Things to Remember

Much guilt comes from neglecting my blog. Over the past few months there have been several things that I've wanted to remember. Things I just hope never to forget. That's one of my favorite things about my blog. I love looking back at the posts and remembering specific moments that I may have otherwise not remembered.

So here are just a few things of late that I hope never to forget.

• Cookbooks. I'm not sure what started it, but there was a time this past fall when all our kids wanted to read together were cookbooks. I would get down all the cookbooks from the shelf and they would pile on to the couch and talk about which recipes looked the best, and drool all over the pictures. 

• Swimming. This was such a part of my life for so long, and I just love that Emily is enjoying it right now. I totally realize that she could change her mind about this sport in exchange for any number of activities, but right now I'm relishing in watching her swim. She's also found that she likes a bit of competition... something that Scott and I didn't see before. 

• Differences. I think this pretty much sums up the differences between the twins. This is a picture from a birthday party the twins went to. Both Eli and Elsie were totally excited to select a present for their friend Lyles, and to go to the party. When we got there, they had an awesome puppet show all set up. Before it started, all the kids sat down in front in little rows. You can see Elsie right there in the middle of it all. But where's Eli? Well, he's behind the sofa yelling "I hate puppets! Puppets are evil!" So while the entire show went on, and Elsie danced and sang and had a grand time, poor Eli was still behind the sofa, silently cursing the puppets. 
• Skirts. I know this will pass, and when it does I have to admit that I won't be sad. Right now Elsie is in a phase where she wants to wear skirts ALL THE TIME. With the weather getting colder, this is a constant battle. Every day we have to explain why she needs pants, and I'm not going to lie, there is often tears and screaming. Then, as soon as we get home from school and work, Elsie goes straight upstairs and puts on her skirt, pulling everything out of her drawers until she has the perfect outfit. And that's not all. She also has an obsession with shoes. (I think she gets this from her Grammy) This is illustrated nicely in the conversation that happened before bed just a couple nights ago:
• Eli: I really like God
• Me: What is it that you like about him?
• Eli: He makes all sorts of vegetables. So if you don't like broccoli, you can eat carrots, or all sorts of other things. He made SO many yummy vegetables
• Emily: You know what I like about God? He made all different kinds of people. None of them look alike. I like that He did that. 
• Elsie: My turn! I like God too... He made all different types of shoes!  *oh boy are we in for it!*
• We've found a new favorite toy. And just when you think the "magic" has died off, somebody comes up with an even more awesome way to play with it!  THE STOMP ROCKET!

Maybe I can find a way to update every season. Maybe that will be doable. We'll see. 

Summer

Events from the first week of summer:

• Monday- Scott flew out at 5 a.m. for a research trip to the Oregon coast. It rained most of the day, so in desperation, I took the kids to McDonalds with a friend, and we let our kids play for over two hours in the PlayPlace. I'm hoping the good exercise makes up for the antibiotic injected chicken nuggets. (Eww... that looks even worse written than it sounds). We had an evening play date with neighbors, and the kids made their own pizzas for dinner.
• Tuesday- More rain. And I mean RAIN. So we went to the special summer $1 movie theater. Emily and I weren't sure how the twins would do (this was their first movie-going experience) so we were prepared to have to get up in the middle and leave if need be, but everybody was great. They loved the experience. Looks like the $1 movie theater may be a summer staple!
• Wednesday- More rain. Seriously the weather temp was great (low 80's) but the rain HAD to stop! We played inside most of the day. I'm now an expert on how to build a "traffic jam" with hotwheels. :) We read many books, and are now almost down with the BFG, which Eli especially seems to like. This is the first chapter book I've read with the twins, and I can't wait to read another. Eli loves it, and begs me to read more. Elsie... well, Elsie sort of listens from afar. And that's fine with me.

**Wednesday evening was super special because after the kids went to bed, I had some great girlfriends over for wine. And what made this even more awesome was that I spent all day Wednesday in contact with my sister and mom as my sister was in labor! Her sweet baby Camille was born at 7:21 p.m. (10:21 my time) while I was surrounded by my friends. This worked out well because I was aching to be with my sister, but my friends celebrating with me was special. More on this later, too!

• Thursday- Picnic at the Harbison Duck Pond. I will post pictures later. Yes, we did play on the toys and it was great. But what was absolutely amazing was the nature walks we took. Turtles, ducks with ducklings, woodpeckers, swans, herrings... more on this to come.
• Friday- Its finally warmed up today (88- and no, I'm not complaining. June has proven to be amazing so far!) and so we're off to the pool this morning. The plan is to get there at 10 and not return home until we have eaten lunch and swam till we dropped right before nap time.

Its been a great week! I'm constantly looking for new summer activities to experience together, but we like to just hang at home some too. I'm loving the time with the kids, though this mommy really is missing the daddy. He will be home Monday. Summer will only get better!

Happy Mother's Day!

So, I've spent about an hour trying to pick the very best template for our blog with the updated blogger format. I finally got it all taken care of, when I went to a friends blog and noticed that she had the exact same template, and now mine was just a replica of an already cool blog that I now copied. Ugh. So, sorry Jill, but my blog is going to copy yours for the time being because I just can't stand the thought of formatting any more tonight!

I started thinking about his very thing a little more. Moms spend a lot of time making sure they give their kids "the very best" even if its just a family blog with "the very best" template background. I recently read an amazing article about the pressure today's mom puts on herself by looking through various magazines, Pinterest, and Facebook. The temptation to compare is severe, and the outcome almost always leaves me feeling unworthy.

Last March, for Emily's birthday, she asked me if I would make her red velvet cupcakes. Now I've never made red velvet anything. Is it a southern thing? Because I don't remember eating them growing up either. Regardless, I set out to my favorite Publix determined to make "the very best red velvet cupcakes" ever. No mind that I hadn't made them before. No box cake mix for me, no sir! I would make only the best for my sweet Emily! I was armed with my iPhone and a list of ingredients that Paula Dean assured me would leave those first graders amazed. It was if somehow the most important thing in life was to be deemed Cupcake Goddess by a class of seven year olds.

I came home and baked, frosted, and sprinkled until I had what I thought was the very best cupcake ever. The batter had baked up creating the perfect "cupcake top." I had mixed up a batch of my homemade frosting, and piped it on with my special frosting tip. I had matched the sprinkles to the cupcake paper perfectly. These were some dynamite cupcakes if I do say so myself!

Scott had eaten one, and had deemed them a success. I anxiously waited for Em to get out of the shower to come downstairs and marvel at the cupcakes. When she finally made her way downstairs, she gasped. "Oh mommy! Those are fabulous! I bet they taste even better! I can't wait to bring them to school mommy! Oh thank you! I bet these are going to be the best happy birthday cupcakes we've ever had in our class!"

Then she walked away, and I beamed. Success!

But wait....

She got half-way up the stairs, and turned around and came back down. She bursted by over-sized cupcake bubble with this,

"Well mommy. Did I ever tell you about the cupcakes Anne's* mom made for our class? Because they were really pretty too. And they tasted so good! I bet your cupcakes will taste just as good as the cupcakes Anne's mommy made"

I thought to myself, "Okay, I can handle coming in with a tie to Anne's mommy. That's not so bad, right"

But then Emily let the final blow fly when she said, "But the thing about Anne's mommy... she waited for our entire class to eat them..." (she said this with extreme enthusiasm) "... and when we were all done and there was frosting over all our faces and we were saying how good they were, Anne's mommy waited for us to be completely totally done eating. And then Anne's mommy told us that there was actually zucchini and tomato juice in those cupcakes! Can you believe it mom? Anne's mommy made cupcakes that were pretty, they tasted so good, AND they had an entire serving of vegetables! That's amazing, huh mom?"

With that, my sweet Emily walked back up the stairs to brush her teeth. I looked over at Scott who was pretending to read the newspaper to conceal his wide eyes and sheepish grin.

And then I burst out laughing. Right then and there my life had turned in to a sit-com. I had the power to turn the ending in to a sobbing emotional wreck of a mommy moment (think Debra from Everybody Loves Raymond) or I could turn it into a Hallmark Hall of Fame moment where I realized that my love to my daughter doesn't exist through the perfection of red velvet cupcakes. (Cue cheesy music here.)

The entire thing was rather hysterical.

Now, on Mother's Day, I look back on this and pray that somehow I will find and maintain that balance between wanting to do and be all that I can for my sweet Emily, Elsie, and Eli, but also catch myself from comparing to others. There are many things I will never learn to do. But I have to constantly remind myself that my kids don't care so much about things I do, create, make, or achieve as much as they care about me loving them. And as long as they know how much I love them, it doesn't matter if my cupcakes don't have vegetables in them!

*I changed Emmy's friend's name :)

Happy Third Birthday Eli and Elsie!

We had a little backyard birthday party for Eli and Elsie yesterday. Our friends and neighbors joined us. When we were planning for this event, we went to the party store to buy some themed plates and napkins, just for the cake table. Eli chose Hotwheels and Elsie chose Tinker Bell. I thought I could get away with buying an extra-large hot wheel and have a "Tinker Bell riding in a Hotwheel" cake. But alas, that didn't happen. I ended up making two cakes: One yellow with chocolate frosting with a hot wheel for the Eli, and a strawberry with strawberry cake with Tinker Bell for Miss Pink.

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One of my favorite parts of the day was when Eli got to give Elsie a gift he'd picked out for her. Elsie has this doll house that she loves, but she is always trying to find a "friend" for the doll house "purple mommy." Which means she tries to use a Barbie doll to be friends with the much smaller doll house "purple mommy", and all is well until she puts them in the doll house mini-van. Barbie won't fit, the purple mommy always cries and end up going to the grocery store alone, without her friend. It always ends with tears. So... Eli and I went to pick out a gift for Elsie, and he found a new mommy to be friends with the doll house mommy. And to make it even better, she comes with a pony that she can ride. Elsie was elated when she opened it, and the only way to describe Eli's face was "proud." It was awesome to see him filled with joy upon giving his sister a gift. Of course Elsie had a gift for Eli too, which was a car with flashing lights. No surprise here: Eli loved it.

Updated Stuff

I've got to be better about updating my blog. I guess the first thing to do would be to take Tim's suggestion and add some recent pictures. This is Miss Elsie. Her hair keeps growing, and I figure as long as I can run a brush through it and keep it braided and tied back, we'll keep letting it grow. I can't imagine cutting off those little curls from the bottom.

THis was taken by the neighborhood pool. I love this picture. It captures so much of Eli's personality.

My grandmother sent a card to each of the twins. Again, I love how this captures their sweet personality. They couldn't wait to see what was inside, and when "paper money" fell out of the card, they both squealed! Emily has taught them how far a dollar can go at the dollar store!

I ran my first half-marathon a couple weeks ago. I think I will do it again. Having my sweet husband with the kids cheering me on at the finish line was one of the best things ever. Totally worth another 13.1 to experience their excitement for me when I finished.

This one is of Miss Em this past Sunday at the AWANA awards banquet. Notice the two missing teeth. The top two are both wiggly. Its pretty cute to see her toothless grin!

Happy Birthday Elsie and Eli

Time is a funny thing. I remember those ten days that we spend shuffling back and forth from the hospital, trying to make it to as many feedings as possible. I thought we'd never get them home. Ten days seems like nothing now, but to a mom waiting in anticipation to bring those sweet babies home, ten days seems like an eternity! I remember sitting in those hospital recliners in the NICU, napping, nursing, and cooing with my babies. Those days seemed to last forever. And they were wonderful. Not as wonderful as bringing them home though.

And now three years has gone by, seemingly faster than those first ten. How is it possible? Those sweet fragile things are now the most rough and tumble pair I know! And that big sister squeezing them tight? How did she grow in to this loving older child? I remember her walking through the grocery store with me and the twins, people would often walk by and comment on our babies, or as Emily would say, "her babies." But as time went on, if we were in the store and Em thought somebody wasn't paying enough attention to"her babies" she would say a little too loudly, "Hey Mom. Don't you think its great that God gave us two babies? That makes us really special." Then the moment she made eye contact with anybody she would say, "Did you see our babies? We have two! And they're really beautiful!"

These two have been different from the start. Today, Elsie is our comedian. She loves to make those around her laugh. She loves silly faces and sounds. Once she's found out how to make somebody smile, the game is on! Elsie is a very happy girl. She wakes up that way in the morning and goes to sleep that way in the evening. She will go to anybody who looks like "fun" and fears nothing. She's also independent. Emily has had to learn that sometimes Elsie just wants to do things her way, with no help. I see much of myself in her in this way. Elsie is great with a pencil and pen. She loves to write, draw and color. She draws small squiggles on the page and likes to point to them and tell me what they say. When she's "reading" me her writing, her words are just jibber-jabber while her hands are moving all around. Its as if she thinks talking fast will make her sound important. Of course, all with a huge grin on her face.

Eli is our compassionate snuggler. He often will ask to come sit on our laps and snuggle with us. He especially likes to snuggle with Daddy and watch cartoons. He's reserved... certainly not a risk-taker. He refuses to jump on the trampoline or in bounce houses. Its as if he possesses some sort of knowledge about danger that the rest of us can't understand. He's safe, but certainly not reserved. He runs around outdoors like a typical boy... enjoying being potty trained and urinated on a tree if it happens that he should have to go potty while we're in the backyard. That's a highlight of his day. Eli will come up with phrases that he hears and use them in the most perfect context. The other day he was trying to catch the end of a jump rope while Elsie ran with the other end in her hand. Out of nowhere he shouts out, "I don't think I'll ever be able to catch that fast girl!" Which of course wasn't the case. When shortly after he did catch her, he jumped up and down and yelled, "I am the champion!" Hysterical.

Somebody told me once that the older one gets, each passing year is a smaller percentage of total life. How true that is. I can't imagine what it will feel like to have our three out of the house in college and starting their own careers. I can't imagine how quickly the time will pass when they will grow up. How precious life is with them. Three years ago I had no idea how sweet and blessed our lives would become. I couldn't have imagined how these sweet babies would grow to change the way I see the world. How amazing it is to be their mom.

My Simple Family

Our family was fortunate enough to have today off from work and school. We were looking forward to this day to run some much needed errands. We loaded up the car and started down our long list. After four stops, we had some lunch out as a family. Everybody had a great time. We continued on with our errands, ending with the final stop as the twins nodded off in their car seats. I ran in to make a quick exchange, and came out to find all three kids asleep.

Scott and drove home with all three of our sweeties snoozing behind us. We pulled in the driveway and both agreed to do the 'ole, "Who can get the baby in the house without waking him/her" routine. You know this one... where you unbuckle and gently pull the sleeping kid out from the seat without startling him/her, then walk up the stairs, careful to skip over the squeaky one two from the top, and finally put the sleeping child in their bed... and he/she continues to sleep??

Luckily all three kids (Yes, Emily has been known to nap every day on the weekend) stayed asleep, and Scott and I were left with some quiet time to read (or blog).

I realize that in a few years our weekends will likely be more lively with the kids activities. And I also realize that a few years after that our kids will be busy with their own things without us. So today was special, in that it really wasn't. We were just a mini-van full of a family running errands and grabbing a bite on Harbison Blvd. just like many other families around us. But I'm so thankful we were together... having fun doing nothing really.

When our kids grow up and are out of the house, I think it will be these days I will miss the most. I actually like packing the diaper bag, using high chairs at restaurants, and pulling out the stroller at every stop. I like that Emily entertains the twins, and that they giggle at her while I help Scott pick out a new pair of pants for work. Simple things.