Five Carmonas: January 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

Nimuae Evagrace Carmona

January 29th, 2009
Nimuae's 8th Birthday
friends, chocolate cake, and dancing

A warm January day in NC

Presents from family with family!

Nim and her fave present...Littlest Pet Shop (not littlest sweat shop)

How old? 8! yeah baby!

Kids and chocolate cake. A match made in heaven!

yummy cake (if I do say so myself) and cute too

Birthday altar...cards, photos, and the necklace that was made with the beads from my blessingway that I wore during Nim's birth, which by the way, was a wonderful homebirth attended by midwives. Nimmy wanted to be born in the doorway between our bedroom and the living room, at 10:10 pm on Monday 1/29/2001.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The way things are (at least for now)

As stable as things feel in this moment, I know there is a bunch of change on the horizon. And the change I refer to is not related to our new president, (although I am excited and optimistic about that change) but change within our cozy little lives. There is one large potential change a-coming in our work lives, specifically with David's window cleaning, but it is still so up in the air, so I won't go in to much detail here. But I will highlight some of the others...

1. Nimuae will be 7 years old for only 4 more days! We will celebrate her birthday on Thursday 1/29 with a dance party and chocolate cake. Some things that our on our soon-to-be 8-year-old's birthday list; a watch, glitter glue, red sparkly shoes, easy reader books, and a jean skirt.

2. More goat babies in our future! Windy (in the middle) is due to kid on February 12th, Sparrow (below) is due a few weeks after. We plan on bottle-feeding Windy's babies because her previous owners warned us that she refused to nurse her first babies. So we are preparing ourselves for the birth and the bottle feeding. We also hope that by bottle-feeding, we will have some kids that our girls can show in the local farm show.

3. Alex, Kelcey, and Lilikoi are half-way through their 4-6 week long stay in NH! They have been gone for 3 weeks and plan on returning in time for Windy's due date. We miss them terribly, as do their kitties and houseplants. Here is Salome doing her best sad face.

4. The back (North side) of our house looks like this now. But by spring, we will begin work on a 2 story addition, yoga and music room on the ground floor and kids rooms above. The upstairs is currently the girls room and after the girls get their new rooms, that space will become our homeschool room!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

8:00 pm on Friday. Do you know where your family is?

When I hear how cold it is in other areas of the country (Chicago, Iowa, etc) I feel guilty for even mentioning how cold it is here. But we really do not see days and days of single digit temperatures very often here in Black Mountain, especially following a week of 60-70 degree weather that forced the lilac and spice bushes to start budding, and brought a promise of spring only a few weeks into winter. So we are working hard to keep the water lines from freezing, the wood stove burning, and Alex and Kelcey's cats and plants alive. I do appreciate this bitter cold that keeps us inside, warm and cozy. I enjoy these days where soup is the only option for dinner and there is not even a moment of thought given to the many projects that we would be tackling on a not-so-bitter weekend.

Here are some photos of where the Five Carmonas were at 8:00 last night:
9 degrees outside & 61 degrees inside.

1. The tireless, never-complaining wood stove: chug-chugging away
(an honorary member of the family in the winter)

2. The mommy: creating sign-up sheets for volunteers for the homeschool group

3. Nimuae: connect-four marathon with dad

4. the daddy-o: claiming he can beat Nim in connect-four blindfolded
(which, to the amazement of all, he did!)

5. Noah and Gita: relaxing with an episode of sponge bob

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Warm Winter Saturday

Winter in Western North Carolina sees a spectrum of weather. 65 degrees and sunny one day, Freezing rain and ice storms the next. But most of the days are somewhere in the middle, as was today. We spent a lot of the day outside. David and I went for a nice walk down our road then up an old logging road at a neighbors land where there is currently some selective logging happening to cover their land taxes. The view was incredible...partly because (sadly) some of the trees that used to block the vistas are now at a lumber yard...the clouds looked like a reflection of the mountain ranges in the distance. We also scored a cut of a tree that will serve as a wonderful new chopping block for the firewood! Upon our return we had some fun with the monkey bars, basketball hoop, and bikes. And later in the afternoon, a friend brought some of his friends who are interested in building a cordwood house up to check ours out. It is always a pleasure to see the result of years of hard work and heart be an inspiration to others.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Family Ties

Although North Carolina is our chosen home, I still feel so attached to Utah. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, I am truly a Utahn at heart, the mountains and the dry air are in my blood, in my bones. David and I fell in love with each other in Utah so not only are my roots there, but also the roots and beginnings of our marriage and family. Visiting is bittersweet, luckily much more sweet than bitter. Sweet because we love all of these wonderful people, bitter because we know we have to say goodbye when our vacation is over. I tried to include photos of everyone but somehow managed to leave Utah without a single photo of my mom, John, any of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, Maria, Marci, Bryn, the Hanson family...and probably countless others. So here is a shout-out to all you wonderful people who we call family, whether in blood or spirit. We miss you when we are apart and love you always!