Everything else!

I'm running out of steam! AND the kids are home from their sleepover. AND Kali just went and picked up 3 bushels of broccoli side shoots and 2 of cabbage that I need to "deal with." So not included in the other 4 posts from today, but scrapbook-worthy:

I think we can call it an annual tradition now that it has happened a few times, with the expressed hope from them that we'll continue to say yes to their requests yearly! We hosted the Shenandoah Permaculture Institute's class again for a half day tour of Tangly Woods. Half the time is looking at our physical house with a particular interest in passive solar design. The remainder of the time is used for a fly through tour of the animals and gardens, trying to tailor the time to what each year's particular group is most interested in. The time is always short and also a good chance for Jason and I to pause briefly, be in the same space together, and have a chance to reflect out loud to others what we are doing and why. 

After the group left, Jason and I had the rare opportunity to go for a hike with just Alida! What a special few hours!! Every time we carve out time to spend with our children individually, it's always so fun and we yearn for more of it! So we hatched an idea with Alida and it was unanimously supported and voted into our schedule at our last family meeting - a rotating Sunday hike schedule where Jason and I get to regularly go for a walk with each of our daughters. We'll kick that off after we savor this next string of hosting dearly loved friends and some weekend travel. 

Our stinging nettles are BEAUTIFUL right now and it's my new favorite greens for rolls.

I love fall colors and flowers!

Some of our chickens really like to get high! Can you see the hen? 

Our small group braved the elements the other night to come join us around the fire for a time of catching up and making a dent in the 3 vats of soup I had made the day before! 

That sprinkly evening has not been typical of our fall weather to date. Many more days have been like this one! I LOVE Hensley's Pond in the fall (and spring...and winter...and summer...)!

And last but not least, some of us can't quite get enough little people time!!! We have started doing some "Bear care" at Tangly Woods and normally 3 of the 5 members of our family are at the ready to scoop this precious one up! It is not surprising that some of my daughters would have inherited by magnetism to babies. This is super sweet AND it also means I must really savor my times in their home where I have him all to myself. He's growing so fast, discovering his hands (and things he can do with them), smiling and "talking" to us, and generally brightening up our world with his sweet little self! I want so very much to live in a world where every little person that enters it is as wanted and cherished and respected and loved and cared for so tenderly. And I wish that everyone that wanted to bring a baby into their home would also have an abundance of community support to do so. Our individualistic society is not providing that and leaving many caregivers too tired to fully savor and enjoy the early and intense years of parenting. I get to soak up my time with little people in a new way at this juncture - during the daytime hours and not losing nighttime sleep. It does bring back many memories to have a little one on my front while puttering in the kitchen. I need to brush up on my skills, but it felt very familiar!

Keeping Bear one day and Luca the next is a very stark reminder of how fast these babies change into little people toddling about with ideas in abundance. Luca's vocabulary is expanding, but it isn't quite keeping up with all the things he'd like to tell us about. That said, he is actually quite good at charades and we normally can figure out what he is telling us about! 

It was only recently that it was possible for me to transfer Luca onto our bed for his nap. I had always held him up until that point. I laid him on the bed for I think all of two naps. And since then I have no desire to lay him down. I know that it won't be all that long until he won't snuggle in my arms for naps. And so I just soak up the feel of his little body next to mine, feeling so grateful to be "Nell Nell" to him!! 

Terah's 8th Birthday (the fake one!)

Terah's birthday was partially covered in the last post BUT it also deserves a spot of its own. So I've picked out 8 more pictures to share about her fake 8th birthday. I didn't realize until this year how much she valued the aspect of her birthday where she has the full attention of the four other members of her family and gets to be the designer of her day and ours! 

While she was excited for our family visitors, there was a sense of loss if that meant there was no day just the 5 of us focused on celebrating her. So we remedied that and made October 15th her fake birthday with just us. The wonderful thing about birthdays in our home is that they often feel like a gift of a day to all of us - we are usually all fans of the birthday persons chosen menus and the activities they choose are (mostly) fun and sweet moments of connecting with each other in ways we just don't get to do on a daily basis. So this particular day of celebrating included:

1. A delicious pancake breakfast!

2. The remainder of her birthday presents, wrapped by her sisters using every bow we own.

3. Time with just Mommy, time with just Daddy and time with just Mommy and Daddy while her older sisters went for Smiley's Ice Cream. She had both her parents playing soccer with her when her sisters returned.

4. Ice cream cones on the deck!

5. Time with just her sisters while her parents took a nap (so that they wouldn't be too tired to hang out in the evening - smart kid!!). When we woke she had make herself a little birthday cake which she shared with all of us.

6. A birthday dinner of fried chicken breasts and pesto pasta. Another good choice!

7. Other activities not pictured here included helping me process persimmon pulp, our speed collection of black walnuts formerly mentioned, and a butter shaking competition/dance party. 

8. And most of all, I believe the day was chock full of reminders to her of how deeply she is loved, how grateful we are to have her as part of our family, and how much sweeter and more beautiful the world is with her in it!! 

Precious week of visitors!!

After worrying that illness would crash our plans, we were able to welcome my Great Aunt Eleanor back for another nearly week long stint at Tangly Woods. And this time we were in for a triple treat in that one of her granddaughters (who is also my dear friend and second cousin) and her son were able to overlap visits. Mom and Dad were enjoying wild, wonderful West Virginia for a week and so the upstairs was freed up for a week of hosting. We did our meals all together outside for the first few days in case any virus germs were lingering, but then were grateful to have the flexibility and warmth of gathering inside or outside for the second half of our time together. We were thankful for some beautiful fall days and the official return of "soup season!" 

Aunt Eleanor was such a good sport joining us outside for meals AND soccer games! Thankfully we have plenty of blankets!

I don't think I can do a better job describing the week with words than these pictures can do. In summary the days together were full of laughter, sweet times of connecting, good conversation, delicious foods, a shadow puppet show, chicken training and nonstop fun and play for the kids! 

With our kids at the age where they can mostly fend for themselves AND love playing together, Colette and I got to enjoy not one but two hikes on the mountain together. It's a unique gift for me to have someone who has some shared family history/heritage with me and with whom I share so many interests and who is navigating some of the same kinds of life challenges and blessings and who shares a posture of curiosity towards the world and is always learning and growing and sometimes unlearning. It was such precious time together!!

During the week, I would pop upstairs to check on my aunt and we kinda have a running joke of me snapping pictures of her without her knowing it. There wasn't much chance of her catching me while snoozing! 

I also got a funny series of pictures of the three of us together. There's not one where we are all smiling at the camera. This was partly because Aunt Eleanor was trying to figure out how we were taking a picture of ourselves and seeing ourselves on the phone screen. 

Smack dab in the middle of our week together was Terah's 8th birthday (post on that forthcoming!). So they got in on some of the fun birthday celebrations and Terah got a long spread out week of celebrations. She was ok "sharing" her birthday with others as long as we could have a "fake birthday" with just the 5 of us! 😉 Her main birthday meal was on the eve of her birth (right around the time 8 years before when I realized I was probably in labor). Jonathan, Christen and Luca were able to join us around the outdoor fire for a feast of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, green beans with garlic, fresh sweet peppers and we topped off the meal with s'mores and ice cream cones! Luca helped with scaring the chickens away from the picnic table (I'm so glad he is no longer scared of chickens, and seems to get great satisfaction from realizing that they are actually scared of him if he runs towards them). 

Then the next morning the final chain of her birthday loop came down! And we feasted again, this time on birthday quiches and funny cake pie! Our baby is officially 8!!

After soccer games in the evening, we enjoyed her birthday cupcakes and spent awhile looking at baby Terah videos (and gushing!).

We enjoyed a meander around the land the next day to check on the rapidly growing baby chicks, as well as the rest of the chickens. The gnats were making their presence known (in a most annoying way), but Colette and Aunt Eleanor discovered that leaning against a tree trunk somehow seemed to make them go elsewhere. Good to know!

On our last night all together, the three kiddos treated us to a shadow puppet show. They had worked on it for hours each day. The show was super fun, but I think even they might agree that the whole process leading up to the show was equally or even more fun than the show itself. 

The end of the visits came so fast! Now we are dreaming of a visit to their home in the spring!