life of seven

The Story of Pat and Cuddles

****If you are anything like me, you may want to skip all the story telling and scroll down to the bottom to get the details about purchasing the dolls. I put it there for you nice and concisely.***

First, a super quick blog update- Sweet Blog, I have missed writing and taking pictures for you. But thankfully you are still here waiting for me, patiently, like a true friend (See, I told you that would be quick).

I went back to sewing dolls again, as should now be obvious. I returned to it for a number of reasons, but, as I knew would be the case, the more dolls I sewed, the more those reasons increased. I am once again utterly charmed by the entire process, just as I was when made my very first Waldorf  style doll 11 years ago. Doll making covers every craft I love. The textile ones: sculpting, drawing, designing, knitting, embroidery, sewing (machine and hand), toy making, just for a start. And even the non textile ones: story telling, writing, photography, imagining, and dreaming.

The idea for Pat first fluttered into my head when I began reading a book recommended to me by a friend, who knows how much I love L. M. Montgomery. Surely you can guess the book by now, right? Pat of Silver Bush. When reading about Pat, so full of life, and love for her home and all who lived in it, I wanted to make a doll who represented Pat in my imagination. For this, I didn't go through and reread all the descriptions or try to put in every detail about the fictional Pat Gardiner. Instead, I borrowed the name and tried to create the spirit of who I felt that Pat was. Thus, the light brown skin, since I picture Pat at the end of the summer, having played outdoors for hours with her friends every single day.

In my mind, I saw her as quite brown and healthy, from all the sun and outdoors. I gave her a green floral dress. In the book she wears a beautiful green chiffon dress for a wedding, and so I pictured her as often wearing green. The color and the floral motif of the Liberty fabric (Liberty of London fabric, naturally...so very, very glad I still have my stash) further represent how I picture Pat, playing out in the grass and among the flowers throughout the summer. I believe Pat enjoys fancy clothes and dressing up as much as any other girl, and so the flower headband was a must. I'm sure she wore it to her aunt's wedding. And when she goes to school, or does her chores, of course she must put on her blue pinafore to keep that gorgeous dress clean.

In the book, Pat has a baby sister named Rachel, that everyone calls Cuddles. This is just so charming to me. Nicknames are no strangers in our house, where everyone has some form of endearment besides their given name. Always, the youngest in our family has the most nicknames. Baby Boo, Boo Boo, Cwemmie, Little Sweetness, you get the idea. My doll Cuddles is much older than Baby Cuddles in the book. But I envision the two dolls as sisters and the very best of friends. In this, I was inspired by my oldest daughters, Cate and Grace. From the very beginning, Cate and Grace have been the absolute best of friends. You may not believe me, but the girls can't even remember the last time they had an argument. I know this isn't necessarily the case for all sisters, and certainly it was not for me and my sisters when we were growing up, but nevertheless, I know that it happens, since my own daughters are so sweet to each other. Rather than telling a story about two sisters who don't get along (perhaps a Beezus and Ramona doll set!), I wanted my dolls to be the very best of friends, and represent that precious bond that is only shared by siblings.

Cuddles has a bitty sweater and hat, for extra warmth, and extra cuteness. If she lives in Canada, like the Cuddles in the book, she will need them. 

Pat is a 13" doll, the first time I have made that exact size. And, oh my, it is such a huggable size. It gives Pat such petite features, while still feeling like a substantial doll that can be involved with all kinds of play.

Cuddles is a wee, tiny, 10" doll. There is no way you can see a doll this size and not squeal. It's impossible. I've set up all kinds of scientific experiments to test the theory. And, every single, time: "squeal."

Both dolls are made using the same pattern: they can sit up on their own. They can stand, if propped. They can be posed in many ways. They have knees, belly button, neck. They had long, extra soft, extra lovely hair made of Suri Alpaca. It is as soft as down. My daughter Grace has learned to brush the alpaca locks into soft wisps and sew them into a long weft on the sewing machine, that I then crochet into a wig. It is a time consuming process, but so worth it. However, the softness comes at a price: The hair is very delicate and a little sheddy. What I have found is that it can be very gently brushed as long as your hand is gripping the roots tightly. As far as play is concerned, if the hair is braided, it is actually quite secure. Nevertheless, this type of hair would not be good on a doll that was to be given to a young child. Both dolls have small parts and pieces. I haven't made them baby or young child-proof.

Both girls have dresses made out of one of my very favorite Liberty of London prints. Oh, what on earth am I talking about? They are all my favorite. Each dress includes a pair of matching bloomers. Pat comes with a pinafore and a floral wreath. Cuddles comes with a hand knit cap and sweater, knit of one of my favorite yarns, Brooklyn Tweed Shelter. Her hat and sweater feature a simple floral design. Both girls have crocheted shoes that button.

I did a bit of sculpting for the faces of both dolls. Enough to accentuate cheeks, chin, mouth, a nose. I use needle felting for this, and it has the added benefit of causing the face to retain it's shape over time ,and when washed. I don't recommend hand washing, however. Spot cleaning is best, if possible. 

About the price: I'm sure you've read a number of explanations similar to this before, but I'll put it in here, anyway. Each doll takes many, many hours to make. On top of that, I make them using handcrafting skills I have been developing my entire life. Doll making alone is something I have been doing for 11 years now. I have been a regular knitter for 15 years now (though I learned when very young). Sewing has been an on again, off again skill for me since I was 10. I love sewing, and I hate it. And I have made dolls and toys of all shapes and sizes since I was a child. I put all these handcrafts together into one entity, a doll, that have taken years for me to learn. My sister, Amy, has been a seamstress as long as I can remember. She makes the doll clothes for me, and they are sewn with such detail and perfection. I'm proud to be able to offer clothing of this quality on the dolls I make. After putting so much time and detail into every single doll, and after using the absolute highest quality of materials that I can find, you may be able to understand why I need to charge what I do to make the dolls. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that for now.

I am asking $425 for Pat, plus shipping. 

Cuddles is $400, plus shipping.

Shipping is $16 in the US, $40 worldwide. Your doll will come to you beautifully packaged, with some fun treats of various types included. Please email or message me on Facebook or Instagram if you would like to purchase either doll. Thank you!

 

What I've been doing

Well, I think the pictures should say it all. I want to write more, but in summary, there has been doll making and a three year old's birthday party. It is our anniversary, and Ben and I are running out the door to go out to breakfast. But soon, very soon, I'll be back in this space, to tell you about the dolls.

 

Truman's tooth

Okay, have I ever told you guys how five year old boys are about my favorite thing in the world? It's true, and I am lucky enough to have had three of them. At any rate, I am halfway through raising my third five year old boy, at least. And, Truman, well, he is just about the funnest of the fun five year old boys I've ever met. He is also my most rambunctious, loud, and vivacious five year old I've had in this house. And I love him for all his energy. 

Leave it to Truman to be my first child to knock a tooth out. I've been a mom for 17 years, and have seven kids, and up until a couple days ago, there have been no unloose teeth knocked out before they were ready in this family. Broken bones, yes. Stitches, certainly. Sprains, bruises and black eyes a-plenty. But it took Truman running through the house, tripping over a footstool and hitting the corner of the kitchen table to knock out a tooth. Poor guy. The tooth was not loose at all (in general my kids are, like, tweens before they even get a loose tooth). The tooth ripped through the gum and came out whole, root and all. Had that happened to me, I'm sure I would have been recovering for a whole 48 hours before thinking about interacting with the outside world. Truman definitely cried quite a bit initially, but when he heard his tooth came out it perked him up considerably, even under such painful circumstances. Another 30 minutes (and a phone call to the dentist, who assured me it wasn't an immediate dental emergency that needed to be dealt with that evening) later, and Truman was telling me, "I wish that had happened, but that it didn't hurt when my tooth came out."

The dentist said to give him popsicles for the swelling, and Truman helped himself to no less than four that evening. I'm not sure the popsicles ended up being strictly necessary, since every time I checked in on him, he and his siblings and friends were playing together, stopping now and then to watch Truman get yet another popsicle, and Truman calling to me over his shoulder, "My tooth feels great, Mom!"

First thing the next morning I asked, "How are you feeling, Truman?", hoping that the worst of the recovery was over.

"Awesome!" Truman replied, as the memory of being a big boy who now had the prestige of having lost a tooth before his older, seven year old brother, returned to him.

It occurred to me later on that day that the Tooth Fairy should probably pay Truman a visit. One thing you should know in this house is that our tooth fairy is pretty unreliable. She is usually days late, if she comes at all. However, when she comes she does usually leave a decent amount of cash under the pillow, but you really can't much count on her. Her memory and the cash she happens to have on hand at any given moment fluctuates greatly. Add this to the fact that my kids are usually close to age ten before they lose a first tooth, and somehow I've never been able to convince them that the tooth fairy is real. If you can you imagine.

Well, the following morning, I told Truman to check under his pillow to see if the tooth fairy left him some money.

"The tooth fairy? What's a tooth fairy?" with a great deal of skepticism in his voice. Oh dear, she really has been absent-minded as of late if Truman doesn't even know what I'm talking about.

"The tooth fairy buys your tooth back and leaves money under your pillow!" Gideon told Truman, as he excitedly realized the tooth fairy might have really left something under Truman's pillow, for once. "Come on, let's go check!"

And sure enough, out came Truman from the bedroom, clutching a dollar bill tightly and very proudly. Even my slightly older-but-still-not-too-old skeptical children began to have second thoughts about who actually was the tooth fairy.

"Mom, Jude said the Tooth Fairy might be mom and dad, but I told him it couldn't be, because the tooth fairy gives lots of money, and you said we don't have any money!"

"Truman, you are so smart and that is some great logic!" I smilingly left it at that. If his interpretation of "money is tight right now" allowed him to believe there was a tooth fairy, so be it, right? How sweet, my kid actually believes in the tooth fairy!

"Mom, my friend Jack told me the tooth fairy might be Tinkerbell."

"Oh yeah?"

"Can we please find a video?"

"A video of what?"

"A video of the tooth fairy!"

One of Jude's and Truman's favorite activities is to look at Youtube videos of whatever animal or plant they happen to be interested at that time, usually on an iPhone. Hey, homeschooling credit, right? You never stop learning. A few nights ago it was videos of Great Horned Owls that they wanted to see. Today, naturally, why not videos of the Tooth Fairy?

I started to pull up images of the tooth fairy on the computer, curious what Google would have to show me.

Seeing they were images, not videos, he instructed me: "No, Mom, not like that, you have to do it on your phone!"

"Actually, Truman, the computer will work just as well as mommy's phone. Watch, I found a video!"

What do you know, someone captured the tooth fairy on video and uploaded it to Youtube! A little five year old boy like Truman lost a tooth, placed under his pillow, and set up cameras in his room to get video footage. Then he shared his footage with the world wide web for all little boys and girls to see. Smart kid. And, wow, she really does look quite a bit like Tinkerbell!

"But, Truman, you'll have to tell Jack that, at least in this video, she doesn't wear a green dress."

Lots and lots of flowers

Well, first I was going to write a blog post about this darling little pony I am knitting (Here's my project). This is gonna be a pony, not a unicorn, okay? With a floral saddle blanket and all. Why am I knitting a pony? Because sometimes you've just got to. I love Claire Garland's style, and knitting patterns. They are just absolutely whimsical and delightful. So, when taking a picture, I threw in those flowers I got at Hobby Lobby to make this a darling little staged photo. But, wouldn't you know, I couldn't leave it at that- I needed to show you what I planned to do with the flowers:

But those beautiful flowers were beckoning to me and the kids, and we couldn't wait a moment longer to finish our project. I just love this idea. It was so easy to make and it's so bright and cheerful.

The bunting/banner was Gideon's idea, who spied the letters at Hobby Lobby. And I just feel so absolutely clever adding that leafy apostrophe in front of the S. That lack of apostrophe was really bugging me, because I am a homeschool mom who worries about silly stuff like that. But now I don't have to have one more sleepless night thinking about it. Haha.

What was I saying? Hobby Lobby?

Incidentally, three boys really aren't the ideal shoppers to take to that store, in case you were wondering. Evie, Grace and I could have stayed all day looking at darling projects for Evie's shed, and the rest of the house. The boys love it, but it is really not a great store for them to be quiet shoppers in. I feel ya, boys- I want to touch and play with it all.

Hobby Lobby is deceptively expensive. You think you aren't spending much because everything is 50% off. We kept putting back fake flowers, reluctantly, when we realized that even with the discount we had like $100 worth of fake flowers in our cart. One by one we sadly put the least lovely blooms back. Thankfully, we really did end up with plenty for this project, even though my original idea had been to cover the E with blooms. This looks just as nice, I think, with the leaves added and some of the letter underneath peeking through. Anyway, this was a fun, easy, sort of cheap, project. And I think it really does add a lot to Evie's shed.

 

Evie's shed

Remember a couple of years ago when Cate and Grace fixed up the old attic? Well, that inspiration got the wheels in my head turning, and I decided I wanted to convert our shed by the garden into a special place for Evie, as well as make the surrounding areas of the garden extra nice and fun to be in. We have so much land, and so many overgrown areas, that getting the yard into shape is actually quite daunting. But I think I've realized that, no different from house cleaning, I needed to just tackle one area of the yard at a time. We currently have three outbuilding that are currently stuffed full to overflowing with junk, filled with hornet's nests, and overwhelm me if I think too much about the work that needs to be done. However, spending the weekend on this little project for Evie, and the garden has given me a little momentum to keep forging ahead and plotting how to tackle some other outside areas that need work.

This shed really wasn't too bad to begin with, and it is still not done, but so far it has been a fun project for the whole family. Pinterest has proven to be its usual help, or danger, depending on how you look at it. After deciding to make the shed into a fun, cozy house for Evie, I looked to see if Pinterest had and ideas for me (Ha!). Well, apparently making sheds into charming, feminine spaces is a thing? They call them She Sheds. Hahahahahahahaha, I know, right? Anyway, I for one find that hilarious. But, thankfully, there was no shortage of ideas. I'm hoping to be able to sort through all that junk I was telling you about, and be able to make the shed super charming just with things we have on hand.

I did have to buy paint, of course, and I'm sort of already regretting my economical decision to do everything, including the floor, in white. But I have found that floor paint really does wipe down well, so I am hoping it will work out all right when Evie and her friends play in there. I also painted the bike- an old, rusted one of Grace's. I plan to cover it with flower baskets. And, you may not believe me, but I did come up with the idea of painting an old bike for decoration, before peeking to see if anyone on Pinterest had ever done so. Yes, yes, indeed, they had. So much "painted bike covered with flowers" inspiration. 

We painted our old crib. It was Cate's baby crib. So many memories. Grace, Gideon, and Evie used it. After Evie, I'm not exactly sure what happened, but Jude, Truman and Clemmie never slept in it. We didn't live in a home that was big enough for a special, private baby nursery, and as infants they slept in our bed. After that, I moved them to a Porta-crib, because our house was such that I needed to move the crib in different rooms throughout the day so the baby could get a quiet nap. We converted the crib to a daybed a few years back and put it in the play room for cozy seating. But when I painted the shed white, I knew a gleaming white daybed/couch would be perfect. So the crib got painted, too, giving it new life from 17 years ago.

We also needed to purchase the flowers (though the random assortment of pots were all things we had on hand). The flowers were very fun for Evie to get to pick out, her own special choices. I hope she will find them special enough that she will keep the flowers watered and alive.  But anything else I plant out there I hope will be perennial, so I don't need to buy more flowers every year. I did buy clematis, to get started on the more long term picture. Also, I really hope to actually plant a couple of trees out there for shade. If they are on the west side, they will not shade the garden at all, but will hopefully, in a few years, be able to shed and the other things in that section that are currently in the direct sun. It gets very hot. I'm not a very experienced gardener, flower arranger, or landscaper. So I'm sure it will be trial and error. But that's kind of the point of gardening, right? Year by year, adding and adjusting and learning what works and what doesn't, watching the area change with time? 

Okay, so, let me close this post by showing you pictures of what we have done so far.

The Dress

Here's one of those "sweater-sized" projects I mentioned last week. Here is the link to mine on ravelry, here is the link to the (free!) pattern on ravelry. The instant I saw the pattern, of course, I thought, I must make this while I still have a little girl to make it for. Clemmie loves dresses, and dressing up, and being fancy, so I was certain she would love this dress. Well, when I got about halfway through knitting it, and showed it to her, she was less than thrilled, and no amount of reverse psychology seemed to take effect on her. ("Maybe we should give this dress to Emmylou." "Yes, okay, let's give it to Emmylou!"). Bribery didn't help much either. ("How about if we get fancy shoes to wear only with your Easter dress?" "I don't want to wear that dress.") Guilt trips worked a little bit. ("Don't you like the dress Mommy made you?" "No, I don't like it." "Oh, that makes Mommy so sad!" "Okay, just joking, I like it." "Want to try it on, then?" "No."). I'm ashamed to say that all these tactics were tried multiple times. Probably shouldn't admit that, but my guess is that most mamas who knit have experienced this a time or two...

Finally, after the dress was washed and blocked, and I could see that the dress was a little too big for this Easter, even though I wanted it to brush the floor, like in the pattern photos, I gave up on the idea of it being a 2017 Easter dress. However, she was much more receptive to the dress once buttons and ribbon were added, and the lace design showed up so nicely. She's actually somewhat happy in these photos, and has tried it on a couple additional times, and grown more receptive to the long, fancy dress idea. However, after she went outside a couple of times and climbed on the swing and walked around a bit, I could see that it truly was going to be too long to wear for a bit, and in fact, the hem began to get dirty. So I've stowed it away for now. I hope she will get to have quite a few occasions to wear it in the future. One fun thing I thought of was to change the buttons and the ribbon color to match the season. Hopefully with a little more height, and a little more maturity on Clemmie's part, the dress will see some use. No matter what, I'm keeping it. One day, years, and years, and YEARS down the road, I may have a little granddaughter who may like it more than Clemmie does.

Easter and a birthday party

Happy Easter, friends! I hope you found the day to be as glorious as I did. Easter is at the same time a completely sobering and absolutely joy-filled holiday for me, as I imagine it would be for anyone who celebrates the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as I do, on that day. Every year, as I know Christ better, and as I recognize more and more what a profound impact He has on my life, Easter holds a greater significance to me. It's hard for me to write about the profound impact Easter Sunday holds for me in just a few sentences. 

"Calvary, oh what it means to me-

Since Jesus set me free, I think of Calvary!

It was Jesus blood- oh what a cleansing flood!

He did it all, for me, on Calvary!"

There is no freedom like the freedom found in Jesus Christ. 

It was a lovely day all around, with lovely weather.

I'm also doubling up on this post and showing you pictures from Evie's tenth birthday party. Yes, my little girl reached double digits, amazingly. She is the most joyful, compassionate, content little soul you will ever meet. For her birthday, my friend came up with the idea of holding a fancy tea party, and doing our own version of "The Great British Baking Show," having guests bring their fanciest desserts and letting Evie judge them to see whose was the most delicious. We all loved the idea, particularly because we are such fans of that show, not to mention our love of all things British. Evie's friend Elijah was the second judge, and they deliberated just like Paul and Mary in the show. It was such a cute theme for a party. And as you can see, many guests really went all out on their bakes. Everyone had fun dressing up, too.

I have some knitting projects to show you- I've actually, um, finished THREE sweater sized projects that I haven't posted on here... oh goodness, lots to catch up on. I refuse to feel guilty about it though, and write when I can. Hope to be here again very soon!

a 13th birthday

This is how I find him on the morning of his thirteenth birthday. It could have just as easily been a shot of him playing with a ball, any ball. I think he loves sports as much as he loves music. But this morning, he couldn't resist the new stack of songbooks from his favorite musicals that his sisters gave him as a birthday gift. Though I'm sure that later on today, despite the rain, I will see him outside with a ball of some sort.

It's hard for me to believe that I have a 13 year old boy, now. The fact sounds scary, but the reality is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. He is so much fun, so full of life. Always joking. Kind to his siblings. In so many of his mannerisms, he reminds me of my side of the family- two of my cousins, Steve and David, and so, so much, of what I imagine my dad was like as a boy. The way he picks up a new sport in about five minutes flat, while his sisters and I have to consciously not let ourselves duck when a ball is thrown in our direction. The cheeky, mischievous grin that really means no harm. The love of being outside, working on some piece of equipment or coaxing something wonderful to grow.

However, in many ways he is so similar to my husband, especially in his love for logic and the ability to grasp a new concept the moment the basic elements have been explained to him. 

Anyone who visits our house and meets Gideon will also meet Pepper at the same time, because our/his German Shepherd is never more than a few feet from his side. How many hours has she spent lying at his feet under the piano? I couldn't begin to count them.

Today, Gideon and I are going to make homemade pretzels together, at his request. Tomorrow, friends are coming over for a sleepover. It's birthday season around here, with Evie turning ten next Saturday , Jude turning seven in May, Cate turning seventeen last month. Spring is always full of parties and celebrations. But what is more special than celebrating the lives of those who make me the happiest person in the world?

The three littlest

Now to talk about these three. They bring so much joy into the house and in our family. Jude and Truman are both learning to play piano, and it's so much fun to watch them learn and discover how to play a new song that they end up loving. Clemmie likes to sit at the piano and play a single note, over and over, while singing her favorite current song. "Hop Pop Buns" (her own special version of the original, 'Hot Cross Buns") is a heard often, so is "Sonne Le Matinez" sung over and over again (her favorite part of "Frere Jacques"), and occasionally strains of "Hey Jude" will come wafting through the house.

Truman, my ambitious, energetic, eager, okay, generally wild, pre kindergartner, is doing much better with focused school work than I would have expected. I normally don't do preschool with the little kids, usually just because I am so busy getting the older kids' subjects in, but while listening to him echo the words Jude was sounding out and having him ask me over and over again to write something down for him to copy made me decide to experiment and see if I could fit a little focused learning time in with him. To my surprise, he was far more focused and ready to learn than I would have guessed. Also, he was much more of a perfectionist than I had guessed. I was telling my husband this, and he said, "Truman's drive and energy do have a good side to them, too, you know. He may end up being the most enthusiastic pupil you'll ever teach." True. I hadn't thought of that. To my amazement, he does much better throughout the day after getting rid of that extra energy. I'm so thankful to be able to homeschool him, because I think that energy and enthusiasm is a gift that I would not want to tame or suppress, and I can't see how it would translate well in a school setting where he'd need to stay in his seat all day.

Jude is has begun paying attention to Audible when we listen in the car, and he loves it. And when he loves it, I love it, and him, all the more. So far he's listened all the way through The Sign of the Beaver, Snow Treasure, The Moffats, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and All of a Kind Family. When asked how he is enjoying the current book, he says, in the most charming voice that still doesn't always pronounce its L's, "I wuve it." 

You can see Clementine is wearing a new hand knit sweater. The pattern is Sweet William, and it is the sweetest of the sweet. I loved knitting it. The bunnies around the yoke are sophisticated while being perfectly delightful.

Thanks for checking in again guys, and your patience with this busy mom who loves to write when she can find the time to squeeze it in.

Impulsive

We were looking at old photos on Facebook last night, and my heart broke a little, realizing how many memories were on there, even though I don't feel that I put all that many photos up. And I realized I had hardly taken a picture since my last post, back in December. And what of all the memories about life I have written about on here? That does it, I thought, and first thing this morning pulled up Life of Seven and decided to post. I'm a person of extremes, I believe, always have been. It works for and against me, and I have tried to become more balanced over the years. But the times it works in my favor is when I decide something is a good idea and go with it. For instance, reading. Last year I read so little beside audio books. The beginning of this year, my sister printed out a checklist for friends who would want to do her invented "52 book challenge." To make a long story short, I scoffed at the idea initially. There was no way I could possibly read that much this year. But I got to thinking about it while I heard my kids talk about how fun it would be to try to reach that reading goal and realized how silly it is that I don't read more. I used to read all the time. I used to read voraciously, in every spare moment of the day. I used to go to the Denver Public Library and leave with a brown paper grocery bag filled to the brim with books (granted, a huge percentage of them were Babysitter's club books and the like) and read non stop for about three days before I finally slowed down, but got dangerously near to the end of my library stack before the three weeks before the next library visit were up.

"Where is that girl?" I thought when faced with Stephanie's 52 book challenge. Years ago, I would have scoffed at the 52 book challenge list because that would have taken me closer to a month than a year. But once I decided I wanted to find that "girl who reads" again, I started picking up books in my free time, like I used to. No lingering over the decision or easing in to it. No, reading is a great thing, and I'm going to do it, I determined. So here I am at the end of February and I find myself ahead of schedule, ahead of the schedule that I thought was impossible just a few weeks before (So far this year, I've read or listened to 12 books, in case you were wondering). 

My impulsiveness relates to my blog post today as well, and even blogging in general. One day a few years ago, I decided to start a blog, because I wanted to write more, and have more motivation to take more pictures of my kids. Which actually doesn't sound very virtuous, now that I think of it, hah! "Hey kids, I probably wouldn't bother to take pictures of you on my own, but now that I have a blog, lets get some quick pictures of you riding your bikes." "Look, Clemmie's walking! Better let the blog know." Shallow reasons or not, there's no denying that I've missed recording details and pictures from life when I haven't posted regularly. Well, why wait around? I decided. Let's rev up the engines again and have a go. So that's what I'm doing today.

 And now let me take a second and tell you about those photos: First of all, Clemmie was in a great mood and smiling for the camera. The problem is, when you ask her to smile, she squinches up her face and closes her eyes. So out of the different pictures I took, only a few of them showed her eyes open. But she's actually not pouting. I feel like the luckiest mom in the world when I look at those pictures of my four beautiful girls.

And the final ones, why yes, that is Cate on her 17th birthday. The strawberry cake was pink and lovely and tasted...well, it was okay. Beautiful food doesn't necessarily always taste good.

And about Cate: I'm going to just copy and paste what I wrote on Facebook the morning of her birthday, because my day is getting away from me and there are children who are supposed to be doing school work right now but are actually playing while my back is turned. 

So, here is what I wrote about Cate, and I still mean it with all my heart: "I love this girl SO MUCH! Happy 17th birthday, Cate! Your first moments on this earth feel like they happened just yesterday, and at the same time, a million years ago. Over the last 17 years, while I've taught you to do things like talk and read and ride a bike and share with your siblings and how you should tell the truth and love God, at the same time, you were teaching me just as much, if not more, about life. About how precious relationships are. About the fierce love a mother feels for her child. About turning to God when you feel hopelessly inadequate. About putting time and effort and work into something, and reaping the glorious rewards for years (and years) to come. The privilege of being your mother has made me a better person than I could have ever been without you. Happy birthday, my darling. Every day that goes by, you become more lovely and sweet and good and interesting and fun than you were the day before. God blessed my life so much when he gave me you!"