weekend in review

Oh man. This girl. She got to come with me to her first Bridal Shower and she was completely enraptured with the whole experience. I had told her it was a party just for girls and ladies, to celebrate our friend Elena who is going to marry Max in June. I told her there would be cake and punch and that we would get to watch Elena open presents from everyone to fill their kitchen so she could cook good food. So Elsie wore a lovely dress with her white tennis shoes and sat transfixed on the bride (who we got to sit with!) and ate so much sugar she got a tummy ache.

At lunch she had asked me how Elena and Max knew they wanted to get married. I told her that they were good friends and that at some point while being good friends they decided they wanted to be friends for the rest of their lives. That they couldn't imagine not being each other's friend. Elsie liked that answer and was glad that Daddy and I are good friends for the rest of our lives.

I am too.

It was quite the exciting weekend as Saturday began by picking the winner for the maple syrup giveaway. Congrats to Joy Peterson! Big winner from right here in our town! I wore my favorite maternity dress for the big reveal video on facebook and only once we posted it did I realize that I cannot wear that short dress any more! My belly has grown in the last few weeks, shortening the dress considerably! But I couldn't really tell that while wearing the dress because I can't see past my big belly. But I could definitely tell on the video! Hilarious. And that darling dress is now retired.

Then we went to the Home and Garden show in our town. Which translates to: walk around the ice arena getting candy and balloons and entering giveaways and seeing everyone and their grandma there. It was so fun! My kids actually thought it was some sort of carnival. And to our great joy, we met a neighbor how has sheep and knows how to sheer them! Hooray!

We came home and my sister-in-law Sara came over with her kids for the afternoon. My kids love their big cousins so, so much. And Kirby and Toby and Ruby are so great with my kids. Kirby recently gave Ivar TONS of Hex Bugs and Hex Bug Track (which we didn't even know existed...but now we do!) and so they got to play with Hex Bugs, and visit the animals and Toby even taught Ivar a magic trick that Ivar is impressively good at (Toby is a really good magician!) I got to talk to Sara for a good long time and the afternoon was awesome.

They pulled out of our driveway and minutes later our good friends showed up and dropped off their three girls for a babysitter swap, as they had watched our kids on my birthday. So with all six kids, we ventured outside for an easter egg hunt. It was awesome and so fun. And two little one-year-olds can cover a lot of farm yard, heading in different directions, quite quickly!

Those girls left at 7, I put the kids down and then made 55 Matzo Rolls for a Seder Meal that happened here in our town. And then I finished my book!

This morning I got up and could hardly put my pants on. For real. I was so tired. But we made it to church and I taught about Palm Sunday and sincerely enjoyed every minute with the 3-6 year olds I get to teach. They are a really great crew.

We came home, there was a sheep Baaing like crazy at us in the field and Ivar went to investigate. He came running back, "I think a sheep is having a baby! Her butt is SO RED!!!" Rory ran out there and sure enough, there was a little lamb, still in the sack. So we spent the next few hours delighting in the straight forward birth and the darling little lamb trying to stand on its sturdy legs.

I asked Elsie if she wanted to go see the lamb and she said, "No, because once I saw a goat being born and it was very gross to me." So instead she prepped for the bridal shower.

And when we got home from the bridal shower we ate scrambled eggs and tator tots and called it a great supper.

We cleaned the house a bit, folded laundry and got the kids down and then Rory and I went out to the barn to see our darling lamb named Sunday. It started to rain and we went to the upstairs of the barn where Ivar used his walkie talkie to tell us that it was raining very hard. We talked back and forth with him for a while, him in the window of the house with Elsie, us up in the big window of the barn, everyone waving and saying I love you back and forth.

And then Rory and I stayed up in that upstairs for an hour and talked and it was one of my favorite dates ever.

Then I came in the house and talked to my mom about my weekend and said, "I really should go blog about this, because these are some fun memories..."

We will be posting pictures of the baby lamb (and soon to be lambs, when the other sheep go into labor) like crazy people on our instagram page, if you're interested in pictures of darling barnyard babies...

the grovestead newsletter

For years Rory and I have talked about starting a newsletter for our farm. Obviously we both blog. And now I'm sharing every day on instagram. It's not like we don't share a whole lot of our hobby farm anyway. But we both have always said that a quarterly newsletter would be so fun to work on...to sum up that season, write about what is to come. And to share favorite quotes and scripture, favorite links or websites, books or resources that we are coming across. A total hodgepodge, but all centered around that season and the happenings at The Grovestead.

So in order to kickstart this newsletter we are hosting a Maple Syrup giveaway. It's a total gimmick to help us spread the word in order to find as may people interested in our hobby farming ventures as possible. And, to our great excitement, it is working! We posted a week ago on our facebook page (@thegrovestead) and have had a great response of people curious enough to add their email to the list for either the newsletter or the chance to win the maple syrup. Either way, we are enthused.

We are going to draw the winner Friday afternoon, and it just dawned on me that I never posted about this on my very own blog. Duh. (Though that duck, duck, GREY DUCK video was very adorable!)

So if you want to be added to the email newsletter list, and if you want a chance to win a jar of our beautiful maple syrup CLICK RIGHT HERE AND SIGN YOURSELF UP! (And anyone else you think may be interested!) By entering your email, you are also entered into the syrup raffle. :)

We'll draw for the syrup winner Friday at noon. I'm so sorry for the late notice!

duck duck grey duck

duck duck grey duck from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

Hattie watches the kids play this game at Gym Class. Apparently she figured the whole thing out! She'll get to play with all the kids next time. :)

Hattie at 18 months.

Holy Smokes. I don't remember this season with my other two. Or at least I didn't remember it until Hattie reminded me. This is where that motherhood amnesia thing is very, very real. But I am here to tell you that 18 months is SO BUSY. Non-stop busy. Hattie is into everything. And then moving that everything into other rooms. Each evening the other four of us spend a good deal of time putting the house back in order, back from Hattie's day of play.

She climbs chairs and prefers to sit on top of tables. She takes books off of bookshelves, garbage out of garbage cans, shreds toilet paper all over the house, brings everyone their shoes to whatever room they are in, trails dish towels wherever she goes, empties drawers and cabinets, and pulls down anything she can reach on the counter top. She is tall and able. Tonight she pulled a sheet of paper down that was peeking over the edge of the counter, that sadly had a jar of cold queso on it. Which fell on her. Thankfully she recovered quickly, but seriously! When she is awake, we are seconds away from disaster.

But she is so darling. Man we love her so much. And she is so excited for adventure. She brings us our shoes because she is always ready to go! She understands our words now, and follows our instructions. It's really amazing.

And she is the center of our family. I don't know how to explain that, but she really is like our mascot. Last night she lifted her hands in the air and said, "aaaeeeuuaaa!" And suddenly she had all four of us, raising our hands and shouting, "Alleluja!" She did it again, and so did we. She was the leader, we waited for her command. And we played that Alleluja family game for a long, long time.

She is such a gift to us. So messy to clean up after mealtime. So busy and free spirited. And when it is bedtime she is pleased to get to go and rest. She waves to everyone saying nigh nigh and crawls up the stairs. And then once she's in bed, and we've cleaned the house after her busy day, I miss her.

mall walker

Monday was just a terrible day. It was gloomy and dreary and my attitude matched the day. I actually cried big tears when it was time to think up a dinner again. I have been sort of denying this responsibility lately...never a plan and always annoyed that another 24 hours have passed and my family wants to eat again. It was so bad that I did the math that each day I feed five mouths three times a day, seven times a week, which means I am feeding 105 mouths each week. You know you're in a pity party when you do the math...

I tried hard to turn the day around midway. I told the kids that we were all going to listen to our own voice and hear how our words were sounding. Did our words sound whine-y or mad or grateful or pleasant? Ivar loved the challenge mostly by being my cop and catching my moody voice and reporting what it sounded like to him. Ha!

But then Tuesday came and the sun was shining and the weather was glorious and apparently I got my hit of vitamin D, because I was so happy. Also, we had prayed on Monday night for clean hearts and new spirits for Tuesday and as Ivar said, "God really did it! You have a clean heart! I can tell!"

Last night I had a nerve spazz out on me and give me that typical shooting pain down the back of my leg. I have had this with all of my pregnancies...apparently the baby is squishing something in there.

After a full night of horizontal rest, I'm still feeling that little nerve and it means that today I decided to wear tennis shoes with my cute little maternity dress and leggings and it made me remember something that made me laugh out loud.

When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher Ms. Solberg was pregnant. We didn't know for a long time, but Jordana Smith did. Jordana was a classmate whose mom had just had a little brother. And looooong before Ms. Solberg told us that she was pregnant Jordana began whispering the news to the other girls in the class. When Ms. Solberg finally did make the announcement we all said excitedly that we already knew. She was so surprised. How did you know?!! Jordana told us!  She was so surprised, "Jordana, how did you know I was pregnant?!!"

Jordana smiled and said, "well, when my mom was pregnant she had days when she was super happy and then she'd be super crabby, but then happy again. You were acting the same exact way."

I remember Ms. Solberg laughing so hard she had to get a kleenex for her eyes and then she walked over to Ms. O'Keefe's room and brought her back and said, "Jordana, tell Ms. O'Keefe what you just told me!" And the two of them howled. And the rest of us laughed awkwardly...not getting the joke, but clearly something was hilarious.

I thought of this whole story because there was something else about Ms. Solberg. After she announced her pregnancy she started wearing tennis shoes every day. But she still wore dresses and nylons. From the ankles up, she looked very lovely. But those tennis shoes were just hard to get past.

That was back in 1989. And now in 2017 I am the one sporting the tennis shoes, large belly and mall-walker ensemble.

It wouldn't matter at all as I am home most of the time. But today my blessed sister-in-law Lisa and niece Josie volunteered to take the kids for the day as Josie is on spring break! And I got kicked out of the house!!!!!!!! What a gift!!!!! So here I sit at a Caribou. I used my gift card from Annika from Christmas. And decided to write about this little story that made me laugh out loud as I drove here.

Also! Today I am 28 weeks which is the beginning of third trimester. I tell you what, these are just psychological milestones, but psychologically I am doing cart wheels! This pregnancy is flying by. I continue to feel great (minus the nerve thing, but there is a 14-inch baby moving around in there!) and feel grateful for the good laugh I had today thanks to Jordana Smith and Ms. Solberg. :)