sistertalk

Elsie loves Harriet with her whole heart. And it is so fun to watch. She loves to hold her sister. And when Elsie comes down in the morning she jogs to Harriet first and sings a falsetto song that says something along the lines of "hi baby harriet. are you awake baby? I love you." combined with lots of nonsense words...) I took this video after the kids had just been sledding and had their hot chocolate. (Deep thought: why oh why do we give our children hot chocolate after they have been outside to run off all the sugar?!! I ponder this every single time I end up with sugared preschoolers on my hands...) Anyway, you can see that hot chocolate all over Elsie's face, and she's sporting some awesome hat hair.
sistertalk
I captured this moment and I love it. They are connected already. And will be forever. That warms my heart so much. There's nothing like a sister.

I got a great line from Elsie last night. Elsie was trying to cross my legs and then ride on my foot like a pony. If I'm in the right chair at the right height I can do this, but I was holding the baby, on Elsie's bed and I collapsed my foot sliding her to the ground. I said, "Elsie, I'm just not strong enough. We can't do that game right now." And she furrowed her brow and said, "but you have a lot of hair!"

She was referencing Samson and Delilah and I was proud.

sick days and hoar frost

Well, we're beginning the year with a whole lot of sickness. On Monday I took Ivar in for bacterial pink eye which meant we were quarantined to our house for the week. It also meant that four times a day I have the great joy of putting burning eye drops in my 5-year-old's eyes while he screams, "I'm on fire! My eyes are on fire!" And then on Thursday in the middle of the night I started to get achy, sweaty, sore, and could not stop shivering. For about 24 hours there I had eight blankets stacked on top of me and still was shaking.

Today I have absolutely no energy and a splitting headache, but at least I can sit up in bed. That's serious progress there. I always marvel at how we take our health for granted. It seems to take a sick day to remind me of what an absolute gift our health is, each and every day.

Getting the flu wasn't actually the plan for this weekend. I was supposed to get my hair cut and colored with my sister on Friday afternoon. And then Rory and I were going to head to his parent's house with the kids for an overnight, allowing us to go to dinner and a movie and out for breakfast and shopping in the morning. But that wasn't in the cards. (Though they still took Ivar and Elsie for an overnight, bless their hearts, so I could rest with just the baby to care for.) The whole Groves family is gathering this afternoon to read our prayers and thanksgivings from last year, and I am crushed to be missing it. I love that tradition so much.

But here I sit, sore and achy and in bed. And only because I feel so all around cruddy, I can handle having to lay here. (Though when my tylenol wears off I will get the shakes and sweats again...)

I'm just realizing I have nothing really of substance to say at the moment. Except that I seem to be looking for pity for feeling so ill! That's terrible. So I'm going to offset my complaining with some glorious pictures of the hoar frost we woke to on Monday morning, plus an awesome video of Ivar and Elsie sledding all by themselves. I had gone in the house to feed Hattie and when I went back out to look for them I found them living it up on this teeny little hill. Oh I love them so much.
sledding 2016 from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

the groves family best of 2015:

It was only as I looked through the pictures from 2015 that I remembered this was they year Rory incubated two eggs in the downstairs bathroom and successfully hatched them. I couldn't believe that happened within this year. And that this was the year we tried to sell bee-friendly flower seeds. Also notable was that Rory started blacksmithing and we got our first apple harvest. Most definitely 2015 will be remembered as the Year of the Barn and the year we finally got honey from our bees. And obviously topping the list, 2015 will go down as the year Harriet Joy joined our family.

This is still my favorite way to process the end of a year. Sometime I'll share how I go through all our pictures...because it's actually a system that I find really enjoyable. So much happens in a year and I often have forgotten about half of it until I look through the thousands of pictures we have on the computer.

Here's a look at a few other Best Of's from years past. And soon I will share pictures with you of what will certainly be the Best Purchase of 2016.\

2016 is sure to be a good time.

the force awakens

I got to go see Star Wars with these fine kids, their folks and my uncle Mark. My parents stayed home with my three kids and Svea. Thanks Mom and Dad! Jedd and Rory purchased the tickets days in advance and apparently read the map wrong so our seats they thought were in the last two rows were actually in the front two rows! Whoops! The kids sat in the second row, leaving the first row seats for the rest of us. This theatre had the reclining chairs so that by the time I had my seat back it felt as if I really was laying on my back, gazing into a galaxy far, far away...

It turned out fine and I really enjoyed the movie. I hadn't read a thing about it, so every bit was a surprise and super fun. I didn't even know Harrison Ford was in this one! Ha! After the movie I took these five in the minivan with Uncle Mark to Cub Foods where they used The Force to get me to buy them peanut butter cup ice cream. The force is strong with these kids. And man I love being their aunt so much. It was so fun to have some time to hang out just with them. I love that I can remember each one of them as babies and toddlers...and now it's so fun to see who they are growing up to be. I love each one to pieces.

acting out the nativity story

Mom put me in charge of directing the christmas pageant this year. It's always a precarious task with lots of expectations and emotions to sort through. This year I had to figure out how two girls could be Mary, a dilemma that often ended in tears in my own childhood. This year we had a Mary switch up during Angels we have Heard on High in order to accommodate both Mary's. We also had a Frozen princess visit the baby Jesus, as well as two firefighter helicopters from Fire and Rescue. 

We sang The Little Drummer Boy with Grandma Margaret and played the drums on our legs, there was a flute and keyboard duet by Mary 1 and the Wise woman and this year's surprise highlight was Simon playing the Star Wars theme song just after I read the portion from Matthew telling of the star that led the wise men to the babe.