GroshLink

Here's a recipe that I thought was really tasty and since plums are in season now is the time to make it.  Maybe you can find some very ripe plums on the reduced pile.  They are perfect for this recipe.

Plum and Ginger Soda

Lily had her 2 month check up on Friday (though she was technically 2 1/2 months old).  Here are the stats:

12 lbs, 23 3/4 inches long.  According to the doctor this puts her in the 90% percentile for both height and weight!  I find it a little hard to believe a) because she doesn't seem unusually large to me and b) our other girls typically hovered around the 25th percentile.  Lily is currently bigger than Eden was when Eden was 6 months old.  But Eden had trouble gaining weight from 2-6 months.  (In fairness, Eden reached the 90th percentile for weight by her 3rd birthday).  What a relief it is to have a baby that is healthy and growing easily!  She's had nothing but breastmilk.

And sleeping -- I say this not to toot my own horn, because I have done virtually nothing to cause this to happen, but Lily will sleep 9-11 hours straight at night.  And (as if it could get any better) she is by far the happiest baby I've ever seen.  She smiles easily and has started to giggle.  She doesn't like to be alone, so if I'm working in the kitchen I sit her in her bouncy seat where she can watch me and she's usually content.  I'm learning her sleep cues so that when I sense she's tired I lay her in her crib and she falls asleep.  Sometimes I don't read her right, but I often do.  She is full of joy and brings joy to all of us!

On Monday, Ellen & Hayley were out the door for third grade at Donegal Spring Elementary School.  It's hard to believe summer vacation has ended, but maybe that means it's time for some fall vacation for Theresa and myself ;-)

What are some of the summer highlights?

1.  Lily Joy.  As she was born on June 13, we had plenty of summer activities with family and friends for her to enjoy.

2.  The seven week visit by Theresa's sister, her three boys, and a friend of the oldest boy.  Note:  They stayed next door with Theresa's parents.

3.  Eden walking the length of the house coached by her cousin Firas.  AND she has not looked back as she careens her way around home, store, church, school, and beyond.

I had to make a new rule tonight:  "You may not sleep with the flosser" (you know, one of those little plastic do-hickies with the dental floss).  It is, however, acceptable to sleep with the metal mummy pencil case.  I suppose the rule applies across the family, but tonight it was directed towards Eden. 

Note from Tom:  Not surprising for a grandchild of a dentist who loved visiting the dental office.

Our friend Marci recently visited us to take pictures of Lily Joy. They're fabulous, check some of them out at Sweet Baby.

What a gift of God to be given the opportunity to raise four women of God!

At present I'm quite enthusiastic about the public library's growing stock of graphic novels in the area of mysteries, non-fiction, and classics.  After our recent visit, Ellen blazed through Trojan Horse:  The Fall of Troy followed by Harriet Tubman:  The Life of an African-American Abolitionist, Hayley started the Nancy Drew series, and I previewed Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.  This afternoon we're going back to the library for more graphic novel biographies to take along to InterVarsity's Regional Staff Conference at Camp Hebron.  It's great to be a kid again!  Love the conversations regarding the material and the additional teaching resources in the back of the Lerner and StoneArch publications.

Thank-you to Andy for passing along the related article Marvel Follows the Yellow Brick Road.

I enjoyed the NY Times piece Tape Delay by NBC Faces End Run by Online Fans. How many of you ran around the internet for Opening Ceremony Coverage? I didn't have much time to do such. Our family watched some, critiqued commercials, discussed Communism, and went to bed. What an opportunity to discuss world politics, history, and critique our culture through the lens of Gospel (watch out NBC fall line-up, Ford trucks, Budweiser).  Let the games begin!

We've been negligent in posting updates on our fine feathered friend. The big news is that Lucky now enjoys the company of a lady friend whom Hayley and Ellen named Lucia. Lucia is a layer hen but thus far has only laid one egg for us. It's likely that the trauma of moving to her new home will put her into a molt so we're not holding our breath for more eggs any time soon.

For their first week together Lucky was terrified of Lucia and would "fly" to the opposite end of the chicken tractor whenever she approached him. But after a week of forced companionship he finally realized she was not a threat to his life and started to crow again. Now they get along fine. The girls have somehow even "trained" the chickens to walk up the plank into their house in the evening. This beats trying to catch 2 chickens every night before going to bed. Some nights it took a really long time and multiple adults helping. We generally lock them in their house overnight so that the clever racoons around our house won't have a chicken dinner.

Have you read the Christianity Today (CT) classic Parents and Prodigals: As my daughter leaves for college, packing up her belongings, she is still a stranger to me (came across it this morning in a CT email)?  Here's a quote:

Despite the manuals, the self-help guides, the democratizing or tyrannizing of the family, despite even our most sincere efforts at searching the Scriptures and the mind of God in prayer, we fail. Every day, children from Christian families with the best sort of spiritual and moral instruction and example run away from home, become alcoholics, get or are gotten pregnant, become addicted to drugs, wreck cars, cheat in school, break windows, commit suicide. Like cancer, it strikes indiscriminately. Being a Christian offers no immunity from family tragedy. ...

I look at my daughter, who is several inches taller than I am now. My years of sheltering her are over. I sometimes quake with gratitude that she has, beyond dreaming, turned out to be strong, intelligent, and beautiful, knowing that her being so is a matter of grace and not my doing. I am also grateful that her heart has grown large enough to shelter others, perhaps even her provoking parents, when that time comes. But most of all I look forward to that time beyond time when the both of us "will be set free from bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God," together, as sisters.