The Mac and Cheese Chronicles

It’s been one of those days when it’s just great to be a kid.  When we returned from the CCD year-end hot dog party, Boo and Pumpkin Girl came in the front door and went right out the back. That was 6 hours ago.  Because of the way our street bends at a right angle and because all the houses on our side of the street have their backyards open on to a big grassy area, the children in those houses have the run of the place.  Most of us don’t have fences, but the houses themselves and an adjoining baseball field provide the boundaries for playing.  The children are all fairly close in age and a good portion of them are homeschooled.  The whole group of them have been running all over the field, up in our yard, in the tree over yonder and back again.  My children have come in for the occassional drink of water and potty break and I have seen them with a couple of friends taking a break in the shade of our canopy.

I have met several of the neighborhood moms and like me, they are busy with the demands of managing a home, often with a baby or toddler to look after.  Even though we can’t always be right outside with the older children, we all try to keep an ear open for any misconduct, hurt feelings or unfairness. I would say that for the most part, the children get along wonderfully.  Because of our large climbing-sliding thing and our playhouse, the neighborhood children spend a good portion of their time in our yard.  I’ve listened to arguments start and get settled and I think that most of the bickering I’ve heard was between sibling groups, my own two included.  Still, a gentle reminder to the offending party usually takes care of it, though sometimes Pumpkin Girl gets herself too overworked and I bring her in for a rest.

My children have been briefed on a few key rules:

1.       Don’t go into anyone’s house, even if invited.
2.       Don’t eat anything that is given to you by a friend without checking with me.
3.       Stand still with your hand over your heart when the National Anthem plays at 5 pm, then come inside.
4.       Stay together
5.       If you can’t see our backdoor, you’ve gone too far.

So far it’s been working well.

One of the perks of living on a military base is the safety and overall friendliness of the neighbors.  I love to watch the children playing, running around without a care.  One of the funniest things I’ve seen since living here was a line of knights, dressed for battle, marching single file across our backyard, down to the big tree across the field where another set of young knights (both boys and girls) were waiting.  I think every child in the neighborhood was out that day, too.

It might not be Mayberry, but it’s pretty darn close.

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Event #2, Philip’s promotion, is over.  For those of you keeping track, he is now a lieutenant colonel.  We had a nice, quick ceremony followed by a reception.  Philip gave me a huge bouquet of flowers.

Among the flowers are 2 blue carnations for our two boys, a pink rose for Pumpkin Girl and a lily for Rebecca.  That meant so much to me!  He really can be so sweet!

Now usually, cakes at promotion parties are decorated with the soldier’s new rank, but we thought we’d have a little more fun than that.  Here’s what we did:

And look what was installed on our carport today:

Seeing it in print makes it really start to sink in!

Most of our guests have gone home now and my parents will be leaving shortly, too.  Then it’s back to life as usual.  Well, sort of.  Philip’s off to a conference for the week  But the kids and I will be back to school.

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Event Number 1, Bip’s baptism is completed and was a great success. He was a little sweetheart all through church and didn’t make a sound at all during his baptism.  He just looked around and took it all in.  He is such an easy going little guy!  During the rest of church he got really silly.  He kept shaking his head no and raising his arms above his head as if to say "yay!"  We suspect Rebecca was there playing with him.  We know she was with us in the church.  We requested the song "On Eagles Wings" (the lyrics are at the end of this entry or click here to listen to it) and we sang it during communion. Pumpkin Girl started to cry as she started to feel sad about Rebecca.  We sang the song during Rebecca’s funeral, but it has such a joyous message and has such special meaing for our family. Pumpkin was comforted though at the thought of Rebecca "shining like the sun."

We had brought a cake to share with the congregation after mass and everyone came up to admire Bip’s cheeks.  My aunt Mary is Bip’s godmother and our neighbor/friend stood in as his proxy godfather.  Later we went to the "Slip Inn," a restaurant on the dock here on base.  They serve the "best fried chicken in Washington, DC."

We topped off the day with an impromptu night tour of the city’s monuments.  We didn’t get too lost and actually knew where we were most of the time.  Phil’s brother John got a great picture of the Washington Monument lit up and it’s reflection in the Reflecting Pool.  The best moment came when the Phil’s cell phone rang.  He put it on speaker phone and the whole car could hear that it was his mom.  She told him, in Chinese, "Philip, it’s getting late, it’s time to come home.  You and the boys are tired."  We all had a good laugh.  Wait til she finds out we had the baby in the car with us!  (He had the good sense to sleep through the whole thing.)

    ON EAGLES’ WINGS
    (Michael Joncas)

    You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord,
    Who abide in His shadow for life,
    Say to the Lord:"My refuge,
    My rock in whom I trust!"

        And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings,
        Bear you on the breath of dawn,
        Make you to shine like the sun,
        And hold you in the palm of His hand.

    The snare of the fowler will never capture you,
    And famine will bring you no fear:
    Under His wings your refuge,
    His faithfulness your shield.

        And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings,
        Bear you on the breath of dawn,
        Make you to shine like the sun,
        And hold you in the palm of His hand.

    You need not fear the terror of the night,
    Nor the arrow that flies by day;
    Though thousands fall about you,
    Near you it shall not come.

        And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings,
        Bear you on the breath of dawn,
        Make you to shine like the sun,
        And hold you in the palm of His hand.

    For to His angels He’s given a command
    To guard you in all of your ways;
    Upon their hands they will bear you up,
    Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

        And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings,
        Bear you on the breath of dawn,
        Make you to shine like the sun,
        And hold you in the palm of His hand.
        And hold you, hold you in the palm of His hand.

    Adaptation of Psalm 91. c1979, New Dawn Music

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Well, everyone’s all here.  Phil’s parents and brothers, my parents, my grandma, aunt and cousin.  Nine extra people in total. They are not all staying at our tiny little house, though at some point today I expect them all to be here.  But the weather is nice and our gazebo gives us a whole extra "room" to sit in.  It’s kind of cool that so many of our family could come out to be with us this weekend – hardly anyone has ever visited us as we’ve moved around the world.  I wish some of them could have stayed longer though.  Washington, DC is so full of things to see that it is a shame that some of our guests are just flying in then flying out again.

Tonight is Bip’s baptism.  I found a very nice boy’s gown online which he just barely fits into with his fat little self.  I searched all over the internet and bought him the largest size I could find.  Each one of my children have their own gown. Looking back, each one expresses my personality in some different way.  My oldest wore my baptismal gown.  He was almost too big to wear it but he looked so cute.  I didn’t know better at the time, so I don’t have any formal pictures of him in it.  Pumpkin Girl, the next baby, has a very simple, very sweet gown with Battenburg lace.  Rebecca’s is extravagant.  She was such a sweet pouffy cloud!  It was all lace and very long.  Bip’s is simple and sweet, with a pointed collar and decorative buttons up the front.  It is also long.  Someday, when I get some spare time, maybe I will embroider each child’s initials on the slip of their gown.

Tomorrow we have a lull in activities.  We’re planning on brunch at the Officer’s Club.  We’ve never been to it here, but if it holds up to the standards of other brunches at other clubs, it will be quite the feast.

Monday is Philip’s promotion.  It may very well be his last promotion, but of course, that is all in God’s hands.  We did something silly with his cake, I’ll take a picture and share it later.  I wish his old battalion commander (and Rebecca and Bip’s godfather) was going to be here to see it.  I think he would have gotten quite a laugh.

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Whew! We’ve been soooo busy getting ready for all our visitors that I have become a bad blogger. Not to mention our comcast high speed internet went to comcast no speed internet for 5 days…Anyway, I’m back.

The CHCH challenge has been a great blessing in trying to get ready for our family. To start the week, I check to see which rooms we’ll be working on. I turn to that page in the organizer and check off the tasks that I don’t need to take care of and write in the things I need to do that aren’t listed. I try to schedule in 2 15 minute blocks of time to work on my CHCH tasks each day. More than that and I have a hard time getting into it. But I can work for 15 minutes at a time and it is really amazing what I can do in that time. For some of the areas, I have less that I need to do so I work on other areas of the house. Other times I work on another room altogether. Because we are expecting 9 people this week, I really needed to work on our guest room, living room and backyard more than I need to take care of our bedroom. That’s ok, because when the backyard comes up on the CHCH calendar, I’ll be working on our bedroom.

Here’s the before picture of our front flower beds:

Everything green is a weed.

Here’s the after:

I’m not thrilled with the hose being there. Maybe I’ll move it to the backyard. But those are the petunias the children and I planted. Petunias are one of the only flowers I can grow, along with impatiens. I have also had success with tomato plants. I am the grim reaper to ivy and ferns.

Here’s the “after” for our backyard:

We bought this gazebo at Target and Phil and the kids put it up in about 30 minutes. The picnic bench was made by the inmates at Ft Leavenworth and it converts into 2 benches. Since we put it up on Saturyday, I don’t think we’ve eaten one meal inside the house, including breakfast. I need to take an after after picture of this area. Phil moved those boxes on the right to another area.

Here’s one of the flower beds. I’m trying my hand at violas. I put in 2 varieties of cherry tomato plants for Charlotte plus some basil for me. I found the tomato plants covered with tiny little flying things today so I sprayed them with biodegradable soap and water. That should take care of them.

The dining room is completely unpacked and spring cleaned! Right now it’s my favorite room in the house.

The bakers rack was also made by the Ft Leavenworth prisoners.

More pictures later. I have to take an after picture of the living room and today I’ll be finishing up the guest room. It’s my next favorite room.

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