Delayed Thanks

Looking back on my photo reel for the past few weeks brings a smile to my face.  We have been rocking it hard here in the Tri-Cities.  We got our first snow a few weeks ago and the girls were ecstatic.  We built a little snowman and perched him atop our mailbox before the rest of it started to melt.  After that, we were off to see all things Santa; at the mall and a Christmas event Aunt Liz's business was putting on.  We don't really get into the magic behind Santa with our girls, instead we are trying to instill in them a sense of who the real Saint Nicholas was and the spirit of giving that is inherent in all things 'Santa'.  We have kind of slacked off in past years because the concept was kind of heavy for a two-year old, but Audrey can totally understand the reasons we need to give to those who are less fortunate and that is why we will be celebrating Saint Nicholas Day this year.

So, when we were on our way to the mall to see the big guy in red, Audrey asked: "Are we going to go see a guy dressed like Santa?".  It kind of makes me happy that she can understand that he's not a magical gift-giving genie, but symbolizes someone who once was 'Santa'.

Any time spent at the mall is good in Audrey's book, so we went and gawked at the jolly guy with fantastic facial hair, ate some pretzels, grabbed a goodie bag from the Kidget's booth and then headed over to Liz's event to see yet another guy dressed like Santa.  This one was handing out candy canes and the girls actually warmed up to taking a picture (in his vicinity) after being around him for half an hour.  It was a really fun, laid-back Christmasy weekend.

...which we needed.

Because we ended up hosting a group of thirty people for Thanksgiving.

And it was awesome. But I'll get to that later.

In the interim, we mourned the loss of our favorite local tea-shop bakery.  The girls and I have made a habit on Tuesdays of hitting up the library for story time and adjourning to the Tea Shop for tea and scones afterward.  It has been a really sweet tradition that will always stick with me.  But, being the daughter of small business owners, I can totally understand the strain that a poor economy puts on local businesses.  People don't stop to drink tea when they're worrying about paying their bills.  It's a shame, but I have nothing but good memories attached to the Chamomile Garden Tea Bar and I'm thankful that the mother and daughter who run the business are choosing to cut their losses and focus on the tea shop.

Usually there is nothing like a well-timed pie day to pick up one's spirits, instead, this year made me understand the Christmas Vacation-inspired take on the holidays.  Everyone has individual feelings on what aspects of the holidays just absolutely define the celebration.  For Karen, it's sneaking samples of the turkey before anyone else gets a bite.  Our cousin Ashley claims that there can be no celebration unless there is Martinelli's sparkling cider present.  I am of the opinion that a celebration without pie is no celebration at all.  So, understandably, Pie Day is a huge deal for me.  And now that I'm a mother with traditions to carry on, I want my children to understand how beautiful it is to take an entire day to have no other goal than to make pie.

Pie Day started out great this year.  I got out of bed in a near-euphoric state in anticipation of the joy to come.  Only I forgot that you cannot focus on just making pie when you are also responsible for the health and well being of two children under the age of four.  In the end, we made four pies and my goal had been to make at least seven.  By bath time, I was just starting to come around to the idea that four pies would be enough.  And then I tasted the extra pumpkin filling from the pies Audrey made with my assistance...and tasted no sugar.  None.

I was so caught up in the magic that I forgot to include a key ingredient for making pie edible and was, at that point, down to twelve hours spent making a grand total of two edible pies.

To say: 'I lost it' would be putting it mildly.

But then I remembered that this was not the first pie day I had gone on a Clark W. Griswold inspired rampage over pie day or even just the holidays themselves.  It's all a part of growing up and trying to be a part of creating that magic for your loved ones.  Luckily, it was also an opportunity for me to humble myself in my personal delusions of what makes a holiday special. 

In the end, I bought several unappetizing pies from Fred Meyer and called it a day.  And you know what?  It was still a fantastic celebration.  We woke up early and hit up the Tri-Cities Turkey Trot.  We walked a mile with the girls, chased dogs and played in the leaves then headed home to start our feast preparations.  We had family and friends gather in great numbers to celebrate and give thanks and all that is what mattered more than turkey or sparkling cider or pie.  We are blessed and so very thankful.   

    

Beautifully Busy

When I drop off the radar on my blog, it's usually because I'm too busy enjoying life to update anyone else with the details.  This past week was no exception...although if you asked John, I'm sure he'd have a different story.  

John has been working on a Masters certification in Applied Intelligence Analysis for the better part of a year and this last class has been an absolute killer.  Pretty much every week has been punctuated by a paper due at the end.  Blech.  And anyone who has ever tried to be remotely productive with two crazy children in the house will know that it is near impossible, so the girls and I have been spending a lot of time out of the house trying to give John some uninterrupted time to get papers and projects done.  John's final project in his last class was due Sunday evening and it was an epic series of outings for the girls and paper writing sessions for John.  

Terryn and Bailey are buds...even when she tries to escape him.

The girls and I were out and about so much without John that I think people started thinking I was trying to cover up his suspicious murder with the old "writing a paper" excuse.  It goes without saying that there has been much rejoicing for the return of The Papa.  

Luckily, the girls and I got to have a lot of fun while we accommodated Papa's paper writing. There are seven family/friend birthdays in a week and a half and the first celebration was this Saturday for Miss Hailey Turner.  Bailey was the life of the Party (as is expected) and Audrey spent most of her time in the toy room playing make believe with Hailey's dolls, ignoring everything but birthday cake. 

While we did spend a lot of time out on our own, we also coaxed John out for a few outings.  Natalie and her beautiful brood came over from Seattle to do a family photo shoot for us.  We were lucky enough to get to hang with the boys while Nat and Steve went to a client meeting Friday night and then played with the whole gang in the park the next morning and shot some photos (God-willingly) for our Christmas cards.   

Natalie and our novice photographer

 The next morning was the most glorious daylight's savings time I've experienced since becoming a parent--Falling back this year did not entail waking up at 5am, but meant an extra hour before church, in which I convinced our little family to sneak out of the house to enjoy an Ihop breakfast. 

More syrup, please!

 Life has been a little blurry since then: we've been celebrating the end of John's program by spending as much time together as humanly possible, playing with playdough, reading books, going on walks and generally basking in each other's presence.  Life is busy, but beautiful.  

Audrey with the sunflower she planted as a seed at the county fair

Happy Halloween!

Coach B! and Fancy Nancy are about to take the neighborhood by storm.

Life has been on the far side of busy lately. So, we were kind of just trying to keep our heads above water when, suddenly, it was time to get dressed up for Halloween and go about begging for candy.  I have mixed feelings about Halloween...as well as having mixed feelings about people who have mixed feelings about Halloween.  Understandably, it's an odd place to be.  I have nothing against the spirit of the holiday--I don't think it's satanic--holidays are what you make them, not what select microcosms in society practice. 

For me, Halloween is an excuse to dress up in a silly costume and parade about town.  I like it.  But, knocking on strangers doors, begging for candy while giving nothing in return?  I've got issues with that.  Especially since my children could easily be described as: cute, adorable, beautiful...I may be biased, but I do not want my children thinking that people are going to roll out the red carpet and search their house for gifts any time they ring the door bell.  (In case you're wondering where this is coming from, just watch The Bubble episode of 30 Rock.)

Luckily, this predicament comes with an easy solution.  I drew on Audrey's propensity to pick, arrange and gift flowers and announced that we would be exchanging flowers for candy this year.  It might sound lame, but I'll take whatever I can get when it comes to teaching these girls that being cute is not an actual accepted form of payment in the real world.  Also, I secretly love living vicariously through my daughter giving flowers to people. 

 

We had plans on a much grander scale, but our schedule dictated that we stick close to home.  And it was fortunate we did.  Remember how I was just talking about trying to find new ways to imbed ourselves in our community?  What better way than to use your costume-clad offspring as an excuse to canvas the neighborhood, ringing doorbells and making introductions?  We got to talk to a lot of our neighbors, who we usually just wave to while in our cars or front yards.  Having the topic of adorable children to break the ice really helps.  We've got it easy...I'm just sayin'.

Another boon to sticking to our neighborhood is that since we're on a dead end with houses on only one side of the street, this neighborhood doesn't get a lot of trick-or-treaters.  Our neighbors were all ridiculously excited to see the girls out and about and encouraged them to take as much candy as they wanted since there probably wouldn't be any other goblins ringing their doorbell that night. (ok, so I do actually like the candy aspect of Halloween, I just don't like feeling guilty about it) The long and short of it is: the girls made a killing.

 

We brought our booty back home and while the girls were distributing it to family members, Calvin, the pterodactyl, brought his parents by for a visit.  The girls shared a sucker with him and he proceeded to run circles around our kitchen island, drooling cherry flavored slobber all over his white undershirt until (I kid you not) it was entirely soaked through and faintly pink-colored.  Fortunately, this was an excuse for me to get him into one of the girls Bomb Squad shirts.  I love this kid more than words or awesome saliva-soaked shirts can express. 

Overall, we were kind of slapped in the face by the actual holiday coming upon us quickly.  At the beginning of our evening I felt like we were just trying to force a mandatory cultural experience on our children, but we ended up putting our own spin on it and made it a great, spiritually fulfilling holiday.  Take that, naysayers!   I'm going to go steal candy from my children now...you know, so they don't eat it.  It's better this way.  Trust me. 

At Market's End

I should warn you: this is going to be yet another overly gushy post about how much I love my girls.  It should really go without saying, but I still can't help saying it.

The Farmer's Market is a bright spot in our lives every Friday, five months out of the year.  I eagerly await it's opening in the Spring and equally dread the last Market in the Fall...well, I suppose the Friday after the last market is most depressing. 

The Farmer's Market isn't just a venue in which to purchase delicious produce, meat and a variety of other handmade goods, but an opportunity to become a part of a community: to support local farmers and small business owners, to create bonds and relationships with the people making food and goods for your family.  It's a beautiful thing.

What is even more beautiful is how much Audrey and Bailey love the Market.  We tend to hit up the same sellers every week; the 'bread guy' the 'wine lady' and a host of other people who the girls have steadily charmed over the months.  Some of these people, we've known through the years and most of them, right down to the guy singing Johnny Cash covers mentioned looking forward to seeing the girls next Spring. 

This is community--something that I never really valued until I had children.  I am blessed to be surrounded by so much loveliness and sad to know that it will be so long before we have the opportunity to see these people again.  It makes me all the more determined to find ways to integrate ourselves into our community outside of the Farmer's Market.  Having kids this adorable, it would really be selfish to hog all that cuteness.  The world must know!
  

Homesick

I am the baby in my family: the youngest of three siblings and the second youngest of fourteen maternal cousins, whom I spent nearly every holiday and family event with as a small child.  I have always been one of the youngest people in any group I've been involved in: my family, my graduating class, every job I've ever held, not to mention the age gap between my husband and I (and subsequently his siblings).  I am the baby.  It's my lot in life.  I've accepted the benefits of being the baby (anyone who is a 'baby' or is the jealous older sibling of one should understand that these are numerous), but I've always taken pride in defying the tradition of hanging on to the parental units and reaping the benefits of being cared for as only the baby in the family can be.  On the contrary, I feel like I identified more with my older siblings and was eager to get a job (at the age of 14) to make my own money...to buy pants that weren't tapered or two inches too short (it wasn't Mom's fault that I was growing like a weed).  Having paid my own way to go on an exchange trip to Germany for a month when I was 16, I pretty much felt like I was ready to take over the world.  So, you can understand that the next two years were excruciating, waiting for the opportunity to go to college and subsequently make my own way. 

I very vividly remember dropping my brother off at college; he was the first one out of the nest and it was an emotional event for all of us.  There was lots of crying...all the way home from Rolla.  When Emily went to college, we went on a pilgrimage to Chicago to help her integrate into life at U of C.  By the time my parents were ready to empty their nest, they followed me the two-hour drive to Springfield, hauled my boxes to my dorm room...we might have eaten lunch, but by that time, they were old pro's at the whole getting children out of the house thing and it was pretty much just 'drive home if you want to see us'.  No big deal. 

It really wasn't.  I drove home pretty frequently for the weekends and making it for the holidays was a given.  Even when I met John and we got engaged, we visited his family for Christmas but were always able to make it to Mountain Home for Thanksgiving and New Years. 

Homesickness through this all was never really an issue; I had moved out of the house, but was still just a few hours away from almost my entire family.  I was independent, but still connected.  Obviously, the dynamic changed when we moved to Washington, but through it all, my family and I have made a concerted effort to see each other several times a year and to make sure the girls get plenty of Skype time.  I've missed my family and wished they could be with us, but never in my life have I really experienced what I would express as genuine pangs of homesickness.

Until now.

I haven't been home since last Christmas.  I've seen my family: my Mom and Dad and brother and sister, but I have much more family...FAMILY that I want to hug and show my children off to...and I'm not just limiting this to my biological family but the larger group of individuals I consider to be my God-gifted family too.

It has been so heavy on my heart--the need to see and hug and kiss these treasured people--to share a meal or a game of cards or a conversation that simply can't be had over the phone.  My heart aches to be home and I know that God can make it happen...I just don't know how yet.  And that's what kills me.  I am anxious to know how He will be at work.  To see how He will bring me through this heartache.  Pray with me, will you?  For the first time ever, this baby NEEDS her family and they are so far away.     

Leavenworth 2011

This past weekend, we carried on our October tradition of heading to the mountains to visit the quaint village of Leavenworth, WA.  Our day was filled with delicious sausage, light smatterings of rain and more dogs than you could shake a stick at.  After our relaxing weekend here, sans kiddos, back in May, it was interesting to see Leavenworth through the eyes of three crazy kids.  (Jackie and Calvin came along to round out our motley crew.)     

Leavenworth is absolutely gorgeous this time of year; it's sad that we have to drive nearly three hours to find deciduous trees, but it was totally worth it to see them in their fall glory. The village of Leavenworth definitely survives on tourism, but it's incredible charm and even more impressive culinary offerings makes it worth every minute in the car with three toddlers.   We timed our trip so we'd have the opportunity to eat at least two meals in town; such is the level of our commitment.  

We had planned on catching lunch at Munchen Haus, but on the way happened upon a brand spanking new sausage garden owned by the same people as Cured (our favorite cured meat specialists).  If I wasn't already stoked about our impending awesome sausage experience, I hardly kept myself from leaping over the counter to kiss the owner when I heard him talking to the line chef standing at the grill: "Listen, when people start lining up like this, they're going to order s#*.  So, just throw some s#*t on." 

That, my friends, is excellent management.  And we were not disappointed; whatever that line chef threw on the grill tasted fantastic.

After our fortifying lunch we quickly found it is not so easy to leisurely meander through quaint shops with three rambunctious kiddos in tow, so instead, we did a lot of window shopping with frequent stops to attack unsuspecting people's dogs.  

Since we've been to Leavenworth several times,  we're pretty familiar with most of the local shops and attractions, but were pleasantly surprised by some of the village's new additions.  We found a store that specializes in roasted and glazed nuts where I picked up some vanilla and cinnamon roasted pecans.  Another new find was a tea shop where Audrey, Bailey and Calvin absolutely charmed the pants off the staff.  It's hard not to when you're that cute...I mean, what else are you going to do? I also picked up a box of chocolates at the best place in town: Schocolat. 

After listening to the live festive music in the park and letting the kiddos run amok in the fall leaves and squishy grass, we headed over to our favorite place: Andrea's Keller.  This place serves the most authentic German food I've been able to find stateside and I absolutely love their weisswurst and spatzle.  What shocked me was how much Audrey liked the rotkohl (sauerkraut made with red cabbage and wine).  Bailey ate her weight in spatzle and she and Calvin kept each other amused throughout dinner talking about their bandaids (earned during the aforementioned jaunt in the park).  After dinner we rolled our happy bellies down to pick up some cheese at the Cheesemonger's shop and some gelato for the road.  All in all, it was a very filling (literally), gratifying day.  Leavenworth and gluttony kind of go hand in hand, so now it's back to reality and a more mundane menu.  

At least I've got those cute kids around to lift me from my lack-of-wurst depression.   

Those Were The Days...

At some point in my life, I'm going to look back with intense longing and wish that I could just exist in a time when everything was so good it almost seemed wrong that anyone could be so blessed.

Those days are now. 

I have had plenty of life-changing experiences and fond memories in my short 26 years on this earth and for the most part, things have been good.  I had an idyllic childhood, par-for-the-course dramatic teen years, college rebellion shortly followed by meeting my best friend in the world and making some incredibly cute babies with him. 

I still look back at pictures of our girls when they were wee babes and have sweet pangs of longing for the feeling of wonderment that is inherent in bringing another human being into this world.  But you know what?  Pretty much nothing tops what we've got going on right now.  The miracle of life has got nothing on how beautiful it is to see two little beings that you've incubated and subsequently given life to just absolutely rock this world.  I love leaving the house with those two, and really, it can just be a trip to the mailbox or the grocery store, but I can guarantee you that those two are going to touch someone else's life and it's going to be for the better. 

Every day, I see this.  And you have no idea how cool that is.  I want to be like my daughters.  I want people to be able to just look at me and find their day is a little brighter.  Unfortunately I am not three years old with a propensity to break into song/dance in public, nor do I single out perfect strangers and greet them like it's the greatest part of my day. 

The point is, I have people who do that for me.  Every day.  All day.  And I can't imagine that there is any greater goal than bringing joy and brightness into the life of every person you meet.  We could all learn something from those girls. 

I wouldn't suggest starting with song and dance, but a flippy skirt and a smile might do the trick.