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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Things

Things about us.

J.
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A baby dreamboat.
Loves: his pacie; tummy time; looking around; walks in the moby wrap
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that end like this:
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What we love: only waking up once or twice a night to feed him; more and more snuggles throughout the day;
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him.

T.
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Boy through and through.
Loves: throwing things, anything; Pippy; sneaking into his "bayyybeee" brother's room any second we turn our head; playing chase with his sis.
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What we love: his little words, his hugs and kisses,
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him.

El.
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A girl of her own.
Loves: helping with anything and everything, pretending, reading,
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singing, her brothers.
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What we love: her cuddles, her silliness, her nurturing way, her.

The hubs-man.
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Our superhero.
Loves: working in the yard with his tag-alongs, getting up with me in the night on diaper duty (right, dear?), his fantasy football (win me some moolah, hun.), me (you know it, babe.).

Me.
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Learning more and more about my new at-home career.
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Loves: This cool weather, my morning coffee, Jazzercise and starting to run again, bein' able to say, "my boys" or "my girl", my nightly TiVo date with the hubs, a busy fall photography schedule.
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Life is so very blessed with these things, the ordinary, the beautiful.



--

On a little more vulnerable note, I've been thinking a lot about my grandpa lately. 
A new wave of tears the last few days, comfort in knowing he's whole and happy with the angels, but sad for us here. 
Remembering my last time just sitting with him, watching him, hugging him, and then my next trip to his home, his body there, his spirit gone. 

It's a strange thing, this thing called grief. 
His memoirs are being published soon, just a piece of his legacy, him. He had a way of slowly digesting, appreciating, learning from, beautifying the everyday.

A man worth living like.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Out

I got a chance to go out the other night,
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(Yes, this sis is totally preggo with twins. And over half-way there. Populating the world with lovely ladies. Love it, love her, love them.)
leave behind the seclusion of the newborn momma lifestyle, 
(Although that's just kinda my thing for a little while after I birth babies, and it's just fine.)
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dolled up and join the real world for an evening.

My sisters and I left our babes with our hubbies and went out for sips and sweets in celebration of the youngest's twenty-fifth b-day. 
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How on earth our Twinks is twenty-five is beyond us.
(And I totally missed grabbing a good pic of all of us together. 
Not saying we didn't try...
but at least one of us had eyes closed, double chins or fat arms in at least every pic. 
Next time.)
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She's always been a shiny star. 
Thus her nickname, Twinkle. 
Affectionately, lazily, shortened to Twinks over the years. 

Plus, us hungry mommas will do just about anything to celebrate with buttered carbs. 
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There might have been one (or more) of us who had been scoping the menu for more than a week. 
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Planning our choices for the evening. 
But it didn't really matter, 
'cuz
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it pretty much ended like this.

Which is the way we like it.

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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Appreciation


We're just about ready to step foot into full appreciation of autumn this weekend.
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The the scent, the color, the pumpkin, the dusk, the flame,
Mmmm.
Yes,
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the crisp,
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the jacket,
the orange,
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it's all so very appreciated. 
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And, 
while some appreciate, celebrate the change with chalk,
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others do it with responsibility.
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A day outside in the green, 
the mowing, 
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the seeding, 
cathartic to his soul,
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the love of my youth,
the love of my life,
he'll probably still be out there doin' the same someday pushing his walker out in front of him.
Loves his yard work time.

Him, the same one who I, in a hostess tizzy for summer outdoor toys for a play date I was to host in hours, once sent to the store on a mission to buy only the most fun, most engaging things for the littles about to run rampant in our home.
He came home with buckets. 
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Two.
Two buckets.
That's all.
I didn't appreciate his choice. 
And let him know.
The funny thing, though?

Our kids, and the littles who did indeed run rampant that evening, 
thoroughly loved the buckets.
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It was the activity of choice.
He doesn't let me forget.

And with the packing away of the tanks,
the suits, 
the tucking of toes into socks, shoes, boots,
comes a momma's realization that her babies are not as much babies as they were when they last wore their warm things. 
Oh, and finding a big fat blister on a grown-too-big big toe from a sneaker pinch,
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after a morning at preschool when our little girl came home in a loaned little boy's jacket because hers didn't fit...yes these occurrences also contributed to this realization.
not so much winning parents of the year award this time around...
so we very quickly packed everyone up for a quick run for new (to us) jackets, shoes and bright red headband to make up for it.

Oh,
autumn.
The baking, 
the spices,
the heat,
the butter.

My little girl loves her breakfast time, looks forward to it when I tuck her in each night, plans her menu and makes sure I promise not to forget. 
And her favorite? 
Muffins.
Any kind, really. 
I've found it easy to make them, bake them and freeze them up,
microwaving them before she takes the steps down in the morning,
pretty sure she thinks they're fresh for her each time.
And that's just fine,
she and her big toe blister deserve it and more. 

So I took my momma's own recipe for semi-healthy banana bread and made my own autumn rendition.
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Same thing as above, 
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except 
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with just one banana, one more egg than the original recipe and a big ole' thing of pumpkin with about a tablespoon of cinnamon, a little all spice and pumpkin pie spice...
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delish.  

It's been crowd tested,
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fed to any little hungry birdies (even included my peanut of a niece in the count) I could round up,
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the consensus?
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Appreciated.

---


P.S. Know any graduating seniors? Check this out!


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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Gratitude

I'm trying to put into practice, to sincerely model for my littles a truth I've been reading about lately.
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And some days, are so much brighter and more easily gratitude filled than others...
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These others are sometimes just a discipline to barely get a grateful whisper through a grimace...
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But when I do? I find myself so much more enamored with the beauty of the everyday,
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so captured by the miracle of the otherwise mundane.
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And so much more at peace,
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All due to
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gratitude.

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