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tree, gingerbread houses, and friends
My friend, Jodie (of Make It For Maggie fame), brought her whole family to come visit us and taught us how to make gingerbread houses with graham crackers (confession time…I have never made gingerbread houses with my children!). It was so FUN! Mostly because Jodie is a professional make-things-with-children mama (me, not so much) .Jodie had each child’s parts and pieces assembled in their own individual baggies and had each child’s frosting portion in their own ziplock with a small hole cut in the corner. She led them through the build-the-house steps one at at time and then let them loose to create their masterpiece with their own bag of candy. She is brilliant, oh yes, she is.
Annes and Mary
Kat, Jack, and Oz…notice the grass out my back door? Yep, it is still there, no snow yet.
Starting to put the pieces together.
About halfway through…and look, no crying children yet!
Fisher and Trey concentrating hard.
Maggie’s house in process.
Some finished houses.
Two days later we decorated our Christmas tree. I had to try hard not to cry during the festivities as I thought about how few Christmases I have left with all my children at home. These mothering days are growing short and I am feeling a great desire to hold on and savor each and every one of them. I kept looking at Blythe and soon my eyes were full of tears. I love having my children with me. I love being a mother. I think the last few years have been so full of pain and stress and worry that I haven’t enjoyed them as much as I could have. So I am trying to turn a new leaf of full-on savoring.
Everyone working on the tree.
Blythe and Kez spent most of the night wrestling instead of decorating.
Keziah’s muscle pose…it is one we see a lot in pics at our house.
Oh, how I love this mug.
Annesley putting the star on.
The finished tree with my five cuties.
Oh, I love Christmas!
while there’s life
While there’s life there’s hope.
This line from The Hobbit jumped out at me and spurred all sorts of thoughts in my brain. Bear with me while I try to sort them out and share them with you in some semblance of coherency.
I think this theme of keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep working, keep trying, keep doing, keep becoming, keep on keeping on, no matter what the odds are against you, has become my take home message from Tolkien’s writings. It doesn’t matter how hopeless it looks. It doesn’t matter how absolutely impossible it appears. Our job is to keep trying…and to believe in some small recess of our soul (or our whole soul if we can muster it) that there is hope. Our task is to let God do what He will and to keep on working so He can do what He will. I must need to hear that lesson because it continues to jump out at me whenever I read his works.
There is not much hope that Bilbo and the dwarves will succeed in killing Smaug and reclaiming their treasure. There isn’t even much hope they will ever even get to Smaug alive in the first place. Despite the odds against them, they feel called to redeem their land, their home, their treasure, and their family’s honor. Time and time again it seems there is no way out of their predicaments and time and time again they are rescued or shown a new way or provided a solution to their obstacle.
Every single time.
In The Lord of The Rings, the task is even more impossible. It is completely ridiculous for anyone to believe for a moment that the nine members of the Fellowship have any chance of success in their quest to destroy the ring.
And yet, they set out with determination to do their best. They keep trying. And God works miracles. He delivers them. He sends help. He gives them small pieces of encouragement. He gives them ideas. He places people in their path at just the right time.
Just like He does for us.
They keep moving forward even when injured. They keep trying even when members of their fellowship are kidnapped and killed. They keep their faith alive even when darkness and evil appear to be winning. They keep doing their part even when Frodo is bitten by the spider and wrapped up for her to eat. In a last-ditch effort to give Frodo a little more time to reach Mt. Doom they mount a distraction effort at the Black Gate where they “know” they will be killed.
Galadriel tells Frodo “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.” I believe that. I want my children to believe that. I want each and every child of God to know they have power and influence and capability to change the world. This saying hangs on the wall of our school room and I read it almost every day. It inspires me to live truer to my ideals and to keep hope alive in my heart that each of can bless and serve and love and that those things CAN and DO make a difference.
The key to this, I think, is Bilbo’s father’s advice, “While there’s life there’s hope.” There is always hope. Even when it doesn’t look like we should have any hope, we can still have hope because we are alive and can keep doing small and simple things (or big and wonderful things) to change the course of the future. There is hope because other people are alive and doing small and simple things in their lives and those things change the course of our future and the future. Most of all, there is hope because Jesus is alive and His life is the source of all hope. His life provides the way to peace and joy in our lives. His life is the roadmap for our return to God. His life and his atoning sacrifice provide the only hope we have.
What gives you hope?
p.s. I took this quiz the other day to see which character I am most like in Tolkien’s writings…pretty funny results:
YOU ARE MOST LIKE A: WIZARD. You’re a peacemaker, a do-gooder, a leader in a land fraught with peril. Like a wizard, you’re a bad*** cloaked in the body of an average joe. You never turn your back on a friend or a crisis. You’re selfless, intelligent, and you enjoy a well-lived life on the road.
I love that…a leader in a land fraught with peril. Exactly what I want to be!
If you take the quiz, I would love to know what your results are!
the piano guys perfection
Oh my. I love this so, so much. I could listen to it over and over again and never grow tired of it. Isn’t the look on Mary’s face when the shepherds come so incredibly perfect – full of exhaustion and joy and love.
giving = happiness
Oh, how I love December! I love how the whole world (at least it seems to me to be the whole wide world) unites in giving and loving and smiling and serving. I love the music and joy and food and generosity and miracles that I see every December.
I am a big believer in the equation of giving = happiness and I want my children to become committed givers as well. Doesn’t this Light ‘Em Up idea look fun?
This morning during our reading time, I snuggled in bed with Fisher and Annes and read The Quiltmaker’s Gift. It is one of my very favorite books and has been ever since it was published back in 2000. I remember reading it to Blythe over and over and over. She loved it so, so much. One of her favorite things to do as a four to six year old was to be just like the quiltmaker and giving her treasured items to all of our neighbors. I remember her walking over to our elderly friends and giving them her special rocks, dolls, drawings, flowers, necklaces, and more.
This morning when we read it again, I loved discussing how all the King’s stuff didn’t make him happy and our stuff doesn’t and WON’T make us happy either. We talked about all the secret things we want to do this month to spread joy to others. Tomorrow we will be reading the prequel, The Quiltmaker’s Journey and learn all about how the quiltmaker left her life of comfort to become some of God’s hands on earth.
That is what I want our family to be…God’s hands. I know from much personal experience how much of a difference service makes. When I was in bed this spring for weeks on end, Kat arranged for meals to be brought in to my home. Day after day, week after week, women came into my home and fed my family delicious warm food while I laid in bed in my pajamas crying from the pain of this labral tear. Many, many times people have brought groceries or given us money for tires, violins, dentist appointments, and oh, so much more. There is so much love in this world and I have been blessed immensely because of other people being God’s hands in my life.
I love our Save The World projects. I love to create events that bring people together to make a difference in the lives of others. Right now, I have a few projects up my sleeve and am filled with joy at how excited my children are to spend this month giving. One of our projects is putting on a Christmas play at the Senior Citizen’s Center. Another is Operation Pay For The Hole for my dear friend, Jessica. A lot of amazing people have donated to Jessica. If you want to contribute AND get some lovely things for yourself or to give as gifts, we have an awesome auction and affiliate program going on right now over at Balancing Everything. One of the affiliate programs gives you several years worth of music/composer instruction for your family for $19.95. I ordered it and it is awesome sauce! Another program is Richard’s energy work. You can book a session with him and he will donate 50% of the fee to Jessica. Win-win!
What fun ideas do you have in your plans to model that giving = happiness? I would love to hear how you inculcate this truth into your family culture.
to be like a duck
I want to be like this mother duck.
She leads her children with calmness and surety even though they are being buffeted by the wind and blown head over heals. Often times in life we are knocked down and blown around. As mamas we have some choices to make. We can panic, we can fall apart and stop leading our families, we can give up, or we can be like this mama duck and put one foot in front of the other, hold our heads high, shake off, and lead our children with confidence, faith, and love.
Never thought I would find a mothering role model in a duck!
these are busy days
I realize my post quality is suffering. I am busy. And I hate that word. I hate the excuse busyness gives people…you know the, “Oh, I can’t, I’m too busy” thing people say whenever they don’t want to do something, but they don’t want to be honest about why they don’t want to, so instead they say “I’m too busy.” Well, I hate that whole thing. I also hate feeling like perhaps I really am busy, too busy. Too busy to have time to sit and smell the roses. Too busy to go exploring with my children.
But, the truth of the matter is, I am pretty booked right now and my time for posting is slim.
I am up to my eyeballs in getting iFamily ready for the new semester and solving all the scheduling issues so I can get the schedule up and website updated, my new callings in my new ward, Blythe’s play practices, Blythe’s ballet classes, Blythe’s Civil War class, Fisher’s scouts, the girls’ new callings, genealogy, resting my hip enough that it doesn’t go into freak out mode like it did last night, teaching gymnastics, reading the book of Alma, reading The Hobbit (and trying to finish it as a family when Blythe is gone 3-4 nights a week and Keziah is gone 2-3 nights a week is proving difficult indeed!), wrapping up Make It For Maggie, organizing Operation Pay For The Hole for Jessica, trying to earn money for two more rounds of Ozone injections in December so I can get this hip all the way better, picking out twelve books for my discussion group for 2013, homeschooling my children, mentoring other people’s children, keeping my house in some semblance of order, feeding my family, paying the bills, and trying to become an expert on the Jewish Festivals for my upcoming class where I will be teaching adults everything about the Jewish Year.
I have a whole schedule in my head that will allow me to get everything done everyday. But it doesn’t work. I don’t get up early enough to make it work. I don’t stop doing genealogy on time to get started on the next thing. I don’t go to bed early enough to be rested. It is all about me and my lack of discipline and that is a painful pill to swallow.
It may be time.
I don’t know.
I will think about it.
Who am I kidding? No one. Not even myself. I don’t need to think about it. I just need to do what I know I need to do. Day after day after day.
And that will be hard because I like to do what I want to do in the moment and not be constrained by any schedule of any kind, even a schedule of my own making.
But I also want to succeed. I want to spend time each day immersed in God’s word, communing with Him, doing genealogy, studying for myself, loving on and connecting with my children, teaching them, inspiring them in their studies, exploring with them, laughing with them, eating healthy, home-cooked food, working on my save the world projects, serving others, and keeping my commitments. I want to do those things without feeling like I am drowning. I want to do them with joy and presence and peace.
And the key is waking up early and using my time wisely. I know this. But can I do it? I honestly don’t know.
It is 10:24. I am going to bed instead of staying up till midnight. That will be the first step.
all under the same roof
My siblings were all here this past week for Thanksgiving. It is a pretty rare event, so before everyone took off we had some pics taken. Not professional pics, not good lighting pics, not matching outfits pics, not do everyone’s hair cute pics, just everyone in the same picture pics. We had our little friend Courtney take them because she was here hanging out with Keziah. She did a great job with the tools she had.
Here is one with all of us…except Andie, my niece, and Leonard, my stepfather.
My mom and all her children with Mikelle, Mom, and me on the back row and Stephen, Scott, and Cameron on the front row.
Adults…Logan, Mikelle, Me, Mom, Nicole on the back row and Stephen, Richard, Scott, and Cameron on the front row.
Love this pic of my brother Cameron and Nicole. I haven’t see that light in his eyes for a long, long time.
Here are some snapshots of our squished Thanksgiving dinner. My dining room is full of a piano and six large bookshelves, so there isn’t a whole lot of room left for feeding people. Somehow we got two tables and fourteen people to fit.
Getting their food
Using the piano bench as a serving table.
Mom and Mikelle
Scott and Logan carving the turkey.
Richard making his delicious mashed potatoes in the giant 22 quart pan.
We love them with the peels on.
Nicole feeding Cameron breakfast on Thanksgiving morning…how big a bite can he handle?
On Tuesday, Mikelle did six haircuts and two colors (mine and Jessica’s) and her pregnant feet were bruised by the end of the day.
Here is Cam’s
Nicole cut 12 inches off her hair and has a whole new look! I wish I had better before pics, but the after ones are super cute.
While all the haircuts were happening, I had the crazy idea to clean out my kitchen cupboards. They were disgusting! No before pics, but don’t they look fabulous afterwards?
Mine colored, but not cut…I had to lie down for a while and rest my hip before I could get into position to cut it.
Annesley’s cut…took quite a bit of convincing this time. She wants to grow her hair out long like her friend Abby’s. But she finally consented and told us exactly where to cut it to.
Keziah and Jessica also received new cuts, but somehow we missed taking pictures of their long locks. You can see my cut in the family pics up above…suffice it to say, I have bangs for the first time since I was a little girl! Just a few, but it is enough to drive me batty. It is also asymmetrical, which is a new thing that I am adjusting to. I love my cut when I can figure out how to style it, but there is a learning curve here and I don’t have it mastered yet.
I wish I had taken pics of all the Rook playing, football catching, and other silliness that went on, but I missed it all. I need to figure out how to REMEMBER to take pictures!
Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with family and love and fun!
annesley is five
Five!!!
Miss Annesley is a big five year old. She has been counting down to her birthday for months. Fisher and Kez’s are so close together that it feels like an eternity to her to have to wait all the way through October AND November for hers to roll around.
Getting her birthday haircut from her Aunt Mikelle
This girlie brings us so much joy. SO MUCH. She radiates joy everywhere she goes…along with singing, twirling, laughing, and telling stories full of nonsense. Let’s just say she has a rich imagination.
Annesley has adopted all the elderly people in our ward. She gives them giant hugs every week and spends most of her time at church going from lap to lap.
This year, thanks to two leap years in her short life, her birthday is on the same day of the week as it was the first time around. I always love synchronized birthdays because I feel like I can completely relive each moment of their births on the same day as when they actually happened. I remember going to church on the day of her birth and telling my friend, Bonnie, “I am here to worship my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and NOT to talk about my pregnancy. Spread the word!”
I remember coming home from church and working on Christmas presents and being grumpy, grumpy, grumpy that I had not had my baby yet and that my doula was leaving the next day.
I remember waking up at 3:30 a.m. to a contraction. A real contraction! I remember being shocked out of my gourd and thrilled to pieces and calling my mom, my midwife, and my doula, and telling them to come. I remember puking and pooping and snotting all at the same time and feeling like my body had been taken over by a force completely out of my control. I remember moaning through seemingly endless contractions, eating homemade popsicles the children held in front of me, and Blythe doing everything she could to nurture me. I remember pushing her out and being completely full of joy. I remember her spirit reassuring me that everything would be okay…and me believing her.
And now she is five. She loves life, people, pretending, and everything in between. Annesley is all about the process of doing things. She does not care about results in any way, just the process is important. She lives in the moment with zest and smiles and throw-back-her-head-laughter.
It is so hard for me to list her favorite books or things to do because it is basically everything. She loves everything. She especially loves headstands and singing and making food for us in her play kitchen and rubbing my back and giving her papa foot massages and doing math with me. She loves jumping and wiggling and rubbing anyone who is near her. She rubs and rubs and rubs…up and down their arms, their legs, all over their face. Keziah has even started charging her nickels and dimes to rub and Annesley pays the fees! Her current favorite songs are “I Am A Child of God”, “God Bless The U.S.A.”, and “The Hope of America.” She loves to play with Fisher and the two of them explore outside for many hours most days of the week. They love finding bugs and leaves and dirt and rocks and anything else they can find. She is super strong and excels at gymnastics. In the headstand contest last week she stayed up for fifty-five seconds and came in second in her class.
Her birthday celebration began on Friday when Grandma Dorothy took her to Big Jud’s for a shake and fries. She has been begging to go to Big Jud’s since her maiden trip back in July.
This morning we were up a little before 6:00 a.m. (which is REALLY early for our house!) to hide and open her presents.
She got a pizza making set that I found months ago for $10!
An awesome set of chalkboard letters and numbers from an adorable etsy seller that wrapped them up all fancy for her. She has been writing on them all morning long and loves them to pieces.
Her birthday book is The Kiss Box. It is a darling story about a mama and her child making kiss boxes to store kisses in so when they are separated they can open their boxes and remember how much they are loved. Annesley is painting her kiss box a bright yellow later today because it is her favorite color and her wooden heart inside she will paint red because it is my favorite color.
After she opened her presents she and I went back to bed for a little bit of snuggling while I worked on Jessica’s auction. She rubbed my back and was quickly sound asleep. Then she woke up to french toast with strawberries made by big sister Blythe and got right to work writing on her new chalkboard letters.
I am so grateful for this girlie. Her spirit is joy embodied. She radiates it and it spreads to everyone around her. We are so, so blessed to have her in our family. Just thinking about her conception and birth makes me well up with tears. God gave her to us and she is a shining testimony of His miracles and His great love for us.
angry breast milk?
Oh, my.
Read this Bad Baby Advice and laugh hysterically.
Did you click over and read the whole thing? If not, do it. Now. It is worth it to learn of all the ridiculous advice given to mothers in the past.
This line in particular made me snort…loudly.
Absolutely no night feedings, he wrote, no matter how young the baby, nor how much it cried. “If we teach our offspring to expect everything to be provided on demand, we must admit the possibility that we are sowing the seeds of socialism,” Sackett warned, likening overindulgent parents to Hitler and Stalin.
Socialism? Really? I am as anti-socialism as they come, but how on earth does nurturing a baby and responding to their very real biological needs lead to socialism?????
How about this one:
Several advice books suggested that mothers could harm their babies by thinking the wrong sorts of thoughts. The Sadlers, husband-and-wife doctors who collected their wisdom in 1916, blamed “angry” mothers for causing their babies’ colic. Mothers could also run dry by engaging in “worry, grief, or nagging,” they wrote. In his 1877 book, Advice to a Wife, Chavasse informed mothers not to nurse for too long. Once the baby was past 9 months of age, nursing could cause “brain disease” in babies and blindness in mothers.
This kind of nonsense drives me batty. And when I hear stuff like this repeated to mothers today I want to scream.
Instead of screaming (usually…sometimes I still succumb to screaming), I try to speak to their soul with something along these words:
Listen to your heart. Listen to your baby. Trust yourself and fall in love with mothering. God created you to mother. He will guide you. Your baby needs YOU and your milk and your arms and your heart. Nothing else.
I am so grateful to be a mother and to have had the courage from the beginning to parent with connection and love and attachment and intuition.
These so-called experts can fly the coop.
shelf reliance sale…amazing prices
Want to get some fabulouso deals on freeze-dried foods? My friend, Annette (the girls’ ballet teacher) is offering Black Friday prices that will knock your socks off. I have a few of their items and have loved them all. The meat packages are phenomenal and bring me tons of peace of mind. Annette often makes food for our iFamily Socials with these foods and no one knows they aren’t fresh. Super YUM!
Here is the complete Black Friday Price List. If you would like to cash in on these deals, go to What’s For Dinner and put in your order before the sale ends on Monday, November 26th at 11:59 p.m. MST. You can order beginning at midnight tonight.
Some of the most tempting products for me are the Egg Powder which will be $15.89 and the Tomato Powder which will be $24.69. Imagine not having to buy (and often waste!) those little cans of tomato paste! These Passionfruit Yogurt Bites are a great deal! They are normally $38.08 and will be $26.69 on the sale.
I hope you are able to find some foods your family will use and love! If you want me to get credit for your purchases, just say on your order form that Tracy sent you.
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
