Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Thursday, January 16, 2014

january, and good days ahead.

Well, if it isn't January 16th.
You wouldn't know it from the weather...
um, 72 at our house today.
But I'm sure it's January because three of us are home sick.
Another one of us is getting over his cold, but toughing it out at work.
The last one of us started this whole germ-fest by getting
strep and scarlet fever (!) last week.

So, yeah.  It's winter.

Life these days is a little more hurried than it's been in the past.
It's funny how going back to work even part time can rock your world
and add an extra level of crazy to life.

And life + a little more crazy is not necessarily a bad thing.
Some days are better than others.
Some days are work and migraines and a messy house and pizza for dinner.
But I'd rather not remember those days.
Here I just want to look back and remember the better days:

...like watching 1,295 soccer games this fall
{and missing front teeth that have already almost grown all the way in}

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...crazy, loud, wild, running-down-the-hall nights
{one day the house will be quiet.  and i'll hate it.}

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...a little girl's recital in a big church

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...Friday night dates with chips and salsa

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 ...a little fabric cutting for a little quilt making

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...kids that still want to dress up at Halloween

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...sunset show-offs in our little town

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...nerves of steel during jenga

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...brothers that aren't twins but look like they are

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...a naughty dog completely disregarding the house rules

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...rainbow looming all the live long day

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...the sun at our backs and the road ahead of us

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...moments without bickering or arguing

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...time with my favorite guy

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...special days with special people

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...taking it all in

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...remembering how happy the happiest place on earth feels

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...the mug my favorite girl made me that may cause eye trauma
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...that she's still little and has ponies taped to her wall instead of boy bands

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...the look on the boys' faces when they got their own red ryder bb guns

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...the looks of wonder that the Christmas tree inspires

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...that first batch of fudge of the season

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...peaceful mornings

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...getting a facial for the first time in years (HEAVEN)

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...day trips to tide pools

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...a beautiful morning of loving God and loving (and serving) others, as a family.

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...Christmas morning and Lucy's gift of bones, bones, bones

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...days of tired feet, achy backs, happy hearts

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Sorry for the overload,
but it's been a full few months.

Here's to a 2014 full of focusing on the happy days.


Friday, October 18, 2013

mommy guilt and other things i've been up to.

Hey there!
It just dawned on me that I used to have a blog.

Once upon a time I would take hundreds of pictures a day with my big-girl camera,
and post on my blog near daily
and keep a grand record of our days.

Now I'm doing good if I get the breakfast dishes put away by dinner time
and don't fall asleep on the couch by ten.
The crazy level has amped up quite a bit over here,
but all is well.

This is my first stop every morning.
My in-laws gave us the Keurig they've never used.
It makes me very happy.

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Life is crazy now,
but once soccer ends in a few weeks I know our lives will quiet down a little.
But I'm always sad when soccer ends.
Saturdays during soccer season are really my favorite.
Especially games with skies like this.
Isn't that the best soccer weather?

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A couple of weeks ago Gary and I had a Saturday when all three kids were at
a birthday party for the day.
Instead of our usual date at Home Depot to do house stuff
we hopped in the car and drove to the beach.

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It was just the two of us.
We stopped at several vintage pop-up shops that I'd had my eye on,
grabbed lattes together,
and sat on the beach watching the surfers.

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We still like each other.
It was a good Saturday.

Someone has been taking cooking class every Wednesday afternoon after school,
and someone thinks it's pretty much the best thing ever.

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I've realized that baths that don't require a hair-washing are my favorite.

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One of the realities of going back to work is that
I've been dealing with a fair amount of guilt lately.
I missed Avery's field trip to the pumpkin patch...
I'm not volunteering in the kids' classrooms like I used to...
Riley was home on his birthday but I had to work.
Mommy guilt is an evil thing.

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How did this guy turn twelve already?
If the mommy guilt wasn't making me emotional enough,
I looked through his baby pictures yesterday.

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Oh, time.
Why must you be so cruel?

But time is good, too.
Because this afternoon, after the busiest week I can remember,
we spent two hours at the park and they played.
They laughed and ran and I sat on the bench and watched
and felt no twinge of mommy guilt.

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It was a good day.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

balance.

So...turns out when you go and get yourself a jobby job a lot of things fall by the wayside.
Like your blog.
And dusting.

This summer will forever be etched in my memory as
"that summer when I went back to work and became a crazy person."
Or a craziER person, as the case may be.

I am trying to learn how to do it all:
be a wife and a mom and a teacher and a person who can manage to
get all three kids to soccer and music and still buy groceries and clean the house
and do the laundry and plan lessons and exercise and wash my face at night
and feed the animals and take my vitamins.

So far?
I'm not doing so great.
And did I mention that I've only been back to work for a little over a week?
Yeah.
This whole life/work balance thing is going to be tough.

So, if I'm not here much,
you can probably guess why.

I hope the kids remember this summer not as the one when mom
sure did let us watch a lot of tv so she could get work done,
but the one where we camped and ziplined and cheered for the Giants
and grew crazy inches taller
and swam and swam and swam.











Thanks, summer.
And the craziness begins....















Saturday, July 27, 2013

a tradition of dirt and s'mores.

There are so many things I want to remember about our vacations to Fallen Leaf Lake
when I'm 80 years old and sitting on my front porch with Gary drinking tea
at three o'clock in the afternoon.

...the Suburban packed to the gills with not an inch to spare

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...the way the tent gets so crazy hot during the day and coldddddd at night

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...the kids making finger shadow puppets by lantern light in the tent

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...how camping coffee is so super delicious

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...how he was all smiles, even though he was on heavy duty antibiotics for a horrible ear infection

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...that they took the raft out on Lake Tahoe all by themselves

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...that little boys like dead, stinky crawdads

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...kids and dirt and forests go really well together

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...how much they love the campfire every night and how good the boys got at starting it themselves

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...that tin camping mugs from my grandpa are perfect

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...that little boys like live crawdads with enormous snapping claws

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...the view on the hike we take every year

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...the sound of the wind on fallen leaf lake

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...huge ice cream cones

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...sunsets over the lake

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...how the thinner air makes you sillier

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...camping hair

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...and freedom.

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I probably won't remember what a pain it is to pack for camping,
or how many days I spend doing laundry after we get home.
I'll just remember how the kids think it's the best vacation ever
and how spending every night with all five of us in one tent
pretty much makes me the happiest in the world.