Christmas 2012

Luke's first holiday concert. He's somewhere on the left and waved to me almost the entire time.  Adorable.

Cut to Christmas Eve.
Holy cow, Santa came early to Grandma's! They are trying hard to mask the fact that they are both sick. 

She threw up. IN CHURCH and was promptly changed into her pjs for present opening.

Trying to hide my anxiety of the long night that lays ahead. 

"I'm fine, really. Can I have some dessert. With extra whipped cream?"

We cracked up over this moment and I had to include it, the night was silly, all we could do was laugh as the kids continued to puke through the evening. 

"oh yeah, I'm totally going to throw this up. At 2am."

Easing our way into the morning. Note the roll of paper towels in the background. Presents and puke continued. 

Ellie made us ice cream sundaes for hours. Best gift ever. Let's not forget that she referred to the caramel as "brown jam".

The umbrellas cannot protect us from the shower of projectile you know what...sorry. It's true though.

"I'm just going to take a break okay. We'll open the rest later." Poor kid. Saddest Christmas ever. 

Didn't make it through her first viewing of The Last Unicorn.

Making her Lego horse stable with daddy. Second best gift ever.

"Is that it?"

Don't hesitate

I've been absent once again. It's getting old, I know. I have Christmas pictures to post and a day of sledding with friends to document. I also have a new job and we kind of have a new life all around. Things are good. It's not that they were bad before but the thing I realized was that once I put myself in the picture a little more, the picture became clear. I'm home with the kids more, I am more of a mom and a wife, and I still get to be a designer. I get to dress up and go to a corner window office three days a week, on a college campus, and then work from home the other days, in leggings and comfy oversized shirts. I have clients of my own, which due to some good connections and a healthy past, just kind of happened. I guess I should give myself credit for putting some good karma out into the world and having it come back to me. But to be honest it happened all rather quickly. For that I am grateful. And I am humbled beyond measure. 

I feel blessed and lucky and whole. I can forgive the wrong that was done, the things that people may have thought or assumed. That is theirs to figure out which has taken me some time to realize. 

I'll be home for those school vacations, I was home for the stomach bug and an ear infection with no worries about what I should be doing or if I was doing enough. I am home when their days are done, and I will be there in a lawn chair at little league practice come spring. It's weird how you have this little dream that you think is just a dream and then poof there you are smack dab living in it. Did I pay my dues and I am now reaping my reward? 

Whatever it is, it is good and I fear jinxing anything so with that I will bid you adieu. Dream big, let go of fear and forgive whatever was in the past that is holding you back. Life is too short for anything less. 

Image

So much changes, yet so much stays the same

I saw him standing there. Mesmerized by a new movie on the television and it brought me back to this moment. The same stance, the hand in the pocket yet so much taller and leaner. So much older. For a second it felt as if no time had passed and then when I looked back I gasped at how grown up this little guy is.

Pining for pins

I've been a pinning fool lately and here's what I am figuring out by all of this online eye candy:

I love inspirational quotes. Especially when they are all designery with cool fonts and handwriting details. Ones that speak of trust, truth, and living an authentic life are the ones that get me. Every dang time, they get me. I'm working through being disappointed in people's opinions of me and what I know for sure is that it is their thing, not mine. Honestly it is all just air (a term I have adopted from a lovely, dear, sweet bestie). It is nothing that can be grasped or that is tangible, it just floats out there, up in the invisible air, and therefore it is not something I need waste my time on. But I like things to be smooth and for everyone to get along, however I am learning as I go that in this case, it is not my job to clear the air. So I pin things like this and this and I move on knowing the truth.

I love gold jewelry. This is a random happenstance, but after years of being pro-silver I have now decided that gold is luxurious, old fashioned, graceful, and mature. I will never tire of my silver, ahem, white gold, wedding rings but I wonder what they would look like if the diamonds were encased in some beautifully old antique gold setting. So I wear my grandmother's heart pendant and cheap gold Target earrings and I call it a day.

I'd like our sad looking backyard to be a playground of gardens, slides, BOATS and swings. Someday.

Basically I am liking what I like. Pinning whatever appeals to me without thinking, hmmm, what will they think of me if I repin this or that? Who cares? I once told someone I didn't like cheese because they didn't like it. Who does that? Let's not be afraid of being who we are. Let's be authentic and honest just like those quotes we pin.

Let There be Peace on Earth

We weren't sure if we should talk to Luke about what happened last Friday in Newtown, CT. We thought he was too young. We kept the tv off, we didn't talk about it in front of him. And in the end, before we had a chance, before he even went back to school, he found out about it. We didn't know until a few hours after he had heard the news, sitting in his pjs in the recliner with John. He told him about how some guy shot a teacher, the kids in the classroom and then shot himself. We talked about it in simple terms. We told him school was safe (are we lying by saying that? Is school safe?) and he told us that he wasn't scared he was just really sad. He thought his friend wasn't telling him the truth, he thought it was just a fake story.

I wish to God it was just a fake story.

I am ashamed and sad that he didn't hear about it from us first. We can't live in a bubble but how much do you share?

None of it makes sense. But I do know that my faith in humanity was restored this morning at church. I was holding Ellie on my lap, she was whispering "I love you" in my ear and the congregation sang Let There Peace on Earth. Please, let there be peace on earth.

Still Too Little Woman

I have this little dream that one day in the near future, when the kids are about 10 and 11 that Luke and John will go off on a guy's weekend to do things that men do like eat fast food and play video games or whatever. While they are off doing that Ellie and I will get manicures and pedicures, have some kind of nice lunch that does not involve the words Panera or mac and cheese. We'll go shopping and then in the evening we'll watch some of my favorite movies like Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, How to Make an American Quilt, and maybe Now and Then.  (Funny how Winona Ryder has fallen from her glory days, huh?!)

So we were at the library this weekend and there was Little Women. Just sitting there on the shelf, as a faded VHS tape nonetheless. It begged for me to pick it up. So I did and we checked it out. I asked Ellie if she wanted to watch it with me today. "I don't like that movie. No thanks." Humpf. Okay. I showed her a youtube clip of it and no dice.

As we were cleaning up from dinner tonight Luke says, "hey mama, guess you're gonna have to watch that Little Women movie all alone. So sorry."

He went as far as to say it with cheer in his voice and real sarcasm. All I could do was laugh.

"Want to Play Hair Salon?"

They turn my head and sweetly say, "look down, okay?" " Turn your head this way sweety." "You like it? Your hair is so shiny, you want for me to brush and cone it?" And then she cones (how adorable is that?) right over my ear and says, "oops, sorry mommy. I hurt you? So sorry. You look beautiful. Let me just brush a little more, okay?" 

"Thanks for coming to my hair salon. You just have to cost me now. That will be Seven Dollars."