don't hate…but it's more pictures of that one place again.
that one place we like to visit whenever we can.
hint: it starts with a d and ends with land.
it’s that one place again
35 and 7 days
I always forget how old I am.
I usually ask Jeff to tell me my age. And then he says, "I don't know. How old am I?"
Sounds like something we should be doing at 90, doesn't it?
This year I didn't ask though. I knew.
35 was here.
No longer 30 and not yet 40.
Somewhere in the middle.
Not quite as flexible. A few more creaky bones.
Just kind of in the middle.
I'm not a young mother. I'm not a seasoned mother.
I'm right here in the middle.
I've got a lot to learn. And I've got just a little experience under my belt.
After 35 years and 7 days, it feels pretty good to be…
in the middle.
Lady bug heaven
I love this amazing family. They were the last ones that braved the outdoors with me just as it was starting to heat up for the summer. The best part…twin boys that were infatuated with the bazillion lady bugs everywhere. I've never seen so many lady bugs in my life! They were in heaven.
I can't wait to see what this beautiful grove will look like in the fall!
the summer swing
Summer is in full swing around here. Truthfully, I've never been very good at summer. For 2 out of the 4 years we've been here, I've been hugely pregnant.
Pregnancy + Arizona Summer + Cherie = Looney McRooney
You get the idea.
When this summer started creeping in, I felt like we needed to do something different. They needed something different and so did I. I needed to feel like I wasn't just hanging on for the ride, but that I was making the ride better for all of us. After perusing some articles on Power of Moms, I decided on my plan of attack. A schedule! Oh yes, I was going to make a schedule. See, me and schedules don't exactly get along. We like to pretend we're friends but really we have this roller-coaster relationship that always ends in a nasty break up.
But not this year.
This year, I changed it up. And hallelujah…It's working! We've got a daily schedule so everyone knows what's happening and what they need to accomplish. Along with that is a daily theme that gets their little brains excited for each new day. I love it! They love it! (Somebody tell me why it's only taken me this long to figure this out!)
Our daily themes are:
Masterpiece Monday: Art or Craft Project
Take a Trip Tuesday: Library, Museum, Friend's House
Wet Wednesday: Swim, Water Games
Treat Thursday: Make a treat, Visit Water & Ice
Friend Friday: Invite a friend over
I can't take credit for these ideas…I just found them on Power of Moms. But man, I'm glad it got my wheels turning just in time.
Here's a peek at Masterpiece Monday a couple of weeks ago. Hours of fun, I tell you.
Let the summer swing on!
Here's the recipe for flubber just in case you're interested:
Materials:
Warm Water
2 cups Elmer's Glue
2 tsp. Borax
Food Coloring
Directions:
1. In the first bowl combine:
1 1/2 cups very warm water
2 cups Elmer's Glue
Food Coloring
2. In a separate bowl, mix thoroughly:
1 1/3 cups very warm water
2 level teaspoons borax
3. Mix the contents of the two bowls together kneading until it is fully combined
4. Discard any remaining liquid
Sweet Baby James
It is baby central around us lately! So many new babies have made their way to the world in the past few weeks. It's amazing, I tell you. I love the feeling that babies bring with them. It's a feeling of slowing things down and being in tune with each other. I think we miss that in the hustle of life. I think it's a gift they bring to us…to remind us of what's most important.
Meet James and his beautiful mother. Listening to her recount his birth story moved me to tears. No doubt, his arrival here was a sacred one. Welcome, sweet baby James.
Eric + Beth = Anna
Eric and Jeff go way back to Jr. High. Together they've shared a bazillion stories, crazy adventures, embarassing moments, life changing talks, you name it. If anyone knows Jeff, it's Eric. Friendships like that are what friendships should be like. I'm glad their lives are still connected in so many ways.
I'm also glad I was able to welcome Eric and Beth's new baby girl Anna Sophie into the world. They have such a beautiful family!
tree hugger
They showed up at the door with their chainsaws ready. Politely, they informed me they were here to cut down the tree. My insides started to ache. I wasn't expecting them so soon.
I let them in through the back gate and went inside. Peeking through the window blinds, I watched as they inspected the area and stared up at the tree making their plan of attack. Darn that tree! Why did its roots have to do so much damage? I didn't want to get rid of it. But leaving it there could have resulted in a much bigger disaster.
There I sat pacing, stewing, worrying about a tree. A tree! I've never considered myself a tree hugger per se, but at that very moment I wanted to run out into the backyard and beg for its freedom. Birkenstocks and all.
Silly me.
I stood and watched as they cut down every limb. Then I called Jeff and bawled my eyes out. It was gone. I felt like a little girl watching my woobie get sucked up in the vacuum cleaner. My security blanket was taken…and the only thing left behind was a view of my neighbor in his bedroom riding a cross-trainer.
Long after they had left, I finally pulled myself together. I pulled together that silly little girl crying at the back window and told her that woobies aren't around forever. And that sometimes trees aren't either.
So, goodbye tree. Thanks for your shade, your strength, your security, and even the birds you housed that has some serious diarrhea. We had some good times together, but still, I'll miss you.
Come to think of it, maybe it wasn't really you that needed a hug. It was me.
all fun and games
I was doing some house cleaning on my computer last night and ran across a funny set of images from a while back. Ok, so they are probably only funny to me, but oh well.
On our way home from a Thanksgiving weekend in Utah, we got caught in a terrible snow storm. The decision was made to stay overnight in a hotel and wait out the blizzard. Better to lose time than our lives, right? We lugged the necessities into the room, got all cozied up in bed and watched The Wizard of Oz while the snow flurries buried our van in the moonlight.
Early the next morning, we threw open to curtains to find a sea of white. Not too long after, the monkeys got jumping. What else is there to do in a hotel room? Even big daddy monkey joined in.
And it was all fun and games…
Until somebody…
has a stinky diaper. 🙂
My voice
It's been a while…a while since my voice has been here. I've missed it.
It's been a while since I've poured out my voice into writing. Not that I haven't tried. I've probably sat down on more than twenty occasions in the past 6 months to spill out the contents of my heart and mind and left with it all still inside me. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe I've been afraid of what might come out.
Yes. That's probably it.
I've been afraid that hearing my real voice would be a little painful. Too focused on the negative. Too not what I want to hear or to be heard. Yes. Now that I think about it. That's exactly what's been holding me back.
At the beginning of the year, I set a goal. A goal that seemed insurmountable but one that I wanted to achieve or at least take a good stab at. My goal was to change my thoughts. I have been feeling for a while that my pessimism was getting a little too cozy with me. I knew I need to give it a swift kick in the pants before it moved in to stay.
So I embarked on a thought replacement strategy that seemed do-able. I identified the times of day and places when I knew I was more susceptible to the negative/self-defeating thoughts and committed to kick out the bad thought with a good one. I loved the idea of being on offense with my thoughts instead of on defense. It was a great plan. And I was on my way to big changes. Things were going well.
Isn't it interesting though, how in life, you can go in one day from feeling like everything is so organized, under control, like you can conquer the world–only to wake up the next day feeling that everything is impossible and that you'd be best to curl up in a corner and give up?
Seems like once I made a decision to change, everything became harder. Everything became heavier. Motherhood seemed like a battlefield and I was a constant casualty. Admittedly, I found myself feeling like I'd have been better off to never even attempted a change. Because now I could see how bad I was failing at it. After a while, I gave up. Plain and simple. I curled up in that corner and just gave up.
Then recently I was reminded of this…
“That which you persist in doing becomes easy . . . not that the nature of the thing has changed, but your power and ability to do has increased.” Heber J. Grant
So this is me today. I'm back after being down. I'm up to try this again. I'm ready to face the impossible.
I'm ready to hear my voice. (And thank you for coming here to listen to it).
Tea time
She bounded in the back door a few weeks ago after returning home from a birthday party. Thrilled with her spoils, she showed me each and every party favor as she recounted details from the event. It was a tea party…but what they really should have called it was a "this-is-every-little-6-year-old's-fancy-dream-dress -up-that-she'll-talk-about-for-weeks-party." In fact, after listening to all of the excitment, I was secretly wishing that I had been invited too. 😉
She was in heaven. I was blown away at the party planning. And we both decided that pictures were in order. It was a deal on both ends.
