Normal life at Hedge Parke

Well, after the last couple of posts I though it might be good to let you all in on a great little secret that I didn't realize I was keeping! That Wendesday really was an abnormal day around here. On a normal day I wake up between 5 and 6 and get coffee ready and get the kitchen cleaned up (mostly because if I stop I will fall asleep). I then start breakfast and at about 6:15 Scott and I wake up the children and we all eat breakfast and then Nolen, Emma and Mia get dressed for School. They leave at 7:15 and after we wave good-bye at the window Ty and Nadia take a nice warm bath and they get dressed. Our morning routine includes laundry and general house clean up. We read stories and Nadia takes a short morning nap. At 10:45 we head out to pick up Miss Mia from kindergarten, run some errands since we are in town anyway and come home for lunch. Everyone gets cleaned up and we pop down for an afternoon siesta. At 4 I start dinner and at 5 Nolen, Emma and My hunky hubby come rollin' home and . . .It's dinner time! Bath's, showers and jammies and it's to the couch for some family time and then the kiddo's are off to bed. Hubby and I have a few hours together before we then drift off to sleep. Not to thrilling, and there are days that are OBVIOUSLY not like this, but by and large we have a really wonderfully relaxing life. I love my kiddo's and I thought that 5 would be more hairy than it is. I think my hubby's laid-backness is rubbing off on us all! Have a wonderful day and remember to hug your hubby and give him a great big kiss the next time you see him. God is good!

Part 2

So, after my cup of tea . . .
Emma slept on and off for the rest of the afternoon minus the parts where she was crying because of the immense pain she was in and I couldn't figure out why. She was complaining about her stomach and I thought it was just the virus she had giving her cramps, something that Ibuprofen won't help. I checked her over at around 2:30 and saw that her ear was . . . DRAINING!!! Poor Emma. She was in major pain and her other ear was now getting into the act and just as I was getting dinner on the stove she woke up and was in so much pain and completely miserable that at 4:pm I just turned off the burners and grabbed the kiddo's and left. I didn't even have time to grab my phone or call Scott and tell him where we were going to be when he got home. I stopped off at the East Wenatchee clinic to see if the could just look at her and give us a quick prescription, since I KNEW it was bad. Well after going in a waiting a bit (Emma with quiet tears of pain running down her face) we were told they were so busy it would be quicker for us to go to the Wenatchee clinic. So back in the car we went and off. We got there and watched some of the new Charlotte's Web to distract us. Emma was in so much pain she cried and laid on my lap. Ty on the other hand made another 3 year old friend and they ran back and forth in the waiting room the whole time. Nadia was really sleepy, but also made a friend, a 8 year old boy that must have reminded her of Nolen because she kept calling him "Bubba". Too cute! One of our favorite nurses saw Emma and bumped her to the front of the line and rushed her in giving her some Ibuprofen and a room. We waited some more and when Dr. came in he was almost in tears. At this point she looked totally miserable and he prescribed some Amoxicillin and Tylenol with codine right after looking at her. So what was the verdict? 101.5* fever after the Ibuprofen and a double ear infection and a virus to boot. No school for the rest of the week, but she's no longer contagious - yea! We piled back into the car and went home. I still had to go pick up the meds after I dropped the children at home with Scott so by the time I got home it was almost 7 and we hadn't eaten dinner yet. Fortunately I was at home just long enough to turn the burners back on (remember, I had to leave the food on the stove?) and when I got home everything was cooked I just had to mash the potatoes and we were ready to eat. The up side was that I got a $30 gift card for Safeway for bringing in a new prescription! Woo hoo! Emma was feeling so much better after we got that first dose of codine and anti-biotics in her that she and Mia stayed up and talked for awhile since they hadn't seen each other all day. Mia (on the other hand) had a wonderful day with Mrs. Tracy going out to lunch and baking cookies.

Not quite like I planned it

Have you ever had those days that you had planned out from the evening before and in your mind it all flowed like a ribbon of chocolaty fudge down a mountain of vanilla ice cream, but wait . . . In the morning you realize that what you though was ice cream wasn't and wait, that's not fudge! Ok, so last night I pictured myself making monkey bread for breakfast , Emma better and going to school (after 2 days home sick) and Ty, Nadia and I going to bible study after stopping off to get snacks. Not quite in the plan for today, actually not AT ALL in the plan for today! I was way too pooped last night to start the Monkey Bread and so we had cold cereal, Emma was still sick (in fact worse, as you will later see), and on our way to pick up snacks the car died (as in wouldn't even turn over). We had to call Scott to come and help us with the car as we were stranded in the Safeway parking lot. Since this is becoming a trend (the bad kind, like stirrup pants ...yeessh) He asked me to take the van to Les Schwab and see if they could help. Has anyone ever taken a 1 year old, a 3 year old BOY and a sick 7 year old girl to Les Schwab? Not good, don't do it - call a sitter! The popcorn looks like a lovely idea and the tires look like they would be fun for your 3 year old to count, but if they offer you balloons, do not take them even if your 7 year old says,"Yes please, sir." with out being prompted and the guy looks at you like your daughter is the most angelic being he has encountered. All will end poorly. You will regret it and curse the very floor of the balloon making factory they imerged from. Just a warning.
They were able to fix us up and in a mere 3 hours (left the house at 8:30 back home at 11:30) we were home and had wasted 3 perfectly good hours with nothing to show for it, but a couple of hungry toddlers and a sick little girl. We decided to cut our losses and watch a move while we ate our lunch and then I realized that Emma has an ear infection! As is the norm for our children there is now puss running out of her ear and down her cheak. Ugh! I added some meds and put all three of the children to sleep and now it's 1pm. Time for some tea! Maybe we'll have Monkey bread tomorrow . . .

Let rise until double . . .

I found a great cookbook recently filled to the brim with heirloom recipes, and as I was making kolaches this morning I began to ponder how much bread making reminds me of parenting. The ingredients are many and even if you follow them to a T you might not end up with more than a flat thick blob. Mix all of the ingredients together with a loving and firm hand excited to see the end and anticipating how things are going to turn out and humming a tune as you go. I have see so many parents that started out with too much salt or too much yeast and have had to alter all of the other ingredients in order to still come out with bread at all. There are times at our house when a call out of, "More flour!" is in order because too much butter was added.
There are so many batches of bread that I have made that I thought went well in the mixing and dough phase and was excited to eat warm with butter, but when I came back an hour later I discovered that they had not risen at all, let alone "until double" .
As we love encourage and care for our children in the Lord we have to remember to keep a clear view on how they are doing emotionally as well as physically before we send them out to deal with things on their own. Are they taking on more then they can chew? Are they having more freedoms than they can handle? Then they have not risen until double. Wait, don't push them into the oven. You will end up with an unpalatable brick that can't be fixed. When bread has sufficiently risen until double you can push your finger into it and it won't deflate. Then you can pop it out, shape it into a loaf and into the oven it goes. Happily baking and gaining that crust that we all love.

The last pictures of the Welch kiddo's in 2008

Happy Mia with her new boots dressed all in pink

Ty Owie lookin fine in his hat

Nolie and Nonnie

Emmers with her new haircut a la Mother

Happy 2009

***2009 !!***

Here we are again! I hope you are having a VERY happy 2009 so far. We rang out the new year at a New Years party with some friends. We didn't get home until around 2, so we slept late the next day and it has been so low key for us ever since. My hubby has been working from home and I have been trying to reconfigure our house so that it works for our family.

So far this year we have torn apart and reorganized 2 bedrooms and our living room family room and dining room. We have taken numerous toys and clothes to Goodwill and filled about 10 BBGB's (big black garbage bags, my hubby's favorite!) . When Scott has some time off it is time to reorganize, and toss and repurpose. We have been finding some great items at Good will to help us, and have been having so much fun treasure hunting. We also decided to dive into a more organized cleaning schedule that does not involve me cleaning the whole house every day so I am hoping to follow more closely to the fly lady's schedule and take it in bite sized chunks. I love the fly lady cleaning site.

We are starting back to school in 2 days and I am really going to miss all the time I have had with my kiddos. I know a lot of moms that are crazy when their kids are home and can't wait to get them back to school, but I'm not excited about sending them back. Except for the great one on one time with Ty and Nadia I just miss Nolen, Emma and Mia too much. They have a great school and wonderful teachers, but since Nolen and Emma stay with Scott after school and get their homework done there I don't get to see them until 5 when they all rush in the door. Then dinner, then clean up, then jammies, then family worship, then bed! WHEW!!

Last night we got a pile of snow and so today I can imagine that means LOTS of playing out in it and hot cocoa and fun around here. We do have some errands to do so I hope it thaws out a little bit.

OH Yeah! How do you like my new BLOG design? I changed a bit to make it match, what do you think? I was hoping to have a new pink background, but couldn't find any I liked, so this will have to do.