Simple Joys At Home

When I got off of Facebook the end of last year, I started keeping a record of some of the cute and hilarious things my siblings (and other small children) said, so I could share them here, since that was one thing several people said they'd miss seeing me post. I had every intention of posting various installments on here, perhaps every month or two, with all these entertaining snippets. I very dutifully kept this list up...for the first four months of the year. After that, I simply forgot to keep keeping track. That list lived quite nicely, and mostly forgotten, on my phone. Until today. So without further ado... Sibling: "The thing with winter is that it's supposed to be nice holidays and everything, but everybody wears dark colors, like they're going to a funeral. " Esther, turning in circles: "I feel like I'm spinning in a tornado..." One sibling to another: "You're just a fragment of my imagination." Joshua, getting up off the ...

If you've been around for long, you probably know about the baby our family lost in March of last year, the second baby in a row. That loss was a difficult journey , but in many ways it opened my eyes to how widespread miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss is. So many people around us have suffered this lost, and nearly everyone, if not every single person you'll come in contact with in your lifetime, has been impacted by the loss of a baby, whether their own or someone else's. It's not often something that you hear about though, and that's sad to me, because there's so much pain surrounding these losses, and so many could be helped in healing by hearing of others' journeys. Shortly after those two losses in our family, I came up with a way to honor and remember those babies, as well as some of the babies lost to friends and family around us. Enter what I'm calling "The Baby Project". It's a whole new product line in my Etsy shop...

I wonder if I'm the only one that finds it a bit ironic that blogging more often was on my list of goals for the year , and here we are arrived in May, with this being only my second post this year. In my defense though, life has been way crazier than even I imagined. It has a way of doing that, you know? It still kinda surprises me when I think of it being May already - I mean, it still feels like it should be the beginning of the year. I thought I'd give y'all a little recap of what life's been like... In the middle of January, my parents went to Nevada for a week - Daddy was going on a business trip, and Mom was able to go along. That left me at home in Texas with all 8 younger siblings. Quite doable, but that Sunday while they were gone, I made sure to get everyone to church on time for Sunday School, so that they could be in someone else's care for that 45 minutes. On the 21st, I met up with my parents in the airport, had a few minutes with Mom, and then trav...

I'm not super into New Years resolutions. It's not that I have anything against them, so much as I have trouble keeping them. The last several years I simply haven't made any fancy resolutions. My track record wasn't all the great with keeping them, so why bother? As far as I can remember, there's only ever been one New Years resolution that I've kept. I was 11, and I wanted to stop chewing my fingernails. So I did. And, I still to this day am very grateful I did - had I not conquered that habit then, I'd probably still be chewing my fingernails now - 8 years later. But, after a couple year break, I'm ready to try this whole New Years resolution thing again. Or, maybe better described not as resolutions, but decisions, or goals, for this new year. So here they are, in no particular order:  1. I deactivated my Facebook account. It had become a huge time consumer in my life, and I knew it was time for a change. I don't know how long (if ever) i...

It's seems to be that many people are pretty clueless when it comes to what my life is like. There are all sorts of comments and assumptions made that clearly indicate how much people have no idea what it's like to be the oldest of a big family. In their defense, it is rather an oddity, having this many younger siblings. With my ninth little sibling due in April, there are very few families that I even know of bigger than my own. And only one of those families do I even know well enough to know all their names. We're few and far between. The lives of the firstborns (or even the second and third borns) in these families are shrouded in mystery. Not because we're trying to hide anything, but because we have very unique and rare positions. So, here it is, from my point of view. 1. People ask you what it's like to be the oldest. The answer to that one is tricky - quite likely, we don't remember what it's like NOT being the oldest, because our first s...

It started as a small idea, late last year. An aunt told me about her experience using a doula with one of her births, and how it had been such a wonderful thing. I was intrigued by the concept, as I've long been interested in midwifery, but was not fully comfortable with all that was entailed in that. Naturally, becoming a doula was an idea that entered my mind - one that greatly appealed. I researched, and I researched, and I researched some more. The idea became a plan. I read articles, and listened to podcasts. I dug for knowledge, more useful things to put my plan into action. I pinned to my doula board on Pinterest, trying to be as best prepared as I possibly could be. When I graduated earlier this year and the "What next?" Question came, I was ready for it. All the details weren't kinked out, and while I didn't know quite when I could put this wonderful plan into action, I had my idealistic time frame. "This Fall, or maybe the beginning of th...

Five years ago today, we finished packing up all our belongings, said goodbye to the last few friends, gave tearful hugs to the remaining family members, and loaded up in the van for our drive back to Texas. Five years before, we had done nearly the opposite - packed up all our belongings and moved to Washington. It wasn't an easy thing, that first big move. I didn't want to go. Yes, there was the excitement and adventure of moving, and the newness that appealed to me at eight years old. But there was also the ache. Up until that point, I had lived in Texas my entire life. I didn't know any different, and I didn't want to leave the people I loved and the place I knew. I remember crying a lot, but being super excited at the same time. The first few years after we moved were not easy ones. We lived in a travel trailer for the first two years, moving around based on where Daddy's work was. We didn't have a consistent church for the first year or so, instead...