Baby Well-Born

 

2024 is nearly here, and I haven't blogged half of 2023. It was a hard year, which is hard to blog.

I bought the fanciest camera I'll ever own, and I've almost entirely stopped taking pictures.

I've come nearer than I ever have to closing up shotsnaps for good, and it's a mass of loose threads and gaping holes. Before the new year elbows out the old, though, I want to share a few crummy phone photos of the best part of the year, with more story to come in the future if I ever follow through on good intentions. (Elizabeth Frances! These are for you!)

Mallory Mirth practically fell into our arms on December 14th, and John and I marveled at her as if she was our first baby. This sweet girl of ours is a full-heart-spilling-over gift to two middle-aged geezers and their children, and we are full of love and gratitude.

The best papa. I love this man.

And here's an almost real-time photo Millie just took on her phone.

"Soon" is a Relative Term, Right?

 

We recently discovered that Pitterpat is a smushed baby elephant! Adjusting our expectations accordingly and accounting for a much longer gestational period than one plans on for humans, we're now anticipating introducing our new arrival by 🎄December of 2024🎄. 

Stay tuned! Baby elephants are worth the wait!

Coming Soon

 

PitterPat, already so loved by us all and fearfully and wonderfully made.

 

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Apologies to those of you who sent emails and letters asking about access. I'm not ready to blog, but I opened the gates because I'd like those near and far to pray for our beloved Grandma Owen. Last Friday, I took this last-hurrah picture of Annika with everyone wearing flannels Grandma gave them, last Saturday, Tim and Annika joyfully joined hands in marriage, and last Sunday, Dudette received a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia as the explanation for her recent health troubles.  Her diagnosis came almost exactly nine years to the day after my dad received his diagnosis of the same, and the timing is baffling. Today, Annika moved to her new home 10 hours away, and Dudette begins her first treatment.

Please pray for the Lord to comfort her, Dude, her children, her grandchildren, and the whole family-- to wrap them in peace in an uncertain time-- and, in His good mercy, to strengthen and restore her body.  <3

I Fell Off the Wagon, and the Wagon Wheeled Away (July 2023)

 

I dreaded how fast three months would disappear, but I didn't account for variables that would make days fly even faster, and crunching numbers makes it worse.

Everything became wedding preparation. I stopped counting hours spent weeding at the farmhouse once I hit 30, I only count hours spent cleaning and setting up the venue there because it earns income to put toward the wedding, and I never even began counting the hours spent sitting on my duff in front of a computer doing wedding stuff because I can't count that high. 

By the time they return next week, Millie and Annika will have spent 35 of the last 71 days down south or out of the country. I know because I just counted. When they're home, they're gone at work for half the time, and Susannah has joined the ranks of working women, too.  Garden produce sits neglected in the autumn garden, fruit flies rule our kitchen, the songbirds have flown, cricketsong grows strident, and Annika gets married and moves in a little over a month. Our family rhythm is broken, and I'm lost somewhere here in the middle waiting for a new song to start up.

I'm grateful that at the beginning of the year, John planned some specific family days for this summer, because they've allowed scattered time to soak each other up before these days are gone. I want to slow down and savor what we have left, but we're careening helplessly along, and the rowers keep on rowing (and they're certainly not showing any signs that they are slowing).

So have at it. 
July's on deck, and August is in the hole. 

July Fourth, 2023

Our extended Owen family and Grandma J. came over to celebrate Independence Day with good food and Grandpa's traditional box of explosives.  It was our first Fourth without Millie and Annika, who were in VA, so we ate their share (of the food, not the explosives).

Sarah took half of these pictures on my camera, including this exquisite one of her angelic-looking son Zion. 😉

Lucinda Hope's Big Party

Two days after Millie and Annika got home, we had almost 100 friends and family here for Lucinda's thirteenth birthday party. We didn't start preparations until the day before, I stayed up almost all night, and I still don't really know how it all came together. I think the guests deserve praise for covering the tables with good food to supplement what we had here. If they hadn't brought what they did, we would have all had to survive on hot dogs, pasta salad, and cupcakes. (And water, if not for Evan's gigantic cooler of fancy drinks in glass bottles!)

I took these pictures at the tail end of the party, so the daisies are worse for the wear, but her simple desires for decorations (daisies and yellow) came just in time for us to scrounge the very last few handfuls of roadside daisies.

We nearly always have a guest whose actual birthday is close to these fake summer birthdays, and this year Hannah had her turn. Happy birthday to these girls who still could pass for sisters!

 

As has become tradition, Grandma Owen bought a birthday piñata for the birthday girl. As I hope will NOT become tradition, Ransom had an inexplicable meltdown when people began lining up to hit it.

Rebecca graciously organized all the piñata- bashers because I just didn't have the gumption. She lined Luci up after all the younger set had gone through.

BOOM. That's all it took, and candy showered down, because in addition to being smart, kind, and lovely, Lucinda is also strong.  Happy birthday to our lovely Light, Lucinda Hope. You are a gift to us, Luci, and we love you so much!