most mornings..

when i go in to wake hannah up for school,
this is what i find.
silas is a good boy.
been a good cat, if you have to have a cat.
and he loves her.
what more could i ask?

Water 4 Christmas

enough said.

it's monday

monday indeed.

beginning each day with tremendous

my dad starts his day off with a mixture of fruit and greek yougurt.
so when we were there,
we did too.
and it worked.
we felt great.

so this morning,
i made some for steve and i,
and presented it to him in bed...
and said,
"Here. Start your day with tremendous!"

tremendous is my dad's way of living every day.
so from here on out,
this fruit is know as "tremendous"

fine.

brody is fine.
totally better.

and i am very happy
that there will be
no more trips to the doctor.

a pattern? *updated*

when i got home from the dr. this morning,
brody was acting funny.
he said his foot hurt.

my mom was here,
and she said he was limping when he woke up.

brody tends to be dramatic,
so i can't really tell.

but it is not his foot,
it's the outside of his ankle.

if i have to go to the dr. again today,
i will lose my mind.

i'm going to take him to preschool
and see how he does there...

praying he is just a good actor.

*he really can't walk. and crawling through preschool
makes me look like an even worse mother than i really am.
so, he is staying home.
i'm giving it until tomorrow...

The $200 Pebble.

last night, when micah was getting ready for bed,
after a long bath,
and a late dinner...
around about 9pm,
i say to him, "Micah, how are your ears feeling these days?"

not sure why i asked him,
i guess because i hadn't asked him in a while,
but really, i can't be sure.

he says, "Well, I feel like i have a rock in it."

"Really? Let me look..... Uh, Micah, DO you have a rock in your ear?"

"Okay, yes, I put a rock in my ear."

well, i tried to get it out,
but his screams stopped me rather quickly.
we packed up and headed to the ER,
where a very crafty doctor tried all sorts of new ways
to get the rock out of said ear.

in the end, he gave up.
called the ENT surgeon,
and we made an appointment for this morning.

as is true with most things,
the proper tools generally get the job done.
we left with a rock free ear,
and a pebble in hand.

yesterday WAS earth day after all,
so my best guess
is that he was trying to be one with the earth.
hoping he tries something different next year.

my father and his beloved

my dad is an easy one to take pictures of.
he will throw down a pose the minute he sees the camera come out.

however to get a genuine look is much more difficult.
maria has to work really hard
to get him to show SOME emotion that isn't canned.


but sometimes, when he doesn't know the camera is out,
i catch it.
adoration,
trust,
and devotion
for his beloved.

in a single glance.

little people

my sister and darin have five kids too.
so we had to see them.
even if it meant taking a different route across the country.

ella and liam... steve's in the middle. :)



porter



camille and morgan

me and lisa

when lisa came to visit back in october,
we took a ton of self portraits.
mostly because there was no one else around to take them.

it only seemed right, to me,
to keep with the tradition.
she didn't exactly agree..
but i can beat her up,
so here they are:

veracruz

i have been eating at veracruz for over 20 years.
20 years.

i would go there on friday nights,
even before i lived with my dad and maria, when i would come for the weekend.
my dad and i had heart to heart talks across these same tables.
i used to skip classes so i could have lunch there in high school.
steve and i would go there on our date nights when we were first married.

here we have a number 15.
it has always been a number 15.
some things never change.
veracruz is one of those things.

it has become a favorite place to eat for my children as well.
and when we walked in,
the waitress,
whom we haven't seen in 2 years,
greeted us like family, and asked where everyone else was.


contemplating the greatness of veracruz...

running around town

when we awoke to rain on friday morning, it was no surprise.
it IS seattle.
and the forcast was for rain showers all day.

but like i said,
it IS seattle,
and by noon, it was beautiful.
here we are, in the costco parking lot.
seriously.
the man can't live without costco.

we ran around town all day,
coffee with my sister in the morning,
trader joe's,
value village,
costco,
nordstrom rack,
and lollipops.
oh, and we checked out the old house too...
i think it gets smaller every time we go back.

deep connection.

when we arrived at my parent's house, i didn't expect to feel the way i felt.
it was like coming home.
i know that sounds silly, given that it was my home,
but i am not the type person who generally feels deep connection to a place.
people, yes, but places, not often.

when i walked into the kitchen, and looked out the window,
the water, the smells,
my eyes welled up.

i have a deep connection to this place,
this place i called home for a time.

connection is good.
belonging is good.
feeling the water in your blood,
that is magic.

home.

steve and i flew to seattle on thursday night.
we were going to pick up a car that we purchased from my dad and maria.
the plan was to spend friday hitting some of the old haunts,
and leave saturday,
with a stop in centrailia to visit my sister and family.
hit the road from her house by noon.
spend saturday night near salt lake city, utah.
drive the rest of the way home on sunday.
plan was executed.
we arrived at 3:30am, monday morning... or sunday night
depending on your preference.
stories to come.
many, many stories.

what my father puts on his fridge...

sam i am.

micah begged.
so i gave in.
green eggs and ham for dinner.

falling

lately,
words seem to fall through me.

it is not that i have no thoughts
or even that i have nothing to say

i do.

but the words themselves
seem to just fall right through me.

why?

why is it so difficult
to get five kids
to all smile
at the same time?

coloring eggs.

reflecting.

i often think about what i want my kids to know.
what i really want them to take from steve and i.
not the obvious,
but the details.

today, while i was thinking on these things,
i realized it boiled down to one thing,
as my kids grow older,
and enter their teen years.

i want my boys to know
that i was the first woman
to ever fall in love with them.

and i want my girls to know
that their dad was the first man
to ever fall in love with them.

maybe it's selfish.
it is what it is.

and it's my heart.

this is me, trying.

i am seriously trying to make my eyes look as big as micah's.
and he is simply looking at the camera.

first baseball scrimmage of the year...

saturday marked the first scrimmage of the season.
two games.
it was so good to spend all day outside.

steve even got back in the hang of umpiring.
he was hoping if he didn't bring his gear,
that maybe they wouldn't need him...
but i think he was happy to be out on the field.

isaiah is number 10 this year.
pitching, third base, and outfield yesterday.
he was VERY sore.
but happy.

coolness.

˙ʎןsnoıɹǝs 'uɐǝɯ ı
¿ɹǝʌǝ ƃuıɥʇ ʍǝu ʇsǝןooɔ ǝɥʇ sıɥʇ sı
'ʇno ʇı ʞɔǝɥɔ os

i'm a sharpie.

so, last night i was at a meeting.
the kind of meeting where you have to add dates
to your calendar.
a planning meeting.

i was watching the women write things down
on their calendars.
they were writing with pencils.

erasing things when they changed their mind,
or when a date didn't work out.

and i looked at my calendar.
and my writing utensil.

a sharpie.
fine tip, but a sharpie non the less.

i guess i don't intend to erase much.
when i make a decision,
it is made.
there is no turning back,
unless of course you want to cross something out,
but that just ends up looking messy.

so, my calendar had stuff
scratched out, and written over,
arrows pointing to the date i meant to write something under.

messy.

i have decided calendars say a lot about people.
and i am okay
with using a sharpie.