Tulip Time

We have all be looking forward to Tulip Time since our fabulous day there last year....when my babies looked like this-

After a busy Saturday morning of yard work and Adam's first T-ball game of the season, we made our way down for our second annual trip to Dutchland.  And now they look like this-

It was cloudy and gray, but warm enough that we still had lots of fun.  And this year we knew exactly what we wanted and where to go to get it. The tulips were mostly spent, but we still

We ended the day by raiding the Dutch bakery 

and then enjoying our treats on the grass with the night parade.  This time we were prepared with jackets and blankets!  It was still plenty chilly, and even started to rain, so we bundled up and snuggled under the blankets until the parade started.  All six of us burrowed under the blanket was probably quite the lumpy sight to see!  

Then we headed home, happy we had made the trip, and wondering if this year was better, worse, or just different than last year.  I tend to focus on the highlights, and usually forget the harder moments of past events.  Jason likes to remind me that overall, most trips have some good and some bad, but it's making the memory that makes every trip worth the effort!  So last year was the year of minor sunburns, not being prepared for the cold of the parade, and wandering around somewhat aimlessly because we didn't know what to expect or do at the festival (we stood in a really long line for about 10 minutes, assuming it would be for something amazing, before we realized it was the shuttle line full of people waiting to get back to their cars).  And this year was the year of gray skies, a super squirmy Noah (he was so much easier to contain last year!) and knowing exactly how much money we were going to be spending on stroopwafles, poffertijes and Dutch letters- and loving it!

Motherhood

No love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ 

than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child.  

-Jeffrey R. Holland

This is a love that can't be described, only experienced. The sheer joy, exhaustion, worry, elation, frustration, dedication, sacrifice, commitment, prayer.  I'm so grateful to be a mother.  There is no other life I'd chose to experience than the life I'm living as their mother.

Emma-isms

Emma got her first haircut in a salon last week.  She was happy to climb up into the pink chair, but gave strict instructions- "Don't cut off too much!  I'm growing it out like Rapunzel."

E- Mama I'm cleaning your phone.  Now it's going to be as clean as a muscle.

M- A what?

E- A muscle... see?  Now it's as clean as a muscle... I mean a whistle.

*****

In the bathtub- I don't want Noah to be in here.  I'm so cramped now!

*****

Look!  These twill-dwen (children) have the same issues as me!  (I can't even remember what the issues were, but what four-year-old uses that word?)

*****

Leaning over to Jason during church- "Daddy, thank you so much for making breakfast.  It was delicious.... Am I the first person that has said that to you?"  (This sums up Emma's personality so well- pointedly, deliberately, adorably coy.) 

*****

M- Emma, I think it's time that we retire your shoes.

E- What does retire mean?

M- To send them to their final resting place... with your striped pants.... forever.

E- No!  Mama!  No!  Why would you want to throw away something with sparkles on it??!!!

Unlike the black and white striped pants fiasco (which she can still be found sobbing about at random), she finally conceded to throwing these beauties in the trash after she picked out a sparkly new pair.  While we were at the store Emma had a great time sorting through racks of clothes- "This is just adorable!  Look at how cuuuute this is!  This would be  perfect for a baby girl!  Mama, what if Noah was a girl?  Then we could buy this outfit for him!"

*****

On a particularly rough day, in which I told Emma to stop grabbing things out of her little brother's hands, she said "Mama, you're going to make me cry again!  I'm just going to cry!  This is the worst day ever!

*****

"Awww, this puppy is just soooo soft!  He's so cute!  I have tears in my eyes because he's so cute.  See!  I'm actually crying for cuteness."

Emma is learning her letters and numbers, but the fact that she can't read yet has been a hard concept for Adam and Leah to grasp.  One day Adam tried to get her to sound a word out, and got so frustrated when it didn't come.  "Just try!  You're not even trying.  You can do it if you just try!"  Another day Leah did the same thing, while trying to get Emma to read the words "Mrs. Keese".  It strikes me as funny that they don't understand her reading level, and Emma matter-of-factly has told us all, "I can't read yet.  They just look like blobs of letters to me!"  While she technically could go to kindergarten this fall, she and I are both thrilled that she'll be spending another year at home with me, Noah, and her loving grandmotherly teachers at Small Discoveries Preschool.

*****

When Leah was little, she used to twirl her own hair, my hair, and sometimes her friend's hair as a sign of great affection.  Emma has never done anything like that, until last week when she lovingly came up behind one of the sister missionaries long brown ponytail and yanked it so hard that her headband came flying off.  Jason and I were both mortified and apologetic, but I knew exactly why she had done it- earlier that day she told me all about how much she love, love, loved Sister Dombrowski.  She was obviously just showing it.

*****

One morning Emma and Noah kept running in and out of the bathroom as I was using it.  They were both carrying glasses of milk, which promptly spilled.  The game then turned to hopping over the spilled milk, which I told them to stop, and was only great fun until Noah slipped and fell on the tile.  At that point I yelled at them to GET OUT of the bathroom so I could finish up and clean up and keep them safe, to which Emma replied, "Don't worry Mama.  You'll feel better after you take a nap."

Emma is still my "naptime snuggle-buns", a job that she takes very seriously and loathes at the same time.  Her lunchtime prayer today was, "Please bless that I don't have to take a nap today, but if I do have to take a nap please bless that we can do fun things after naptime."  I almost always fall asleep while reading her the last of the four books we read before we go to bed.  Today I barely finished and she said, "There!  You made it.  Now you can go to sleep."  After naptime she always stumbles down the stairs, usually having changed back into her beloved, ratty nightgown, climbs into my lap and cuddles me just a minute longer before asking to watch a show before the big kids get home.  

Scripture Power!

Scripture power!  Keeps me safe from sin.

Scripture power is the power to win. 

Scripture power!  Every day I need

the power that I get each time I read.

Kindergarten Chicks

A post by Adam, as documented in his chick journal- 

The days are in the inkubater.  The inkubater is rocking the eggs.  In 21 days the eggs will hatch!

*****

Mrs. Johnson put the eggs on a candler.  In 5 days the eggs will hatch out of the eggs!  I saw a vein and a bunch of feathers.  (His illustration shows chicks named Lovey, Happy, Billy Bob Joe, Jumpy, and Spot.)

*****

Today 2 chicks hatched!  1 is super close to hatching!  the 2 that have hatched are named Chirpy and Chicky.  They keep running around!

*****

Today the chicks went back to the farm.  :(  A few days ago we got to hold the chicks.  I got to hold Chirpy.  One chick died a few days ago.

*****

A few extra thoughts (by Mom) 

Adam came up with the name Chicky.  The class voted on lots of names and his name was one of the winners. 

Adam didn't want to write about the chick that died, but then he decided he wanted to remember it, so he wrote about it (a junior blogger in the making- write to remember).

Mrs. Johnson told the class that the chicks weren't hatching because the class was being too loud.  When they were quieter the next day, two chicks hatched.

Having chicks hatch in class was one of Adam's most favorite parts of kindergarten so far.  I love that he gets to have these kinds of experiences at school. 

Where We Live

Where we live we can get to the water's edge in seven minutes.   

To skip rocks and collect shells and look for mermaids and drag sticks through the sand, 

to hold hands and feel the wind and pretend like we are walking on the edge of the world. 

Together.

Little Climber

The trees in our yard are putting on a beautiful display this spring.  

But they are hardly more than twigs, and certainly not good for climbing.

My little monkey was in climbers heaven when he found a tree to climb at a nearby park. 

A really big one!