Flames, emotions and the spark of a real family.

 “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” 

— Albert Schweitzer

It was a difficult day. In fact, it's been a difficult week. Challenges of finding our balance of getting milk from me to our little man is faced with all manner of emotion. It's also been a great week. I've gone out to a knit night with two ladies who sustain my sanity by being amazing friends and walked my kids to the park for some much needed sunshine, fresh air and laughter. 

Today, someone took it upon themselves to spend less than one hour with us and decided that I was so severely depressed and our son was too orally challenged to have any hope. While this is not news to anyone on facebook, I've pondered how I felt about this assessment for the rest of my day. 

Was I depressed? 

Hmm.. That's an interesting question. If we are going to define depression with honest admission of the intensity of emotion that comes with the mountain I'm climbing - then sure, call me depressed. I'll gladly take on that title if you define it as the expression of ALL emotion. 

I think we have misunderstood the reality that is the human emotional playing field. It is my genuine belief that so many of us are trying to numb out all negative emotion without realizing there is NO SELECTIVE NUMBING. You cannot cancel out all the shitty days and only have sunshine and rainbows. If by somehow admitting to this person that I felt a deep sense of mourning for the loss of my personal expectation of a breastfeeding experience gives them some belief I'm depressed, have at it.

Let me tell you about my JOY.

Anaius is absolutely peaceful. In fact, I think as a family we gravitate to this little man because he just seems to exude calm. To hold him is to still a part of the busy world around us and just want to be.

Our children are so amazing. In this journey, they have faced many baby sitters, moved around appointments, missed some regularly scheduled events and guess what? They amaze me. As I sat in my basement, feeding my little guy and listening to my 6 year old do her reading/school assignment, my heart just swelled with intense love that all of my children chose to be in the same space.

We had pandora playing in the background, Declan was "fighting" with his cars, he's into making them crash a lot these days. Daunika was drawing in her notebook because her current ambission is to become a clothing designer. Kalani was making a mess of the wooden puzzles because she's a two year old. We were together.

My husband asked me to join him on a date sometime this month. Just us, and our newborn. I loved that. In all this transition, we are not forgetting us. This man is my rock. He is solid when I need a steady place to lean. He listens. 

I have grown closer to my savior, Jesus Christ, through this trial. I've enjoyed the "feeling stuck" to read in my scriptures more. I feel uplifted and truly awed by my growth. In the most timely fashion, one of our households favorite events came too. General Conference. A time to listen to counsel and thoughts from leaders from our chosen church. I love that this "forced" slow down has allowed me time to listen to some of the talks a few times and take notes.

Guess what else? I'm building the worlds longest list of people I want to return the blessings to. If you asked me about my family that lived in the valley, I'd name two people - my brother and sister. While they are amazing, that would be a pretty small family. What I have realized over the last year is my family is far greater and bigger than I could have imagined. People who drop by with a gallon of milk and a hug, just because. The friends who have come in and cleaned so I could take a NAP! The amazing women who have just listened. They didn't seek to push or sway me from where I was at, they just held a sacred and special place for me to talk through all of what I was experiencing.

My family is huge folks!

So, circle back around to this crappy beginning of the day... Ya know, it feels REAL to start the day in a bad place. I'm not going to pretend it didn't hurt to hear someone so quickly sum up our situation and give negative feedback. Perhaps I didn't tell her enough of our joys, our awesome moments. Perhaps, she didn't realize I'm an expert mountain climber.

It seems fitting to have some bad days. You know why? Because these moments that are so intensely crappy are never over cast on my blessings.

I will not pretend not to have bad days to make other people more comfortable. Darlings, I will choose all emotions because they don't run your life - they are. When emotions arrive, let them be. It's OK to sit with sadness and not invite it to stay for dinner. It's OK to feel loss, it's OK to mourn. That doesn't mean you give up. I welcome the chance to FEEL. It is one of those beautiful reminders that I am alive and well.

And when those emotions that are less than warm fuzzy feelings arrive, when you feel like you aren't sure how to re-kindle your own flame - It is absolutely OK to ask others to remind you. To share in their warmth and glow of their fire as you find your own footing again.

Many of you have shared your light with me as I have felt weary this month. Thank you for sparking my candle to glow again. I promise with every fiber of my being, I would do the same for you. This is the way family truly works!

Deep gratitude for my family is all I can feel right now.

The Perfect Storm and a Mountain to Climb

There are moments in life when the stars assign so perfectly you can't imagine how anything can go wrong... There are also moments in life that bring you to your knees with such an intensity that you fear you won't stand again. This past week brought the later to my home. 

First, I am aware of the blessings I have. On September 15, a perfect in every way baby boy was welcomed into our home. Anaius Elek was born safely in water in our living room after a strange on again off again labor pattern weighing 9#6oz. It was a very different labor than expected but I felt amazing through the whole pregnancy! Our younger two kids slept soundly through the birth and had a beautiful surprise when they awoke the next morning. Declan is thrilled to have a brother. Imagine kids faces on Christmas morning... His face was even better when we told him it was a baby boy!

1 day old, I felt amazing and he was so peaceful. He really feels like a peaceful soul to me.

Our first week was a good adjusting time. Damon was able to be home more than I expected, the kids were thrilled with Anaius. All things seemed fairly normal.

At a week old, Anaius had dropped 8% of his body weight. This is not outside of the scope of normal for us. All of our babies have started out bigger and taken about 2-3 weeks to regain to birth weight. In this case, a perfect storm was brewing. As we passed the 1 week mark, I fell ill. Seriously ill. Like, everything inside me hurt like I was going to die. Nursing was a nightmare that my baby seemed to not be able to understand and as I was so sick, I missed cues that things were getting much farther off track than normal. At 11 days old, things came crashing down. In what was expected to be a typical weight check and PKU screening turned into one of the most heart wrenching days of my life. My baby in a few days had gone from 8% weight loss to 18% weight loss. In that moment, it didn't matter how sick I had felt, I looked at my baby and realized he was no longer chubby. He was thin and weaker looking.

How could I have missed this?! There is no measure to describe the feeling of despair I felt as a Mom to realize my baby was starving somehow. This became a major emergency in a matter of seconds. In the hours to follow, I cannot remember exactly what happen. A whirlwind of phone calls, pediatric appointment, more phone calls, a priesthood blessing, a drive to the hospital. For the first time in our life life, we had a baby in NICU.

In the days to follow, I felt the disconnect with my baby. Nurses and doctors constantly touching him. Tubes. Wires. Constant beeping of machines. Feeding tube. Blood sugar checks every hour... more blood drawn for tests. Urine for tests. What had happen to my newborn and how had I missed it?

This is us in NICU with a feeding (NG) tube down his nose.

I refused to leave. I longed to hold onto my other kids for comfort and reminder than health is possible but how could I leave him? I'm so incredibly thankful for the families that helped us watch our 4 big kids while I sat with my baby waiting to find out what was wrong.

Damon spent a night with us too. I slept very very little that night actually. While having him there was the reassurance I personally needed to keep my shit together, my mama brain refused to stop worrying about my other kids. What if they woke up at night? What if they were scared? What if they ruined someones house?! It was a very long night.

By Sunday morning, our deepest fears were calmed. We knew that he had no major metabolic disorder. On one hand, I felt so much relief. My baby was "normal", he could digest food. This is really important if you think about it... on the other hand, this meant the problem was he was hungry. I had starved my baby. The problem was I had plenty of milk - he just wasn't getting it.

NICU was a fight to get out. The moment I knew that he was not sick - I knew we needed out. We have mountains to climb. We began checking out of NICU at MIDNIGHT and still didn't leave until noon. The doctors agreed it wasn't a deficiency on my end of things. They felt confident enough to let us leave to begin our task of fixing our son.

Anaius is unable to transfer milk effectively. The first week of his life he was gulping milk from excessive let down but in the second week, he would have had to work to breastfeed and he wasn't able to do so; and I was too sick to realize it.

In the last week of being home, it's been a nightmare and a blessing compared to other struggles I'm sure. With the idea of starvation, my confidence in the ability to care for a baby has completely eroded away. I'm isolated into our room trying to continue to teach him to latch properly, pumping so he has milk (since he really cannot nurse), and on and on. I  am exhausted. Keeping up this schedule cannot last forever.

Wednesday night I had the opportunity to get out of the house with a group of safe women... Thursday morning we decided to brave co-op. Both events were relatively uneventful, except both had nursing mothers at them. I sobbed the whole way home from both. Why me?! Why us?! Why him?! I am devastated and still finding my footing through this mess. This is a scary place of unknown. By suggesting that I should be just thankful for my healthy baby is not honoring of the mother-baby connection and if another person says shit like that to me I might just murder them. I'm not refusing to acknowledge that we could face so much worse but I'm not going to pretend I'm not traumatized and mourning either. There is a swahili word for mother-baby: MAMATOTO. It is ONE word. You cannot have the baby without the mother or be a mother without the baby. This is a connection that is at the core of my belief of our divine heritage.


Our pediatrician and two lactation consultants agreed, he has mouth issues. We await oral surgery that will hopefully begin our road to recovery. This is a mountain we are going to climb. Surgery won't fix everything, it will hopefully fix the physical limitations that prevent him from even trying to eat though. That appointment with the ENT cannot come fast enough. We are working with a lactation specialist who also does cranial sacral therapy. We expect this to be a long process... Rome wasn't built in a day.

We are so incredibly thankful for the support system that has saved our lives.

A beautiful group of friends from around the US sent us a huge pack (300?) of paper plates. Another dear local friend set up a meal calendar that has literally fed us while we figure out how to balance everything. People took care of our kids and continue to do so while we see specialists and therapists to find our way through this. These people are literal angels helping us through. They sustain me just enough so I don't lose it.

We will exhaust our financial resources, our energy and our very souls trying to climb this mountain and I believe it's worth it.

One. Day. At. A Time.

So lovelies, I'm mountain climbing with this beautiful baby of mine. I don't expect much right now. I will have good days, bad days and all in between. I'm healing. He's growing. We are finding our way. There is trauma. It's messy and emotional.

He's worth it. 

Summer is coming to an end

I woke up this morning and my house was a perfect 60*. Cool enough for me to grab for a cup of chai tea and want to snuggle my babies and read all day with them. I'm so thankful we survived the season without air conditioning. I admit, I didn't think we would. I wondered how anyone could ask a pregnant woman to do that, wasn't that cruelty under some legal definition? But alas, we did make it past the hottest part and now we're headed to cooler and cooler days! 

August has been super productive around here. More canning, new work books for the kids to start, lots of swimming and having a great time. All around, we have enjoyed our summer. 

We continued to fill our pantry for the winter. This is a lovely batch (or 8 batches?) of salsa. I'm still in search of the perfect recipe. This one isn't exactly what I want either but each year, I get a bit closer.

Our big kids went to girl scout camp alone this year. Last year, I had the opportunity to attend with her and it was a blast!! This year she decided she wanted to do a "short and sweet" stay for 3 nights. She was not nervous at all, I'm so proud of her! She said she had an amazing time and next year wants to stay for 5 days because 3 was too short. She was excited to recognize some of the camp leaders from across the globe that were there last year. Next year we'll have TWO girl scouts going to camp. Amazing how fast they grow. 

We wrap up the summer with the fair. This year was super relaxed and just all around a great day. It didn't feel rushed or chaotic. We arrived about 130 and ended up leaving about 10! I'm excited for days to come when the big kids can have wrist bands for riding as many rides as they want and Damon and I can relax together doing whatever we want! 

End of summer has brought all sorts of fun and random events too. Meridian swimming pool did free swimming and we caught it on a Friday afternoon that was perfect weather! After that, we hit Dutch Bros for $1 strawberry smoothies at a new locations grand opening. The kids were thrilled and it was totally budget friendly!! The uppper photo is after a quick trip to Fred Meyer. I just wanted a couple boxes of tea and Teaccino but the kids ended up with cookies and balloons for free. Such happy squeals the whole way home!

There is also a good amount of hanging out and enjoying life. These little people are so amazing. They come up with the most creative games and stories. 

Daunika learned how to make lanyards at camp this year and brought home the love of making them. Aurora quickly picked up the craft and is loving her lanyard! Both girls have made a couple each now and are enjoying the different color combinations. 

Sometimes I get caught up in the worry of motherhood. Am I doing enough for them? with them? Will they look back on their childhoods with fond memories and happiness? I think it's normal to question those important aspects in life... and sometimes, I'm stopped dead in my tracks when a pure happiness moment comes to my attention that I realize they might actually have a good life.

This was one of those moments. I was getting myself a drink of water and looked outside the window to see this. Daunika and Aurora, sitting under the canopy of our beloved walnut tree. Side by side, each eating a vanilla ice cream cone I just scooped them and talking about life. What a marvelous sight to behold. No agenda, no rush. No places to be or people to see. Just two sisters, enjoying the summer afternoon together.

Sometimes the best things in life are the simple things. We haven't seen a lot of my lovely husband this summer. A combination of buying a house, having a baby, me not working, and continued growth of our business have been the perfect recipe for busy busy busy. When we can, we take these precious moments. Saturday night he didn't get home until after 9:30 pm. But we built a fire, got out marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate and enjoyed some relaxed family time. We also crawled onto the trampoline as an entire family and laid down to enjoy the stars. It was a clear night, not too cold and what else is there to do at 10:30 on a summer night? We crawled in bed at 11:30, exhausted and happy.

I'm looking forward to cooler weather continuing. This summer has been a beautiful, chaotic, busy summer. I can't wait to see what fall brings us! 

Busy summer

If you could see me at the moment, you'd think I hadn't slept in a week! Some exhaustion has caught up with me this week. I'm working diligently at getting all of our stuff in order so that when our little one arrives that I can rest and relax. Somehow, I think my version of rest might be others versions of running around like a chicken with their head cut off but that's ok :)

Right now, my lawn hasn't been mowed in a month, my dishes weren't done yesterday and my current plans for the day include trying to stay awake! But reflecting back, it's been a busy and very productive summer so far.

My garden has been sadly neglected this year. Instead, I've opted to buy produce from local farms and can that food. We've also had a blast picking fruit many times this year! (that is a picture of 30 pounds of green beans and some spicy dilly beans I canned)

I am so excited for my blackberries to turn into a jungle like this!! We canned 50 pounds of blackberries this year, 20 pounds of blueberries and 18 pounds of raspberries. 

Daunika's making blackberry jam in this picture. 

The jars above are filled with black beans and you can see blackberries in the flats that we picked. 

My "appocolypse" room is looking pretty cool this year. I still feel like I have so much to do. Someone please tell my tomatoes they MUST ripen this week so that I can have salsa for my family. 

Fear not... It's not all work-work-work around here. 

Our kids are having a stellar summer just being KIDS. 

Hours of jumping on the trampoline.

The dirt piles are still a hit around here. This pile has the most rocks in it and the kids decided last week to make flags for each of them and created a very elaborate game of "claiming" the land. It was very cute. 

In true Huberty fashion, I'm sure a billion library books have been read this summer. 

Ice cream has been enjoyed. Who doesn't need a scoop now and then when it's 100 degrees outside? 

Especially when the inside of your home reads this temp! 

IHOP pancake date? Sure. And doesn't everyone eat fries with stacks of pancakes? 

In the coming weeks, we have girl scout camp for Daunika, major dentist appointments for the kids, finishing getting ready for our new arrival and try to enjoy the sunshine. 

I should mow the lawn. I need to make freezer meals. 

I need to shampoo my carpets. 

I need to take more photos of the kids. I'm majorly slacking there. 

I need to see my extended family more, I miss my siblings. 

I need, I want, I should............. But nope. I'm one person doing the best I can and that's good enough. 

You too. 

Reunions are heavy loads when someone is missing.

Every couple years, as is the tradition of many families, our extended family on my Mom's side has a Family Reunion. People come from all over (including other countries some years!) to gather and catch up. I believe strongly in the tradition and love them. This year was different.

Family reunions are always so tricky. Let's start with the basic facts - My mom was the oldest of 5 children. She was the only one to ever move out of the state of Idaho. She married in the fall of 1961 and moved away immediately. In 1966 her first child was born and they welcomed another baby in 1969. Following her husbands career, she lived in Utah, California, Texas, Montana and Oregon. In 1987, I was born in Oregon to my Mom's daughter. Can you see where things begin to get strange? Of my 18 formative years, I remember living with my biological mother for about 4 of them total (not consecutively either).

Because we lived in another state, I think few people understood that my Mom was different than whom they believed. To further complicate the matter, my biological mother remarried and had two more children who lived with her. For the majority of my childhood, I did not live in the same home as my siblings. This puzzles our extended family.

What is the point of bringing up old news? Family reunions are a serious loss trigger for me I have learned. Especially when my Mom died in December and the biological mother was in attendance of said family reunion.

The map on the wall of our family line.... Of how the generations break down. Of where I "fit".... I could have torn the thing off the wall and lit it on fire. I wanted to scream and rage and cry and sob. MY mother was dead, why in the hell was I listed under someone who wasn't my mother? That "daughter" they had listed for my mom never once helped me plan Mom's funeral. Never once helped me as I sat hours in the ICU waiting to know the fate of my Mom. That "daughter" of hers, whom I was born, is neither mother nor daughter. And what of the adopted children from another cousin? Why do their children belong under their adopted parents and yet I am stuck with that horrified place of no one understanding? I felt so traumatized staring at that chart. Even my husband, who probably understands me more than anyone, might as well have slapped me when he said "why are you changing the chart, why does it matter to you?"

At that point, I shut off. I had to self protect. MY mom is sitting in a box in my fucking living room. MY mom DIED. Did everyone miss the fact that I spent two weeks and countless hours in the hospital making every decision for her? Did people miss that I signed papers for hospice? Did yall sleep through those hours when I planned the funeral flowers and cake and who was speaking? Did anyone notice that I had to write an obituary for the first time in my life at 26? I surely didn't miss any of that!

How do we qualify who counts as a Mom? Because I sure as shit know that the person who helped me through chicken pox, who taught me how to make jam and the woman who listened as I was terrified that I would fail at motherhood wasn't in attendance of this years family reunion. At 70 years old, she died. She'll never meet her youngest grandchild. She'll never see another kids art piece or be on the other end of the phone when I'm having a complete shit day.

I'm headed through the stages of grief again. I'm fully aware of the trigger and dealing with it. I feel the heavy weight of sadness and bone-deep exhaustion that comes from intense emotional processing. I'm reminded that I can do hard things. I can and will find the amazing legacy of strength my mom encouraged me to find. Even in the end, she knew I could be strong for the both of us.

This was the crappiest family reunion of my life and I technically had more fun than any other I can remember. My kids were happy, my husband was with me the whole day, I saw people I genuinely enjoy and had fun dancing the night away with my happy kids.... and yet, I am acutely aware of someone missing.

Reunions are awesome - people get to brag about their kids, talk about their accomplishments, genuinely listen to each others successes and as I listened to one of my uncles be so incredibly proud of their grandkids, I realized that no grandparent would feel that kind of pride for my kids with the same closeness. My children have one grandparent left and I seriously doubt she's moving to Idaho anytime in this lifetime. I'm clueless on how to connect that gap when budgets scream that breathing air is expensive, who the hell can afford vacations? This last link matters. I should try harder to connect the generations. Perhaps tomorrow.

Blah. I'm sad. It's manifesting as angry because being angry is easier than feeling sad, it's my comfort zone.. It's less vulnerable that this hole of sadness. I'm working on it.

Someday I hope to leave a legacy of love and resilience too. 

I can do hard things. Today will sunset into tomorrow and tomorrow is always potential. 

A calm life? Er, our version of it!

I saw this today and thought it was so worth sharing. What an amazing statement. Sometimes I believe we glorify the busy. I think most people wouldn't call my life calm, but I strive for it to be that way. So much is lost when your stuck in a car taking your children from one event to another constantly to the point you zap the fun out of where your destination is. When you push so much, so consistently that you have lost the point of being present.

I've had some time off call and I admit that it's been so glorious I consider never going back on call again. I know in my soul that I am called to serve but this break is just exactly what I needed. Did you know? I really have the best children. I cannot tell you how in love with them I am, they don't make words big enough to fully grasp the depth of the joy they bring to my life. In the last couple years, I've been so busy that I've begun to drop balls. I'm not an expert juggler but when I'm over stretched, I'm even worse at it. As I prepare for a new arrival, I have had the pleasure of taking some balls out of the things that must be juggled and that's given me so much more time to really truly enjoy what is on my plate!

Fear not, those really amazing children I spoke of are not without their issues. I think sometimes we forget they are people. They have bad days. Off days. Days that totally suck and they need to go the heck back to bed and get up on the right side. They also have dreams and goals and more than anything - they want you to listen to them. They want to be heard when they are having one of those really crappy days AND when they have developed a plan for feeding all the starving children in Africa while making millions and having 16397 pets that they named in alphabetical order. I'm learning so much about how little they need. And yes, I'm aware that other children might be different but for us, this calming slow down has brought so much clarity to the time I need to dedicate to just listening to them.Wow.

I'm scared, elated and everything in between to keep my schedule calmer. Instead of interviewing for more clients right now for going back to work so soon after my own baby, I'm looking forward to fully trusting God that our business is where it needs to be and I can just BE. Oh what a marvelous thought.

Fear not, calm isn't boring around here though. Some might think that calm means boring but to us it's really not. It's just steady....... steadily chaotic in a great way!

Some of the "calm" things I'm enjoying is raw milk and all I can make with it. I've felt moved to do more than just be a consumer in life. While raw milk doesn't seem like that much to someone just thinking I want a healthy drink, to me it's a lot more. That raw milk supports someones family and in turn, gives us something wonderful. I've committed to making butter every week with the cream and freezing it like I would our stock pile from Costco. While I have been fine for years with the stuff at the store, I realize how much packaging, industrial waste, potential animal degradation happens from buying factory farming items. I can't replace everything, but this simple act of making butter and building a stock pile of fresh-from-the-farm wholesome items in my freezer is really awesome. I'm blessed by this "chore". 

We are the lovely new owners of a whole heck of a lot of DIRT! Like, 14 dump truck loads full. It's clean fill dirt, so lots of rocks and stuff but it's perfect to create our berm in front. This picture shows our south west corner of our lot. We plan on adding some top soil to the top of these and planting some privacy landscaping. I'm so excited!! Until then, the kids are in love with this new addition.... and holy heck are they DIRTY lately. We had more brought into the northwest corner of our lot for another berm on that side (much smaller than this) and 4 loads in the middle of the south side of the property to spread out to get rid of this damn cheat grass!!!!!! 

It's full blown canning season here... We had some fun turning blueberries into syrup! Next up? Apricots. We're going picking tomorrow morning. Yay! I'm planning on canning : apricot syrup (did I mention we like pancakes?!), halved apricots, and likely some jam because it's easy. 

I love this tired little face. She is growing up so incredibly fast it catches me off guard sometimes. Can I mention how much we love our sun hats around here too? They are a life saver in this Idaho sun beating on us. Our kids are certainly tan but never burnt because of good genetics and these amazing sun hats. I'm so thankful we invested in good kid gear. We've had several years use out of these and they are SO worth their money. At 30$ a hat x 4 children, I admit with out budget we were hesitant but they have been used everyday this summer. I even bought one for me this year because the only person that was burnt this year swimming was ME. Ouch. 

Since our kids are constantly dirty, this lovely 28$ of sanity is a great addition to our yard. I think they have been in it daily since we bought it. It is really peaceful to sit out and watch them splash, have fun, etc. We've been going to Eagle Island, our local "beach" too but even on days we swim at EI, the kids still jump in the pool at home. 

They are still amazing little kids with the most active imaginations <3 

Yes, I know the sheets are missing. Long story. This is what I woke up to this week. Not one but two little girls crawled into bed with us in the middle of the night. Silly kiddos. I'm so glad I could snap this photo. They are so peaceful looking. 

Wishing everyone happiness with their version of calm <3

In other news, life rocks!

Aside from our fun missing water fiasco, life around here is amazing. Here's a peak into typical life around here. 

Aurora has really fallen in love with doing puzzles. This little one was 300 pieces and very very challenging. I think puzzles are great for her because she can concentrate, doesn't need to talk a lot and in the end she is very proud of her accomplishment. She's independently doing 100 piece puzzles, this 300 piece one Mom's help was called in :) 

Our trampoline mat was in serious need of replacing. This past winter holes went from barely there to holes I could fit through! The new mat arrived a day before our home warming BBQ, and like usual for this season, I knew my dear husband had a million things on his list of things to do and this didn't need to be one of them. However, I seriously underestimated the strength of those darn springs. It took me an hour, but I WON! Holy crap, that was tricky. I got pinched and had to undo and redo springs but I did it! YAY! And yes, my arms and shoulders totally felt sore the next day. Some people go to the gym... I do weird work outs like argue my new trampoline mat into submission. :)

We're enjoying a bounty from our gardening efforts already! This was our first year to do strawberries and so far, these plants are so prolific! The kids are thrilled and I am too :) Not only strawberries but we harvested our first raspberries this year too (they were planted two months ago). OH SO EXCITING! 

Canning season has begun here. I took the kids to a local berry farm and we picked raspberries. It was a great time and who can complain when there is fresh raspberry jam to enjoy?!

It was so much fun that we are headed back to the berry ranch today for blueberries. I'm hoping for about 30 lbs or so of blueberries. I'd like to make some blueberry syrup for pancakes and freeze a bunch for smoothies too. 

Aurora isn't the only one who loves puzzles. Kalani likes to do everything that Aurora does. If Aurora likes it, Kalani will want to like it too. This little one is Aurora's shadow!

THIS IS A BEFORE PICTURE. 

AFTER!!!! 

We filled our trailer (literally, above the top of it!!) with old tires, old paint, a barrel of what we think was diesel from this property. It feels so CLEAN. 

Damon thinks it's really funny that I photo-document everything... well, why not?! I'm sure his Mom seeing this will love his face of laughter as he sits on a huge trailer full of junk. LOL 

We're a whole heck of a lot closer to our property master plan compliments of my AMAZING mother in law!!! She asked what we wanted for a house warming gift. One of the trees we didn't get that we really wanted was a peach tree (budget factored into us buying two apples and a cherry this spring in the middle of buying a house - saving for that down payment).... And I got an email two days ago saying there was a gift certificate at our favorite local organic nursery... A huge one. Oh man. Damon and I are scheming and planning and over the moon excited. The kids have already called they want an apricot tree, Damon wants peaches, I want elderberry bushes... We'll likely plant grapes too. 

More to update on but for now, kids are awake and life calls!