Alison's Garden

 

Our next door neighbor in Minneapolis is a master gardener. Her whole lawn is flower beds and to live next door was amazing...glorious flowers to look at all summer long. These pictures are from her back yard the day before we moved.

When I was in the hospital delivering Elsie, Alison was in the same hospital trying to figure out the pain she constantly deals with in her back and legs. Now she is waiting for surgery that she'll have next week to try to bring her some comfort.

She never got to meet Elsie before we moved, so we made a trip so that Ivar could see is pal, "Alsin" and so Alison could meet Elsie. When we walked in the building, two workers were walking out and they said, "Oh you must be Alison's family! She has been telling us all about you." And that felt right: Alison's family.

the time I got stuck on a waterslide...

This dino slide is awesome. It's a foot and a half long and lands you on a cushy pad in six inches of water. I should know. I braved this slide all by myself.

I was trying to coax Ivar on it, hoping he'd sit in my lap. But he wasn't interested. At all.

So there I sat, with my dry swim suit, apparently blocking that little water nozzle by Josie's hand with my leg. And let's be honest. I was a bit wider than the slide. And at this point completely dry on the slide with bare legs.

This wouldn't have been a huge deal, I mean I wasn't stuck stuck. Just sticky stuck.

But what made it really awkward was when the life guards started blowing their whistles and walking towards me yelling at me, "Mam, that slide is for the children. You cannot be on that slide."

Well yes, I can imagine that is the case. Obviously.

"You need to get off the slide."

I agree. I'm just trying to pivot onto my left hip. Give me a minute....

And then I traveled down the foot and a half and splashed into the six inches of water and then made sure the lifeguards understood that I was definitely not trying to be defiant.

Josie and Maddie thought it was quite entertaining. And Ivar still didn't go down the slide.

mom brain

                                                                                                 Sara made that cake!
Last Thursday morning I said to Rory, "tonight when the kids go to bed I need to go to Target to get Kirby and Josie's birthday presents for their party tomorrow."

So all day long I worked on my Target List: more milk, cream, cereal, baby wipes..."

When I got to Target I looked at my list and wondered why I didn't just send Rory to get this stuff. I got it quickly, and came home.

Friday morning I woke up and it hit me. I had gone to Target to get birthday presents for Kirby and Josie. But I hadn't written that on the list, and therefore I was giftless.

I called Lisa and asked what Josie wanted and she bailed me out and said she had an hour glass for Josie that could be from us. I could pay her $10 at the party and she'd throw it in a gift bag for me.

Then I called Sara and asked what Kirby still needed on his list. And she mentioned that she was going to Half Price Books next and would get him a reading light from us and I could give her $10 at the party.

Ah, Grace. It's such a good thing.

I told them both how I had actually gone to Target to get them their gifts. And that the effort should count for something. They agreed and I was so grateful for awesome sister-in-laws.

And so then at the birthday party, Kyle and Lisa watched our kids so Rory and I could go down the water slides a few times and putz in the lazy river. It was awesome. At the end of the night Sara came back to the lawn chairs with her teeth chattering saying she was going down each water slide one more time with Kirby and Toby and did anyone want to join her? It was cold and no one took her up on her offer. But she was doing it for her boys.

I told Rory, "Sara deserves the Mother of the Ward Ayear."

"The what?" he said.

"The Mother of the Ward Ayear."

And then I heard myself. Mom brain. "The Mother of the Year Award!"

4 weeks and 10 minutes old

4 weeks ago, we were just meeting Elsie Rebecca. At this moment, she was 10 minute old. What a sweet memory.

On Sunday I dressed Elsie in an outfit I wore when I was her age. My mom did an awesome job at saving her favorite of my outfits and now I get to put my little girl in them, 31 years later.

the county fair

Saturday was a pretty perfect day. We planned on going to the fair for just an hour or two, and ended up staying half the day. We watched the 4H champion animals auctioned off, shared a bag of mini donuts, watched Ivar eat corn, saw all of the farm animals, took in the arts and crafts building, caught the tractor parade (!!) watched some young girls ride their horses through an obstacle course, and one of us cried hard when it was time to say buh bye to the cows.

...we had to get a picture of the ladies with the pink tractor. :)