There's a new beautiful little person in the world, and more notably in our family. There's really nothing like meeting a baby when she is just one day old, fresh from the womb. She worked really hard to open her eyes for just a moment towards the end of our visit. It's the first baby born in either of our families since Alida, so was very cute to see Alida's reaction to having a new little cousin. She deemed her cute, which she is! She also corrected my mom that her name was not the name given at birth but Sprout, her in utero name. I also discovered this time around that I have even more competition when it comes to baby holding time. It seems that Kali has the baby-loving gene that was so strong in me at her age. I'm honestly thrilled to see it, though it makes me want to have a dozen more babies because it is so sweet to see Kali holding a little one so tenderly!
The time with my parents here came and went (all too quickly). Jason and I got a little spoiled with one dates night, two extra sets of helping hands and three jogs together all in the span of two weeks! The three season room project is complete, as is the garage trim. Both of those projects had been moving from to do list to to do list for the last several years. The girls quickly adjusted to having grandparents upstairs and Alida would often inform me that she was going upstairs. One day when I was home, she headed upstairs to hang out with grandma while I was busy doing some food prep in the kitchen. I was surprised to find myself feeling rather out of sorts and kind of lonely. I tried to tell myself to just enjoy the quiet and this alone time, but I missed her. I realized how used to having my little side kick around for the morning burst I am. We have so much fun puttering in the kitchen and her little chatter is the best entertainment ever. Before long I headed upstairs with my bag of kale, so I could be where the action was! It was definitely handy to have more people around for her to rope into a game of Spot It, and the girls also enjoyed doing all sorts of fun projects with grandma while I was at work. It was lovely to come home from some rough and long days at work to supper on the table, a fire in the woodstove to warm up by and very happy kiddos. 
Having them around spread out the Christmas celebrations a bit longer. We enjoyed more game playing, popcorn, hot drinks, movie watching and fun hanging out time in the evenings. We let our Christmas tree up a bit longer than we sometimes do, but in the event that we would not have had our tree up anymore, Alida successfully was transformed into a very cute little Christmas tree one night! She really couldn't be a much more vibrant or creative. Her imagination is so fun to be around. She is reminding me of Kali these days as she'll often "read" stories to herself. It's very common for the girls to finish eating before Jason or me and they'll head over to the living room and both pick up a book. Kali reads to herself, but Alida normally lets us in on what she is "reading." It will sometimes incorporate pieces of our conversation!
Some of Jason's young chickens gave him a slightly belated Christmas present by starting in laying on the very last day of the year! Here's the very first egg that the girls and I found on the wire when collecting eggs. It's fun doing the rounds these days as we come back in with a full basket - we'll probably need to transition to a larger one soon. We are getting between 1 and 2 dozen eggs a day right now. One of our 2014 resolutions was to keep track of all chicken income and expenditures. The egg talleying part of that is probably going to be the most fun! Two other quick follow ups from the last post - Alida did in fact make it to see in the New Year, but sacked out within about 10 minutes of our toasting it in! And the goats have in fact become "free range goats." They can pull their tethers all around the yard. We hook them together now, but that isn't stopping them. They may be in good enough shape by the growing season to pull a little cart!
In closing I wanted to include a quote by Thomas Merton that is in the book Sabbath by Wayne Muller that Jason and I are reading together. Another goal of ours for this year is to work on incorporating more sabbath moments into our days and weeks (and hopefully incrementally moving towards sabbath hours and then sabbath days). The picture here captures for me the absolute joy of this stage of life that we find ourselves in and also the potential to be overwhelmed by the array of needs wanting to be met in any given moment. We find ourselves at the point in life where the number of little people at our gatherings sometimes outnumbers us adults! But by and large (when I have enough sleep and have had some recharge moments), I couldn't be happier to find myself smack dab in the middle of it. 
It's identifying the opportunities for recharging and taking them that I'm working on! And it is Jason and I taking the time to process together where to direct the energy that we have most effectively and joyfully. Muller notes that, "Even when our attentions are noble and our efforts sincere, the corrosive pressure of frantic overactivity can nonetheless cause suffering in ourselves and others." Later he quotes Merton who says, "To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence..." I'm still pondering this and in the meantime trying to be more present to my daily life and also attune to my attitude and approach to the life we are living. 
That brings me to today! For me today has felt very Sabbath-like. First of all, I did not wake to an alarm! I spent the first few hours of my day playing in the kitchen with Alida as my helper, cooking up a birthday brunch feast for our housemate, Rachelle. As I cooked, I would peak out the windows to watch the snow blowing off the trees or the bright red cardinals at the bird feeder with the contrasting white backdrop. It was truly a winter wonderland. Late morning, we all filled ourselves with good food and conversation! Then off to do some sledding before all the snow melted and Alida melted down in need of a nap (thankfully we successfully avoided an Alida-meltdown and there is still a little snow to enjoy looking at). We got in some fun playing, including watching how adorable Alida is sledding all by herself down the hill, and then Alida sacked out for a nap while I got in a jog/walk with Rachelle. And now I can look forward to the rest of the day at home (not getting in a car adds to that Sabbath feel) with some more baking and cooking in preparation for one of those kids-outnumber-adults gatherings with good friends tomorrow. But now, I think it is time to challenge Kali to a game of Blokus!
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