Summer's Swan Song

It's been raining for 9 days straight, temps are dipping into the 40's, our heat has kicked in several times, and yellow hues are just beginning to show through. Summer is quickly coming to a close. It's been a good one for us--the highlight, of course, being that I went from this:

to this:

...the most obvious difference being that the baby is now on the outside! Zachary's birth and the welcoming of him into our family has been our most beautiful summer highlight. Our little Chunky Monkey is 8 weeks old today.

As the nickname suggests, he's been putting on plenty of rolls, which means, that my rolls are decreasing. It's a good arrangement! So the summer has been filled with LOTS of newborn-cuddling time...



One of the cuddlers was my Grandma Dorothy! She came to visit for 3 weeks, and we had some really sweet "Grandma time".

We appreciate her countenance and life experience so much. Love hearing stories about the extended family we've never known and accounts from the Great Depression. One of my favorite stories from this visit was about how she used to love to dance. This story was prompted by the classical music playing from Zachy's baby swing. She grabbed hold of Keiki's hands and tried to dance with him. Toddler-style, he just giggled and fell down onto the floor! Grandma then told of how one of her brothers and his friends would have barn dances...and she would waltz and waltz and have such fun. Her eyes sort of drifted off as she smiled...and then she said to nobody in particular, "I've had a good life."

True to Dassow style, we've kept things pretty low-key and free... We made sure to get in plenty of walks and bike rides

and we've spent a lot of time working and playing in the garden.



A simple but cool thing we added to the garden area this year is a little "knee-high garden for the tot! He is SO proud of his own little garden, which he can rake, sow, plant, water, and pick to his heart's content! LOVE this idea which I got from a Sharon Lovejoy book (more on those in another post!) Having their very own garden cultivates (pardon the pun) a love a gardening in a child's heart. It's so refreshing for little ones to have total control over their own little garden space.

Just look how proud he was of his first produce! He did this totally by himself. We're still amazed that anything grew in his little box, with all the prodding, plucking, and WATERING that went on!


We've also gotten in a little "tree fort" building...

...prompting this middle child to look for bargains on nails and screws at weekend garage sales!

We had a couple special events, including Little Brother's Infant Prayer Service at our church.

It was so special to us to have one of our elders and his wife, with our entire congregation, stop and take time to pray for us and our baby son.

We also celebrated Wise Bobcat's 11th birthday recently.




We're now proud parents of a middle-schooler.

what.
in.
the.
world.

Time just moves so fast. I'm enjoying all the sweet, fleeting moments...including this summer's swan song.

Zachary's Story

We're a blessed family of 7, basking in the "babymoon". Here' s our littlest son's amazing birthday story... Our God is mighty in His power and perfection!

The Big 3-6, NOT 6-3!

Working on a little blog catch-up this week, since a friend not-so-subtly reminded me I hadn't posted in *ahem* awhile! (Yes, YOU know who you are!!)

The boys very sweetly decided to decorate for my birthday in March. I love how they chose the theme of the tropics. They know their Mommy! We weren't getting a whole lot of the sparkly warm stuff at that time, so they made me my own little sun:


The rest of the kitchen fairly looked like a crepe paper spider web, interspersed with tropical coloring pages:



However, the funniest part of it all was the conversation I overheard while I was "staying out of the kitchen and keeping my eyes shut" (as they had requested.) It went something like this:

"...monkey business--ooo--ooo!" and "That looks more like a spider web...think when someone tries to sit in that chair. That just WON'T work." and "I STILL need MORE TAPE!" and "We are a GOOD construction team!"
As time went on, I overheard something a little more disturbing: "Is Mommy turning 63?" NOOOOOO!



It was a great day, filled with my favorite things--all my guys, a little touch of the tropics, Happy Family sweet & sour chicken, and fresh pineapple, strawberries, and melon with whipped cream.

Wanna Join the Club?

We found this "paperwork" left on the coffee table a few weeks ago:



So, if you have a "knif", you're IN.

LOVE BEING THE MOM OF MANY BOYS!

6 Years of Spunky Cub

Then:


Now:


He is a leader,
A reader,
And a storyteller.

He loves to laugh,
Play pretend,
And explore outdoors for hours.

He loooooooooves his new kitten,
And we are smitten,
With this joyful child!

Emotional Overload

Last week was quite eventful in this family. We hit the ground full-speed after coming off the dreaded flu week(s). Lots of tears for this heart-filled mama: some due to milestones, some due to sadness, some due to joy. All were seasoned with a heavy dose of hormones.

MILESTONES:
Keiki had his first haircut. Pretty sure he was the first to love it... He had just watched all the big bubbies have theirs cut the day before, so he. was. ready. I always feel a little sad at cutting away those first little wispy curls.


Spunky Cub had his first visit from the Tooth Fairy. (She almost forgot...and had to do a quick maneuver at 1 a.m! Thank goodness he wasn't disappointed she left no note or fairy dust!) His little smile transformed instantly, of course. I just can't believe he's old enough to lose teeth. In his own words, "Mommy, do you realize that there are only five more winters until I'm a 10-year-old? SO. You better enjoy me being a 5-year-old." Well said, Son. I SURE DO enjoy this 5-soon-to-be-6-year-old.

LOSS

We had to say good-bye to our sweet Willow. I realize some of you are "dog people" and some of you aren't. Some of you will wonder why I'm about to post as many pictures of my dog as I posted of my kids, and that's ok...I guess. :) I LOVED this dog. She was my first "baby". In other words, I treated her like a baby before I had a real one!

Here we are together, in 1996. She was just a few days old, and as you can see, I am just a pup myself. . I loved her gray and white color (there was only one other gray and white in the litter.) Her official name was "Nakeena's Willow Shining Moon". Beautiful name for a beautiful, furry babe.

Tony and I took her home to Minneapolis when she was around 7 weeks old. I was still in college; Tony was just starting out in the work-force.

She and our dear Laska, who also has passed, took up all our time. We loved taking them for walks through the city along the Mississippi, twice a day, every day.


Sometimes on the weekends, we took them mushing in Wisconsin.
Eventually, we decided to move to Alaska. Here they are, along the Al-Can Highway, somewhere!

And here's my husband (LOOK! He's got a full head of hair!!) with Willow, soaking up some sun after a dip in Eklutna Lake. A sweet friend of mine mentioned that Willow had such a great life; she lived every Siberian Husky's dream: to move to Alaska. She really did thrive here, and I'm thankful for all the great years we had to enjoy her.

Losing Willow is very hard. I'm amazed at how God gives us such love for a pet. What is also hard, is that Willow was a part of our lives through so many ages and stages. We had her through college, beginning our careers, living in 3 states, and introducing her to our first, second, third, and fourth babies. Ten years later, that first-born was old enough to feed and care for her himself. Losing her is losing the last little piece of all that history. No more tangible reminder of all those times.

The boys keep asking about her...and wondering about where she is. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly what happens to beloved pets when they die, but we do know animals are important to God. I happen to believe out of love for us, He'll re-create these special friends for us when we go to live with Him someday. I asked Him to.

JOY!

We "met" our 5th child last week! Here we are, getting all snuggled in for the show.

When I saw that perfect, precious little baby...I just started to cry...and cry...and cry. The technician asked if I was ok. I managed to squeak out, "Yes....it's just....he's so precious...." Little Keiki kept bringing me tissues through the whole deal. For some reason, ever since we found out I was pregnant, it just hasn't seemed real. Hearing the heartbeat helped, but I still have just been trying to wrap my mind around the fact that this is truly happening! I've also been plagued with a feeling that something was wrong. Haven't been able to shake it, even though there was no apparent reason to worry. At the ultrasound, all of that just melted away. I just basked in the beauty of our healthy, new, baby SON.


A 5th little knight for the Kingdom. LOVE this baby. Now if we can just settle on a name... And that, Folks, is for another post.

On My Mind Tonight

So here's the deal: We have the full-on stomach flu in this house. Keiki came down with it Thursday, mama got hit yesterday, Spunky started puking late last night, and Bobcat succumbed this afternoon. You know the type--hits FULL-force, mostly gone in 24 hours. As my husband 1/2 carried me up the stairs last night, changed me into pjs, took out my contacts, brought me a water with loads of ice, and tucked me into our warm, soft bed...even though I was 1/2 out of it, I was still aware of a sense of thankfulness in my heart--

thankfulness for home.

Today as I laid out on one couch, with my listless, 5-year-old Spunky laid out on the couch across from me, I felt thankfulness. We each had a clean glass of Gatorade nearby and loads of pillows and blankets to keep us cozy.

When I started to get some energy back and so went on a bleach-bottle frenzy and threw in another load of puke towels, I felt thankfulness....for wash water...for a wash machine...for plenty of clothing, blankets, and towels.

When I ran a tub of lavender-scented bath water for the 2 youngest, washed their hair, and heard Spunky say, "Awww man....keep doin' that Mommy it feels soooo good." my heart was over-flowing with thankfulness. Again, when I pulled them out, rubbed lotion on their little legs, and put on their footy-pajamas...that immeasurable thankfulness swelled up. How many mothers in this world would do ANYTHING to have a clean tub of safe water to bathe their sick children? How many have no clean water to offer their dehydrated babies a drink? How many little ones have no loving hands to rub lotion into their parched skin? How many go to "bed" cold, filthy from vomit and diarrhea? How many little ones have died from dysentery since I sat down to write this (I recently read the horrific statistic of 1 every 4 seconds.)

We have SO much:

Clean water, warm housing, healthy food. All these luxuries are ours at every whim. We are so unimaginably blessed.

Please join me and say a prayer regularly for all those who are not so blessed as this. When you feel that thankful feeling, pray. Furthermore, let's bring some of these little ones HOME. Let's help others bring them home. Sponsor a child. Sponsor a widow. Give to organizations that help struggling families. Help to provide clean water. There are so many ways we can help, and we are CALLED to do this. I am convinced we were not born into luxury in order to live luxuriously. It's just what's on my mind tonight.

Bringing in the New Year...Our Style

Well, my organizational appetite has been mostly satiated, and it's been time for a little play.
a little snowman-building:

a little sledding:


a little tropical vacation:

Just kidding. I can dream and reminisce, can't I??

But seriously, back to reality, today was especially F-U-N. The guys headed out to Bear Paw Lake for a little fishing. They had an absolute ball! Final count: Dad 1, Noah 3, Kaleb 1, Nicholas skunked, Grandpa skunked (but he gets bonus points for bringing all the gear.) Highlights included: the wind picking up and blowing away the shack right as everyone was huddled inside....Noah sinking knee-deep into an ice hole...and...since they forgot the fresh water, they served up hot dogs boiled in COFFEE!! Great bachelor-training, if you ask me!




What a great day...not one squabble or bad attitude, despite being out in the cold wind for hours with SOAKED mittens and boots. As Daddy says, "All these boys really need are wide, open spaces."


I, on the other hand, along with my mom and the littlest mister, devoted several hours to procuring some wonderful fiber goodness, Kaladis in hand! That is more my style. Ahhhh! The possibilities!

2011 is off to a great start.

Stuff

It happens to me the last week of every year. I begin to feel closed in and smothered by "stuff" and feel an overwhelming urge to pare down, organize, and label. The decor which added such a feeling of cozy warmth just a month ago now hems me in, and begs to be put back to rest in storage. I have no issues with returning seasonal decor to storage, but organization is a huge stretch for me. It is not my talent--at all. I don't like to be wasteful, and so paring down is difficult for me. I always seem to come up with ideas for why or how something could become useful at some point. The problem with this line of thinking, is that the opportunity for a given object's use may not come along for a loooooong time. I am also not the best organizer. Few things aggravate me more than complete disorder and disarray; however, coming up with a plan to avoid this is difficult for me. My husband, who is masterful in this area, gave me a tip:

"If it is not FUNCTIONAL or FABULOUS, it has to go."

Also, I have an unusual task this year, in that I am trying to disassemble our school room. I need to find a way to fit six years' worth of books, kits, and supplies into 1/2 of the nursery closet and book shelves throughout the house. It's been such a treat having a room set aside for all of our school books and supplies, and I feel rather sad to give it up. However, it is time--time to make room for more beds for more little people! So far, I have about 1/4 of it moved and in place.

Has anyone else noticed how organizational projects turn into a series of rabbit trails? In bringing up school supplies to the nursery closet, the nursery had to be totally cleaned out and organized. The baby books that were in the closet had to move to the changing table shelf, so the blankets on the changing table shelf needed to be pared down and either boxed up or put in the sale pile. This brings me to another topic--the high mountain and sea of boxes which is the sale pile. We've been saving all our left-over items from October's adoption fund-raising sale for our planned fund-raising sale in May. I am so thankful for all this "junk" which will hopefully become someone else's treasure come May...which will bring us one step closer to bringing home that wonderful child of ours who is waiting out there--somewhere....but WOW. We have some serious STUFF around here. As I read this, I am chuckling to myself. Indeed even talking about organization has become a rabbit trail of it's own. sigh. Well anyway, I'm REALLY looking forward to sending May's left-overs away!

Here is what I struggle with. I do not want to be ruled by stuff. Stuff takes up my very most valuable resource--time. It takes energy to maintain whatever I allow to clutter up this space of ours. It takes time away from my family which could be used much more resourcefully. Things have to be cleaned. Things have to be maintained. Things have to be organized. Things have to be put away. It is lots of fun to have toys for my children to play with, for example. However, if there are certain toys that are constantly underfoot and I am constantly nagging at little people to pick up, then I am allowing things to rule me. I'm allowing things to dictate my mood and I'm even at times allowing things to affect my dearest relationships. Wow that sounds ugly. Wow that is truth. For the most part, the boys have been trained well in this area, and pick-up well according to their ages. So one of two things needs to occur: an adjustment of my attitude or the said stuff has to go good-bye. If I go into my bedroom to retire for the night, and cannot feel peaceful because there's a stack of junk all over the dresser and the closet is stuffed with I-don't-even-know-what, it has to go. Most of the things that clutter my life I don't even care to have, but just haven't taken the time to remove. (Probably because too much time has been taken up trying to move it out of my way!)

Being a middle-class family living in the USA, we are one of the very richest 10% in the entire world. Interesting how the enemy can use either lack of stuff or over-abundance of stuff to steal peace.

Rest and Reflection

For the past few years, I have tried to let go of more during Christmas time. It's so easy to fill up every day, all day with fun things in celebration of this time. Funny how despite my efforts to pare-down, the season keeps rolling by seemingly faster and faster. There are several traditions that I maintain and absolutely love to do in preparation for Christmas:

Christmas crafts with the boys
Baking cookies with little helpers
Putting up the Nativity scene
Open house Christmas party
Putting up a Christmas tree
Hanging our made-by-Grandma Christmas stockings
Sending out photo cards to loved-ones with a yearly letter

There are also things that have been loved tradition that I've had to be open to letting go if necessary--hanging outdoor lights, caroling, office parties, concerts, volunteer opportunities, and plays, to name a few. It changes from year to year. This was a year, however, when lots of things had to be let go. I've found it's increasingly important to guard my personal time, as well as our family time....all the time...but especially during special holidays. Sometimes this means saying "no" to some of the so-much-fun things, in exchange for some "nothing time". We need "nothing time" to enjoy the wonder and beauty of creation in winter--a clear, starry night, and crisp, fresh air. We need time for quiet reflection of God's gift to us in a little baby over 2000 years ago...to realize afresh that He is with us...to look forward with joyful expectation that He will return! We need time to listen to age-old carols sung by a choir...to enjoy candlelight flickering...to soak up God's Word. As much as I love and enjoy our other family Christmas traditions, we sorely miss out on the entire point if I neglect to schedule "nothing time". It can also become so busy that we are all celebrated out by the time Christmas Day actually arrives! That can be a real downer, and this year, I am working toward not allowing that to happen. I want to be purposeful about what we choose to do....take the time to do those things with the proper, God-ward perspective, and celebrate the season well.

I love this painting. Look at the peace and rest...the reverence....the JOY. Two words blew me away this week: "God's son." I relate well to the concept of a son. Just think of it though--I mean really think about it--

GOD'S SON.

The CREATOR of the universe's SON.
GOD'S SON was given birth that He would save me from death. That was His purpose.
GOD'S SON will return to us. Take a little "nothing time" with me this season and soak that in.

Confessions

I have a sweet tooth. If there is anything sweet in the house, I sneak it when the kids aren't looking.

No shame.
No will-power.

So tonight, as I was sweeping up the kitchen near our gingerbread train creation, I noticed a lone gumball, and proceeded to pop it in my mouth. I tried to chew it, and then realized....

...it was a marble.