It Takes Eleven Years...

A dinner date with friends and a whole lot of landscaping.  That's the romance we worked up for our anniversary this year, and it was just as sweet as could be.

No one gets me quite like Jason does.  We have years of happy memories, inside jokes, struggles we've worked through, and achievements we've reached together.

Life is good when you're married to your best friend.  I'm so glad I'm married to mine.

These Two

There is rarely a quiet moment in our house with these two chatterboxes keeping me company.

A few Emma-isms-

When I walked into the dark pantry- "Hey!  I'm trying to see Jesus in here!"

*****

When I accidentally turned down a wrong street when dropping off a friend- "Mom, is it so dark that you forgot which house is ours?"

*****

After being told she can't watch TV right now- "I'm just going to watch Monkey George in my brain.  Sort, sort, sort... (as if she's sorting through her options) Nope!  It's not on!"

*****

While staring straight at the ceiling- "I'm looking at Jesus!"

*****

An unfortunate lunchtime conversation (our half bath shares a wall with our dining room, so the person using the bathroom is never too far removed from table conversations, despite my repeated requests to shut the door.)

E-  What is poop made out of?

M- Food.

E- Really?  Adam!  Poop is made out of food!

A- No way!...  ... Mommy?  Is poop really made out of food?

M- Yep.

A- So that explains why my poop is green today!  Because I ate some kiwi!

*****

Another bathroom conversation, shortly after Adam attended the farm for a field trip- "Mom!  Come smell this!  It smells just like the horse's stall in here!"

*****

Adam- "If I could trade places with anyone in our family, I would trade places with Mommy so that I could do all the hard work and she could take a break.  Do the dishes, stay up late to do the dishes, clean the kitchen..."

While bickering in the car- 

A- You have to be nice to me!  Do you want to serve Jesus?

E- Yes!

A- Well then you have to be nice to me!

E- No I don't!  I can be nice to everyone except for you!

I think they're really going to miss each other in the fall.  

Little Landscaper

 As we've been adding plants and trees to our yard this summer, 

Noah has been our most diligent waterer of all.  

He's always careful not to get himself wet in the process, but gives the plants plenty to drink. 

 If plants grow with extra love, ours are well on their way to being huge, thanks to Mr. Noah. 

2:30

It's 2:30.  Emma is asleep, Noah is asleep, and Adam is playing on my phone.  Jason is at work.  I just woke up, put away three loads of laundry, started another one, pulled out some meat for dinner and sat down to respond to a few emails.

And my heart wanders to Leah, like it does every day at this time.  She's been at school for 7 hours now, and I'm ready her to come home.  I want her to join us in this quiet hour of the day, so she can put her feet up and rest and enjoy the quiet.  And I worry about her.  How is she doing?  Has she had a good day?  Has she felt loved today?

Or did someone or something make her cry (whether in actual tears like the time her friend accidentally head-butted her, or just in her heart, like she says it does when she hears people take the Lord's name in vain so many times every day)?  Has she learned something new and fun?  Or did she spend most of her day sitting down, being quiet, and wishing she were home?

It's the end of the year, so I know she is doing fun things, but I also know that she's already made it through 164 days of second grade, and she's probably a little tired.

I'm ready for summer.  I'm sure she is, too.  And I wonder if the love I gave her between 3:00 yesterday afternoon and 7:35 this morning was enough to carry her through this day of listening to instructions and following rules and learning new things that she might be struggling with and interacting with friends and classmates that she might be tired of interacting with.

I am so proud of her.  She does it every day.  She complains occasionally, but she knows her duty in our family and she does it.

And I know she has wonderful teachers that she spends her days with.  She told me that her best friend at school is Mrs. Eischeid (her teacher), and that makes me perfectly happy to send her off.

I also think about Adam and wonder how he will transition into the long days of school in the fall, with three recesses a day but no time to prop his feet up and relax for an hour or two.  He's so easygoing and happy- he's so excited about going to kindergarten but I still worry.

And I think that in just two more years Emma will be there too.  My sweet little naptime snuggle buddy.  Emma, Adam, and Leah will be gone all day in elementary school together.

And just two years after that Noah will be there and I'll be here and my heart will probably be so heavy it will explode because I'll be all alone in my house (or not in my house, but still alone), thinking about my four babies and wondering how they are doing and remembering today with absolute happiness.

And I'll go and eat lunch with them and go on their field trips and volunteer in their classrooms, just like I do now with Leah.  And I'll be so proud of all of them for the hard work they do every day, my brave little people.

And then 3:00 will come and I'll hear the garage door open and I'll greet them with hugs and smiles and after school snacks and big listening ears, and we'll all be together again, ready to have fun and waiting for a few more hours until Daddy gets home.

May Day

May Day is an extra fun day here in the Midwest- it's the day we give and receive May Baskets!  

This delightful tradition used to be a more common part of American culture.   

Louisa May Alcott wrote about May Basket Day in her 1880 children's book Jack and Jill.  

"Such a twanging of bells and rapping of knockers; such a scampering of feet in the dark; such droll collisions as boys came racing round corners, or girls ran into one another's arms as they crept up and down steps on the sly; such laughing, whistling, flying about of flowers and friendly feeling—it was almost a pity that May-day did not come oftener."

And that's exactly how we feel about it!  (Even if it does mean spoiled appetites for dinner and a house covered in popcorn).  It's a day full of treats and surprises and love shared amongst neighbors and friends.  It's one more reason we love living in the Midwest.  

This little potted beauty was my favorite, and surely the longest-lasting of all our May Basket Day treats.

We've found a few other signs of spring in our yard this May- Leah took a picture of the contents of a nest that robins have diligently been tending to under our deck stairs.

We've become the happy owners of a dwarf lilac bush, two barberry bushes and several hostas and lillies-of-the-valleys, as well as 2 mature blueberry bushes and 5 small raspberry bushes.

 And this- surely spring is upon us when we see this.

Spring Recital

Leah's spring recital was a lovely one.  She is progressing nicely with her violin, which is always hard to hear in the day-to-day practices but so apparent in her performances.  She says she feels plenty nervous before a performance, but she always does a wonderful job and her nerves are nowhere to be found.  

This recital was extra special because Miss Megan got her entire studio together to perform a beautiful rendition of "Come Thou Font".  The older advanced students played variations, Leah and a few others played the melody, and the beginning students just bowed on the A string.  It was so sweet, and gave me a glimpse into the future- Leah in a symphony orchestra!

Very, very unfortunately, my phone is having issues with video volume, which I didn't remember until after the recital was over.  Hopefully I'll get a better copy of the song from Miss Megan.

Miss Megan's violin instructor made these "hamburger" cookies out of Yorks and Nilla wafers at her recitals when she was six years old, and her mom has continued to make them ever since.  They have become the most exciting part of Leah's recitals for the kids.  Even Emma, who does not like the taste of anything mint, needed to know if there were going to be "ham-buckle cookies" at the recital.  I am going to have to learn how to make these if we ever move on from Miss Megan's studio.

How I love this sweet girl!  Love her talents, her smile, and the light that shines from her.  I love that she's willing to develop her talents and share them with other people.

Landscaping and Such

When we were making the decision to buy or build a house, many people told us that there were a lot of expenses that came with building a house that we needed to factor in to the real cost of a new home- window coverings and landscaping and such.  Of course we just waved our hands and said "yeah, yeah, yeah" and... yeah.  Nearly two whole years into homeownership, a sprinkler system, repaired deck and revamped heating and cooling system later (all the expenses that kept us from getting to it last year) we are finally getting ready to landscape!

These beautiful boxwoods make me happier than I can say.  I just love them.  We had boxwood plants at our luncheon at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on our wedding day.  I wanted to line our front porch and walkway with them, but we get direct sunlight there and the plants would surely scorch away in such heat.  So these beauties (that a kind friend was getting rid of and offered to us) have found a very happy home on the shady side of our house.  The kids love them, and Emma and I have named them all, from Janice and Larry to Moses (the burning bush) and Frosty the Snowman.

We have big plans for borders, rock beds, garden beds, and more this summer.  And fire pits and patios next summer.  We're just waiting for the weather to get warm and stay warm so we can get going!

In the meantime, Jason stained the deck while I was in Kansas City (crazy man that he is) and the kids were sad that he didn't let them "help".  So I let them help me improve our garage stairs, and they were all pleased as punch to be wielding actual paint brushes.

And the stairs turned out great!

I also decided to take apart the shelves in our living room- they had extra wood that needed to be removed (in my opinion).  I had a great time hacking away at the wood, but laughed at myself when I told Jason, "I don't expect you to finish the job, but I'm not going to do it."

And he did it!  And did a great job!  They look so much better now.

And that is where we find ourselves in the thick of homeownership- always another project to be done!