Some stuff

So this is what we’ve been up to lately.  I know I’ve been hiding out at home a lot lately, I just can’t seem to figure out where all my “free” time went among 5 kids, a full time job, some photography (my niece is a SENIOR this year!!) and trying to maintain the house just above the level “Hoarders” would intervene….

I begged the kids for a few shots I could use for possible Christmas cards:

but mostly I got this:

I had Aria’s friend D. help…..then cropped her out for a cool baby-floating-and-unsafe look:

          

I also got a shot with their awesome skeleton hoodies:

Baby Harrison is now 6 months old, Naughty is 4, Piper is 6, Max is almost 9 and Aria will be 11 next week.  Time flies.  I already miss my little newborn.  I love when he falls asleep in my arms, I’m always so reluctant to put him down.  Isn’t he sweet?  He has the easiest personality of all my babies.

My job keeps me busy, my family keeps me busy.  Daddy has been doing the stay at home thing and I think he’s getting the hang of it.  He also makes me the best omelets most mornings.  I can’t complain! I married a good man.  One who can cook.  He’s also going to do the March to Mandaree again this year with new stops to honor different KIA vets.  If you didn’t get to read about M2M, click the link and find out.  It was a great experience for us.

That’s all for now, I’d better go to bed.  You never know when the baby will decided NOT to sleep all night.

Friday Fragments

Well, as it turns out, 5 kids and a full time job take up a lot of time.  Who would’ve thought?  I miss you all out there!  I decided I need to play catch-up here and post all the lovely things that have gone on around these parts with Mrs. 4444’s Friday Fragments!

• Harrison Nathan Goodiron Fraase was born 3/12/12 at 11:05 pm.  He’s already 4 months old and super adorable.  He’s probably the most mellow baby I’ve had.  He comes to work with me every day, but soon I think he’ll need to stay home with dad.

(a little taste test of rice cereal)

• In May Aria and Piper earned their next belts in Tae Kwon Do, Max however, has decided he doesn’t want to be in it anymore.  I’m sort of disappointed, but I’m holding out hope that he’ll change his mind later on.  I tested for my last belt back in December while I was seven months pregnant.  (I look better from the back)
• This was my Mother’s Day photo.  Who needs happy smiling, grinning kids? This is real life.
• This was my Mother’s Day gift.  I’m actually pretty pumped about it.  What good is managing an organic food store if I don’t take advantage of all that produce? (Max’s face is just a bonus gift.)
• I got one more charm for my necklace from The Vintage Pearl.
• I’ve been a slacker as far as photos go.  I was disappointed in myself for not getting more newborn pictures of Harrison in the first two weeks when they work the best.  I had this pounding headache and chalked it up to lack of sleep and caffeine.  It finally got so bad that the day my mom left I realized I couldn’t take it any longer and had my husband bring me to the ER.  My blood pressure was 201/109 (for those of you non-medical peeps, normal BP is 120’s/80’s).  They were surprised I hadn’t had a stroke yet.  It turns out I had developed post-partum preeclampsia.  It’s fairly uncommon, but does happen, even when my blood pressure was perfect through out pregnancy.  I only recently came off of blood pressure medication for this.  I read post-partum preeclampsia is one of the most dangerous conditions for new moms because they can ignore the symptoms (like I did) passing them off as run-of-the-mill post-baby issues.  My feet were swollen long after delivery (weeks), I had upper epigastric pain, pounding headaches…if I had just put it all together.  Anyway, I survived.  I think I really freaked out the PA that was on duty the night I went to our local small town ER, though.
• I’d better get to bed!!  I’ve been walking 4 miles with a friend every morning, well, almost every morning.   6am sharp!! 

One year ago today...

One year ago today we were on a journey:

From Mel:
We are off! We started in Wahpeton and in two days we have arrived in Enderlin. Our first day started out a bit rocky with some rain, but soon it cleared and the past two days have been great. Steve was joined by Arnold Lenoir from White Earth who plans to walk with us the entire way. The White Earth veteran color guard came to start us off as well as some of the Goodiron family. Two news crews came out to film, and several papers published small blurbs about the march.
Day one ended around 5pm with 38 miles behind us, a majority of those walked between Steve and Arnold (I got to finish off leg #3!). Our oldest two, Aria and Max, walked one mile with me as well.

Day two was an early start with both Steve and Arnold walking their leg of the journey at about 5:30 am, I finished after lunch and we had the afternoon to nurse tired muscles and tend to any blisters.

We are all in good spirits and are excited to meet those who will be joining us as in the days ahead!
You can learn more about March to Mandaree at www.marchtomandaree.blogspot.com

Friday Fragments–Guess What?!

Already Friday? This week really went fast.  Thanks to Mrs. 4444’s Friday Fragments, I can try to remember everything and get it all down before the weekend! 

• It’s been SOOO warm out that we actually turned on the A/C.  Fortunately I’m a big procrastinator and didn’t take the window unit out of our room yet.  Ahhhh coool, cool air!  North Dakota has a bad rap for being cold.  My dad likes to call this place “the land of extremes”.  This morning I turned on the heater in the car on the way to school.  This afternoon the A/C will be on full blast.  30 degrees in one day is not that unheard of.  But, alas, it will be snowing soon enough.  Sometimes before Halloween.
  
• Speaking of Halloween, Aria has decided she wants to be Rocket from the movie “Sucker Punch”.  I blame her dad.  I’ve started working on age-appropriate pieces for it.  I actually think this might suit her personality really well.
  
  
• Jackson likes to be a cowboy.  Daily.  He wears this hat, and a pair of handed down cowboy boots. Oh, and just some underwear.  I guess it’s not so much like Woody the Cowboy, more like NYC’s Naked Cowboy.  I wonder if the Naked Cowboy ever wears Buzz Lightyear Underoos?

• I convinced Daddy that he only needed to mow the outside lawn.  I asked him to leave the part inside our fence alone.  He uses the bagger to suck up all the leaves, and it looks so pretty beforehand that I hate to see them go just yet.  He was happy to quit early and leave me my pretty yard a little longer.  Anyway, its been so windy he’ll have to do the whole thing over again soon.

• I loved all the color so much I convinced my family, and a few clients to get their family photos done this past week.  You can see ours HERE and my other work HERE!
  
• It was our anniversary last month and the in-laws gave us a nice gift card to Famous Dave’s.  Never heard of it? If you’re not from the upper midwest, probably not.  It’s a FANTASTIC barbeque restaurant with delicious ribs and the yummiest sauces.  This is definitely NOT for a first date.  We used up all the wet wipes before the meal was over.  Instead of napkins, each table has a roll of paper towel.  They have this “Meal for 2-3” that is actually served on a garbage can lid (yes, it’s clean!).  There was so much food, we ate the rest for dinner.  Woody and JC joined us since the other kiddos were in school.  YUM!!
  
  
• Oh, yeah! Guess what?!  I’ve always joked that I like to spend at least half of our anniversaries pregnant.  This year was no exception.  We are expecting Fraase version 5.0 to be available this coming March.  I wonder who this one will look like…… Probably not me.

Join Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissing Time to link YOUR Friday Fragments!!

Family Pictures

I know I’ve been kinda MIA around here, I intend to fix that.  Now that things have settled down (as much it will, anyway) and school has started for the kiddos, I may have a bit more time.  Fall has arrived in these parts, and just a few weeks ago I had a yard sale.  I sat in a camping chair with a blanket and jacket and hot coffee because I was so chilly.  Tonight I sat on my steps in shorts and a T-shirt while the kids sold lemonade to the guys (and gals) hauling in the harvest.  The big trucks roll right past our house on the way to an elevator where they unload their beans/grain/corn.  If the line is long, we end up with customers hopping out of their parked semi-trucks to get lemonade or popcorn.  The kids make out pretty well during harvest!!  Since the weather has been in the 70’s and 80’s (practically unheard of for the beginning of October!) I convinced everyone we needed new family photos.  We went out to a nearby state park and I took my tripod and a remote.  I got some nice family shots, although it took me several clicks to get one good one.  It never fails, though, that my favorite ends up being a candid.

How can you not love this shot??  Hello, Christmas cards…..

Aria requested one of us together.  The goggles? Aria is into steampunk lately.

Here’s all of us.  It’s been a while since Daddy and I appeared in a family shot.  Now back to the kids…

Happy Fall, everyone!  Now, go out and take some amazing and colorful pictures!!!

Amazing

There are so many things that I can classify in my life as amazing, and I think this is one of them.  Saturday night a stranger knocked on our door.  After a few minutes we learned that he was my mother-in-law’s long lost brother.  He found us through extensive on-line and physical searches through records and archives.  Our address just happens to be the same one my husband’s mother had once resided at. (Our home was a boarding house for a long time, she had rented here while finishing high school!)

Sadly, this isn’t my story to tell, but I can tell you some of it.  My mother-in-law was the second of five children.  They were removed from their parents when their father was imprisoned and their mother was unable to care for them.  There were horrible stories that went along with the life they lead prior to being removed.  Some of the children were adopted, a few spent the rest of their minor years as wards of the state in a local orphanage.  At the age of 17, MIL was on her own, finishing high school, and working.  She was able to remain in some contact with her siblings, but not her younger brother.  Both had tried in the past to find each other, but met with many roadblocks. 

We invited her brother to join us the next day for lunch.  He brought his wife and stacks of paperwork they had found from agencies that had handled their cases, as well as prison records that finally had all lead them to us.  We invited my husband’s brother and sister and talked about our plans.

Today my mother-in-law will see her brother for the first time in over 50 years.

Amazing.

Friday Fragments–Comeback

I’ve been MIA for a while and I have so much to tell you.  I’m excited to use Mrs. 4444’s Friday Fragments as a nice little way to make myself a list of ALL the stuff I need to come back and blog about!

• After the March to Mandaree, I took some time to relax with my family and unpack.  We’ve mostly cleared out our camper of stuff, but we were hoping to use it one more time before school started.  Hmmm… maybe a weekend during the fall will work out better.
• I got a new French press coffee maker and I think I’ll never go back to an electric one again.
• We are planning on switching our current living room with our current master bedroom.  I know it sounds strange, but our house used to be apartments, so they’re really both living rooms anyway.
• I had a tumor removed from my neck.  I’ll tell you more about that later.  I’m fine now, a little sore, and rocking a cool scar.

• We visited my relatives in Wisconsin and wished we could have stayed longer.  Even my mom came from Washington, so it was awesome!  This is a picture of mostly great-grands and a few grandchildren for my mom’s mom’s side, and not all of them either.  My mom is the oldest of seven, and we like kids.  A lot.

• While we were in Wisconsin, Daddy and I escaped for a day and took the commuter train to Chicago.  We googled a restaurant he’d seen on Travel Channel AND Food Network.  We found it and gave it a try.  It wasn’t bad, not OMGosh-I-Have-to-come-here-again great, but good anyway.  The journey was just as fun.

• Our kids go to school almost a week before any other school in the area, so their first day was this past Monday.  Piper started Kindergarten, Max is in Second, and Aria in Fourth.  Wow.  Now JC is super bored without anyone to entertain him at home.

• We did a lot in the last month, and I’ll get around to blogging more now that we’ll have a routine again.  I’m hoping to pick up more hours at work to keep up with our finances right now.  I look forward to THAT being better, too.

Have a good weekend!! And don’t forget to stop by Half Past Kissing Time and join in!!