Wedding!

July was quite an exciting month! It still seems surreal to me that my oldest child in no longer a child, but is married and has a life of her own now, far away. I am so thrilled for her, and love our new son. The wedding was beautiful and the day was so great. It all went by in a fast blur. One minute I was nursing Silas and watching her do her hair and get ready, the next minute I was helping her out of the dress and waving good bye as they were off to their honeymoon. Here's a collection of pictures, a few from our photographer and a few from friends.

I love this pic of the rings, how they are nestled together!

Daddy walking her down the isle.

This is THE kiss, not staged. SWEET!

So happy

Lots of flower girls and bridesmaids. All the sisters of both Jack and Kaley were included. Love that.

Flower girls and junior bridesmaids.

OK, if you know Kaley, and how much she loves critters and how she saves every spider that comes in the house, you will know she was welcoming of this friend. He is on her veil.

Adorable. I feel like I have bragged shamelessly but they. are. just. adorable

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Our Biggest Summer Event

Silas Paul was born at 12:48am on July 5. I labored to fireworks :) After waiting and waiting and waiting some more, he did finally come. I had weeks of irregular contractions and was getting quite frustrated on 4th of July. We went to Mom and Dads for a cookout, contractions started again and were very strong but when Kaley and I went for a walk, they stopped! GRRRR

We came home and I spent 30m doing knee chest. Got up. Nothing. Forget it, I thought. I'm going to sleep! I got maybe 15m of sleep and at 10:15p a strong contraction woke me up. Sigh, here we go again, I thought. One at 10:20, 10:25, hmmm. They had never been 5 min apart like that. I took a shower, got out and woke up Mark. He timed them 2 and a half min apart and lasting over a minute. He wanted to call our midwives, I was hesitant. LOL. He had been telling me for days, when it happened it would be quick. I just couldn't even hope that after a 32hr birth last time. And here I was 17 days overdue again so I was having a lot of anxiety about the size of the baby and how it would feel as I pushed him out!

My first dear friend of a midwife walked in right after my water broke in my birth pool. I insisted she check me, 8cm and baby very high. I didn't know what I wanted or what to do. A contraction started and I jumped in the pool. I had another really strong one that I had a really hard time coping with. I'd been doing very well, praying aloud and feeling each contraction as an immense sense of pressure. My second dear midwife walked in, these ladies are some of my best friends and spent that loooong labor with me last time. I had one more and thought I felt a little pushy but thought that must be wishful thinking. On the next, as it started, I said, I think I feel push- and I started pushing and was a little panicked. But in that one push our little Silas was born into the water and swam up into my arms. And he was screaming. Loud and long.

I was over joyed and shocked. He was born after only 2 1/2 hrs of labor, 15 and 5 minutes after my midwives walked in the door and in only 1 push. He was our smallest baby, we could all tell right away. I had planned to have the two younger girls there but it was too quick and it was just Kaley, Mark and the midwives.

8lbs 4oz   20 1/2in

I just couldn't believe how the birth went. I'm also a little dazed because he cried all the time.

With the sweetest big brother a baby could have.

Sleeping on daddy.

Kaley always has a magic baby touch.

Sweet relief

Flat Rock

We had a day out this week. I needed to go up to Hendersonville way so we took advantage of that to go to the Carl Sandburg House. But we didn't go in the house :) It is a lovely farm with a large pond, nature trails, a goat dairy and adventures awaiting.

The Carl Sandburg House

First we had to be goofy in the parking lot. Cut poor Curtiss' head right off!

We decided this time, our second visit, that we would walk around the pond and enjoy the nature trail. It was a lovely damp shady walk and immediately we realized it was a perfect place for fungus to grow. I have never seen such a variety of mushrooms! I do not have the time right now to look them up, I am sorry to say, for I would love to identify all these. I didn't get to paint any in my nature journal either,  since my arms are full of Silas. Another season perhaps. Grace was able to get quite a few pictures of the varieties. Really all the mushroom pictures are for Kaley :)

This is Grace's hand.

This tree had a thick fungus growing all the way around it.

These little bright orange guys were my favorite.

This is how the kids walk to the goat dairy from the pond.

After our walk and picnic lunch at the pond, we headed to see the goats. Mrs. Sandburg was famous in her own right for her prize milking herd. And her husband fully supported and was proud of that.

Crazy  cartwheels

Grace was in heaven

This guy wasn't so sure about petting goats, but his peanut butter face is awfully cute.

 

After our visit with the goats, it was time to go and we walked back towards the pond. I was very excited to identify this plant. During my visit to Minnesota I discovered Milkweed. I had thought we had it in North Carolina but when I saw it there, I knew I had never seen it before. While walking around at the farm, I spied this similar plant. It is Swamp Milkweed. I didn't see any big seed pods like the Milkweed out west, but it certainly milked up when Curtiss broke off a leaf. It was also covered in tiny yellow bugs! 

It was a good day. We try very hard to make our educational philosophy a way of life. So I didn't want this to be a "field trip", but just something we do. I do wish I had done some nature journaling but was pleased the children sketched the goats in theirs.

This was a new identification for us. Iron Weed. It was growing along the edges of the pond.

This was a skink Grace caught. We watched his rather large friend catch a caterpillar and eat it!

This is Jewel Weed, it likes swampy areas and is blooming at this time of year here. It is important to identify if you run into...

Stinging Nettle. The juice from the Jewel Weed neutralizes it's sting. And it helps with Poison Ivy. 

One of my favorite late summer blooms, Hearts-A-Bursting.

Blueridge

For those of you who know me well, you know I'm spontaneous at times, having nine children has nipped that in the bud a bit, but it's just who I am. So when on my due date, my hubby (who I may have mentioned before is NOT spontaneous) woke up and said, Let's go to the blue ridge!, I was very excited. We drove up to the parkway, on the north end which was new to us. It was a good diversion for me as I knew I wouldn't be seeing labor for at least ten more days...

David was not with us so here is everyone but he and Silas. Who was with us but taking his sweet time about being visible.

My strong kids!

The mountain laurel was almost done blooming.

This my friends, is a stink horn. And that stuff that looks like dog poop, it smells like it, too. It's a fungus.

And I don't know what this was but I suspect also a type of fungus.

We bought a bunch of snacks and made a day of it. It was a great memory as our Kaley got married just a month later. We stopped frequently and walked some trails. We also stopped at this beautiful home that you can now visit.

It's been almost a year since I dropped this blog. Life happens and passes so quickly, and I've had to make priorities. Like pregnancy, children, adult children, weddings and births. My goal is to begin again to try to keep it updated with pictures of what we are doing and our life here. Really for my loved ones far away, so you can see and hear what's up with us. You know who you are :) Today I will just add some pictures of our summer activities, many done while we waited for our beautiful baby...

Here we are for Shakespeare on The Green. It was wonderful!

Cool book statue, it was a great park right in the city.

Benny and you can see how big those books are!

Everyone brought blankets and food.

Waiting to start, it was very child friendly, a great introduction to Shakespeare for our 4 and 2 year olds.

Max was excited about the feather he found. And the fact that we were under a flight path!

After the play we walked around the city and found this awesome fountain.

Sillies!

My next post will be some Blueridge pictures. I'll just work through the summer.