Motherhood Through the Eyes of a Non-Mother

My wonderful little sister is the favorite aunt of 20 nieces and nephews.  She hasn't yet found her "Mr. Right" so she has no kids of her own.  But after spending just a week taking care of my brother Noah's three little kids, she caught some amazing glimpses of what motherhood is all about and captured her thoughts so beautifully in a blog post that I was in tears as I read it.  Check it out here:
http://drippingwithpassion.blogspot.com/2011/02/world-stopped-spinning.html

Charity, you're going to be one great mom.  I wish I'd known a whole lot more of what you already know when I embarked on this wild ride of motherhood!

Cool to be Cold

We spent last Saturday in downtown Ogden tubing, snow-shoeing, cross-country skiing, and watching snow mobile drag racing and this crazy sport called "skijoring" where horses pull people on skis over jumps (sort of like waterskiing but a the boat is a horse and falling seems quite a bit more dangerous).  It was pretty darn awesome.

For "Winter Fest"  in downtown Odgen, they packed the main streets downtown with huge amounts of snow brought in from all over.  On a hilly part of the street (right near out house), they made a tubing hill complete with fun jumps and an area for people to try out cross country skiing and snow shoeing plus these really fun snow bikes and snow scooters (and it was all free).  They used the flatter streets for the snow mobile racing and skijoring and human dog sled racing (we missed out on that - we'll catch it next year).  There were all sorts of food stands and barrels of fire for warming up on each corner.  It was seriously such a fun festival!  And we could walk there from our house.  Love that. 

That's Jared and Eliza on the tube (Jared in a black and yellow jacked, Liza with a pink hat)

Ollie was excited that the snow shoes strapped on over his casts, no problem.

Yet another reason we're glad to be in Ogden.  This place is cool - not just plain cold like it seemed at first.

Ideas for Valentine's Traditions?

In a couple days, I've got to turn in a post about great ideas for Valentine's Traditions for our Motherhood Matters Column at the Deseret News.  I'd love some help!

In our family growing up, Valentine's Day was pretty mellow.  We looked forward to each getting a new glass or mug full of candy at the breakfast table on Valentine's Day (it seemed we needed new glasses or cups once a year since my dad was opposed to plastic cups and glassware + nine children and friends = plenty of breakage).  I remember working with my siblings to put together Valentine cards complete with conversation hearts to pass out out all our friends (carefully reading all hearts that went into boys' valentines to be sure I wouldn't be giving anyone the wrong idea).  Valentine's Day was nice. It was sufficient.

Then I went through my teenage years and twenties dreading Valentine's Day.  I become convinced that it was a horrible holiday that caused a lot more pain than joy as it reminded every unattached girl and woman of what she wanted and didn't have.  And on the few occasions when I did have someone I was dating or interested in around Valentine's Day, there was plenty of angst trying to figure out what actions or lack of actions on Valentine's Day might MEAN.  Then when I was married, I quickly found that the angst didn't go away and that going out to dinner on Valentine's Day and waiting for a table for hours just wasn't worth it (especially when finding and paying a babysitter was involved).

Since having kids old enough to care, I've worked to make Valentine's Day more of a family affair.  I love the idea of focusing on the love we all have for each other during February and doing some special activities to celebrate that love.  But I need more ideas.  All I've got so far is that the kids get candy on their plates when they come down for breakfast on Valentine's Day morning (nod to my mom) and we do this great "heart attack" activity I stole from my sister Shawni (check it out on her blog here).

I'd love some more ideas for fun family and/or couple traditions for Valentine's Day (and the week or two prior) that I can use in my own family and share with the readers of our Deseret News column.  What do you do?  What else have you heard of?

The Round Table

Just as I was in the midst of moving a couple months ago, my dear friend Neylan McBaine invited me to be part of a new group she was helping to form.  Neylan runs the fabulous website, The Mormon Women Project plus she heads up the profiles of women at Mormon.org.  After helping with a symposium on Mormon Women at BYU a while back, she and some of the other women who'd been invited to be part of a panel there decided to form an ongoing discussion/podcast group to address Mormon womanhood.

The women she was inviting to participate sounded wonderful and I'm always up for a great discussion with intelligent, interesting women.  So even though I felt totally overwhelmed at the time, I just had to say yes.

With lots of emailing back and forth, we arrived at this title for our new group: The Round Table: Insight and Inquiry into Mormon Womanhood, decided to present our discussions via monthly podcasts, and came up with this purpose statement: to build unity and honor diversity as we further the vital work of strengthening and celebrating Mormon womanhood.


I love this artwork that one of our group members found to help illustrate what we're doing - celebrating the many different types of women our faith brings together.




We had our "inaugural" meeting last month and recorded several podcasts addressing the purposes of our group and some of the many facets of being a Mormon woman. It was truly a beautiful afternoon as we shared our hopes and challenges and thoughts in a spirit of faith and love.

 The podcasts and discussion are being hosted by a wonderful site called Patheos that offers objective information and thought-provoking, respectful discussion on all the major religions of the world.  Now that this first set of podcasts is up and running, I thought you might want to check it out.  Please let me know what you think!  You can post comments on our Patheos page after listening to the podcasts.

http://www.patheos.com/community/theroundtable/

This week we're getting together to talk about church culture vs. church doctrine for our second set of podcasts.  Should be really interesting!

The Pinewood Derby

Last week was a crazy week with a couple conflicting engagements every evening.  But I knew it would be crazy and expected some hard stuff and all worked out (that Power of Acceptance stuff on the Power of Moms has really been helping me!).  Somehow just accepting and expecting the craziness really helps.

One of the big things for last week was the Pinewood Derby.  Jared and the big boys worked hard on their cars and Eliza even made one too.  The boys invited a couple neighborhood friends to participate too so Jared somehow pulled off 5 pretty darn nice Pinewood Derby cars over the course of a couple weeks (and he loved really using his big workshop in the basement of this house for the first time).

Ashton came up with this door-stop-style car that seemed a little dubious but he forged on with his plan and low and behold, he came out as the overall winner of the derby and was SO happy about it.  Our little neighbor Shai came in second and everyone was so happy for him.  Isaac was a great supporter to his brother and friends even though his cool-looking car didn't prove to be a winner.  And after the scouts were done racing, Eliza got to race her car against the others and low and behold, she beat them all!

Here's Ashton's winning car (I'd put up all their cars but I can't figure out how to get photos off my phone and onto my computer quite yet - Ashton figured out how to send me this photo - I'll have to have him teach me how.  Nice to have an 11-year-old around who can help his poor old mom with technology).

Got to love the Pinewood Derby.  There's nothing like a bunch of wild scouts racing their hand-made cars down a rickety old track in a church gym with their families cheering them on.  I looked around the room at all these cute kids and this very diverse bunch of families and had this peaceful feeling that we're in the right place.  We're really supposed to be here in Odgen.   We're supposed to be with these people.  I love those feelings of "rightness" you get once in a while - often at an unpredictable place and time!

Sadly, our Derby happened at the same time as the Jazz player appearance for the boys' basketball teams.  They rushed over there to try to catch the tail end of that event when the Derby was wrapping up.  But it was over.  Oh well.  Another little life lesson.  You just can't squeeze it all in sometimes and you have to miss some things to accommodate other things.  That's life.

Flash Backs and Acceptance

I love babies.  I love toddlers.  But last weekend, when I went away with my mom and sisters and got a chance to spend time with my siblings' cute kids, I remembered how much you just have to accept when you've got babies and toddlers to care for!

My sister-in-law Aja brought her beautiful little 1-month-old daughter along for MFME and we all passed her around and got our "baby fix."  She's so smiley and such a mellow, sweet baby.  She's a dream of a newborn and probably gave the pre-moms in our group the wrong idea about how easy newborns are.  But even so, spending the weekend with a mom and newborn reminded me of some things you just have to accept about newborns.  They need to eat right when the mom's dinner arrives at the restaurant.  They have unexpected diaper leaks when you've already used all the extra diapers and clothing you brought along just in case.  They can't come to the ballet so you have to figure out elaborate schemes to have them cared for while you're gone - and then when you get back, you're about to burst with milk but they're not hungry because they ate formula while you were gone.  There are SO many wonderful things about newborns.  But there are a lot of things you cannot control with newborns and you have to keep your expectations in check.

Then, at the close of our weekend, my brother Noah and his wife headed off to India (they're helping install the great educational software Noah's company provides at a school for Leper children there), leaving their 3 preschoolers with me and my sisters and mom for the day (then my sister Charity was taking over as the stand-in mom for the rest of the week).  When we took these three little sweethearts to church, I realized I'd forgotten a little too much about how it goes with babies and toddlers at church.  We forgot the diaper bag.  We forgot toys and snacks.  We forgot a binkie and bottle for the baby.  We quickly realized that church wasn't going to go very well.  I forgot how much work church is with babies and toddlers - especially if you haven't come fully armed!

Ten minutes into church, I headed out to the car with a very fussy baby to try to find a diaper, some wipes and something for him to eat.  I did find some wipes.  With spit up and snot all over him - and me (the wipes could only do so much), I walked the halls for a while until my mom rescued me and took the little guy home for a nap.  Then the 2-year-old did NOT want to go into nursery and ended up on my lap through Sunday School (thankfully, she snuggled up to me and fell asleep - cutest little thing!  But she wasn't so cute earlier when she was having a tantrum over what shoes to wear to church or when she wouldn't go to nursery...).

As I spent time with some truly darling nieces and nephews this past weekend, I had flashbacks to the many years I spent getting up with babies in the night, dealing with diaper blow-outs and major spit up at inopportune moments, struggling to keep kids quiet in public places when even a carefully stocked diaper and toy bag wasn't cutting it, and trying to cajole 2-year-olds into doing what they don't want to do.  I also had flashbacks to my own children's beautiful first smiles, cute voices, funny remarks, and sweet snuggles and missed my own babies big time.

I came away so grateful that I have these wonderful nieces and nephews that I get to hang out with and who keep me connected to the earlier stages of my mothering life.  I also came away so grateful for the stage I'm in right now where I'm pretty much done dealing with my kids' bodily fluids.  Diaper bags, binkies and most tantrums are a thing of the past.  But in my current stage of life as a mom, there are other hard things I need to accept.

Every stage of motherhood offers different facts that we need to accept.  When we have newborns, we have to accept interrupted sleep.  When we have babies who spit up a lot, we can't expect to have pristine clothes.  When we have stubborn 2-year-olds, we must accept that there will be tantrums as they learn to accept that they can't always have their way.  We need to accept that grocery shopping with our kids will likely be quite chaotic.  When we have grade-schoolers, we need to accept that homework time will be crazy when everyone needs help at once.

As we accept the facts of our own stage of motherhood and our own individual children, we don't have to add surprise and frustration to the already difficult situations we encounter each day.  We can go into situations prepared.  When we wake up to a newborn's wails, we can think "yep, time for her to eat - a little early, but hey, newborns are unpredictable."  When we pick out clothes for ourselves and our kids, we can keep the spit-up in mind and buy things with patterns that will hide some of that.  When we head into the grocery store, we can have our route mapped out in our mind (hitting the most important things first), remind our kids of the rules before we get out the car to go inside, and be fully prepared to leave if things get bad, even if we only got to a few things on our list - the rest can wait.  And each day, we can expect that there will be a time when everyone needs something at once and tensions escalate.  When that time arrives, we can think "yep, here it is, I knew we'd have a crisis sometime today but things will die down in a few minutes - they always do."

Every stage of motherhood has its ups and downs.  Accept it.  Expect the hard stuff.  Plan for it.  Move on.

A Weekend in Heaven

I spent last weekend in heaven.  I was with eight of my very favorite women enjoying great conversation, warm sunshine, beautiful scenery, art, music, dance, relaxation, great food and lots of laughter.  Does it get any better than that?

Every year, my wonderful mom gathers all her daughters and daughters-in-law for a weekend of what we call MFME (Mothers and Future Mothers of Eyrealm).  We meet in a different place each year (we've done San Francisco, St George, Park City, Virginia, NYC, and even Italy).  Mom plans great discussion sessions on topics that help us explore how we can be the best mothers, wives and people that we can be.  We eat great food (and always have some chocolate chip cookies - Eyres are huge cookie fans).  We talk about the best things and hardest things about our past year.  We often discuss a book we all read before coming (this year it was The Good Earth by Pearl Buck).  We usually have a nursing baby along (and that baby gets lots of extra attention!) and someone is usually pregnant.  We visit art galleries and usually go to a cultural event (I love how my mom shared her passion for art and culture with us and now we all enjoy these things so much together - gladly all our sisters in law seem to enjoy this stuff also - probably at least partly because my mom's love for art and music and culture was passed on to all her children so her sons naturally picked women to marry who also appreciate these things...).

So past weekend we met up in southern California for three and a half wonderful days of MFME.  We visited the Getty Museum (I've been longing to go there with my mom and sisters ever since I first went there many years ago - I LOVE how that place combines amazing architecture, beautiful gardens that showcase God's best art, and lovely smallish excellent collections of just about every sort of art.)  We went to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform lovely and thought-provoking pieces with amazing talent.  We went running on the beach and did yoga overlooking the ocean.  We talked about creating more margins in our lives and take better care of ourselves that way (thanks, Saydi), how to take great care of our husbands, what books and movies everyone ought to read and see, our patriarchal blessings and how they've affected our lives, the beautiful diversity of our church and how we can help foster more understanding on small and larger scales, and each of our biggest disasters and greatest joys from this past year (plus lots more).  We ate leisurely meals with no kid interruptions.  We sat by the pool and drank in the sun.

We even somehow found ourselves driving down Rodeo Drive late one night with "Party in the USA" cranked up and all of us hanging out the sun roof and windows of Kristi's brand spanking new minivan dancing around and laughing so hard we were crying.  I'm sure we were quite a sight - a bunch of moms, one of them totally pregnant (Saydi), showing a distinct lack of dancing ability, singing loud but forgetting most of the words, and hanging out of a minivan.  Wow.  We are awesome.

Anyway, it was a truly wonderful weekend.  I'm so grateful to my mom for starting this tradition and somehow plowing through the complications of  9 different schedules and needs of women who live in 9 different parts of the country and have 20 young children and 100's of different opinions and needs (lots of chiefs and very few Indians in this group...).

Here are some photos of the weekend.  Other people took lots of other pictures but we haven't all shared photos yet so there are lots of things that I don't have in photos yet - but I'm sure my mom and Shawni and Saydi will post more photos on their blogs if you want more.

 

Look familiar to anyone?  We held our Power of Moms September retreat at this same location.  Randomly, when my mom was looking for a good deal on a nice place to stay, Aja found a special at this hotel and they got it booked.  When they announced the location I was so excited to go back to such a great place - and not to have to be in charge of training and creating a great experience for 30 other women this time - so great to go back and just enjoy the place.

Power of Moms Retreats pretty much grew out of MFME.  As we saw the rejuvenation and power that resulted from us getting together for MFME each year, we wished all moms could have an opportunity like this.  So my mom and sisters and I plus some friends started running Retreats for friends and friends of friends back in 2005 and the concept has taken off.  Now Power of Moms runs Retreats and we've got 4 Retreats set up for this spring (so far - I'm sure more will be planned). We've got twenty-two certified Power of Moms trainers setting up workshops and Retreats across the country (and around the world - we're working on training some trainers in Japan and Australia...).  I wish for wonderfully fun and meaningful weekends like I just had for all the moms out there - and I'm doing all I can to help make that wish come true!

Trains and Discoveries

Last week it was warm.  Well, warmish I should say. It was like 40 degrees and that felt great.  So when I picked up the kids from school one day, we decided to stop by the Union Station downtown where they have all these old trains on display.  As we drove around Ogden for the first time several months ago, we saw the old trains and the twins declared that they really wanted to move to Ogden so they could live near these trains.  Isaac wanted to move here for the snow.  Ashton wanted to move here for iFLY (the indoor sky diving he did for his birthday).  Eliza said she was going to hide and not move here no matter what until she met and immediately clicked with some little girls down the street.  I wanted to move here solely to get my husband back - and then we found this house and my heart went out to it.  The twins wanted to move here for the trains.  So it was about time to visit them.

Turns out there's lots of great stuff there at that old train station.  We checked out all the trains and the kids were delighted that they could climb right up on lots of them.  We learned about the different sorts of engines and train cars.  We went in and they had this park service place with tons of great information on great outdoor stuff to do around here - the lady there got us all excited about visiting Antelope Island where there's a heard of buffalo and lots of bike trails and beaches where you can go floating in the Great Salt Lake - when it gets warm (I grew up in Salt Lake most of the time and somehow have never been in it) plus she told us about tons of great hiking trails all over this area.  We checked out the beautiful murals and listened to the echoes as we talked in the big old waiting room of the station - so empty now but you can easily imagine the place swarming with people coming and going long ago.  We found that there's a nice art gallery and a great train museum in there too that we'll visit soon.

I love discovering new places with these great kids of mine.  And I'm so excited that we keep finding out more great things about Odgen.  When you move to a place you know very little about and have very few expectations, there are great surprises around every corner!

In general, limited expectations lead to a lot more happy surprises and a lot less disappointment.  I'm working on this.  And Ogden is helping me out.

Let Go and Be Grateful

This month at The Power of Moms, we're focusing on the Power of Acceptance (we'll be focusing on one specific "power of motherhood" each month this year).  So I've been thinking a lot about how I can more fully embrace acceptance in my own life as I've been reading the wonderful stuff that's been posted on the topic (Check out articles on accepting your home, your physical self, your situation, etc on our Deseret News blog HERE and check out tons more on our home page HERE).

A couple years ago,  I was in the middle of a horrible down time when I was desperately wanting and wishing  for my life and some of the people in it to be different, to line up more with my ideals.  I was working hard to make things better for myself and for everyone around me and my desires seemed righteous.  But nothing seemed to be working out and I was miserable.

Anyway, as I struggled with one particularly hard situation and poured out my heart in prayer, the words came into my mind - "Let Go and Be Grateful."  I realized I needed to let go of some of my ideas of how things needed to be.  I needed to trade control for contentment, to trade wishing for what could be for gratitude for what is.  As my mom always says, "you can always change your mind - that's the one thing you can and should control."  I needed to change my attitude and adopt this new mantra - let go and be grateful.

So I knew the answer.  But just like it works with my kids, knowing what you're supposed to do and actually doing it are two separate things.

Since adopting this "mantra," I've sometimes been really good about letting go and being grateful.  Other times, I've struggled with letting go of things that seem so important but just aren't working and I've let frustrations, tiredness, and dumb little annoying things get in the way of seeking out and celebrating the good.

But as I look at my life today, I do think I've progressed.  I have learned to accept and appreciate a lot more readily.  I've let go of some ideas and practices that used to seem important but now seem pretty silly in the grand scheme of things.  I've learned to be a lot more grateful as I've processed my thoughts and actions more through this blog and other means.  I've become somewhat better at looking at the big picture and while I'm still a "recovering control freak," I am learning to mellow out more, to enjoy more, to relax, and to find the peace that comes from accepting and being grateful.

Caring so much about so many things just isn't good for me.  I'm learning to do a much better job with picking my battles. Here are a few examples of things I've let go of - and as I've let go, I've found new freedom.

• Making sack lunches for all the kids.  I'm pretty into nutrition and the school lunches were pretty woeful in St George (stuff like 5 limp french fries and a floppy fried chicken patty on a roll with the option of a "salad bar" that only had canned fruit cocktail and a some limp iceburg lettuce plus some chocolate milk and a cupcake just didn't seem like a nutritious lunch for my kids). When we moved here and I was feeling TOTALLY overwhelmed, I decided to let go of the bag lunch packing project for a while and maybe just send some supplementary fruits and veggies.  The mornings became SO much less stressful without packing 5 lunches!  Plus we were all pleasantly surprised to find that the school lunches here are much better - much fresher and more healthy food with more variety and fresh fruits and veggies at each meal.
• Cutting hair.  I've cut Jared's hair and all the kids hair always.  Thanks to some clippers and a how-to video we got for our wedding, I've been the sole barber for Jared and the kids.  And I've actually become a pretty decent hair cutter over the years (my first attempt right after our wedding left Jared with shaved off sideburns - oops...).  I've saved our family a lot of money over the years with my hair cutting and with 5 preschoolers, the logistics of actually taking the kids somewhere for haircuts was way more daunting than just doing it myself.  But with 6 heads of hair to take care of and the mess of hair everywhere in the kitchen and the crying of kids who can't stand having all those itchy bits of hair all over them, I needed to let go.  After the move, the kids were very very shaggy and I couldn't face a whole evening of hair cutting and weeping and wailing.  I saw a newly opened "Great Clips" advertising $6.00 haircuts and we headed on in.  One hour later, everyone had nicely cut hair and life was good.  We'll be heading to Great Clips every couple months now. (But I'm still doing my own hair color - the time and expense  - and trust - involved in having someone else do it just doesn't work for me.)
• Perfect house.  My house in St George was beautiful.  It was clutter-free.  It was clean.  It was designed and decorated with great care.  Each paint color, each piece of furnishing was chosen with great deliberation and care (and stress) by me.  Our house there started off as a show-house for the design company I hoped to launch and for the contractors who wanted to showcase their work in the Parade of Homes.  But even after I did a couple design jobs and decided to put all that on hold, I kept that place pretty immaculate.  What was I thinking trying to raise 5 preschoolers in an immaculate house?  It was really all about control.  I felt like maybe I couldn't control the diaper explosions or the bickering of my kids and I couldn't control the flailing economy or my husband's worrisome work prospects, but I could control that house.  I could make it be clean and beautiful.  And I'm sure that little element of control did help me sometimes.  But overall, keeping a house beautiful when kids live in it is an exercise in futility.  My new housecleaning goal in this new house is one I got from my partner April: "clean enough to be sanitary, messy enough to be sane."  And thanks in large part to the fact that everything we already had went quite nicely with the paint colors and finishes someone else took care of on this house, I'm able to very happily live with all the art work and furnishings we already had without spending time and stressing out over developing the ideal decor.  This house looks just fine and it's pretty clean and we all feel quite attached to it.  There's some clutter here and there.  We could probably vacuum more.  There are still lots of pieces of baseboard to be finished and places needing paint plus the tons of exterior work to be done.  But you know what?  It'll happen sometime and right now, this place is just perfectly fine and dandy for us.  We live here and living isn't all that neat and tidy.
• Power of Moms Perfection.  I used to be concerned about making sure every detail of every project on Power of Moms was done just right.  Each web page involved carefully crafting and editing.  I spend tons of time learning more about the psychology of color as we designed the look of the website.  I spent hours putting together "perfect" newsletters to email to all of our people.  But I realized that the difference between 1 hour of work fleshing out an idea on the webiste and 100 hours of work making that idea "perfect" didn't really make that much difference in the end.  If the idea's good and it's written up decently, it'll fly - even if it isn't wordsmithed and presented in an ideal way.  Plus I've learned that when I step back, there are other people who can do things - and do them beautifully.  During several tough times for me and for April, we've seen just the right people step up at just the right times to take over various projects.  As we've passed off projects to capable and wonderful women and trusted them to run with the projects, we've really reduced our stress levels while the end results are generally better than they would have been if we'd continued to be involved in all the little details. 
• No TV.  We haven't had cable TV for years and it's been a great thing.  When we used to have cable, the kids would always be begging for TV and when we got rid of it they found so many more creative and fun things to do during their down time.  Jared and I watched shows via Hulu once in a while and we got a Netflix movie every Friday night for family movie night.  But after we moved and started getting a regular paycheck again, Jared politely suggested that we get cable so he could watch some Jazz games.  He'd been going to sports bars or following scores on the internet when there was a game he cared about and mostly we were working on Power of Moms stuff in the evenings.  It hadn't occurred to me how much he was giving up by not being able to watch football and basketball.  I mean I don't care about those things so why would anyone else, huh?  Anyway, we got cable and Jared has so enjoyed watching games and it's been a great bonding thing for Ashton and Isaac to watch games with their dad - especially since they're playing basketball this season and Jared is coaching Isaac's team.  TV is a totally fine thing.  Watching sports is great entertainment.  I've even taught myself to enjoy watching basketball - a brand new thing for me.  Relaxing and doing something just for fun in the evening is OK - it really is.  This is new for me.

I could go on but I'll spare you.  You get the idea.  I want to remember that while I've still got a long way to go, I AM becoming less attached to things that don't matter and more attached to things that do.  I'm figuring out what really matters to me and to my family and to those around me - and learning to cast aside the things that really don't matter that much once I think harder about it and weigh out the cost/benefit ratios.  

What can you let go of this year?  What isn't working for you and your family and really doesn't need to be part of your life?   Or what have you fought against that really would be an OK thing to let into your life?

I'm not saying we should throw up our hands and just let things ride.  I think it's so important to figure out and stick with the things that do matter.  But figuring out what those things really are- that's the issue.

Three birthdays for four people

January is birthday month around here - and for my whole extended family.  We start the day before January with Jared's birthday on New Year's Eve and then Ashton's birthday is on the 3rd, then the twins' is on the 14th, then there are cousins and siblings and in-laws occupying birthdays throughout the month.

Anyway, Jared's birthday was great.  We celebrated by walking downtown (5 blocks away) and spending the day seeing a movie (Tron - like playing a 2 hour video game that doesn't totally make sense but Jared and the boys loved it and the special effects were awesome), going out to lunch, and bowling.  It's so fun that all these things are just down the street from us.  We came home for a big birthday dinner with our family plus my parents and brothers Eli and Josh then we celebrated New Years NYC time (watched the count down in Times Square and scanned the crowd for my sister Charity who was there in person) with the kids, tucked them in bed, and headed back downtown to bring in the new year at a comedy club where one of Jared's high school friends performed.  He was hilarious - and totally clean (he'd made it to the final round of Last Comic Standing).  There's nothing like a good laugh!

New Year's Eve/Birthday dinner with my parents, Josh and Eli - stole this photo off my mom's blog -
sort of forgot my camera most of this day.  Sometimes it's nice when you loose your camera
and get a break from being the family photographer for a little bit.

Jared's favorite is pecan pie.  I went with Sara Lee.  He was happy.
I don't know how to make pies and I haven't gotten around to learning quite yet.

For Ashton's birthday, he planned the entire day (we always let the birthday person chose every aspect of the day on their birthday as much as possible - we don't do big parties usually and we generally don't do a lot by way of gifts - we focus more on activities and experiences and helping the birthday person feel really special).  We started with cinnamon rolls, eggs and fruit and having everyone go around the table to share their favorite things about the birthday boy, had a dance party, Ashton did a magic show for us (he's quite good actually), met up for Jared for lunch at Jumbo Burger (Ashton's a big burger fan), we played Ashton's favorite board games, headed downtown so Jared and Ashton could go indoor skydiving (we even have sky diving a few blocks from our house!), came home for Papa Murphy's stuffed Chicago pizza for dinner and played more games before bedtime.  Ashton LOVED everything, especially the skydiving and we all had such a fun day.

Jared got to go sky diving too as part of his birthday present.  They both had a great great time.  I'll post the videos later. Those huge fans make for some really funny facial expressions when they're in there!

No, I don't make pretty cakes.  And in case you're wondering, my clever idea was to decorate the cake by making a capital A followed by a period out of candles (well, I made the A and had an extra candle plus an off-center A so we had to go with a period at the end...).  I know, I know, so special.  But Ashton thought it was great and the cake was very very tasty - I'm a stickler for good-tasting cakes and somehow the cake-decorating bug has never bit me.  I've asked the kids if they want a pretty store-bought cake but so far, they've always opted for my cakes.  I sure admire those who can make beautiful cakes but that's just not me.

The twins had a few of the same ideas as Ashton for their birthday (wonder how that happened...).  We had cinnamon rolls, eggs and fruit for breakfast, played games, Grandma Loosli and uncle Joel joined us for a big birthday lunch of quesadillas and bean and cheese burritos with broccoli (their favorite meal).

So fun to have Grandma with us! She gave the twins wonderful books and the twins were delighted to read them to her.  Se always picks the perfect gifts.  It's so great to see her getting around so well and looking so healthy and beautiful after enduring a super-hard year with back surgery and two hip replacements!

Thanks to a lovely snowfall the night before and some blessedly warmer temperatures, we were able to play in the snow for a couple hours after lunch. The boys and I worked on shoveling the walks in between snowball fights and snowman-building and the twins delighted in some outside time (they've been mostly confined indoors thanks to their casts that are stretching their heel cords and fixing what they call their "tip toe problem" - but since they were about to get new casts - they have to get new ones every Friday until they're stretched out enough for specially-made orthapedic braces - I figured they might as well play in the snow).  I discovered that snow-shoveling is a great workout (my back's still reminding me of that).  I loved hearing Oliver say in his prayers the night of his birthday "thank you for that snow you sent us for our birthday" and I loved hearing Silas say, as we talked about what was great last week, "I loved that we got that bonus activity on our birthday to play in the snow.  Jesus gave us that snow and that really pretty sunset too for our birthday."  Oh, I love these little boys and how they see things!








Then we spent about 3 hours getting a second set of casts on the twins' feet.  They've been so fascinated with the casting process and haven't complained much at all about their uncomfortable-looking gait.  The casts don't seem to slow them down at all.  I thought getting new casts on would be sort of a sad way to spend their birthday afternoon but they chatted happily with our great physical therapist and she let them help her soak the fiberglass stuff and hold things she needed and they were pretty darn happy with the whole thing.  Silas started only being able to get his ankle bent to  about a 110 degree angle (normal would be about 70 degrees) and Oliver started off at about 98 degrees.  They're now at 100 degrees and almost 90 degrees.  So this seems to be working.

After the casting, we went to McDonalds for dinner as requested by the twins then came home for cake and ice cream and a little party.  They went back and forth about whether they wanted friends over (it's an even year for them so they had the option of having a birthday party with friends if they wanted one).  At the last minute they said they did want friend over but just wanted two friends - our new best friend Shai, an 8 year old who lives two doors down and Adam, a 3-year old who lives on the next block.  It worked out perfectly - just enough kids to make it feel like a real party - a great group of mixed ages and everyone got along great and had a nice time. We had our kids, Shai, and Adam and his family plus a few cousins who were with them for the day.  The twins requested that we play Twister and have a dance party plus they insisted on party hats and a yellow cake with Nutella frosting (turned out really yummy actually).  They got all their wishes and it was a really nice evening.

Now we're done with holidays and birthdays until Eliza's big day on February 13th.  I must say, it feels good to be done with celebrating for a while!