom's.) As we walked along our forest paths, Piper and Liesl would run ahead and try and shake trees over each other to make the drops fall on them, making them “rain buddies.” It was a beautiful misty day after the rain, the perfect activity between sessions!
Last Friday Hyrum scored a touchdown during his football game! This is particularly significant because up until this game, his team had only scored one touchdown all season. And they scored seven goals in one game! It wasn't enough to pull into the lead, since they had been down by over 30 points, but it still felt like a win to have all that momentum at the end and actually be performing and succeeding! I was so happy for them.
On Saturday, Piper came in fourth place for cross country!!! She is doing so well and sticking with it. It makes her happy and I am so proud of her!
We accidentally left Xai home in all the rush to get off to Conference at the church. (We were in charge of opening up the building for people to watch it there.) Fortunately, he found our neighbors and had Oma and Opa at home to go home to. Super sad and scary, though! We turned around and headed back to get him as soon as we discovered he wasn't with us! Normally we do a “kid check” (like a roll-call) but we were so busy ordering some Dominoes pizza as we left, we forgot. Never again, I hope!
We had fun playing our family football game in between sessions. Lily was a powerhouse as always, bullying through tackles and making some great catches. Quinn's always a pleasure to watch for me with his pure athleticism :D. Hyrum made some great catches and solid tackles—especially against his friend, Lance, whose family joined us. Eli and Xai had fun tackling each other back and forth,...except for the time Bro Ausseressess picked up Eli and carried him into the endzone when Xai was trying to tackle him. (Xai had a valid point. That was his only tackle up to that point and it meant a great deal more to him than the rest of us realized.)
Piper brought back a kick-off return all the way for a touch down. Hava made several catches and did some great runs, getting tackled pretty hard. One time she got clipped on the ear, which was still recovering from being infected, poor dear. She sat out for a bit, but then carried on. Maia did awesome, dragging four defenders with her during one particular catch. So fun!
Penelope has been doing a great job being “Franken-baby!” She took her first steps about a month ago, and just took off about two weeks ago, walking all over! The first longer time of walking was to get Lily's phone. She just needed the proper motivation, I guess? Silly modern little girl. She is super fun to watch and she loves her new-found freedom.
Liesl and Eli still love to snuggle to sleep at night. They are adorable and put me to sleep more often than naught. Eli is super excited to decorate the house for Halloween. He is all about being scared. Halloween is not my favorite holiday, as I don't care for all things ghoulish, but we will try to make it cute (for me) and decorated enough to satisfy him. He insists that we need to have a descending spider to scare people so I've conceded to put one up in our back basement room. Yikes! I am sure that will NOT be fun for me, but I'll try to do it for Eli! At least it's not ghoulish. Why can't he love a cute holiday like Easter?
I've almost finished my first children's book. Maybe I will publish it soon? For the most part, I have been prompted to let go of pretty much everything in the community and let it run itself for a while. Not sure how that is going to work, but it is the strongest prompting I got from General Conference: slow down and don't plan a whole bunch outside of the home. Over and over again, I got the impression to do this, coupled with counsel to not worry about the distractions or expectations of the world. Just to trust God.
Here are some random pictures I am not sure I included before...
Penelope is not only sleeping better (knock on wood!!! 4 hours in a row last night!!), but she is also walking around single-handed. Yes, single-handed. She holds onto just one hand of whoever she can rope into being her personal walking trainer. F-O-R-E-V-E-R. She is pretty determined!
Maia has turned a new leaf! She has always had a sparkle that dazzles but we have not always seen eye to eye on my home plans/rules. We read Timothy Clarke's "Core and Crust of Leadership" article and she sees it!! She has been so motivated to do her schooling and take care of her other responsibilities, referring often to her "core" or her "crust." It's amazing what vision will do!
Olivia and Owen have been staying here with their parents (and Laura) this past month and they have just been delightful. We will miss them all so much! We have played lots of games and explored lots of places together and just enjoyed each other.
Liesl has struggled with bed-wetting more and more so we just got pull-up :(. And because they are princess style, she wants to wear them all the time :(. Yikes! Maybe now that Penelope is sleeping better, I can start doing the electric alarm bedwetting treatment at night with her and Eli.
We are on the cusp of starting our new school year! I am excited for our classes, with acting and choirs starting tomorrow and history and English on Friday. The rest we will begin next week...so fun!
Piper and Hyrum have started high school sports, cross country and football respectively, and they both love it! They are also going to early morning seminary (mostly in-person, which is great) and love that as well.
Havala is excited to start taking piano lessons from her grandpa and has been a blessing in getting our sign language choir ready! She is great at signing and has learned some of the songs so that she can teach the other kids.
Lily is doing 20 hours a week at Wendy's and then working with Drew the rest of the time around the house to help out. They put in 7 hours a day and do some daily tasks. It's a little bumpy right now, but hopefully we work out all the kinks before we strangle each other ;). I do love having them around and they are trying to make a good go of it...most of the time.
Hyrum did a fun presentation about himself for seminary...he's such a funny kid! I put it in his journal.
Xai and Eli have been having so much fun with cousins. They have also been having fun doing sticker faces at Oma and Opa's, trying to make Oma laugh with their creations. They have been snuggling in the same bed for the past couple nights, which is nice for Eli, who is still nervous at night.
Maia, Xai and Eli love running in rain storms! We had a dousy of one last night. I was actually out in it with Quinn and Drew looking for guinea fowl. We only had three. We are down to our last seven and so we searched all over. I sent Drew in at one point, and Quinn and I grabbed the dogs to help us find them. Love was the better bird dog and led us right to three of them. Apparently our local predator took down the seventh...still haven't figured out what that is or how to deter it.
At one point, I was hugging two fowls to my chest as I knelt in the rainy mud on a hill that had a sharper than 45 degree angle, unable to make any headway up without sliding back again. It was dark, my flashlight lay on the ground beside me and my umbrella was abandoned long before that. I had to dig my knees into the ground to make my way up the hill with the two guineas in my arms so that I could get them put away. Quinn had already herded the other one up. He set it outside the door. When we went back later (after abandoning our search for the last one) it had not entered the coop so I had to canvas the chicken yard looking for it. I found it huddled in the nook of a tree. They are supposed to climb trees at night for protection but these biddies keep nestling into the ground! Sigh. Hopefully I will do better with this next batch!
Xai was giving the lesson tonight.
He said at one point, "The Savior gives us addictions to help us be happy." I believe he meant "instructions" but wow, that was a fun spin!
Buchanan Reunion 2021
We had an amazing reunion with the Buchanans here at our place. It was miraculous that my parents moved in next door just in time to host people there as well. The kids and adults drifted back and forth between our two properties when they wanted to. We played games inside, games outside:
-Minute to Win It—noisy and crazy and Aaron and his team of young girls won, lol!
-Field games inspired by my friend Miss Penny
-Emptied out Opa and Oma's garage of all the burnable stuff and had a giant bonfire taller than my 6 foot 6 inch (?I think?) nephew
-Went to a place to play Combat Archery and outdoor Lasar Tag in a little “course” they had set up...so fun!
-Great music and conversations
-Late night fun (when I wasn't a stickler on being quiet so those who were asleep could sleep :D)
-Swimming at a lake and at the local pool
-Adult/1st and 2nd generation dinner at the Purple Chopstix (super yummy, fun place!)
-just basically went with the moment, with a few memorable things scheduled in :D.
It was surprising to us all how relaxed we felt at the end, feeling that someone must have been doing all the work to make it happen but somehow we were all getting a lot more rest than usual! (Probably because the kiddos were always busy playing together really well :D.) Sarah made t-shirts for everyone who wanted them—here and not here—and that was a fun unifying aspect as well.
Kittens
We were delighted to have kittens join our family farm during June. Sadly, the last day of the reunion, one was up under a car and was accidentally run over. The Monday after that, one fell off our elevated front porch and didn't survive the trauma. Two days later the last three just disappeared. We had no idea where they had gone! The younger kids and I went climbing at a local rock area behind Wendy's while Hyrum and Lily worked there. We came down from climbing to find the three little darlings playing under the car Hyrum and Lily had used to drive to work!! Miracle!
We brought them home with much rejoicing!
The next morning we woke up and they were gone. And we haven't seen them since.
There has been a lot of heart ache in our family due to this chain of events. We have five little graves...four with nothing in them since something dug up on of the other ones. Fortunately, a friend of ours has two kittens from a litter that she is giving away and we have learned our lesson. These kittens will be staying in an area in our basement until they are old enough to fend for themselves.
Poor little dears!
Visitors!
We have been blessed to have the Shetkas arrive shortly after the Buchanans left! They are super chill and fun to have around and they plan on staying for a month! We have already been climbing, swimming, gaming, playing, chatting, laughing, eating, cooking, biking and pretty much just enjoying being together. They are in the midst of a wandering lifestyle, visiting many beautiful places around the country as they work online and show their kids some great places. We are grateful that they have made us one of their stops :D.
They have even survived the great millipede infestation of 2021. At first they were cute. Then they were a nuisance. Then they got creepy! One night, we went out and there were hundreds of them outside of our back porch door!
Thanks to some research and some diatemaceous earth we have balance restored but yikes! That sure wasn't a pleasant thing to have to go through for a few days.
Fowls
We are down to 34 chickens but haven't lost one in over a week, so we are hopefully getting more stable. We think that it is our dogs, every time we lose a chicken, the dogs have been off the chain unexpectedly.
Our guinea fowl have been successfully transitioned out to the main coop with the hens and are settling down together. Every once in a while they will venture out to the big scary outside world and boy do we hear it! But the little darlings will soon join their chicken compatriots in debugging the immedate vicinity around our house. Yay for natural pest control!
And, we've gotten a few eggs from the deal :D.
General
-Hyrum has given his two weeks notice at Wendy's. He has a full Fall and has saved up a bunch already. He also just finished up his online driving course at last so we can schedule him for his road driving course so he can get his license. However all the “local” places are booked through January so it might be awhile. He's having fun trying to squish in time with friends.
-Lily is still working there and possibly going to start working for Quinn, who is insanely busy trying to transition and get in a new groove here as a independent appraiser with so much work. She is doing more with her dog, Love, who is almost full grown and not as big as we thought she would be so her parenting is probably a little different than we were told. She is saving up for a huge road trip or trip to Europe and is talking about serving a mission.
-Drew has started writing stories again which I see as a huge sign of improved mental health. His wound that he got from parkour (that required three deep stitches and five superficial ones) is finally starting to heal as is his ankle which we are still not sure if it was broken or not. (He dropped a huge dead log on it while helping clear some old debris with the other kids.)
-Tova and Ben are enjoying Texas together...well, they are enjoying being together anyway! Tova just finished up a semester and is loving her break before fall classes start. Ben is almost up for his one year contract renewal and is looking at options. Tova is writing a play “Remarkable” that I hope to put on next spring.
-Piper is running more and more and is running more and more of the animal portion of our farm :D. She loves her goat, helps a lot with Kujo and training and is our “first one out” every morning to water and let the chickens out of their coop. She loves games, reading and is still an amazing helper. She spent some of yesterday climbing trees.
-Havala is still very musical. She doesn't like bugs so doesn't spend a lot of time outside but is super cute working with the younger kids. She is excited about our choirs and plays this fall, as well as seeing her friends.
The little ones miss their Buchanan cousins but are really enjoying having Olivia and Owen around. It is fun hearing them play around all day! We have played a lot of games but I think we will start settling into more of a school routine the next few days. We are also enjoying swimming—the boys especially are making a lot of progress! Elijah actually passed the swim test and went off the diving board a few times, scaring those watching a bit when he swam the wrong way and when he tried to get the water out of his eyes in a deep section. Crazy six year old kid! Love him so much! He's been pretty feisty lately so not sure what to do about that but endure to the end (or enjoy to the end as Quinn puts it!). Liesl is still pretty obsessed with Penelope. Penelope is loving the “hold my hands and walk me”stage. She also is cautious about edges (so grateful) and crazy about stairs (not so happy). Just the other day, she was found at the top of our second landing outside our patio up a huge flight of wooden stairs. She was just sitting at the top, calling out at the top of her lungs happily. Yikes! Fortunately we have kept the downstair's door closed pretty consistently, with only one scare that I can remember...finding her sitting at the top reaching out for the sparkle lights I have on the wall there. We had fun on a bike ride yesterday and enjoyed sitting in the cool of the library afterward, soaking up books. I am grateful that these particular children are a part of my journey here.
We survived a pretty brutal stomach bug that was apparently going around both our family and the local community. Yikes! I've not been that sick in so long. Fortunately we recovered in time to get our COVID vaccine yesterday. Drew and I had an "engaging" discussion about it on the way in. I've conceded that the pros outweigh the cons for me personally, but I detest the shaming, alarmist, coercive rhetoric that many people use on both sides of the "whether to get vaccinated or not" issue. No place for it, in my mind, and Drew was touting a comparison that was a little extreme for me. I must confess it almost made me walk out and not get it but I'm trying to reign in my emotional responses a little more lately :D.
I have finished adapting our Les Mis (non-musical) script that I rented from script licensing agency, 30 pages of awesomenesss. I am enjoying reading about Acton School and the Socratic method of teaching to prep for my classes in the fall. It's going to be an awesome year!
