Groundhog Day Funk

Do you ever feel like you are living in that movie Groundhog Day will Bill Murray? You know what I mean? Every day feels the same and you just keep redoing the same tasks over and over?

The last few weeks I have gone to the depths of a Groundhog Day funk and come back up out of it. I think the fact that I got really sick for a couple of weeks and threw out my back probably had something to do with my stir-crazy, cabin-fever, what-is-the-purpose-of-all-this-anyway nose dive.

In any case, I found myself asking, and I mean REALLY asking, "What is life really all about?" Now naturally I have been taught some "Sunday School" answers that I believe to be true about where I come from, why I am here on this Earth, and where am I going. You can learn more about what I believe about those basic answers about the purpose of life HERE.

The Sunday School answers were the first answers to pop into my head and they did give a direction to my thoughts. I do believe we are here to become more like Christ in every possible way. But I wanted a more every day do able mundane answer that I could use to find purpose in the seeming sameness of everyday.

So I dove deeper into thought on the subject. Are we here to just run from one joy to the next? Are we meant to collect happy moments and little highs? I do believe that God wants us to be happy but is chasing those little joyful moments in the everyday really what my life is all about?

What about when life isn't joyful? Because it isn't always. For millions of people all over the world, life is more about survival than finding joy. What is it all about for all the millions of people whose life is so difficult that it seems to outsiders impossible for there to be joy there?

Even in the most depressed areas of the world people have families and children. They work and serve and love their families. They experience varied measures of joy and sorrow through these familial relationships. Maybe life is all about making connections. Maybe the joy comes in feeling connected to something larger than yourself.

As my thoughts followed this path I came to one solid conclusion. The point and purpose of the everyday is to serve others. It connects us to others. It makes us more Christlike. It brings joy and happiness to some and relieves a bit of pain and suffering of others. It benefits both the giver and receiver. It makes both the world and the people in it better.

Sometimes it is hard when we get stuck in a Groundhog day funk to see the service we preform on a daily basis. This seems especially true if most of the service you preform is in relation to your duties as a mother or father or other caregiver. But we make magic happen ... everyday. Our service counts. It makes us and our families better and stronger and happier. It makes the world better because we are creating well adjusted, tax paying, hopefully service oriented citizens to inhabit it.

That is easy to lose sight of when you are changing your 15th diaper of the day or struggling to control your temper during the 10th temper tantrum of a toddler. But it is still true. Life is not about chasing one high after another. It is not about who will win the next reality TV contest or how much money we can make. Life is all about service. It is about making life happier for those around you and easing the burdens of those around you who are suffering. It is about becoming more like Christ by serving others.

Dinner Club

Someone wanted to know more about my dinner group. This post tells all about it and some tips to start your own if you want.


Just after I had Noble (3 years ago) a friend of mine told me she was going to bring me dinner. I said thank you and she brought us a delicious mexican meal. My husband told me to make sure I got the recipe. When I talked to her next and thanked her for the meal she told me she was going to bring me dinner again on the same night the next week.

I again said thank you but that she didn't need to do that. She explained that it was no big deal because it was her night to cook for her dinner group so it was no problem to bring me some too. With that qualification I accepted her offer to bring me dinner again. Again she brought us another incredible meal. Again my husband told me to get the recipe.

The next time I saw her, I asked for the recipes and thanked her again. She told me again it wasn't a big deal because she was used to cooking for 3 families every week on that night but that one of her dinner group families had just backed out and they hadn't found a replacement yet. I immediately saw the potential for great benefits here and asked if I could fill that spot. She talked to the other woman in the group and I became their third member.

So for the past 3 years I have cooked dinner for 3 families every Tuesday night (my family and 2 others.) Then on Wednesday and Thursday nights dinner arrives at my door hot and ready to eat. It has been WONDERFUL!

Some of the main benefits have been: cost saving (I cook one dinner for lots of people so I can buy in bulk for that meal), my kids have learned to broaden their palates and try new foods, I have tried countless new recipes, more variety in what we eat in general, less fast food trips mid week, time savings, more well rounded meals, less cooking.

The only real down side has been that I do block out Tuesday afternoons for cooking and sometimes it is a bit hectic from 3:30 when the kids get home till about 4:30 or 5:00 when I get dinner delivered. Still if I am cooking well for my family I would probably still have this problem to some degree and it would be every night.

Now I have seen other people try to start dinner groups and they have not stayed together or worked as well as our does. So I thought I would pass on some tips if you want to start a group.

TIPS:

• 3 is the perfect number of families. If you get 4 it is too much food to make in a normal kitchen (depending on how big the families are.) 2 seems like just friends doing favors for each other and it seems like a lot of work to make the big meal when you only get one other day off cooking. 
• You need to find other women whose cooking you like. This is probably the trickiest part. The other two women in my group do not cook the same as me but they are both really good cooks. It is simply not worth doing the big cook for others if you don't like the food they bring and they don't like your food. So you need to find people whose food you like and who like what you make.
• You can't have super picky eaters. Of course there will be foods some people in the group don't like (I mean we have kids after all and we adults all have our little quirks right?) But we have a general rule that we eat what we are given. If there are olives in a salad we get, I just eat around them. If they are in a cooked dish, I just eat it anyway. I am not an olive fan but I am not going to boycott a dish if they are in it. There are a few things we have shared with each other that we don't like. I know one of my families doesn't like raw tomatoes. If I made a dish (like I did last night) that calls for tomatoes I put them in anyway and that family can just eat around them (I made red, black and pinto bean salad with roasted corn and avocado and it also had halved cherry tomatoes in it.) If on the other hand I am making a toss salad or toppings for tacos, I just don't chop up the tomatoes to serve with theirs. Whoever is in your group needs to be flexible and open minded. There are more ways to cook a chicken than one. As long as you are open to trying new ways of cooking and forcing your children to eat whatever comes it will be great.
• No crazy diets. It is really hard to do this if you have someone who is dieting or has a special diet. Unless everyone in the group is used to cooking gluten free it is hard to include a person with a gluten allergy. That is why my group lost the person who was in before me. She had just had a baby and was on a strict diet to lose the weight. I have dieted while doing this but I did Weight Watchers where I could eat anything but just watched my portion size. And I did cook really healthy on my night during that time and was really careful on Wed. and Thurs. to save my points for dinner since I didn't know if what was coming would be healthy or fatty. 
• Have a common idea about what makes a complete "dinner." It is helpful to set out some ground rules up front so everyone is on the same page about what to bring. In our group we have a few stated and a few understood ground rules. Generally we try to include a main dish, a vegetable and a fruit in every meal. The main dish can be vegetarian. But it would not be okay to just bring a meat and no sides. We do sometimes do a casserole type all in one pot meal but even then we try to have something that goes along. Like last night I did tater tot casserole but I had that bean salad on the side and cookies for dessert. I didn't have a fruit dish but the salad had tomatoes and avocados and there were veggies in the casserole and the salad too so I figured there was enough plant type food. Also we have an unwritten rule about trying to stay mostly homemade. We can use a roasted chicken to make another meal but wouldn't buy the chicken and serve it as the main dish. We can buy premade rolls to use for a sandwich but we need to have put some time and effort into the rest of the meal. If we are going to serve pizza, we need to have made the pizza ourselves. Also dessert in our group is optional, never expected but always welcome. We understand if some weeks our lives are crazy and we do an easier to make meal but we don't do those super easy meals very often. Usually I try to have at least one item that I put some extra time and effort into (homemade rolls, a fancy dessert, something that took lots of chopping.) 
• Know when to skip but don't do it too often. You need to have people who are going to be committed and are in town most of the time. There are times when one of us bows out because we are going out of town but we aren't out of town for months at a time. Summer is a little tricky but we stick it out even if only 2 of us participate for a week. Sometimes we even invite a guest cook for a week if we know one of us will be out of town for a while. 
• Communicate nicely. It is important to be able to nicely tell people in your group if there is a fixable problem or what things you like the most about your group. We have sent emails around a couple of times just to see what people liked the most and if there was anything they really didn't want to see again. I found out that neither of the other families I cook for like sweet potatoes. This was good info. My family LOVES sweet potatoes and would choose them over regular potatoes every time. So I had been making sweet potato fries or other sides for them. Now I get both sweet and regular potatoes when I made something with potatoes. (Like the tater tot casserole last night. Regular tots for them and sweet potato tots for us.) It was an easy fix and I am glad they shared. We don't compliment meals every time. We only compliment when the dinner is so good we would love to see it repeated. That way if we don't get a compliment it doesn't mean they didn't like the food and no feelings are hurt. If we do get a compliment we know they LOVED it and would like to see it again. 
• Watch repeats. One of the beauties of this is the greater variety of food. Even good food can get old if you eat it too often. So we try not to repeat too often. I have a few favorite meals that I used to make a couple times a month for my family. Now we eat them a couple of times a year instead. Even the foods I know my other families LOVE and ask me to make anytime I still only make maybe half a dozen times a year. We all try lots of new recipes. None of us mind being guinea pigs. Also you want to watch out for repeating the same type of food too often. People will get sick of soup every week even though there are a million different soups you could make. Same with casseroles or crock pot meals.
• Agree on timing. Different families eat at different times. It is helpful to find other families who eat close to when you do. We eat really early at our house. Dinner at 4:30 is ideal. I know other families who don't eat till 7 or 8 at night. That wouldn't work for us. In our group I usually deliver between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. and the other two deliver between 5 and 5:30. 6 is about the latest we ever have to wait for dinner. That works for us. 
• Agree on portions. You need to let people know how much your family eats. I have a bigger family than the other two girls in my group but because my kids don't eat very much our portions are pretty similar. The other two girls each have 3 boys. I make portions for 16 (5 for each of them and 6 for us). I know some kids eat more  than others so it is important to let people know if your kids (or adults) are big eaters or not. 
• Dishes. In our group we deliver dinner on a jelly roll pan (this just serves as a carrying tray.) We use our own real dishes and they get passed from house to house. Sometimes we use disposable things like paper plates or tin foil or Ziplock bags for some items. But it is common for us to have a couple of Tupperwares and a 8x8 glass backing dish or another type of serving dish used to deliver the food. For example, yesterday I sent out 3 casserole dishes and 3 Plastic Storage containers with food in them to the families. The plastic I sent was stuff that came with food in it last week and not mine. The casserole dishes were mine. Today dinner came in one of my casserole dishes and in addition my friend brought a couple of plastic containers that are mine and another casserole dish she had from a previous meal I had made. Once in a while we find one person is running low on plastic containers or someone has too many and is not sure whose is whose. I mark the ones I care about with my name. Then periodically I clean out my plastic storage containers and take all the ones I am not sure about to the other ladies to see if they want them or if they recognize them. It generally all evens out. We normally know our real dishes well enough to recognize them and return the when we take our next meal. Hope that helps!

I know other groups do frozen dinners that they deliver to each other on a given night (like they meet on Sunday night and trade frozen dinners.) Or other groups will have a meal ready to make that the others pick up sometime before dinner time and take home to stick in the oven. The key is to agree on these thing before hand so you are all on the same page and are doing something that works for you.

I have felt that my dinner group has been a huge blessing to me. There have only been a couple of times in the last three years that I didn't like what they brought for dinner (my kids often are not crazy about stuff but I make them eat it any way. They just as often don't like what I make. I figure it is good for them to broaden their palate.)

Let me know if any of you start a dinner group and how it goes. I would LOVE to hear about it.

Mother's Day

To all the mothers out there who are tirelessly training toddlers, sleepily soothing newborns, enduring a seemingly endless pregnancy, struggling with sassy teenagers, praying for patience, worrying for wayward children, grieving for grown children and their adult sorrows, referring rifts among siblings, holding hands or heads or hearts that are weak or sick or broken, or missing an angel child in heaven ... to all you mothers everywhere and especially to my own mother Ann Harris who has done most of that for me, Happy Mother's Day!

picture by my sister Lesli Streets

Noble is 3!

Last week we celebrated Noble's third birthday. There was cake and ice cream and an abundance of construction trucks. He even got a fireman outfit complete with water soaker backpack. It was fun and he enjoyed all the presents.

I can't believe my little guy is already three. We have been potty training and it has been so much easier than I had feared. I really had been dreading this next step. But Noble has been cooperative and is able to do most of the necessary steps by himself.

Noble is just a little sweet joy of a boy right now. This whole "raising a boy" thing still feels new to me and I am not sure what each new age and stage has in store for me. It seems I am on the road to explore and discover new emotions in myself with this adventure at every new age. It is a little scary diving into the unknown but for now I am welcoming this age and stage with open arms that are readily filled by a loving little toe head.

Cheesecake Filled Strawberries

I am still recuperating. The Dr. gave me 3 prescriptions and they are helping but I am still hunkered down at home today. Now I have 3 sick kids to boot. :) So we are all home from church since Jon is taking care of us all.

I had planned to share a treat with you all for sometime and now seems as good a day as any to blog about it. The other day my friend Emily brought me a delicious treat with dinner she made my family. (Emily is a member of my dinner group and brings my family dinner every Thursday. I take dinner to her every Tuesday.)

They were Cheesecake filled Strawberries and they were divine. I made a bunch for a family gathering later and they were gone in minutes. Here is how you make them.

First gather ingredients for the filling:

1 box of cream cheese softened
1t vanilla
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/3 package of cheesecake flavored Jello
(this time I also added lime zest and lime juice to make it more tropical)

Whip up all the filling ingredients and taste to make sure it is sweet enough for your taste. Filling can be doubled or tripled depending on how many strawberries you have to fill. This much should fill about 2 lbs. of berries.

Next hull out the centers of your strawberries and cut off the tips to make a flat bottom for them to stand up nicely.

Put the filling in a pastry bag (or ziplock with tip cup off.)

Then fill the centers of the berries.

Lastly, dust the tops with graham cracker crumbs.

Put them in front of people then stand back and watch them disappear! Enjoy!

BEAM!!!

The other day I was sitting in our front room with Harrison. The front door was open and Noble was just outside it. I can't remember whether someone had just come to the door or why Noble was outside. But I knew he was fine. He was just walking around in the plants out front. Then I heard him yelling, "BEAM!" A few seconds later ... "BEAM!!!"

Over and over he went around the yard yelling "BEAM!" Finally I called him back inside and asked what he was doing. "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam! I am beaming."

For those who aren't LDS, there is a LDS children's song called Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam. It is often sung with great emphasis on the BEAM part of the word in the song. The lyrics are as follows:
Jesus want me for a Sun BEAM
To shine for him each day.
In every way try to please him
At home at school at play.
A SunBEAM
A SunBEAM
Jesus wants me for a SunBEAM
A Sun Beam A Sun Beam
I'll be a Sun Beam for Him.

I love my little Sun Beam!

Some Days Are Rougher Than Others

Today I had a normal crummy day. No grief. No wave hitting me. No. Today I had a rough day but it had nothing to do with the worst day of my life. And the grief didn't even play an accentuating role. That may be a milestone. I am not sure.

I have been fighting a sickness and I think I have lost. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to see what is going on with me. I hate being sick. I haven't been able to sleep well because I have been up in the night coughing and feverish and hurting in other various ways. It has been a few days now so today I was a bit sleep deprived. That is never a good start.

Then I missed my nap opportunity because the baby had to nap early. Just before I put Noble down to nap I got a call from the school saying Sabrina was sick. I went to go get in the car to go get her and the garage door wouldn't open. I called a friend and together we could not lift it. My friend let me use her car and watched my kids while I went to pick up Sabrina.

I got a repair guy to come fix the garage door. He asked me to pull the car out after he got the door up. I couldn't find the keys ... anywhere ... to the rental car I have been driving and am turning back in tomorrow when my van is fixed. I think this was the low part of the day. How was I going to turn my rental in without keys???

After searching while the repair guy waited (for like 30 minutes). Sabrina and I said a prayer. I went over to my friends house and found the keys in the passenger seat of her car that I borrowed. Sabrina and I said a HUGE thank you prayer for that one.

Noble didn't nap well so he was ... busy. He gets a little crazy when he is tired and he was very tired. Finally Jon got home and I went and got in the bath only to find we were out of hot water. I had Jon boil water on the stove to add to my bath so I could get warm. Noble wanted to get in with me but I wouldn't let him so instead he sat on the rim with his feet in the water.

When he got up to leave he fell ... on my head which was pounding with sinus pressure. Not so fun.

Still even in this pretty bad day where I felt like crying at least 3 times, I find joy in my children. It is really hard to care for little ones when you don't feel well. Motherhood is hard work. Sometimes I think, someday they will be all in school and I will be able to do something and get something done!

Then I immediately think, someday very soon I will no longer have anyone who crawls in my home. Someday soon I will not hear nonsense baby talk anymore. Someday soon I will not be the center of their universe. Someday those baby faces will mature, the baby teeth will fall out, the baby hair will be replaced.

So I soak in today .. even the "bad" days. Because someday these hardships will be gone but they will take with them all the unique joys that are mine today.

Chocolate Covered

You have heard of chocolate covered berries and chocolate covered bananas. Those are tasty. But have you ever tried chocolate covered baby???

Noble and Harrison found some extra chocolate ganache I had left over from a cake I made. I am not sure if Harrison was eating it and rubbed his eyes and face or if Noble decided to paint him. But whatever the case, I ended up with chocolate covered Harrison. He was very tasty.

Kindness Continued

The other night after I wrote my post I went upstairs to bed. As I passed the loft I glanced over to where the 8 loads of laundry should have been piled on the floor waiting for me to sort them. Instead I found sorted bins waiting for children to put them away. The next morning I noticed the dishes had also been done. Cami Kindness week sure is wonderful!

Wednesday evening I went to invite a neighbor to an event. Her husband had been battling cancer. As I arrived as asked how he was doing. He had passed away on Friday, she told me. Yesterday's kindness was simply sitting with my neighbor to listen about his final days and let her know I am just down the way with an ear that understands grief for the days when all the family goes away and people stop checking on you all the time.

Tonights kindness was that of good old fashion work. I stayed to help clean up after the event when I could have easily gone home. On my way out, I was talking to a friend about mothering and how stories like mine make us want to play more with our kids and enjoy them. It squeezed my heart just a little.

I thought of Harrison playing today. Noble was taking a nap. Harrison was playing with the trains. He stood up holding onto the train box and stomped his one foot over and over with a huge proud smile on his face. I had seen that before. The day Camille drowned. She did the same thing standing up on a step stool, so proud of having climbed it.

Then Harrison climbed right into the box on top of all the train tracks. This reminded me of a certain cup drawer with a little girl climbing in to play. He was so happy. I went over and took his photo and he smiled a big cheesy smile for me. He was so happy to be noticed. And I was so happy to notice him.

Tomorrow I am going to spend the day "noticing" the little joys in my home. They really are everywhere.

Cami's Kindness Week

We are having fun celebrating Cami's Kindness Week. I hope you are too. Monday we made Cami Cookies. When I was pregnant with Camille we called her Cookie and for a long while after we knew she was a girl she was Cookie Camille. Lauren would tell you that we were going to name her Cookie Camille when I had her baby sister.

So we made some yummy sugar cookies and took them around to some of my dear friends who knew Camille and helped me through those darkest days after her death. We wrote thank you notes to them to let them know how much their love and support has meant to us especially over the last 4 years.

I think our cookies turned out really cute and I know they were tasty because we had to sample one each too!

Then last night I told the girls we were going to run around the neighborhood twice to get our exercise right after I put the boys to bed. By the time I got the boys to bed, the girls had all run their two laps and Lauren was showered and ready for bed! I was telling Jon on the phone about it and how now I would have to run alone. Lauren heard me.

She kept trying to get my attention and with all I had going on it wasn't easy. She was nearly in tears before I finally gave her my full attention and asked her what she wanted to say. With teary eyes she said, "Mom I was just wondering if it would be okay if I went outside with you so I could cheer you on as you run." She seriously melted my heart.

So out I went and it filled my heart with joy to see her cheering for me as I completed each lap. I had her walk with me for a little to cool down after and as we walked hand in hand she told me she had already planned her Cami kindness act for the next day (today.) She was planning to get up early and make breakfast in bed for Sabrina since she had her state testing today. I told her to wake me up when she did it and I would do the same for Annie who also had testing today.

It made for a great start to the day for us all. Not sure what I am going to do for tomorrow yet but I am sure I will think of something. I am finding a little kindness goes a long way.

Power of Moms Retreat

The Power of Moms retreat I went to the last couple of days was a like Motherhood Ideas Overload! I came home with so many good ideas that I want to try in my home and a few new systems to set up as well. It was such a great weekend.

Friday we had April Perry present the Mind Organization for Mom way of organizing your mind and all the things on our ever lengthening "to do" lists. She has a whole system to keep things in order and I am anxious to incorporate many of her elements into my own system.

Then Saturday I spoke about Enjoying Motherhood NOW whenever Now is for you. I felt it went fine. I hope those in attendance got something out of it. I wish I could really give people some of the lessons I have learned these last 4 years without them having to go through the pain I have to learn them.

The rest of the day was spent going over how to take care of ourselves and our families and create the kind of families we want to have when we are grandparents. There were so many good ideas shared by the group on how to do this. I am going to take it slow in implementing things to see which ideas I still love as time goes by.

Today we sat down as a family and prayed and read the scriptures and then sang a song about keeping the commandments. Then I asked the girls if we could write our own "family commandment" because God always writes his rules down (ie the 10 on the tablets) so why don't we do the same. I asked them what our rules were.

They said things like "Don't wear shoes upstairs. No food upstairs. No putting kids in washing machines. No jumping off the dressers." I wrote down some of what they said and then pointed out the reason we don't wear shoes on the carpet or take food upstairs is to keep our home clean. So maybe our rule should be to be Clean and that one rule could cover all those and also only having clean language and taking care of our bodies and not watching bad things on TV. They agreed.

To address the washing machine idea and the dressers, I said the reasons for those rules were to keep us safe. We want our home to be a safe place. So our rule became Be Safe! This also includes keeping others safe in our home too.

By the end of our lesson we had come up with 6 rules. We had an art competition to see who could make the best poster for our rules and Sabrina won. So now we have some clear family rules. We call them our "COLARS" because they guide us to the home we want to have.  They are Clean Obey Love Ask Respect and Safe. (Ask refers to things like going to others houses or borrowing things or if you can watch TV or whatever.)

We are going to see this week how we do at keeping our family rules then next week I will introduce consequences for not keeping them.

If you have a chance to go to one of these retreats DO IT. It is worth the time and effort!

Cami's Kindness Week

I have been extraordinarily busy the last week and will be the coming week but I have to take some time to post that I am declaring this week Cami's Kindness week. Usually I only do a day (her birthday) and I ask everyone to do random acts of kindness (above and beyond what they would normally do) as a birthday gift to her.

But this year she would have turned 5. That is a big birthday. So I am asking for a work week of kindness--5 days of random acts of kindness. If you want to take on the challenge and give this gift to my little Camille I would love to hear what you did. They don't have to be big things. It could be just getting on the ground and playing with your kids when you normally wouldn't or reading them an extra book.

Camille's birthday was Thursday the 19th and our family went to Disneyland and met up with cousins Hank and Lili who turned 2 the same day. We also enjoyed the day with our other Harris cousins from Southern California and our aunts and uncles and some of their friends and their kids and our aunt Nikki's sister and her kids. Basically we were a massive herd roaming around Disneyland having a wonderful day in the Happiest Place on Earth and it was great.

We drove in the night before and met Jonathan who was down there for the grand opening of our Southern California LaptopXchange in Ontario. We all went to dinner at BJ's because I have been craving a pizookie for about 2 months. Here we are eating our pizookies (giant cookies with ice cream on top).

Noble and I shared the triple chocolate.

 The girls shared 1/2 Oreo 1/2 chocolate chip.

Daddy and Annie and Baby share 1/2 white chocolate Macadamia nut and 1/2 red velvet with cream cheese and white chocolate chips. Yummm! Mine was still the best. :)

The next morning we woke up early and met up with the cousins to walk to Disneyland. I miss our So. Cal. family. Everyone has a buddy!

Here are the cousins waiting for Hank and Lili and Darren and Nikki to start the day.

When we left Disneyland for California Adventure we tried to get another photo with all the cousins.

But the train was rather distracting.

It was a great day and Nikki and Elizabeth made these adorable blue buttons for us all to wear that said Celebrating Camille with a big white tulip and a number 5 on them. 

Thanks for the fun day everyone! I have so much more to post about the Power of Moms Retreat I went to and other stuff but right now I need to go get Harrison ready for church.

Let me know what you do for Cami's Kindness week please!

Coming Up

I have been feeling so much better since my last post and that night I had just letting my grief breathe for a bit. Who knew such a wave would hit with such force at nearly 4 years out? This grief process continues to surprise me.

In other news, April is shaping up to be a very busy month. This weekend I am taking my little Ann Marie down to Phoenix, just the two of us, to go visit family and spend some quality one on one time with her. It is our tradition to do an alone trip with mom for the 9th birthday. Annie's was back in January but as I have still been nursing Harrison I wanted to wait till he was at least a year before we went.

I don't think I ever posted photos of the family party we had for Annie and since we will be celebrating her birthday trip now I thought I would put them up now.

I am looking forward to some one on one time with this treasure of a little girl.

Next weekend I will be at the Power of Moms retreat in Las Vegas. Will you be there? I hope so. I am looking forward to it. I just went to my learning circle last night and had such a wonderful time learning and sharing with wonderful women. I imagine this retreat is going to be a magnified version of my learning circle. I am so excited to go learn and meet other "professionals" in this business of mothering.

Grief Breathing

I am still finding my emotions just beneath the surface. I will just be driving in the car and want to just cry. But I am smiling at the same time. I want to cry because I feel her so near and I miss her sweet spirit. Feeling her touches such a tender place in me that tears are inevitable.

Yet I am smiling as the tears fall. I am smiling because I am so happy to feel her near. I am smiling because I fully appreciate the blessings in my life and I am so grateful for my children. I feel filled with love for them each and every one. And again more tears come with that feeling too.

Gratitude. What debt of gratitude is mine!

Tonight I went to practice a performance some of the women in our church are putting on for a women's event. It is a musical depiction of the Ten Virgins. I play one of the foolish virgins and sing a song about trying to push away the cares of the everyday and focus on what matters - filling my lamp. In the end I am too distracted by the chores and I am left with no oil when the Bridegroom comes.

I hadn't listened to all the other songs before tonight. I was just focused on getting my song down. Tonight as I heard all the others with it I was moved. I was especially moved by the last "virgin" who broke her lamp and had to go to the "Shopkeeper" to get it fixed. She ends up being a wise virgin. I was struck by this verse in her song:

I'll pick up the pieces, every little bit
I'll gather all of them, even ones that seem impossible to fix
And I'll place them all in His hands
What I cannot restore, He can.

Actually her whole song hit me but this verse in particular went to the core. I felt like I did in the early days of my grief in that I just didn't care if people saw me cry or not. I took the cover off my grief and let it breathe. It is a beautiful thing to feel safe enough with other people to be able to do that.

Truly what I cannot restore He can ... and He will. And that is the glory of Easter.

Easter

Easter. It used to be a holiday about a far away concept of resurrection and the promise of victory over death when all is said and done. I loved the dresses and baskets and egg dying and feasting.


Then Camille died.


The next Easter I wanted to CELEBRATE. I wanted Easter to be THE holiday of all holidays in our home. I wanted the countdown to be long and focused on how great a blessing we have been given in the conquering of death by our Lord and Savior and his glorious resurrection. And it was that year ... and nearly so the next.


Last year Easter seemed to sneak up on me and we did our focus and remembering more between Easter and Camille's birthday. And it was still good.


This year has been a rough one for me. We are nearly four years out now. Yet Camille has been on my mind and close to my heart more than normal as of late. I have been missing her.


Harrison is now about 6 weeks younger than Camille was when she passed away. He has her eyes and mouth and build. He isn't walking or even really trying to yet. Neither was Camille. He is about her weight. He likes to make funny sounds with his mouth like she did. He is climbing things like she did. He maneuvers the stairs up and down like a pro just like she did.


He is snuggly and cuddly and he hugs me tight and gives me kisses and likes to gently nibble on my shoulder. He loves for me to carry him around. He loves on all his siblings and dad too. He is a sheer joy to every member of this family. Even Noble has no sibling rivalry concerning Harrison. (Except that he also wants to be carried everywhere since Harrison gets to be.) Mostly Noble is just pleased as punch that he has a brother.


And so I miss her. I miss her because I see her in him every day. It is a blessing and I wouldn't wish it any other way. Shakespeare must have known grief to have written these lines for Constance after her son dies in King John:


"Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form: Then have I reason to be fond of grief?"



Yes I would not wish away the remembrance of my sweet Camille that I get each time I look at her younger brother. 


Still it has made for a mixed bag of emotions on this Easter Sunday. I have felt great sorrow and ache and joy and gratitude beyond words. I have been close to tears feeling my sweet daughter close by my side today. Meanwhile I long for that day when we can be together again face to face. 


And it has been a quiet and simple Easter as I have sorted through and explored my "Easter basket" of emotions today. 


We woke to a breakfast of German pancakes that "rose" up in the oven. We watched a video on the Savior's death and resurrection. The kids found Easter baskets. Lauren wrote me a beautiful Easter poem about dyed eggs. We put on our new Easter outfits. Our family wore blue today ... a vivid tribute to our angel's eyes. We took a quick family photo or two and got to church. 

After church we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Waite's for Easter dinner and time with family.


Now the house is quiet and the vacation is over. Back to school and life tomorrow. Except I think we will still do our focus and remembering for the next 11 days till Camille's birthday. I need to suck more pure joy out of the great promise and gift my Savior has secured for me and all of us. Happy Easter everyone. 

Retreat!

What do you think of when you hear the word "retreat?" I suppose army guys think of pulling back away from the fight because they are being pummeled. I think of a spa and being pampered.

The retreat I want to tell you about today maybe a sort of combination of those two thoughts. It is a Power of Moms Retreat that will be help April 20-21 in the Las Vegas area. It will be a couple of days of regrouping our inner forces and treating ourselves all at the same time.

Motherhood is the most important job on earth and yet we get so little real training or "continuing education" in the subject. We have to do so much learning "on the job" and often have to discover what works by trial and error. But the Power of Moms organization is working to provide a bit more help than that.

I recently joined a "learning circle" through the Power of Moms and we meet once a month like a book club but instead of a book we read an article on mothering. Then we get together and discuss the topic and what we have found that has worked on the subject. We share our tips. We do a self analysis to see where we might be able to improve in our mothering and become a more deliberate mother. We take homework home and report on our homework at the following meeting.

It has been a very positive experience for me so far and I really have been more thoughtful about the topics we have discussed and I picked up a few new tricks to help me with some problem areas. You can learn more about "learning circles" and how to start your own on the Power of Moms website.

This retreat in Las Vegas should be a wonderful extension of this concept. It is going to be in a home so the space is limited and it is expected to fill up fast. So if you feel like you need to "Retreat!" either because you are feeling a bit pummeled or you just need some time to treat yourself to wonderful food and good company and useful training, head over to the retreat website and sign up to come!

I will be attending and speaking at the event. I hope to share some of what I have learned in my mothering experience and I hope to learn a few things from the other wonderful presenters and attendees as well. So make room on your calendars and come to Las Vegas for some "Retreating" that may have a powerful effect in your life as a mother.

Tulips Blooming

The tulips are blooming in my backyard. There are beautiful tulips on my counter, an anniversary gift from my honey yesterday. Today I went to Trader Joe's to pick up flowers for a friend whose father passed away. We walked in and Noble ran up and said "Look Mom, TWO LIPS!" He was standing in front of some potted tulips in bloom.

Tulips seem to be blooming in my heart. I feel the gentle bending of the stems in strange familiar ways. I can almost touch the softly opening petals in their delicate perfection. I can sense the depth within the bud sheltered from the elements of the everyday.

Each year seems to go by faster than the one before. Here we are again approaching the Easter season. Another anniversary, another birthday here and there, another April conference weekend. And again the tulips bloom.

This is life in my thirties. It is filled with the exhausting daily routine of young children and their endless needs. I am in constant wonder at the growing beauties I call my children. I want to freeze them in time and hold them in my arms and nibble their ears and toes and drink in the smell of them fresh out of the bath. And yet, I welcome the growing maturity and development I see as my girls get older.

Life in my thirties is good. It has not been all roses. No. There have been dark days. There have been times I wondered if I would ever feel the full warmth of the sun again. But I have found my way through the cold hard winter. And it has helped the tulips bloom once again.

Happy Birthday Harrison

My little man is one today. How can it be? We celebrated with a horde of Waites. Lots of family is in town for the blessing of our newest nephew. I think there were about 55 people at the party. I was in charge of dessert. My mom helped me out by making our traditional birthday sheet cake. My friend Chris over at Bread and Butter made amazing mini lemon cheesecake cupcakes. My babysitter and Noble and Lauren made a box mix birthday cake. I made 2 giant chocolate chip cookie cakes and 120 cheesecake stuffed strawberries that were gone in like 10 minutes.

Harrison got to enjoy a mini size birthday cake that the babysitter made and a "hostess" cupcake from Bread and Butter. At first he just poked at the cupcake. But eventually he figured it was pretty tasty and he started going for it mouth first.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the day:

Happy Birthday our littlest wonderful Waite. We love you!

Filling Down Time

Annie has been sick and out of school for the past three days. I have found it so enjoyable having her home that I almost wish she were "home sick" everyday. I think it would be even more fun if I didn't have two sick little boys to tend and hold constantly. They seem to demand far more of my time and attention than Annie.

But Annie has definitely gotten my attention in some very positive ways during her recuperation. By day two she had read for hours and slept for hours and been to the doctor and back. We had watched a little television and she decided she was bored of that. So she made up a game for Noble and convinced him to play her game ... cleaning up the family room. Yes, that is right. Annie got Noble to CLEAN!

This is not something I even try to get Noble to do most of the time. I mean I will have him pick up his trains or help him pick up toys after he has played with them, but having him clean a whole room by himself ... no. But Annie got him to clean the whole family room, including taking people's stuff up to their rooms.

She later informed me that kids don't like it when grown ups make them clean because it isn't fun but she made it fun for Noble and that is why he did it. Later that day she surprised me by cleaning the entire downstairs. I was outside for a few minutes and when I came back in she had picked up, wiped down counters, swept floors and even put fresh flowers from the garden on the table.

Beyond the cleaning, she has been so fun to be with. We have read some of the final book of Fablehaven together. We have snuggled and talked lots. She has practiced her music, which I love to listen to. And I have baked and cooked and cleaned and tended with her companionship. I think she will be heading back to school tomorrow since her fever is pretty much gone now. I will miss my little Ann Marie.

"Let's Call Today a Mulligan"

That is what the hubby said to me tonight. I nodded in full agreement. We have 3 sick kids. There are two of us. Each of these 3 kids wants to be held constantly. It has been cold and windy and rainy. We have been in the house nursing children and administering medicines and holding hot little bodies.

Having sick kids is not fun. But it is a part of being mortal. We get sick. Sometimes we get hurt. Some days the sun doesn't shine and the winds howl and the rain beats down on everything it can. And somedays, that's okay.

Somedays I almost want the rain to fall and the winds to howl and the sun to hide all day. I have spent the entire day with my sweet family. I got to hold my little children and know that they felt just a little better just because I was holding them. My 2 well children got to learn to serve the family and help out when Mom and Dad are overwhelmed with little sick people.

Not sure they enjoyed learning this lesson. There have been several complaints about not being able to go play with friends. But sometimes it is good for kids to learn that on certain days when the wind howls and the rain falls, it is more important to get to work serving others, especially those in your own home. It is an important lesson.

And tonight as I watch that same child voluntarily step up to help, I am grateful for the rainy day that prompted such a valuable lesson. Maybe not such a Mulligan after all.