Proud Parents

August ran his first 10K race today. We we are so proud of him and he had quite the cheering squad at the finish line with all our little kids there. Maybe I'm especially proud since I'm completely non-athletic and marvel at athletic talent. It's also neat to watch the talent skip a generation as my parents were runners. (My mom marveled at sewing skipping a generation from her mother to me.)

Grand-daddy, my dad, is sponsoring August in all the local runs this year. Today he came in second for his age group of 12 and 13 year olds. It's exciting to watch him make strategies for improving his time with hopes for a marathon down the road when he is fully grown.

Passing the true test?

Gosh I wonder if I would ever pass the true test of homeschooling. I mean I thought it was challenging to face a week of snow/rain in the California mountains with a low of 35 degrees and "only" 4 boys in the family...........

Jet-Mom

We've had some hilarious language mix-ups as Leon and Aliou switch gears from Liberian English to American English. I wish I had been recording more of them along the way. Some have already gone down in family history. Here is today's funniest:

Leon and Aliou and Athan were playing with their friend. Aliou reported that his friend said his mom was his "jet-mom." It took me a minute but (cracking up inside) I said "Do you mean step-mom?" "No JET-mom!" This was enough for a good laugh but it was complicated by the fact that the mom had been making paper airplanes for the boys so OF COURSE she was a "jet-mom"! Who could argue.

Belly update

At 18 weeks I'm almost to this point. Once I look a little more pregnant than fat I'll start posting belly shots.

Trying For a Redhead

Yes it's true we are expecting a new baby! Now I can use my handy reply I formulated a few babies back- "We're trying for a redhead." I'm over 16 weeks along which is a little longer than we usually wait to tell the happy news. We needed to wait and see how things went with Natalie first. We told the children today as we were all gathered around opening our Epiphany gifts. They are pretty excited and of course they are busy deciding the names and gender. Leon and Aliou had no questions. They new just what we were talking about and they were beaming.

Mary Autumn was born when I was 34. I'll be 38 when this baby comes. I'm waking up to find myself in the new category of "older pregnant mom." I'm gray at the temples. I'll also need to find new care since both our homebirth midwife and our family doctor have retired since our last birth. Our first was a regular home birth, then we had 3 home waterbirths, then a hospital transfer which ended well. We are hoping for another home waterbirth this time.

And with this birth I receive a promotion! I can then be called a "grand multipara." Multipara means "to bring forth much." And I like the "grand" part too. I'm happy to share the news of our promotion with you. We'll be a family of 10. What an honor to be blessed again.

4 Temperaments

So... which personality are you?


I was so excited to read Ginger's Post on the Four Temperaments which included this link with a personality test. I've enjoyed reading about the Four Temperaments from mostly Catholic books and I've been meaning to see what the Internet had to offer on the topic. Ginger headed me in the right direction. Knowledge of the Four Temperaments has influenced my outlook on life and relationships. Even the children can be heard saying "My friend _____ is really Choleric like August (big brother)" And August, who has been really into taxonomy lately, has been making up Latin names for each family member often bringing some version of our temperaments into the name. It's quite comical and such a classic homeschool geek thing to do. I love it.
So what's your temperament? You might be able to tell just from the comic above. Actually I think this is a personal question. Which might make my temperament be a dead giveaway.

Edited to add: Hmm....I can't figure out how to shrink the comic to fit so I'll have to just give you the link which also gives my test results.

Christmas Eve Eve

Here's a quick photo from Christmas Eve Eve (Sunday). We had an early celebration hosted by my mom. This is no small endeavor considering the size of our growing family. She even took into consideration the various dietary preferences we have. There was plenty for the vegans, the vegetarians and the Liberian carnivores. A very nice afternoon indeed. Thanks mom!