Cottage Vacation

We spent the past week at a cottage with my parents and sisters. While I wait for my dad to upload his 500 pictures, I pulled the best ones of the 20 on our camera. My aunt and their children & grandchildren (a.k.a. "our cousins") cottaged about 1 mile down the road from us. We spent the week biking or driving between the cottages, sharing meals, playing in the water and sand, reading novels, boating, lying in the sun, splashing on the "rack" (interpreted as 'dock'), painting and enjoying long naps!

Thing Two squashed in her bed (she's sideways in a pack-n-play, though she barely fits the long way) during nap time.
This pic of Thing One with my dad is my very favorite picture of all. I'm pretty sure we had to record "rack" time in hours rather than minutes.

On the suggestion of a very smart friend with little boys, I bought 3 foam craft "paint brushes" for $0.99 and provided water in a bucket and an empty yogurt container. And I don't know where Thing Two's pants are.

Cherry Fest

Sweet Cherries were ready today at Moelker's Orchard so off we went. The kids and I met a friend and her boys there and we picked for about an hour. Her boys were quite helpful with the picking! My children were more apt to climb a ladder and get stuck or just eat cherries of the ground. Together we picked 6 full buckets (approx 4 qts each) which totaled 20 lbs for her and 18.5 lbs for me. They are priced at $1.50/lb. (less than 2008!). At 8:30 am, we were the second set of customers to arrive and had the trees and ladders mostly to ourselves. My friend, who is smarter and more experienced than me, brought a wagon (to pull both children and cherries and have a place to put the diaper bag) and a bib for her youngest. We didn't have to go far into the orchard but it was wonderful to load all our six buckets of picked cherries in the wagon and haul them easily to the weigh station and the car.

The cherries we picked today are firm, dark, nice size and very, very sweet!

From 18.5 lbs, I have several pounds for eating after canning 7 quarts and 7 pints. I loved canned cherries as a kid. They were the easiest fruit I've done yet. Here's what I did:

Wash cherries

pack into warm canning jar (I just keep the jars in the dishwasher after I washed them)

add heaping 1/4 cup sugar; fill with water to 1" from the top of the jar

wipe the edge of the jar, cover with lid and lightly screw on band til just stops turning easily.

Process in boiling water bath for 25 minutes for quarts, 20 minutes for pints.

When my mom and I were remembering and researching how to do this, many of the sites recommended a hot pack (using hot water to pour in jars, slightly cooking the fruit first), pitting the cherries and soaking them in a salt/vinegar solution to retain color. I do not plan to sell them. We just want to eat them all winter. So I left the pits in so they'd retain a nice shape and not get soggy.

Well, the first batch is out and I have heard three "pops" of the lids sealing so far.

Content

There is just something special about holding a newborn baby. Friends of ours delivered their first baby over the weekend and I've been lucky enough to have held her twice this week. It's special because they are so fragile and new, so innocent and sweet, so small and helpless. A newborn is only a newborn for a few short, sleepless weeks. A newborn is meant to be held.

God has been attempting to teach me a thing or two over the past year. I have been slow to listen and slow to learn. From the point of deciding we wanted to have children, "more than two" seemed to be the goal. For the better part of a year, this desire for "more than two" has turned into an emotional and spiritual struggle. Mid-winter my soul finally heard God's calling to me: Be Content. That was it. No further instruction.

God intended this to be a comprehensive reform, starting with our desire for more children. Content with our finances. Content with my husband. Content in my job. Content with my children. Content in His provision, His blessing, His calling on my life. Whatever it may be. It doesn't matter what anyone else has or has been through. It's as if God said to me, "I AM the Alpha and the Omega. I AM all you need."

The learning process is tough. I see hope, humility and answered prayer in the good days. I see pride and stress in my failures. What's next is unknown, except that God is Sovereign and Jesus is Lord. So I'll go snuggle my babies, clip some coupons and greet my husband warmly, knowing that God's mercies are new every day.