Number Six

We're taking a small break from previously scheduled posting to celebrate big news around our house. We'll return to archiving life pre-newborn shortly.

On June 19th at 11:09am, we welcomed number six to our family,

 Mr. Isaiah Timothy Pull.  

 

He weighed 7 lbs. 11 oz. and was 21 inches long.

 We're all glad he's here.

Every single one of us.

Award Time

On  May 15th Xandra, Theia and Aliyah celebrated the end of another year with Awana.  The Cubbies were the first to get their awards.

They were very excited and very proud.

Then the Sparks took their turn.

Xandra was asked to recite one of the Sparks Key Verses.  

Psalm 147:5 - Great is our Lord and Mighty in Power.

She was also awarded her first book award

and her second book award.

Then we had cake and the kids had a great time running around the gym with their friends.  We're grateful for the hard work of our girls and of those who worked with them diligently each week.

Joey is already asking regularly when he gets to go to Cubbies. This year instead of crying each week when we leave, we'll get to bring him along.  Aliyah will "big" Cubbie and she'll get to show Joey the ropes.  Xandra will be the "big" Spark and she'll introduce Theia to the ways of the big kids.  And for the first time, we'll have more kids attending Awana than those who stay home.

A Way With Words

Aliyah sure has a way with words.

I 

Just for the record, the following morning when I sat down at the breakfast table, she looked at me and said, "Mommy, you don't look as fat today as you did yesterday."

Thanks, Aliyah.  Thanks.

After The Storm

It has been an incredibly rainy spring in North Dakota. 

 All that rain has allowed us to see some beautiful rainbows.

Full rainbows (that I couldn't entirely capture with one picture on our camera) from our porch.

And double rainbows, too.

 

 If you look very carefully at the last picture, you can see the top of the arc of the full double rainbow, something I had never seen before.

Those rainbows make me think of how God's mercies are new every morning, just like a an unexpected rainbow (or two), after the storm.

Two Firsts

Just a few weekends before we moved, Gramps came to town to teach another class.  On Saturday night he treated to dinner at the Golden Corral.  This was quite the experience for our kids.  I don't think we've ever had all five of them in a restaurant together before.  This wasn't just any restaurant, this was an all-you-can eat buffet restaurant.

 

Joe and Tim took them around and showed them all of the options while I stayed back with Tikvah.

Then we feasted.

 

 And it was really good.

 

I think the kids' favorite part was the chocolate fondue fountain, 

Xandra licked the bowl clean,

or maybe it was the cotton candy,

or maybe the spaghetti,

or maybe the five pounds of fruit we let them eat,

or maybe that we let them essentially eat whatever they wanted.  

I'm pretty sure that's never happened before, either.

Unorthodoxed

They traded in their bikes

 

for buckets full of water.

  

and on a beautiful afternoon, with neighbor girls Addison and Daysha,

 

and storm clouds looming in the distance,

they washed both of the cars.

Privileged

Mother's Day this year began on Wednesday.  Xandra came bounding out of Sparks with this:

 

a plate of beautifully made, chocolate-dipped strawberries.  They made the fondant flowers the week before and dipped the strawberries that Wednesday.  After surprising me with the wonderful gift, she informed me that I could only have two of the strawberries.  The other two were for her.  Hmmmm.  Since we knew they wouldn't save until Sunday, her and I enjoyed them together before bed.

On Sunday morning my husband crept from bed and gathered the kids to make a pancake breakfast.

I got up, showered, dressed and then enjoyed the surprise of breakfast in bed with my five kids.  They ate, too.

After church we ventured home and baked up some homemade pizzas I had stashed in the freezer the day before.  Then we headed to a nearby park, just after stopping to use a coupon for a free fountain pop at a nearby gas station, to feast

and play.

After our adventure at the park we headed to Cherry Berry.  I had four coupons for three free ounces of frozen yogurt.  We used our coupons, split the 12 ounces of yogurt between the six of us (none for Tikvah, yet) and neglected to take any pictures.

I also neglected pictures of two other significant items:

1.  The state of my bed after having five children eat pancakes and drink milk in it.  Messy might be an understatement.  It was worth stripping the bed and washing the sheets to get to have breakfast like that with them.

2. The kids worked all week on coloring rocks for me.  They used many of the small landscaping rocks from around our house and kept it a secret.  Each child proudly trooped into my bedroom carrying a heavy bag of chalk covered rocks after breakfast.  Since we were moving soon and I wanted to keep the rocks for a future garden, the next day I dumped all the rocks in a box, taped it shut and labeled it, "BOX OF ROCKS," and it was promptly taken to the garage to await being loaded on the moving truck.  It greatly amuses me that we moved and are now storing a box of rocks.

One last picture I DO have is a present that Joe and the kids worked on together.

I mentioned to Joe that I would like to have this quotation in a manner where I could display it.  It is at the crux of what God has been teaching me in this season of our lives and I want to remember it, meditate on it, see it, remind myself of it, so that I might choose joy and gratitude instead of what comes much more naturally to me, grumbling.  This is what they created and it's hanging in my room, daily giving me cause to utter thanks for God's blessings, even ones like dirty laundry and piles of dishes.

To date, this is my favorite Mother's Day.  It's hard to explain why.  There was nothing flashy or extravagant.  In fact, our goals were to just be together and not to spend any money.  Somehow, that helped make the day very special.  It was the kind of day where you go to bed grateful and aware of what a privilege it is to be a mom and wife.

Reading List

There's a whole lot of reading that goes on around here.  The current reading revolves around The Boxcar Children, Xandra's current choice for reading on her own,

The Chronicles of Narnia,

as read by daddy,

and enjoyed by everyone else,

anything Tikvah can get her hands on to turn pages,

it's unclear whether it will be safe or destroyed, she's very unpredictable,

BOB books and beginner readers from the library for Theia, she's starting to read more independently now,

and The Little House on the Prarie series (on the bookshelf in the above picture) as read by mommy.  Grandma Mary also joined in the fun this week and shared Mr. Pudgins with the kids, a zany story about a babysitter who has interesting things happen when he smokes his pipe.