Three and Four.

This cracks me up.  On so many levels.

There's Sarah, thrilled.  Eva... not so much.  Sarah: impulsively charging ahead.  Eva: suggesting perhaps we stop and think this through.  And Daddy was right there.  They were on a giant inflatable turtle in two feet of lake water.  Cannot stop laughing at this.

Sarah is impulsive, ruled by feelings.  She's a needer.  She needs cuddled, read to.  She needs ice water, and help washing her hands, and putting on her undies, and a million other things she could do on her own but refuses to.  Sometimes I loose my patience with that.  Her neediness.  Other times I eat it up because out of the girls she's the only one always up for a cuddle.

She's naughty as heck.  She'll tell you, "now Mama, here's da troof..." and  I know she's about to lie to me.  She tattles and sasses and tries to act cool.  She tells me I'm mean and bad.  We've been reading a lot of Llama Llama Mad at Mama.  She's way into princesses, and pink, purple, and turquoise.  She loves Browned Butter Spaghetti and s'mores.  She dislikes picking up any toy, ever.  Even if it means I'll throw it away or hide it on top of the fridge she just. won't. do. it.  Everrrr.  She also would like to dye her hair pink.

Eva is not impulsive.  Everything is weighed and calculated.  If Sarah is 40% forethought 60% action Eva is the opposite.  She asks you "hand, hand".  She needs your assistance walking down the hallway.  She takes 8 minuets to scoot down the basement stairs.  She doesn't like high places.  She fake cries like nobodies business.  She looks and acts so stinkin' much like Marie its heart stopping sometimes.  And I prayed that she look like her, so that we can tell her all about her sister and tell her you look just like her.  To connect them, to give her something to cling to with this larger than life sister who lives with Jesus.  Marie like a fairy tale to them.  God took me pretty seriously.  I got my prayer answered, twinsies.

Eva loves giving kisses, and Daddy, and "tack-tors" (tracktors), and her Cabbage Patch baby, and her blankets, and her papi (pacifier).  She does not love the dog.  He is supposed to stay far away always.  If he gets to close she'll let him have it yelling "dit, dit" at the top of her lungs.

The crazy part is that now, with these third and fourth girls, I know they're going to be totally different people a month from now.  Maybe Eva gets brave, maybe Sarah slows down.  Maybe not...

Either way I love this picture, and the moment captured that shows exactly who they are, now. 

A long time gone...

I've been gone. Life has been happening at such a fast pace. Just soaking that up I guess, and watching these children grow. I actually thought maybe I would be done with this blog, but I go back and read Josie's life and Marie's, and I want that for Sarah and Eva too. So the day to day, the recording that I've avoided... Maybe it's a good thing.

And they are getting big! Seventeen months now and naughty as all get out. But she's sweet and my baby and I adore her.

My big girl had a birthday. She's nine now.

And this girl, still the blessing that pulls me forward.

Rain, and hope.

Nearly done, nearly done, NEARLY DONE! Today Luke is almost done sowing wheat.  One more quarter.  One. More. F'ing. Quarter.

I do love fall.  But this has been a long September.  After Sarah's birthday and Marie's day Luke was in the field.  He prepared fields for planting and going on hope and prayer (because there has been no measurable rain for months) he started sowing.  You sow wheat, you plant corn.  I learned that very early on in my journey as a farmer's wife.

Anyway, he started sowing.  Then we had to stop and harvest millet.  A blessing to have a crop but to be honest it was kind of pathetic.  Fifteen bushels per acre is nothing.  At least it was there but it was a terrible yield.  Mama got to be in the grain-cart.  This means that I scrambled to find childcare and spent the day in a tractor only to come home and do all that mommy stuff I didn't get done all day.  After millet we drilled some more wheat.  And then we stopped to harvest corn.  Corn harvest is supposed to happen in October, but, there's a drought and it's early.  God was good and the corn yielded a bit better than we had hoped.  44 bushels per acre on dry-land corn.  Good, average yields are about 120 bushels per acre, but in this drought year we are grateful for what we get.  Corn harvest brought more tractor time, more scramble to find childcare, more cranky girls because they are totally not used to me being gone.  We finished corn, he went back to sowing wheat.  And tomorrow, by grace, he will be done.  Hallelujah.

I would love to have that guy home for a day...

And this Friday there is a 30 percent chance of rain and snow.  It is a better chance than we have had for awhile.  We need moisture to get the wheat up, moisture so that it will grow and not starve for water and die off.  A nice cold snowy winter so that it is cold in the ground and we get a good stand (healthy plant) next spring.  Will you join me in prayer?

Lord, Let is rain!  Let it snow! You know the time it will come, and the reason for this dry season, but we ask you send moisture!  Love you Lord!  Amen.

In other news, I will have a one year old next week.  Totally mind blowing.  And she learned how to drink from a straw yesterday!  And Sarah has her first day of dance class today.  My littlest girls are growing up...

I am also going to make apple butter tomorrow.

Back.

Well...  Summer happened.  We were busy.  I sort of just took off. 

Josie and I did a ten week session with Judi's House in Denver.  They do amazing group support/grief counseling and  we came away with some new coping skills and understanding.  Josie needed it.  It was nice to have that one on one time with her every week while we drove.  Six hours round trip, lots of car time.

It has been dry.  Not a great year to be a farmer.  Wheat actually yielded a bit better than expected, but we are now sowing wheat in dry ground and getting ready to pick drought stunted corn.  It happens, it's a season of dry.  It will change.

Sarah turned three.  It was beautiful and her party was perfect and she sparkled all day. 

We marked three years since Marie went to be with Jesus.  Luke and I gathered our girls and packed up the pickup and the dog and found ourselves at the lake again this year.  Soft sand, sunshine, wind... we had a good day just being with our three girls here and remembering the one who flew.

Eva is just growing like crazy.  It's amazing how she went from this tiny being we didn't know to being a little girl in a years time.  She is funny, naughty, cuddly.  She is Daddy's and it warms my heart because he would never admit it but he has been so lonely with Marie gone.  She is his too. 

Luke and I are good.  We will mark eight years of marriage on the 25th of this month.  It is hard to believe that's all the time that passed.  I feel that we've been together forever, that I've been with him longer.  Sometimes I think it's possible that my soul has.  We've been through more in these eight years.  I am blessed to have him walk beside me.

I am good.  I am finally feeling like we've gained ground.  Like it's okay to be happy.  We are a different family.  So much has happened in three years, life is different.  I am not the person I was before.  In many ways I am but some parts of me have aged or wizened so much that I don't feel like I did before Marie being gone.  I miss my innocence.  But, God has carried us full circle and we have come to a good place.  Things are marked by Marie's absence but also by the way that she is still here, still this family, still the second born.  It's okay to be here and be happy and feel these blessings.  It's a process.  In three years time I imagine it will be different still...

 Today Luke started picking corn.  Season's change.  Things move.  It is.  We are.  It's good. :)
 

Happening...

It's farming time again.  Luke is in the field, I am on the home front.  Keeping up with the girls and their doings, gearing up for the end of school and a busy June.  It's amazing how days go by so quickly.  I have chores, Josie has stuff constantly, just getting through dinner, reviewing her days schoolwork, and bath time is a marathon.  Then Luke and I catch a precious few minuets alone watching something on TV and it's time to crash and do it all again tomorrow.

We got the garden in.  Luke and the girls did.  I didn't help.  I don't enjoy it like he does.  Luke loves the garden, and the soil, and the plants.  I just tend it.  Pulling weeds, harvesting, canning.  It is good to watch him though, showing the girls just how to push earth over seeds.  Hopefully he is planting more than lettuce, spinach, and green beans in their minds.  Hopefully there are seeds there taking root.  My real prayer is that they will grow up and see this little town, this farm, this simple as not so bad a way to live.

The business is a blessing.  Life is always pulling forward and there is no choice but to move with it.  Even though that hurts a little sometimes.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt at all and there's a joy in the movement.  It's funny that way.

Last Saturday was Kindergarten registration.  It hit harder than I expected.  Rie would be a kindergartner.  Had life been different, had she not gotten sick... Who would her best friend be?  Would she be getting her ears pierced now?  Would she be fighting me over everything?  No answers...  I keep close the words:
You're meant for so much more than all of this, You're beautiful...You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His"  Beautiful, MercyMe


There was a different plan for Rie.


So, I deal.  I move.  I help Josie heal.  She's needed a lot of help with healing these last few months. I am so grateful that we have been able to provide that help for her.  Her smiles coming easier.  It's working.


Last night we had Ground Beef Pie for dinner with fruit salad, we sat on the patio and watched the twilight come in.  Sarah tipped her chair over backwards and cracked her head on the cement.  Eva was too busy watching the neighbor kids to eat her dinner.  Today Luke is taking the drill home from the implement dealership to get it ready to plan millet the end of the month and Eva will get her first haircut.  Next week we'll be planting corn.  The wheat's green and tall and just barely starting to head out.  The cottonwoods are starting to seed.  I have floors to mop.  And in all of that is the beauty.  


If I squint my eyes looking hard enough that's the blessings.  Those little moments with a cool beer on the patio and a sunset and kids playing with the dog.  Blessed.  And because Josie always asks me, that's where Heaven is.  Just behind the sunset.  Because the sun never sets there.  We're that close to her, to Him.  Jesus is just behind that streak of red in the sky.

Busy...

We have been really busy at our house.  Because Luke farms mid-winter is our time to do house projects.  This year it is painting the kitchen cabinets.  I cannot believe it's been nearly three years since we moved to this house, and painting the kitchen is one of our last big projects to do.  We still need to finish the basement bath and at some point install larger windows in the basement bedrooms but those are a long way off yet.

Getting the cabinets painted is mostly Luke's job.  I've been busy with Eva and fighting a terrible cold so I haven't been much help to him.

Eva is going to be four months old in a week and going through that super clingy stage.  She doesn't want down for anything.  Her personality seems to be a lot like Josie.  Sort of sensitive, and easily overwhelmed.  Not the easiest baby in the world.  She hasn't given us a real giggle yet, but does chuckle a bit when you tickle her.  Getting better on her tummy.  The trick is getting her to go along with being out of my arms!

The kitchen project in the beginning stages....

You can see the beginnings of the finished product here.  We went with a charcoal gray.

Just busy and blessed with these girls!

39 weeks... the hard way.

Today it is official.  I am one week from my due date.

And I haven't had much time to think about it.  Last week Josie brought home a nasty head cold.  Friday Sarah really seemed to catch it and by Sunday evening we knew something was up.  A long night Sunday and a doctor appointment Monday and it was confirmed Sarah has croup.  I have been up nights with her and busy days with her just trying to get through it.  I've never had a little one with croup before.  Her cough is better now, not as barky, but the steroid pills they put her on are terrible.  She's cranky, they taste terrible, I'm tired.  It's not a great combination.  She's still really not feeling good but we are seeing some improvement.

Luke worked 15 hours yesterday.  He was literally not home at all.  He's trying to get all the wheat sown way up north.  They just finished section 11 and Tolstrip... on to Barnika's today and back to the farm place tomorrow.  As soon as he's done with that it's time to start picking up the millet they swathed the beginning of the month.  There are three and a half fields, or another three days of work there.  He hasn't been home since Friday when they were able to start sowing wheat again.

We are a little overwhelmed.  I don't like this journal because it sounds like I'm complaining.  Really I'm not, we're blessed.  Blessed to be expecting, blessed that Sarah is strong enough to cough hard and fight this virus, blessed that Luke has work and we are provided for.  The truth is though that we have a lot going on!

Josie is struggling.  Anxiety is something she deals with all the time but lately it's been worse.  She has a hard teacher this year.  Last year she had a very sweet teacher who mothered her, this year her teacher is really pushing personal responsibility.  It is hard for my sensitive, anxious girl some days.  So there's been that too.  We really just need to get through the year with this teacher... and there's a lesson in it for her.  About how it's not always easy with other's in this world.  I just hate to see her worry over school.

 I am so glad that I don't have to worry about Marie getting this virus that Sarah is fighting.  She just couldn't cough.  Then I feel guilty about  being relieved about that because it means she 's not here.  And I miss her and wish she was here but I am so grateful for Heaven...

So we've hit 39 weeks but the last week has been hard. My next doctor appointment is Monday and my due date is Wednesday, the 5th.  I will talk to the doctor about our options for induction if/when I go over my due date.  I have had to be induced with all three of our girls so far as my labors don't progress.  After going nine days over with Sarah I am going to ask they not let me go past 41 weeks this time.  Poor Sarah was starving at birth, her skin was cracked, and there was meconium in her fluid so her lungs were compromised.  She just baked too long and I would like to avoid that with this little one if I can.  That and the hospital is an hour and forty minuets from here so it would be comforting to have some sort of plan. 

Please continue to lift Abigail up in your prayers as she is still fighting pneumonia...

Princess Sarah turned two...

Here are a few photos from her party.  It was a beautiful day and she was surrounded by a lot of special people to help her celebrate.  She was also spoiled rotten...

You can download, print, and make the banner yourself here.

I say it all the time, but we really are so blessed to have Sarah Kate in our lives.  Her white blond hair, infectious smile, quick hugs, fiery spirit, and roll with the punches attitude have been such a comfort to us.  God made Sarah Kate something special indeed!

Another week....

School started and another week has flown by.  Luke has been in the tractor spraying weeds, getting fields ready to sow wheat in September.  The millet is ready to cut, we went to Nebraska to the big county fair.  I am 34 weeks and getting baby clothes ready.  Sarah will be two, Marie will be gone two years...

Life is weird.

This summer I have felt like I've walked this path before.  Being pregnant again, my due date only just about a month later.  Only Little Mama is not here with me.  And I remember falling asleep in the afternoons with her talking herself to sleep.  Rubbing the back of her neck behind the curls because she'd calm down then.  And chocolate kisses in the afternoon, snuggling her to sleep at night when she'd hold on to my hair or hold my necklace in her fist.  And today I bought her new flowers for her tombstone, for her anniversary.

That is something no mother should ever buy.  I should still be holding her here.  I should still be kissing her goodnight and washing her clothes and painting her nails.  Life is weird.  Two years and this life, while blessed, is not as full without Marie in it.  Everything is different now.  I have changed.

I am now a compulsive list maker.  It helps me to keep my anxiety in check.  I never had anxiety before and I loved thinking I was this free spirit who could just roll with it all.  Not so much.  Now I make a note, I cross it off, I have to.

I check over and over again at night that doors are locked, babies are breathing, lights are off.  I always turn around before I leave the house, I double check before I close the garage door.  I cannot shake the feeling that I have forgotten something.

I question myself more.  Am I doing a good enough job, am I good enough in prayer, am I leading my daughters the right way?  Am I a good example to them?  Somehow Marie gave me confidence in those things, I struggle to find that now.

I keep to myself in ways I never did before.  I am closed off with my emotions when asked how we are doing.  The same as we were, we still hurt.  But that's the hard answer and I don't want the conversation so I say fine.

And again I am getting ready for a baby and praying it will be healthy.  I am snuggling a two year old (almost!) again.  I am getting used to Josie being back in school... and life cycles back to where it was before.  And I should be used to that, the wife of a farmer.  Every year we cycle through the same work in the same seasons again...  And I suppose it will be this way until I go Home...

I cannot believe another year has come and gone... how have I gone without kissing that freckle on her forehead so long?  Though we are better at coping now the pain is still the same.  And this weekend we will celebrate and mourn.  The Bittersweet...  And life cycles on. 

Random... and pickles.

Tonight is back to school night.  Josie will take her school supplies in, meet her teacher, then we're coming home and having tacos.  I cannot believe the time has come.

Tomorrow I will be 33 weeks.  It has flown but it is dragging all the same.  I am looking forward to meeting this new little girl.

I am struggling with feeling guilty about that excitement.  With Sarah I was so grateful for just the day, and how Marie was doing, and I really never daydreamed much about the little life within me.  I was grateful for hearing she was growing well, I was praying like crazy that the baby thrive, but I never felt that giddy excitement.  I feel so bad that I didn't do that for Sarah, and guilty for feeling it now.  Mama guilt is complicated.  Extra kisses now make up for it.

Tonight we are having Carne Asada Tacos using the recipe Clarissa turned me on to.  I never make salsa to go with them and cook the meat in the crock pot.  My family doesn't seem to mind.

I am pretty sure the terrible two's have arrived.  My sweetheart has been a handful lately.

I made eighteen jars of pickles yesterday and tonight I am pulling the cucumber plants.  That is a total of 30 jars of dill pickles.  That is insane.  For Katie, and anyone else who might care, this is my recipe for pickles.  It is a compilation of a recipe found on food.com and Luke's cousin's wife Kendra's spicy dill pickles that are awesome.  I just altered it enough to make a ton!

SPICY DILL PICKLES (this recipe is to make 7 quart jars at a time, for more than that you just keep making another batch of brine because you want it hot)  Beg, borrow, or steal to get a large water bath canner with the rack.  It's just too hard otherwise.

for the jars

fresh dill

jalapeno peppers, enough to do at least one pepper per jar

minced garlic (I just by the jar at the grocery store)

dried dill (because it should be dilly, otherwise what's the point?)

for the brine

8 1/2 cups water (distilled)

2 1/4 cups white vinegar

1/2 cup pickling salt

Steps

1.  Fill water bath roughly 2/3 full with tap water.  Start it boiling, it takes forever.

2.  Fill a small pot with some water and start warming your lids.  I do mine until they just boil and pull it off the heat.

3. Get the brine going.  Mix water, vinegar, and salt and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat.

4.  Get your jars hot.  Do this either by running them through the dishwasher and using them just as they dry or by putting them in a large pot of boiling water.

5.  Slice, dice, get your cucumbers ready.  And dice up the peppers.

All of this will take hours.  It is a slow start.

6.  To prepare jars add to the bottom of each 1 diced jalapeno, 1/2 of a spoon of minced garlic (I just use a spoon from the silverware drawer), a dash of dried dill, and a nice piece of fresh dill.  Don't be skimpy.

7.  Fill jar with sliced cucumbers, try to get it nice an evenly filled, no huge gaps anywhere.  Don't stuff it so much there's no room for the brine.

8.  Pour in the brine (use a funnel).  Add a hot lid and your mason jar ring and set aside.  

Once you have 6-8 jars you are ready to put them in the boiling water bath.  Add jars to boiling water, add water as needed so that when the rack is fully lowered your jars are covered by an inch to two inches of water.  Bring heat back up.  Once it begins to boil I process my quart jars for 20 minuets (if you live over 6000 feet you have to adjust that time).  Pints would process for 15 minuets.  

Once done remove jars and set on a towel to cool for 24 hours.  If the seal hooray, if they don't put them in the fridge and eat them in the next week or so.  

Josie and I are going to work on the baby's blanket (I have made one for each of the girls) and then I have to do her back-to-school mani/pedi.

Fingerprint Friday...

There is a song by Steven Curtis Chapman that says:
I can see the fingerprints of god
When I look at you
I can see the fingerprints of god
And I know its true
You're a masterpiece
That all creation quietly applauds
And you're covered with the fingerprints of god

To join visit Beki at The Rusted Chain...

God's Fingerprint... well, it's these girls.  His Fingerprints are all over them.  In Josie and her old soul, her worry, her being such a big girl and such a little girl all at the same time...

And His Fingerprints are all over Sarah, the surprise baby that we didn't know how much we'd need.  He sent her to save us, to pull us forward, to make us laugh, to give us strength.  He made Sarah just for our family and we are so blessed by her...

Simply, we are blessed.  By the three girls we have been given and the opportunity to welcome this fourth... just so incredibly blessed.