Our Right Now

This morning as I was standing over the step stool in my bathroom I had a sudden thought. 

Often it is irritating that our master bathroom has been taken over by the two smallest people in our home. They leave stuff out, drop things, and make messes wherever they go. And while I don’t really think I will miss moving this stool around what feels like 1,000 times a day, I do hope to look back with fondness at these moments. 

In order to more accurately look back, I want to jot down a few moments from a very typical day. This morning is Bible Study morning but the littles are sick with a cough, sneeze, and runny noses so we stayed home. 

I came downstairs to find these three snuggled together in front of the fire place with library books. 

I ran upstairs to give the littles a warm bath. 

I tiredly washed the dishes with Loretta Lynn pandora playing quietly in my earbuds. Quiet enough that I could answer math and science questions. 

I enjoyed this wintery view from my kitchen sink. 

All of this stuff was collected on the kitchen counter. Pretty sure this is one of those things I won’t miss too terribly. 

I don’t have any picture from today but I had to run out to get a CBC test done for Ruth to check her Hemoglobin. Yesterday she was extremely lethargic to the point that I was very worried that the minor cold she has would drop her Hemoglobin so low that she would need a blood transfusion. Thankfully after a very long nap and lots of prayers she perked back up but we still wanted to check her numbers to keep on her record. My mother-in-law dropped in to watch the big girls while I took Ruthie to get the blood drawn. 

The girls eat a lot of yogurt with lunch and as a treat I sometimes add sprinkles. 

Also pretty sure I won’t miss this constant mess of snow clothes, blankets, balloons and books. But it’s my regular, real life, right now. 

My lunch crew. 

This is only the first half of this day. In the midst of the mess there is so much beauty. We are given just one life and none of us know how long it will be. And so we take the joy from each day, we press closer to the Lord and closer to each other. While some days I think it may be easier to send my girls to school, I remind myself that they are mine for only a short time. One day they will fly the nest and I will look back at these simple, everyday moments and I will smile with fondness and encourage my girls as they start families of their own. 

Eight Months Home with Ruthie V.

Another month home with Miss Ruth. She continues to be a source of joy in our home. Now, more than ever, she is vocalizing her opinions on everything. While we can usually grasp what she is telling us if we know the context, it can still be a struggle to know what she is saying to Trent at the end of the day as each girl tells him what they did that day. 

 I had been away for the weekend alone (what? Amazing, right?) and I got her up from her nap when I got back. She was so happy to see me and saying, “Mama, mama!” Then, she said “eee-eee, ih (and stuck out her tongue) mah annn (and pointed to her hand). 

And I questioned, “Petey licked your hand?” And she said, “yeah!” And laughed. Obviously this would have been really hard for anyone who doesn’t know her well to understand, but we are really thrilled with her communication between words, signs, and gestures. If you’ve met her you know she has a lot to say to the world. We have had a few speech therapy sessions and I believe they are already starting to help. I have to remind myself that speech is a marathon, not a sprint. And slow and steady progress will lead us to great places. 

So what did Ruthie do this month?

She enjoyed a New Year’s trip down to Virginia to stay with our best friends!

Jack met us at the door wearing his Chinese outfit we got him and welcoming us with, “Ni Hao!” It was the cutest. 

Roo and Care continue to be BFFs. Here they’re enjoying a hot cocoa after playing in the snow. 

Ruthie is giving Caroline a piggy back ride up the stairs to get dressed. Hah!

It has been really sweet to watch Ruth’s interest in babies grow this past month. She has been creatively playing quite a bit these days. 

She likes to pretend to drive this sleigh outside grandpa and grandma Hess’s house. 

And obviously, baby needs a forkful of sour cream. Guys. We have a major sour cream addiction in our house. I’m not even sorry about it. 

The hardest thing she did this month was separate from each other for 2.5 hours during Bible Study. While I have left her other times it was always with a family member. This was different because it was a class of 3-year-olds with teachers she didn’t know. It was helpful to leave Caroline in the same class and I’m thankful the teachers made an exception to allow them to be together. The next time I left her she still cried when I dropped her off but did even better in the class and seemed her normal self when I picked her up. The first time it seemed to take her a couple days to get back to normal. 

And reading books together can’t be beat. 

I loved this so much! We sat and watched a Torch Lighters (highly recommend!) about Gladys Alyward, the British missionary who went to China and did many, many amazing things for teaching the gospel. 

Checking out the seed catalog and dreaming of spring (already). 

Ruthie has wanted her big sisters to put her down for her naps this month. Abbey has been the sister of choice most days. It is really precious to watch Abbey read, sing, and mother Ruthie. These are some of my favorite parts of having a big family and raising future homemakers. 

She is very independent! She will do it herself over accepting help 99% of the time. 

Snow shoveling is a spectator sport in our house. Hah! Actually, it was very windy otherwise she likes to be out with me. 

Caroline had to get in a chair as well. 

The next week we had a beautiful, sunny day and I couldn’t even get them to wear coats. Oh, and Care is crying because Roo has the big stroller, which she only has because Carrie had the small stroller first and Ruth also wanted a stroller to push her baby but we have only one small stroller. And obviously, Carrie wanted the big stroller after Ruth had it. Various scenarios like this happen to us on a regular basis. I just laugh and call it “life with girls”. 

Rocking chairs, rocking babies. It’s the best life. 

The face they make when I switch the camera to “selfie”. Haha! I love these girls!

She was so happy that she moved into 12-18 month shirts (she will turn 3 years old in 3 months). Girlfriend LOVES new clothes, and I love that I had 4 girls before her so she has lots of options of “new” clothes. She is still stuck in 12 month pants but she’ll grow more eventually. 

We continue to be grateful for our sweet, energetic, hilarious, tiny but mighty girl. 

And just for fun, scroll through the below images to see how hard it was to get a cute picture without a fake smile of our busy Ruthie V. 

Happy 8 months home, little love. 

Tea Bar

Since I’m not busy enough (Haha) I like to come up with home projects. The girls and I have been having tea time once or twice a week since school started. We drink tea and I read poetry. It’s been lovely. For Christmas I bought each girl an adorable old-fashioned tea cup so I got into my mind that we needed a tea bar. 

Since I’m no longer painting signs I decided to take that crafting area and change it up. 

This is the space before. 

I started by painting this wall a gray-blue. This was leftover paint so this part of the project didn’t cost me anything. 

Then I took all these leftover boards from when I was painting signs and stained them in this gray-wash. This part of the project didn’t cost anything as I had the wood, stain, and nails. I had big plans that I would nail this together by myself but realized I’m not strong enough. 

I had to wait a couple extra weeks to get Trent to do it for me. I know he would have rather done other things on his Saturday but this is how well my man loves me. 

All done! The only cost to the project were the extra large C hooks that I purchased from Amazon. Trent finished the shelf and hung it up for me while I was away with a group of women for the weekend. Isn’t he awesome?

Oh, and the glass apothecary jars I bought on Amazon as well. One has hot cocoa mix that we made, the middle one I plan to make some more homemade marshmallows to put in, and the third has Andes mints right now. 

I’m really pleased with how this project transformed this space. Eventually I would like to replace the primitive style server with something in a country white. I’ll likely add some art above the shelf at some point and possibly add coffee bar items to the tea. 

Hope you enjoyed my most recent project!

Letting Kids Fail

It has been a whole year since I've joined the amazing group of Southern End women to worship the Lord together and to have Bible Study together. Yesterday lived up to it's name, Change of Pace. It was, indeed, just that, and just what I needed.

I'm really excited to be doing Reggie Joiner's study called, It's Just a Phase, So Don't Miss It. I'm sure I'll be writing more about it in the coming weeks.

Today I'm writing about something that came out of our discussion at Bible Study yesterday. Many of the moms mentioned they would like their children to become independent adults. So many of us have heard stories or know people who end up moving back in with their parents. These are grown adults, often married with children, who cannot live independently.

So how do we raise children who can live independently?

We let them fail.

I know this sounds harsh, but I really believe that if we let our kids fail in "safe" situations, they will be much more successful and independent as adults. Unfortunately, many moms have a major problem. They are enablers. They just cannot bear to see their child fail or hurt in any way. I beg those moms to let go of some of their own perfectionism and let their child make mistakes that they can learn from while they are still young and the mistakes aren't nearly as painful as when they are adults.

I'm the type of person that needs examples, so if you're like me I'll help you out. This just happened in our home over New Year's Eve, so this is super, super recent. When we go away or on vacation, all my children who can read pack their own bags. I write them a list of the items they will need for our time away and they are responsible for packing those items. (Eventually, they will be in charge of their own list writing.) Now here's the key, for all you moms out there who are fixers. I DO NOT CHECK THEIR BAG. So, we go away for New Year's. We have fun at our best friends' house that evening and have a great night sleep.

Next morning, one child comes to me and says, "So mom.... on that packing list.... Did you write pants?"

This particular child skipped over the line that said: 3 pairs of pants.

At that moment she had a choice to make. She could wear her same pair of pants all weekend, or she could ask a sister close in size to borrow her extra pair of pants that she did pack.  Was it a bummer for her to wear ill-fitting pants for the weekend? Probably. Was it a little embarrassing? Most likely. Will this child pack more carefully next time? I sure hope so.

I'll share one from my own childhood. Most of you know I love sleeping and am not a morning person. Apparently I've been like that my whole life. I missed the school bus so many times in middle school that my mom told me if I missed the bus one more time I would have to walk to school. I can't remember how long after this threat that the day came and I missed the bus. (In my own defense, I had to get on the bus at 6:50 am. So....) Anyway. My mom said, "Well, sorry. Guess you have to walk today." I just mapped this to be sure I'm telling you accurate information. The distance is 3.5 miles, with hills. Lots of hills. Thankfully the weather was good, but the unfortunate part was that I had either a sport's practice or gym or some event that I can't recall now, but it forced me to carry my backpack plus a second bag to school. I guess I made it about 3 miles before my principal came upon me and gave me a ride the rest of the way (thanks Shirley!) which greatly relieved me as I was unsure how I was going to safely cross the busy intersection that was coming. The point is, I don't think I missed the bus the rest of that year.

Moms who cannot let their kids fail are doing their children a disservice.

Children can surprise you with what they are capable of handling on their own. I give my kids lots of opportunity to do things on their own and fail at them. Parents who are constantly swooping in to fix every little thing for their kids so they don't "hurt", are hurting them.

How have your kids failed and learned from it?

2018, The Year Of.....

GENEROSITY.

We always choose one word to focus on throughout the year. This year, we have chosen generosity. As I've noticed in the past, I do really well focusing on that word for the first few months of the year, but once we get to May or June I usually forget about it.

I am hopeful that I can be really intentional about our word in a new way this year. While Trent and I believe we are already generous people, when we give money to causes or people that move us, it often does not involve our children. We have sponsored a child (now young man!) through Compassion International for ten years. We highly recommend the organization. Our girls have often colored pictures for him over the years, but they aren't directly involved in the giving to his support.

What I would like to do this year is to choose a different, local, non-profit organization each month to focus on. We will talk about that organization and their needs throughout the month and work to collect items for that organization. At the end of each month we will go to the non-profit to deliver what we have gathered for them. If you have suggestions of local non-profits in Lancaster, please let me know! We would love to talk about which twelve we will focus on this year.

Another goal for Trent and me is to read through the Bible in a year. We've done it before and are hoping to accomplish that once again. I would like to blog on a consistent basis. Last year I blogged a total of 45 times, which was the most I had blogged since 2011. My goal for 2018 will be once a week, for a total of 52 posts. Now that I type it out that seems too hard. Hah! I'm already talking myself out of that goal.

I would like to be more consistent with a lot of things. I have good intentions but often get distracted. This stretches into many areas of my life: keeping my house clean, writing physical letters, getting together with friends, studying God's word, being organized, etc.

For 2018 we hope to, as a family, focus on generosity, and to keep on track, it will force me to work on being consistent.

We can't wait to see what adventures 2018 will hold for us. We hope to have our hearts open to what God will do in each of our lives. Looking forward to sharing it with you all!

A Review of 2017's Goals

As much as I want to jump right in to blogging about what I hope 2018 will look like, I recognize the importance of looking back on the previous year to determine if I met my goal or did what I hoped to accomplish.

Last January I had planned for the year to be about self-control. It really became The Year Of Ruth. While we all worked on self-control in our four areas (food, emotions, money and time), if we're being genuine, the year really was all about Ruth. I do think we did a better job at talking about self-control in those four categories, and even made some efforts to have more self-control in them. However, I know I especially struggled with "time" this past year. Before Ruthie came home I was so extremely, over-the-top busy between adoption paperwork, my sign painting business, and homeschooling, that I really did not HAVE any time to waste. After Ruth came home and especially since her transition was so smooth, I found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands. I am sorry to say I often did not spend that time well (basically I read a lot of novels). Oops. 2018 goals?

I am particularly proud of how well I did on my "not buy any clothes for myself" goal. I did buy a couple Chinese dresses for myself as I predicted I might. Last January my favorite pair of jeans that were already ripped in the knees, lost their battle when the button broke. I did not replace them, instead wore the many other pairs of jeans that I already owned. Then I wondered why I own all these jeans that I don't really like? I did end up replacing them on Black Friday because they were 50% off from a store that doesn't often have sales that good. I also bought myself a new outfit for our family pictures BUT I didn't buy myself new shoes (even though I really, really wanted to!) because I didn't actually NEED them.

While I don't intend to buy no clothes in 2018, I feel like I learned a lot from this exercise. Mainly, to think carefully about an item before I purchase it. Do I really love these jeans? Will I actually wear them multiple times? Do I really love this shirt and will I wear it over and over again? While I do not have a particular number of clothing items in my closet, I was noticing that it is pretty full. I get a lot of hand-me-downs (which is some of the reason that I have clothes that I don't always love), but I can get rid of them! Just because they were given to me, doesn't mean I need to feel obligated to keep them forever.

Looking forward to what 2018 has in store for the Hess Family!

Ruthie’s 7th month Home!

Seven months home. Time is such a bizarre thing, and as always, it seems to have flown by and dragged all at once. 

Changes in Ruth seem smaller as the days go by, but I believe it’s because we are together all the time. Speech is her biggest daily struggle. However, we were at the doctor yesterday and our nurse noticed how much her speech has improved in the two months since we were last in the office. It is very encouraging to have someone a little further removed to make note of her improvements. 

We made some adjustments at home to improve our days, most notably that I started teaching lessons in the afternoon when Ruth is napping as she was very noisy and chatty while I was teaching. This has been a fantastic change for all of us. She gets more attention in the mornings and we get school done in one hour in the afternoon as opposed to the three hours it was taking with the constant interruptions. 

Let’s look back at what Ruthie was up to this month!

In the morning the big girls do homework. Abbey was taking a break from her work to play with Ruth!

It was a month of sweet snuggles with favortie people. She has really loved my mom this past month. Here we are visiting at my mom’s house after her pizza Sundays. 

We kept my nephew, Matteo, one morning while my sister had clinical. Ruth loves him quite a bit, and was feeding him tortilla chips. 

Ruth was sad because her big sisters spent the afternoon with grandma Hess. Thankfully having Matteo there cheered her up. Oddly, they are entranced by watching the dog poop. 

We ate out at Taco Bell one night!

She enjoyed her first Pennsylvania snow! I wasn’t sure how she would feel about it but she actually really enjoyed it!

She was pretty confused as to why big sis picked it up and started eating it. 

And not at all impressed when I tried to feed her snow. 

But in typical Ruthie fashion, she liked it when she could do it by herself!

Daddy pulling them around the yard was super fun!

She loved playing peekaboo at Our Sunday School Christmas party. 

Sledding with mama was fun. 

But sledding all by herself was even better. 

Drinking hot cocoa after sledding was pretty fabulous. 

She always loves to convince a sister to read to her. Thankfully she has lots of sisters who can read that she can choose from. 

This one cracked me up. I had measured all the girls to see how they’ve grown. She has grown about 2 inches since coming home but as you can see, she would like to be a little taller. 

My mother-in-law found this beautiful Chinese coat for her. It’s one of my favorite things to see her wear. And she’s holding up 2 fingers to show she is two!

Reading with Uncle Troy is so fun for Ruthie. It’s been really special to see her pick out family from just casual friendships. She really loves Uncle Troy, and who wouldn’t? He gives the best piggy back rides up the steps on Wednesday nights. 

Ruthie enjoyed a play date with friends from church. Thanks for having us, Lynette!

Caroline shared her birthday presents with Ruth, including these smelly markers which they just color all over their noses.  

And these magnet drawing boards which was great until Ruth wanted the bigger one and smacked Carrie over the head with the small one when she was told, “no”.

She loves these matching Christmas jammies. She gets so excited, points to the moose on her shirt, then the moose on mamas shirt (or anyone else who is wearing them) and laughs or jabbers. 

We honored Ruth’s Chinese heritage by eating pork fried rice at our Parmarter Christmas gathering. 

Lots of cousins on the Parmarter side. It makes for a noisy, but fun get together. 

We were all very ready for a long nap after that! And she is still the cutest sleeper. 

She went up front with the big kids on the Christmas Eve service. 

Happy first Christmas home, darling!

All gathered in mama and daddy’s bed for the reading of the birth of Jesus. Then opening stockings. 

Roo and Care both got balance bikes (because, obviously, they had to get the same gift). She was excited about it but it still a little short to reach the floor comfortably. I think by Spring this will be the perfect fit for her. 

New overalls from Grandma Hess and Gumby from Uncle Todd and Aunt Sarah. Christmas Day was a little overwhelming with the amount of gifts, but getting home was very nice to settle down and choose one thing at a time to play with. 

Play-doh was a good choice the day after Christmas. 

These two love to get blankets and lie on the floor together to listen to books on CD or nursery rhymes and kid songs. It’s not uncommon to see them gathered in this spot, giggling together. 

So happy 7 months home, Ruthie! You add so much joy and laughter and noise to our home. 

We wouldn’t have it any other way.

She was being so cute wanting a picture with daddy. 

This is my sad face when she wanted absolutely nothing to do with taking a picture with mama. Hah. She looks so confused!

Oh, Little Roo, how we love you!