Moira is on a braiding spree thanks to Pinterest. Thought I would start sharing some of these do's for fun in case you might want to try your hand.
Here you have fishtail braids. I am not sure why they call them fish tails. The only tail I have seen braided like this was my Arabian's before a show. It was harder than it looks back then. It is pretty painless now since I only man the camera and not the comb lol.
If you want to give it a whirl there is a tutorial with good graphics here.
I have told this story, I'm sure, that I didn't expect to have boys. Maybe one. Someday. After girls. Surely girls would be first. I knew girls. Colin was born before sonograms could accurately predict gender and the military hospital forbid technicians from hazarding a guess. We were told not to even ask. We didn't. I knew anyway. It was a girl. It had to be.
I knew girls.
The male species was another story. There weren't a lot of them in my early life and I had a hard time picturing what it was you were supposed to do with them. I had cared for a few little boys as a babysitter, but I wasn't involved with footballs and bugs and wrestling. Loooooong (and loud) discussions about sports statistics and cars were completely foreign to me. Me, with my collection of Victoriana, my fondness for classical music and coordinating table linens. Maybe I wasn't sure where I would fit in there.
That anxiety fell away as the first blue blanket filled my arms. And then another. And another. Six all said, in two groups of three's. A mighty band of brothers who have run circles around me for a lot of years. They are loud. They are messy. Left five minutes in the same room, they are inevitably tumbling over the edge of the sofa or playing keepaway. They eat. A lot. I know this because I find apple cores and pop cans behind beds and on the bathroom windowsill.
They also send me music for my ipod when they hear something they think I might like. They suggest books or movies because the heroine "is just like you, Mom." They fix my phone app's and tell me how to figure out my computer. In a given day I have discussed how to know you are love, how we to decide how to vote, how to find the area of a triangle, and how to tie a shoe – all with equal gusto and sincerity – with one or another of them.
So I don't have to wonder anymore about how I fit into their world. They showed me.
Right in the middle. : )
You don't raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes.
~Walter M. Schirra, Sr.
Summer made a late appearance in England this year we are told. When we arrived last month it was so cold we had to turn the radiators on the first night due to the damp chill that had settled into the old, empty house. While our American friends were sweltering, we were carrying jackets and umbrellas. The word on the street was that summer was over.
They spoke too soon. : )
This has been the second weekend of near perfect summer weather. It is quite hot for Northern Europe but just right for us transplants. We have been outdoors for most of it, coming in reluctantly when dark falls, children dropping into bed sunkissed and thoroughly exhausted.
I felt a little bit guilty not working on the last bit of sorting and shelving. But not enough to come inside. The rain will fall soon enough. You only get so many opportunities to sift the sand together. They won't always squeal when the waves chase them up the shore after all.
It was probably time. We have talked about this for over a year now as those fine locks grew into something of a baby mullet. Maybe just even it up a bit? That was my husband's suggestion. But oh those blonde baby locks. They are only for a season in my little ones' lives, completely void of fair haired ancestors as they are. I knew once they were clipped I wouldn't likely see them again. So, the deed was delayed for a good long time.
The day came however. Abbie Rose and her big girl haircut. The one she was sure was going to hurt. It didn't. Not for her, anyway. : )
Every moment comes to you pregnant with a Divine Purpose; time being so precious that God only deals it out second by second. Once it leaves your hands and your power to do with it as you please, it plunges into eternity –
to remain forever what you made it.
Fulton Sheen
I hope you are making the most of every moment this summer, before the last of them are lost to us. Sharing some images from a 'big kid' outing my older kids enjoyed this month. Can I say how very cool it is to have children old enough to vacation together? Even cooler – photography has become a family hobby.
(thank you Colin for these pictures!)
(digital supplies from from Studio Girls)
Nine of our ten were under our roof this past week or so. There have been a lot of trains and planes and touring happening. In between there was a lot of volleyball, soccer, football, and board game playing. A fair amount of Olympics viewing. And many hours of Lark Rise.
Oh. my. word. I can't document the past couple weeks without mention of viewing the entire first season of Lark Rise, based upon the memoirs of Flora Thompson. The girls are anxiously awaiting the original books. BBC we heart you.
(Zach on L with his room mate on R)
You don't let a little English rain stop you. Makes you grow. : )
(another roomie of Z's during a rainy soccer match- this is how we entertain guests around here ; ))
Their makeshift 'net'. They are nothing if not innovative. Anything to get a game going. <g>
It has been a wonderful whirlwind-y visit.
Though a less wonderful haircut. (on me) I am working on that one.
Certainly eighteen is that. And yet, as tremendous as this milestone is, it passed in a fashion fitting our Alannah. It was peaceful, unassuming, simple, sweet.
If you have yet to raise up a child to adulthood I can tell you this. It is much like standing on the pier. All your work, your prayers, your hopes and fears, all lead you to this place where together you bid farewell to shores of childhood and turn to gaze out upon this vast ocean that is their future in this big world. Sometimes this voyage begins in a storm of independence. Sometimes it is more floating out to sea. Sometimes it involves a bit of ebbing and flowing for a bit, going out into deeper waters each time. It just depends.
This journey is as unique and individual as we all are. I feel blessed to have watched it all unfold for a fourth time, my first with a daughter.
I had not expected to be sick the day before her birthday. There was a little scrambling the day of. We cooked together. Spinach salad, penne pasta with snap peas, perfectly marinated turkey breast. Recipe below though I will tell you she mostly humored us with the penne since she eschews most things with strong flavors.
Pasta and Sugar Snap Pea Salad
2 ounces penne pasta
3 ounces sugar snap peas (about 1 cup)
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp canola oil
¼ tsp grated gingerroot
¼ bell pepper. cut into short, thin strips
¼ small red onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp snipped fresh cilantro
Summer daylight lingers long this far north, making it hard to convince children the day is done. This evening with no rain kept big and small outdoors while I was inside beginning to dress little people for bed. Their daddy came back to fetch them out again to show us what he and the boys had found in the tree outside the window, a beautiful ring-necked pheasant roosting just overhead.
Our landlord tells us the bird has long been resident in that tree. Owing to this tenure, Allen discussed rules for good neighbors with the children. No pestering of the bird will be tolerated he explained. He was here first after all.
I am so glad he has decided to stay.
"In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see,
the bird still hopping on the tree,"
from Bed in Summer, Robert Louis Stevenson
Starry Sky Journal 