Week 1: Beginnings

2016 is upon us, and I am challenged by the beginning of a new year and a dear friend.  Let's get started!

I do try to keep the kids' activities to only one apiece, but this year I threw all restraint to the wind.  The kids are doing more than ever, and so are The Mister and I.  First up, ice skating lessons.

The kids' big brothers and big sisters invited them to ice skate in December.  The idea is a great one in theory, but only Sashi has ice skated before.  With the fear of Pookie falling and the awareness of how sore my back was after helping only Sashi skate with Girl Scouts last year, I knew having them go with the med school kids would be disastrous.  Insert ice skating lessons as an experience gift for Christmas.  Great idea!  Only The Mister didn't think so.  He was convinced someone would get hurt.  "But the first thing they'll learn is how to fall safely!  What could go wrong?!" I questioned repeatedly.  

First Ice Skating Lesson Day came on Friday.  All the kids were excited!  A few of them eagerly awaited the start of class so impatiently that they insisted on going out on the ice before lessons began.  Initially, I firmly said, "No!" but my resolve abated and out they went.  Except the oldest.  He said he would stay put.  My absent-minded-because-I-was-intensely-preoccupied-with-worry-about-the-three-already-on-the-ice response of "Do whatever you want T" came across as a taunt, so out he went.  He made it to the middle and back - I was thrilled!  When he shuffled out one more time, however, he took a tumble while I wasn't looking, and the rest, as they say, is history.  Arm broken, skating lessons, snowboarding lessons, and basketball on hold.  (I said I had thrown our cautious schedule to the wind, right?  Maybe this is God's way of saying I really should slow down.  Maybe.)

Another first and new beginning is CYC basketball for Meiners.  He played with Upward for five years but looked for a more competitive league this year.  Unfortunately for my little athlete, he didn't make the Junior High team :( :( :( so he decided to try the catholic league.  It hasn't been without bumps in the road - boys who have played together themselves for years found it difficult to welcome a new boy, but his second game was this weekend.  They didn't win, but last year his team was Division III and they won the league, so they were moved up to Division I.  Then, the team they played yesterday was the team who won the entire championship last year.  Great competition for Meiners to improve upon!  He came off the court red faced and sweaty, having loved every minute of it!  Seems it will work out just fine.

Other beginnings include new books for Sashi.  At Barnes and Noble this week, she chose the newest American Girl book.  She was thrilled to discover Lea is from St. Louis!  I love that the St. Louis heroine is traveling to Brazil and will be studying animals.  Little S thinks for now that she herself will be either a vet or a teacher.  We also bought her a pristine, new Kumon book to practice her multiplication.  That particular book thrills her far less.  I'll take the good with the bad.  ;)

For me, the end of my quiet, leisurely mornings by the tree before dawn, sipping on toasty chocolate-laced coffee and immersing myself in bible study, listening to the newest Amy Grant Christmas CD or simply reading for pleasure has come.  Instead, 5AM workouts have begun again.  6AM kid wake up calls have returned.  Slurping cold coffee between trips to school and hopping in the shower at the last minute before running to work has become my new normal again.  I've contemplated words for the year and resolutions, loosely landing on "Joy" and "Prayer," neither finding itself on a necklace or refrigerator magnet.  Resolutions are more contemplations in my mind than decisions, yet this one - this 52 week challenge - came at the right time.  A good time to begin photos and writing, connecting and catching up.

Here's to Happy Beginnings in 2016!

meiners hearts

Yesterday it rained.  I sent the boys out to cover the sand box in case more rain came.  Meiners flew back in the house and deposited a plant in my hand. 

"Here," he said casually before racing back out the screen door.

I looked down at my hand.  There lay a stem with three pristinely shaped heart leaves hanging breezily from its end.  I sucked a breath in and let myself smile slightly. 

Meiners.

My all American rascally athletic rugrat who throws his arm tightly around my neck and draws me in for a morning kiss but chases out the van door with a thoughtless wave backwards in the school yard.  So intent to find beauty in his surroundings and to share it with his mom, yet careful not to stick around long enough to be thought sweet or nostalgic.

Meiners Heart.

Love.

Katelyn's Camera

Immaculate Thursday brought us into Pookie's closet near the end of summer break.  And look what I found!  Stuffed under a box of unmentionables (because they were unidentifiable odds and ends of toy gadgetry) was this beloved gem:

Last year, after visiting the St. Louis Zoo and becoming a sea lion trainer for a day, Pookie came home and transformed her room into a show stage.  She trained stuffed animal sea lions on paper rocks with a doll audience and her sister as her assistant.  Then, she made this camera out of cardstock and drew images on a paper roll of film of all the things she had seen and done while at the zoo:

She thread the filmstrip through a hole in the back of the camera, so she could "see" the image as she snapped each photo.

I hated to lose the memory of this first camera.

These days, Pookie can just as often be seen doing this as I am:

And I just have to tell you, I think she is a great young photographer!

Not a fan of reptiles?  How about big fish?

Or posing ducks?

OK, gorgeous flora?

Regardless, I love them all!  (And believe me, she takes a million of them!  She loves it!)  But my favorite is this one ~ because there aren't many photos that exist of me since I'm usually the one behind the camera.  Plus, with just one of my kids and with his meatball expression.  Love. Love. Love.  I'm so grateful that my Pookie loves taking photos just as much as I do!

Makin' Memories

When I was a kid, we spent a week every summer in a cabin by the lake 'Makin' Memories.'  At least, that's what we called it.  This week, we stayed home and did our normal crazy busy feverishly hectic schedule and we did the same thing.  We were busy all week Makin' Memories.

 The weather - after months of crazy winter - turned gorgeous this week.  Little Bit got to try out her new bike Santa left her under the tree a few months ago.  Man alive is she getting big.  I love the way she pedals and talks.  And rationalizes getting off when the hills and valleys ahead require just a little bit more being little and letting momma lead.  And then that dog?  I do believe he is the girl's best friend.

Speaking of best friends.  These two can duke it out and minutes later be wrapped in deep conversation about Bey Blades.  Or Pokemon.  Or Legos.  Or the latest Rick Riordan novel.  I adore their relationship.  And them to the core of their being.

I'm baaaa-aaacck!  Blonde and beautiful baby!   :)

I'm starting a new personal challenge.  You can join me at the cooking blog for the next 28 days (or so) as I take the latest Everyday Foods magazine and make every recipe in it.  Yeah, I said every recipe.  Sorta like Julie Julia, only I so can't do the 365-day thing!

And this is for Sashi's one true love - James @ Hans Hedeman Surf Shop in Waikiki.  (Don't you love the concentration?!)  Shaka!!!  <3

Project 365

Oh My Gosh!  Are you totally doing that too?!

No.  No I am not.  But Monday while Pooks was at theatre rehearsal, the rest of us visited my favorite bookstore (besides the library...where I spend just as much money apparently) and I browsed a book/journal all about Project 365s.  I think the concept is cool.  I even started a photo-ey scrapbook-ish one once, years ago.  I cut out the front of my home-version icee mocha box and glued it in there.  I snapped a picture of the kids in front of StarWars on the TV (the beginning of a new obsession back then), a house we fell in love with but didn't buy (go figure), plus maybe a few other things.  I think I made it about 4 days.  Maybe 6.

And that's why I don't do Project 365.

The book was pretty neat though - some girl painted her nails a different way every day for a year.  Like bacon.  She painted her nails to look like bacon.

Someone else took photos at 7PM every day in one city while his best friend took photos at 7PM in his city.  Then they blogged it.  For an entire year.

Someone else used a roll of toilet paper every day and used the tube to make African face masks.

OK.  I totally made that one up. 

But there were some craZy weird ones, I'm just saying.  (As if painting your nails like bacon isn't weird...Or maybe it's just creative and I'm weird...touche.)

The overriding admission among the writers, however, was that it was awesome to work on something every day for a year.  That their ability to look back over the course of 365 days and see how their project had evolved and what it said about them for the year provided a new sense of awareness of who they were.

Interesting.

I still don't think I would stick to it.

But in the interest of my own Project 365 - and no, that's not what I'm calling it - I've been diligently snapping photos all week to participate in Frizzy's Fab 5 Photo link up on Friday.  I found that I need to cut myself some slack.  I never feel like I play with the kids enough.  Or bake enough.  Or live in the present enough.  But what I discovered about myself is that I played every day.  I baked frequently.  And I love my life right now.

So, I guess in my own little way (my own Project 5/365 way) , I truly did see the evolution and what it said about me while providing a new sense of awareness of who I am.

Score.

And it only took 5 days.

So, without further adieu, here are my 5 photos (or collages, because I break the rules like that).

Little Bit decided she wanted to paint her nails.  Herself.  Blue (thank God it wasn't bacon...).  And so she did.  I love that kid.  And I love the little dimples that still grace her sweet knuckles.  Man she's a doll.  She did inform me this week that I didn't have to sign her up for preschool next year.  Apparently she does not like school.  "So you can skip it," she said to me.  Boy is she in for a surprise.

If you have friended me on Facebook, then you know I desire to dress more like Edie @ Life in Grace who has been said to "dress like a scrapbook."   I also love how this gal has an entire series of posts related to what she wears every day.  I am not that awesome to dress cool every day.  But, I had fun with it this morning.  And I went and spent the rest of my envelope at Cato today (one week into the 2 week envelope...so much for that resolve...), so I might take my picture again tomorrow.  Then it's back to jeans and t-shirts Sunday (and I don't mean the 7 for all Mankind variety). 

Seriously?  I don't even have to say a thing here.  I love this girl.

The Best Cornbread you will ever eat.  You can find the recipe here.

And finally, I realized this week that by the time I was Pookie's age, I was making my own batches of chocolate chippers.  Plus my own breakfast and packing my own lunches (that's what happens when your mom is a hard-working single warrior in the 70s.)  But my kids?  Wednesday morning this week, I poured cold cereal into a bowl and poured milk on top and called them to breakfast from their cozy warm spots on the couch in front of the TV.  *ahem*   So much for training up a child in the way he should go.  That afternoon, Pooks came home and I told her, "Go make me some chocolate chip cookies."  (Or something much friendlier, maternal, and sweeter.)  She LOVEd it.  And that batch of cookies was G.O.N.E. by bedtime.  Apparently, she takes after her mom.  She's a fabulous baker.  (And we all love chocolate chip cookies!)

It's Pinewood Derby Time!  More pics next week...Until then, ENJOY your weekend!
~Karin