Recital at Home

Adam is my favorite piano student of all, and this past week we had an impromptu "recital".  Of course the recording wasn't perfect, but we made it to the end!

I love the way he bounces his head along as he counts.  He loves sitting down and playing by ear, and bit by bit he's learning how to read music.  He's doing a great job, and before long I'll probably have to find him a "real" teacher to keep him progressing along.  But so far he's been a great student for me, and I love the music he brings into our home.

A Little Wager

We knew something important was about to happen, so we made a little family wager...

 And Emma won!  Sunset and all!

We'll be heading to Utah for a wedding this August!

Pinchy {A Guest Post by Adam}

For Adam's first blog post, he wanted to write about his 1st grade art project.  Take it away, Adam!

This is my pinch pot shark,and I named him Pinchy!😍

Today when I saw that Penny (she's one of my classmates!) 

brought a tsum tsum box, I thought that I should have made a

tsum tsum instead!😕

I was so exited about it that I unwrapped it right when I got home from school!

It was awesome!  😎It's pot spot is really small.😕  

It took me four weeks to make it, plus about a month of waiting.😦

Thank you for letting me do this,Mommy!

It was so fun!😄   

Thoughts on Mothers Day

1. This is the cutest bouquet of Mother's Day flowers I've ever received.  Picked with thoughtful care- yellow is my favorite color.

2. This is how Jason kept the kids so quiet while I was enjoying an extended nap hour upstairs.  I love the absolutely true phrases like, "I love that Mommy plays games with me", "I love the food that Mommy makes!", "She snuggles with me!", "I love our chats" and "I love Mommy because she loves me."... and the not so true one that someone sneaked in- "I love that Mommy is always cheerful!".  But I'll take it!

 3. I'm grateful for Jason and his efforts at picture taking.

But also grateful that he's not the only family photographer.  

This blog might look a bit different if he were.

4. This little cutie gave me the best Mother's Day present I could have asked for.  In preparation for dog-sitting, she quietly cleaned up both the library and the room she shares with Leah, without asking, without being told, and without telling me about it when she was done.  She just did it, and boy was I surprised when I discovered it!  What a blessing to a mother, to have a need recognized and filled by someone else!  We've both been beaming about it all week.

She also drew this beautiful picture of me!

It says

My mom is 60 years old.

My mom is the prettiest when she has a bun in her hair. 

My mom likes to make cookies.

My mom always says, "I love you!" 

My mom is funny when she screams.  

(She clarified that it's the surprised kind of screaming that is funny, like when she puts a fake spider on me and I shriek.)

Leah has asked me more than once if it's hard being a mommy, usually when I'm directing traffic in the kitchen during the witching hour.  How do I answer that question?

It's the hardest job I've ever done, and here I am, still doing it.  And absolutely loving it.  Yes, it's the most maddening, exhausting, challenging, repetitive, and rewarding experience of my life.  I'm surrounded by tiny little people that live their lives gleefully ignorant of the impact that their presence has had on my sleep, my body, and my heart.  Not to mention the condition of my furniture.  Or the silver hairs that have started making a regular appearance in the mirror.

I'm 1,000 times harder on myself that any boss I could ever work for.  I have put the best of my life's effort into listening, coaxing, helping, training, disciplining, apologizing, teaching, cleaning, snuggling, tickling, studying, hugging, trying, failing, and trying again.

It's not easy.  Even when I'm trying to be the best mother I can be, it never feels like quite enough.  There will always be tempers lost, feelings hurt, hopes unrealized, opportunities lost, apologies offered, and second (or twenty-second) chances given.  For both me and my children.

That's the blessing of motherhood.  The chance to try again.

I heard a slightly modified version of this recently, and it rings true in our home.  A man and a woman are given a list of 10 things they can do to become better parents.  A week later they each give their report.

The father has done 3 of the 10 things and thinks he's doing just fine.  

The mother reports she is doing 9 of the 10 things and is confident that she's a complete failure.

But because she's a mother- she will keep trying!

Because that is what we do.  And on Mother's Day, I thanked the Lord that He's given me the chance to do it.

I also thanked Him for the chance to sit and eat a meal and read a book by myself the other day.  Because moms need that too.

TOFW

A perfect combination of time together and time alone, but mostly I want to remember that I took some time for myself to be recharged and uplifted while Jason held down the fort at home.  That was a great 24 hour getaway!

Little League 101

So far we've learned - 

Jason probably shouldn't have signed up to be head coach.  Adam has to be there, so Jason figured he'd like to be there too, but boy, I can't imagine having more than one child involved in baseball.   It's quite a time commitment, with up to three games and practices a week.  During the end of the school year and the height of planting season, but it's fun for them to be together.

Adam is adorable in his uniform.  That hat!  Those snazzy cleats!  He looks the part alright!

 The members-only exclusivity of the allusive dugout is very appealing to the other kids.  But only Adam gets to hang out in there.  The rest of us get the bleachers, or the grass, or the chance to run up and down and up and down and up and down the hill.  High fives'll have to do. 

 Adam loves batting!  And pitching!  Outfield and catcher, not so much, but he's getting the chance to do all of it and is really enjoying it so far.

 

Tulip Time

The best part of Tulip Time is the electric night parade, when we are tired from a day in the sun, playing at the wooden park and traipsing all over the quaint little town.  We snuggle up in blankets and eat a sackful of Dutch treats as we watch the now-familiar floats and marching bands pass by. 

But before we get there, we have to eat our way through town.

Poffjerties, stroopwafles, bologna burgers and fried potatoes galore!

And of course we wander down canal street, pay homage to the giant cow, try on the giant shoes, and admire the tulips themselves.

The weather was just perfect this day.  The only downside to Noah's day was trying to figure out why he couldn't ride on that "ferris wheel with no seats".  

So disappointing. 

Other than that we had another wonderful day at Tulip Time, one of our favorite spring traditions!

Lucky 13

Time again to celebrate this!  I love these two young people that were ready to take on the world!

 We celebrated this year by getting some good cupcakes

 and some good flowers. 

Because when I think back on our wedding day, I loved the flowers and I hated the cake.  

I didn't have real flowers at my bridal shoot (neither did my sister, neither did my mom, call it a tradition!)

 

and I didn't hold flowers when we came out of the temple (but my hands were happily holding Jason's hands)

but I loved my white rose and rhinestone-studded stephanotis bouquet that I carried around at the reception.  I wish I had a more detailed picture of it.  I don't have the bouquet anymore.

Our cake was pretty.  But it was so gross.  My Aunt Angelen was supposed to make our wedding cake, but wasn't able to at nearly the last minute so we had to scramble to get a cake lined up.  I don't recall taste-testing various cake flavors beforehand or ever meeting the person who did make our cake, but I do remember being so nervous when it was time to cut into it- all eyes were right on us!

I was mostly sure that neither of us were going to do a cake smash, but it really could have gone either way.  

Thankfully Jason was nice, and so was I. 

And on our one-month anniversary,  we pulled our frozen cake topper out of the freezer, took one bite and a picture, then threw it away.  It was not good at all.  

So flowers and cake seemed like a fun and simple way to celebrate this year.

We all sat down on the lawn to eat our cupcakes when Jason finally got home from planting, and when he said he wanted to share a cupcake wedding style, I suddenly got a great idea.

 Ha!  That's fun!

 Revenge!

 Jason farmer-blowed icing out of his nose and the kids almost died with laughter.

 Such a gross feeling.

 But pretty funny, too.

 So glad this didn't happen on our wedding day!

 Leah was a very diligent photographer!  She's so proud of this picture.

 And then the kids started smashing themselves.  

So much silliness around here. 

 But we wouldn't have it any other way! 

Thirteen years doesn't seem very long for all that we've experienced together, and I'd say we're both pretty proud of the work we put into making our marriage a good one.  When we were engaged people would tell us in a warning, ominous way that "marriage is hard work".  We didn't know exactly what that meant, and in some ways we still don't, but the hard days and disagreements and decisions that we come out on top of make me think that of all the work we do, this is surely the most important work that we are doing of all.