Elsie goes to High School

Today Elsie and I got to go and talk to a Family and Consumer Science class that my niece Josie is in. We were there to talk about what it is like to have a two year old and what it is like to be a two year old. Elsie was thrilled at the invitation. It was very special that it was just her thing.

It wasn't until this morning when I was getting dressed to go back to the high school I graduated from that it all hit me. I graduated sixteen years ago. I am pregnant with my third baby. I am walking back through the doors as a...panelist. What in the world. Life and age is a funny thing and much of the time I think of myself as much younger than I actually am. Today as I carried my two year old in over my baby bump in my front, I realized there is no denying it. I am not in high school any more.

The panel was fun. There were two other mom's there, one who had just had her first baby at age 40. The baby was two weeks old and she was in the overwhelmed stage. The other mom had grown children and brought her daycare kids along. The students asked questions the whole hour about discipline and sleep habits and the hardest part and best part of motherhood. The three of us moms enjoyed ourselves...at one point Josie whispered to me, "do you know these other mom's? It's like you're best friends." But that's because moms have a tight bond. We've all been there, or are going there...

It was a fun day at the high school. Tomorrow is their last day before summer vacation. And perhaps the most important thing we learned today is that the Apple Valley Waterpark is now open for the season!

annika's granola

I wake up in the morning excited to go eat my breakfast. My sister Annika shared this recipe with me, and I have no idea where she found it. But since she's the one who shared it, I'll call it Annika's Granola. It's really simple to prepare and after making it one time, I will for sure double the recipe when I make it in the future. I ate it up so fast!

Annika's Granola:
2 cups old fashioned oats
1-1.5 cups coarsely chopped nuts (I used pecans and slivered almonds)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 Tablespoon of coconut oil or canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (I used more because I love cinnamon)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dried cherries (or craisins, blueberries or raisins)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix everything all together and spread on a sprayed or parchment lined cookie sheet. Toss every 8 minutes, bake 24-26 minutes).

It's so good and crunchy, great with yogurt and I like how "clean" the recipe is compared to the store-bought granola. Enjoy!

happy sabbath

Could I love a little boy anymore than I love this one? I am often struck by how much my love can grow for my kids. Just when I think I could certainly love them no more than I already do, more time passes and my love and affection deepens and it makes me wonder what it will feel like when they are 50 and I am 80.

I worked in the church nursery today and loved it. My kids were thrilled that I was the nursery worker. All week long they kept asking when it would be Sunday so that I could play with them in the church nursery. Somehow the fact that I am with them 24 hours a day isn't quite enough. Elsie woke up aware of the day and told me gladly, "you're the worker today!" And we had so much fun with all of the kids. We played restaurant and colored and played circle games and sang songs. And then I was spent and out of ideas and we still had thirty more minutes to fill. I made a mental note that next time I'll save my tricks for the last thirty minutes...

And now we're home and I'm finishing up The Yearling and loving every sweet minute of it. Some of my family is napping and one little girl is making up very sing-songy dialogue with her my little ponies. Rory got this shot of Ivar a few days ago and when we showed Ivar he laughed and laughed. He thought it was so funny he fell asleep in a chair. His dad had moved him so that when he woke up he was in his own bed. But this picture cracked him up. And it melted our hearts.

Summer Goals

(See my teeny kids at the bottom of this picture?)

I've got some serious enthusiasm and momentum heading into this summer. As much as I am aware that I am negatively affected by the weather in the month of February, and I just as aware by how positively affected I am by glorious days in May. And now it's a stunning, sunny June first and my kids and I just returned from a country drive to get chicken food, discovered a new park, had a nice conversation with another mom at the new park, came home and ate popsicles and now I'm about to bust open I'm so happy that it's summer!!!

While spotting my kids on every precarious thing at the park I was thinking through my summer goals. I'm not going crazy, but I think these things are good goals that will make for a well-lived summer:

1. Visit a new park every week. So far we're 2 for 2 on this one. Last week I found a park while following signs for a garage sale that I later took the kids to. They loved it. And I adored it because there weren't zillions of kids there. I think the hidden parks, tucked into subdivisions are little gems to be discovered. I'm out to find them all.

2. I just signed up for this e-course and I'm so thrilled. Any tips or tricks I could learn about better organizing my mornings for a smoother start to my day are very, very welcome in my life. For $16, I just don't think I can go wrong.

3. I've invited seven local friends to my house this summer to meet up seven times for a Bible Study. I found one at Lifeway called Why Do you Believe That? and I'm really excited about this intentional time to be with these ladies. They're friends I wish I got to see more often, and this is going to make it happen.

4. I have my first Girls Golf meeting tonight. So excited to get these six dates on the calendar. Based on my game last year, I think we're all pretty confident my belly won't hinder my score. It might even help me keep my body low through my entire swing.

5. Read books. I'd love to say one a week. I don't know if that will happen, but what a summer it if would! So far I'm on track, and I'm in love with the characters of The Yearling, just like Rory said I would be.

So those are the goals:
1. New park each week
2. Make Over my Mornings
3. Women's Bible Study
4. Girls Golf
5. A book every week or so

Fun, fun, fun. I feel the ticker with a new baby coming at the end of September. I know my life is going to greatly change again this fall. But until then I'm going to soak up this little pocket of time when my kids are so fantastically independent and I can do these things that feel downright indulgent. Ah, life is good!

(Can you tell I've had my Vitamin D today? The actual sunshine kind? I'm just a little enthused...)

And, just a friendly reminder to the incredible list my ecfe teacher gave to us last summer...if you're looking for more things to do! Click on this link for places to visit in the Twin Cities (mostly south metro) and this link for ideas of things to do at home. (A great list for ideas when you're kids need inspiration... but don't get sucked into thinking you need to be the cruise ship director of your kids summer!)

the stories we write

At church this morning we talked with a friend of ours who just had emergency surgery where it was discovered she had two cancerous tumors. It had been a scary few weeks, a hard recovery but every time I have seen her or heard word of how she's doing she has had the most incredible outlook. Today she said, "there was so much God wanted to show me through all of this. I learned and grew and saw so much..."

She continued and told us lots more, and while she talked I was so struck by how she was choosing to retell her own story. She was completely sincere, completely hopeful and completely grateful as she talked about her scary month.

I love blogging for this very reason. Blogging is a very intentional way that I literally write my own story. And I'm so aware of it. Last week I could have written a end-of-the-week post and I could have written it ten different ways, all of them true. I hold so much power in my hands when I (literally) write my own story. We all hold this power.

So I could have written about how our barn has been one week delayed because the wrong length floor boards were ordered. And elaborated on any number of opinions surrounding that delay. Or I could have written about how because the wrong boards were delivered, the builder discovered they were not what we needed anyway, and that in reordering we saved thousands of dollars on different boards. I could have written about the mud pit that our barn is sitting in because of all the rain, or I could write about how incredible the grass seed in our field has taken... because of all the rain.

Do you see what I am saying? We each hold this pen in our hands. God has literally given us the ability to write our own stories, pick our themes, pick our mood, pick our response and reaction, choose our words, and as a result, literally choose our life.

I am naturally a positive person. And I've always been a storyteller so that even in awful circumstances I am already writing the comedy-version of this tale in my mind. I get that not everyone is like this. But today at church, hearing our friend tell of a really hard season with not a hint of victim-hood, I saw this truth clear as day. She possessed all the good fruits: hope, gratitude, joy and thankfulness, even in the midst of her storm. I thought to myself, 'no matter what, no matter what, I want to write my story like that.'