Saturday morning was lazy and misty. Andrew and I were curled up on the couch with our coffee, trying to talk ourselves into being productive. Willa and Ellen came rushing into the house yelling and since the baby was asleep, we shushed them. Until they repeated their news at an appropriate volume: “Lucy and Rocket are in the front yard!!!”

We jumped to our feet and ran outside. Sure enough, these two yahoos greeted me in the driveway:

Our property adjoins a pasture that is home to two horses and a donkey named Lucy. Our young neighbor rides barrel races (which I don’t understand but I can say it like I know, can’t I?) and we often see her riding one of the horses while talking on her cell phone.

Ah, modern farm life.

Anyway, our equine neighbors had broken the fence down and were calmly grazing in our front yard. I threw on some boots with my pajamas and worked on keeping them contained in our yard while Andrew went to find the owners.

I didn’t want them to leave our driveway because even though we are way back in the woods, just a few gallops off our property was a busy road. So I picked up a big stick and played Red Rover with a horse and a donkey. Fortunately, they lost interest in getting past me and turned back to the nice long grass in our front yard.

Naturally, I took pictures.

There was something pastoral about having a horse elegantly grazing in the front yard of our woodsy home.

It lost a bit of it’s quaintness when the donkey entered the picture.

Andrew reported that Lucy and Rocket’s owners weren’t home so he went in search of another neighbor who might have their cell phone number. It was about this time we discovered the other horse, Samson, holding court in our back yard.

I decided I’d better get busy rounding up the wildlife, so I cornered Rocket and attempted to put a rope around her neck.

*Cue Banjo Music*

When Andrew returned, without the much needed phone number, we walked my catch (ta-da!) down to the opening in the fence and shoved her back onto her side. Since Lucy was a donkey and acted very much like a donkey should, we opted to pull Samson out of the back yard before we tackled Lucy.

Funny thing: When Rocket noticed she was back home without her horsey boyfriend, she Lost. Her. Mind. She galloped up and down the pasture, whinnying and shaking her mane. She was a crazed lady. Samson returned her calls and trotted toward us but he got distracted by the yummy grass and slowed his progress.

His woman was Seriously Displeased.

Andrew roped Samson’s neck and put a little hitch in his giddyup. The two lovers were reunited at last. They nuzzled noses, then necks, and then gave each other a sweet horsey hug.

Meanwhile, Lucy took advantage of all this romance and inched away from the hole in the fence. Andrew had to track her down and then get a rope around her neck. Without getting kicked. Or scaring her off. He managed it by fashioning a lasso of sorts and throwing it on her head, then rushing to wrangle her into the rope before she skittered away.

Gah, I love that man.

I stood nearby with my stick, ready to… poke any wayward beasts. I’m not sure how effective my plan was, but I had my best serious eyes in place to go along with my stick. And with my fresh-out-of-bed look, I like to think I was pretty fearsome to behold.

Andrew patched the fence tightly and we went inside to “celebrate” an entire morning lost to our mini-Rodeo.

Which is why it was much less exciting when we discovered the three Lawn Mowers back in our yard after lunch. Fortunately, the owner had returned home by then and we were able to help him get the wayward animals back in the yard and the right hole in the fence patched.

Of course, the afternoon was lost to chasing Lucy through the forest and then rinsing off the poison ivy we crashed through. So I guess it’s safe to say that we actually did spend the entire day at the rodeo… and never even had to leave home!

 

 

 

 

 

A few weekends ago, there was an important celebration to attend to: MeMe turned… well, she had a milestone birthday. She can tell you if she wants.

So Grampaw and all of his crew met up with all of our crew and Grano and Pappo at our church. And I know this picture is just a bunch of heads to y’all, but that’s some of my favorite people, all together in one spot, worshipping. It gives me chills.

After church, there was a bunch of clothes changing and then we were all decked out to go to the state park. We had a picnic lunch and  set out on a hike to some nearby falls.

If you would please all take a moment to appreciate that I wore Finn on my back and Andrew wore Mira while we hiked straight down to the bottom of the falls.

*moment of silence*

Ok, so people had to hold my hand a lot so I didn’t do something ungraceful, but still… I made it to the bottom with His Beefiness on my back.

Ta-da!

At the falls, the kids just wanted to “stick their feet in” which inevitably led to several dunkings and general soakedness from the waist down.

While the grown-ups mostly sat on the side and thought deep thoughts…

Or rested their weary feet…

Meme (who is also a grown-up, but has never let that keep her from having fun) took my girls wading since I still had Finn strapped to my back and couldn’t risk that sort of catastrophe.

Willa wobbling around with her skirt hiked up was hilarious…

…until she fell in. Then there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. Andrew took off his outer shirt and gave it to her to wear. Can you handle the cute?

It was about this time that I noticed Andrew was sporting a rip in the seat of his jeans. I noticed because, well, it’s my job. But also because he was wearing his Handsome Pants (from being at church) and I was enjoying them. Until, suddenly, they were marred. Apparently all the straight down hiking we did and having Mira on his back kept him from protecting his pants properly and they were ripped.

We all had a good giggle (well, ok, I laughed the hardest) and then attempted to wrangle up all the shoes, socks, and stray kids we’d brought with us.

The climb up from the falls was even steeper and more difficult because our direction was UP. Aunt Bob had stolen Finn from my back but Andrew was still carrying Mira, mostly to cover his backside. Which is probably how come after a vertical rock climb, he announced, “Uh, I’m not sure I’m going to have any pants left at the end of this hike. I think I ripped them again.”

Oh boy, had he ever. From the top of his rump to the bottom he had a nice long tear.

I could barely breathe and it had nothing to do with the extreme hiking. Once I picked my giggly self up from the path, we discussed strategy. Sadly, there was little he could do to hide it and there were other hikers coming at us from behind.

*Snort.* No pun intended.

Grampaw gamely pulled off his outer shirt (remember Willa was wearing Andrew’s?) and gave it to Andrew to cover his hindquarters. It was a short-sleeved polo, so it looked more like a low-riding cape than any sort of intentional fashion choice, but it was better than being all breezy.

I don’t have a picture of Andrew because, while he’ll suffer through me telling this story on the Internet, it was simply too much to ask for a photo at the time, you know? So just enjoy the falls for a moment.

Even though our hike was technically a short one, it was very steep and therefore I deemed it twice as calorie burning. We had a fab time and our kids slept soundly that night.

Thanks for the memories, Gang! We’ll do it again soon. Only with less fashionable (but more functional) pants.

 

p.s. Andrew’s Handsome Pants were brand new and the nice people at the store let us exchange the ripped version for new More Handsome Pants. Wasn’t that nice? Andrew promises never to wear them hiking again. But I may make him promise to wear them all the other times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well.

It has been a whirlwind. We’ve been filled to the brim with chances to love on people we love and it has plum overwhelmed us with joy.

Last week, we enjoyed a visit from some snow birds who needed to soak up sunshine, sniff some pollen, and recover from the longest winter ever. Our little neck of the woods was happy to oblige them.

I also got to spend a few hours with everybody’s favorite soap-maker. Nothing like a true heart friend you haven’t seen in awhile to pick up right where you left off with. That’s a mighty sweet visit.

And I meant it when I said I would have let her in the door even if she didn’t bring soap. But I didn’t mind one little bit that she brought me a bundle of goodies.

On Saturday, I had a not-as-happy task to attend to: a funeral. Fortunately, I got to enjoy the company of my dad for the day and that’s not a half bad way to pass the time. Thanks for road trippin’ with me, Grampaw!

If you’re a long-time reader, you may remember my Anonymous Friend C, her husband The Chef, and her sweet parents: Queen Martha and Papa Don. Sadly, we said goodbye to Papa Don this week.

I’ve heard that friends are the family you choose. If that’s the case, I chose C. and her family chose me. Because we all love each other like there was some fierce DNA involved. And my heart is broken with theirs at the loss of Papa Don.

But their little band of misfits landed on our doorstep Saturday night and we got to shower them with lots of coffee and affection for the weekend. Behold: Queen Martha, The Chef, and Anonymous C.

We laughed, we cried, we ate. OH, HOW WE ATE.

You know the Food Network show Chopped? The Chef treats my pantry like a mystery basket and comes up with brilliant creations like this chicken stuffed with feta, spinach, apple, and kielbasa on a bed of brown rice with a side of “special sauce.”

I might have wept a little it was so good.

On Monday morning, the kids and I drove Mama L to the airport and sent her off with as many hugs as we could squeeze in. By this point, our pantry held nothing but stale crackers and a wayward raisin.

So I put on my Big Girl Panties and took all seven kids to Whole Foods. By myself.

No, seriously, I did. Look:

Truly, the kids were great and we left relatively unscathed. Which was a good thing, because Gran and Pops arrived last night and while they are absolutely the easiest guests in the world, its generally assumed that I’ll have food on hand.

Andrew and I love hosting. Our home full of people we love is like standing in a waterfall of rainbows and unicorns for us. We grin and soak it all up and let ourselves get doused in the exhilaration and the exhaustion of staying up til 1 am to solve all the world’s problems and eat ice cream.

Now, I’m not gonna lie. With such an influx of company, my inner introvert pitched a hissy fit on Monday night and got sent to her room for a few hours alone. But today we’re all back in the magical waterfall with Gran & Pops, splashing and giggling with glee. We will spoil them and smother them while they help me fold laundry and read to the kids and then we’ll send them off in anticipation of doing it again “real soon.”

And then after my inner introvert has had another time-out and caught up on the DVR, we’ll fling wide the doors to whosoever shall enter.

So.

Who’s next?

Anybody up for some coffee on the front porch?

We are busy soaking up In Real Life interaction with some of our favorite people and aren’t exactly left with much time for blogging these days. Can’t wait to tell you all about it, but in the meantime, I must record the following:

1. Ellen saw me fixing spaghetti. She quickly requested that I sprinkle some “Pajama Cheese” on top.

Yes, baby. And I always will. Parmesan cheese is now dead to me. Pajama Cheese is its new name.

2. On nights when Andrew has a late meeting, I treat the kids to a movie with Mommy. They love funny animal movies, so we watch them together and then we take a little time to talk about some character qualities we liked and character qualities we didn’t like in the movie.

Last week, we watched Marmaduke. I fast forward through some of the “human gooey love stuff” because the kids ask me to. They’re really more interested in the animal story line.

And the bodily function jokes. Yes, we’ve reached that stage where passing gas is hilarious. Which is how we got this cute little rendition of the kids’ favorite scene from Mira today. She told us:

“My fave-rit part of da movie when Mama-duke say, ‘Wait for it… wait for it… Poooooooh. MAMA-DUKE!”

And then she waved her hand in front of her nose as if she could smell the offensive odor from her place at the table.

And, oh how we laughed. Not because the joke was any funnier the 400th time we heard it, but because it came from her. And it emerged from around the huge grin on her face.

And that’s a story I get to treasure forever.

*We’ve been trying a new way of writing around here that includes doing Friday Freewriting. After we write, I make tea and the kids enjoy  a moment of British propriety while we read our freewrites to one another. I will usually freewrite my own ramblings to share. I’ll tell you more about this next week, but I thought I’d share my freewrite here (only slightly edited) since it made the kids giggle, and they are my favorite audience. It makes me twitchy to just hit publish all willy-nilly, but here goes…

Our kids love it when we go on date night. They love their babysitter, the intrepid Miss K, they love that they pretty much get free rein to play Wii or watch TV for the evening, and they love pizza for dinner. So I’m pretty sure I’m right when I claim that they don’t actually get together and decide to make it hard for us to leave the house. I mean, they count down the hours until Miss K arrives every week. They barely look up when we leave. They really WANT us to go out.

Yet it seems disaster is always on the horizon when date night arrives.

Yesterday, I was getting ready for date night and the children were doing their best to ensure I couldn’t. The big kids were playing upstairs. Only they kept reappearing downstairs to give me reports. “Ellen was wrestling with the boys!!”

I broke up that disagreement, which I think was only necessary because Ellen was WINNING.

Then Ian turned up with a bloody nose. Not related to the wrestling. Or at least, not that he remembers.

Meanwhile, Mira and Finn were playing in my room while I got dressed. I got distracted trying to decide which shoes to wear. A few minutes later, I walked into my bathroom and was greeted by a sploosh-sploosh sound. BOTH Mira and Finn were playing in the potty.

I admit, I screeched. I yanked them both up, yammering and stammering, and hauled them to the kitchen sink where I could better clean their hands.

After the wailing and gnashing of teeth ended, I returned to my bathroom to finish my ablutions. Andrew got off the phone and then couldn’t find his wallet.

Ten minutes later, we finally raced out the door, shouting our love and good-byes but eyes facing front, not looking back.

We grabbed a quick bite and then went to the ever-so-romantic Costco. We filled two carts with bulky items before remembering we had the smaller car. Nothing but grit and determination fit that last bag of frozen veggies in the backseat.

Of course, it doesn’t matter that we were doing the trivial and mundane. We were together. Therefore we laughed. And it was good.