The Bush

In our backyard, there is mostly grass. Go a little farther, and you will find a three foot drop to the lake. A little to the side, and you'll find a dock. Go to the other side. and you will find The Bush. The Bush is a giant bush that acts like a property divider on the outside, but on the inside it is a giant climbing mansion! Dada says that it blocks our view of the lake, which is true, if it weren't there we would have twice the amount of lake to.... view. The Bush is one of our favorite parts of the house, partly because it is one of the first places we made memories in at this house (We just moved). On one side of the bush there is a rock wall, with lots of little holes and stuff, so when we play house in there, that is the kitchen. On the other side, there is the three foot drop to the lake. I have made a little seven level ''house''over the drop that I call Pumpkin Point, because there is a little window that looks out over the lake, where there is a lamp post whose light reflects on the water and makes the shape of a pumpkin. We have only discovered part of the bush ( not all of the top yet) and hope that we will continue having a lot of fun in it.

Coal!

Up until recently, I have had four brothers and two sisters, and the order of our birth has gone like this: boy, girl, boy, girl and so on. However, on March 10, our new little brother Coal was born! He had to be born early, because our good midwife found out about five weeks ago that Mama had this liver problem that would kill Coal if they waited till' he was nine months old. That meant that he had to be born at the hospital, which we are not used to. Eben, the oldest was the only one born at the hospital, because after that Mama decided that she did not like to be surrounded by machines and doctors. I was born on our kitchen floor, Jasper at a friend's house, Opal at the birthing inn, (Me and Jasper were planned for the birthing inn but never made it) and Berg, Pella and Tuff at home. When Coal was born, he was nice and healthy and a good size. Unfortunately, five minuets later he stopped breathing! The doctor said that he was dead, because he couldn't find a heartbeat, but the nurse said that he was still alive and called in a lot more nurses and doctors and Dada said that they kept working on him, got him breathing and took him to the NICU.

 He stayed there for four days, and came home on Monday, where we finally got to see him. I had kind of gone a little crazy, because normally I get to first see my siblings when they are about an hour old. Now that he is home, whenever we are around him we have to wear yellow masks, because we don't want him to get any germs because he is a premie baby, and we have all had this cold for a while. All of the people at our church have been really nice, and have been bringing us dinners since Sunday, I think. I love Coal, and hope that we will get more siblings!

Pella's Ballerina Birthday!

This year, for her birthday, Pella wanted to have a ballerina birthday party!  She has been looking forward to it so much that she has been planning it since the day after her last birthday! Mama has stopped making really complicated cakes, ( such as microscopes, alligators and whole scenes!) and has reduced to just sticking stuff on the top of normal cakes. This is Pella (or as we call her, Chuggy) putting the candles in her cake.

Once at an auction, Mama got a free ballet lesson, and she decided to use it at Pella's party! But when she called, we found out that the teacher would be in Portland, Oregon and couldn't make it, we called in our next best choice: Dodie. Dodie, our aunt, has been in ballet multiple years and agreed to step in as the ballerina teacher at Chuggy's party. She is the adult in black. We transformed our basement into a ballet studio by setting up a bar and lining the walls with mirrors! I was Dodie's assistant, and everybody copied what we did (or tried to). 

Eben and Nathaniel Schock did the music for us, and projected it nice and loud with speakers. When the boys found out that there were boy ballerinas too, they rushed to get changed (Berg was going to be the ''Rainbow Ballerina'', who dressed just like a girl with a rainbow tu-tu!).

Along with cake, we also decorated cookies in the shape of ballet dresses! Mama and I made lots of bags of powdered sugar and water frosting. We added food coloring and it turned out great!

This is our group photo.

After the dancing, down in the basement we took turns letting Unka Cheese carry us across the basement with us frozen in a ballet position. This is Opal, who I thought was the prettiest (besides Dada, shown below) being carried across.

At the end Jasper and Pella did a dance together. Chuggy had a fun party and has already started planning the next...