Summer has begun!

Last night we kept our annual tradition.  On the first night of Summer, the children get to play outside until it is all dark and catch fireflies.  They also enjoyed eating lots of fresh mulberries from our many mulberry trees and playing freeze tag.  Before we headed in, I gathered the tired happy children together and said, "I officially welcome you to summer!"  They erupted into applause and wild happy cheers.  :-D

Love, Dawn

P.S. - That's mulberry juice on Susanna's face in case you were wondering.  ;-)

Down on the Hall Farm

This is one of the many fruit bushes and fruit trees that we recently planted.  We decided to go with some unusual varieties.  This is a medlar tree.  It, like the others, doesn't look like much right now, but they hold promise for the future.  :-)

Loving on sweet Susanna 

Notice her very pink cheeks.  I'm concerned that she has strep throat again.

Benjamin is really growing up.  He's gone from his long baby locks to a burr cut, thanks to Daddy.  One thing funny that we discovered through that is that he has two totally different colors in his hair - dark brown and blonde.  You can really see that in the top photo.  He's also getting more teeth.  He's up to 6 now!

Miriam with one of the MANY kittens born here this year

Susanna, Thomas, and Benjamin

Rebekah and Naomi Ruth

Rebekah has on her hot pink cast from fracturing her wrist while jumping off a swing.  She's also holding the teddy bear that she received at the hospital.  She has named him Teddy.

Getting in our garden has been slow going this spring, due to all of the sickness.  Still, we're getting there bit by bit.  Yesterday, we finally got the strawberries in.  As you can see, the children are great helpers.

We bought 19 chicks - 18 hens and 1 rooster.  They're such fun to watch!

We also bought 2 male baby goats.  There names are Chewy and Louie.  :-D  Their job is to eat the thistle patches and all of the tall weed areas.  They are happy to help!  Rebekah and Hannah love taking them for walks with their collars and leashes.  The goats seem to think it is a lot of fun, too.  They are such social creatures!

Love, Dawn

Still sick

We're still sick here.  Please go to www.caringbridge.og/visit/susannahall and read there.  Please pray for us.  Thanks.

Benjamin in his exersaucer

Miriam with Spunkles

The good news is that I am over my viral gastritis.  This morning I woke up feeling GREAT!  Oh that was fantastic!  And just in time, too, as we now have 9 children with strep throat.  Not like there's much of a difference between 7 and 9 with it, though.  lol  It's nutty, but the entire family is taking antibiotics right now to kill it for good this round.  You might be wondering which one child is healthy - Sarah is the winner.  Of course, she had it last month, so it's not like she escaped entirely.

Between taking care of sick children, Aaron and I have also been working on planting outside.  We paused in planting our garden to work on planting fruit bushes.  So far today we've planted goumi (also spelled gumi) bushes and honeyberry bushes.  Next up are the currants, gooseberries, jostaberries, and elderberries.  I'm so excited about getting these planted!  :-)  In a couple of years we'll be eating huge amounts of fresh berries plus making delicious jellies and pies.

Sorry that there haven't been many pictures lately.  Hope you enjoy these two.  :-)  

Love, Dawn

Prayer Needed

Please pray for our family.  We've got 7 children sick with strep throat right now and I have viral gastritis.  :-S

Love, Dawn

Life goes on

Today is my 39th birthday.  I feel like one major phase of my life has just come to an end and another has started.  You see, our dog Charlie died yesterday.  Aaron and I got married in August of 1994.  He bought me Charlie as a birthday gift in March of 1996.  My birthday wasn't until May, but Charlie was ready in March.  He was a gorgeous red merle Australian Shepherd.  He is now buried next to our garden.  We have a large rock on his grave and Naomi Ruth plans to use a nail to carve his name into it.  I am going to plant a rose bush on either side of it and then put a garden bench in front of it, facing the garden.  Charlie was with us through all 10 children becoming part of our family.  He loved them all, although he was not able to interact much with Benjamin, our 7 month old.  I can remember him shepherding the other children when they would try crawling out of the room.  He would nudge them back towards me.  :-)  Charlie was also with us through 6 moves.  We bought him while living in Texas and moved twice still in the Dallas area.  Then we moved up to the Boston area of MA and I think he really enjoyed the cooler air.  Next, we moved here to Ohio and we are now in our 3rd home here.  Lord willing, this is the one we're going to stay put in.  So, I feel like Charlie was there for all of the big moments in our early married life.  Spunkles, our puppy, is 10 weeks old.  What all will occur during her life?  I imagine that she will see children growing up, getting married, and leaving home.  It's kind of hard to imagine that phase of my life and yet as I sit here on my birthday reflecting back and looking forward, I am pondering all of this.  For now, though, I am very much in the midst of the stage of raising these children up for the Lord.

Over Easter weekend, Hannah came down with a really bad case of strep throat and tonsilitis.  She saw an ENT on Tuesday and is going to need a tonsilectomy.  Her tonsils are still so big that they are actually overlaping past the uvula.  If this is the baseline, then if she gets an infection, her airway will be blocked.  I'll get that scheduled today.    Oh speaking of surgeries, Naomi Ruth is going to need to have four of her adult teeth pulled.  Her mouth just doesn't have room for them.  Aaron and I both had that surgery.  As you can imagine, she's scared.  We do not have that scheduled yet.  First we'll need to schedule the consultation with the oral surgeon.

Yesterday I took Susanna to her ENT appointment at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.  The appointment went great.  She is healing up really well from her tonsilectomy/adnoid removal.  He also felt really good about how her eating, breathing, and talking have improved.  She doesn't need to go back until October or November.  That will probably be when she has her next MRI of the tumors and then sees all of her doctors.  Please keep her in your prayers.  There was something that I thought was really funny yesterday.  I had Susanna, Benjamin, Hannah, and Naomi Ruth with me.  Over and over, people commented how I really had my hands full with four young children.  I just smiled.  Inside I was thinking, "You have NO idea!"  Four was a cinch compared to my usual 10.  :-D

Love, Dawn

www.caringbridge.org/visit/susannahall

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day here.  I enjoyed church in the morning.  Then after lunch, I got a few hours of time out alone, which was SO nice.  When I got back, we got things ready and then went for a picnic along the Scioto River.  It was a gorgeous day and we all had a wonderful time.  We were even able to meet up with friends there.  We finished off with ice cream.  Yummy!

Love, Dawn