Pass the peas, please

My house has officially been sparkling clean for 48 hours now! I think that's a new record. It's definitely a record for how long it's stayed clean with us actually in town and living in it. I'm harboring some small hope that this experience will result in my being a better housekeeper all around. Like maybe after this is all said and done, I'll continue to make the beds on a regular basis and tidy up the kitchen before bed every night. Or, more likely, I'll immediately rebel against cleaning once the house is sold and live in a pigsty till the day we move.

Today we experiences a special parental right of passage. I'm told that kids stick things up their noses all the time, but we'd been lucky till now. Thankfully, it was just a pea, so a nice soft item that I think would be infinitely simpler to remove than, say, the peanut Nathaniel jammed up his nose as a child...

Both the girls were at the table enjoying their lunches. I was in the kitchen prepping my own lunch, when I heard Marianne say calmly, "Mommy, I have a pea in my nose." Eh? What's that? Sure enough, a pea. I looked up into her tiny nostril and could see the little green offender stuck just back there where the nasal cavity opens up. I tried having her blow, but she's never been great at that. Then I tried something recommended once by my friend Sara, courtesy of her doctor when her son put something in his nose (was that a pea as well? I can't recall). I plugged Marianne's open nostril and blew into her mouth. Sadly, it had little effect. At this point, Marianne was starting to get scared, though I was trying to keep the situation light so she wouldn't start sucking in a lot of air to cry and pull the pea further back. I called Nathaniel in from shoveling and told him what I'd tried so far. He volunteered to try again with the blowing-in-the-mouth thing and this time it worked like a charm. The pea popped right out. It took Marianne a few minutes to compose herself, but eventually she returned to the table and finished off her lunch.

About an hour later, after I'd helped Ruth blow her nose numerous times (because she's a tad on the snotty side these days, but what kid isn't?), Nathaniel looked at her and noticed a pea sticking out of her nose! Apparently she'd stuck one up her nostril as well (Marianne confirmed having seen this happen - the joy of sisterhood... team nose plugging), but we hadn't realized until it worked itself out on its own. Wonderful.

We had a nice chat with both girls about not putting anything into their noses, but I'm definitely going to be more on guard for this sort of behavior in the future. I figure once they've done it with such minimal consequences, there's a good chance that they'll try with something more interesting next time. Like a marshmallow. Or a Barbie shoe.

Worth reading

I was catching up on a few blogs I've not read in a while, and I came across a post on Daring Young Mom that I think is definitely worth reading. It's called "I Support Choice and Natural Consequences". It's incredibly well-written and the comments follow suit. They all do an impressive job of stating their opinions respectfully without getting combative.

It's not light reading, but worth the 5 minutes for sure.

Check

I love spreadsheets! It's the sick truth about me. I once received an honorary award from a team I was working with naming me "Excel Queen for the Day". I've had the post-it note/award on my wall for years. Anytime I get overwhelmed, my friend Ginny tells me it's time to make a spreadsheet. She understands, though I'm pretty sure she uses Word for her own lists, seeing as how she was an Arts and Letters major as opposed to Business.

For the past several months I've had a running spreadsheet of "Things to do at home", meaning things to do before we put our house on the market. I pulled it up this morning and, after checking off the items that are completed, I feel like a new person! Clearing the clutter from the computer desk and shelves, repairing the curtain in the girls' room, decreasing the level of toys strewn around the living room, removing extraneous appliances (and piles of junk mail and other stuff for which we cannot find a home) from the kitchen counters... check, check, check, check.

And, as of Wednesday, one of the biggest remaining open items: "Replace carpet". CHECK. Our whole house, bathrooms and kitchen excluded, is now carpeted in nice, pretty, clean carpet. I don't have any pictures because, well, it's still just tan carpet. I hardly notice it when I'm doing other things around the house, because the color blends well and it's not pretentious. I think pretentious carpet would be a bad thing. But when I stop and look at the carpet, it's really an enormous improvement to the house! Especially on the stairs where the old carpet had been beaten to within an inch of its low-pile life. (Thank you to Jenni and Heather, who let their husbands spend all of Wednesday at my house with Nathaniel, moving furniture for the carpet guys and painting trim - the never ending story at our house - in their free time!)

Additionally, Nathaniel took another day off work yesterday to get more of the trim painted so when the realtor came yesterday afternoon to photograph the house for flyers the trim would be a consistent color. All the obvious trim is done. Done! There's still a little trim on the side of the house up against our neighbors that needs to be done, and the trim that runs under the gutter on the back side of the house has about 2 inches of exposed wood that needs to be painted, but the house looks great! I probably could take a picture of that, but for now, take my word. The blue that I thought perhaps too bright at first has totally grown on me now that it's all over the house, and I think it looks wonderful. Nathaniel is sore and tired and way behind at work now, but it was totally worth it.

In celebration of all our hard work, we're going out for a date night on Saturday! Our friend Meredith has kindly volunteered to watch the girls, and I am looking forward to this more than I can say. The thought of dinner out in a nice restaurant... pleasant conversation uninterrupted by children... yummy food that doesn't get cold while I'm busy blowing on someone else's plate so she doesn't burn herself... you get the idea.

The house is going on the market today, so send happy vibes our way that people will want to see it and that once they do, they'll love it!

Too many toys for tots

Last night I went through all of the toys in our house for the third time in about six weeks. The first time was back in early December when I sorted through every toy we own, both in the house and in boxes in the garage. I pulled out all the toys that don't get much interest or that are too obnoxious or for whatever reason we simply no longer needed around the house. Some I threw away and the rest I gave to charity (let the poor kids have the freakishly loud singing animal - so charitable!). I also, during that pass, filled two boxes jam-packed with toys, and taped them up for later rotation into play. Maybe.

About a week ago, I made another inspection of the toys in an effort to get our house ready to sell. I loaded a third box full of toys, cutting the total volume of toys in our house approximately in half. It felt good, and appeared manageable. Some of packed away toys were things the girls really love, like all the plastic food items that they shop for and cook with, but that are simply too hard to keep picked up. Others were toys that had lost their attractiveness over the past several weeks or been replaced by newer, cooler Christmas gifts. The toys in the living room seemed sparse by the time I finished.

Last night, I went back through the toys with an iron fist. If it has more than two parts or has been left on the living room floor more than once in the past week, it's out. I cannot believe how much work it is to clean up toys every night even after I've pared them down. (Not that I've cleaned up the toys every night this week, but every night before bed I've thought about how much work it will be to clean that all up once the house is on the market.) I packed up one more big box of toys, leaving out the favorite stuffed toys and babies, an assortment of cars, one set of sorting blocks (my one exception to the "no more than two parts" rule), and some balls. There must be a few more toys than that, because the toy bins all still seem magically full. Oh, and I left the doll house, but with only an small assortment of the larger pieces of furniture. I seriously cut back this time. I also finally took the shopping cart, toy vacuum and popper to the garage. I'll give this level of toys a try for a few days and then decide if I need to take away even more of the fun in our house.

I really hope someone buys our house quickly, or my poor children are liable to end up with no toys at all because I'm too lazy to clean them up every night. Yes, I try to have the girls help with clean up, but you can only get so much from a three year old and a one year old. And threatening to put their toys in a bag in the garage if they don't help clean up, super-nanny style, seems a little wrong since I've already done that with the vast majority of their toys through no fault of their own. This definitely has helped me realize how excessive our toy collection has already become after just three years as parents. I will be vigilant, going forward, about donating toys to charity on a regular basis. It's simply ridiculous that we could have four big moving boxes full of toys in the garage and still have plenty of toys to keep the kids entertained in the house. Ridiculous and excessive. The key descriptive terms for life in our country.

On a side note, I had a little déjà vu last night as I came up the stairs from our family room. It's the TV room and, up until last night, had a basket of toys for entertaining the girls when Dora just couldn't cut it. Since those toys were seldom used but often scattered outside the basket, I packed away all the toys from the family room. If they don't want to sit and watch television quietly, they can come upstairs to play - so there! I'm such a tough mom. But I digress. I glanced into the room as I headed up stairs and had a brief but powerful vision of what life had been like pre-child. Back when there were NO TOYS in our house. When tidying up before bed consisted solely of cleaning the kitchen and maybe putting away the book I'd been reading on the sofa. Because back then I had time to read on the sofa! I wouldn't give up my girls for all the clean houses in the world, but still... it was a happy memory.

Minivans and tea cozies don't make me middle-aged

Let's get the biggest news out first - we finally got our minivan! We started this process months ago, using a car broker for the first time. We told him what we were looking for and over the past couple months he's attended a few auctions looking for a good car for us. This week he finally found one, and yesterday he delivered it to my place of work. He drove away in our Rendezvous, and I got to drive home in our new Kia Sedona. It's a 2006 program car, which means it has about 16,000 miles on it from some executive leasing program or something similar, and is in very good shape. Without further ado...
Yup. It's pretty much a minivan. I'm a little sad about the color. I'd originally told the broker that the dark blue (blue velvet, per the Kia brochure) was high on my list, but in the couple of months since then, I think that faded in his memory to just "blue". We ended up with the lighter blue (glacier blue, to be exact - perhaps fitting given the weather). It's not awful, and rated higher in my preferences than at least four of the other color options, but there were a few colors I would have preferred. Still, I think it'll grow on me. The broker did say that this minivan was in the best shape of any up for auction that day, so I suppose I'd rather have a slightly less perfect color but a better overall vehicle.

There it is. I'm officially a minivan mom. My own mother is laughing right now, I'm sure, about how when I was in high school I swore I'd never own a minivan, but then I could hardly have imagined just how my life would go... and I'm very happy with my shiny blue minivan today.

*****

Lest you think my past several months have been entirely free of craftiness, I thought I'd go ahead a share a couple small projects I've finished. The first, though only a patch job, was a fairly complicated undertaking. Here's a picture of the girls' room - the section I like to think of as the Pottery Barn Kids' corner:
I love those curtains. I love them so much that they're being excluded from the window treatments included with the purchase of our house (but really, if they don't go with your nursery, why would you want them?). Somehow, over the summer, during an episode of jumping on the bed, a section of the curtains was shredded. And I mean shredded. There were several tears and each was frayed and awful looking. I can't leave curtains like that up when the house in on the market, so I attempted to fix them. The very nice lady at JoAnne's told me the fabric was something called organdy (that's how I remember it, but I may be wrong). The only similar fabric they carried was white. The curtains were once white as well, but after years of sun exposure and dust exposure and not being cleaned because they're dry clean only, they are far from white now. So the very nice lady at JoAnne's also told me about the concept of tea-staining fabric. I did tea stain it, then I cut the torn section out of the curtain, replaced it with my newly browned fabric, and stitched on the patchwork stars that had been a part of the original section.
All in all, it went reasonably well, and I think the outcome is passable. Most likely wherever we move will not have floor to ceiling windows in the girls' room, so when that time comes I'll cut the curtains to size and hem them up and this will all have been for naught. It'll do for now.

My second project was a one-night event. Nathaniel has been asking for a tea cozy for ages, and I'd purchased yarn and started an attempt at crocheting one in the past. It wasn't going well, though, so was stuffed in a bag in the back of a closet. He mentioned the need for a tea cozy last night just before we sat down to a movie and I figured there was no time like the present. I pulled apart the previous attempt and started fresh.

Now you see it:

Now you don't:
I didn't actually intend to make it with the spout and handle exposed, but I just couldn't seem to work out a shape that would cover the whole thing well. Besides, once I saw what was taking shape, I thought it was pretty cute. I'm happy to cross that project off my list of things that need made. Oh, and thank you to the people behind the movie Edison Force for not making your movie more interesting. I never could have completed the tea cozy in one night if the movie had been distracting me.

*****

Nathaniel was a little crafty himself over the holiday season. He put together a few of the images he's taken with a telescope in New Mexico and gave a select few people "the gift of science" for Christmas and birthday presents. Here are the images he used.

Any attempt on my part to describe these would be weak at best, so I won't try other than to say that I think they're lovely, and I'm hoping Nathaniel won't wait too long before he makes some prints for our own home.

That's no bull

THAT's bull.

And this might be bull, but I don't think so. We didn't get close enough to know for sure.
In case you aren't from here, or haven't worked it out, we took the girls to the National Western Stock Show last night. We were considering going to one of their shows, called SuperDogs, but didn't get there in time to make it worthwhile. Instead, we went to the petting zoo and wandered around the livestock for a while. Marianne kept her hands in her pockets most of the time we were outside of the petting zoo because, she told me, she didn't want the animals to bite her fingers. Probably not the worst idea.

The petting zoo was definitely good fun. It was free (once you paid your general entry fee) unless you wanted to buy food for the animals. They had lots of goats, of course, as well as sheep, pigs, llamas, ducks, a baby donkey, and chickens. (Who thought a chicken was a good idea? Am I only person who views reaching your hand toward a chicken as a surefire way to get your fingers pecked off? Maybe that's just a personal phobia.) The girls were a little timid for the first couple minutes, but after that, it was all we could do to keep up with them as they ran from animal to animal to pet them all.

The non-rodeo events shut down at 8:00, and Marianne was begging for ice cream, so we stopped at McD's on the way home for a couple vanilla cones. It was freezing outside, but the treat sounded nice. A short time later, after arriving home and tucking the girls into bed, I noticed the thermostat was reading 60 degrees. It was chilly in the house, but I guess between a lot of walking outside and the ice cream, it hadn't hit me just how chilly. Nathaniel did some investigative work and discovered that our furnace was no longer working. Sweet! I think the low was in the single digits last night, so not the best night for the furnace to kick it. We put our one space heater in the girls' room, so they never noticed the trouble, and added some blankets to our own bed. Man, was it ever hard to drag myself out of bed this morning! It's bad enough on a normal morning, but when you know you have no heat... Thankfully, the furnace was still under warranty, and the service guys even let Nathaniel pick up the part and replace it himself, saving us their minimum housecall charge of $125. Hooray. The house is in the process of warming back up as we speak. Which is a good thing, or one of you would have been hosting a family of four on your living room floor tonight.

A letter of apology

Dear fellow users of public transportation:

I'm writing today to apologize for my behavior of late. Ever since receiving my iPod, I've found it difficult to act appropriately on the bus. I have some really good music on that thing, and when the music gets in my head, it's a challenge to be still. Most days, you wouldn't know me from any other person on the bus with white earbuds. But on days like yesterday, when I've forgotten my book so have nothing but the music for distraction, you may notice me. I'm the one who's foot won't stop tapping and whose head bobs a little to the beat. And who occasionally starts mouthing the words to the song that no one else can hear.

A little piece of me hopes that you see a young person enjoying her music and you think it's cute and maybe a touch endearing. But then I catch my reflection in the window and realize that I'm not a cute little college student who might be able to get away with jamming to her headphones. I'm the average-sized, almost middle-aged mother of two, dressed in frumpy business casual (although with a pretty sweet cranberry coat), and it's pretty lame that I'm making a spectacle of myself. I promise to try harder to control myself in the future. Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
That lady in front of you on the bus

Updated: PS. According to my friends, and conventional wisdom, that "almost middle-aged" comment was off base. I'm younger than I think I am. Maybe I am still cute.

It's probably nothing...

... but I just got an email from a reporter with the Wall Street Journal who's doing an article and she wants to talk to me. No really. I googled her, and she's a real reporter. Um, I'll let you know what happens.

*****

Update: I talked to the journalist and I may actually be quoted in a Wall Street Journal article! How cool is that. I mean, it's not a business or politics article or anything, but I'm okay with that. Oh, and I won't be able to tell you if I am, cause that would blow my weak attempts at privacy on this blog... But I'm sure those of you who actually know me will hear about it from me personally. What a strange day!

Let me count the ways

You know what I love? Target's "One Spot". If you're a Target shopper, but you're not familiar with this, you should be! It's a section in the store, usually near the cart corral, where they have a couple rows of bins, and everything in the bins is one dollar. Sometimes they're two for a dollar. Frequently the items will be junky or cheesy, and generally at least half the stuff is either seasonal or for pets, but all that aside, you can find some great stuff in the One Spot. Case in point:

The dance skirts, dress up gloves, and leg warmers (under Marianne's jeans, so hard to see) were two for a dollar, or maybe even just a quarter. Whatever it was, they were dirt cheap, so I bought a selection of colors and keep them in a cute hat box on the window seat so the girls can get dressed up and dance to their hearts' content whenever the mood strikes them.

Yesterday we found the shoes. Ruth has on ballet flat type slippers and Marianne is sporting the low-heeled princess shoes (a stunning look with the boot cut jeans and discreet leg warmers). They had a few colors in these as well, but I held back and only got one pair of each kind. They were a full dollar, after all. I love this stuff.

The One Spot is also fantastic for kids' reusable plastic plates, tumblers and metal flatware, as well as party favor items like stickers, little notebooks and fun or funky pens and pencils. It's a blast just to look through and see what they have from one week to the next. Once, when I was helping to throw a friend's baby shower, I walked through the One Spot and discovered that they happened to have a TON of legitimately cute baby shower supplies (that even fit the jungle animal theme of the nursery). What are the chances?

I'll call this free marketing for Target to make up for the fact that I scanned in the photos we had done there and posted them on the web. As a little finale, here's a brief video of the girls having a dance party yesterday afternoon. My two points to watch for:

1. Drama Queen Marianne - watch her fling herself onto the floor. She'll totally be in some high school musicals later in life.

2. Copycat Ruth - keep an eye out for Ruth's follow up collapse. That kid kills me. She does everything her sister does, a split second later.

(be forewarned - video contains music and lots of giggling)

For your viewing enjoyment

Here are the professional photos we had taken back in November to hand out over the holidays. This is the one that most people received, as it was the best one that showed both girls' full faces.


The next one is actually three seperate pictures, but I love the way they look all together. I have a frame in my office with the three 5x7s lined up like this, and it makes me smile every time I walk in. Darn. Those are some cute kids.

Marianne is her super-model skills in her individual pose. Ruth, on the other hand, wouldn't smile for the world, so this was the best we managed. Still, that's Ruth's "cheese" smile to a tee, so it's nice to have it immortalized. The more serious photo of the two of them together is, I think, my favorite picture from the day. (A quick shout-out to my friend Karen, who suggested the matching socks idea, which I love in this picture.) I'm pretty sure within seconds of the photographer snapping that photo, Marianne pushed Ruth to the floor with a "my chair!", but it looks like they were really sharing a moment, right?

The holidays

I had my check up this morning and the doctor said that I have nothing too serious (no strep or mono or anything so dramatic). A simple virus, most likely, to begin with, but one that has become a sinus infection. I have my round of antibiotics and am now on my way to health. I hope. To any I've exposed along the way to my virus-friend, I apologize! The rest of my own house seems to have avoided it (knocking on wooden desk as I type). For that I'm thankful. Sick babies and men are all a pitiful sight.

I'm afraid I've waited too long to give a very detailed recap of our holiday adventures, as I can pull to mind very few good anecdotes. I do, however, recall endless hours in the car on several occasions. Those were made longer as the trip progressed by Marianne's growing understanding that if she uttered those magical words "I need to potty, Mommy," she'd likely end up with some candy from a gas station (because we're the sort of people who can't just use the restroom and run). The portions of the trip that were traditionally 10 hours were closer to 12 this time around with stops for meals and numerous potty breaks.

It was all to a good purpose, though, as we had an excellent time in the company of family. Here's a shot of Nathaniel building towers with our children and my sister's:

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see that photo? For me, it's "Darn! That's a lot of kids!" That was sort of the motto of the first weekend of our break. Whether I was helping my mom serve a meal, or helping the kids get ready for bed, it was an overwhelming reality check. That really IS a lot of kids. But they're good kids. Here's a better look:

See. They clean up alright. I'm sure there will never be a picture in which they all smile at the exact same time, but they came close here. For those of you who don't know, the back row is Sara and Jacob, Elizabeth is in the middle, and the bottom row is, of course, Ruth and Marianne. The kids were all wound up after "midnight mass" (actually at 7:00pm), and wanted to get changed into jammies so they could set out milk and cookies for Santa then run around the house like screaming banshees in an effort to not go to bed. Because what kid in his or her right mind really wants to go to bed on Christmas Eve?

Marianne and Elizabeth got along very much like sisters. This was a sweet moment when I found them, a study in pigtails, bent over a book together. I don't remember for sure, but it's likely that within a few minutes they were yelling and fighting over who's book it was.

Here Marianne has set out the milk and cookies. More than even Santa could manage to eat! Marianne also had colored a couple pictures earlier on Christmas Eve that she wanted to leave out for Santa to have. I'm sure they're decorating his fridge even as I type.

And then came Christmas morning! We'd told the kids that no one was allowed out of their bedrooms till 8:00am, as that's about the time most of the little girls had been waking the couple mornings prior. But, of course, by shortly after 7:00 the whole house was awake, so the announcement was made that the kids could come downstairs. Marianne and Elizabeth each got a shiny new tricycle, and they put them to use right away and all throughout the day. Thankfully the weather, though chilly, was dry, so the kids were able to play with their new toys outside as well.

As you can see, though Ruth got a new baby doll rather than a bike of her own, she was never wanting for a ride.

We spent Christmas day playing with all the gifts from Santa and family, then on the 26th, Nathaniel and I packed Marianne and Ruth back in the car and headed to Nebraska to visit his family. Oh, and we also managed to shove TWO tricycles in there, as my folks had no room to get Elizabeth's trike back to her home later in the week. I am still impressed with my car packing skills!

The Nebraska festivities were all around good fun. The girls got to spend time with their cousins, William and Lucy, as well as most of their aunts and uncles. Nathaniel and I, in addition to enjoying the company of family, also found time to look at some houses in our future hometown. It was an eye opening experience in good ways and bad. The houses are old in the neighborhood we want, which makes it a challenge to find a house that isn't tiny or hasn't been remodeled in some crazy way. But they also have a lot of charm and a good price tag. It made me very excited for the coming months when we can look more in earnest once we see how things go with our own home sale.

Nathaniel celebrated his 30th birthday while in Lincoln, as did his twin brother, Arthur. There were many drinks and much cheese, and really, what more could they have asked for?

But back to pictures of kids, because isn't that what you're really here for? Ruth had a rough first day warming up to her Nebraska family, but then, enter Lucy. A person slightly smaller than Ruth, whom Ruth could hug and instruct to her heart's content:

Lucy was a very good sport about all the hugging. And an even better sport about playing. She's an absolute charmer. As is William, but somehow I ended up with very few pictures of him, or of our time in Nebraska in general. Here's one more photo of Marianne, after her Aunt Ellen taught her to play the piano:

Several times I found her in the back bedroom plinking away on the keys (much to her late-sleeping Aunt Liz's dismay, I'm sure) and singing Jingle Bells or some other tune. I see lessons in her future.

After just a few short days in Nebraska, we headed back south to visit more extended family in Kansas, as well as to spend some additional time with Sara, Jacob and Elizabeth. Marianne and Elizabeth warmed right back to up to each other without hesitation.

In the last few days of the trip, the girls started to show their wear. They were a little crankier, and a little rougher, but all in all they were great sports on our long travels. It probably helped that at every stop they were plied with more and more gifts and candy and juice. Yes, juice. We don't do much juice here at home, but both grandmothers had a bad habit of offering juice more often than I'd like. But hey, it was the holidays, right? Let them drink juice! Now that we're home, they're strictly on milk and water. And Pez. For some reason, this Christmas was thick with Pez.

There you have it. Our 2006 holiday travels. I'll probably think of more stories to add later, but I only have an hour till I have to pick the girls up from daycare, and then my sickday will be over. I'd better go try for one last little nap.

Bleck

I'm sick. Still. It all started last week on the drive home from Kansas, when I felt a little funny. Then it got progressively worse till on Friday I actually went home sick from work. Then I thought maybe I was on the mend (and even if I wasn't, there was too much work to be done on the weekend to let a little sore throat slow me down - more on that later). But Saturday night, like Friday, was miserable. Yesterday I felt a little better midday, but crummy again by night, so I rested the fitful rest that only an accidental overdose of Nyquil can provide (next time I'm this sick, I'll let someone else read the dosage instructions for me). Today I'm home sick yet again, with an appointment to the doctor this morning. But, lo and behold, the moment the appointment was scheduled, I began to feel ever so slightly better. I love going to the doctor to report that I think I'm feeling a bit better actually, but thanks for squeezing me in this morning! Still, better safe than sorry. A day of rest and a check up to make sure I'm not carrying some nasty bacterial thing that I need to warn my friends about is probably the best plan, even if I am suddenly swallowing without severe pain.

If you're wondering where your Christmas photo update and all the other daily posts have gone, this is where. This land of excruciatingly sore throats, inability to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time during the night, hacking, nose blowing and all the other joys of a really lovely head cold. Maybe if I'm feeling better later today, I'll have a chance to catch up, seeing as how I've already called in sick.

ps. Did you see that, despite no new snow falling from the sky, NW Denver managed to have blizzard conditions last night as blowing snow caused white outs and four foot drifts in the roads? What fun.

So true

A quote from the younger brother of one my best girlfriends:

don't raise ur kids to be notre dame fans...it's a life of suffering

Amen to that.

Happy New Year

We're wrapping up our holiday travels with one last day of visiting grandparents. Tomorrow we'll make the ten hour drive home (roads in Colorado allowing) and enter the final stages of prepping our house for sale. We've had a fairly crazy year and the one ahead is only going to be more interesting, as all my friends reminded me in their Christmas cards with their "good luck in the year to come" messages. Despite a lot of drama, though, 2006 was a very blessed year for my family...

- Marianne grew in leaps and bounds, both physically and mentally. Her imagination amazes me daily as she tells stories about characters with names only she can pronounce. She potty trained (mostly) and truly came out of her shell this year. When guests come to our house now, they're usually invited to view her bedroom within moments and then assaulted with a barrage of toys she wants to show off. She's turning into a very real little girl, and losing all signs of the baby I loved. But I love the new little girl even more. She's beautiful and loving most of the time, frustrating and irrational occasionally (that's common to three year olds, I'm told), and just now as I type, she's a lion, prowling and growling around me. I don't think I could love her any more, but I may find that I do as she continues to grow up.

- Ruth transitioned from baby to toddler so quickly I hardly saw it happen. She was mommy's girl at the start of the year, fervently afraid of strangers. In the spring she learned that some people other than Mom, Dad and sister could be trusted and even played with. In the summer she warmed up to the world and has been charming friends and family ever since. She started walking in May, around the same time she turned one, and she's been chasing her sister in a crazy game of follow the leader ever since, running, climbing, jumping and falling (a lot) in the process. She has had amazingly few injuries despite all of this. She started giving hugs and continues to be the best hugger I've ever met, with solid, tight squeezes upon request. She snuggles with me still, and when she gives me a big grin, I can't help but squeeze her back. She's an angel who says sorry when required and hugs her sister whenever allowed, and she's a spoiled brat who wants every toy her sister touches. I can barely remember life without her, and wouldn't wish it any other way.

- Nathaniel finished his PhD after seven and a half years. He was offered a great job and some consulting work on top of it. I am continually impressed by him as the people he's worked with in the past show through their offers of new work how much they respect him. I think he's brilliant. But I may be biased. He's shown throughout my family drama this fall that he really is the best man I've ever met, volunteering without question or doubt to take in three new children and help raise them for however long they may need our assistance. I'm generally too distracted or tired or busy to tell him, but I love him more each year (we celebrated our sixth anniversary this year).

As for me, I continued in my job, feeling bored and in a rut. I prayed for life to change things up so I could maybe, finally, stay home with my kids. I think God responded with a bit of a smirk on his face this fall. For all the things I wish hadn't happened, I'm looking forward to the new year and the new challenges ahead of us. To selling our house and buying a new one. To resigning from my job and starting my new career as a mother to many. To organizing chore charts and checking homework and tucking everyone into bed at night. I've had a little taste of it over this holiday break (with lots of help) and it's going to be an enormous undertaking. I know other people do it all the time, though, and I know I'll manage. But don't be surprised if you come to visit and my kitchen isn't quite "clean". Go ahead and come to visit. The adult conversation will be welcome.

Happy New Year! Once we get home and settled, I'll post a photo updated of our vacation. For now, my computer break time is up and a hord of kids need some lunch.