Well, it’s pretty quiet in my house right now. GAbe is down for the night, Laura, Ben and Michael are down by the river picking blackberries, Eric and Maryann are working on the sprinklers and Josh and I are here in my chair “logging”. Josh and I were looking though some pictures I took today with my new lens and he said, “Mommy, let’s put that one on you log”. So here’s my log for the evening…

I have been super busy this week. I have a huge order for the Loma Linda Children’s Hospital Baby Boutique that will be opening next week. Huge like 25 nursing shawls, 6 quilts, 23 burp cloth sets, 23 changing pads,… the list goes on. So I have been sitting at my little sewing machine sewing away. The children have been excellent helpers from ironing to turning fabric right-side out. They have played well together while I cut, iron and sew. One of discussions today while we worked together was that I should pay them. Smart kids. We talked money, but they all decided that they would happily take 5 warm out of the oven chocolate chip cookies after dinner. So I whipped up some cookies while making dinner and they are all happy children.

Other things going on in my life. Trying to get on top of school from last year since we took a few months off for our move. Looking at a few new curriculums to try this year for English. Thinking in my head how to best schedule my days so that I can actually get everything done. School, meals, cleaning, play, work. I would really like to start out on the right foot from the beginning this school year. And how to incorporate all 5 children who want to be “schooled”. Even if they are only 2.

I have also been thinking alot about a wedding this weekend. One of my friends is getting married and I am the photographer. I am super excited for a number of reasons. I am truly happy for her and am glad I am here to attend the wedding. I love taking pictures and have really wanted to see what I could do at a wedding. So this Sat will be my first wedding. I’m glad she trusts me. I’ll post pictures next week from the wedding.

Another exciting event here is that Eric finally purchased the practice. It’s been a long agonizing process. But we finally signed this week. We went out for dinner at a fun little restauraunt here. It was a fun night celebrating with the children.

HEre are a few pics from this morning. The sun was coming up over the mountains and the lighting was beautiful. It was just Gabe and me and so we had some fun playing.

time to get back to the sewing machine…
~Cheryl

Well, I am pretty much all done unpacking. I have found a place for everything and if there was no place for it, then to Goodwill it went. I am still on the hunt for some specific furniture. I have my IKEA list ready for when we make the journey up there. (now 3+ hour drive vs 20 minutes) I have been checking Craigslist and some Thrift Stores around here. The great thing about needing to buy furniture for this house is that it will look so much better if I can find some older pieces since this house is very victorian. And it’s much nicer to spend less on things I am buying specifically for this house and probly won’t end up keeping when we move on someday.

The front entryway

Hall bathroom

Maryann taking a “princess bath”

My piano~ the acoustics in this house are incredible.

The Dining Room. We have never had a dining room before, so I’m looking for a table and chairs still.

The built in hutch in the dining room. This hutch is from the original farm house. Finally after almost 11 years, I get to display my wedding china and crystal.

The original front door. I love this door. It is so big and heavy. And I love the arch on top.

This is the “peek door” It actually opens up to see who is outside. There is no door bell on this house. Strange. Guess out here in the country we just leave the front door open and anybody is welcome in!

the living room. I love the fireplace. Yes, that’s green marble surrounding it. And the mantel is also orginal. I say “orginal” because alot of the wood work has been added or redone. But some has been left, so I like to point that out since this house is almost 80 years old. It was built in 1933.

Some of the original windows are still around. They have the weighted pulley system. You can hear the clunking as the weights move up and down when you open and close the window. Some of the windows have the rope frayed too much to open the window.

The window lock

The kitchen hutch. This has been added. This area use to be the original kitchen.

Looking up the stairs to the second floor.

And the original chandiler as you go up the stairs. It has crystal decorations. I’ll post a more detailed pic later.

Some art in the hallway arch

The orginal light fixture in the living room.

The master bedroom. The master bath is the door in the left and the walk in closet is on the right.

This is my cradle Eric made for me when Michael was born. It looks like it was made to sit there. Funny thing is, we have never had a spot for it in our house that it could just sit and I could enjoy it every time I walked past.

That’s all the pics for tonight. I have lots more to post another day.
~Cheryl

It was a very hot summer in NC. I was 19. Two weeks over my due date. I had been to the ARMY clinic that morning. I explained to the NP that my back hurt really bad. He told me it was just Braxton Hicks. Go home and come back when I started having real contractions. So home I went. Completely clueless for what was ahead of me. I remember cleaning all day. (could you say nesting?) Cooked Eric a huge dinner. My back hurt more and more. Eric went to bed. I paced the hallways in our little 400 sq ft house. A few times Eric woke up and checked on me, but we never once considered the fact that I might be in labor. Oh, our naiveness. The pain became so intense I was sick to my stomach. But all the while thinking, “just another braxton hick” Then, my water broke. Eric looked at me and asked “Did you just pee on our bed??” I assured him I didn’t and so we decided to head to the hospital. From this point on I remember very little, other than the pains. So the rest of this story is more from Eric.

We climbed into his pickup. It was still dark out, and it seemed every light was red. I began screaming at him to run the red lights because I needed to push. Eric swears there were cars driving by right in front of us and I insisted he run the red. When we got to the old Army hospital, I walked all the way up to L&D. To this day I am not sure how I pulled that one off. Upon arriving at L&D, I informed the nurse that I immediately wanted an epidural. She was a rather large African woman, who physically sat me down, shoved a paper bag in my face, (I was hyper-ventilating at this point from the pain) and proceeded to tell me that there was no way I was in labor and that my water didn’t break. If it had, I would have been in hours ago due to the pain. (Note to that nurse 11 years later…I have a very high pain tolerance.) She assured me that the Dr would check me and then they would work on the epidural. Upon being put on the examining table, a nurse screamed at the Dr who was in the room writing some charts, “Dr-gloves NOW the baby is crowning. And within seconds, (I honestly don’t even remember pushing) Laura Elizabeth was born.

This year Laura turned 10. I have thought alot about that night she was born. About how naive I was. How young I was. How unprepared I was to be a Mommy to this precious little girl. Being our first, she has paved the way for me on Motherhood. Taking me to situations that I am often clueless how to handle. How afterwards, I wish that I had done different. But thankful for the grace Jesus gives me. She has grown up way to fast. From a toddler to a beautiful young woman. She has taught me many things. She is so gentle and loving to children younger than her. She has an amazing gift with them that I have much to learn. She is creative. I love to watch her. She pays attention to the littlest details that I have overlooked. She cares so much for people. If someone is hurting, she is there to take care of them. Whether it is a band-aid or a prayer, she is selfless in her giving. She loves Jesus with all her heart. And she loves to serve others. So on my knees, I thank God for such a beautiful blessing. For my precious daughter, Laura.

Happy Birthday Laura, I love you.
~Mommy

This last weekend we found a local u-pick farm and headed over to pick cherries. (This farm happens to be the one that is right across the street from the B&B that I so badly wanted to rent. Of course that was BEFORE we found this house.) It is the end of the cherry season, so they were $0.50 a pound. But the trees were still loaded with cherries. We picked for about 2 hours and had 150 pounds of cherries. The children had lots of fun eating lots of cherries. Josh seemed to have more cherries on his face than anyone else.

After we finished picking, we shopped in the little fruit stand they had there. The vegetables and fruits all looked delicious. I vowed to not buy anymore veggies at the grocery store. I am going local. Besides looking fabulous, the prices were about half of the store, and I am helping support the local farming community. So my plan is to go every other week or so and buy whatever is in season. When it was time to pay, Eric looked at me and said, “do you have the checkbook?” (just for the record, I haven’t carried the checkbook for years now that we have debit cards) I blankly looked at him and said “No”. He then explained that he had assumed I would have it and that they only took cash or check. I can’t remember the last time I heard that. No credit or debit cards?? They just want a plain old check??? So we had to explain to the kind old lady our situation and then leave and go into town to find the only ATM machine at the 7 eleven. Cash in hand, we went back and paid for our cherries and vegtables.

The rest of the day was spent canning and freezing cherries. The boys asked for cherry pies and the girls wanted cherry ice cream. So we ended our day with big plates of cherry pie and heaping bowls of cherry ice cream.

Picking cherries is always more fun when hanging like a monkey!

Everything MUST be done in pink!!

And the pies…

The lavender is from my yard.

~Cheryl

So my new house is old. Very, very old. It was built in 1933. It was is the original house that went with the Dairy Farm. That’s what the big white and green barn was used for. And the 23 acres that surround this house. But one day the dairy farm shut down. Not sure why yet, but I intend to find out. Probly because of those dairy farms down in CA that we drive by. Thousands of cattle on just a few acres, on lots and lots of steroids. I’m guessing this place just couldn’t keep up. So it was sold to a man who loved to work with his hands and with wood. So he picked up a hammer and started working on this house. He worked for years, keeping as much from the original house as he could. Moving a window from here to there. Changing doors as he added square feet. And the house grew. And grew some more. He built a huge kitchen with windows all three sides that look out over the yards and fields. He added a huge master bedroom and bathroom and closet on the back side of the house. He blended bricks so you can hardly tell it was added on. He matched the woods. He preserved as much as was possible in this process.

This man wasn’t friends with his neighbor. They fought a lot. So one day he just had enough. He put this big old house that he had labored on for years for sale. And it sold. The next family lived here 15 years. They loved this house. They had children who filled the walls with music and laughter. Then one day they had to move on too. So another “For Sale” sign was staked in the beautiful front yard.

This time it was bought by some brothers. They had big plans for this house and the land. They put this house back on the market, now with only 2 acres. They began to divide the property. Eleven lots total. they put in roads and landscaping. They put a gate in, so it was now a “gated community”. They hired an engineer to draw up plans to save the barn and turn it into a Community Center. They put in RV parking for the homes in The Community. Then, the housing market slowed down. Then it came to a halt here. So they stopped with the developing. And this house just sat. So, after a few years, they decided to rent it. And we found it and fell in love with it. And moved in…

my kitchen is on the left covered in the Jasmin

The original front screen door

The south side

My favorite place to sit these days

The front entrance

A few of the outside light fixtures…

One of the original glass door handles and locks

The back porch

The childrens “dream” climbing tree

The garden house and Laura’s easel. She was painting this scene.

A few of the thousands of roses that surround this place

The children having their first “soak” in the hot tub!

Pictures of the inside to come soon…
~Cheryl

So this is a very short post. Why??? Because we finally found a house! After searching for over a month and either not finding a house that would work for our family or being too late in turning in our application and losing it to a family in front of us, we finally found the perfect house. The story behind this house is amazing, and I am so excited that we get to live here. Not sure how long God is planning on us staying here, but for now I am enjoying every minuet of it! It’s huge, very private, lots of room for the children to run (20 acres), ride, and explore, and has a beautiful view from every window in the house. And there are lots of windows!! So here are few pictures. I’ll share more soon. No internet yet, waiting for the phone company to bring lines up to the house. May be a few weeks they said.
~Cheryl

my new house

the barn

my first shot of all the children at the house

my view from my front porch

All the cousins eating watermelon

I heard this song before moving up here to Oregon. I think it puts to words where I am at in life right now and where I need to be. I seem to quick to question God why things don’t work out. Why He closes doors that I had wanted open. Why we wait and there has not been answers. Yet, I am so quick to take a blessing, the sunny days, and reap the harvest. I pray that my heart will seek God during these days of rain and drought. That His will be done in me.
~Cheryl

As Long As You Are Glorified
Mark Altrogge

Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings
Yet not welcome any pain
Shall I thank You for days of sunshine
Yet grumble in days of rain
Shall I love You in times of plenty
Then leave You in days of drought
Shall I trust when I reap a harvest
But when winter winds blow, then doubt

Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified

Are You good only when I prosper
And true only when I’m filled
Are You King only when I’m carefree
And God only when I’m well
You are good when I’m poor and needy
You are true when I’m parched and dry
You still reign in the deepest valley
You’re still God in the darkest night

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)