Family

This last weekend was a mini family reunion of sorts. My uncle turned 60 and his son, daughter and wife put on a surprise 60th birthday party. I had an aunt fly in from Virgina, an aunt and uncle from Colorado, an aunt from Arizona and a cousin from Virginia as well as misc. family from around here. My aunt from Virginia stayed with my mom and it was especially great to see her and hear how my cousins are doing. I know my mother had a wonderful time with her sister. It was great to see the two of them together.

However, here we are a few days later and I am sure that I have worn myself out. As we were getting the girls in their pjs and ready to leave the party I realized that there was something on my nose that we really hurting. I thought perhaps a zit but it didn't look like a zit. I figured that hopefully with some rest and relaxation it would go away. I don't know why it is I thought I was going to get any rest or relaxation. Our Sunday started with my mom and aunt coming over to see our garpartment, then a mad trip to Costco, Walmart, and Central for groceries and the like. Then home to unload the semi-truck load of supplies I had purchsed and make an orzo salad to take to my mom's house for a bbq that we were going to with my mom's family. Then at about 1:30 my mom calls wondering when we were coming over telling us that it looked like we were going to be eating a little earlier than planned. So our gradual get everyone in the car turned into a mad rush to grab everything we needed and run out the door.

The time at my parents' house was great and the food was awesome. Then 5pm rolls around and it is back to the house where we got the girls in the tub and spent the next 3 hours putting in our book shelf in our bedroom. It looks magnificent I might add. I love it love it love it. Don't think we left the girls in the tub for 3 hours. Although I am sure they would not have thought that a bad idea, we did take them out, get them in their jammies and let them watch a movie. We were very happy when Ellie picked Sandlot instead of Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins has been the movie of the month and I think if I hear the song "Let's Go Fly A Kite" one more time I might get sick.

After the movie we got the girls to bed and you would think that it being late we ourselves would go to bed but no. I was way too excited about my bookshelves and proceeded to go through all the books on my desk as well as the three boxes of books in the storage space in our living room. Then at 11:30 strolled in to bed to finish reading the last few pages in the Oprah magazine my mom let me have. Midnight came and I finally turned the light off for the night.

Last night was another of the same - three boxes of books that I got from the Fechters when they moved. After going through them all I decided on keeping only one box worth and am going to donate the other boxes. Got to bed last night though around 10:15 and read for some time in the newest book I am reading.

I wake up this morning and my jaw feels like I ran into a wall with the side of my face and did I mention that my nose is still sore and red. I am a mess. I am making a pact with myself that I am going to be early tonight and getting the rest I need so that the rest of me doesn't fall apart.

Broken Finger?

Friday afternoon I got a call from Sam politely asking if there was anyway I could get off a little earlier than normal. I asked her how much earlier, and if she had a specific time in mind. She politely adn very calmly explained that she had broken her finger and needed to go to the doctor, but that she could wait until I could get home. I, of course, told her that she didn't need to wait she could bring the girls to me and go to the hospital to get her finger taken care of. I asked her how it happened and she just calmly replied that she shut it in the car door while putting the girls into the car. Hmm?

Going through my mind were numerous scenarios and none were as calm and innocent as she claimed this to be. There was the vision of her trying to get Olyvia in and the door shut and Ellie slamming the door before her hands could get free; or the vision of Ellie all buckled and Olyvia slamming the door; or either of them pulling the door closed before Sam could get free of the door. All of these situations seemed like a test in patience and pain tollerance to me. I see the door slamming shut and blood spraying out. The visions just are not pretty and no way are they as clam as Sam is expressing them.

Sam dropped the girls off at the office and headed to the hospital. Later that evening I get a phone call from her saying they had to burn off her fingernail and then splinted her two fingers together. A splint that she has to keep on for two weeks. I still have not got my questions answered as to why it is that her finger was in way of the door yet and so I try to probe Olyvia for some of these answers. Although most of what Olyvia said was rather confusing what I did gather is that Sam must have thrown her hand between the door and the jam to stop it from hitting Ellie's hand. If that is the case, then I definitely made the right choice in a nanny; Way to throw yourself in harms way.

Need to be Naked

I don't know what it is about clothing that our daughters are so opposed to that no matter how light weight it is, they must strip it off prior to falling completely asleep. Tonight I came home from a meeting and Ellie had crawled out of the bedroom in just her panties and was laying on one of our kitchen rugs with her blanket all wrapped around her. I lifted her up to carry her to her bed, following Robb into their room where he cleaned the animals out of the way and went to tuck in Olyvia who was also only in her panties. Their nightgowns were thrown to the side along with the covers.

Now the nightgowns they were wearing were not flanel long sleeve numbers. They were tank sleve cotton light weight little things, yet still they somehow manage to get too hot in them that they must fling them off their bodies when they are somewhere between wake and sleep.

I have often muddled over this fact and always wrote it off that they took after Robb. He too despises covers. Not only that but loves to have the window open and the cool air circulating keeping the room nice and crisp. He likes it when the room is so cold that your breath feezes, your eyelashes stick together and you skin has a pale blue tent to it. Our girls too seem to sleep too hot and this is always expressed at bedtime when they strip down to their panties no matter what the temperature or what they are wearing.

Another hypothesis that I have about this is that while they are laying in bed, not really wanting to be there to begin with, trying to think up yet another reason for us to come in there or for them to come out here they realize that they are just too hot. Kind of like realizing that they need a drink of water. I wonder if they are actually hot at all?

The ballancing act of being a mother.

Between work, girls, self, husband and home I find that a body can be pulled in multiple directions without actually getting pulled in half (or quarters). I have been so tired lately and I can't figure out why. I have been getting enough sleep at night. Like last night I got 8 hours of sleep but today I am exhausted. I have found that lately I just fell like I need more sleep. What I have decided is that it isn't that I am not getting enough physical sleep, I just have too much going through my mind at night that my sleep isn't productive. Trying to ballance all the places to be and take the girls and work and husband it is exhausting.

I know there are days when Robb and I don't actually talk about life to each other. If he is working in Seattle, I don't even see him in the morning and then after work it is dinner, getting the girls to bed, collapsing on the couch realizing that it is 8pm and then he heads to bed while I take some time to myself to read or pay bills or just do nothing. Although I have found that the do nothing option rarely ever happens. I have tried a few times to just sit and watch tv and I can't do it. I always have to be doing something else while I am watching tv. Like I might be paying bills, preparing a bible study, working on my Puerto Rico book (which by the way I have finished and am waiting for it to arrive. YAY!) or just organizing, putting away dishes, folding laundry, etc.

It is all part of being a mother, sacrificing self for family, giving up little pieces of my person so that my children are taken care of. What I am finding out though is that I have to be carefull not to give up my whole being otherwise I am not setting a good example of who I want them to be. I need to be strong in who I am and the example I set. I need to take care of myself. I need to remember to eat and not just make them food. :) I need to care for my appearance and take care of my physical body as much as I do my spiritual body. God has given us our bodies. We glorify him by taking care of them.

Odd to me why I write this all down. The comfort I find in taking hand to keyboard, As many in the past have done by taking pen to paper. Speaking of paper, I am oficially starting on my great grandmother's cookbook. I am very excited about it. Especially know that I have the software to put it together. I am waiting until I get the PR book in the mail and see how it turned out and if I like the quality. If so, then begin I will on putting all my great grandmother's recipies into a book that I can share with friends and family. What an amazing piece of art it will be. A little piece of the woman she was in a book that can be shared with those she loved and who loved her.

Coyote

Sitting here at my computer checking e-mail, entering dates into my calendar and paying bills. Unsuspecting at the least. I glance up to look out the window and there in our driveway is a coyote. Just trotting up the driveway towards our garden with no care in the world. Wilde for sure. We watched it for a few moments adn then ran into the girls' room so that they could see the coyote out their window. They were quite astonished as they hadn't ever seen anything like that before.

It is amazing. We work out in our yard all day knowing there are animals out there, but until I actually see one trotting up the driveway, I don't really think about it. We had to explain to the girls that they are really neat to look at, but that if they see one while they are out there they are to come directly into the house and not try to go up to it at all. One more thing I am going to be worrying about during the days while i am at work and they are here at the house. A small reminder of how hard it is to leave them, not knowing how well they are really being watched during the day.

Spice Muffins

Wanted to share a little tip with all of you who try to watch your intake of fats but still love to enjoy homemade breads and cakes. Today my daughters and I made some spice cake muffins from a recipe I have had for a long time. In the recipe I always use applesauce instead of oil. I didn't have any applesauce at home but still wanted to make the muffins. I did have some pears. So I placed the pealed pears in the blender and blended until smooth. I then used this pear sauce in the muffins. It was great. It added a wonderful sweetness to the muffins and didn't require me to cook apples up to make sauce.

Anyway . . . next time you are making banana bread, zucchini bread, spice cake or the like and want to change things up a bit try using pear sauce instead of applesauce in place of the oil (or part of the oil).

Enjoy!

My morning shower.

As I have previously mentioned, my morning shower is my wake up. It is my solitude in the morning before having to combat another day of motherhood. It is how I wake up and face the day.

This morning as I was soaking, the hot steaming water falling over my head and down my body, I heard something in the bathroom. I figured Olyvia was probably up and was grateful she wasn't bothering me, letting me finish my shower. I was mistaken. As I turned around in the shower, there she was all naked and in the shower with me. Olyvia decided she needed a shower also, took her pjs off and joined me. So my morning ritual in the shower turned into a joint venture.

I finished up with my shower, and told Olyvia I was getting out. She informed me that she still needed to shower and would get out soon. I stepped out of the shower and onto the rug to dry off only to realize that I was standing on Olyvia's blanket. I looked down and not only was I stepping on her blanket, but I seemed to be standing on her bed. She had put together a makeshift bed right there in the bathroom complete with blanket, pillow and stuffed animals. I decided to finish drying off in my room.

Homework

Last night Olyvia and I got to do her very first homework assignment together. It was sooooo much fun but at the same time a little hard. I had to hold myself back and really let her do it all by herself.

She had four different things that she had to do as part of her homework. The first was to draw something that started with a B. She chose to draw a picture of a bear and wanted to use her Toddy bear as her example. She had me hold it up for her as if she was the painter and Toddy was the model. Starting with a circle for the head and then adding a pointy ear she realized she didn't like that ear and told me she needed to "rerase it." So she did and then made round ears instead. The arms came out of the sides of the head and the legs from where the neck should have been. There were three fingers on each hand and round circle feet. There was no body. It was beautiful.

From that task we moved on to the next one where she had to draw six of any one object. She chose to draw what she referred to as "tally marks." She said she learned about them in school. Her marks were very distinctive, making five long straight ones and one diagonal one across them all. Now this is one of the spots I wanted to step in and tell her that the diagonal one should only go across four of them, but I didn't want to interfere in her homework. I want her to be able to learn these things but don't want to seem too pushy. So I left it and didn't say anything. As it is, she "rerased" quite a bit during the homework assignment.

Moving on to task 3 she wrote the letters C, a, and B three times each. Now here is where I did step in. She would go so fast on some of them that she wasn't taking up the entire space. Again, a lot of "rerasing" and she was happy with the finished product.

Finally, she had to cirlce all the ds and Ds that she could find in a series of letters that were all laid out on the paper. It looked like a wordsearch, only there were no words to find. Instead just letters. She did very well and found them all on her own even with the tricky one that was right next to the b.

She was so excited that when we finished she wanted to do some more, so I pulled out some of her work that she had brought home from school unfinished and we worked on those. She finished a dot to dot of an elephant and we colored it together. We then had a piece of pie and went to bed.

Wisdom

I came across a site today that is truely worth spending a few minutes to take a look at.

www.wisdombook.org

Read through The Concept and watch the film. Awesome.

Is God Laughing?

I am sure that over the last year God has been laughing at me. Ok maybe not at me, but definitely laughing. Why is it that we as humans have this extreme desire to search out what our purpose is in life? What changes we are going to make in the world? What heavy impact we are going to have? We are searching so hard for what we are supposed to be doing in this life that we stomp all over what we are actually supposed to be doing. We either work too hard and too much so our children are neglected; or we continue in school searching for just the right career to fullfill ourselves; or we spend all our time trying to find ballance in our lives and come to the end realizing that we spent our entire life searching for the impossible.

I have come to the realization that I will never be fully ballanced and I am accepting that. I will never at all times be able to please all people and will sometimes even have to ignore some to help one. In all this though I have realized that I also do not need to search out what my higher purpose is in life because I am living my purpose. That is why God is laughing. He is laughing because I think I can find my purpose, as if I don't think God has things in control. I can see him chuckling and saying, "Oh, you are going to figure it out yourself? ok, let me know how that works for you." Well God, it wasn't working very well. I was finding myself depressed because I thought I was failing at life, making the wrong decisions, not living up to what I was supposed to, not doing the right career.

Then I stepped into the other room and looked at my two beautiful children and my wonderful husband and realized how happy I should be; what a wonderful family I have; how blessed I really am. I need to stop searching for what I am supposed to be doing, for the impact I am supposed to be having and realize the impact I am having right now. How I interact with my husband and my children will impact them the rest of their lives. If I busy my life so much that I miss out on what they have going on right now, I cannot get that back.

Realizing this has made me happier but I still felt like something was missing. What then am I doing to better myself? I have been searching out further education thinking that was the answer but I am seeing that it is not. Not that education isn't good. I am a huge encourager of higher education. I think everyone needs it and should continue to education themselves. However, I also know that I am not looking for education that is going to give me a new career, but rather education that is going to give me some personal fullfillment. Something I enjoy doing that I can share with my family and friends. As I started to ask myself these questions I again had an epiphany and saw that I already had the answer. Photography. I LOVE taking pictures. It is a huge passion of mine to capture life on photograph. What better way to capture memories than on film [or card :)]? Why had I ever stopped? So I have decided to redevote my "me time" to taking pictures and learning about taking pictures. This gives me the creative outlet I need, the education I thrive for and allows me to have a passion that is all me. I feel God has given me the gift of seeing things that not everyone sees and I want to share that with as many people as possible. I enojoyed it so much years ago and as life got complicated I let this passion start to slip out from under me. I am not going to let it slip all the way. I have grabed hold and I am pulling it back in. My girls give me the perfect outlet to practice and with all the work we have to do on our property, what better medium to shoot?

I thank God for all that he has given me and the opportunities he has given me to shape lives, especially the lives of our two beautiful daughters.

Black Thong at Ft. Warden

We got back today from our annual camping trip to Ft Warden with Kim & Ray. It was great. We had an amazing time, the weather was awesome and it was great to spend time with them. We definitely need to see them more often. The sites we got this year were a lot better than in the past. One of our sites was against the bluff and the fire pit area was tucked in the trees. It gave us great privacy. The Michauds came out on Saturday for awhile and bar-b-qued with us which was great. We are hoping they will be able to join us for the entire weekend next year with their trailer. The Brauers came out for awhile as well and it was fun exploring the bunkers with them.

I have to give a big thanks to my youngest daughter for the wonderful experience she enabled me to have. I will elaborate further.

After hiking all around the bunkers, including touring one that they are in the process of restoring, we headed back to camp for a relaxing lunch. Had some lunch adn then decided it was definitely time to enjoy the beach. Ellie had been trying to get us to go to the beach from the minute we started on our walk to the bunkers. She thought the bunkers were highly overrated and that all the good action was to be had down in the sand. So we headed out with the guys ahead of us with their poles. The girls, as excited as they were to be going out to the beach, seemed to be going slower and slower the deeper the sand. We finally decided to stop following the guys and just cop a squat in the sand and let the girls play. We laid out a couple towels out and had a sit. Ellie came up, tossed a shoe down and went to go to the water. I said, "Ellie Claire, where is your shoe?" She said, "That is my shoe." I replied, "Yes, but where is your other shoe?" "Oh," she answered "I must have dropped it." Giving a smirk and a shoulder shrug she headed to the water. Reluctantly I stood up and declared that I better go find it so that it doesn't get covered with sand or something and I can't find it on our way back and I head back down the beach.

Unsure of which path off the beach we took, I passed the correct path and was heading towards another one when I realized that I was going the wrong way. I abruptly turned around and headed towards the path I had just past, when . . . ARGH! I was staring at a naked man. Was he naked? Well, at first I thought he was but upon further examination (trust me I wanted to look away but I was in so much shock that I had to get clarification) I realized that he was sporting two black strings. There was one around his waste and one that slipped from his tailbone down into the crack of his butt. Now mind you, this was not some hunk of a man who should be modeling Calvin Klein underware on a 20 foot billboard. This was some older man with too much hair and excessive love handles, lying on his stomach in the sand with sand on his but cheeks and two black straps on a family beach at Ft Warden or all places. I mean really, we are not in Hawaii. We are not even anywhere tropical. Put your clothes back on!

I quickly proceeded down the correct path, found Ellie's shoe and went back down the beach to the group. I arrived, exclaiming that I had discovered why Ellie had dropped her shoe. It was so that I could experience the hairy older man in the black thong. What other reason could their have been?

Robb's Favorite Things

A few weeks back I asked Robb, "what are some of your favorite things?" My intentions of course were to post a few of his favorite websites on my blog so that people reading this could get to know who I married just a little. Time passed and I eventually figured he wasn't going to get anything to me so I put up a couple websites that I knew he loved and left it at that. Then, just the other night he handed me an 8.5x11 sheet of paper filled with writing. I asked him (in maybe a little bit of a flipant tone) "what is this?" He very calmly said, "You asked me for a list of some of my favorite things, so there it is."

Wonderful! It only took him a little over a month, but he got it to me. So I have added this list to the right. I do hope you will look through it. It will give you a very good idea of who I am married to. For those of you that know him already, you will be smiling and nodding your head as you read through the list because each and every item says ROBB.

My family on Labor Day Weekend.

A Friday spent getting up, all four of us, having breakfast, packing up the trailer, spending the morning just being us and then heading towards the lake. Once at the lake, we hooked up the trailer, unpacked everything and got to having some fun. Took the girls on a bike ride . . . sounded like a good idea when we first thought of it, but about 5 minutes into it I knew it was a mistake. Robb and I should have walked while the girls rode their bikes because we were playing a balancing act trying to stay upright and with our feet on the pedals, but with teh bike not really moving forward any because if we moved forward then we would leave the girls in the dust.

Ellie was such a big girl. Her feet were going a mile a minute trying to keep up with her sister but her trike wasn't gaining very much distance. The smile on her face was priceless. Now Olyvia on the other hand was on her bike and she was doing great at keeping up with her Daddy. They were way up ahead and she showed no signs of slowing down. After our ride Robb and I realized we definitely would have gotten more exercise if we had walked, but that the girls had a great time and so did we.

That night I made a great spaghetti dinner (if I do say so myself) and my mother surprised me with a wonderfully delicious creme brulee cheesecake. It was a delicious blend of my two favorite desserts.

Saturday was spent just hanging out around the camp, although we did take a walk down to Lake Kokane to throw some rocks in and see how busy it was down there. The girls thought it was great and gradually, one piece at a time, were down to just their shirts playing in the water. Olyvia is starting to get shy though and although she took her pants off to play in the water, promptly demanded that I help her put them back on because there were strangers around and she didn't want them to see her panties.

Sunday was an awesome day. We got up and had breakfast then Robb, Ray and Justin took the boat down and put it in the water and tied it to the dock then headed back to camp. Andrew and fam got to the property just as the guys were getting back. We got everyone loaded up in the truck and headed to the dock.

We found a great place to set up for the day and, although we got rained on a few times, were able to stay pretty dry by staying under the canopy and close to the fire pit. Here are some pics from the weekend and Jen took.

Owning up to my life.

I read a quote today that really made me think. I suppose I read a lot that makes me think, but this really stood out to me. I keep a journal of quotes that I want to be able to come back to and this one made it into the journal. Taken from the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, it reads as follows:

"As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff of it is bad for you."

In our lives we are constantly bombarded with decisions that we need to make, roads we need to go down. Sometimes these decisions are blatant, like "Do I go to my friends house?" or "Do I marry my boyfriend?" or "What do I make for dinner?". We are aware that we are making these decisions. Sometimes, however, the decisions are not obvious questions that are posed to us but rather ways of life we live. Who we hang out with. What we do with our time. What thoughts we think. What we read. How we treat others. All these scenarios result in us making a decision. We decide who we are each time we respond to our children or talk to our friend or sing along to a song on the radio.

We are fully responsible for which way we go, the decisions we make in life are our decisions to own. So why is it then that if the decision doesn't take us where we wanted it to, we tend to resent other people or things that we say made us make that decision?

I am where I am at because of decisions I made. I own that. It is no one's responsibility but my own.

Just because I own the responsibility of my decisions doesn't mean they are easy. Doesn't mean I don't sometimes think, "oh, if only . . ." But what is the purpose of that? What do I accomplish with those thoughts? Do those thoughts in any way make my situation better? Do they change where I am at? No.

I have often heard the statement "Quit future tripping." I would say this holds true to the past as well. I cannot go back and change a decision I made. What I can do is learn from my past decisions, take control and own up to all my future decisions. What I do, how I treat others, how I spend my time, who I spend my time with, and how I define myself as a person is in my hands.

Kindergarten

With kindergarten comes all sorts of emotions and feelings. For Olyvia and I it was nothing but excitment.

I took pictures of her at home before we left for school and then we headed out to Poulsbo Elementary to start her educational career. The whole drive there she was talking about how excited she was. Ellie too was excited and wanting to go. You could tell she was a little sad that she didn't get to go to kindergarten also. Once there we parked and headed into the school, seeing many new friends along the way to the classroom. Olyvia's teacher, Mrs. Smallbeck, seems really great. She has shoulder length dark brown hair and an infectious smile. Seems to be a truely wonderful woman. I am excited to get to know her more as the year progresses.

Once at her classroom I helped her find a hook for her coat and back pack and then gave a hug and kiss and stepped out of the classroom with Ellie. I secretly watched her for a couple minutes as she (with the help of Mrs. Smallbeck) found a seat and started drawing and writing stuff on a blank piece of paper. She glanced toward the door, blew a kiss and gave me a wave. I winked at her and then Ellie and I left. I am so proud of her independence and excitment to experience new things. I hope she has this same attitude as she embarks upon all the many adventures in her life.

When I got there to pick her up I had Ellie and Button with me - an experience in itself. Those two are wild on their own, but you get them together and it is practically unmanageable. While I am trying to get Button to remain next to my side and not pull me over onto the ground (yes for some unknown reason I thought it would be a good idea to wear 3" heels today), Ellie is hanging upside down from the bike rack. Now I can't just go over to Ellie and lift her off the bars and carry her back over to where I am waiting for Olyvia because I have Button and since Button isn't listening to me and would never just sit in one spot and not go anywhere, the possibility of leaving her to go and get Ellie is out of the question. So, I stand there like a tree, trying to root myself in the ground so I don't get dragged across the yard while at the same time quietly trying to firmly call Ellie over to where I am at so that we can watch for her sissy. It didn't work. However, showing her the lovely flower garden that was closer to me then the concrete hovering bike rack prooved to be wonderfully effective and before I could even finish my sentence she was over walking around the flower bed. ( I could see the wheels turning in her head as she contemplated running through the flowers and picking them to sniff because she couldn't possibly sniff them while they are still in the ground.)

Just as she was about to leap full force into the flowers I saw Olyvia's teacher exit the building and behind her Olyvia and the rest of the class. YAY! I yelled out to Ellie - "Look Ellie, your sister." As if struck by lightening she instantly stopped and looked and forgot about the flowers.

Her teacher excused her to me and she came running across the grass bypassing Button (something never done) and flung herself into my arms for a huge hug exclaiming "Mom, it was great. I am a kindergartner now." I couldn't help but smile, both inside and out. After my huge hug, Ellie grabbed her and hugged her and then the two of them tackled Button. We went off to the car and we talked all the way home about her great day.