Creature Bug

Bullet Points

What's the story morning glory?

What's the word hummingbird?

How about some bullet points for this Sunday evening?

• I do not know why I can't get back into the swing of blogging. My mind seems to be filled to the brim with all the stuff I need to get done, and complete sentences are hard to come by.
• Sydney started piano lessons a week ago. She's been wanting to do piano for awhile now--she plays a lot of songs by ear, and I've given her some basics since I took six+ years myself--so we finally coordinated with the music teacher at her school for lessons. So far the novelty of practicing hasn't worn off. She would practice six hours a day if we let her. I'm happy about it. She doesn't know that starting lessons means I'm not letting her give it up for a few years, unlike some of her other extra-curricular activities.
• I started classes a couple weeks ago. Some people might get tired of teaching the same stuff over and over again--this is my seventh year teaching speech--but I enjoy it a great deal. I like change in my house, change in my wardrobe, change in my foods. I do not like a lot of change in my teaching content other than updating some methods and exercises.
• We are back to weekly visits with the naturopath for Jules. We had taken a break for the last couple months, but needed to get back to some treatments. Even though I love the place we go, the 45 minute drive makes Jules so fussy. Perhaps it's time to see if we can find someone a little closer...
• We had some snow last week, so Sydney's school was cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday. Then after the snow, the weather warmed up and it rained. And rained. And rained. We were fortunate to escape any local damage since we were smack-dab in the geographical middle of two serious weather issues. Up north was snow and ice. Down south was flooding. It was ugly.
• Any day now the Family Farm is getting a new cousin! We are all very excited to meet her, and it's a bit crazy to think about there being TEN Family Farm cousins hanging out around here. Eight kids under the age of nine? Five kids under the age of five? Oh boy, oh boy. Or, rather, since most of those kids are girls, oh girl, oh girl.
• And that's all I got. See? My brain is definitely NOT getting enough sleep.

 

Mountain climbing the new year

I love new beginnings. New day. New week. New month. New school year. New season. I just love that feeling of starting over, however small. The feeling of anything is possible. But a new year? Especially this new year that was a new day, a new week, a new month, and (for me) a new school semester all wrapped up in ONE DAY? It's like the Mt. Everest of new beginnings. There are your backyard-variety hills of beginnings, and there is the oxygen-depriving hallucination-inducing mountains of beginnings.

That's where I am.

I am at the top of this huge mountain looking out over 366 days just waiting for me. Maybe I could really climb Mt. Everest.

(No. Not really. Would not even make it on the top 5000 things to do before I die list. It's freaking cold at Mt. Everest. I hate cold.)

But you know what I am going to do this year? I'm going to run a marathon. I am. I'm telling you. And I told Jason. He got me running stuff for Christmas (I do actually own a fair amount of running stuff since I have, in fact, been a runner before). And now I have nine months to get myself ready for the Portland Marathon. I have no doubt that I can do it. I just have to make sure that my knees hold up, and--according to my athlete brother who is training for the Boston Marathon--my hips (like his hips) are prone to injury. Adding to his words of encouragement, Jake said, "And you've had three babies, so who knows what your hips will do to you."

I told my hips this morning to watch out because three babies or not, they are going to get in marathon running shape.

I have big dreams for the year, although I just did small things today. What is it about a new year that makes you want to go out and do something? Get outside. Organize the junk drawer. Meticulously apply lemon juice to all your wood cutting boards and wood countertops to kill all those pesky 2011 germs.

I know some folks might think that there's nothing special about starting a new year. That it's just another day, following yesterday, and will almost certainly be followed by another day. Zip a dee doo dah.

But I think starting a new year is amazing. It's not just buying a new calendar. It's buying into the psychology of starting over. When else do you get the chance to wake up and say, "Today I'll start something new. I'll do something new. I will CLIMB MT. EVEREST" and have the whole world behind you cheering you on to accomplish your goals? Yes, indeed. I like the new year. It brings out the optimism in me.

So 2012.

Things to look forward to this year:

• Going to Scotland. We bought the tickets. Jason and I are going, and the children are not going. My sister and I text almost every day about it. Spring break. SO EXCITED.
• Completing a marathon. Even if I have to walk part of it. I have no time goals.
• Getting new flooring throughout the whole house.
• Reading more. I have long-term borrowed my mom's Kindle DX (she doesn't use it), and already I'm reading more. I was not going to love a Kindle. But it turns out I do love it. Sydney loves it too. We have to share it.
• Finishing up photo books for a few years that I'm still missing.
• Planting a garden in the raised garden beds that Jason built me last fall.
• Taking another family trip to San Francisco and Reno.
• Celebrating 15 years of marriage. (yes, by going to Scotland. awesome.)

I have some personal resolutions in mind too--beyond the resolution of running--and those I will share later this week.

For now, I just want to enjoy my moment on top of the year. The view is spectacular.

Stuck Together in 2011

Even though I didn't manage to chronicle 2011 very well in written form, it still happened all the same. (Proving that if a tree falls in the forest and no one writes about it, it still happens.)

We got to travel. I went with bff Megan to Hawaii. We took a family vacation to San Francisco and Reno.

We got to work. Jason continued with his job of teaching eighth graders history and English, and we were amazed and thankful every single day for his job. I kept teaching public speaking classes to college students who made me laugh and forgave my serious lack of punctuality in grading papers.

We got to permanently unpack. We decided not to build a house, staying instead in my grandparents' old house for the long term. New paint inside and out. New landscape showing our personality.

We got to learn. Sydney in second grade, Jules in pre-school. Addie learned to scoot, and then walk, and happily eats whatever we put in front of her with all 16 of her shiny new teeth. We learned about gluten-free diets and dairy-free diets, and homeopathic remedies. We learned about childhood emotional issues and how our family needed to adjust to our kids' unique personalities.

We had our hearts broken. Uncle Don passed away in March.

We had our hearts filled. I got to witness the birth of Megan's son Cedar. 

We had our family. We met together every month (and sometimes more) for Soup Night, even lucky enough to have honorary Soup Night members visit from Scotland and Idaho. Jason's mom was a constant fixture at our house as she helped take care of the girls on the afternoons Jason and I worked. Jason's brother and sis-in-law visited from Rhode Island, and we met their daughter for the very first time.

We had the mercies of God who strengthened our faith, gave us wisdom and patience, and never ceased to take care of us in a million different ways.

There are no perfect years because life is not perfect. But it was the year God gave us, and I know we did not waste it. We stuck it out, stuck together, dug our heels in and made the most of it.

We will continue to travel, to work, to learn, to have our hearts broken and filled again. We will have our family, and as 2011 trades places with 2012 we have the promises of mercy and grace and a new morning that starts fresh with no mistakes.

As is my tradition, here's my end-of-the-year wrap up video, giving you our 2011 in 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

{This year's anthem--which you may have seen the girls and I singing in the car? "Stuck on You" by Sugarland.}

{And here's 2010, 2009 and 2008.}

Happy New Year, friends!

7 Quick Takes Friday: Christmas Highlights (vol. 15)

A few (but by no means all!) of the highlights from the Christmas season...also, I'm not being quick at all about it. It's what comes of trying to cram a month of blog posts into one post.

: 1 : Christmas Tree Hunting :

I wonder sometimes how my kids will remember the tradition of getting our Christmas tree. There is always mud. There is sometimes rain. And because I absolutely don't want to just pick the first tree I see--even if I do, in fact, love the first tree I see--there is tromping around the Christmas tree farm promising the girls that at the end of the trip there will be hot chocolate and candy canes.

Remarkably, this grumpy face was just for show. She was all about getting the tree. Holiday spirits were high.

The big sister, however, was less than happy about Christmas tree hunting. First off, she stepped into a big muck of mud (see above boots) and when she tried to pull her boot out, she pulled her foot out instead and ended up with a sock full of mud.

I laugh as I type. I laughed then too. Much to Sydney's great indignation.

Jason remarked on Syd's grumpiness. I reminded him that Sydney hates getting the Christmas tree. Every year she's miserable. It's a tradition that I cease to fret about.

: 2 : Portland Zoo Lights :

The Portland Zoo has the best zoo lights! We were lucky enough to go twice this year, once with Jason's parents and once with our dear friends.

We were totally prepared this year with warm clothes and mittens and strollers and snacks and jammies for the girls to change into after we saw the lights so they could fall asleep in the car on the way home and life was merry and bright. We drank hot chocolate, rode the Christmas train, hugged the costumed polar bear and loved it all.

I have the cutest video of Jules narrating part of the Christmas tree lights, and I'll try to get it posted tomorrow.

: 3 : Dry weather :

We had so many nice, cold days. I wished it would have snowed, but at least we didn't have much rain.

(You didn't expect me to write about the month without getting in some weather related news, did you?)

: 4 : The Nutcracker :

Sydney's performances were the first week in December this year, which made for a less stressful month since that freed up the rest of our weekends.

She was a Peppermint and a Mouse, and all the girl cousins from the Family Farm saw Sydney perform and gave her performance gifts. So sweet!

After five performances and two dress rehearsals we thought she'd be all Nutcrackered out. But, no. We continued to listen to the music from the show all through December, and she was still excited to go with Grandma Sharon to see the Oregon Ballet Theatre's performance of The Nutcracker, which is, of course, quite a few steps above her own school's performance (which was still wonderful in it's own way).

: 5 : Family :

We did Christmas Eve Eve with my family, Christmas Eve with Jason's family in Eugene, and then Christmas Day with our own family, our church family, and Jason's parents. I am so thankful for our families! They bring me so much joy.

Addie and Grandma-Great were quite tickled with each other.

: 6 : Birthday Girl :

I know, I already wrote about her birthday. But it's still Christmas fun to have a birthday thrown in the mix. We do extra baking, extra wrapping, extra singing, and extra dancing. It's a birthday/Christmas extravaganza. Jules picked a 50's themed diner for her birthday meal, and got treated to an ice cream sundae surrounded by pictures of Elvis and Shirley Temple and Lucille Ball.

: 7 : Togetherness :

I love Christmas. I love that a school deadline forces me to have my grades in so that I don't have any work hanging over my head (too bad Jason can't say the same--he went in to school three times this week). I love the baking, the carols, the movies, the hot drinks, the pictures and more pictures, and going to church and thinking about this amazing thing of God becoming a little baby.

I loved watching my girls try to figure out what their presents were (yes, we had all their presents wrapped and under the tree a week before Christmas, and THEY LEFT THEM ALONE). Loved that my brother came down from Seattle for a long visit. Loved that I have an international texting app, so I got to text my sister in Scotland. Loved that Jason and I had--for the first time ever!--all three girls staying overnight with Grandparents, so we got to go see Sherlock Holmes.

We were together, and it was just everything I wanted it to be.

Tomorrow is the last day of the year, and I still need to get my end-of-the-year-video done. Better get to it.

Check out Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes.

She's Five and She's Fabulous

{Okay, so I've been absent from writing much in the past, oh, two months. I really haven't even been on the computer that much either. I know! It's crazy. But I'm getting back in the swing of it, so here we go.}

Jason and I were commenting on the fact that Jules has always seemed older than she really is. Or, at least, maybe we expect more of her because she's taller and has always done things a little bit earlier than we thought she would. Walking at nine months, talking at ten months, even now measuring a full two inches taller than Sydney was when she turned five. Forty-five and a half inches of sugar and spice.

Of course, the tricky thing, she was still just two, or three, or four. Not four or five or six.

But now she's five.

And it feels like her little world and our perception of her world have finally synced up.

It hasn't been an easy year. She struggled, and we struggled along with her. We took out gluten, took out dairy, took out red dye #40. We switched bedtime around so that she doesn't share it with her sister, and even though she and Sydney share a bed, Syd goes to sleep in our bed until we move her when Jules falls asleep. We talked with her Sunday school teachers at church, and they stopped doing pretzels and goldfish for snacks. Carrots and celery and raisins for everyone.

She saw a naturopath twice a week for a month, then once a week, then twice a month, and now we haven't seen him for a couple months. She was on two homeopathic remedies and fish oil and extra vitamins. We got her down to one homeopathic and fish oil. And now she's just doing fish oil and chamomile drops.

We saw her temper tantrums decrease in their intensity and frequency, and all our hard work paid off bit by bit.

We've slowly introduced a small amount of gluten and some dairy back into her diet, but we still keep the red dye out, and limit her sugar intake (more than normal) since that's all she would eat if it were up to her. I don't think our parenting style has changed too much, although I know I'm more sympathetic to her mood swings because I feel like there's something genetic going on. I feel like if we were totally gluten and dairy free it would help even more. But since the rest of us are whole wheat loving people, it's hard for Jules to consistently eat all her own food. It causes it's own set of issues.

It's been hard. We've cried a lot. We haven't always been patient.

Yet, slowly but surely she has been making progress. The whole month of November was amazing. She was calm, she was controlled. We had very few meltdowns. December has been harder because everywhere she goes someone is giving her a candy cane or sugar cookies or some other delicious cookie treat. Plus, she's on Christmas vacation so she's spending more time around Addie which makes her a little bit tricky. She loves Addie. She loves to hold Addie...even when Addie would rather not be held.

I think we've got her on a good program, and I know it's just something we'll have to stick to for awhile or maybe forever. She's smart enough to know that we're trying, and we've seen enough of her good moments to know that she's trying too.

And now she's five.

We celebrated with a Snowman Brrrrrthday Party last week. All the Family Farm cousins came.

Jules decorated her snowman cake, and it was full of wheat, dairy, sugar and red dye. And that's how it goes sometimes.

My favorite part? Jules spelled out her name in pretzel bits at the top. Jules favorite part? The Starburst candy I shaped into buttons (and a nose).

We had soup, watched a slide show about the day Jules was born, sang, ate birthday cake, and recognized this amazing little person whose emotions--the ups and downs--overflow onto all those who know her.

We love this girl, and are so thankful God gave her to us.

Merry Christmas!

Dear friends, the presents are wrapped and under the tree, two Christmas gatherings have already been had, and many many Christmas cookies have mysteriously disappeared. Children are sleeping. An interesting book is waiting for me on the Kindle. Hot tea is cooling in my favorite mug.

The joy of Christmas is here.

Merry Christmas, friends!

Photos and Visits and Medals

Hmm...where were we? I was posting everyday, and then November came along and I vanished into the dark and rainy November night. Some might call that fair-weather blogging, except that I don't blog that consistently even in fair weather. So. My blogging habits are mysterious.

Well, I was sick for awhile. Laryngitis followed, naturally, because when I get sick I don't manage to get the rest that I need, and of course I keep teaching and then before I know it, my voice has up and abandoned me. I kept teaching though because I'm woefully behind in the syllabus, and cancelling classes wouldn't help that out.

I've also been busy doing my freelance picture card work, and for the first time in a few years I've gotten something of a holiday rush. In other words, my clients are sending out holiday letters and they want a photo card to go with it. This is good news for me, but not good news for getting to bed at a reasonable hour.

And then MyPublisher (whom I generally use for all my photo album publishing needs) had a fantastic deal on photo books (alas, the deal expired last Tuesday, so now I'll need to wait to order more books) so I was scrambling to put the finishing touches on Addie's Alphabet/Color/Number books so I could order them. They haven't arrived yet, but probably next week sometime.

A peek at some of the pages:

Here's a link to the entire alphabet book. (You should click just to see the cover of this one. Such a serious face from a normally smiley baby!) 

And here's the link to the whole colors and numbers book.

I do love photo books. They make me so happy. I only wish I was better at getting them done in a timely manner (I have yet to even start putting 2011 together).

*

We have a big week coming up for Jason's side of the family: his brother and sis-in-law and their daughter are coming out here for a whole week. We are VERY excited because we've never met baby Anastasia, who was born last December. And the girls haven't seen Uncle Nathan and Aunt Carolyn since we vacationed with them at DisneyWorld more than two years ago. They live in Rhode Island, and so it's hard to get together.

But they're coming!

And they'll be here for Thanksgiving!

Since this is their first Portland visit as parents, then we are doing lots of kid-friendly things: OMSI, Zoo Lights (opens for members only the night before Thanksgiving), Spaghetti Factory (love loud restaurants that serve food kids will eat) and plenty of time wandering the Family Farm (although they are staying with Jason's parents since our house isn't quite as accommodating for lengthy overnight visits). Good times.

*

I meant to post something yesterday for Veteran's Day, but time ran away from me. Nevertheless, I still wanted to post a picture that my mom sent along to me.

She's been working on identifying all my grandpa's medals that he received while he was in the Army, and it's been no small task. She got it all put together, and made up this chart, which she laminated and gave to us.

Each of these medals tells a story, and someday I'm determined to write that story. The story of a soldier who travelled the world and served in two wars. The story of soldier who loved his wife and four kids, and went on to become an amazing grandpa and great-grandpa. That's a story I want to tell from the bottom of my very grateful heart.

*

Have a lovely weekend!

Trick or Treats

: TRICK :

I had to take Sydney to the doctor this morning to have a swollen lymph node checked out. I wouldn't have thought anything of it if both lymph nodes were swollen, but just one?

Seemed odd.

Our pediatrician gave Syd a thorough check-up, and then started asking Sydney about cats.

Do you play with cats? Any kittens at your home? Has a cat scratched you in the past 1-2 months?

I may be sleep deprived, but I guessed that the swollen nymph node probably had something to do with cats. We don't have cats, but there are cats here on the Family Farm. A couple months ago, Tuffy scratched Syd. Nothing serious, but it was a legitimate scratch.

Dr. Pediatrician finally said, "What I suspect is Bartonella henselae. Also known as cat scratch fever. It won't usually show up for awhile, and most likely it will go away on its own."

Cat scratch fever? Have you ever heard of this?

Seems like a made up disease, but evidently it's not. And it turns out that Sydney has several of the symptoms: headache, fatigue, sore throat (but she doesn't have strep; she was tested).

Craziness.

: TREATS :

Miss Penguin and Miss Rapunzel were in the house.

We wandered around the Family Farm getting treats, then went over to Jason's parents' house in a lovely subdivision where the girls scored buckets of candy.

Addie and I didn't go trick-or-treating. I thought she might spook too easily in the dark, and someone needed to stay back at the house to hand out candy. Plus, I have a terrible cold.

Hope you Halloween was full of treats and not too many tricks.

Especially cat scratch fever.

Lightbulb Moment

The summer before Addie was born, I decided to spray paint our bathroom light fixtures. They were gold, and I'm not a big fan of gold. So, I took the light down, labelled all the wires so I could put it back together, sprayed the fixtures, and then hooked them back up.

Even though Jason could have done it, I wanted to do it myself because I was the in midst of third trimester nesting and redoing the bathroom seemed like a good idea at the time. (Not only did I spray paint the light fixtures, I painted all the other hardware and the vanity. Do not get in the way of a nesting pregnant woman.)

My brief foray into hooking up light fixtures gave me a small boost in the whole electrical hardware area.

Last spring, as part of my spring cleaning program, I decided that I didn't like any of the lights in the office or playroom. They were all wall mounted light fixtures, and they were all push-button lights. I didn't care much for any of the options at the lighting store, so I called an electrician to see if they could rewire the lights so that I could put in shiny new mason jar-styled lights.

The electrician told me that because of the age of the mobile home, and because the wiring hadn't been done to code in the first place, it would be an expensive job to redo all the wiring.

"If you were my daughter," Mr. Electrician told me, "I'd tell you to just redo the lighting yourself using wireless light switches. If I do it, it'll cost you more than $1000. If you do it, it will cost you much much less than that."

And so, I was on a mission to learn how to install wireless light switches.

I took all the light fixtures down, bought new ones, and then bought the switches.

As you can see, the converters are designed to be plugged into the wall, then have a lamp or something plugged into it, and then the wireless switch is mounted wherever you'd like. Turn it on. Turn it off. No fiddling around with hard to reach lamp knobs.

It's actually a pretty nifty contraption.

The only thing is light fixtures don't plug in. They're just a bunch of wires.

So, I took the plug-in piece apart and figured out how to rewire the light fixtures into the newly smaller-sized piece and put everything back together again. I did research online so I knew how to handle black wires and white wires and grounding wires. I discovered that the wireless switches had different channels, so I was able to put one room's lights on one channel and the other room's lights on a separate channel (because I didn't want to hit one wireless switch and have the lights turn on for both the office and the playroom).

I got to be pretty handy with electrical tape and wire cutters and mounting hardware. I knew how to turn the power off to all the spots where I was redoing lights.

To be sure, I made some mistakes. One time I shocked myself because I forgot to turn off the power. Another time I crossed wires and flipped the breaker. Another time I crossed wires and BLEW the breaker. That particularly mistake I didn't fix myself. My handy husband and father-in-law had to reinstall a new breaker at the panel box.

But, in the end, I installed six new lights that all work with wireless switches.

Doing all that work helped me realize that jobs that may typically be seen as "men's" jobs, don't have to be. I can turn power off. I can rewire lights. Tonight I spent the evening installing two pendant lights in our dining room. It involved cutting wires and hooking them into the converter box because the lights were being installed on a track-lighting system.

I've been wanting pendant lights in our dining room since we moved it, and now finally we have them.

Obviously, I don't even pretend to call myself an electrician. Installing light fixtures is electricity at its most basic, and a lot of people know how to do it. But through the process of the few lighting projects I've put myself in charge of, I realized that I can be handy too.

And I have to admit: it's kind of empowering knowing that if I wanted to replace or install a light fixture or switch, I can do it.

Now if only I could figure out how to install a garbage disposal...

Candy corn, chocolate, or twizzlers?

The girls went to a candy carnival tonight (ie: not trick-or-treating, but just fun and games at a church where they also hand out buckets of candy). They made it home with most of their candy, but I did have to sneak out a Milky Way. And a Snickers. Okay, and Tootsie Roll too. But that was it. Because it turns out that my girls very specifically chose much of their candy and they will know (and protest too much) if some of it goes missing. I don't know how they keep a mental inventory of all of their candy but they do. They can't remember to pick up their socks, but they can remember that they HAD TWO HERSEY BARS AND WHAT HAPPENED TO MY TWO HERSEY BARS?!!

Obviously, candy trumps socks in terms of things to remember.

In the spirit of candy loving people everywhere, I ask you what your favorite candy is. Are you a candy corn kind of person? Or do you just go straight for the name brand candy bars?

Maybe you skip candy altogether and just head to Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte.

I wouldn't blame you on that one.