small voices

Today was the last day of seminary for this school year.  It's a bittersweet day - I love starting my day with the spirit - talking with a great bunch of people, about the scriptures and god and how the principles they teach can improve our daily life.  Oh how I will miss my interactions with these awesome teens and their moms.

But as with everything rewarding, seminary takes work, so to celebrate the lessening of my work load, I did what I should do way more often... I played with my kids.  Well, Bel was at school and Jack had been sent to his room for the tantrum he threw when I turned off the tv.  So, I played with Sage.  She jumped off the steps into my arms, she jumped off the couch into my arms, she jumped on the mini trampoline (she loves jumping), we tickled and laughed, she rode mom like a horse, we conversed in jibberenglish, we played hide and no one seek - covering ourselves with a blanket and whispering, she would get all nervous and intense when she heard Jack moving around upstairs, we ate crackers and veggies and dip with our fingers, then it was nap time.  When I took her upstairs to brush her teeth, she grabbed my face, pulled me in close and started telling secrets - whispering sounds so closely and softly in my ears that it tickled - this is one of my favorite things in the world, so innocent, so sweet, just an excuse to be close and soft - a reminder that the most valuable voice in my life is the still, small voice.

I can't quite describe how fulfilling it is to me to have positive interactions with my children.  The majority of my life is maintenance - a never ending list of things to do - perpetual clutter, endless dishes, cleaning immediately undone, laundry days that roll around so quickly I can't believe another week has gone by, planning and preparing, fulfilling responsibilities, driving, errands, nagging, disciplining, tantrums, eternal bedtimes and let's not forget whining - but every now and then I have a moment when I hear the still, small voice tell me that the most important thing I should do, is play with my kids, engage with my mini humans - and so I do and it is such a refreshing break from life maintenance.

*I wish I had beautiful photographs of every game Sage and I played, but the truth is, we were both unbathed, in jammies, with messy hair, remnants of breakfast on our clothes and faces - the real beauty of all these experiences could not be captured by an iphone pic (not to mention if Sage sees a piece of technology then all fun and games end and she focuses in on the phone, tv, ipad, etc) BUT since I'm lazy and when I see a post without a picture, I'm immediately disappointed, here is a video to prove that Sage loves jumping.

mundane life is beautiful

I read an article this week that reminds parents that Childhood itself is magical - it doesn't take anything to make it so. My favorite part  poses the questions, "are we creating a generation of people who cannot find the beauty in the mundane?  Do we want to teach our children that the magic of life is something that comes beautifully gift-wrapped -- or that magic is something you discover on your own?"

It made me think about my own life, as I thought my mind wandered, as it usually does, to a semi-related tangent - can I find the beauty in the mundane? Truth be told... sometimes, it's a struggle, but honestly, yes I can.  I do realize the things that make my life so rewarding, fulfilling and happy are not the trips to Costa Rica, but the moments when I recognize the beauty in the mundane things in my real, everyday life.  My days are filled with the same repetitive tasks day in and day out, but for some reason this week - deep breath - I looked up from folding the laundry in my room and saw this...

...all three kids momentarily self entertaining -bel coloring -jack making sound effects as he ran around -Sage jumping (a great love of hers) while narrating her actions, "jump, jump, jump, jump, jump"

I can't help being anything but blissfully proud (and shocked) that Sage sat on the counter and ate a bunch of baby carrots and ranch for breakfast this morning...

Automatically makes me feel like a good mom, any time veggies are consumed in my home.  Also, this girl makes me feel like a good mom.  This Sage/age/stage is my favorite - she can walk, her vocabulary is exploding right now, so she can tell me what she wants and doesn't want, she has a sense of humor, she loves to cuddle, she still takes a nice long nap, that I can strategically place almost anywhere in my day and by golly, she just loves me with that pure, no filters, no judgements, fierce, loyal toddler love that makes me feel like nothing else in the whole world matters.  Any time spent with this girl is a beautiful thing.

Another day recovering from a poopy diaper change and returning to preparing my seminary lesson, I looked out the window and saw this...

...Bel, creating something with nature's art supplies (a great love and talent of hers).  For a while, I sat and watched, thinking of how sad it makes me that in the last year she has grown 5 inches, lost 4 teeth and has no problem painting her nails and gabbin it up about boys with her 8 and 10 year old gal pals, Annie and Hallie Warner.  But in moments like this there she is - my girl, using her imagination, free from school and maturing and growing up too fast, just suspended in some kind of fantasy.  

Lately I feel like I might be losing her.  We spend so much time power struggling and debating that I wonder if it is driving us apart. (yes, at 6 she is insanely adept at trying to talk her way out of, over, around and through anything - I fear the teenage years as this skill finely hones itself)  Frequently our interactions are limited to meeting daily needs and nagging.  

Eventually she looked up and invited me to join her - so I did.  

More often I need to remember that she just wants me to take some time to be suspended in those moments together - so we built our first fairy house.  

 (it says... Fairies Welcome)

It was magical.  

Another day, Jack and Sage had followed me around for a couple hours on a productivity blitz.  It was awesome - they both wanted to help me scrub the toilet (nurture this desire, i told myself, nurture this for years to come).  When it was time for a break I knew just the activity for my boy.  Very often Jack will mix things (a great love of his), usually pricey edibles from the fridge and pantry - so this time I decided to control the "gredients" of the mixture.  I gave him water, food coloring, droppers, 6 containers and a little freedom to do "spearamints" - he was in heaven. Heaven.

I participated and documented, then returned to the productivity blitz.  I couldn't help but peek out the windows periodically just to watch.  

Jack has been challenging me lately with his inflammatory response to... almost everything.  It's crazy what can make him fly off the handle.  I think he is just going through that stage of life where he is starting to feel emotions in a significant way and he just doesn't know how to handle them.  Anger is a very apparent emotion in his repertoire but on the opposite end of the spectrum he is incredibly sweet and sincere and loving, with a desire to do what is good and right.  As I spent this time with and watching him, I got to see the real Jack, purely enjoying the moment.  It was lovely.

Lastly, during my perpetual quest of picking up clutter, I found this...

it's a formerly decapitated nerf dart, that has been sutured back together by my sweet husband.  He walked in and chuckled as I was taking this photo - To him it was a humorous toy rescue mission.  What he didn't realize is that I was having a real emotional moment over this nerf dart -sometimes more than receiving direct love and service, I love seeing the evidences thereof when I am alone - this way I can absorb it and enjoy it.  To me this dart showed me that someone else actually cares - cares that there is something on the floor, cares that it is broken, cares enough to fix it.  And the sutures - my goodness, it's true, I feel silly weeping over such a thing - but I saw those sutures and just wept with pride.  I am so fully engulfed by my own responsibilities and so far removed from Ryan's, that I feel a little disconnected.  When he comes home he steps away from the medical world, swoops in and focuses on us - he refreshes our home with new energy, gives me and the kids all kinds of attention.  He helps me with my responsibilities, but I do not swoop into the hospital to assist or observe him in any way and sometimes, I almost forget that he's a doctor.  And then I saw the sutures - and I remembered the late nights, the early mornings, the all nighters, the knots tied in strings taped to his desk, the consistent, dedicated studying, the sacrifices of personal desires, the drawer full of scrubs in his dresser, the x-rays on the photo roll of his phone, his quiver of amazing OR stories, I see the steady hands at practice and suddenly those silly nerf dart sutures become so much more.  To me they are the evidence of love expressed through hard work, years of hard work (a great talent of his).  

In between these moments, there were break downs (of adults and children), anger management moments, bodily fluid clean up, 40 minute bed time routines that drag on and on... and on, laundry, house cleaning, shells & cheese and cereal both made the dinner menu, whining, trimming raw chicken (blech), and some serious feelings of inadequacy wondering if I am making any progress whatsoever in teaching my kids how to work, BUT at the end of the week - deep breath - I feel like it was a darn good week, pretty chock full of magic and beauty if you ask me.  Oh how I love these people - they make my life so beautiful.

Belen is 6!!

Between snow days, friends' birthdays and our own birthdays we did some serious partying in February.  Bel turned the mighty mature age of 6.
She got to have a tea party with some of her favorite girls (clockwise from the top my sweet bel, Alexa Zarkou, Kinley Zarkou, Morgan Ferris, Annie Warner, Hallie Warner, Eliza Kizzar, Zoey Zarkou)

Making a wish on her pink sprinkled cupcakes.

Being showered with gifts

She had so much fun with all these girls.

 

Her actual birthday was kind of a series of disappointments.  We were hoping to have a family dinner at Golden Corral (which she loves), but Ryan had to work late so we opted for a salad, nuggets and fries at the burger king play place.

Then it was soccer night at the Y, which the kids have been loving.  So we went home to pick up dad, because he loves watching them play and cheering them on and this beauty of a flat happened on the treacherous, pothole covered road on the way there,

which meant soccer was out too. Then we all had to chill in the van till our friend could come pick us up, ryan waited for the tow truck (free tow, thanks to blessed AAA! we get our money's worth every. single. year.) dropped off the van and postponed the party till ryan could get home to join in the festivities.

After all that waiting, she was pretty excited about some deeeelicious mud pie - oreos, ice cream, hot fudge and more oreos and strawberries on top - another specific birthday treat request this year.

then very thoughtful about her birthday wish

She was equally stoked on her pile of presents and finally getting to open them all (she asked for days if she could open her birthday presents.)

 

There were some tears and some teaching moments along the way, but in the end she had a pretty awesome birthday and we think she's pretty awesome.

 

A glimpse of what Bel is like right now...

 

She loves to sing - in the kitchen, in the car, dancing around the living room, at church, walking down the street.  And she's quite good - i love listening to her sing. 

Bel loves to cuddle and chat at night.  It is so fun to be one on one with her, when she is not competing for attention, she'll just let her true self come out as she talks about her day, the things she's looking forward, ideas she has for art projects or plans for the next day.  It's complete parent child bliss.

She is creative and loves to create things - she often says she wants to be an artist when she grows up.

She is competitive - she is driven to be the fastest, or the smartest, or the best at things and gets frustrated when she's not.  When she sees that Jack or one of her friends has learned something new or is better than her at something she will make an effort to practice and learn this skill.  For example, last summer her friend Morgan learned to jump out of the swing when it is at it's highest poing and man this girl would just launch into the air.  This got some reactions out of us moms and the younger brothers and Bel immediately came home and started learning to jump out of the swing.  Which leads right in to her next quality...

She is a determined learner.  When she decides that she is going to learn to do something, she commits to it, practices, concentrates and does it everyday. 

Bel is nurturing.  She is so sweet to Sage, she loves to get her out of her crib when she wakes up, cheers her up when she's sad, helps her learn and do things she can't do and plays with her.  She plays with Jack and they come up with all kinds of imaginative games and things to do together. She is such a help to me.

She is a helper - when asked and rewarded properly and when she's in the right mood - it sounds like the stars have to allign but really she is becoming so capable and helpful and is such a helper as long as her needs are being met.

 

Gosh we love this girl of ours!!  Happy birthday to our trailblazing oldest daughter!!

Jack is 4!!

February is pretty eventful around here since we celebrate both Belen and Jack's birthdays. 

Jack got to celebrate with a few of his friends - they opened presents and played with the toys and had a good time. 

(from left to right : Jack Kizzar (whom he calls by his full name since they have the same first name - this cracks me up), Connor Ferris, Barry Warner)
When it was time to sing Happy Birthday he suddenly became overwhelmed by all the attention focused on him, so he hid...

as the song went on, he came around...

and in the end decided to blow out his candles with enthusaism.

On February 9th Jack turned 4 and we celebrated as a family.  Jack gets pretty excited about his birthday and this year was super opinionated about his cake. This year he wanted as many layers as we could make.  I think the inspiration for this came from one of our favorite story books - Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming - in the story, the main character, Jack, makes a cake for the princess for her birthday and has quite the adventure getting it to the castle - the cake Jack makes has layers, and the royal cake at the end of the book has lots of layers.  Anyway, he wanted layers.  His birthday landed on a Sunday and I realized I only had one cake mix (and was much too lasy to do anything from scratch) so we borrowed a few cake pans and made 4 skinny layers - appropriate since he is turning 4.  We had a great time dying each layer of the cake with food coloring, pouring the batter into the pans and licking our fingers all along the way.  Each step of the way was pretty exciting as we baked them, cooled each colorful circle on the counter and finally piled them up, frosted them, decorated the top like a 3 eyed monster and devoured it with ice cream and milk.

Jack loves music, he already knows the words to a bunch of rock classics, some michael jackson a few pop songs and all the words to let it go from frozen, plus he'll belt out some church songs too.
He doesn't dance as much as he used to (sadly), but still has some killer moves.
He's opinionated about what he wears - he prefers sweat pants and t-shirts, but he sure cleans up nice when he wears jeans and a collared shirt or when he gets spiffed up for church.
He loves to pretend to be a dinosaur, bird or dog and often stays in character for over an hour (this includes only growling/gnashing his teeth, tweeting, or barking and of course crawling around on all fours)  This is often how we get him to eat his dinner - "dinosaurs love green beans" and suddenly there's 17 beans in his mouth being ripped to shreads as he growls - it's a little bit gross at times, but pretty effective.
He is loud, has a short fuse, and an explosive temper but on the flip side is so loving and tender hearted - he loves to cuddle and read stories, he loves his sisters and is such a good friend and brother to both of them.
He wants to obey the rules, sometimes this is hard for him and lots of the time he doesn't BUT he wants to be good - for example, sometimes when he is sneaking treats (an almost daily occurrence), he'll sneak a vegetable first.

He has a very active imagination and will tell stories in great detail - very fun to listen to, not always easy to comprehend.
He has no shortage of personality and we love him oh so much - Happy birthday to my favorite 4 year old boy in the world!

because memories fade

a couple months ago i spilled water on my laptop - i was told nothing was retrievable - i thought i had lost more than a years worth of photos - i was... upset. after struggling with this for a few days, i decided to take it back to best buy and hope for a different technician and a different answer - well my prayers were answered and i did - and i got all my photos back - yay!!

but this little scare lit a fire in me, since the only photos i would've had were the ones i had emailed or posted on the blog.  i often think that i'll be able to scroll through my photos years from now and the memories will all come flooding back, but the truth is... memories fade, and they fade quickly.  so here i am, making a written commitment to be better at keeping a record, because i love these times and i know i'm going to want to relive them later. 

so here goes - February 2014 in a nutshell...

it has been an incredibly cold and snowy winter here in Ohio and we've scored a bunch of 2 hour delays and snow days because of it.  and the truth is... i love it!  right now i am teaching early morning seminary at 6:30am and when school is delayed or cancelled, seminary is off.  I love seminary, but i'm still not a morning person so when i hear we have a delay or cancellation i'm just like a kid again - looking forward to taking the day off, sleeping in, having a long breakfast, and playing in the snow (or watching my kids play in the snow, or relaxing/being productive while my kids play in the snow).  The other day we had a delay, which turned into a cancellation and Bel immediately started planning the day's activities.  It started with a coloring contest of the sunrise happening outside our window. 

it was a pretty incredible activity - all 4 of us (even Sage) sat at the table with crayons and paper - looking out the window for inpspiration, chatting and coloring away - it was awesome.

I missed the prime moment for photographing, but this was the subject for our coloring contest. 

(As a sidenote - this is one of my favorite things about where we live - this view and the orientation of the house.  One of the many rewards for getting up early for seminary is that i get to see the sun rise through these trees every. single. day.  i'm certain it is God's way of helping me start my day on a peaceful note - i absolutely love it!)

And this was the result of our artistic abilities.

Artists clockwise from top left : Bel, Jack, Mom, Sage

There's been lots of playing outside in the snow...

For a couple weeks, Bel was broderline obsessed with the size of the mounds at the end of the driveway, she was very concerned that Jack's would grow higher than hers and lectured us to shovel accordingly.

Sometimes she sits and carves shapes out of the hard chunks of snow.

 One day she made snow cakes for everyone.  here's mine

pretty little snow cake - and delicious too.  speaking of eating snow... that's what Sage loves to do (much to her father's dismay and ironically a direct inheritance from her mother, she also loves eating ice cubes - crunch, crunch, crunch - also much to her father's dismay)
The first thing sage does when she comes outside is b-line it for the nearest snow bank, grab a handful and start munching away.  One day it was really cold so we made the kids come in, but the only way to stop Sage's fit over it was to make her a little snow snack.

 

Since Sage's toddler legs are still acclimatizing to winter conditions Bel is insanely sweet to help her work her way through deep snow in clunky boots.  I love her for it and so does Sage.

Some days it's shortlived, often Jack will come in cold and/or crying within minutes, but Bel and Sage will stay out to the bitter end, coming in with numb toes and bright red cheeks and noses.

Whether it lasts for 5 minutes or 50 - I love this view from my warm house - my 3 lovelies getting fresh air and entertaining themselves.

pancakes on the floor

almost a decade ago, Ryan and I got married.  That first summer together we moved to Cali for work - I couldn't quite handle the mental rigors of selling pest control and ended up getting an 8-5 temp job.  I was much happier doing this, but the down side was I got home hours before my other half.  there were a lot of days that i really missed him - i was lonely and i needed something to comfort me and help me feel at home in our empty, temporary apartment.  so i would cook pancakes and eat them on the floor, with peanut butter and syrup and cinnamon - and i felt much better.

sometimes i have these moments when i realize i don't have a plan and i don't have the motivation i want/need to make it through those last needy hours before bedtime and that's when i really want my other half to swoop in and take the pressure off of me.  but tonight Ryan was on call and i just knew that we wouldn't get to see him - and i missed him.  so for dinner i cooked pancakes and we ate them on the floor, with peanut butter and syrup and cinnamon - and i felt much better. 

 

all these years later and i still have the same coping mechanism for loneliness - pancakes - and now i have 3 lovelies to share them with.

the storms of life

today was a storm. ug - a day when i felt frustrated, overwhelmed and inadequate all. day. long.  i was surrounded by clutter, time consuming, mentally taxing clutter, papers and junk covering every flat surface - laundry begging to be folded, papers begging to be resolved, followed up on, and filed, and of course children  begging for and needing attention and all the emotions of built up stress swirling around inside of me.  and instead of ignoring the clutter for yet another day, i ignored my kids, i tried to catch up on the daily maintenance tasks (and still don't feel like i'm catching up).  i couldn't wait till bedtime.  finally it came and as we squeezed in one true story (a tradition started by my nephews years ago, who requested at bedtime, not a book, but a "true story" from their mom's life).

the last couple nights i've been telling my kids bits and pieces of my family's infamous hike on the pinel trail.  this trip was the perfect storm for my family - blood, tears and urine all spilt in the first 30 minutes, followed by a literal storm in the first 3 hours.  tonight i told them about when the storm rolled in.

there we were hiking along the Alaskan tundra, my young, tough, adventurous parents and 4 kids ages 3-12, when the fog crept in, and got thicker and thicker, the wind began to pick up, and the trail disappeared.  We decided to pitch the tent and hunker down for the night.  I remember so well huddling in that tent - it felt like the wind was going to rip that tent apart and blow us away - it was cold and loud and i was scared.  i didn't like it and i wanted it to be over.  i remember my mom took me under her arm and told me so confidently - it's just the wind - it's pretty strong, but we're gonna be just fine.

and that's what i needed to remember today, as the storm raged around me and inside me - it's just clutter, it's just a bad mood, it's just whining and yelling and tears, it's just a few tasks that will get done eventually - it's pretty overwhelming at times, but i'm gonna be just fine.