Stick Figures

Elijah is our resident artist.

He likes to draw more than just about anything!

Art is by far his favorite subject 

and a reward (sometimes bribe!) for him 

is free time to do art.

Though this picture is rather basic,

it makes me laugh to see all the detail he put in to stick figures.

His initial decision to draw stick figures, he told me, was that 

we have such a large family that he'd have used up a LOT of time

drawing us all in greater detail. Haha!

1. Mom

2. Dad

3. Linnea

4. Nathaniel

5. Isaiah

6. Andrew

7, Christopher

8. Elijah

9. Ruby

10. Ivy

11. Elizabeth

12. Abram

13. Cece 

(with all the sparkle around her, you can tell the baby is especially loved!)

Numbers 14-16 need a little more explanation.

#15 is Grandpa Wayne and on either side of him

are #14 Great-grandma Mavis (his mom)

and #16 Grandma Cindy.

Elijah didn't want Grandma Mavis to have to stand all by herself.

Numbers #17 & #18 are Dennis' parents

Grandpa Gayland and Grandma Harriet.

After giving me time to look over each one and admire his work,

he looked at me with a sly smile, a twinkle in his eye, and said,

"Now, you may notice that I, ahhh, had to draw

Nathaniel and Dad with a little bit, ahh, fuller sticks for their middle..."

as he made a round motion in front of his own stomach.

I laughed and then thanked him for his kindness 

when drawing Mommy and the grandmas

with regular stick figures.

Easter 2015

To start this post, I mean, really, 

who could resist this face?!

This is how Abram "smiles" for pictures.

See?

 And I need to work on proper etiquette with Elizabeth while wearing a dress.

 We went to my mom & dad's for dinner Easter Sunday.

My mom has this cute little flower in her windowsill

and it moves back and forth via a small solar panel.

Abram was mesmerized!

 This little mister turns 2 at the end of this month.

He is growing up so much!

But I think sweater vests have a way of doing that to little misters...

We had been at my grandma's house the day before 

and Abram took a bad tumble on her pavement

earning him a owie lip

but it didn't slow him down for long.

 Miss 'Lizabeth was so excited to wear this "park-ly" dress

that is a hand-me-down from Ruby & Ivy.

 Ivy Joy

 Ruby Kathryn

Cece's first Easter :)

CecePie and Ruby

I didn't get any individual pictures of anyone older than 6

but we actually managed to get a group shot! 

 the back row is Andrew (12), Nathaniel (19), Linnea (14), Cece (6 mos) and Isaiah (17)

in front is Abram (almost 2), Ivy (5), Elizabeth (3), Elijah (8), Ruby (6), and Christopher (9).

*whoa--I had to stop and think on the ages there...they didn't stand in chronological order!*

I can't recall the last time I got a picture of my parents and the children.

I include this one because Abram is smiling so hard it makes me laugh!

And doesn't the back of Cece's head look great?!

Ooh, and look at Elijah's face....awesome.

This one is better...except Abram is chewing on a 

grape that we used as bait to get him to stay within the frame

so he looks like Joey Tribbiani.

"How you doin'?"

 And, because we hadn't all been dressed up and in one place since Cece's baptism,

a picture of all of us.

Again--the back of Cece's head looks great, along with my awkward stance 

to try to get her to look forward.

Also included for your viewing pleasure

is this one of Ivy's muscles and two of my teenagers blinking.

But look--Cece's face!

Mothering eleven children is no small feat, my friends.

Plenty of small feet, yes--

but the rest of this life = no small feat.

Our Seventeenth Anniversary

Today is our 17th anniversary.  

Lucky for this farmwife, it rained today so that meant we actually got to do something.  

I'm not sure I was really thinking that through when we made our wedding plans so many years ago...right in the middle of chopping corn silage.  

I also distinctly remember Ray Dahlen chastising me for scheduling a wedding on the opening of duck hunting.  

So today, to celebrate our anniversary, we went to town.  Ruby came along to entertain Abram in the back seat (he HATES being alone) and we dropped off Ivy for the afternoon with her bestie Julia.  Linnea held down the fort with the rest here at home.

As we were heading onto the interstate, Ruby said sweetly from the back seat, "Daddy, did you know that people can go *IN* McDonald's?

And did you know they have *tables* inside?  I saw that once when I went one day with Grandma Harriet.  Daddy, do you think we could go *IN* to McDonald's for our anniversary?"

We most certainly did.

We followed that with a trip to a furniture store, just to dream a bit.  She had the TIME of her LIFE.  I think we sat on every couch and watched her fling herself back on every mattress.

We topped off the afternoon with a stop at a jewelry store to see how much it would cost to re-size my ring. (My hands have re-sized since the day he gave me that ring back when I was a senior in high school.)  Maybe when the beans come off, we can make a return trip to get that done.

Our life is far from glamorous; it's filled with the everyday-ness of every day.  

I know that he's the one who will empty the mousetraps and take care of the bats and I'm *pretty sure* he'd have taken care of that snake, too, once he quit laughing at me.  

I'm not good with puke & germs, but he'll stay up all night with a feeling-icky kiddo.  

I find too many nails, pocket knives, and hardware coming through the loads of laundry but he doesn't care when it's fried eggs again for supper.

He loves me even when I'm icky to him.  

He rejoices over each new baby.  He plays football with all the kids on the yard and shakes his head at just how stinkin' cute these offspring are.

Seventeen years doesn't seem like enough years for all the life we've lived within them. 

Happy Anniversary, Dennis.

For My Valentine

I gave Dennis a card and some chocolate.
In the card I included some handmade coupons, one for a back rub and one for a foot rub.
I wrote that they expire once Baby arrives.  I'm quite certain he will "spend" them long before then, but I thought it proactive to clarify.
Another that I made entitles the bearer to
"A night of silence--with no cold shoulder or wondering what you've done wrong."
Meaning: I won't drone on and on about what so-and-so said/did on facebook or what blog I read that validated such-and-such concern.
I'll just sit there and not talk.
I think he'll like that one just as well as the others.

We're such a romantic couple, aren't we?

Happy Anniversary to Us

Ten children,

sixteen years,

hundreds of cows,

thousands of bales,

one hundred forty thousand hours of being his farmwife--

I'd do it all again.

Rare Indeed

 Easter 2012

This is a day you can mark on your calendar:

We were ON TIME for church

aaaaannnnnd

a picture was taken of us, with all eleven people looking at the camera.

This is rare, people.

Rare, indeed.

Because this?

Is far more common.

Elizabeth's Baptism--In Pictures, with Some Words

Elizabeth was baptized last Sunday.

These are a bunch of pictures, not in any real order--sometimes blogger is hard to work with.

Our friends Mark and Sara are E's sponsors.

Mark is also one of our pastors.

We are blessed to be friends with both of our pastors and their families.

Pastor Brett did the baptism,

or, as Ruby calls it, "bath-tism."

Dennis and I and Linnea along with my mom and with Pastor Mark's older daughters all sang.

Nathaniel played guitar, too, but is off to the left and thus out of the shot.

Elizabeth with her god-mother, Sara

Pastor Brett and us

Elijah 

Pastor Mark and Sara's son Isaac and our Bipper.

This picture cracks. me. up.

Ruby and Hannah (another of Pastor Mark and Sara's daughters)

Linnea with her cousin and her best friend Amy

My boys chatting it up with my dad

Elizabeth with her godparents, our friends Mark and Sara

lunch!!

My bearded boy Nathaniel and Ivy Joy

Mark and Sara's Andrew and our Andrew  

as my brother said, Ivy loves the camera, and it loves her!

Elizabeth's cake.  Elizabeth was hungry, but not for cake.

Ruby found an air vent that made her twirly dress even twirlier :)

     

My mom made Elizabeth's dress,

as she has done for our other girls. 

Beautiful!!

Thanks to Emily for being our "photographer" at church that day!

If You're Ready to Read, I'm Ready to Write

To say it's been awhile since I posted would be putting it mildly.

Other ways of explaining my absence could include:

*I pretty much crawled under a rock.

*I've been thinking {and thinking and thinking and thinking}about a few {million}things.

I needed to evaluate the reasons why I blog.

Here is some of what I came up with:

I blog as a way of journaling our life.

Like a "virtual scrapbook" of our normal, crazy, mixed up, fun, hills-and-valleys LIFE.

From time to time, I will even go back and re-read my posts;

I've already forgotten so much of our life!

I laugh.  I'm going to be just fine when I'm old--senility suits me.

I blog to share pictures of the children.

While this began as a way for my extended family to "keep up" with my family,

I've learned that many others (friends, neighbors, and people I don't even know) enjoy the pictures, too.

I blog to share lessons I've learned.

Many times, these are lessons learned the hard way.

Lessons learned being a wife...a mother...

Lessons learned on our journey to and on the home education path.

Lessons learned since becoming a Christian.

I blog to share funny stories.

If you know me in real life, you know I like to make people laugh.

If you don't know me in real life, I hope that some of what I've written has given you a smile or a laugh from time to time.

One of the things I've enjoyed since starting this blog

is the ability to share the funny or crazy things that happen.

I'm not much for talking on the phone, and even if I was,

I wouldn't call up my mom, my aunts and uncles, my siblings,

my friends, my husband, my neighbors,

and tell them ALL

"You'll never guess what happened today..."

This is a way for me to share some of our stories with the people I love

and that know me/us.

My aunt once told me,

"Since I read your blog every day, 

I feel like I get to have a conversation with you every day!"

I love that.

Many times,

stories or pictures from my blog have been great conversation starters--

at church, at grandma's house, in the grocery store.

It has given some common ground for some adults to speak to my kids,

such as in this post {"That was a funny trick you played on your mommy, Christopher!"}

and in this post {"WOW, that must have been so much fun!"}

(The second one I mentioned also brought my dad some fun attention.)

I blog to let you know you are not alone.

We've all done it--we assume everyone ELSE has it all together.

The truth is, no one does. 

As a dear friend reminded me, one of Satan's tools is isolation.

This mortal enemy of our souls wants you and me to feel like we are the only one who has dealt

or is dealing with a particular issue,

and he uses guilt and shame to do so.

I would never, never, NEVER want to give the impression

that because I have sin in my life that it's ok for you to have sin in yours.

I don't write about my/our struggles so that we can all have a good laugh

at my/our sinful behavior.

As in, "Oh, look.  Ha, ha.  She does the same thing!  It must be ok."

However, someone who read

the post that started all of this

said I could just as well have typed their names in instead of the He and Me.

As she read it, she saw that they sometimes end up doing the same thing

and she realized, "Boy, that is stupid!"

Hopefully, now there will be more than one set of married people

who will think twice before

engaging in such a manner of speaking to one another.

Lesson learned?  I hope so.

Of course, I don't share EVerything.

There are things I'd like to talk about, but can't.

There are things I'd like to say, but I won't.

I seriously consider each post before it comes out.

Why?

Because although I don't know everyone who reads my blog,

I do know 

our kids do,

my husband does,

my mom does,

my aunts and uncles,

our siblings and their spouses,

 our nephews,

friends from church,

my homeschooling mom friends,

our pastor,

people in our community.

I've run into people when I'm out and about 

who mention reading my blog and I had NO idea they did.

That is SO FUN for me.

I think about the "audience" very much

and I know it influences what I write and the way I write.

I won't share every blessed detail of our life.

(I don't remember many of them anyway by the time I'd get to a computer.)

But I will always be honest.

So, I've picked myself up off the floor,

dusted myself off,

and am ready to write again.

I need to say a BIG thank you to YOU,

the readers of this lil' ol' bloggity,

for all your kind, kind words.

You lifted me up when I was really down,

you encouraged me to keep going when I didn't know if I could,

and you came alongside me.

Your comments, emails, phone calls,

and facebook messages have meant so much.

Your words changed me.

Is it sad?

My husband has had the same phone number 

his whole life.

He's never moved--

unless you count from the front yard 

to the back.

(His parents built this house behind their existing

house when he was 8, then the old house

was moved off the property.)

Oh, and he did go to college for a short time

and so lived in a dorm.

My parents moved to the house where they live now

when I was six months old.

We moved off the farm in the fall of 1995, 

after my dad sold his cows  in February of that year.

Dennis and I were married in September of 1996

and my parents moved back to their original farm in November.

My point:  we've never lived anywhere else.

I think it's neat,

but I recently had a conversation with someone who said,

"that's pretty sad..."

What do you think?

Is it sad that neither of us have left the area where we grew up?

This person implied that she hoped we had bigger dreams for our children

than what we had done with our lives.

The dreams I have for my children 

don't include the location of their house.

They include things like

strong character, a growing relationship with the Lord,

humbleness, joy, discernment, a love of learning---

these are the things that matter to me.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Aaron!

It has been said that

Little boys become big men

because of the influence of big men on little boys.

My brother Aaron is one of the big men 

in our little boys' lives.

This picture is from New Year's Eve last year,

can you see how Christopher looks up to him?

Literally and figuratively?

Happy Birthday Big Brother!

Thanks for loving on our kiddos like you do.

Hey Good Lookin'

My husband calls me Babe.
(for a funny story about this, click here.)
I could probably count on one hand the number of times he has used my given name. I laugh whenever he does because it sounds so strange coming out of his mouth. He even stumbles over it. (I think if he is referring to me in a conversation he will typically say "my wife.")

I mostly call him Dennis, or Daddy if I'm with the kids, as in, "go ask Daddy".
I think I also call him Honey.

Recently, Christopher (4) greeted me by saying, "Hi-ya Toots."
I said, "Hi."
He said, "You can call me Jim."
"Oh," I said. "Hi-ya Jim."

All of this got me to thinking,
What do you call each other?
Honey? Sweetie? Snookums?
(a note of caution: my kids read this blog so keep 'er clean...)

another Q and A

Q: I want to have a large family but my husband is afraid we will have too many children like the duggars lol. I think with my age that it won't be a problem. He is just afraid of providing for a large family being self employed and farming he thinks everyone that has a large family is wealthy. any suggestions on this topic.

My Answer:
First, I have to stop laughing about the "everyone that has a large family is wealthy"... That is no more true than if I were to assume that all smaller families are wealthy because they have fewer people on which to spend their income. Nope--definitely not all large families are wealthy. (I speak from first-hand experience.)
Also, don't trust these funny numbers.

Next, I used to think that way, too--about the "too many" children. I thought that if we did not try to control how many children we had, we'd have oodles of kids. But God worked on my heart to trust Him.
For one at a time.
He doesn't typically give eight at once. I know, I know, the Oct-a-mom. I said, typically.

My "conversation" with the Lord went something like this:
God: "I'd really like you to stop using birth control."
Me: "Really? But, but...we'd have who-knows-how-many kids!"
God: "Do you trust Me?"
Me: "Yes, but..."
God: "Do you trust Me?"
Me: "Yes, I do, but...but..."
God: "Do. you. trust. Me."
Me: ".....................Yes, Lord. I will trust You."


I think that God does not give a couple "too many" children. The Bible always calls children a blessing. It's not like having too many pairs of shoes or too many toys. Children--all of us--have eternal souls. They are a joy and blessing.
And now I think, so what if we have oodles of kids? Kids are fabulous!

I also was filled with repentance when I read Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? by Randy Alcorn.
Life changing.

Were I you, I would pray that God would speak to your husband and soften his heart in this area.

Other suggested reading: Be Fruitful and Multiply by Nancy Campbell. I also subscribe to her Above Rubies magazine.
20 and Counting by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. So much more than a "how we do it" type of book. They share their hearts so beautifully. I love their story.
Courtney, at Storing Up Treasures, has so many great posts on the blessings of children. She says it well, I think.
So does Amy at Raising Arrows.

Most importantly, be careful that you are concerned about what God thinks and not what the world thinks. I find that when God is asking me to trust Him on an issue, my greatest resistance is "what will the world think?"
Such was the case when we really started listening to the Lord and His plans for our family's size.

I hope this helps you with your question. It's a HUGE topic and hard to condense into one post. Blessings to you!

Fitting In

So many times, when I read this blog I think to myself "it's as if she and I are living parallel lives!!"
When I read her post last Friday it was no different. Well, except I certainly wasn't skinny and awkward. I was plump and awkward.
Still am.
But you probably already knew that.

Ahem.

Back to the issue at hand...

Here is an excerpt from her post:
Don't get me wrong. I have friends. But, I still so often don't know where I fit. I still feel awkward. Some of it may have to do with being an introvert. Some of it probably has to do with having a life that most people think is nuts. I feel it at church. Like no one knows what to do with me. They can't figure out how to be my friend. So instead I get treated like this sort of enigma. It happens at parks and homeschool outings. It happens pretty much everywhere I go. There have been situations where I have literally been surrounded by people bombarding me with questions. You know. The questions I always get asked. Are they all yours? How do you do it? Are you a superwoman? Is your house huge? What do you drive? Is your husband a doctor or a lawyer?

There are times when I am literally blown away by the questions people ask. One time, a woman asked me--seriously--if I remember all their names.
I should have asked her "do you really not know more than seven people?" (We *only* had seven children at the time.)

There have been times when we have been eating at another family's home or at a church dinner and things get a little hectic dishing up for so many little people and I start feeling so conspicuous--I usually try to crack a joke (can you say Chandler from Friends??) like "Bet ya didn't know you'd get dinner AND a show, didja" tee-hee, nervous giggle...

One of the very helpful things that some are very good at doing is coming up alongside and offering to help dish/carry a plate. That is so helpful and can really ease my fear of my kid being the one who spills at someone's house or at church.


We sang at a little church recently; we've been asked to sing there a few times a year for the last 8+ years.
Each time, it seems we either have a new baby with us or one on the way. Everyone just gushes about how all the kids sit so nice for church, or how well behaved they are...they're just so shocked to see a big brother who can carry a little sibling up the stairs or help them with their coat. (I don't think this should be shocking--it should be commonplace.)
Anyway, this Sunday was no different--until a kind, middle-age woman came over after the service, oohed and ahhed over Ivy, looked up at me and asked,
"So, do you ever think that, well, you know, that maybe you'll be, well, you know, ah, done?"
I really wanted to say, "done with what?"
Instead I said "We will take as many children as God chooses to bless us with."

Right after I said that, another lady walked over to see the baby and the first woman told the second about our conversation.
Except her version went like this:
"So I asked Melissa if they were going to be done now that they have 8 and she said 'I don't know...' "
Well, now, that's not what I said so I felt I should clarify.
So I did.

I told the two of them that about five years ago, we both felt God asking us to trust Him with our family, to let Him have His way in that area of our lives.
At which point the first lady chimed in with "And He has!!"

I just don't see why people feel it is so important to know whether we are "done".
Why does it matter so much to others?

Today in the grocery store, the checkout lady asked me again--as she does every time I go to her aisle which I avoid like the plague but Dennis was with today and doesn't know that I do--what number Ivy was. When I told her again that she is number 8, she asked me if we were going to be done now. And I gave my standard answer again.

I think I should start poking into other people's lives by asking questions like
"Have you cleaned between your toes lately?"
or
"How old are you? How much do you weigh?"
or
"Wow--I see your plate is really full! Are you really going to eat all that? Just you??"
or maybe
"How do you afford your new car?"
or even
"Whoa, that's a lot of earwax you got goin' on there. Can I get you a q-tip or something?"

But of course, I would never do that to anyone.
Because that would just be rude.

Another excerpt from Courtney:
Then of course there is the whole defensive thing. I find often people feel defensive around me. They want to explain why they don't homeschool. Or they haven't adopted. Or why their family is small. It doesn't matter that I don't ask them that. They just seem to feel the need to explain. And that makes things really awkward. Because if they really knew me and my heart, they would know that I am not judging them. In fact I really like having friends that have different lives from me. Clearly God does not have the same plan for every family.

I really don't get the explaining why they don't do everything just like me--when I didn't even ask. Which I wouldn't do anyway.

And when Courtney talks about how she can't talk about her struggles because she chose this life--oh, so true!!
It's true that I lose my patience. I yell at my kids. I get overwhelmed. Our house gets dirty. We have had to learn to make do in SO many situations. We don't get our school work done every day.
But I can't share this (well, except with everyone with the whole world on the internet) because I chose this life.

That makes for some lonely days.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's okay to ask questions. I love to answer genuine questions about our family.
But please don't treat us like a circus attraction.
And please, please, p-l-e-a-s-e don't ask us if we're "done"
'cause I'll really consider asking you how old you are and how much you weigh.

So We're Not the Only Ones

Sometimes the way we live our life can feel a bit isolating.
Not everyone feels the same way that we do regarding children and letting God determine our family's size.

So it can feel downright lonely.
Like we are the only ones who feel this way.

And then I read a post like this one and I think

"So we're NOT the only ones!"

Go ahead and click on over to Courtney's blog.

What Happens When Dad is in the Room While We Fold Laundry?

Now you know.

Special Visitors

My grandparents came for a visit this afternoon.
They met Baby Ivy
and visited with the rest of the children.

AAAAAANNNNDD--she brought cookies.
'Cause she's Grandma.
I think that's a rule or something.

Grandma Mavis and Grandpa Glen,
my grandparents...

Ruby and Elijah showed them how well they can do puzzles.

Ruby and Great-Grandma Mavis

Grandma and Ivy Joy

Grandpa Glen and Baby Ivy

PS. I cleaned up before they came...

Our Troops

This was taken Christmas Eve.
I encouraged Nathaniel to smile.
He doesn't like to smile for pictures, although he's a very amiable fellow otherwise.
I trimmed Ruby's bangs the next morning.

So these are our troops. So far.
Soon there will be someone new!

Awww.....

Nothin' says "I love you" like a heart drawn in manure.
I mean really, how many girls can say that they've had an expression of love like that?

Dennis was out all night, until about 4:00 this morning,
hauling manure.
Near the end, (you can see how the "top" of the field is dark--that's what's covered in poo)
he decided to be a little creative and drive in such a way as to
leave a heart shape.

Just for me.

Who says farmers aren't romantic?

Flashback Friday

This picture was taken on Mother's Day, 2009.
Little did we know that just about two weeks later
Grandma Marjie would discover she had pancreatic cancer.
She passed away in August, 2 1/2 months after diagnosis.
I am so glad I have lots of pictures of her and my kids.

IF You Know What I Mean

Daily, I write the date and the "menu" on our little combination marker board/bulletin board.
It looked like this on Monday:

Monday, November 2nd
11-2-09

dinner: quiche
snack: brownies
supper: spaghetti

(The reason I do this type of thing is to avoid the endless times I was being asked "What are we having??")

Anyway,
the reason I am posting this particular bit of news is that Dennis got so excited when he saw what was "on the menu" for noon.
He misread "quiche" thinking instead of the "h" I had written a "k" and that I had inadvertently left out an "i" before the "e".

IF you know what I mean...
*wink*wink*