Crookeder.

You know you live in a crooked house when you play Jenga on the coffee table and Ruby, not quite understanding the laws of gravity and physics and whatever it is that requires balance for stability, does this:

and it stands. And stands. And it takes five more turns before it’s Ruby’s turn again and

she’s the one who knocks it over.

What joy.

Life can be crazy sometimes. In many worlds, this life of mine can be considered crazy all the time. If there isn’t someone leaning on me, pestering me, waiting for me, or whining at me, it must be midnight. If someone isn’t hungry, tired, or desperately needing to use the bathroom while we’re 5,000 steps from the closest bathroom, it’s a large miracle.

And yet.

I get hundreds of kisses a day. I tried to count one normal day. I gave up and lost count.

I get to see the light in my son’s eyes when he reads “churning” for the first time.

One little girl told me today that I must think her family is lucky, because they only have three kids.

I don’t.

This craziness, the moments when I am at my limit and supper’s late and babies are crying and the floor just got a cup of cooked rice spilled, I’m still glad this is my life.

There are six little people who call me ‘Momma’. God’s given me them to teach, train, to show them my sin and His grace, and to tell them they can have it too.

It’s a privilege. I’m glad He’s called me to this purpose, these children, this life. What joy.

Lamb feeding photos.

 

I’m not sure words are needed here. They had fun. The got to experience lots of things. It was really, really cold. Really cold. The difference in temperature between there last week at this time and the temp today here is 90 degrees. It’s pretty incredible.

Borax.

Edited to add: Boy, the qualities of Borax must be under appreciated! I drew numbers and Laura, Lanita, and Sharilyn, your entries were randomly picked for the coupons. Congrats!

Borax and I have been good friends for a long time. I originally bought it to make my own detergent, and since then I’ve found it to be helpful in adding to the wash when clothes are especially dirty, and I even tried using it to clean my bathtub. (That one wasn’t my favorite use. But it was worth a shot.) With hard well water here, it’s been a clothes-saver.

Borax is a natural mineral from the earth. It’s the common name for sodium tetraborate. (If I can remember that long term my husband would be impressed. I’m not counting on it though.) Nothing is added to it; it’s just cleaned, dried, and boxed. It naturally softens hard water by attaching to some of the compounds and settling to the bottom of the machine – and then draining out. All that to say, I didn’t know all of this. But 20 Mule Team Borax sent me a box to try out (it’s identical to the box that I already was using…) and they also sent me three coupons to give away to my readers to try.

Want one? Leave a comment here, like this post on Facebook, and comment on my facebook page to win three chances. Three winners will be drawn at random on Thursday at noon CT.

One of those mysteries...

The kids got to see a lamb born. As far as I could see, one potentially awkward future conversation just got a whole lot easier.

I thought. The question about how the lambs came to be was next. I mentioned rams. They said Grandpa didn't have any rams out there. I assured them he must have had some sometime in the very near past. The notion of ewes simply birthing yearly without ram assistance was mentioned. The rams that recently went to market were mentioned. Mystery solved.

And so the awkward conversation came full circle. I believe I threw something in there about our goats, both male and female, and understanding dawned.

I am so not ready for this.

South Dakota days.

My dad has long made up words for old songs. The "Oh Christmas Tree" song with a line in there about green teeth instead of a green tree comes to mind from my growing up years.

Not much has changed. As "The weather outside is frightful" got it's line change yesterday, Ruby was present and listening yesterday. My four year old was singing later something about Grandma's kiss being delightful. It still has me giggling.

The high for today was -1 degrees. I wouldn't know firsthand, however. It was a balmy 70 degrees inside the house. I didn't leave it.

Pierce is getting molars. And I thought he was crabby before.

When Pierce wanted to drink my coffee, I tried to encourage him to stop whining and sign. "More. Coffee. Please." I had him signing each one, and then encouraged him to try on his own. He made a valiant attempt, and followed it up with "Amen!" both with the sign and a pretty clear shout. He got the coffee.

One dear child has taken to sighing when told to do a job. The others don't mind a bit though. Said child then had to do the jobs alone. The laundry was folded and put away without assistance from anyone. The others are all encouraging more sighing.

Ruby's been practicing saying the "ck" sound. It always comes out "t" instead. She's getting better, but tonight I had her trying to say "kitty". After giggling at her mispronunciation, Grandpa wisely suggested "cocoa" instead.

Horrible.

Sterling is a horrible looker. Horrible.

He comes to the house, upset, because he'd lost his glasses in the snow.

Perfect. I pried the rest of the story out of him.

He'd been playing in the snow, realized he was going to get snow on his glasses, so he took them off and, when he got to the house, realized his glasses weren't in his mitten any longer. With that information, my right to be upset with his failure to maintain knowledge of his glasses' whereabouts diminished, I headed outside in the snow to help him look.

He was down in the pasture, traipsing through the snow. We looked and looked and finally I asked if he was sure he lost his glasses down there.

"No. I took them off up by the barn."

Then why are we in the pasture looking?! At this point, I had fallen through the snow crust and ended up to my knees in snow multiple times. With backless shoes on, I had snow in my shoes and snow in my pants. Fun times.

We headed up to the barn and resumed our search. Upon finding nothing, I asked him exactly where he'd been standing when he took them off. "Over there." He pointed some distance from our search area. Oh good grief. How about we go over there?

We looked some more. Now a good half hour into our search, I was cold and I had more snow in my shoes than I'd care to deal with. I questioned him further. "Where did you realize you lost them?"

"Behind Grandma's car."

We decided to look there and work backwards. Many minutes later, he muttered, "I dropped them right here. They have to be somewhere."

Wait. a. minute. You know where you dropped them?!

Oh yes. He dropped them behind Grandma's car. And there they were, feet from the car, unbroken and now very snowy.

I still haven't gotten to the bottom of why we were searching in the pasture and by the barn when he knew where he was when he dropped them. I'm not sure I want to know. Next time, I'm prying for all details before I give my toes an ice bath.