unexpectedly delightful

yes.
we were in delta junction this summer. but by some extremely small chance i ended up pregnant. this girl didn’t do so well living in a camper, pregnant. did you know what old oil smells like compared to brake fluid?
i do now.
brake fluid gives me headaches.

camper sold, family back to anchorage. kids in school.
well, except eric. he is still spending his weeks there, working monday nights to saturday morning, and driving home when he’s done to spend the day/s with us until monday afternoon to do it all again. this is the plan till january 31. anyone who knows us knows that plans of the employment variety are never reliable, yet there it is.

eric tells me he will come home after january so i don’t have to be alone with the kids and be nine months pregnant. i’m gaining weight terrifyingly quickly, and tend to be on the weepy side. thinking positively, i kind of have an excuse for everything i seem to forget or be unable to do.

hmm. positive, right.

what is positive is that i am madly in love with this little girl inside of me.

yes-it is a girl.

we’d given up the idea of more children in the past few years, and passed on all of our girl things here and there.
my uterus didn’t get the message.
now i have excuses to go to value village whenever the urge hits and see what i can find so our little one won’t always be called a boy in her green and blue stripes.
she has no name. she will tell us when she meets us. also, on a different note, she will not be born at home. we’ve had two beautiful home births with jonas and ezra. this time we’ve elected to give birth at the birth center, alone. we were alone at the hospital when noah was born, and each birth became more and more of an event. this time we are pulling back and enjoying the experience, most likely for the last time, alone. just eric and i welcoming our baby girl, with the midwives. it will be a beautiful mess. one that i won’t have to worry about.

little girl, i don’t know what the future holds, but i can’t wait to hold you.

re-create, recreate, recreation

We’re headed off tomorrow on a grand adventure.

Work in Anchorage is woefully slow, our house is soon to be bursting at the seams, and we Judges are always ready for something new and exciting. A few weeks ago, we were induced to look at a friend of a family member’s 1979 motorhome. We liked it, we thought it may be a good deal, but we have no where to park it. It was more trouble that we wanted. Work got slower, expenses started inching upwards and on Tuesday Eric was offered a job up north

So we took it.

We went and said yes to the RV, in all of it’s shagalicous glory.

I’m packing, repacking, list after list, trying to make this as simple and fun for us as possible.

We are enjoying limiting ourselves intentionally. We’re excited to spend the summer together as an immediate family. We’re hoping this will be an amazing experience for us to recreate in places we’ve never been. Our time with Eric is minimal, but much better than nothing at all. I’m hoping us being there with him will make his insane schedule more bearable. I’m hoping to be able to serve him as he serves all of us, providing, working. He doesn’t enjoy fast food or hotel rooms. I love hotel rooms but love cooking even more. We appreciate being close to our kids and each other. I’m hoping this summer is true reflection of our values as a family.

We will still come to Baltimore and Alabama. We will visit the library often, and perhaps I will have time to blog and things. If not, know I am with the people I love best, and that I love and appreciate all of you. Everything seems to be working out. I feel guided, led, and protected.
I’ll see you on the road.

a bushel, a peck, a hug around the neck

i’m back. whether it be for a day or a year, i make no promises. however- i miss blogging, and more importantly, most of you seem to miss me. those whose lives are separated from ours by thousands of miles and my family down the street have always enjoyed peeking into our lives. so welcome. peek away.

noah. he’s nine now. he’s a complex child, full of musical aspirations. his christmas money from poppop went towards the purchase of a fender starcaster and tiny amp. he treated us to a smash up performance of “smoke on the water” with “seek ye first” with an older, more experienced guitar player. noah plays his three chords well. and loud. he doesn’t understand the amused glances eric and i share when he tells us his amp goes to eleven. [it's true-it does!] noah is on the taiko drumming team at his school, which in turn has made every flat surface in our home a drum. if you visit us this summer, bring earplugs. it’s not quiet here, unless noah’s reading. he is almost through the harry potter books, he’s tackled mossflower and redwall. eragon is his current read. he takes after mom and dad-staying up much too late with a crick in the neck and eyes strained to see with the reflected light from the bathroom. he’s quite the lover of books.

being new to wordpress, i’m not sure why the program is unable to save this photo when i flip it to a more neck-pleasing angle. regardless, selah continues to shine at school. she is in her second year of ballet. she basks in whatever attention her aunties here in alaska can give her. if i didn’t have a timer ticking behind me, i’d brag on her longer. the kids have a timer going for how long i can be on the computer before I need to read to them again. eric and noah are at a fishing seminar on trout. i imagine they are having fun.

jonas.
hmm. he’s hilarious, he’s particular, he’s difficult to understand. jonas loves on those he loves, and its hard not to be charmed by his hugs and lisping “i wuv you soo much ____”
he loves to be silly. he’s in three day preschool this year, and starts kindergarten in August. wow.

ezra obviously shares the familial love for books. eric and ezra spend lots of time like this, inbetween ezra’s frequent trips to the potty now that he is diaperless. did you read that correctly? yes, my youngest child is out of diapers. we even *had* him out of nighttimes as well, but one nighttime accident in our bed put a stop to that bravery. pretty much weaned from everything but mine and eric’s bed, ezra starts preschool himself this fall. not too soon, but so much closer than i often realize.

and me.
since i blogged last in july, i lost another fifteen pounds, totaling 30+. my next small goal [7 pounds] will get me back to my wedding day weight-148. then after that I would like to get to 137, my WWC weight. so much has happened in the past six months, i don’t know what to prioritize. the highlight was my first trip alone since i became a mother. eric went to bat for the family while i went to a waldorf education in the public schools conference in california and was gone for 8 days. refreshing, but not quite a vacation. still, it was amazing. in april, eric and i are spending 5 days in chicago, with eric attending the nt wright conference at wheaton college two of those days. this will be the first time we have been away from all of our children. with so much family now living amongst us, it is such a gift to have multiple levels of care available. on a more daily basis, i watch the sweetest little miriam three days a week, who is 9 months old and spend the other days taking care of my family, home, and trying to connect with eric over the noise of the kids. i have board meetings usually once a week for the kids charter school, and anything else that pops up. so very…normal. it’s a beautiful life.