I do not know why this one picture makes me so happy. Christina took it. I’ve never done months or even year pictures – I tend to choose the favorites sent to me by my kiddos since Christina was 10 & other family who are better at picture taking.
Picture of a Baby
September 19, 2023
I do not know why this one picture makes me so happy. Christina took it. A friend gave us a blanket with months on it for Laud. I’ve never done months or even year pictures – I tend to choose the favorites sent to me by my kiddos since Christina was 10 & other family who are better at picture taking. It is not my forte. (Also, I always forget)
Once Louis gave Becky the “picture phone” (in 2012 that’s all it really did was take pictures) and she discovered her love of photography. I also heard my father say, “I was never really there, I have the pictures and videos for your mom so I can relive it” a few times. I know he loves that he left us a legacy of thousands of hours of family videos and so many pictures it literally takes weeks to watch them all – all digitized too. But I wanted to be there. I wanted to be in the moment. I guess I’ve grown some, now I understand the “need” for having time stamped pictures. I still don’t take them much.
Christina fell in love with her baby brother – I knew they all would once he was born. They tote him around and play with him, change him and burp him, and argue over who gets him. Christina was more excited than I was over the blanket. She said, “and we put Pooka (Laud’s stuffy) here. Mom you have to keep that stuffy for all twelve pictures, it’s the marker.”
Yes, I will keep Laud’s special stuffy from Grandma so that you can mark the months – but Laud likes his giraffe from Mrs. Heather better. (My kiddos call the giraffe “Bestie” – well, one of the team sisters who rides the afterschool van I drive calls him “Bestie-Billy-Bob-Jo.”)
When I look at this picture I’m overloaded with emotion. Laud is still (barely, but still) wearing the girls’ favorite of his preemie outfits from Mrs. Hannah. He’s my smallest miracle! He was just over seven pounds at the time of the picture. He’s only just in newborn and 0-3 month clothes at 6 weeks! All of them are such little miracles! I’ve been so blessed to enjoy 8 of them! I have amazing friends who have blessed us with clothes, diapers, food, love, conversation, and so many things! My baby looking so peaceful and tiny on his blanket reminds me of all the blessings we have in our life. I’m so thankful for everything God has given us – especially for friends!
Christina likes to dress up. She turns into “Christy the Elf” after Thanksgiving and loves dressing up to our themes at work. This Halloween is the first we’ve lived in a community where people actually trick-or-treat! This made her super excited! She had Jaquline’s big speaker outside playing creepy and fun Halloween songs (some were soundtracks to different movies, others were funny like “the Monster Mash”). She had invited a bunch of friends but most had other plans and attending a friend’s Halloween “party on my driveway giving away candy” is not a valid excuse to play hooky from work.
One of her best friends showed up – in a totally amazing costume my nerdy girls loved! – and these two college girls goofed off and enjoyed giving away candy to all the trick-or-treaters. A table of glowing fun candles and cute props, two smiling young ladies handing out candy, and a bunch of spare candy bags hiding just inside the door made for hours of fun.
Christina worked our October Parents’ Night Out where the coaches are encouraged to dress up.
Before she left, she was crawling around the house “getting into the dog character” just to make all the little ones laugh. Christina knows how to make little ones laugh. Maybe that’s why she excels as a preschool coach.
The DoggyJillian isn’t sure yetA Snack!Begging DoggyThea took Doggy’s phoneJillian’s costumeLucas and Jillian’s costumesThea all decked out
Louis looked at me, “what in the Earth?” because, you know, she is nineteen. Or is she?
I love that they have the freedom to dress up and play pretend and goof off – one has to feel very confident in their own skin in order to act silly in front of others. It is amazing how my girls’ first jobs give them options to be silly. We dress up (okay, not me, but the other coaches do), we goof off with each other and our kids (yes, I goof off with the preschoolers and tots), and yet all of us are very professional about our job. We love our kiddos! We want the best for them!
I always take time to do fun kid things with my children. Thea wants to play legos (we set up the lego base boards and each gets a spot to build). Lucas wants to play boggle with Thea (yes, they both get words now, it’s almost scary – Thea won one round because she had a 3-letter that beat Lucas’ two-letter and she’s told everyone!). We spend family day(Sunday) with at least one board game like Monopoly or Risk. We do silly dance parties or sing karaoke. Sometimes we have been known to spend hours watching parakeets or guinea pigs or lizards or chickens while narrating (speaking for the poor animals).
Sometimes when you are being silly, you totally dress the part – like Christina.
Sometimes it helps to make you join in all the silliness and pretend you are a part of a world where imagination reigns. Crawling around like whatever animal you are pretending to be, making the littles squeal with joy and run from you, or pretend they are “protecting” and wrestle you; always make time for “silly” memories. When I think back, some of the most heart-warming memories with elder members of my family were the silly ones (i.e. my granny at eighty-something throwing cartwheels to teach a group of us kids how to do it, running through the sprinklers with my Daddy, “braving” the rain from a Sams Club with my mom) and then the ones I remember making with my siblings and children… twirling in the middle of a flower garden, singing silly songs on bike rides, people-watching on the bayfront, tickle wars, covering kiddos with sheets and “smashing them” while I try to fold sheets or make beds, reading stories that will never be published as they shred them apart with kid-questions, letting them “cook” stuff in Star Ocean while we fold clothes, etc. Silly stuff we remember as so much fun.
Enjoy your silly memory-making moments and don’t be scared to “dress your part” if the mood hits to be silly!
A birth story of our little angel (and a slideshow of proud siblings & family!)
February 22, 2019
The Story of Baby Thea
If you’ve been following my blog, you know I was growing my seventh little angel.
Today, I get to write the story of her arrival!
On February 19th, a beautiful Tuesday morning, my day started normally. During my 32 minute drive to work, the Baby started thinking there was not enough room and my body did the stretching contractions (Braxton-Hicks) that is very normal for me in the last month or two before birth. I didn’t think much of it, really. After my boss left for appointments, one of my office companions, Lily, a beautiful brown and white pittie belonging to my boss, started laying at my feet and wouldn’t let me go anywhere without her! This was a bit of a warning to me because Sheba (my Aussie mix) always does this to me when I’m in active labor. I left at one (normal time) to get to Christina and then my midwife appointment.
Christina had been babysitting, finished some errands at the college so she would be ready for the summer semester, caught the bus to 207 (the road I take into town), and was waiting for me. Along the way, my midwife texted to reschedule the appointment to Thursday and I laughed during my voice-text because I was very tired and that worked great for me. I added, “or when Baby is ready,” as a joke because my babies have all come on or after the due date. Everyone had been rooting for a February birth since the official “due date” was February 24th, and except for Lucas, my wee ones were between 9 and 13 days “overdue” so I usually ignored the due date and just gave a general month (in this case, I’d been saying March).
I got Christina, teased her about driving (she’s recently received her learner’s permit), and we headed home. Sheba was acting odd, I was starving; Louis had made lasagna Monday so I ate a huge plate and took a short nap.
When I got to gym with Becky (her class is on Tuesday, the others are all Wednesday), the contractions were still there, but, like I said, that is normal for me. It had been happening off and on already for about a week and a half, so I just went about work because they were easy to ignore. Some friends and I chatted about babies as I was leaving, and someone said, “you know about your body by now, right?” I laughed, “each is different, but I’m still thinking March.”
Wow, was I wrong.
As Becky texted Christina and Louis to tell them we were off & headed to pick up Christina at CAP, Becky said, “Mom, I can’t drive us home, but if the baby keeps contracting like that, maybe Christina can.”
We laughed. Part of the driving restrictions on a learner’s permit forbid night driving for the first few months; but we always teased Christina that she’d have to drive home in the dark if I was in labor.
Home, I was starved, but my belly felt full after four strawberries. I took a shower and crashed. I kept waking up every couple hours, but I’m a light sleeper so that’s also normal. Each time, though, I noticed contractions. I’d check my phone just to see what time it was. Midnight. 1:40. 2:30. 3:50. At almost 4, I realized I was sweating and I decided to wait for fifteen minutes (so the water softener cycle was finished) and take a shower. The next glance at my watch showed 4:19. I took a shower and the first contraction after the water hit was very strong. I felt movement inside me. “Wow, you sure you’re ready?” I asked. I was sure that was just a fluke and usually the warm water calms contractions down. When the next two made my legs feel like jelly, I got out of the shower and crawled back into bed. The phone said 4:35. I wasn’t about to wake anyone or call Misti for three oddly strong contractions.
I tried to sleep. I had about two hours before I had to get ready for work.
At somewhere before 6am, I tried getting ready for work. I had to stop and breathe through contractions that were easy to time and I felt the baby moving slowly down inside of me. I was about to wake Louis but ended up stretching through a contraction. We have a mind link, I think. Louis woke up as I was stretching. He goes into mega cleaning and question mode. This is his serious mode. He has been through it enough to know we were going to have a baby this morning – or at least today. He told me to call Misti, he woke the kids up to help clean (normally, we clean before bed, but they had been in a non-cleaning mood the previous night), and directed the house with efficiency. I was restless, so kept walking around in between. Christina and Becky didn’t want to get out of bed. I went into the barracks to find out why not.
“Mom! You can’t have the baby in here!” Christina shrieked, covering her head.
“So, get up please and help Daddy with cleaning. Y’all should have done that last night. Once you finish, you can go back to bed, but he’s really stressing about the house and people coming so please help.”
No answer. I could feel another contraction creeping up. “Okay, you have about 20 seconds before I get another contraction and…”
Christina bolted, “MOM! I’m up! I’ll help Dad! GET CONTRACTIONS OUT OF MY ROOM!”
Becky was up too. Kimberly was definitely awake. Mission accomplished. I went back to the kitchen table. My “leave” alarm reminded me to text or call my boss. 6am though, I figured I should just text – plus I didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment.
Misti showed up (can’t remember if the house was clean, but based on the voices and giggling and a movie being on, I’d guess it was straightened). Mom was on the way, she told us she had to be at one of my brother’s promotions at 8am. The girls had turned on “The Two Towers” and as Louis walked by during the Uruk-hai production scene and he ordered, “Turn that off, you can see a real birth soon enough.” I can’t remember if the result was “Wild Kratts” or “Dumbo” but there was something far less messy on the tv a minute later. (I did hear one of the teenagers or preteens quip, “Mom will sound like an orc.” Louis and I laughed. We’re nerds.)
By 8:30, I was immune to the world. I heard Misti’s voice, smelled Louis (I was leaning on him), and faintly heard background voices. I was focused on this job.
8:42am and our little one came into the world, veiled. Misti took the bag off and the Baby screamed to test the limit of her lungs! (We didn’t know Baby was a “she” just yet!) Baby opened her eyes fully and stared up at me. Then she screamed to rattle the roof again. The dogs were barking. We discovered our Baby was Thea!
Welcome to our crazy world, Theadora Taliesyn Tart. You are loved and cherished!
Theadora (after her great-grandfather Melvin Theodore Pearson) means “gifted by God” and Taliesyn (feminine form of your grandfather’s favorite character from a Celtic legend) means, “one with the shining brow, one who sings wisdom.” And Daddy chose the nickname “Thea” because he likes it. (Your uncle texted that he’d call you “3T” – yes, Daddy searched for two “T” names we both liked!) I kept both names the same length, since that’s what we’ve done – all of the children’s names have the same number of letters in the first name and middle name. Theadora 8 letters, Taliesyn 8 letters – told you we are nerds.
Mom (Grandma Joanne in the pictures) came back with a shower of baby girl goodies! (And, yes, this is why she’s in such cute clothes once we managed to get them on her!)
Theadora, I pray you always feel the love of your family as you wiggle your way up to adulthood. I pray you feel the warmth and see the light of God’s love reflected in the faces of your sisters and brother, mother and father, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins. We have accepted the honor of being your guides to lead you to Jesus, to raise you in love, and to give you room to find, develop, and follow the passion of life God has rooted within you. You are a daughter of God, a precious gift to us, and chosen to bring light through your smile.
Becky said I can’t post a baby story without her pictures! So here is a little slideshow:
Lucas kept trying to “pet” and “kiss” Baby Thea
Christina & Thea (oldest & youngest)
Lucas said “you are my love, Baby Thea!”
Grandma Joanne & Thea
Christina and Becky are already vying for who gets the baby
How eight months of one system taught the girls how to keep a neater barracks!
September 6, 2018
Organization for Clothing
I like things organized.
I also can’t stand washing tons of clothing.
One day I’d finally finished with 7 loads of clothing and walked back to the barracks (girls’ bedroom) to check on something… and walked onto a four-inch-thick carpet of folded clothing just dropped on the floor! (Rebeccah’s and Christina’s bed were quilted with their clothing!)
Instantly, I was like, “come put your clothes in your drawers!”
Five voices replied with, “There’s no room.”
Lightbulb! They have too many clothes.
We had just moved from a house where clothing storage wasn’t an issue. We had two large closets, plenty of hanging space, and a full dresser for each girl. Now the barracks had two dressers where three had three drawers on the smaller one and two had two on the larger one. They had enough space for their play clothes in the drawers while the small closet had enough space for everyone’s hanging nice clothes.
At least, it originally had enough room.
But we love hand-me-downs. And my kids sometimes don’t want to admit they have grown out of something so it sits in their drawers.
Lightbulb! I can do this and teach them organizational skills!
I already intercepted and tossed torn or otherwise destroyed clothes on their way to the washer (this led Christina to doing her own laundry because she LOVED certain clothes and keeps nighttime outfits until they literally fall apart), if anything no longer met the clothing modesty guidelines, it was altered, donated, or handed to the next in line, and shoes had to fit in the shoe compartments (everyone has two cubicles) – notice the flip-flops are community property.
Rebeccah loves shoes, so do you see that polka-dotted sheet on one corner of her bed? That hides a small cardboard box in which she keeps her special shoes! (It’s out of reach of the dress-up crowd & saved so the polish doesn’t get scuffed.)
We started doing what I already do to my clothes every month. Purging.
For the next eight months, we used this system. I have a list of “necessaries,” otherwise known as clothes they should have. We would start on a day when all the laundry was complete. Starting with the oldest, she’d bring in her clothes and go through them to make sure she still fit and wanted them, retiring destroyed stuff to the garbage, putting aside items she had outgrown, and packing away stuff she didn’t want anymore. She’d pick out the necessaries, put them away, and fill the space with whatever else she wanted. Anything extra went in the donate pile.
The next in line would repeat, with the option of augmenting her supply with otherwise “donated” items from previous big sister.
Necessities: Five bottoms (two must be jeans), five tops, one church outfit, one long sleeve “jacket,” seven pairs of underwear and socks, two nighttime outfits, one pair of sneakers, and one pair of church shoes.
All the above fit into one of the drawers and on two hangers easily, so there was plenty of leftover space for other clothes.
This system gave them inspiration to roll or fold their clothing in order to keep everything fitting well. Lucas has only one drawer and he keeps everything neat!
This system lasted only eight months because by that time, all of them were purging their own stashes as needed. We didn’t have to make it a monthly event anymore. Even Lucas will put a shirt on and if it’s too tight, he will pull it off, say “time for someone else to wear you,” and lay it on my bed. (His drawer is in my bedroom.)
Kimberly and Rebeccah love having lots of choices, so they utilize more of the hanging space than Jaquline and Jillian. Christina’s hanging space is loaded with CAP uniforms, and a couple of dresses from her aunts which she claims “I’ll never wear, but I keep just in case.”
Our system has only backfired once so far: when Christina was planning for encampment, she was required to have 12 undecorated t-shirts in two specific colors plus 6 “workout shirts” (additional plain t-shirts!). We had to search every thrift and resale shop in Saint Augustine for enough tan, black, and white t-shirts! When she got back there was the issue of keeping them stored – Christina didn’t want to hang them all or give them away since she planned on going to future encampments so she just rolled them in her luggage bag and hung it in the closet! It took less space than 18 hangers.
Going backward: I was about 14, stood in front of my mobile closet (clothes rack), and spent almost fifteen minutes deciding what to wear! That started me on the lifestyle of keeping necessities, only a few other items with specific purposes that fit into whatever clothes storage system I had, and routinely donating what I couldn’t fit or didn’t want. Call it purging or minimalist, or whatever, it helps me spend less time thinking about clothing… and hopefully, I’ve passed that practicality on in some way.
A radio talk show guy’s comment made me ponder my absolute love of hand-me-downs and thrift shops.
September 4, 2018
Hand-Me-Downs
Driving to pick up a long-distance call, I was listening to Christian talk radio. A guy comes on talking about how he and his family love hand-me-downs.
I can totally relate! All my life I’ve loved, and lived in, hand-me-downs. When my kids get a bag of clothes, they all get excited. It’s sorting, trying on, modeling, and deciding how to “fix” something they love to make it fit (sewing skills). Anything we can’t use (and everything we grow out of or don’t have room for) gets passed on. We only allow them to keep what they can fit “in their drawers” and on their bit of hanging rack space. Rebeccah, who loves shoes, has created some interesting storage adaptations to stretch her allotted space to keep extra shoes.
Kids grow so fast! At one stage, Kimberly jumped through one full shoe size every month for about six months! During this same time, Jaquline sprouted through three shirt sizes and Rebeccah’s legs stretched by nearly a foot!
We had quite a few bags of shoes and clothes to give away! Most, we had received as hand-me-downs but they looked practically new! Lots of happy kids got to pass around clothes in this growth spurt. The girls like to plan who can get their clothes – if anyone we know needs them, if anyone is their size and is okay with used clothing, or if they know a friend who “loved” some outfit. Otherwise, we donate to Alpha-Omega or Betty Griffin Thrift.
The radio talk show guy was mentioning that he was super excited one day because a friend gave him some amazing hand-me-downs that were almost new and stylish. He was showing one off at work and realized he was wearing the emblem for a college he didn’t attend! So he almost felt embarrassed telling a coworker it was a hand-me-down. Then, he stopped. He said we are to be good stewards and trading clothing around if it still has wear in it is being a good steward of the materials (less waste) and finances (less purchases made). He told his coworker that the money he and his family saved on clothing allowed them to give more financially to charities they supported.
I had never thought of our hand-me-downs as “good stewardship” in that way! I have always told others that it saves waste (why throw something away when someone else can use it?) and it stretches our budget. I never actually thought of what I do with the money I save.
We do give a lot of what we make, sometimes we end up giving more in time than in money, but we still help in a lot of places monetarily.
When we do buy clothes, it’s usually underwear (I do buy that new from target on “clearance,” it seems some character is always going out of style), sneakers, or jeans. We go to the thrift shops on the day when said clothing is x% off or wait for an end-of-season sale (thrift shops do that too). So, annually, we spend about $300 on all 8 of us.
I never really thought about how much money I’d spend without hand-me-downs. Using thrift shop prices (I still wouldn’t buy new): I figured that for each growing child, I’d spend about $80 twice a year, and for each adult, I’d spend about $40 a year (what we already buy from thrift stores can’t be counted as savings). So for our family, that would be about (160×6)+(40×2)=$1,040 annually in addition to the $300 we already spend!
$1,040 is almost a rent payment.
That’s about three weeks’ of work.
Then I realized that I never buy anything new – furniture, animal cages, books, movies, games, toys, yarns, craft stuff… the list is endless. Except for food, most cell phones, a few tools, the coffee maker, most mattresses, and one computer, we’ve taken hand-me-downs or bought resale items when it comes to everything else. And we donate what we no longer need. Oh yeah, and the drum set was new – Louis got a full size eight piece drum set on a clearance sale for $120 about 10 years ago.
We save for items we want (like our couch). We had a hand-me-down one that served great for a while, but Louis wanted a big one that all of us could sit on at once and it would double as a kid bed when guests came. We ended up saving and finally bought a really nice used sectional that had two backless sections that doubled as storage (bonus & I love dual-purpose!) and seats six adults without using the backless parts – it was on clearance at Alpha-Omega Thrift so we spent only $165 of the $200 we’d saved for it. (Yes, Louis was shopping, so we ended up buying $35 of future birthday gifts while we were there.) And one of my sisters said “let me crash here, this is comfy!”
The radio guy quoted the scripture about “where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”
Yes, my treasures are in my children, my family, my friends, the really important things in life. Our hand-me-down and thrift-store lifestyle helps me to understand that even though we have some cool stuff, it’s just temporary and I’m not really concerned with it. I mentally note that I’m wearing sandals from one sister, a skirt Christina grew out of that was a hand-me-down from a friend, and a shirt from another sister… all hand-me-downs!
I’m sure the radio guy is right. Our family is able to do as much giving as we do because we don’t spend “full retail” on temporary items. Our treasure is in heaven. Our treasure is the character growing in our six awesome blessings on loan from God…
Children create laughter – especially the funny antics of a preschooler!
August 6, 2018
Laughter
On Saturday, Christina mentioned in passing this now rather infamous line: “I have a brother, Mom, nothing embarrasses me anymore.”
Fast forward to Saturday night: we’re at church, listening to an awesome message, where the pastor mentions “taking off” all the things the world assigns to us but God doesn’t want us to carry.
At this apropos moment, Lucas races into the sanctuary holding his clothes, yelping “they got water on them!” (He can’t stand anything dirty on his clothes, mud covering his body, sure, but not on his clothing!)
Christina whisked him away to the bathroom to dress him, red as a coke can. I would have gone but she was too fast – I think, because she was embarrassed to be related to him at the moment.
However, I was grateful he had left his big boy pants on (briefs), and a friend leaned over (she also has a 3 year old boy) and whispered, “well, he did just say to take it off.”
We moms can laugh at that – as we understand that everyone has had at least one embarrassing moment in their life. But my poor teenager is the big sister of an almost-streaker preschool brother who is almost-streaking in front of friends she would like to impress.
I seriously bet (as they are also big siblings) that they’ve been embarrassed by a younger sibling at some time.
That wasn’t the last antics of the night by Lucas – as service was closing, two tennis balls bounce into the sanctuary followed by two three-year-old boys and a toddler. It seems they were playing “doggie fetch” and Lucas was the doggie…
Later all three of them come running in, drop noiselessly, and begin rolling across the floor.
One day Louis was driving past the Saint Augustine Civil Air Patrol building and saw cadets marching around in uniform. He stopped, asked them what they were, and raced home to tell Christina that he found the perfect activity for her.
She is my flying nut. She loves planes. Just like Lucas loves anything with wheels – she loves anything that flies (except mosquitoes and no-see-ums). Better said; Christina loves anything mechanical that flies.
She’d studied famous flying people, physics, beat her way through math, and taken a helicopter tour for her birthday. She’d talked with pilots as Louis shuttled them to the airport from their hotels.
She had the time of her life when some friends took her to the Jacksonville Air Show! (Photo credit above & below – Hannah Clark & crew)
The poster from that day was the first one tacked to her wall.
So, she “visited” the CAP meetings with Louis for three weeks – but Wednesday morning after her first meeting, she was like, “Mom, I’m going to join Civil Air Patrol.” Of course, Christina’s decisions are never small – “I’m going to get to officer rank and they have all these things I can learn so I can get into programs to help me learn to fly…” and she continued talking me through the book and information someone had given her.
She is a scrimping saver and refused any help with CAP dues, fees, or for her first uniform. (This is a point of pride for her – to be able to cover all her own expenses. She saw God’s love in action, though, when she thought she wouldn’t be able to go to winter encampment but our amazing church family gave her enough money for the trip and the extra items needed!)
CAP gave her a grant to go toward buying her first blues uniform though – something about earning a certain rank. (These are my borrowed shoes for her first day wearing blues. Her real ones have a one inch heel and no decoration.)
Lucas loves Christina’s uniform – especially the caps (aka, covers).
Thanks to CAP, Christina has matured greatly in social interaction (you can order younger siblings around all day, but it is different ordering someone else around!). She is more confident, more physically active, emotionally and physically stronger, and enjoying the company of respectful, goal-driven, encouraging fellow cadets.
Our family has learned some new terms: water is hydration, anything not a uniform is civies, a funny backpack with a water bag inside and a fishtank-hose looking straw hanging around the cadet’s neck is a camelback, among others.
We’ve swelled with pride watching our cadet march in parades (even if we only get a picture of her back half hidden behind another cadet)…
…assist veterans in her blues…
…and attend encampment as a student…
…and staff.
She’s constantly challenging herself to new higher limits – one day, I’m sure, she’ll touch the sky!
