I now have four big kids.

They all know how to tie their own shoes, buckle and unbuckle their seatbelts, swim, write their full name, and now they are officially all in school! I can hardly wrap my head around it because we were in the baby/preschool stage for so long! Suddenly I am  MIDDLE of motherhood, or in the thick of it as some might say.

I know not everyone falls into a cookie cutter family having 2.5 kids at age 27 after graduating college and getting married. For a lot of moms though, the tween or middle school years do often fall right around midlife. It makes things interesting because in some ways a midlife mom is experiencing some of the same growing pains as a middle schooler! My favorite description about being in your forties is that you are an old young person and a young old person. Apply that to tweens. They are no longer adorable children with chubby cheeks that request pasghetti and meatballs, but they aren’t cool teenagers that are nearly independent either. It’s an awkward stage. 

I don’t consider this whole middle section of my life as an awkward stage, but it is certainly uncharted territory and I am navigating what this next chapter holds for me.

The youngest is in all day school for the first time. She just lost her two front teeth and learned how to ride a bike.

With each of my other kids they were the baby until the next baby came and suddenly they were a big kid. Elle never had that right of passage so the challenge is to help foster her growth instead of treating her like the perpetual baby.

Little brother is in fourth grade now and has a locker for the first time, which he is super proud of. He is about to enter into the double digits on his next birthday.

Big sister is in 6th grade. She has a phone, she’s in the youth group, and she is going to be 13 this school year. WHAT!?

Then there is the impossible fact that I have a high schooler.

He has a friend who can drive now so that has brought on all kinds of independence. We see him gradually drifting away from us, but in a healthy normal way. He still loves his family and we will continue to take trips and have meals with the six of us, but naturally he is starting to hang out with his friend more and more. There are some evenings where there are only 5 of us at home and he is off doing his own thing. I can’t believe he’s about to be 15 and get a driver’s permit!

I have a lot of feelings about all of this growing up business. Actually, I have a metaphor for my motherhood experience so far. Close your eyes and imagine you are the passenger on a road trip. Now imagine you are constantly looking back at a bunch of young children. There are babies screaming, sippy cups and goldfish crackers flying. You are passing back bottles and wet wipes. The demands and volume increases. You start singing the “wheels on the bus go round and round” and find yourself laughing and crying all at once wondering how much longer until you get to your destination. Then you finally have a chance to turn around and face forward. You rub your neck because of the strain from facing backward for so long. You start to look out the window at all the beautiful scenery, but you are distracted by how fast the vehicle seems to be moving. The closer you get to your destination the faster if feels like you are going and there is nothing you can do to slow down. So you just buckle up and start singing “Free Falling.” That is what I feel like.

The years of having little kids were so amazing, but also exhausting. Then the older they get the more I feel like time seems to speed up! Even with as crazy as I make this metaphorical road trip sound it has been the greatest blessing of my life. As I look ahead to the next season of guiding my children into adulthood I am optimistic. If it’s even close to as good as the first half then I know I am in for treat.

I spent my fortieth birthday in Chicago with my family and my bestie Mels (who rode the train in from Northern Michigan).

We did a whole family day, but one of the days it was just Mels and I. My goal was to do 4 coffee shops in one day for my fortieth birthday. I called it my #fourforforty and I had a fantastic time.

Evanston is a suburb of Chicago. Downtown Chicago is just 12 miles south of it. Evanston has a slower paced college town feel and I enjoyed resting and hanging out there instead of spending all of our time in the big city. I found out about the Main-Dempster Mile from Instagram. It the place to go for local small business shopping. The only reason I even ended up in this area is because we found the perfect AirBNB for seven people right there in Evanston. If you are looking for a place to stay near Chicago, I highly recommend “Huge 3 Bedrooms 2 Full Baths Entire Apartment” hosted by Superhost ALay.

The kids had their own room with large screen tv and two beds.

Mels had her own room and J and I had our own room and bathroom. We played games in the living room, had some meals in the kitchen and were even able to catch up on laundry. I give our stay there two thumbs up for sure.

Anyway, Mels and I headed off on foot from the Airbnb to explore the Main-Dempster Mile and to check out just a few of the MANY coffee shops in the area.

The first place we went was Cupitol Coffee/Eatery. I got a Nutella Latte, which was amazing. We had to have a couple pastries too because if you saw the selection you would see how irresistible it all is!

The second stop was Newport Coffee house. This place was for true coffee enthusiasts like Mels. She has run multiple coffee shops and has years of experience as a barista (as does the rest of her family). It was a very milimist environment, and I felt like grown up there (it’s about time, right?).

You might be thinking How on earth can you get coffee 4 times in one day and not go into a caffeine coma? We actually did not get coffee at every place. Evanston Pour was more of a lunch stop for us. I got the Open-Faced Zucchini & Goats Cheese. Mels had salad and we split both got to try a sample. It was simple, fresh, and very tasty. I also LOVED the aesthetics in that place. Gave me some decor inspiration.

Lastly we hopped on the L and landed at our final destination, Backlot coffee where we both had an iced latte and hung out and chatted for longer. I love going to coffee shops. It was such a special, memorable way to ring in this next chapter for me. The only thing I love just as much is ice cream and we did some of that too.

We got Jeni’s Splendid ice cream with the kids and J that night. They were having a special where everyone got a free scoop of icecream. HAPPY BIRTHDAY INDEED! Between the six of us we tried so many different flavors I was going to try to name them all but I can’t remember. I do remember that they were all SOOO GOOD though.

Another bit of sweetness was when we stopped at JoJo’s shake bar in Chicago the next day. As fate would have it they had a 90s music festival theme. I was singing along to all the music and love, love, loved all the patio decor. That was my favorite Chicago restaurant. I will never forget it, and the strawberry salad was honestly better than the shake in my opinion.

That’s my whirl wind #fourforforty Chicago birthday trip. Thanks to my husband and best friend for making it all happen!

My goodness. It’s been almost a month since my last blog post. That is completely unacceptable! I love blogging and I have so much to write about, but I have been short on time lately. So instead of doing one singular topic I am just going to spit out some recent happenings.

Okay, so first off Z went to camp. The power was out for almost two days and he broke his glasses, but even in spite of all that he had an amazing time! He had to leave camp just a tiny bit early though when we picked him up on our way to Iowa to meet up with J’s family. We honor J’s dad this father’s day by having a private memorial and scattering his ashes. It was deeply emotional but in a good healing way.

Beyond that we got to spend some much needed time together as a family.

On the way back home we stayed two nights in Chicago and my best friend Mels met us there.

I have to do another blog post on that one. I promised our air bnb host I would.

Just kidding. Well, J did hint that I was a blogger and in our hosts formal review of us he said that he was looking forward to the article. That’s not the only reason for that post though. I have lots of memories to share.

My actual birthday landed on the first day of our church’s VBS. I brought a cake that I happily decorated with all kinds of fun stuff (that’s another blog post too).

I also went to our friend’s farm. I have mentioned this farm and friend before. It’s very significant to us. There I was gifted with a new hen.

Her name is Lizzy and she gifted me with a pale blue egg on my birthday!

Anyway so VBS was awesome.

All of my kids loved it. This is SJ’s final year since she will be fully graduated from children’s church when school starts. In fact she has already started youth group. I know, I can’t believe it either.

July third I photographed a family reunion on the Cincinnati river. I have never been to a big family reunion like that. It was Mardi Gras theme and it was next level.

I loved being a part of it even though I was working. The next day was the fourth of July.

We always go to a big party thrown by my parents’ church (the one I grew up at). This is what I would call my family reunion. Not only do we see my parents and siblings, but old church friends and even friends from the Spanish church and French church. There is a big cook out, bounce houses, worship, and a really incredible fireworks show. What a way to celebrate!

That first week of July my kids also went to camp. It was four nights long! They had the best time though.

While the younger kids were away I ended up having some fun too. J and I were gifting tickets to see a string quartet play in an old cathedral by candle light. It was really cool.

Then lastly I photographed a proposal. J and I had to be incognito at a fancy restaurant where my client was bringing his soon to be fiance (she doesn’t know us so it wasn’t hard to blend in).

I can’t tell you how much fun this was. I knew it was one of the biggest nights of their lives and to see the joy and get to capture it was the best feeling.

There was a big surprise party afterwards too so the smiles kept being multiplied.

That’s certainly not all that this summer has entailed so far, but those are some highlights. It’s hard to believe there is only one month left. At the rate we are going I am sure we’ll make the most of it!

We first started talking about chickens during the 2020 shutdown. I recognize that this was a trend not unique to our suburban family. However, over two years later we are still going strong!

May 2020

The chicken journey began when we ordered 10 chicks from Mt. Healthy Hatchery in Cincinnati.We picked our breeds out from a catalogue. We took detailed notes comparing the volume, friendliness, hardiness, and egg color of each bird. If I were to go back in time I would worry less about friendliness and volume and get more colored egg layers. People are looking for different things in backyard chickens, but I am starting to get really into eggs of various colors now. I still adore the hens we ended up with though.

They came in what I would describe as a little box for donut holes. There were ten little chicks and they were so cute and fluffy. I have never seen such precious little critters. I had to do a photo shoot. So adorable!!!

June 2020

The chicks were growing so rapidly but the coop was taking a really long time to build. We tried to let them get as much outside time as possible during this season, but they slept in the brooder in our laundry room.

September 2020

The chicks were all supposed to be hens, but we were ahead of time that the sex is usually only 90% accurate. In our case there was one rooster that started crowing at 15 weeks. Wild Style was an Olive Egger and I really wanted those green eggs, but he wasn’t going to lay any and we aren’t allowed to have roosters in our neighborhood. We ended up rehoming Wild Style to someone on a Facebook chicken group that I am a part of and we ended up making a very special friend in the process!

October 2020

My dream chicken coop was officially done and we got our first egg. It was a big project that required all hands on deck, but it turned out so nice.

November 2020

Before we went out of town my incredible, talented, genius husband built some game changing features to the chicken coop. He installed a rain barrel that is temperature controlled so the water will run if it gets cold enough to become frozen.

He also built a chicken feeder that holds 100 pounds of pellets so we only have to fill it once a month. I never did a blog post about this, but I need to! I have had requests so hopefully that will be coming soon. 

December 2020

We hadn’t even been chicken owners for a year yet, and somehow we were already hooked.

We got lots of chicken gifts for Christmas that year including this painting that I absolutely love!

August 2021

When hatching season rolled around in the summer of 2021 I had the chick itch. Our dear friend Dennis who adopted our rooster actually brought his incubator down to our house and helped us hatch 12 chicks and 5 ducks!

It was such a cool learning experience. I don’t think any of us will ever forget it and I would actually love to do it again sometime. We didn’t keep the chicks or ducklings, but the process of seeing them hatch and raising them those first two weeks was incredible.

Not all of chicken life is glamour and causes warm fuzzies, but we have loved having what we refer to as the “fine nine”. Although spoiler alert, we may go back to having 10 hens again. There are potential surprises on the way!!!

Just when I think I’ve seen it all my youngest daughter, Elle, comes in from playing in the back yard and looks like some one dabbed her with a black permenant marker.

I asked her what was on her face and she was oblivious to it. I tried really hard to wipe the spots off. I looked at pictures of her to see if I was going crazy and these moles were there all along.

Then I found another black spot only this one looked like what I would describe as a “smear”.

Other than a little itchiness she didn’t seem bothered by any of it, but I was! So I took it to Google and after much investigating I finally found something that described EXACTLY what my daughter was dealing with. The name of the condition was “Black Spot Poison Ivy”. Pub-med.gov describes Black-spot poison ivy dermatitis as “a rare manifestation of a common condition.” If what I was reading was true Elle must have come in contact with a plant that had high concentration of urushiol (which is the oil in the plants that causes poison ivy rashes). I was self diagnosing here, but it seemed to align with what we were dealing with. These are photos from the web.

So day one through six nothing changed. Then on day seven the black spots either fell off like a scab or changed to more of a pink spot that looked like a bug bite or something.

I thought that was a good sign and that we were pretty much out of  the woods. Except on what would be day 10 she woke up with one of the worst poison ivy rashes I’ve ever seen and I have seen some awful ones!

This concerned me enough to call the doctor. I didn’t like that it spread so suddenly or that it was getting worse instead of better after a week and her face was a little swollen. For us poison ivy tends to run its course in about seven days. This was another beast

When I took her in I showed all of my photos to the nurses and doctor. They were baffled and called her the mystery girl. I told them what I had found online about Black Spot Poison Ivy. They left us alone in the exam room for a minute and when they returned I was told I was right and that it appeared to be an accurate diagnosis. They had never heard of or seen another case of this but it seemed spot on (sorry that wasn’t meant to be a pun). The treatment was a low and slow dose of steroid medication for the poison ivy and some topical ointment to treat the black spots, which the doctor referred to as lesions.

It’s been five days since Elle started her medication and she’s doing great. The rash lightened up extremely quickly. The lesions are still lingering which is a little concerning, but I think they are starting to fade. I’ll try to do an update once they are completely healed.

From her sister’s account Elle had pulled on a vine in the back yard. Maybe that’s what made this such a crazy severe attack. Who knows. It’s such a rare phenemenon anyway maybe it will never happen again. I did want to share our story though because some day there may be another persons desperately searching the internet after finding what looks like a new beauty mark on their skin after being out in the woods. I’m not a medical professional, but you might be looking at black spot poison ivy. If so, the treatment is probably going to be the same as regular poison ivy. Your doctor can tell you if this web search led you in the right direction.

When I saw SJ up on the stage at the church I went to growing up I couldn’t help but let the tears come.

It was such an answer to prayer to watch her use her gift of sign as a ministry. A couple of months ago I shared a video of the two of us signing “Gratitude by Brandon Lake”.

My friend who is a dance teacher wanted to know if SJ and I would be interested in incorporating ASL into the dance she was working on with her class. I agreed without hesitation and SJ was all in as well. SJ’s cousins are a part of this ballet and she was very excited to work on this project with them!

Then we got to meet a new friend and that was icing on the cake.

Morelia’s sister is in the ballet too and it turns out Morelia knows some sign language so she was the perfect partner for SJ. She actually learned to sign before she could talk. It was a great resource for her since some of her medical challenges delayed her speech. SJ had the same experience as a toddler due to her deafness. The two girls are the same age and both worked very hard to learn all of the sign language and practice with the ballerinas.

I love how God brought this beautiful and diverse group of young ladies together to spread a message of his love.

SJ’s genetic mutation is called connexin 26. Morelia’s is 22Q, but their act of worship was proof that no diagnosis or numbers were going to hold them back. It was a joy to watch all of the girls.

The lyrics to the song say “Here’s my heart Lord, speak what is true”. As I watched Morelia and SJ sign those words I loved how they were sharing the words in a voiceless language.

It makes me think of how God speaks to us. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe that God can and does use an audible voice, but how often does he speak to us in other ways? In the Bible we see him use a rainbow, a dove, a donkey, a burning bush and more. He can speak to us through nature and the arts. He can use anyone and or anything. When the girls did their performance, I heard the words and I saw an interpretation through dance and though sign. It was a powerful reminder of the limitless ways that God can speak his truth.

This whole experience was such a beautiful example of God’s faithfulness. Both performances were really special and I know many lives were touched.