Packing My Bags....

 

Tomorrow Justin and I are leaving for an impromptu trip,

to one of our most favorite places in the world...

Savannah, Georgia.

I plan on wandering beneath the mossy branches I love so much.

Eating hot hush puppies as I watch the boats come in on River Street.

Holding hands and talking to my husband without interruption.

Strolling the streets of downtown past dark on a spooky ghost tour.

Walking through antique stores looking for treasure. 

Eating fudge I watched being spread over thick slabs of marble.

Sleeping in, shirking time, breathing deeply 

and enjoying this much needed weekend escape.

~A very special thank you to my wonderful friend Kathleen for making it all 

possible by watching all of the kidlets for us!~

Bodies

     Lately I have been writing back and forth with my brother Matt. He has had a drug problem for many years and is finally at a place in his life where he is getting the help he needs and confronting the demons of his past. I know with drug abuse it is a life-long battle. But I am so grateful to be able to interact with him and it be him. Not the drugs posing as him in his body. He was telling me how exercise and meditation have really been helping him. Recently I have discovered the joy of exercising too and am grateful to share that common ground with him. In my most recent letter I wrote...

"....It was good hearing from you again and I’m glad things seem to be going relatively well. I love how you are exercising regularly. I have to say, working out changes my whole outlook for the day. I go in early in the morning a few times a week before the kids wake up to get my exercise in. I can’t tell you how much better I feel when the kids do wake up and I have to hit the ground running! I’ve already had my “me” time and so I find that makes it easier to give the rest of my day to others.

    I kind of had an epiphany at Nana’s funeral. As I sat there looking at her little body, knowing her spirit was no longer there, I felt such a reverence for these vessels that we have been given to carry us through this life. Every day our heart beats, every day our blood pumps, our brain sends signals, muscles move and flex, bones support, eyes see, ears hear. It’s such a miracle. As I looked at the table with pictures of Nana’s life; of her as a baby, a young girl, a young woman, a mother, a Nana…I saw her body had been there with her through her whole journey, supporting her and providing a home to her Spirit the whole while. It’s pretty amazing and gave me a different outlook on our own bodies and how we appreciate them, how we treat them, how we feel about them. It made me get more serious about fitness and giving back to the body that gives to me every day. I am glad that after years of abusing your body you are treating it with respect and taking care of it. Keep up the good work!..."

   I am grateful that every day I wake up my body is there to serve me and to help me serve others. I hope my girls grow up with that same knowledge. It took me a really long time to see my body as a gift rather than an imperfect "thing". I hope my girls recognize the wonder that it is and always strive to take care of the gift they have been given here in mortality. And while I know we all will age and eventually die, I'm grateful that our bodies, including our minds, during our time on this earth have the ability to heal and to renew. I am grateful that my brother has this time to reconnect with the vessel he has neglected for so long. It is my sincerest prayer that he is able to renew his life, his purpose and his body and become the man he was sent to this earth to be.

Bath Buddies

 Lauryn and Devyn being bath buddies!

Monday, Mondays....I started working one or two days a week back at Dr. Taylor's office about a month ago. I started with Dr. Taylor, who is a pediatric dentist who also does orthodontics, when Justin and I first moved to Georgia back in 2000. When Maryn was born in 2003, as much as I loved everyone there, I quit to stay at home with her. Now nine years and three more babies later I am back! It's been a nice, little outlet for me and keeps my brain cells firing. But waking up at 5:00 a.m. and not getting home until about 6:45 p.m. on Mondays makes for a long day.

So I was grateful to be able to come home and give my Littles their bath before bed tonight and watch them play. It's so strange, it doesn't seem like that long ago that it was Maryn and Brynna singing and playing in the tub. Now they can run their long-legged selves to the shower and do their own thing. But my Littles, they still love a good hair-washing from Momma and relished giggling as they saw how ticked off they could get me with their splashing. I am ready to freeze these two. Because if the passage of time with their sisters has taught me anything, it's that these little, squeezable years fly by way too quickly.

Fall Is In The Air

     The air that has hung over Georgia as a result of Hurricane Isaac has been warm and thick. Clouds loomed from horizon to horizon like a playground bully loving to see it's victims squirm and sweat under their oppression. But this morning some force of nature pushed Isaac and his unwelcome presence out and we were greeted with a crisp 58 degree morning with an endless view of blue sky. I cooked up a big pot of oatmeal with apples I picked myself from a North Georgia orchard this week, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and butter.

     The girls cozied up to their warm bowls of goodness as they exclaimed "Mom! This tastes just like Fall!" They then started in, going back and forth, about their favorite things that were inspired by cooler weather. Pumpkin patches, Halloween, warm wassail laced with cinnamon, orange and cloves. They drooled at the thought of chocolate chip pumpkin bread and eating breakfast wrapped in a blanket. The turning of leaves and the hope that winter would bring snow. All things I love so much myself.

     I've often wondered what it is about Fall that captures my heart. Spring has blooms and new life. Summer, warmth and carefree days. Winter, the anticipation of the holidays and all the wonder that goes with it. But Fall....there is something about it that I love so much. Maybe it's that with the turning of the seasons, as leaves change from who they were, we see that there is beauty in that transformation. And maybe I like the idea that that change can be reflected in our own lives. That time may change us and challenge us, but it doesn't have to diminish us. That our beauty, inside and out, can become more vibrant than ever with each turning season of our life.

Horticultural Dreams

There is something you should know about me...I love a good daydream. Life as a mother of four oftentimes requires most of my head space nowadays. But every once in awhile I find myself slipping into a nice little escape of the mind.

I had the opportunity to go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City earlier in the month as we were passing from Park City, Utah to Boise, Idaho. I am always so amazed and inspired by all of the beautiful flowers and flora and fauna surrounding Temple Square. Deliciously soft, decadently green grass. Blooms in more variety and abundance than you can imagine. Reflecting ponds with clean, smooth water. It really does just feed my soul. Every time I walk through there I find the thought, "This must be what heaven is like." slipping across the back of my forehead.

I saw a picture the other day of a mother of a friend's backyard garden. It was beautiful and looked straight off the pages of a magazine. I longed for such a thing in my own life, but was whomped back to reality rather quickly. Why you may ask? Because I am the equivalent of the Horticultural Grim Reaper. My grass...brown, weedy and full of fire ants. Flowers...I know not to waste my money, I would just kill them. House plants...I have to buy the kind that can go a month without watering because I inadvertently turn into the cruel warden that denies them their much needed water.

It's not that I try to be neglectful, but I learned living in our place in Oregon (which was four acres of plants, plants, PLANTS!!!), that kind of flora and fauna takes a lot of flippin' time, expense and energy. I don't want to say I am lazy, but I am lucky to keep caught up on all the laundry that needs to be folded around here and keep the crumbs swept up from under the breakfast table. But still it irritates me, my inability to coax beauty out of a growing thing.

I read a passage this morning by Sarah Ban Breathnach though that gave me a good chuckle. It was almost as if she had been spying on me. She said "Gardeners who creatively toil in the rich soil of imagination, like myself, often end up surrounded by plants that look as if they had been tended by Morticia Addams."

It made me feel a little more at peace with myself, knowing there is a time and season for everything. Now is the phase of my life where the growing things I encourage are my children. So unless I become fabulously wealthy and can afford a cottage behind my house where a happy, full-time gardener resides; I will have to be content with cultivating the rich soil that grows the daydreams of my mind.

Brynna's Seventh Birthday - Kani House

***WARNING!!! FIVE MILLION PICTURES AHEAD! IT'S EITHER POST THEM ON HERE OR GET LOST IN THE SHUFFLE - SO WE ARE POSTING THEM ALL!!***

 Yesterday was Brynna's 7th Birthday and we decided that some proper fun was in order! Some people are all into party planning and all that jazz, but truthfully it makes me want to break out into hives. Too much pressure to make everything perfect.

 So I told Brynnie rather than a big hulabaloo where I run around like a crazy person, to pick just one of her good friends to spend the day with and we could do anything she wanted. She agreed that sounded like a pretty good idea!

I love Ivy's face in this picture!

 She of course picked her best buddy Ivy, whom she has known since they were both just a few months old, to celebrate her special day with. These girls are a hoot togther. I think one of the things Brynna loves most about Ivy is that she loves being silly about as much as Brynna does! As you can see, there was no shortage of silliness this day!

Maryn had a pool party to attend soon after we left, so she came along for lunch and had fun contributing to the crazy face contest!

We started out our day with our birthday tradition of doughnuts and chocolate milk, but agreed unanimously that our taste buds must not be what they used to, because it just felt like SO much sugar so early in the morning! (Yes, we know doughnuts and chocolate milk are sugary, but even Brynna said it was just so sweet!)

  Then Brynna said she wanted to go to Crossfit with me to workout after breakfast. So we showed up and lo and behold Ivy's mom had brought her too! So the girls warmed up with the group and were great, little running buddies together. 

  We had originally planned to pick Ivy up around lunch time, but the girls were having so much fun we decided to just let them spend the entire day together and so Ivy came home with us.

 The girls played outside while I got showered up and frosted some cupcakes and then it was off to lunch! Brynna is a little seafood lover and had been craving some sushi. Since I wasn't sure this was every seven-year-olds cup of tea, we decided to compromise and go to one of our favorite Japanese Steakhouses, Kani House, where Brynna could have her sushi and Ivy could have hibachi.

Chopsticks up the nose...niiiice!

 The girls loved it and at one point Ivy even said "I love this place! I want to work here when I grow up!" I told her to start practicing her knife and egg-spinning skills! ;)

Soon enough, our bellies were full and we were ready to head out onto the next leg of our BFF day of fun!