Year: 2004

Last week, Jay and I had the privilege of joining Abigail, her classmates and teacher, and the entire lower portion of the Covenant School for their annual Living History Day.

Each year, coinciding with their course of study in a particular segment of history, the students take a day to experience life as someone would have in that time period. All the children, parents, and teachers arrive for the day dressed in clothing somewhat appropriate to the era they are studying. It is a rich day full of learning and fun.

This year we visited Farmer’s Branch Historical Parkwhere they have preserved quite a wonderful bit of history. Through the help of folks from the Texana Living History Association, we stepped back into the time of the American Pioneers and got a glimpse of what life was like for them. We visited a one-room schoolhouse, made rag dolls, explored several different homes preserved from the 1800’s, watched a blacksmith hard at work, heard from female cattle rancher Molly Goodnight, and even visited with a couple of cowboys on the cattle trail to see how they lived. What a treat to spend this day with Abigail and some of the wonderful folks from her school.

Part of the fun was dressing up. I enjoyed planning and working on our costumes, though I didn’t sew all of the pieces myself: only our matching aprons. Part of Abigail’s “pioneer” outfit is 25 years old. The blue dress she is wearing under her pinafore is one that my mother sewed for me when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, and wanted to dress as a Pilgrim one Halloween. After taking a sizeable hem in the skirt and sleeves, it was perfect for Abigail. It was fun to see her wear it again after all these years.

Click here if you would enjoy seeing some more photos from our day. By way of note: Photaccess has changed the way they do things and we notice the resolution on the smaller photos is not very good at all. We recommend choosing the “view photos larger” option for now. And a bit of good news: we are in the process of changing our photo hosting site so look for the new page coming soon.

We’ve neglected our blog over the past couple weeks as we attended to other matters for a time.

Last week we had a houseguest: our cousin/niece Evangeline joined us for a few days while she and her brothers were in town for a visit (the boys stayed over at Grammy Ruth’s and GranDaddy John’s). We enjoyed having all of them closeby for the week. The kids all loved being together and it was a great visit.

Then there is the project that Jay has been working on for some weeks now…but he’ll have to tell you about that himself. (Hint, hint, Jay!!)

Besides this, all of us have been rather ill. We all caught colds last week, some of which have turned into sinus infections (Mommy in this case being the sickest, which is unusual for our family) and on top of this, several of us are dealing with pink eye. Fun, fun. Our family bonding ritual has now become everyone lining up for the administration of their “drops”.

Being around the house for a decent amount of time has given me time for pause and thought (in between administering eye drops, wiping noses, and trying to contain the spread of germs – though this last item seems rather a joke at this point). Even as we deal with illnesses we have access to such creature comforts: central heat and humidifiers, ready access to medications of most every kind, disposable tissues, library books to read together, videos and dvd’s from our local store to help entertain the very sick, groceries aplenty only a mile away, not to mention restaurants which serve up anything we want at a moment’s notice for us to enjoy in the comfort of our own home. For these things I am grateful, for I know they make our days at home somewhat easier.

Not that I have totally enjoyed this little foray into the land of everyone in the family being sick. I admit I am ready to see some indications that some of us are on the mend. I would like to be able to breathe through my nose again, and I will enjoy venturing forth from our sickhouse in the near future to experience other people and places.

Till then, we are here. I hope all those reading are healthy and well, and looking forward to a time of Thanksgiving next week.

I have been remiss in officially welcoming our newest niece/cousin. We are delighted to announce the birth of Sarah Kathryn, delivered Monday, October 25th. She is welcomed by proud Mommy (Katie) and Daddy (Peter), as well as adoring big sister Ellie.

Abigail and I had the privilege of seeing Sarah when she was only a few hours old. This was big treat for me as well as Abigail, who was delighted to get to help hold her baby cousin. Welcome to the world, Baby Sarah! We are so glad you are a part of our family!

Though I had a couple opportunities this year to “early vote” on my own, without my three darlings in tow, I made a conscious decision to go to the polls on Election Day, and take the children along. Toward that end, I’d been trying to talk a bit with them about the upcoming election, giving them an overview of the process we as a democracy go through to elect a leader.

I may not be the best teacher, because today as we set out on our excursion to our local school to vote, I was asked some interesting questions. The questions and comments continued as we entered the school to vote, and persisted even after we’d finished voting and were heading home.

Here are some of the things my charges asked, or had to say regarding the election and the voting process:

Jonathan: “I can’t wait to see George Bush! When’s he gonna get to the pool?” (by way of explanation, I think there was confusion over the word “poll”)

Jonathan: (a bit skeptically. he is, after all, a bit fearful around bodies of water) “How deep is George Bush’s pool?”

Abigail: “Not so deep, I don’t think.”

Abigail: “Everyone is voting today for George Bush to be President!” (if only that were true!!)

Abigail: “So do all Presidents have to love God?”

Abigail: “Can a woman be President?”

It turned out that the voting was set up in the school gymnasium. My children are unfamiliar with the concept of a gymnasium, or so I found out.

Abigail: “Is this a basketball place?”

Nicolas: (in a rude, angry voice when his sister blocked his view) “SEE the basketball, SEE the basketball!” (meaning he wanted to be able to see the hoop)

As I began the process of voting with my very cool and modern computer key card, the children were interested in helping.

Jonathan: “Can I please push a button?”

Jonathan: (trying on the headset provided each voter in their booth) “Now is it my turn? When can I vote?”

Nicolas: (still rather loudly) “PLAY the basketball!!”

The kind lady at the exit showered the children with “My vote counted” stickers, except for Jonathan who declared he didn’t want a sticker, he wanted to get to vote! Nicolas was very proud of his sticker though and transferred it to his jammies when it was time to get dressed for bed.

There were many more comments and questions, some of which I did not know how to answer. But I am glad I got to experience this election, for the first time, through the eyes of my children. It is really a treat to see the world they way they see it. We enjoyed our election experience: now we are just awaiting the outcome!

It’s been awhile since I posted. The last month has been rather eventful, much of it tinged with sadness, and here is why:

I never got around to posting our news in August that we were expecting our fourth child. I kept meaning to blog about our little one on the way, but between early pregnancy exhaustion and the busy beginning of the school year, I just never did. Despite feeling ever so tired, and then becoming almost constantly nauseous, I was delighted at the prospect of another baby in our house. I was thrilled when I began growing out of my regular clothing at only 6 weeks, and was happy for an excuse to get out those maternity clothes for yet a fourth time. We were so very excited about this little baby.

And then sadly, five weeks ago today we learned that our unborn baby’s heart had stopped beating. This news came as a complete shock since we had been delighted three weeks earlier to see a sonogram with a picture of what looked in all respects to be a beautifully healthy baby, complete with strong heartbeat. Based on that earlier sonogram we had shared our news with our children, who were overjoyed to know they were having another sibling, and with our family and friends.

Though we have experienced early miscarriages before, we were nonetheless unprepared to hear the news that this baby had died only a few weeks after his heart began beating. As we began the process of digesting this information, and figuring out how to deal with the shock, our family and friends surrounded us with compassion and caring and tons of help. Early the next week I had to go into the hospital for surgery, and again, so many people pitched in to help in different ways. We have felt immensely blessed with the outpouring of love and support from all of those who have helped with caring for our children, brought food and groceries, taken our places in various areas of school and church responsibility, prayed with and for us, given us hugs, and written us cards and letters. It helps us to know so many people care for us, and are willing to sorrow with us, and in turn, help us in the midst of that sorrow.

Just today we learned that our baby was in fact, a little boy, and that he was diagnosed with a chromosomal abnormality known as Trisomy 15, which means that when his chromosomes were being formed and coded, he got an extra #15. This genetic combination is incompatible with life and so I have learned that babies with this particular extra chromosome do not make it to term.

While our sense of loss is not lessened by this news, we are grateful to know medically what happened with our baby, and we truly feel God is merciful to both allow us to know this much, and to take this little baby who could not have lived here on earth, to heaven sooner rather than later.

So, in the midst of our tears we have hope: while we grieve the loss of this tiny young life, we also gratefully rest in the knowledge that our little boy is safe in heaven, in the arms of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. While I so wish we had gotten the opportunity to hold him here in our arms, I am thankful he is with God. And I look forward to seeing his sweet face and hugging him someday.