Unicorns and Ladders-

Out of the blue (actually- we suspect this was "The Princess Bride" movie-inspired), Lindy declared while avoiding eating her dinner this evening, "I have an idea!" (A common phrase uttered by Corbin when he was 3 too, along with the expressive index finger pointing upwards) "After dinner, let's all go for a hike and look for unicorns and ladders!" Now, we live up north and it's already pitch dark at this time. But, it was so cute and sincere.
So, around 8:30 the kidsos were tucked into their warm PJs and beds, we grabbed them both and their fleece blankets from great-grandma, and put them in the car for a Jammy Ride. Off to McDonald's we went for ice cream cones and decent decaf for Kent. Corbin told jokes in the car, we listened to Christmas music, and even saw a few houses lit up already for the season. I drove so that on the way home I took us by a place where I've often seen a horse in the field, and in the dark it looked perfect: we pulled over and aimed the headlights into the field- it even seemed a little misty, and the white horse stepped out of the shadows, into view and nobly walked through our light, we could barely make out his head, and it looked just like a scene out of a movie. Lindy was just sure that it was indeed a unicorn. After shushing Corbin a little not to spill the beans, we returned home to tell Lindy the story of Snow White as she drifted off to sleep in her own bed, surely dreaming of princesses, unicorns and ladders.

Thanksgiving-

Here I am; 31 years old, been married almost ten years, and this year will be the first time that I will host a Thanksgiving day feast. I'm so excited! Got the turkey today. Happy thoughts and prayers welcome. I'll let ya'll know how it turns out!

Pooley Family Mini-Reunion-

Here are just a couple of pictures from our big family get-together when both of my sisters and their families were in town last week. Kent, Corbin and Lindy got to meet Annika for the first time, and I got to see her again. She is my sister's 9-month-old daughter- my kids' first cousin on my side of the family. She's adorable!
We took some professional photos I think I may be able to post on here soon. We'll see!

I remained calm. . .

This is Corbin's first big school project that we had to tackle together at home. It is a salt dough map of ancient Egypt. He was so funny when he brought home the instructions two weeks ago saying with big eyes: "We have two whole weeks until this is due!" But, did we start on it that first week? Of course not. Did we end up doing the whole thing the night before it's due? Of course we did. Grumble, grumble.
Overall, I did very well, considering. (Those of you that know me well, know that I have always struggled doing art projects, a.k.a. messy things, with my children. Like I live in some kind of pristine, glass box or something?! What's my problem?) I mean- where is the line with these kind of projects? My 8-year-old son can not do this kind of thing himself without disaster messes (one at home, and one to turn in at school), I'm sure. But, determining what to let him do, so that I don't do the whole darn thing for him, is tough. Ended up; he drew the map, he put the food coloring in for the brown land, he splatted the "land" dough onto the map, he cut out the labels, and put the labels in the correct spots. I didn't lose my temper and the mess wasn't too bad. And actually, I think it turned out nicely and he loved the experience. He actually seemed to have no idea that I was not thrilled with the experience, as he was.
He said- "I wish we had projects like this all the time in school!"
And I thought- "I'm sure they'll keep coming, and I will need to pray for continued wisdom and patience." and I just sighed.

Methods and Principles

You will notice when you are pregnant with your first child that you start to get advice and comments from everyone. This does not end when your pregnancies end- this is only the beginning. And women in particular become quite passionate about topics such as birth, breastfeeding and parenting. (I must confess here that I was one of these over-bearing, passionate women about these things about 4 years ago. I am wiser now. I think...)
Anyways . . . I love this article here from Nancy Wilson. It describes how to have peace among women in community at church. Very good advice!

Speech Meet Results

Here are a couple of pictures from the speech meet. (Sorry about the terrible quality, my phone's camera isn't quite doing the job these days. There's rumors of a new digital camera for us for Christmas. Please Santa!!) Anyways, these photos are particularly funny because they are taken before I explained to him that blue "Superior" ribbons are, in fact, superior to the red "Excellent" ribbons. :) (Note the girls' blue ribbons.) Poor boy!
Really, he did a great job, considering that he came down with croup on Wednesday night. His voice was pretty quiet for the competition, but the flow of his piece was better than ever. Yea Corbin!

Corbin won the speech meet!

Well, that's what he reported on Friday after school. Actually, him and four others from his class are finalists in the speech meet, so he gets to attend the big classical school speech meet in Moscow, Idaho on Friday and compete. He is reciting "The Travelers and the Bear" from Aesop's fables. So exciting! I will video tape it, and maybe I can figure out how to post videos on here?! No promises.

In other family news- Kent and I had pink eye last week and a severe stomach flu this past weekend. So gross. Oh, and Lindy puked all over her lovely dress when we were almost to the ballet in downtown Spokane last Thursday. (A good excuse to buy her an adorable dress on sale at Gymboree right before the show, though.) Oh, and the puppy is limping bad in his right leg. Arg!

Anyways, despite these things, we got through our crazy busy October fairly unscathed. Have I mentioned I LOVE teaching these childbirth classes? They're over now. (Sniff, sniff.) Kent was awesome- helping me cook and clean to prepare for these classes at our house each week. Tonight he even took the guys out for a "dad talk", while us ladies talked about breastfeeding and using slings. Whatta guy! He's a keeper.

New Birth Blog!

OK- I am feeling pretty random on this blog here, with no focus or theme. (Reminiscent of my life a little bit, perhaps?! :)
So, inspired by a doula friend, I am starting a separate birth blog here. There is nothing on it yet, but I will be posting articles, news, jokes, thoughts, all kinds of stuff on pregnancy, birth and parenting. Feel free to check it out and follow if you like.
This blog here I will try to focus on my personal life: family, homekeeping, and photos.

Those Darn Jackhammers. . .

Hopefully you will notice why this is funny. . . Look closely.

Apple Picking and Cider Pressing

Now, we do live in the apple state, after all. The past two years we have gone to this orchard with some dear friends from church. This year we thought it would be the perfect place to meet with some favorite cousins- the Dertings. The Dertings are actually my aunt and uncle and their kids are my cousins, however they have adopted three additional kids that are the age of my own kids. Anna is from Madagascar, she's 8 and Kassie is a foster adoption, she's 7 and Jayson is a foster adoption and he's 3, like Lindy. These cousins live in Clarkston- 2 and 1/2 hours south of us. Bishop's Orchard is somewhere in the middle, so with the Mosers (Ella's family) and my parents, we made the trek down. After a few hiccups in the plan that morning, we were off with creamy tomato soup and cucumber goat cheese sandwiches to go. And yes, Corbin was with us, but he is elusive. And, I didn't take pictures- these are Jill's. (Thanks Jill, and thanks Grandma for the cute baskets!) We would like this to be an annual tradition- fall fun for the whole family! Even Kent and my dad enjoyed the day.

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without"

A clever quote I found on a blog I frequent, The Frugal Girl. I highly recommend this blog to all homemakers. She posts tips all the time on random things like converting old furniture, making yogurt and line-drying your laundry. But, her norm is posting her weekly menu and then a picture of the food waste that she throws away each week. It is quite remarkable! Very inspiring and good to see why menu planning makes such a difference in the grocery budget.

Teaching-

I love, love, love teaching these childbirth classes! Why did I not do this years earlier? I have been putting off midwifery studies for years, saying that I did not want to neglect my family, but also finances have had a lot to do with that as well. But, teaching is SO fun- I get to talk about birth, give advice, share stories, and hopefully, help families have more positive birthing experiences. All of this, without the stress on my family of having to be on call and actually go to the birth. This is a way for me to stay connected and involved in the birthing community while at the same time avoiding the on-call lifestyle that is so tough with young children.
So, I am researching the different organizations to certify under. And, there are many: Bradley, ICEA, Lamaze, ALACE, Birthworks, Birthing From Within, many more. Any recommendations? If so, you must say why you like this or that organization, please. Thanks for your thoughts!!

Teddy Roosevelt-

(An attempt to keep my mind off of current politics for a few moments):
Theodore Roosevelt I declared to be my favorite president when I was a kid. I think that was for two reasons: 1.) I learned a few great stories about him while visiting historical places in South Dakota, and 2.) because I collected teddy bears. Probably mostly the latter reason.
On the note of the former, I came across this great story here. Enjoy!

A few more random photos-

I'm trying to show here how much bigger Niko has gotten, however he's being such a spaz (puppies!) that it's hard to tell.
The dress that Lindy is wearing is a dress that me and my sisters wore 25 years ago. Cute, huh? Also, Lindy is wearing her new Skirty that I won from the Amoretti Fortnightly Purse!!! I really did- so, post a comment on her blog and you may win too!!! See how modest Lindy is with her Skirty on? ;-)

And a couple more birthday pics-

We had a fabulous party with 3 friends out at Papa's place. The theme was camping- check out the cake. Party favors included glowsticks, bags of gorp, beef sticks, a whistle/compass/magnifying glass and an emergency poncho. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows around the fire on the beach. The boys ran all over the place, made pod racers out of some of Corbin's new legos, and promptly fell asleep in a pile of sleeping bags in the bunk house. Cousin Justin and Papa made a delish breakfast the next morning of waffles and sausage. Life is good! Praise the Lord for eight whole years of Corbin's life. We are so blessed by him!!

Early Birthday Pics-

We celebrated Corbin and Papa's birthdays early because Nana will be at a conference all weekend. Here are a couple of pics: and yes, he already received the much-coveted StarWars legos. Thank you Nana and Papa! And very cool shirt- Brenda and Dave!

Do you have triplets?

This is what an old friend I found on Facebook the other day asked of me. I asked why and she noted all the pictures of the three girls. They are just so darn cute together, who can resist? They wore yellow dresses here for Gracie's 4th birthday party. (Note Lindy trying to be modest by pulling her dress over her knees. This was before I won her a Skirty!) Gracie is the oldest, Ella will be 4 in December, Lindy next April. (For those of you who don't know- Ella and Gracie are my two cousins' daughters- they are cousins to each other. Get it? Ah, doesn't matter- that's what we tell Lindy anyways.) So, they span out 8 months, but they should all three be in the same school year. Fun times!!!!!!

Quote I've Heard a Few Times Lately-

Spend less time listening to yourself, and more time talking to yourself.

In other words: control your thoughts/emotions, don't let them control you.

Lots of Classes-

Well, October has filled up quite fast for our family. We are all enrolled in a dog training course with Niko. I need to post new pictures of him, as he is (in true runt fashion of course) gi-normous now. :)
But, even more exciting for me are the other classes in October-
1. I am teaching a Childbirth Preparation class for the first time. I am really thrilled to be doing this- in fact Lindy and I watched birth videos all morning in preparation. My group is comprised of three young couples from my church expecting their first babies. They are allowing me to practice teaching, and receiving a semi-private class for free. Win-win!
2. Margaret and I are doing a two-weekend workshop to train Midwives' Assistants. This will be a great opportunity to impact our local birth community by further educating and inspiring women about the midwifery model of care, and also provide a marketable skill set to our trainees.
I/we are hoping to really organize and streamline these classes so that they may be offered repeatedly. Eventually our reputation will become known in the community and the classes will become a regular option available to women and families seeking knowledge in these areas.
So, don't pass the word on for me yet- I'll let you all know. Just prayers for now, that all will go smoothly for our family throughout this month and we can remember to serve one another and die to ourselves, despite our stress and weariness. (Corbin's 8th birthday coming up too!) Thank you!

One Late Summer Picture-

I have a few less Corbin posts than Lindy posts, so here's one to try to catch up.
This was a day Corbin went with Nana, and obviously with several other families as well. Another day we had a lot of fun at Silverwood (that I did not seem to photo document), is the day we brought our friend Finan with us. So many of our friends and relatives have younger-than-Corbin girls, so it was great to spend the day with a 10-year-old boy. Ah, so long summer.