multitude monday

Here's my continuing Multitude Monday post, which all started a while back, right here.

"One Thousand Gifts":

724. cooler temps with sunshine, a breeze and low humidity . . . how glorious!
725. laughter
726. friends
727. old pictures
728. freshly mowed lawn
729. antibiotics {once again!}
730. tickets that my kids are SO excited about
731. anxiously awaiting the arrival of our nephew {friday, if not sooner!}
732. charlie horse-free nights
733. a delicious tea garden cooler on a hot day {thanks Mom!}
734. thoughtful surprises
735. ticonderoga pencils {especially when you have more than 100 pencils to sharpen}
736. dinner with friends
737. game night with the girls
738. winding down . . . and gearing up
739. boys with fresh haircuts
740. naps
741. continuing the summer task of sorting and purging
742. Snuffy's . . . yummmmm!
742. enough unexpected {surprise} money to cover some unexpected {surprise!} car repairs, lawn mower repairs and some major killer bee extermination in the backyard that all came unexpectedly in the past week. {yup, 7 or 8 stings -- actually bites, not stings, the exterminator told us -- on 3 different people in about a 2-minute span of time. NOT fun! Sorry Horn's!}
743. reading a good book outside on a beautiful day!
744. A/C off, windows open
745. glorious breeze through the open window while sleeping
746. the sound of rain on the roof

Alrighty, that's it's for now. Tune in next Monday for the next installment.

flashback friday

mmmmm::giant pickles on a stick
the fair starts in 13 days
are you going?

thankful thursday

Today {and, unfortunately, for over a week now} I'm extra thankful for our air conditioning. I got our energy bill a couple days ago and it was nearly double what it had been the month before {but still less than it is in the winter!}. Although not super efficient in our 1920's house, it's way, way better than not having it! And it sure has been hot. I think I heard there's just a couple more days and then we'll get a break. I sure hope that's right. The temps haven't been that unbearable, it's the humidity that is the killer! So, a big thank you to whichever previous owners put out the money to put in the AC {most likely it was LeRoy & Shirlely}. I sure have appreciated it the last couple weeks!
Stay cool!

multitude monday

Here's my continuing Multitude Monday post, which all started a while back, right here.

"One Thousand Gifts":

704. celebrating the beginning of a marriage with a wonderful couple!
705. central air!
706. how Anna asks me "Dat coo, Mom?" after nearly everything she tells me {if you need a translation, it is "Is that cool, Mom?" -- I must often say, "That's cool, Anna.", or something along those lines and she's picked it up}
707. fun crafting
708. the ever-increasing action going on in my belly
709. the bigger kids enjoying being able to feel and get excited about #708
710. less than 10 weeks to go {theoretically, at least} until we get to meet our newest little bundle
711. reading/hearing words that articulate deep feelings and thoughts that you've never had the words to express::for one example, spend the 5 minutes it takes to watch this video. I have wonderful girlfriends that I am so thankful for! I've read a couple books by Kelly Corrigan and love her honesty and realness. "Lift" articulated so well many, many feelings and thoughts I've had as a mother. {thanks Jennifer for turning me on to her in the first place!}
712. saturday morning trip to the farmer's market
713. yet another summer sleepover
714. sincere compliments
715. friends who listen to my complaints
716. generous people
717. water when you're thirsty
718. important reminders right when you need them
719. kid's eat free at IKEA
720. flip flops that still fit my extra-swollen pregnant feet
721. a few fun things to look forward to in the week ahead
722. a successful lemonade stand {completely with street musician . . . Jacob played the trumpet for customers and general passers-by}
723. crossing a few more things off our summer list

Alrighty, that's it's for now. Tune in next Monday for the next installment.

It takes all kinds . . .

I love to people-watch. The variety of people in the world -- heck, just in my neighborhood -- is amazing to me. Some so very much like me and some very, very much not!

• We took the family to The Mall of America {or "The Mall of The Merica", as Joe calls it} the other day and I saw at least 4 or 5 heads full of really bad 80's hair. What's with that? Please tell me that's not coming back!
• I was watching Rebekah at swim practice yesterday morning {while also working on a little project}. Now, in the vicinity of the outdoor pool at 9 am there isn't the variety of people that there is at, say, 3 in the afternoon. You've got the swim team kids at practice, a few lifeguards in red suits and a half dozen or so lap-swimmers {the pool isn't open for general, fun, playful swimming in the morning -- only lap swim, swim team practice and water aerobics}. If it's a water aerobics day, you can add to that about 20 ladies {I'm not being sexist here, it's just quite rare that you find a man in a water-X class} in sunglasses. Occassionaly, there's a swim team parent or two {like me!} watching practice in shorts and a t-shirt, often looking like they maybe brought their kiddo to practice straight from bed {I often fit in this category!}. Practice starts at 8:30. So, as I sit in my chair yesterday morning watching my little fish in the water, out walks a surprise: an overly-perfumed woman in a bikini with a pink bag with "Victoria's Secret" written on it in big letters made from sparkly silver sequins. Now, most lap swimmers wear one piece Speedo-type suits {or if you're a guy, usually tight-fitting trunks}, a swim cap and goggles. There are a few exceptions, but 99% of the adults you see in the pool in the morning hours are pretty much "in uniform". So, this lady didn't quite fit the mold. {I'm reminded of the Sesame Street jingle, "One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong."}. I thought she was going to get in the pool and start swimming laps, so I watched and waited . . . Turned out she just wanted to "lay out" {at 9 am?} and work on her tan and read the newspaper. You see plenty of that at the Y, but not usually at such an early hour!

flashback friday

my favorite bright-eyed, wacky-haired little mister being held by my favorite handsome big mister::

thankful thursday

Today I'm thankful for boring. Mundane. Normal.

We've witnessed, been somehow part of, or heard about many tragedies or general extra-tough stuff the past few days and are thankful that none of them have directly involved us.

• A 12-year-old boy that only lives a few blocks from us {although we didn't know him} died in a tragic accident while playing at the park with a friend. The park we always go to. The park that is nearly in our backyard . . . less than a block from our house.
• A classmate of Lydia's had open heart surgery at Mayo this week.
  
• We were supposed to be getting out-of-town company today {Kirb's brother and his family}, but they had to cancel their trip to attend a funeral. A mother of 3, married to a co-worker of Kirby's brother, who died in a tragic car accident this week. {So, if you want a little get-away -- and you consider staying at a house with 7 crazy people a get-away -- come on over! The sheets are clean, the beds are made the floors and bathroom in the basement are all shiny and cleaner than they've been in quite some time! Clean towels are rolled up decoratively and welcomingly in a basket. I was planning to make yummy muffins for breakfast. Lots of fun plans you could take over if you're interested!}
• My parents couldn't come or go from their house for a while yesterday. The bank a couple blocks from their house in their quiet, "small town" neighborhood in St. Paul was held up. A teller was taken hostage and shots were fired at a police officer. As far as I know, the man still is "at large" {which I have always found to be a funny phrase}.

So, I'm thankful for my routine week. My "bored" kids who think their parents are cruel and unfair to make them do things such as go to bed at a normal hour, not play Wii for hours on end, do a household chore or two here and there and do the equivalent of 10 or 15 minutes of school-ish work each day over the summer. I'm thankful that, although it made me significantly crabby, the worst thing that happened to me yesterday was that a sudden downpour! that came from nowhere while we were driving home from having a little family fun {and checking one more thing off our "summer list"} completely drenching my laundry that was outside "drying." 3 loads of laundry. Most of it folded and in piles on the picnic table next to my clothesline waiting for owners of the clean clothes to take their "stack" to their room and put it away. The work I'd spent nearly my entire day doing! In the grand scheme of things, that's nothing. Nothing at all! The funeral for Carter {the little boy who died less than a block from my house a few days ago, who could have just as easily been one of my kids. Or one of yours.} starts in less than 3 hours and will be taking place at the church about 12 houses down the block from here. Excuse me while I go hug my kids and quit complaining about my wet laundry! Our deepest sympathies, thoughts and prayers are with Carter's family and all who knew and loved him.

summer list::

I've mentioned it before and some of you were curious, so here's a little more info on our "summer list" tradition. {better late than never, right?}

For the past few years, we sit down as a family near-ish to the beginning of summer and brainstorm our "summer list" for the year. Anything that is spoken will be written down. If Jacob says he would like to "go to the moon" this summer, I'll write it on the list . . . although the chances that we'll take a summer trip to the moon are pretty much nil! Then, as we are looking for ideas of what to do with our days during the summer, we consult our list. Often during our list-making, one idea leads to another which leads to another. Many times we do really fun things that weren't even on the list {like last Saturday when we went to Split Rock Lighthouse and visited Duluth, or the weekend before when we went to the Kelley Farm}. Many things on the list remain undone by summer's end. But, we like having the list to consult from time to time. I try hard to write down dates of things from the list that we've done, so we can remember that, contrary to what the kids often say and think, we do do fun things. Things they wanted to do in the first place!

Here is our list for the Summer of 2010 {click on the pictures to enlarge them so they are big enough to read}::

How do you decide what fun things you will do with your summer? {We do a similar -- although abbreviated version -- for other breaks too::Christmas winter break and spring break, for example}

You'll notice there's still lots of stuff that we haven't done yet this summer that they kids would like to do. Hopefully we'll get around to a bunch more of them in this last month of summer break {we will go to the State Fair, no question about that. It's a given. You just can't go until the 2nd Thursday before Labor Day, so we still have a few more weeks until we even have opportunity to check that one off!} We never intend to do them all, but it's fun to dream big. Also, some of them are givens that we do very often, if not every day::play outside, family walks, etc. I don't even bother writing dates on those usually, but, trust me, they're getting done! So, yup, we do eat supper {which was an item someone wanted added to the list!} . . . most every night even!

Here's to a fun last bit of summer for us . . . and for you. Enjoy!

multitude monday

Here's my continuing Multitude Monday post, which all started a while back, right here.

"One Thousand Gifts":

693. a lady riding an old-school Schwinn on a Sunday morning wearing a really cute skirt
694. overnight rain
695. clean laundry
696. a family day trip
697. these powerful words::

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

698. the sound of teeny little toddler feet running toward her momma
699. kids super excited about rocks700. good friends
701. cleaning, sorting and PURGING!
702. antibiotics
703. the sleep of a REALLY worn out kiddo

Alrighty, that's it's for now. Tune in next Monday for the next installment.

super dad!

on the boardwalk along Lake Superior::

flashback friday and pregnancy update

Here I am just a few weeks before Anna was born in early March of 2008::

And, here I am just last weekend at the Kelley farm::

Generally speaking, it's not the best picture ever, but it's the only recent one I have of my belly. If you want to see it bigger {the picture, that is}, just click on it and voila, it will get huge!

I am 29 weeks pregnant.

That means I have 11 weeks to go before my due date.

I went to the doctor on Wednesday {I go every other week these days} for my checkup. Everything looks pretty darn good. My glucose screen came back {as it always has} to show that I don't have gestational diabetes {phew!}. All the levels in both my blood and my pee looked just dandy. My weight gain is completely within normal ranges {and is slightly below what I normally have gained by 29 weeks . . . maybe that has something to do with it being summer and not the dead of winter?} However, at each appointment they measure your belly {among other things} and that number should correspond pretty closely to the number of weeks along you are {isn't that a cool fact. I love when God thinks numbers are cool, just like me: I must have gotten that from Him!} Well, guess what I measured? You would think that the first sentence in this paragraph might be hint, but if you thought that you would be mistaken. Nope, not 29 {like would be expected}, but rather just a hair under 35! Nice! I guess I shouldn't be surprised {and, really, neither was my OB} because I have big babies {my smallest was 8 pounds and 4 ounces -- and he was nearly 2 weeks early! and my biggest was 10 pounds 2 ounces -- although a week late. The others have hovered right around 9 pounds. Give or take.} But, since I have 11 more weeks of growth ahead of me {and the largest, most rapid time of growth is still to come!} I'm pretty sure I'll be HUGE long before the baby is ready to make it's grand entrance. Oh well. I've done it before, I guess I can do it again. Right?

On another, pregnancy-related, note, I have had a few charlie horses in the night over the past month or so. Those are NOT fun! Also, I had my first bout of nasty late-pregnancy heartburn this week::let the good times commence! I know the end is approaching when these things start to begin. Still to come are::can't get up from the couch, can't get comfortable enough to sleep well, completely out of steam, "I can't be pregnant for one more minute!!!", Braxton-Hicks contractions all the time and back pain. Oh, the joys! {but so worth it!}

Also, the baby and I {mostly me, the baby was no help, and sometimes even a hindrance} finished the Lazyman Triathlon at the Y {so did Kirbs, by the way!}. That means we biked 112 miles, ran/walked {I opted for WALKED!} 26.2 miles and swam 2.5 miles over a 5-week period. It was more of a challenge this year than it was last year, but I'm glad I finished. I need some motivation to do something or I'll opt for sitting poolside and reading a book while the kids swim rather than getting in there and doing a few laps myself!

Here I am with my Lazyman finisher t-shirt::

Alrighty, that's all. Enjoy the weekend!

multitude monday

Here's my continuing Multitude Monday post, which all started a while back, right here.

"One Thousand Gifts":

674. the cute way Anna says "a-cuz" in answer to most every question
675. a nice long chat with a friend {Hi Catherine!}
676. the ending of band camp for the summer {having Jacob busy from 10:20 to noon every day threw a kink into any all-day plans for summer fun}
677. a fun visit to the Kelley Farm
678. a nice, relaxing weekend
679. friends who put up with my absent-minded pregnant brain and still love me
680. Sunday afternoon nap . . . and the wonderful husband who let me take it
681. friends who offered us their CSA share while they were on vacation {thanks Young's!}
682. great coupons coupled with good sales!
683. the sprinkler
684. happy, muddy kids
685. a good book
686. movies from the library
687. another week of our unborn nephew remaining unborn!
688. my brother {it was his birthday last week!}
689. a super yummy "birthday" dinner to celebrate me, my dad and my brother {who all have birthdays in the same week}
690. a fabulously thoughtful woman who kicked me out of the nursery yesterday, worked my shift for me and told me {sternly} to "Go sit and enjoy the service!" {thanks Phyllis!}
691. Costco and stuff in bulk {for families with children "in bulk"}
692. family fun around a backyard fire

Alrighty, that's it's for now. Tune in next Monday for the next installment.

it blows my mind . . .

Don't ask me why this thought came into my head. I don't know! But it did, and I can't shake it::6 years from now, in the late-summer of 2016, I will be preparing to send my first-born off to his last year of high school and my baby off to kindergarten. I'm already a mess thinking about it! What a year that will be::a senior, a sophomore, a freshman, a 6th grader, a 3rd grader and a kindergartener. Yikes! Watch out, I'm quite sure I'm going to be a big puddle over it all! A little financial tip::you may want to buy extra Kleenex stock. {on a related note, I also figured out -- being the geeky, numbers girl that I am -- that by the time baby #6 graduates from 6th grade, we would have had at least one kiddo at Falcon Heights Elementary school every single year for 17 straight years. And Jacob didn't even go to kindergarten there. If he had, we'd be at 18 consecutive years. Do you think that qualifies as some kind of record?}

flashback friday

who are those kids anyway?
{i'm not sure exactly when this was, but i'm guessing 1993-ish}

thankful thursday

I'm so thankful for my {mostly} kind, caring, sensitive, thoughtful 9-year-old. This year, for her birthday, Rebekah wanted to have her "party" at Feed My Starving Children. If you've never heard of, or don't know much about, Feed My Starving Children take a minute to check out their website. It's a fabulous organization!

So, Rebekah's birthday was in March. You may remember {shame on you if you don't!} that there was a major earthquake in Haiti about 2 months before Rebekah's birthday. FMSC did a push to pack meals for Haiti and when I tried to schedule her birthday party, I was completely shut down. All the volunteer slots were full for weeks and, even, months out. People must have thought that, especially during a recession when monetary funds might be tight, this was a way that they could tangibly help the people of Haiti. Anyhow, she really, really wanted to do this for her birthday party, so I told her we'd make it work. Well, we did::we made it work by putting off her birthday party until the summer. A few weeks ago we {Rebekah and I} designed and made some pretty fun, cute invitations and sent them out to her friends. On her invitation she asked for no gifts {honestly, it was her idea. She said to me "Mom, there isn't really anything I need and I already have too much stuff to pick up and put away and keep clean" . . . amazing to me how she can be so mature one minute and completely flip out at her 2-year-old sister the next minute for something completely "no big deal!" . . . sorry, I digress!}. Instead of gifts, she asked her friends to bring a donation {monetary or tangible -- paper towels, toilet paper, batteries, hair binders, etc.} for FMSC.

So, the other day 7 of Rebekah's friends got dropped off at our house at 11 a.m. and got busy packing themselves a bag lunch to eat in the van on the way to the FMSC site in Eagan. {I was hoping that having them eat lunch while on the van ride might keep their mouths busy enough that the noise of 7 girls -- and 3 chatty moms! -- wouldn't be deafening. I was wrong on that assumption. It was quite loud in "The Stoll Haul"}.

all loaded up, buckled in and ready to go::
{holy cow, Sophie looks EXACTLY like her mother in this one!}

When we arrived at FMSC we unloaded all the kids and donations and headed inside. We got in and sat down on the benches to await our introduction to FMSC, some great facts and the instructions on what we would be doing while we were there {our shift was from 12-2}. About half the girls had been there before {with Girl Scouts or church or other birthday parties}. The little video clip they showed got me all teary {not surprising!} and we were all excited to get to work when the time came. We packed plastic bags with between 380 and 400 grams of dehydrated food {chicken stock, veggies, soy & rice} that will be cooked in water when they arrive at the designated country. If I remember right, the boxes from the week we volunteered were off to Tanzania. Each bag feeds 6 hungry kiddos.

here are the girls in their hairnets, ready to get to work::

I won't go into all the details, but each person has a job at their "station" and you pack as much food as you can during the time slot you are volunteering. Our little group packed 6 boxes::each box holds 36 bags and each bag feeds 6 precious kiddos, so that adds up to just under 1300 kids that will get a healthy, filling meal because of Rebekah's decision to have her party at FMSC! Isn't that great? Are you a tad teary at this point too, or is it just me? Adults would probably have been a tad more efficient as each kid wanted a turn with each of the jobs {because, as you know, scooping a cup of rice is completely different than scooping up a cup of soy!!}. But what a great learning experience, lesson and emphasis on the fun of volunteering, giving and helping others for those precious girls to have. Anyway, after our actual work time was through {it went SO fast} we came back to the front room and sat on the benches where we got to sample the meals we had been packing to see what the children we were feeding would be eating soon. They also gave us stats on how many boxes and meals we had done during our shift {the site wasn't full, they could have handled more volunteers, but there were about 5 or 6 groups there at the same time as us}. Then they called Rebekah up and asked her how old she was and the whole group sang to her. They even gave her a FMSC t-shirt for having her party there . . . that was a fun bonus we hadn't expected! Then we drove home and had a little DQ birthday cake and played until the kids got picked up at 4 {if I had it to do over again the party would have ended at 3:30, that last half hour, with no real planned activities, was nearing the edge of what this pregnant momma could handle on a hot summer day!}. They have adult to kid ratios, based on age, for groups that include children, so I am indebted to my wonderful friends Tricia and Ing who came along with me to help with the all the fun! {and even wore hairnets!}

Happy Birthday, Rebekah::

If you are local to the Twin Cities, I would highly, highly recommend getting a group together and volunteering at Feed My Starving Children. It's a wonderful organization, you're doing a wonderful {Biblically-mandated} thing and you'll have fun. I promise! If you're not local, or you don't have time, you could just send them your money. They'd love that too!!