My cats have anger management problems.

We have two cats.  Two female cats.  We did not get these cats because I love cats.  Or because I love animals.  Or because I need an outlet for my affection. We got these cats because I hate dogs.  My oldest child has a very distinct bond with animals, and every girl needs a kitten, and I caved. I just try not to notice the cat fur all over the house, and go on with my life.

That was going well until this winter hit.  With the cold weather, our cats were spending a lot more time inside the house and I had to take notice.  I don't know who is more stir crazy, the kids or the cats. 

The first time my cats ever totally embarrassed me was when we went to deliver christmas cookies to the neighbors.  They all invited us in for a little a chat.  Of course my girls behaved themselves very well, but the problem was that our cats followed us on our excursion and actually fought their way in to 2 houses on our trip.  When have you ever seen a cat that makes house calls?  I was mortified. 

The other problem we have is that when the cats take issue with anything, like running out of food, or their litter box needs to be changed, or someone pulls their tail, they throw a tantrum and pee in my clean laundry.  I have taken to closing the laundry room door ALWAYS, which always works until a child for no reason whatsoever opens it for the cat who promptly throws a tantrum in my clean towels.  In fact, they will even climb in the dryer to pee in clean laundry.  IT IS MAKING ME CRAZY!!  I can't help making them mad... they are female after all.  So, the solution, I know, is to never leave clean laundry out.  Ahem.  I do an average of 12 loads of laundry every week, and I rarely get the chance to fold and put away a load as soon as it is clean.  Does anyone?

Solutions anyone?  Two loving de-clawed fixed female cats anyone?

Going to the Library

Also known as:  I believe I deserve a medal.

 

Joe teaches piano lessons every Saturday afternoon, and I thought I'd take the chance to drop him off, then take the girls to the library since it is only minutes away from his lesson.  I really wanted to get Square Foot Gardening.  We were running a bit late, so it was 4:45 when we got to the library.

I thought that I had remembered that it was open until 8 or 9.  Wrong.  It is open until 5.  But, we still have a few minutes.  I just needed Square Foot Gardening.

Since we were running late, I didn't have time to fiddle with my stroller, and I couldn't get it to collapse far enough to fit in the back of the van.  I had to put Sophie in the sling, and let everyone else walk.  Which means I was carrying Phoebe and Sophie, and herding the other three like cattle into the library. 

As soon as we got into the library, the announcement came that the library is closing in 10 minutes.  "Please bring all your items to the desk in order to check them out."  Hm.  I just need Square Foot Gardening.  I've got time. 

In order to get to the garden section, we have to walk past the kids section, and everyone wants to pick a book or 5 or 12.  I agree 2 books per child, subject to my approval. (I've seen strange ones like "When Daddy was in Prison" or "My Two Mommies" GIVE ME A BREAK!!!) Of course they each take an hour or so to decide on a book.  I finally gather my herd and head to the garden section.  I just need Square Foot Gardening.  That's what I came for.

Then I catch a whiff.  Someone in my arms stinks.  Bad.  They both start fussing at the same time.  I just need Square Foot Gardening.  I can make it. 

I reach into my pocket for the call number of the book which I looked up online before I left the house.  The call number is at home on my desk.  "The library will be closing in 5 minutes.  Please bring all materials to the check out desk."  I just need Square Foot Gardening.  I see a pod of computers ahead.

I approach the pod, and get lots of glares.  Apparently people who use the library computers have a thing against crazy women with two stinky crying babies followed by a herd of small children.  There was a sign on the computer anyway that said I needed my password and to register for this time slot before I can use it.  Great.  I just need Square Foot Gardening!

"Mom, they said they are closing.  We should leave NOW!"  I just need Square Foot Gardening.  I looked at the shelf, and unfortunately there are about 3.7 million books on gardening, none of them Square Foot Gardening.  Bouncing 2 stinky babies, whispering to my herd to keep quite.  I just need Square Foot Gardening.  I know it's here.  The internet said it was here.  AHA!  On the other side of the aisle, there it is.  I grab the book and begin to herd towards the front desk.  We make it, the babies are calmer, and I have Square Foot Gardening. 

The lady at the desk looks at me and my herd and says, "Haven't you figured out what causes all this yet?" 

I think next time I'll pay $15 and buy it from Barnes and Noble.com

The little ladies (and their dolly daughters) have guests for tea.

The Haws Ladies had a busy day.  They cleaned the house, baked cookies and made tea.  They were expecting company!  The director of a local doll hospital and orphanage (aka Grandma) was coming with one of her orphans for tea.  She was the one from whom they adopted dolls at Christmas just this last year, and they wanted to show their appreciation.

We had a delightful tea party, with Lemon Chamomile Tea, Snickerdoodle pinwheels, and lemon almond biscotti.

Best of all was the company and conversation.

 

Gotta love little girls!!

Project Hobbes

My girls are really into Calvin and Hobbes right now.  Joe has an old comic book, and they have been reading it four hours every day.  This is great in many ways.  It encourages Abigail to read and focus for a long time. It entertains the girls for extended periods of time.  It has also sparked an interest in earning money.

Abigail and Olivia each want a stuffed tiger.  I don't buy toys except for birthdays and Christmas, so I invited them to save their money and buy their own.  Abigail asked me to look them up on the internet so she'd know how much to save.  We found the one she wanted most, but it was $53.00.  Her response was, "That's a lot of teeth!  I'll have to wait forever!"  (Her sole source of income at that time was the tooth fairy.) We found a tiger for the more reasonable price of $9, and I told her she could do some jobs around the house for money.

She and Olivia were very excited, and to prepare for our family meeting to make a plan about what jobs are money jobs, and what jobs are just the regular everyday chores, they drew pictures of their ideas to earn money.  They wanted to earn money for the following:

• checking the internet
• learning to read
• learning to add
• sewing
• playing with their little sisters
• washing the car

I told them that I don't pay them for school work. Abigail came right back with, "Well, dad told me that at his work, he does adding all day long, and he gets paid!"  We (Joe and I) decided that their paid jobs would be folding laundry, cleaning bathrooms, and cleaning the car (inside and out).  They worked really hard the first day, and earned $3 each.

Zenna's idea was that she would "help" by doing a tiny part of the work, and then she'd get just a little tiger... we decided that this job thing is for 5 year olds and older.  We'll see how she takes it later...

Yesterday we went to the toy store to see if there are any toy tigers here locally.  Unfortunately no.  When we walked out of Toys R Us, Abigail said she was totally bugged with the store 'cause they don't have any tigers.  I would have to agree.  Totally inadequate toy store.

As a side note, I have to say I have the best kids in the world.   I walked into the toy store with 5 kids, looked over the whole store, walked out with no toys, and nobody was crying.  That is a big deal for me. 

I was hoping that this trip to the toy store would be very motivating (they saw lots of other things they were interested in buying after their tigers are purchased) because my upstairs bathroom really needs to be cleaned.  Unfortunately not.  At this point, our system of paid jobs is completely voluntary, and it looks like I'll have to clean the bathroom myself.  Bummer.

Recipe Using Canned Beans

After a day like today, where I did homeschool from 8:30-11:30, then spent the afternoon prepping and painting the schoolroom, dinner is the last thing on my mind.  So, when the husband calls from 20 minutes away and I realize that in order for the night to run smoothly dinner must be ready in 25 minutes, I know exactly what to make.  Here's the recipe:


Chicken White Bean Chili
1 can chicken broth
1 pint canned chicken
1/2 pint canned green salsa
2 pints canned white beans
1/2 tsp. cumin

Mix all ingredients in a pan.  Heat over medium-low heat until warmed.  (30 minutes or so gives it the best melded flavor, but less will suffice in a pinch)

There.  Dinner done.  And delish.  Not often that dinner comes together so quick, with such great results!!

Canning Dried Beans

When it comes to using food storage the biggest problem that we all face is that it's well... not instant.  I've come to grips with the fact that I must grind my wheat before I make bread, must cook the rice for 20-30 minutes, not just 5.  But, to soak beans overnight and then cook them for 1-2 hours just takes too much.  So, I don't do it, and the beans go unused.  I love beans, my family loves beans, and they are cheap!   My solution: can them up.  Spend a few minutes here and there throughout your day, and you have quarts of beans ready to eat!

Here are the steps:

 Open your bucket o' beans.  You will use one cup of dried beans per quart jar. 

Rinse your beans thouroughly (I do this in a strainer) then put them in a clean, sterile quart jar

 Add 1/2-1 tsp. salt (if I try to go "low sodium" and add 1/2 tsp, I add more salt when I prepare the beans, so most of the time I go with the full 1 tsp.)

 Add water up a little past the rim.  Right up to where the ring will be.

Heat your canning lids in boiling water for a minute (or just follow package directions).
Put a lid and ring on each jar.

Put into your pressure cooker and cook at 10 pounds of pressure for 90 minutes. 

DONE!

This all takes very little hands-on time, and you have beans on your shelf and ready to use.  Very simple, and tasty!  Ready for soups, tacos, refried beans, salads, anything you would use a can of beans for.  This works with all bean varieties.  I have tried navy beans, black beans, and pintos with equal success.  I plan to try kidney beans soon, and I'll have to let you know how that works out. 

I weighed it out this time, and each cup of black beans is 1/4 pound.  Average price of beans right now is around $15 a 25 pound bag.  That is $.60 a pound, $.15 per cup.  A lid costs between 10 and 15 cents.  Per quart of beans then, cost averages 25 to 30 cents.  Last time I checked, that was way cheaper than any in the store.  And coupons don't seem to cover beans very often. 

Awesome!  Just thought I'd pass this along.  It's my favorite frugal/food storage/canning project!

Dishwashers

These are my dishwashers.  My mechanical dishwasher is on the fritz--again!  It works sometimes.  There must be a short in the control board (the one we've replaced 4 times in the 2.2 years we've had this dishwasher) because the start button doesn't always work.  It usually works as soon as all the dishes are washed by hand.  Of course.

My lovely ladies slaving away

I am taking this opportunity to teach my girls how to wash the dishes by hand.  A skill everyone should know.  They were super eager to learn, so I took advantage of this (relatively) rare occasion.  They take turns rinsing and drying.  I wash and put away.  It actually goes pretty fast.  We can do 2 meals worth of dishes in 30 minutes.  Not bad, I say!

Zenna asked if she could help, so I said "grab a towel and join in!"  Then she hesitated.  "Actually, I have other things I need to play."  As soon as the dishes were all finished and put away, Zenna showed up.  "Look!  WE did it!  WE washed the dishes!"  Ahem.  I don't think so chick...  

When we finished Abigail said, "You know mom, it's better when we have a dishwasher because then it doesn't take us ALL DAY to was the dishes.  We have time to play when we use a dishwasher."  I reminded her that now that we are done, she has all day to play (like 11 hours or so).  Too funny.

The culmination of dish training came last night when I had finished making cookie dough.  I put the dough in the fridge, and Abigail came and looked into the sink at my cookie dishes.  "MOM!  We JUST washed those!"  I could suddenly hear some empathy with the plight of my life.  (Insert Cruel Cackle) I LOVE IT!!!

Adding Dice

This is one of my ideas of how to teach addition.  One of the problems that I face is that as soon as home school tasks get laborious, I lose my power.  There are no threats that will make a 6 year old do more addition practice when she doesn't want to.  I tried to use my very favorite threat in this situation, but with no results.  (My favorite threat: "If you don't want to clean your room, I'll do it for you.  But remember, I clean with a garbage bag.")  They don't care if you throw their addition papers in the trash.  In fact, they would prefer it.

To counteract this powerlessness, I have come up with lots of ways to practice addition.  Because lets face it, they need to drill addition.  There's no way around that.  So, we put the worksheet in a sheet protector, and they do addition with dry erase markers.  We add on the chalkboard.  We add using number magnets on our magnet board.  Or, me favorite, we add using m&ms (we had to stop that one when the teacher ate all the teaching tools in a bout of frustration).  This is another way to add, and my girls love this one.  This also means that we are just a few months away from playing Yahtzee for math time, and I can't wait!!  I rock at Yahtzee.

I give each girl 2 dice (we'll move to three later) they toss the dice, and write down the addition problem that results.  They write the complete problem and the answer, and toss the dice again.  They end up doing between 10 and 15 problems, and I am satisfied.  It is great for beginning adders, with sums up to 12.  It's great too because the little ones toss the dice and scribble on their papers "adding" just like their sisters, and I can nurse the baby in peace. 

Try it.  I know you'll like it.

Book Review: Dombey and Son

I am going to start writing about every book that I read here on my blog.  I should probably do Goodreads, but I never really got into it.  So, here you go!

I have read this book before, and I didn't like it so well.  It was in my Year of Dickens where I read every novel Charles Dickens published.  I have been reading more while nursing, and decided to go for it again since it's been 3 years.  I absolutely LOVED this book this time.

I love how Dickens takes a human trait and intensifies it in one character.  While this makes some of his characters less plausible, it makes for a very interesting view of humanity.  The character trait in this book is PRIDE.  The stubborn, self-willed kind.  The consequences are horrific.  They are contrasted against pure sweet humility and undying devotion, so those consequences are heightened to the reader's sensibility. Makes for an incredible read.

The question that I have after reading this book is, can love die?  The daughter of Paul Dombey, Florence, loves with all her soul with no return for years upon years.  Then, in an intense moment of passion, her father strikes all that love out.  She flees from his house, and doesn't return.  So, I am wondering if love can truly grow with no return, and if it is killed, can it be revived?

I would say more, and am dying to discuss it with someone, but I don't want to give away too much of the story.  Dickens is such a masterful storyteller that I wouldn't mar your experience for anything!  So, if you have read it, please discuss it with me, and if you haven't, please do, and then call me!!

Once I can get the pictures off my camera, I am going to write a post about canning dried beans.  The best way to use your food storage, if you ask me...

Back to the Blog

I have rededicated myself to blogging.  I am going to combine my blogging efforts, and in this blog I am going to include my experiments with Homemade Everything.  I am going to try to share some of my homeschool ideas, and also share book reviews.  Do all my friends want to know all this?  Perhaps not, but I would like to document it all.  So I, like others before me, am going to document it in a public forum in case someone does want to know.  :)

So, till tomorrow...

She's Here!

Baby Sophie Leuinna Haws was born 4:15 AM on September 24th! There are two pictures here. So, I'm super lame, and haven't got my pictures off my camera and got them up on the blog. I have five girls. Under 6. ;) I love it!!!

Best homebirth EVER! I'll give you more details later. After having a rough 8 or 9 months with very few happy things to say, I am so full of gratitude and joy right now I could bust!

I couldn't have asked for a better situation. I got everything I wanted. A hard labor, a quick recovery, an easy baby, awesome sibling adjustment, and steady emotions.

Now that I am finally blogging, my baby is crying. I must go. But I promise I'll be back!

Dirty Little Secrets

Since I have been feeling pretty rotten lately (like for the last 8 months or so...) my sweet MIL has been helping my clean house a bit. We have also hired a girl from the neighborhood to help a few hours a week. Very nice. But, it means that some of those little secrets that have been lurking at the back of my cupboards have come to light. In the effort to "be real," I will share a few with you. If I am the only person in the universe with such secrets in my house, please just avert your eyes and feel sorry for me. If not, Share yours! It's very liberating. :)

• There was an old deep fat fryer that I forgot to clean out the last time I used it... 4 years ago. I had just been avoiding looking straight at it during the last 2 moves.
• I had coupons that expired two years ago in my junk drawer. In fact, I don't think I've used that drawer for two years, because everything in that drawer was at least two years old... wedding announcements, coupons, bank statements... I forgot that my cousin was married! Oops.
• I haven't scrubbed behind the toilet since... sigh... I was pregnant with Phoebe. In my defense... little girls don't make nearly as big a mess around the base of the toilet as little boys. I had to clean up after my little brothers for years. EW!

I feel better now. Especially because we are slowly tackling all my dirty secrets. Pretty soon I'll have no more. Except all those quirks about my kids. Like Phoebe digs through trash regularly looking for snacks. The lid broke on our kitchen garbage, and it doesn't fit under the sink. I am always pulling her away from the can. Or that Zenna just came to me completely naked and asked if I could put her socks on. Her feet need to be covered. Or the fact that half of the days Zenna spends all day in her jammies. I try really hard to get her dressed before daddy comes home, but some days we don't even make it there.

So now you know. More than you ever wanted to. I am just hoping that I am not alone in living on the very edge of sanity. But even if I am, I feel better confessing. :)

It's about time...

Zenna is potty trained! I finally bit the bullet last week, and we have come a long way. I was determined that having three in diapers would be horrible, especially since Zenna is getting close to being three.

When Zenna turned two, we started talking to her about the potty. Here is a list of her statements in response:

• "The potty just won't work for me. Diapers are just right."
• She'd pat her diaper (especially when she'd fall on her bum or was riding astraddle a stick horse) and say, "This diaper is just great. I don't need panties."
• "Don't talk to me about it."

She's always been a great talker, and we always laughed about this. A few months ago, she said that if we would buy her a pink Sleeping Beauty Potty, and Sleeping Beauty panties, she would learn to go potty. We were able to find a pink toddler potty (I swore I'd never buy one of those again... I hate them!) and plastered it with Sleeping Beauty stickers. We bought the Disney princess panties (another thing I swore I'd never buy) for way too much money. She put on the panties, and was all excited until we opened the potty. She said, "I can't sit on that! There's a hole in it!" We couldn't get her near it for another month.

I finally decided to buckle down last week. We were home from vacation, and time is ticking. It's now, or when I have a newborn... and that's no fun either.

Turns out, Zenna is a potty prodigy (as I was myself). Well, or after sitting in on all potty sessions for the last 2 years, she understood all about it. After the first day, she could tell me when she needed to go, and we were good. About the third day, she decided that she didn't want to do it anymore. Her solution, "It's ok mommy, I just won't pee pee anymore!" That didn't work. Next day she got back on track. Well, since then we've only had a few mishaps.

What a relief!

Although, it will still be a while before I'm not at all involved in the process, I am glad that she is at this point. Hopefully by the time the baby comes, she'll be all on her own.

There will come a day

There will come a day when my floors will not be littered with crumbs right after I sweep.
And I will not trip over toys in every room.
And the toilet will always be flushed,
the laundry won't create mountains in my basement,
every surface of my house won't be covered in sticky fingerprints.

And that day, there will be no bumps and bruises to kiss better.
There will be no angelic faces smeared with dirt to clean.
No little tiny clothes to wash,
No more giggling screaming girls chasing each other around underfoot.

And that day I will be lonely.

So I will try to appreciate all the evidence that my life is filled with children who love and need me every minute of the day. This time will flee, and I never want to regret the time I don't spend loving it now.

What a fascinating modern world we live in...

I like to take a step back once in a while and think about how my grandmothers did things. If they had something to say, they would make a phone call if it was local. If it was really important they would pay the long distance fee and call long distance. Otherwise, they would sit and their desk and write (in cursive) or type (with a typewriter) a letter. They would probable hand it to their mailman (NOT letter carrier) who they knew on a first name basis, and send it off to share their news.

The other night I checked my FB account one last time before I went to bed. Just to see if any of my 200 best friends had anything really important to tell me. Then I checked my blog list to see if any of the 100 people who I read about daily had important news for me. There wasn't anything really new, and I went to bed.

How silly really!

I am grateful for technology. It makes it easy to keep in touch with people we have lost, those far away, and those we meet out there in cyberworld who have similar views and interests.

But think of this... I announced my baby expectations to my family over the phone (they live 600 miles away), and to everyone else on FB and this blog. I didn't tell a single person (except my husband and children who don't read this blog) face to face. Soon, my entire social network knew (either firsthand, secondhand, or thirdhand...) my exciting news. This has it's pluses, don't get me wrong, but really? How weird!!

Just thinking about this makes me shudder a little inside. To be honest, I know more about certain avid and very public quilters than my neighbor who just had her first baby. I know more about a very bored and FB active old classmate than the family across the street. I don't even know who it is that collects and delivers my mail. In fact, I don't even send much mail! I've never even seen my garbage man!

I need to work on that. Do these facts creep anyone else out? Because they creep me out. So, I thought I would blog about them, and ask all my cyber friends what they do about it? Ironic.

Being a Mother

Sometimes my girls talk to me about our cats. They think it's the saddest thing in the world that our cats will never be mothers. Their tender little hearts also ache for their unmarried aunts.

They ask me about once a week if our cats are sad that they will never be mothers. Am I sure they will never be mothers? Yes. Does that make them so sad? I am not sure. They think it a tragedy.

That has gotten me thinking about the summer 8 years ago. Joe and I were dating, and most of our conversations and plans centered around having children. How many, what they would look like, the benefits of our gene combination... When I went home one weekend, I told my parents about one such conversation, and my Dad looked a little worried. He said, "you have to promise me that you will marry this young man before any of these children come into being." I just laughed. We were so in love, and we wanted to have a family.

We were married in September, and for a year, no children came. At the end of that year, I began to feel sorrow. I prayed and prayed for the Lord to fill that empty aching space in my heart that can only be filled by children. I shed many tears, and felt a lot of pain. I realize now that that time was very short, and many wait much longer. I was young, and impatient, but my pain was real.

After we had been married 18 months, my prayers were answered. A baby was on its way, and we were thrilled! My heart stopped aching for a baby, but ached with all the tumult and worry of new motherhood. It ached because it was full. Every time a new life is put in my hands, my heart aches even more with joy and fullness. Now, more than 7 years later, every time that prayer is answered, I am honored and grateful.

Father's Day

I was so glad when we got a phone call Saturday night that They would be able to manage without Joe on Sunday morning. The crew was going out at 3 a.m. to start cutting asparagus. Joe would be able to leave the field at 10, come home, get ready, and rush off to church to practice the organ for meetings at 11.

They did just fine without him there, and so he got to rest on Father's Day. We tried to make him feel like a king. We made blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast, showered with gifts and love, and let him take naps.

Isn't this what Father's day is all about? Napping with your kids!

The poor man took 4 naps on Sunday. He's been working way too much.

One more week...

Until the asparagus harvest is over in Washington. At least in the field we are working in. Well, we really means Joe, the one who really works.

I haven't posted in a long time for two reasons: I keep misplacing my USB connector for the camera, and I have been in a brain fog.

Since the middle of February, Joe has been working about 70 hours a week, give or take a little. 12-15 hours a day, 6 days a week. Starting in April, he even had to put some time in every Sunday (usually only about 4 hours or so). To be fair, he got 2 whole days off in April, and it May he was able to come home for a few hours in the afternoon on a few occasions. It has been long. Really long. To be honest, for a while I'd wake up in the middle of the night startled that there was a man in my bed. Then I remembered that yes, I do have a husband (hence the 4.5 children...).

In that time, Joe and his dad have created this:
With three other guys.

It cuts asparagus like this:

Yum!

The only parts they didn't make are the driving tractor, the hydraulics, and the tires. Thousands of parts that came from Kim's head to Joe's computer, to the machinists programs, and out of the CNC milling machine and lathe. I know that was a really technical explanation, but that's really all that I understand about it. :)

It's an amazing feat. And though some of the skeletal elements are the same as last years model, the majority of the machine was made in 4 months at the beginning of this year. They have been harvesting in the field since April, and this is the best machine yet! They have had lots of chances for field testing, and made lots of progress in perfecting the mechanism. It's been a big year for the harvester!

But I am so SICK of the harvester. It is a long and hard road here at home. This is the longest that we've ever had this crazy time, and I am so excited for it to be over!!! Being without Joe so much really puts me in a fog. He is my mainstay.

So, since I couldn't really write anything without whining about being lonely and sick and tired, I have avoided blogging. But, I have lots of things I want to say... When I am out of whiny mode, I'll say it. :)

We took a peek!

After much pondering, and going crazy trying to guess what this baby will be, I decided to get an ultrasound.

The first thing the ultrasound tech found was this baby's goods. Not very modest, I must say. He asked what we have at home. I told him 4 girls. He just started laughing. "Looks like you can just make that 5!" I couldn't believe it. Well, I could, but seriously?

Joe is such a great dad. He just said, "Hey, I love all of our little girls! I'm excited to have more love!" He really enjoys being king of his castle, with all of us girls hovering and loving him all the time.

I must say though, that I am starting to feel panicked like the old time queens feeling frantic about producing an heir. I am trained in biology, and that should set me mind at ease. IT'S NOT MY FAULT! but, I still have vague strange feelings about producing an heir nonetheless.

It's the Haws Curse. Joe's Haws grandparents have about a million grandchildren. Well, only like 65 I think. Of those, I think that there are 7 boys who carry the Haws name. Of those 7 boys, there are 13 great grandchildren so far, and only 3 boys to carry on the Haws name. Two of those 7 grandsons will probably not have children, and three have only had girls so far! (If any of the cousins are reading this, correct me if I'm wrong... it's a lot for an in-law to keep track of!) We just laugh about that.

5 girls. In 6 years. GO ME!

Good heavens!

New Years Resolutions

So, my camera is dead, and I can't find replacement batteries yet (as in, no I haven't gone through all of the batteries yet to find the camera ones, not as though they are impossible to find. i am sure they are in stores everywhere). Yet another post with no photographs of my cute kids. But coming soon, I promise. :)

A confession. When I read many blog posts at the beginning of the year about resolutions, I became overwhelmed. "Climb all local mountains higher than 1 mile high," "Live entirely on beans wheat and salt for a whole year, and make my family love it." "Lose the 5 pounds I gained when i had my fourth child (since I never gained any before)," "Scrub my floors with a toothbrush every Saturday," "Take my kids to every national monument twice, and write a book about each." OK, I will confess... these are exaggerated, but they seemed as reasonable to me as the ones I saw. As I read, they made me tired.

I made one goal. My New Years Resolution 2010: I WILL NOT GET PREGNANT.

Seemed reasonable. Simple. Attainable.

Oops. It lasted two weeks, and then we got the surprising, wonderful news. We are expecting Baby Haws Number 5.

In answer to FAQ:
Q: Are we crazy?
A: Of course we are!

Q: Did you plan that?
A: Of course not. How rude of you to ask.

Q: What are you going to do?
A: We have no idea. Just keep going.

Q: When will baby #5 be here?
A: Probably end of September.

Q: How do you feel about this?
A: We are thrilled. Nervous, but thrilled.

Q: How would you feel about 5 girls?
A: We could make another great movie about families of 5 girls, joining the ranks with "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Pride and Prejudice," and share our experiences marrying off 5 girls.

Q: What happens if it's a boy?
A: Joe breathes a big sigh of relief. The Haws name continues for another generation.

In the end, I have to thank Shannon, my sweet midwife. When I called to tell her the news (just 2 weeks after telling her there would be no baby this year), she said, with a big smile, "I guess God has other plans for you." That sums up how we feel. While it wasn't in our plans, we know it was in His, and we are happy to be part of His Great Plan.