With Praise and Thanksgiving

Trying to link up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes. I've never done it before, because I'm not a real  blogger, but it's a new year and I'm drinking peach whisky and orange juice, so I'm really living on the edge. You can read Kelly's fantastic blog, and link to other great blogs there as well. Once you're done here, I mean. 1. Earlier this week, I drafted up a post all about the feeling of refreshment, about how the new year brings me a sense of feeling refreshed. Or maybe that was just how I felt upon returning home from our 9-day, 2-state, 950-mile Christmas bender. Before I had time to publish the post, I was back my usual grumpiness and figured it wasn't "authentic" of me to post such a happy piece when I was actually a grouch. Although I don't really have New Years resolutions to post, I really do enjoy the excitement surrounding a new year and its potential. I'm still trying to take a moment each day to acknowledge gratitude, but I...

Love to watch them plan and execute! Teamwork! Pictures are dark because it was supper time.  We survived our first polar vortex, or whatever the h*** it was that kept our temps below zero for the first real week of winter. The boys were just d y i n g to get outside to play, and this weeks temperatures were in the 20s and 30s, which is prime outside playing weather. They've been working on this little fort for 3 days now, for a half hour to an hour a day. The oldest kid is definitely the ring leader in most of what happens here and this is no exception. This choleric kid evaluates quickly, makes a plan, and gets after it. Often, that tendency drives me crazy , but here, I really got to see it work for good. He has a fantastic work ethic, especially if the idea is his idea or something he cares about. He six, so his planning and engineering leave a little to be desired, but his commitment does not. I really enjoy watching him blossom in this way.  I was also...

We really should get a cut off rent for this.  On Monday, we had our first measurable snow. The boys were beside themselves when it started snowing on our way home from school. It was coming down pretty hard, so after a quick snack we bundled up to head outside. At that time, it was the fluffy, pretty, gentle snow, but it accumulated fast. We were out for about an hour and we didn't even get too cold! Not even the toddler. The big boys shoveled most of the way around the building, and the toddler jumped off the curb into the snow for about 30 minutes straight. I didn't hate it! I got to thinking, as they literally frolicked out the door, about wonder. When do we lose our sense of wonder? The kids seem to get so excited over things we don't notice, or maybe even roll our eyes at. I look at snow and I think of dangerous driving, and shoveling, and bundling people up, and trying to buckle car seats with coats on. They think: "SNOW!!!" They even made up a lit...

I can't say much about yesterday except that I took cranky to new levels. I did not win Advent yesterday, but I did listen to a couple of Advent podcasts this week that I wanted to share. The Art of Simple - Episode 49: Guilt-free Holidays Tsh gives a simple explanation of a few Adventy things, like St. Nicholas Day, the 12 Days of Christmas, and gives a peek into what her family does for Advent. I love hearing what different families do to celebrate the liturgical year.  Fountains of Carrots - Episode 56: Advent Low Down The main thing I took from this was the idea one of them had to not multi-task for Advent. To just do the thing you are doing, and be present there. I am so bad sometimes about putting all my focus on productivity. Can I knit or clean pictures off my phone or make a grocery list while also playing a game with the kids? Can I Christmas shop online while we are eating lunch? Can I answer emails and texts while finishing up my Christmas cards? I have pon...

We had family movie night last night. We chose Disney's The Emperor's New Groove  based on a 17-second Google search of movies approved by my favorite bloggers. It was OK.  There was a time not so long ago when I laughed at friends' family movie nights, thinking, "Yeah, that will never happen here." But it happened! We've done it before, but usually it lasts as long as the popcorn, which is about 45 minutes. Last night the big boys sat through the whole thing, and the toddler dumped out all the Duplos, snowballs and hockey equipment. I got to thinking as we were all snuggled up on our comfy sectional about how our family has evolved. Whenever we're in a certain stage, newborn, infant, toddler, etc., it's hard to see outside of that particular stage. Many challenges and joys exist in each phase, and even though we know better, it can be difficult to see past those stages. I keep hearing "little kids, little problems, big kids, big problem...

Guess which creation is mine.  I'm pretty bad at playing. I probably always have been. I did Barbies quite a bit when I was younger, but I did way more "school" (me being the teacher) or daycare or fashion designer (ha!). Mostly things where I could be the boss. Playing with the kids is something I'm generally terrible at. Driving a car around with a toddler gets boring after around 6 seconds. I can't keep up with all the strange rules in games the boys make up, so I don't last long at those. The big boys are old enough now that we can actually play games and do more interesting things. We are huge fans of Uno up in here, unless the toddler is "playing" with us, which is a nightmare for everyone. Another thing I can usually be convinced to play is Legos. The boys have gotten a few of those little sets where they build a car or firetruck or helicopter, but most of our Legos are mine from my childhood, and some are my brother's which means ...

My actual Wednesday gratitude was that the maniac toddler actually slept until 7. Praised be the Lord! He hasn't done that in a while, maybe since we moved 3 months ago. I'm not sure what it is, but 7 used to be his normal wake time and it's been 5:30-6 lately. My mood was greatly uplifted by this fact, but it's hard to say much more about it because we got up at 3:30 this morning. Someone drop off more coffee ASAP.  Have I shared that my friend Kate, the world's best and luckiest thrifter started an Instagram shop? A few of us have been begging her to do so for a while and she finally did. Find her at @fmthriftandflip. She's amazing. 

My view pushing the toddler in the swing on Friday. Friday was Veteran's Day, in case you forgot to check Facebook. I hope that one thing we can all agree on is that we are grateful for the sacrifice not only of our many amazing veterans, but also of their families - their parents, siblings, spouses and children who literally hand over their family members to us for our protection and well-being.  Veteran's Day also meant no school. I stepped outside my usual cranky self, and tried to make it a special day, since #1 was home with us and we had no real plans. I let them do a little art box project I've been putting off lo these last six months, and we all actually enjoyed it. We baked and I didn't die of toddler "help." And I only got kicked in the face once!  Even though this November has had SO many ups and downs already (*cough* looking-at-you-election-and-post-election-nonsense *cough*), November is still really killing it with weather....

Our oldest guy turned six today! He and I butt heads all the time  sometimes but he's a great kid and we had a wonderful day celebrating him today. Gifts are one of his love languages and he thanked me several times for the Twister Tracks we got him. He and his brothers ended the day by having a terrific time playing with them, so everybody won! My husband and I were laughing at our six-years-ago selves tonight at dinner. Our first baby was born on Daylight Savings "fall back" night after 28-ish hours of labor (it sounds worse than it was... it just progressed very slowly so it wasn't hard labor for that long). We hadn't slept much at all, and having a baby is, um, pretty overwhelming. It's a gift we made it through those first few weeks, and as every parent says, I can't believe so much time has passed. We're a third of the way done with him! Ha! I don't take the time often enough to really be grateful for each of our kids and for how God ...

Wednesday. Wednesday. I can't remember Wednesday. The toddler started an earache Tuesday evening and didn't sleep well, but my husband mercifully took the night shift with him. He (the baby, not the husband) whined and said "need you mommy" for most of the day. I'm aware that many parents and children are dealing with much worse, and I'm glad all he has right now is an earache, but that doesn't mean it's not tiring. *As close as they got to praying It was also All Souls Day, so the boys and I prayed briefly at church and at a local cemetery after school. It went better than expected, and we had a decent discussion about death and purgatory and praying for souls while we were there. The boys loved hearing the different names and years on the headstones, and they especially loved making me figure out how old everyone was. The weather couldn't have been better for November 2, so that helped, too!

All Saints Day! Love me a good feast day. We went to school mass and the 4th graders did an adorable saint procession, which the little guys and I all loved. On Tuesday most of my gratitude was that Halloween was over! Whoop! Halloween is my least favorite holiday. Not for religious or any actual  reason, but mostly because procuring costumes is a pain and dealing with a gazillion "can we have more candy?" questions every waking minute until the candy is gone gives me a headache. I'm a downer, I know. I do get pretty in to some other holidays, so it's acceptable that I lack any enthusiasm for this one. My Santa and two elves did turn out pretty great, if I do say so myself. Loot sorting

Saturday we held a fairly impromptu birthday party at a hotel in Fargo for #1, who will be turning 6 in a couple of weeks. The cousins I mentioned in 295 were there and we were joined by a friend family, grandma, grandpa and Auntie Kathy. I managed to forget all the things at our apartment, including my sanity, and I had a mini-meltdown. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law swooped in and saved the day by actually remembering stuff and thinking about things we might need.  Details. So often my pride tricks me into thinking that I'm the only one who can do the things correctly and that everything will fall apart without me. It turns out that it's possible to pull off a casual sixth birthday party without super detailed plans. It worked out and he and his guests seemed to have a great time. We only broke one planter at the hotel, so that's a victory, I guess. As it usually does, hindsight proved that it was actually a pretty great day. AND Saturday was the feast day for m...

Our newish 2-year-old is really milking 2 for all it's worth. In the couple of weeks since his birthday, he's amped up the tantrums, the yelling, the disobeying, the writhing on the floor and all the other joys of being two. Here are a couple of pictures that kind of sum up our relationship lately. Despite my eye rolling texts to my friends who commiserate with me, he's actually balancing out some of the two-year-old-ness with some pretty epic cuteness. It could be that I just don't remember because I was working and tired and pregnant or with a newborn when the other kids were this age, but I think he is the best talker so far at this age. It's a blessing and a curse. Like when he tries to negotiate in the middle of the night, knowing full well he'll win because I don't want him to scream and wake up everyone in the building. But he says "oh yeah" almost any time we remind him of anything. And when he wants his face washed after meals he...

They're in there somewhere.  Yesterday we loaded up ye olde minivan and headed west to Bismarck, where we realized our kids had never been. We visited Papa's Pumpkin Patch and the Dakota Zoo, and we give both a resounding thumb's up. Turns out we all love Bismarck!  Typically outings like this involve tons of fighting and whining and crying and general misery, but yesterday went 10 time better than I expected. We managed on very short naps, PB&Js, and favorable weather.  In almost 6 years of parenting, we've managed to successfully dodge all pumpkin patches. We are an introvert family, after all. This one was great and the kids didn't want to leave...except we also wanted to go to the zoo which was closing early.  The zoo had different animals than we're used to, and our Red River Zoo pass allowed us free admission, so wins all around. We all enjoyed the primates most. They had several different species. I can't find our favorite on thei...

My one-year-old-who-thinks-he-is-three woke up sick today. His fever meant cancelled plans and big brothers that were SO BORED. It was pretty obvious the little bugger didn't feel good but for most of the day he was still cheerful. So pretty much the opposite of me when I'm sick. He wanted to snuggle most of the day, and I spoiled him with juice and "caw-toons" and he obliged with charming smiles and funny comments. For a sick day, it wasn't too bad!

Sometimes when I park in a lawn chair and read my kindle while the kids play, I start to feel a little bad for not being "engaged" and "present." Then I realize that in the course of half a chapter of Theodore Rex  they have mediated several of their own conflicts and created no less than three uniquely strange games only they could understand. I'm calling it a win for the posterity of imagination. Boom.

I sometimes forget that, while this summer has been so stressful for my spouse and for me, it has also been stressful for the kids. They trust us wholly to lead them and protect them and guide them. The follow our lead blindly, and it's easy to forget what a responsibility we've been given with them. Kids express and deal with stress in such a different way than adults do, and it's really easy to forget that transitions can effect them even when they seem not to know what is going on outside of what they are doing at this exact moment. Our kids have mostly handled the change well, enthusiastically helping speed clean when we had a showing, and being willing to donate extra clothes and toys we didn't need. They seem to sort of understand that we won't be going back to our old house and they accepted our new apartment so well. I was super cranky the day we brought them here, and I didn't even really care at the time if they liked it or not, but they loved it. ...

Today was just a great day! It was one of those days were nothing is planned, and impromptu gatherings make the day wonderful. We started with a text at 8:44 inviting us over to play, and an hour later there were 4 moms and 11 kids in my friend's living room. We laughed about how it wasn't very long ago when we weren't outnumbered by kids! For the most part, the kids played well together. The babies tolerated face touching by one another and much coloring, swimming, swinging, running and giggling took place. It is a great joy to be surrounded by such wonderful friends and kids. We hung out and all the small people took much-needed naps. Like, so much needed. I enjoyed the quiet immensely, and I got exactly one box packed. Progress is progress, right? Our after-nap outing was a trip to the library, and miraculously, the Wiggle Room was empty. The little introverts played peacefully until it was time to go, and the baby toddler didn't even pull 100,000 books off the...

We've reached the week in every North Dakota July when temps climb up near 100 and humidity climbs up near 1000%. It must be time for the State Fair! Yesterday morning was actually pleasant while we sat at tee ball and then played at the baseball field for a while. But it heated up quickly during naps, and my 4-year-old exclaimed, "It's a million degrees out here!" so we stayed inside all afternoon. A week or so ago I sent my husband out to look for those Ziploc brand bags that you can use to make your own freezer pops. They're apparently impossible to find, but he did get some Popsicle molds. I was certain they'd be crappy and impossible to actually use, but we've used them a couple times already this week and they are fabulous! Cantaloupe/strawberry/yogurt/orange juice didn't go over super well, but strawberry lemonade was a winner! I like that we can have fresh fruit pops without loads of sugar, and they're a teeny bit less messy than regula...

I'm still coming down from the high of finishing the super long but interesting, (Kindle) page-turning, addictive book  The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt  by Edmund Morris last night. I know I've mentioned it before but it was so terrific! I purchased it for $1.99 impulsively a couple of years ago, around the time the PBS miniseries came out, I think. It's been sitting on my Kindle, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to start a book like that. Turns out it's exactly what I needed this summer. I'd like to produce some sort of intellectual review of it for you, but I probably can't in the 6 minutes I have to sit here and type. I didn't know around 99% of what I read (because I missed the TR parts of the miniseries, I suppose) and every section fascinated me. I realized that I do not and mostly likely won't ever understand politics or military strategy, but Morris did a decent job of dumbing it down enough that I could follow what what happening. Th...