M.I.A.

The other day Carver rediscovered the wonders of the heating vents on our floor. Before I noticed him behind the couch, he'd pulled the vent off and managed to drop down several of Grace's toys. I then fished out a wooden block, a plastic tomato slice, several trains, etc... I noticed the orange ring was missing from the stack and went fishing again. This time, despite the screws sticking out in the vent, I put my whole arm (up to my shoulder) down the dusty tube. I turned the lamp on, to get a better look and peeked in just in time to hear the heater kick on and get dust blown in my face and eyes. I stumbled around, blinking wildly and searching for my eye drops, sure I was going to need to flush my eyes in the bathroom sink and really get Carver worried about my sanity. Fortunately, no damage was done. Back to work, I used the vacuum attachment and tried to get a good suction on it or something. No such luck. It's gone. Does this bother anyone else? It drives me NUTS to lose pieces to things! No one even plays with this toy anymore except to wear around their feet or pretend to eat like donuts. Of course, the girls suffer from the same sorts of concern over the missing piece and have remembered this loss in their prayers. Hopefully between my obsessive searching and their faith, we'll find a way to fish it out of the heating system. Or at least declare it on our form-17 when we sell this house. I wonder what else is down there?

Spring is on its way

This is the best part of spring!! I love the new life pushing up everywhere, the hope for something to grow if you take care of it and wait patiently enough (I believe this works for children, as well as plants). I have always wanted to be a gardener, so here I go again with my not-so-naturally-green thumb. Hopefully these dahlias survive the move from their first home in this egg carton to... a paper cup maybe?!

We had a nice Easter weekend, despite a cold rainy Sunday. Friday night Ellie asked what the Easter Bunny had to do with Easter and I said something about spring and little animals and that it really has very little to do with Easter at all. So later, after several near attempts, we broke the the news to the girls. They don't believe us, I don't think. But it felt good to tell them. For some reason, the commercial side of this holiday bugs me a bit more than others. I love Easter. It's beautiful to celebrate the Resurrection and to see new life everywhere around us. What business does a bunny have getting in the way of all that?! Don't get me wrong, I love hunting for eggs and even little gifts in the baskets. I'm just ready to leave the bunny out of it. :) I guess we'll see if the girls are, too!

We decorated eggs on Friday night (such a messy activity, especially since I forgot to buy a dye kit and used food coloring that leaked all over my hand) and then had a little egg hunt in our backyard Saturday. It was such a beautiful day and the kids had so much fun.

Grace had a pretty new dress from Auntie Lyssa, but she didn't cooperate well for a full-dress shot. :)

Carver mostly collected rocks, but he had a great time.

what a little music can do

Well, it turns out that having a new (old) piano means that Lydia and Ellie are already learning about middle C and how to play a basic scale, Carver plays the hymns (he turns the pages and everything!) and I get out of dishes to play while Derek cleans the kitchen and takes care of the kiddos. Is that a good trade or what?! I'm SOOO rusty it's just awful, but I forgot how good it feels, how calming and wonderful it is to play the hymns. We've wanted a piano our whole married life and this was the tax return that we finally found ourselves an 1974 Kimball spinet for our very own. It's even in tune now and ready for the girls' first lessons this summer!

born to be gross?

Carver has a "loud smile," we say. He kinda breathes in and out loudly through his nose and mouth during his smile. It's so classic boy to me, funny and cute and gross at the same time. I can't believe how many gross things come naturally to boys. He has noticed that he can see his reflection in the sliding glass door near the dinner table and has, on more than one occasion, shown himself the food in his mouth. I have to believe that boys/men are born with some gene that makes these things interesting to them. Why would anyone want to see that?! Lately, he's also obsessed with helping me do dishes (if I only I felt the same way...) and makes a huge mess with the water and bubbles. The disturbing part is that Derek told me about the time Carver helped him and then grabbed the drain plug and tipped it to his mouth like a cup - with all the nasty little gigglies that stay there after dishes. EW!!! He's dipped his toothbrush in the toilet bowl and routinely uses it to scrub the bathtub. I thought eating dirt and rocks was bad, but I guess I hadn't seen anything yet. And I'd be willing to bet there is plenty more boy gross-ness in my future!

P.S. Tonight in family prayer, Lydia prayed "please bless Carver not to be so disgusting" after which Derek did "blow kisses" (raspberries) on the girls' faces and asked them why they have gas with their faces. I'm afraid it's hopeless around here!

what's a girl to do with all these pictures?!

I have a problem. I have probably into the tens of thousands of pictures on my computer, not doing anyone any good. I keep feeling like I really need to get our family adventures and vacations documented for our kids to see and remember. But I get hung up about the HOW part. I'm ready to switch to digital scrapbooking, but don't want to invest a lot of time or money into it. I just don't have enough of either one of those for anything grand.

In fact, my favorite scrapbook style is pictured above (when Lydia was a baby, we lived in Austin, TX for a year). Simple, lots of pics, some essential journaling and not a lot of embellishment. I've used stickers and papers and liked those pages, too, but I worry it'll go out of style in 5 years and I'll be stuck with pages I hate and all my best pictures trapped in outdated albums.

I've explored shutterfly a little and feel confined by their page layouts, I started looking online last night at other scrapbooking programs (creative memories is one that looks promising, but I can't find prices for albums or a preview). There's too much out there to sort through in an evening. I need some serious help!!

What do you do with all your digital pictures? Any programs you like? Anything you don't like?! Is it just better to stick with a real paper scrapbook? I'd LOVE some ideas!

The Spice of Life

In one of my earliest memories, I remember riding my tricycle through a slight depression in the otherwise level lawn at my parents’ home in Kuna, Idaho. (The earliest of my memories involved my playing astronaut with a clear plastic bag over my head.) Anyway, there was something about passing through that dip and feeling the slight give in the soil beneath my tires that awakened a flame of appreciation in me that has waxed and waned but never been fully extinguished in my eventful 31 years of life. I am passionate about bikes. I love to ride them. I love to build them. I hate to sell them.

Last night after three and a half months of planning and wrenching, I finished building another bike. For a guy who’s bike budget is determined by Christmas money, birthday money, and a slice of the tax return, building a bike can be a complex venture. In fact, the limited amount of coin often determines the type of bike to emerge from your efforts. For instance, this most recent venture became the flat-bar wonder you see before you because I lacked the funds to purchase the ever-so-pricey integrated road shifters, brake levers, and bar tape.

And so in commemoration of the completion of a new steed, I want to acknowledge in print (kind of) the transcendent power of bicycles. They really are more than mere transportation. They can mend broken hearts and clear away the emotional grime of life. If you don’t believe it, you haven’t ridden a bike recently.

P.S. Rachael graciously allowed me to use a slice of the tax return to buy a spiffy wheel set. Watch this space.

Ellie the songbird

Ellis is forever singing songs like this one. I particularly loved one I heard through the baby monitor when I asked her to talk to Grace for me for a minute. It included such choruses as "I hope that Mommy comes soon so you won't cry. I love you even when you cry. I'll love you forever and you are my sister." If only I'd found a way to record that one, too! This time couldn't have been more perfect since the camera was handy and she wasn't looking.

When the cat's away . . .

Things can get pretty dicey at the end of a long day around our house. Send Rachael off to book group and leave four innocent children with Ninja Daddy, and things can get downright scary. We have been forced of late to resort to some fairly unorthodox measures to cope with the stress. Check this one out before Rachael deletes the post.

My biggest goal

One of my goals for 2008 is a big one. A bit unrealistic for one calendar year, at least. But I’m sick of feeling like my clothes are out of style, my house too “starter,” my meals not ever gourmet, my kids too average, my laundry never done, my kitchen island always cluttered with paperwork I hate to file. Nope, my goal isn’t a better organized life. It’s to just be happy with who I am and what I have.

Sometimes this is really difficult. A couple comments in Relief Society have really stuck lately – one is that we compare everyone else’s Sunday best to our very worst. So we go to church, look at others and assume that their family is always so well dressed and prompt and well-versed in the scriptures and then compare that to a Saturday at my house when the girls forgot to brush their hair, dressed themselves in their favorite mismatched clothes, we’re all in the middle of chores and kids are complaining about that and I haven’t showered and it’s lunchtime. We feel hopeless in our ability to “measure up.” This is unfortunately so true! Why do we do this to ourselves? We can all be good enough at the same time, even when that means we’re different in our styles and abilities and family life.

Then another day, a comment was made that our house isn’t our report card, our kids are not our report card. We have value as daughters of God. That’s what makes us matter. It felt so good to hear that, like I could let go of worrying about all the other stuff and just be me. But then I slip back into thinking that it’d be great if the girls were gymnasts and pianists and our children never forgot their manners and listened so respectfully to their parents and their teachers. I think of the sort of backyard I wish I had instead of just being grateful I have one. Catalogs and magazines come with ideas of how to improve a house and I feel that since mine doesn’t look like those that I must be a rather inept homemaker. I start to wonder if I’m just too scattered to handle 4 kids and if it means I’m selfish or weak that I am hoping to be done with babies. So, here’s to letting go of all that. I’m trying to figure out who Rachael is right now (piles of paperwork and all) and to stop thinking I need to try to be like everyone else at their very best.