Beautiful Morning

The moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life:

I did always hope I would be a little more involved, specifically in Princess Catherine’s place, but I couldn’t be happier for them.  Congratulations!

Feeling Good

Every time we get home from school, as I’m trying to get Rush and Tate and all our stuff – backpack, lunch box, diaper bag, purse, and for some reason always more than that- inside, I think to myself, at least I’m going to be in great shape from all this work.  But you never really look at a pack mule and think, wow, look how healthy he is.

Today, however, I did have some help lugging in bags of groceries in the form of an addictive upper.  I gave up drinking caffeine on a daily basis a few years ago but occasionally splurge on a Diet Coke or cup of coffee.  Typically though, I’m drinking water and mainly water without ice because ice just became too time consuming.  Because the weather was nice this morning, I made a pot of (what I thought was) decaf to drink while Rush played outside.  Cup after cup after cup and a wild, manic feeling later, I realized that I actually made good ol’ regular coffee.  Yum.  I think it actually made me a better mother and certainly a more productive one. 

Now I’m trying to savor the remains of my felix felicis feeling. 

Before and Aftermath

I really enjoy getting ready for parties and holidays, sometimes maybe even more than the actual events.  It's important for me to get into the whole process, because it only takes a few minutes to get to this point:



If you didn’t enjoy getting ready, you’ve missed a lot of the action.

For Tate’s baptism lunch, I really wanted to make tissue paper flower decorations, inspired by Kate’s blog and step-by-step instructions from Martha Stewart.  It was initially a failure, but a few flowers in the trash, an extra trip to the store for more tissue paper, and some practice later, it became a success.  Try and try again, never give up, that’s what I always say.  Not really, but in this case it was good advice. 



I’ve been on a big Martha Stewart kick lately, mainly because she can generally be depended on to have decent ideas, unlike the internet in general, which has its share of questionable projects made from things like old potholders.  I made these menswear bunnies for Rush and Tate for Easter out of one of Trent’s old shirts.  They came together really quickly and I made them one night while Trent was –wait for it- sleeping with Atlas Shrugged on his chest.  Somehow he has read about 800 pages of that book.  Interesting.



So the bunnies were found and immediately loved, although maybe I should have thought twice about embroidering “T” and “R” on the back of them.  Rush loves the letter T, so has claimed Tate’s rabbit for himself.  It will sort itself out eventually.



After all the Easter preparations and church, egg hunting, and eating, we spent the afternoon running off the extra energy at the park.  This was after we were working on running circles around the living room.  The excitement runs high on holidays around here and sometimes it can’t be contained.

Alleluia, Alleluia

We came home from church Sunday morning to find that our front yard had been covered by Easter eggs.  I’m pretty sure Rush thinks they were somehow put their by Mel, Hunter’s dog.  That does seem more logical than a bunny, as Mel was actually in our yard at the time.

The luxury of being the oldest child with a sibling who is not yet mobile is that you can pick up an egg, eat all the candy. out of it, then repeat and repeat and repeat with each additional egg you find.  I’m pretty sure –no exaggeration- that he ate almost a pound of Skittles on Sunday.

The Easter service was beautiful as always.  It’s probably my favorite service of the year, so joyful and fresh and new.  We came home for the traditional Easter mimosas, because what better time to drink champagne than Easter?  Nothing can top it.

We’re enjoying the post-holiday quiet this morning, with Tate napping and Rush playing with the empty Easter eggs.  Although I hear Tate waking up now, so the quiet may be short-lived.  Happy Easter!

By Water and the Holy Spirit

It was a joyous weekend:  In addition to Easter, Tate was baptized on Saturday night at the Easter Vigil service.   

From the Book of Common Prayer-

“Let us welcome the newly baptized.

We receive you into the household of God.  Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”

That’s a lot for a little guy, which is why he has the whole strength and support of the Christian community behind him.  Go Tate!  We are so thankful for all our family and friends who helped us celebrate by joining us for the service and for lunch on Saturday afternoon.  It was the first official party in Tate’s honor.  He napped through a lot of it, but that’s to be expected when the guest of honor is three months old.

Thanks also for these two for vowing to help Tate grow into the full stature of Christ.

And here’s our happy little family.  I might try to put Tate back into his baptism clothes today and get a few pictures of him alone.  That kid can really pull off a bonnet.

As Requested

Especially for my family:  blog. is. updated.

The orange bucket is out, which means the little pool will be making its appearance soon.  Summer is on its way!

Making Things

It’s almost book sale time again and excitement is building.  I’ve already been thinking about what section I’ll start in this year and what shoes I'll wear and what bag I’ll bring to lug around pounds and pounds of books.  My book sale teammates are also getting ready; Kellaura mentioned that she wished there was an Advent calendar for the book sale, which was really all the encouragement I needed:

I wouldn’t say that giving up tv for Lent has made me more productive in the traditional sense.

Staying up until midnight to make an "advent calendar” for a used book sale is my version of going on a long run to wind down or relieve stress.  Some people end up with blisters on their toes, I end up with blisters on my hands from the hot glue gun.  In fact, I think after making two of these countdowns my fingers might be scared enough to be protected from boiling hot glue.
Giving up tv hasn’t necessarily made Trent productive either, unless you count reading a few pages of Atlas Shrugged and then falling asleep sitting up productive.  He did however make this:

It’s a house for mason bees!  My dream of having two beehives in our backyard is on hold, but now that we have a nice little home for them hopefully some mason bees will stop by.  I’ve faced the reality that two hives and 60,000 bees will not enjoy sharing a space with everyone currently living in our house.

I can already imagine Rush or Tate answering the phone in his dorm room to hear his youngest sibling giving the update from home:  “Well, Mom finally got her bees.”  One day I’ll be sharing honey with all of you.  For now, I’ll be trying to stop the bee house from being sprayed by the hose.

Palm Sunday

Last year we decided to implement a new tradition of making palmiers –previously called “the butt cookies” (by me) because of their butt-like shape- for Palm Sunday. They do look much more like palm fronds than butts, but it was always nice to say, “hey, let’s go into that bakery and see if they have any butt cookies.” Trent whipped up a batch today after church. Delicious indeed, but as I signed up to do the Beach Palooza obstacle run with my marathoning, personal trainer trained aunt and my generally physically fit younger brother, I might want to start spending a little more time on the treadmill and a little less time eating an entire box of puff pastry. When I say “a little more time on the treadmill,” I’m really saying I know I haven’t been on it since some point before Tate was born. And actually, probably not since before I was pregnant with Tate…hmmm…

Speaking of Tate, he’s getting stronger –no treadmill required- and has recently moved up to spending brief periods sitting in the bumbo chair…sitting…

…sitting…

…and done.

We had a nice visit last week from Trent’s sister Kim, aka Aunt Kimbo or ‘Bo as Rush calls her.

Kim cooked dinner for us one night and watched the boys the following night so we could go on an actual date. There’s a local Italian restaurant that Trent and I have wanted to check out for a long time, but I wanted to wait until I wasn’t pregnant so I could enjoy a little vino with my meal. In the car on the way to the restaurant I happened to say that if the restaurant was b-y-o-b, I was going to l-e-a-v-e, and what do you know, we sit down and there it is – $2 corking fee. It was a really small place so it would have been super awkward to leave and come back fifteen minutes later with a bottle of merlot, so I calmed myself down and enjoyed my raviolli. As long as I have a little warning, I am a fan of the byob restaurant as it’s always nice to enjoy a bottle of wine without an additional 300% mark-up over the grocery store price. I’ll definitely go back to the restaurant –Santa Barbara Italian Café for anyone looking for a fabulous homemade salad dressing in the greater Houston area.

I can also recommend Limitless as a great big bucket of popcorn and Diet Coke big screen experience. Going to the movies if my first choice activity when free babysitters are available. Yes, it will be great to see you – and do you mind watching the boys for a few hours so I can go to the movies?

And now it’s Sunday night again. It’s going to be a busy week with extra church services for Holy Week and Tate’s baptism and Easter next weekend. The smart thing for me to do right now would be to turn off the computer, wake up the classic sleeping-in-an-armchair-with-an-open-book Trent, and go to bed. Sounds like a good plan and I’m going to make it happen.

Story of My Life

Trent recently captured me in a picture of my shoes at the end of the day: Right now, 30 years old, 2011, that's who I am. A woman with cardstock in her shoe and a banana sticker stuck to the side. I like it.

Food Futures

One of my very favorite meals is a really good salad with really good cheese and a really good vinaigrette and really good, crusty bread – and a glass of wine. Recently we were having salad and bread for dinner and I had the realization that I need to enjoy these kind of meals now. When Rush and Tate are 12 and 10, plus accounting for additional children, I have a feeling a salad isn’t going to be enough of a meal. We would probably have to add a few chickens to the menu, or spend $50 on vegetables, cheese, and croutons to make it big enough.

We’re also going to lose the abundance of St. Mark’s chili. Trent and I have been filling our freezer with pints of frozen chili for years, but it already appears that it’s time to move up to quart size. Once Tate starts eating, St. Mark’s chili is going to start getting cost prohibitive. It might end up a once a year treat. Trent seems to think we’ll start making chili ourselves, but it’s going to be really hard to top the St. Mark’s recipe.

I was picturing a future involving lots of potatoes until my brother reminded me that kids are essentially forced to eat whatever you put in front of them. He gave the example of his senior year of high school when he would come home from a varsity soccer game to a dinner of cucumber and tomato salad. My parents did go through a phase where almost every night they ate a mixture of cucumber, tomatoes, green olives, and parmesan cheese, sprinkled with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

There’s really no reason to think about any of this now. One benefit to kids is that they do tend to grow gradually and your life gradually adapts to them. Except of course when they’re born, which is more of a pushed into a cold swimming pool experience.

Tate is a milestone 3 months old today, so let the gradualness begin.

Grommets

My parents gave me a grommet tool –what exactly is it called? I want to call it a grommeter, but I’m sure that’s not right- for Christmas and I’ve recently been adding grommets to everything.

It started with practicing on a scrap of fabric to see what it would look like, then after looking at some gift tags in a store I realized I could use them on paper also.  That’s when it started to get out of control, especially because lately I can’t help myself from buying those 4x6-ish stacks of card stock every time I walk into a craft store.

If you find a grocery list with a grommet through the top, that’s me.  It’s addictive.

Strawberry Picking

Froberg’s Farm is a farm and market in Alvin, fantastic not only because it’s an actual farm where they grow and sell produce, but also because it’s not a trendy, hip market where you have to gather your prettiest muslin bags before you can even show up to shop. It’s where old men in Alvin go to buy their carrots. And they make homemade hand pies.

You can pick your own berries when they’re in season and last Thursday we ventured out with our neighbor/friend for our own berry picking experience. Judged by my current standards of calling an outing a success if we all end up alive at home at the end of it -regardless of any meltdowns or minor injuries along the way- the trip was exceptional . Rush picked some berries, ate quite a few right off the vine, and ran up and down the rows, while Tate slept soundly in my sling through the whole picking experience. As fun as it was for thirty minutes, it made me really appreciate living in a country and time period where I’m not out in the fields with a baby strapped to me all day, every day.

We hung around after our migrant worker experience for a picnic lunch. The additional highlight was the train track right in front of the farm, so close and loud and excitingly frightening that Rush grabbed my hand each time a train passed by. Watching the train I realized that there are certain words that are only used by children or when talking to children, caboose for example. When was the last time you said that? When I pointed out the last car on the train to Rush and told him it was the caboose, I was immediately like “who say caboose anymore?” I guess people who talk to two year olds. Other than that, it really doesn’t come up in conversation.

We finished our bucket of strawberries in about three days, so we’re planning on at least one more strawberry picking trip, next time when Trent can join us.