Grateful for NAPS

I don't get to have one myself very often, but they are delicious when I sneak it in. It's just hard to stop whatever else I'm doing and relax fast enough for the nap to be worth it. Nothing used to frustrate me like a failed nap attempt, but I've gotten desperate enough lately to be satisfied with feeling sleepy on my bed next to Carver. By the time I doze off, he wakes up and we're back to life. Drat!

But what I REALLY love is sleeping babies. Grace on the hottest day EVER on vacation in San Diego last summer. Love those pink cheeks!



This is Grace today walking home from the bus stop at 1:30 (early release days for the kids mean LATE naps for the little ones).



And then there is Carver, who naps on my bed since he shares a room with Grace and I absolutely will NOT risk anyone waking up sooner than necessary.



This was a couple weeks ago, but he sleeps with blankets over his head fairly consistently. He naps great after preschool, not so long on regular days. But I can't complain. Something is very much better than nothing!

Oh, Ellie. She fell asleep in the craziest places. MANY times at the table eating or coloring. Here's just one... I love her fuzzy scarf. She's 3 1/2 here.



And the couch, sitting up. This cracked us up, too. She was 2 1/2.



Okay, just one more... Lydia was feeling left out, right? Here's her 3 year old self in her dress up at Grandma's house. She LOVED those sandals on the floor!



The girls very rarely nap anymore and I know I'm on borrowed time with Carver. Someday these days will be gone for good and I will miss how sweet and beautiful children are when they are asleep, how warm and snuggly they are when they wake up. The rosy cheeks, the lines on their faces from pressing into blankets, the messy hair and the coziness of their waking up hugs.

Grateful to READ

What would I do without books? Is there a better hobby? Almost completely FREE, thanks to the library system, unless you consider my accumulating late fees. I really try to stay on top of that! Here's just a small stash from our weekly library visit. And reading is completely mess-free, unless you consider the household chores I neglect when I'm finishing my latest book. So nothing is COMPLETELY anything, I'm finding! But reading is pretty darn close to completely perfect.

I'm so grateful I know how to read - not only novels, but history and product manuals, the news and the scriptures. I can't imagine my life without literacy. It's beautiful and exciting to watch Ellie learn herself, to find that she knows what things say. And a little scary to see how much Lydia gets immersed in her books (I don't know WHERE she got that!)

Just a couple favorites of the last 6 months or so (that's about as far back as I can remember these days!):

The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas
Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King

The only downside to reading is how consuming it can become - my experience reading Twilight last fall pretty much sums up the desperation I sometimes feel when I've reached that "point of no return" and NEED to finish. So it's sometimes a binge and purge technique to make up for the BOOK BINGE that left the laundry unfolded... :)

Grateful for windshield wipers

Today I was mopping the floor and wondering why I even bother. I started thinking about windshield wipers and how they do their job, not because the windshield is going to stay clean and dry, but because it lets us see where we're going. So I'm going to be a good little windshield wiper and clean my house. I'm going to have to do all my chores again in a minute, but at least this way we can see where we're going! :)

Grateful for seasons

I love the changing of the seasons. Even after a summer filled with glorious days at the beach, evening walks to the park and bright morning sunshine streaming into the kitchen, I'm ready to see the leaves burst into color and the air turn crisp. I don't enjoy the shift to winter quite as much, but I DO enjoy playing in freshly fallen snow and vanilla hazelnut hot chocolate with whipped cream. Mmmm... Then spring comes around, with new life replacing the bare branches and earth. Even those early spring weeks are exciting because you know what's coming. And that's the beauty of seasons. It's the promise of change, the variety and the contrast that is so satisfying.

This year I'm grateful for the cycles in our lives, the hard seasons that end eventually and the beauty of the peaceful seasons that follow. Last year, early October brought news of unemployment to Derek and our family. Until the week before Christmas, we felt the heaviness of that burden during the holidays. Whew, what a fall! So this year I am grateful for a new fall (with paychecks!), a new season to enjoy. And I'm also grateful NOT to be expecting a baby since I've been morning sick with pregnancy 4 different falls since we got married. Every year as the leaves change I literally feel nausea in honor of those memories! :)

This is a great season for our family in so many ways! Happy Fall!

Grateful to be a mother

Being a mom is the hardest thing I've ever done because it's the most important thing I've ever done. What can compare with the influence of a mother on her children? Absolutely nothing. Of course the challenge is to recognize the value of motherhood without feeling the burden of inadequacy.

I love Sister Beck's comment that:

"Female roles did not begin on earth, and they do not end here. A woman who treasures motherhood on earth will treasure motherhood in the world to come.”

I find so much hope in knowing that I was a mother before this life and that I will be afterwards. I can do this HERE because of who I was THEN. It's literally what I was born to do. I mother in my own way, but that was part of the plan, too. Being a mom requires a million different skills. Who can possibly do them all well? We just do the best we can.



This is Lydia and I on a field trip. It was my first one to chaperone because I always have other kids who need me. This time I rearranged everything to be there for her. (And depended on two other friends/moms to help me out!) Being a mom is like that, balancing, carefully choosing one good thing over another, trying to be there for the moments that matter most. I'm far from perfect at being the mom, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

My children have taught me so much about life and love and sacrifice, patience and faith. I've been stretched in ways I never would've dreamed. All because I'm a mother.

Grateful to blog

Of course, I'm grateful for blogs. Grateful for the friends I've stayed in touch with, for the blogging friends I've made and YOUR creativity that brightens my day through pictures, stories and thoughts. I love to read blogs and I love having a reason and a place to write. Aren't blogs great?

And it's appropriate timing since this is my 100th blog. I feel obligated to celebrate - blogger style. Here goes:

Things I've said at least 100 times:
"be nice"
"don't TOUCH!"
"put it where it really goes."
"did you use soap?"
"good-night, I love you."
"what did you do at school today?"

What do I usually do with 100 spare minutes?
READ my latest book
look at blogs

What would I do with 100 spare dollars?
Christmas shop
paint a bathroom or two
frame a picture
get some great black boots

What I wouldn't mind having 100 LESS of:
papers to file
slugs
weeds in my yard
diapers to change
complaints/whines/tattles

What I'd love another 100 of:
sweet and sour meatballs
pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting
ice cream
waves/kisses/air-hugs through the bus window
phone calls to family/friends
naptimes
great pictures of my kiddos
family tradition of pizza on Friday for "Family Fun Night"
warm days at the lake
sounds of happiness in our home

Next post, I promise pictures. This feels so empty and naked without them!

A month of GRATITUDE

My friend, Carlen, had this great idea to to gratitude posts all the month of November. I loved it, so I'm going to do it, too! (Feel free to join in if you'd like to!)

Today I'm grateful that I only have a cold. I was thinking about it yesterday, I guess, and realizing how much worse off it could be. I mean, this one IS pretty nasty. I'm still tired and inconvenienced by coughing and congestion and we've passed the week mark. The kids aren't sleeping great, but no one is sick enough to stop anything but church nursery. So we push on through our days. And I feel a little grumpy and annoyed sometimes that it's lingering on.


BUT then I was reflecting on the not-so-distant past when families experienced much worse illness in their homes. Imagine mumps going through your family, scarlet fever, etc.. All those painful shots for our sweet little kiddos at their well-checks mean that the worst kind of sickness most of us encounter in our homes will be the inconvenience of wiping noses (thanks for tissues!) and taking tylenol (hurray for modern medicine!). And what's more, there are no lasting side effects of the common cold/flu. For all THAT I give thanks!

Halloween 08

In a very uncharacteristic move, I did NOT torture my children with a long, drawn-out photo shoot in full Halloween attire and pie-crust promises of "just one more picture." Nope. Not this year. In the end, I was lucky to get a shot of each of them in their costumes at all. We've all been sick, which makes me tired and more practical than usual. So when kids were running around the house screaming and yelling and being hyped on sugar and the mere mention of sugar, I decided to pick a different battle. Excuses, excuses. I just still wish I had dang cute pictures like years past. Here's what Halloween REALLY looked like around here this year.

Grace was a cute little lady-bug that didn't get to trick-or-treat because it was a heck of a lot of work chasing the other 3 around the neighborhood. Maybe next year. She was great at looking cute in the stroller, though!



Ellie was a cheerleader this year.



Our good friend, Kimball, helped make clear that her choice in RED wasn't reflective of an actual preference for the U of U.



Lydia ventured into the spooky costume realm for the first time this year. Isn't she a great ghost?



This is her face painted spider-web from our ward Harvest party. I just loved her expression in this one.



Carver was a lion. He was a good little trick-or-treater, saying "thank you" just about every time. "trick-or-treat" was harder. They were usually holding the candy and I'm sure he just figured it was unnecessary. :)



We decorated cookies and had soup with friends before heading out to trick-or-treat together. It was loud and crazy, but so much fun.



Hope you had a great Halloween, too! I'm glad that it's over and that we have more meaningful celebrations to come! :)