Good Tidings

The coziness of every surface being adorned with Christmas decorations has been one of my favorite things to look forward to every year. I love the familiarity in where everything is placed, lovingly setting out things passed down from my grandparents and my parents. Looping a colorful paper garland my mom made when she was a little girl. Hanging up an ornament from one of my very first students. Putting the Holiday Mix on the ipod and pouring ourselves a sparkling cider (or a mimosa :) and settling into a whole day of it. I love every minute.

This year Frisbee, our elfie showed up right after Jeremy put on the lights and we had our backs turned. He brought a note about all the wonderful things he enjoyed last year in our house and in anticipation of celebrating Jesus' birthday.

Parks was SO sick the entire day. I managed to snap just two pictures of him hanging up a handful of ornaments before he had to lay down again.

And this was Everly's first year of BIG participation. She loved hanging up ornaments and playing with the felted Nativity.

Ever had to know the story about each and every ornament we hung up. It took awhile. "Why is this one special? Tell me all about it!"

And it was also Everly's first year of hanging up the star! She can still barely reach it. A little help from dad to get it up there the last few inches was eventually needed.

Our new favorite addition. A felted Nativity that they can play with all they want.

I feel like the house is dripping with Christmas now. And I absolutely love it.

Grandparents

 

Aren't they just the greatest? I remember thinking so when I was little. And I still do. Parker and Everly's grandparents have really lived up to expectations as well because a day at their house is filled to the brim with frolicking, playing, special secret plans and things to do, fun and reading on laps and snuggling by the hour.

Their cups runneth over.

 

Traditions.

 

We have always put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. Since I was little, the day after has marked a sense of merriment with the changing of the holidays, from one festivity to the next. We have kept up that tradition with our own family.

Since we also have a long-standing tradition of traveling up into the mountains and chopping down our own "wild tree" in the forest, a tradition that goes back many generations in my family, we have to start early in order to beat the snowfall. We usually venture up sometime in mid-November and some years we have still been stuck trekking up the hill in our snowboots and snowshoes and sawing down the first tree that looked reasonable and dragging it back down the hill for several hours. We really earned our trees those years. This year there was a gorgeous foot or so of snow on the ground, enough to be able to get up safely and still enjoy a white and wonderful experience. These are a few of the photos I took from a couple of weeks ago in the mountains on the east-side.

This year was particularly grand for so many reasons. The snow on the ground and the snow falling on and off from the sky. The kids are old enough to (mostly) walk the entire way. They are old enough to look forward to finding their own tiny tree and they can snip it down as well. Kid initiated snowball fights. Countless snow angels. Smiles on everyone's face. Hot chocolate in the cozy condo afterwards to warm everyone up.

Five.

To celebrate the fifth day of the worst cold ever, we turned over a new leaf and I made the kids get dressed in cozy sweats and we ventured off the couches and out of beds for approximately thirty minutes of crafting. In those thirty minutes, we filled glass ornaments with shaken paint and sparkles and puffy painted some very adorable snowmen with glue and shaving cream. Then the kids played sharks on the floor while laying down from exhaustion, I fed them crackers for dinner and put them to bed and while Parker was waiting for me to kiss Everly goodnight, he fell asleep with a book in his hand and all of the lights on in his room. Apparently, thirty minutes of crafting was a little too lofty. But they *are* looking better! I think!

Homeward bound.

We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year. Initially, that was a tough decision to make, but as the day wore on and Parker got sicker and sicker than he even started out, turned out we made the best choice. Jeremy and Everly have the same cold, but Parks seems to have the mega version.

To celebrate Thanksgiving with a sick girl and boy who by the end of the day was too weak to walk up the stairs, we played Christmas music and made a turkey casserole. Jeremy and I ran up the street to partake in 30-minute plates of food at our awesome neighbor's house, and we rounded out the day watching the Easter movie Hop. We joked that we combined all the holidays to keep our spirits high, while missing the giant family get-together. Everly played, we fed the birds, Parker watched for a little bit before that was too much for him and Jeremy wished a happy Thanksgiving to his 95 and 98 year old grandparents.  All in all, it was a nice version of what had to be this day.

By today, Parker seems even worse, if that's possible. Poor little guy. I don't think I've ever seen him this sick before. But we managed to decorate the house and put up the tree with Evie and Parks partook for about 20 minutes before he laid down on the floor and I carried him back to bed. I'm crossing my fingers for "you would believe what a difference a day makes!" :)

thankful.

At times, I have been wistfully walking around my house throughout this week, gazing at little scenes and filling my heart with thankfulness over each and every one. That's been sometimes. Other times I am dashing about from room to room trying to remain sane and keep my head above water. With the added intentional thankfulness, I've managed to keep some humor throughout situations that normally make me want to tear my hair out.

The children began getting sick on Sunday. Jeremy was at work, so I threw all agendas out the window and tended to getting them better. It worked, I patted myself on the back, worked 11 hours the next day, patted myself on the back again for balancing it all, and then I came home to kids who were getting sick (again) and a sick husband (as well). Lesson learned. Too much patting myself on the back.

That was Monday. Then we entered the past two days where time seemed to move slower. Parker's fever has hovered at 105 and slightly higher for two days now. This kid runs high fevers, but this is a doozy and it seems to only directly affect his crankiness level. His crankiness level seems to directly affect Everly's crankiness. And lo and behold, their crankiness directly affects my ability to be able to do anything besides fetch them water and lay a cold compress on their foreheads.

I'm still wandering around my house gazing at things and feeling thankful, but honestly the wistfulness is starting to wane and the things I'm thankful for are becoming far more concrete (coffee. my bed. quiet time. a mimosa. oh, why not, another mimosa.)

And this poetic Thankfulness post that I've been dreaming up in my head is slowly fading away.

This morning as I dragged a feverish boy on a quick errand that had to get done, I ran into a dear friend who just had her seventh child a few days ago. Her seventh child and her first girl. And we stood there in the Target shoe isle hugging and teary eyed and she explained this enormous and unexpected feeling of Thankfulness when she was surprised to meet this tiny baby girl who has already up-heaved their house of men. And my heart grew in Thankfulness too. Then, this afternoon, a friend sent me a post he wrote. These are good friends whom I often turn to in regards to parenting and usually when I need a dose of "Appreciate this. It will be gone before you know it." as their high school senior gives me a quick hug and dashes out the door. And it was if his words were written just for me. Half of my thankful list from my head, spelled out in another person's looking back over time.

And as my week has been a pendulum swinging, I was floating again on wistfulness from these two great and timely reminders, when, just before bed, Parker threw up all over his bedroom, Everly got so scared of it she peed on the floor and both of them stood there sobbing and I closed my eyes and repeated "I am still Thankful" while I carpet cleaned and sung my praises that Jeremy will be home tomorrow and we can have a much anticipated family day. And funny enough, even with all the hullabaloo right at bedtime, when we I got it all back together, just like my friend Mark reminded me, even tonight "How great was it to lay next to them in bed in the pitch dark and answer random questions that suddenly felt safe to ask."

 I am thankful.

Jeremy's job and the sacrifices he makes.

Laying with my children every night while they whisper questions to me in the dark.

All the modern conveniences I take for granted. Lights, and all.

Gifts of art with great symbolism.

Hand-holding. Even when they're sick.

Their strewn about play. A chair pulled up to a toadstool, a plastic frog floating in the fishbowl, ropes tied together and tossed off the balcony.

Coffee.

Forever and always, my friends and family.

Creativity.

and a thousand more things in my heart...

Before 9

Before 9am we went camping, built a fire, rescued some stray animals and built a corral for them behind the ottoman, created a bird sanctuary on the coffee table, made pancakes, laughed at the comics from the Sunday paper, took all of the babies for a walk in the stroller, and slept under the stars outside of the tent.

After 9am fevers grew, coughs became persistent, crankiness abounded and I instilled doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. In fact, I was so serious about this, I made jammies go back on. And by 6pm, the day turned around. Just in time for bed.

good times.

We celebrated Everly's sweet little friend Tay's birthday this afternoon. These two are a dynamic duo who have built their friendship on like-minded ways such as tenacity, imagination, and their never-ending love of pink and all things girlie. Fine with us, their moms say as we sip our coffee and chat while they play.

Everly was beyond excited for Tay's party today. She woke up asking about it. We began wrapping her present at 8am and the wrapping concluded in three different stages throughout the day. She tried on different outfits and "party clothes" and asked questions about the party with a nervous excitement. It was pretty cute. And a big deal. Because I realized as time crept closer to Party Time, Everly has never been to her very own friend's party. Like any second born, she tags along a lot to her brother's friend's parties with other kids her age. And she has been invited to her friend's parties, but being three there's only really one year of opportunity to have a party she can remember and I think we've been out of town for all of them. Hence, Operation Complete Party Preparation (it lasted all day).

I think her excitement about the event was absolutely fulfilled when the party consisted of all of her friends, making beaded necklaces, a game involving a blindfold and a rainbow cake. And there was Everly the entire time, with an excited grin and eyes wide with wonder. She kept whispering to me "This is a party!".

affirming.

We have a little set of frames by our front door where we all can write each other little love notes throughout the day. Little words of thanks or appreciation or adoration. We put it in our main hallway where it would be visible all day, every day. Jeremy and I exchange little notes to each other, and notes to the kids. They love it. They stare at it. They ask us to read it to them over and over again.

And then yesterday I found Parker and Everly with a stool they pushed over from the kitchen, wiping off each other's old words from Jeremy and I and writing little notes to each other. Parker has learned to write (a lot!) since the beginning of the year. He read it to Ev and she smiled and held his hand and then had him wait with his eyes closed for her to finish. She wrote a series of hearts, each one meaning something different as she pointed to them and told him "Love, hug, kiss, friend, playing with you". Ah, such cuteness.

Happy {belated} Halloween!

We were gone for Halloween this year - an unprecedented moment for Jeremy and I. Beyond Christmas, Halloween is probably our favorite holiday to celebrate with the kids. So much fun. Since we were up on Vancouver Island, we were going to travel the 4 hours back, involving a long ferry ride to come home for a few hours and participate but we were talked out of it by four doting grandparents who were excited to "man the holiday" by themselves. And when you mix in dressing up, trick or treating, walking about town in costume and organizing a large loot of candy, apparently we aren't even missed in the slightest.

 And since it POURED down rain, Everly was completely happy with the stash she got from town and opted to stick around the house and answer the door and handout candy while Parker finished up with the neighborhood. At one point my mom said she asked him if he was wet and he said "Only to my skin" and then she asked if he was cold and he replied "Only where I'm wet". Buddy, the grandparents said they hadn't seen it rain that hard in a long time. And I think he was soaked and cold everywhere. But candy has a way of distracting.

Everly managed to make this extraordinary cookie at her preschool Halloween celebration. It's difficult to balance two pounds of toppings on a small cookie, but she managed to be successful.

Jonah and the Whale.

Parker has declared he shall be a marine biologist when he grows up. And if a five year old's month long obsession can project the future, I believe him. He is gathering and memorizing as much information about whales and sharks right now as humanly possible. He can name all the classifications, species, and scientific names of whales and sharks right now as well as A LOT of random facts.

Tonight, as usual, we were reading The Scientific Classification of Whales and Encyclopedia of Whale Species (it's a real page turner, let me tell you), and I began reading a little side bar excerpt. As soon as I started I paused a tiny bit, but kept reading because we're reading this book word for word, no matter how scientific it gets or difficult to understand for even mom and dad. The excerpt was called "Jonah and The Whale; Fact or Fiction, a myth proven wrong." I read part of it, laying in his little bed, Parker listening intently, when he put his hand on my arm and says "Stop for a minute. I need to tell you something." And this wise little guy put into words some things that astounded me.

"So, there's two types of stories. Fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is made up and non-fiction is not fake, which means it's true. I think this book says Jonah and The Whale is fiction. But it's non-fiction. It's in my bible and I have my own bible and I believe it's true. Different families believe different things, and I know my bible is non-fiction. Other people think it's fiction, but that's not what I think. God is in Heaven and Jesus helps me. It's like I'm like a ship and he helps steer me. Some of my friends don't know that, but they are still nice and some day they might know about all that like me."

And just like that, the conversation ended. I tried to ask him a few questions, but he said he wanted to just keep reading, so we did. And I laid there, trying to memorize every word he said so I could keep it with me forever. Because this is the moment. The moment where our decision to put him in public schools because we believe in them and we also believe we can have our own values and greatly benefit from friends of all kinds and backgrounds came together. That Parker learning about different families, different worlds, different cultures benefits all of us, without changing our beliefs in our home.

Just like that, my hopes and prayers came together in an instant. Whales and fiction and non-fiction and Jonah and International Baccalaureate public schools and beliefs all came together in a little five-year-old mind and he eloquently explained everything I've been trying to faithfully let go of.

"But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24.15

Distractions.

We realized something on this trip. We realized that we cannot get enough time with our dear friends who live way too far away from us (they had to leave a couple of days early). We realized that we never run out of things to talk about with each other. And we realized that we can have a good time for about 5 days at the most before missing our kids turns into a slight desperation of missing our kids. So we spent the last couple of days of our trip ramping up the distractions to keep our minds occupied amidst the "I wonder what they're doing right now. I wonder if someone put an extra pillow under Evie's little head for her cough at night. I wonder what Parker's favorite part of school was today..."

We arrived home tonight to squeals of glee (them and us) and spent the next four hours before bedtime chatting and catching up. Parker taught us new math games he learned at school, Everly reenacted answering the door for trick or treaters and we all poured over the photos we took to show them the time we had and the spots we scouted out to revisit as a family. And then we kissed and hugged and snuggled them in their beds way past their bedtime and talked to them until their eyes finally closed. And then we stayed just a little bit longer. It feels so good to be home.

Here's how we enjoyed distracting ourselves...

 We found every delicious bakery we could and enjoyed many a treat at each one.

 

We also found multiple delicious cafes to drink coffee at and eventually wandered into a bookstore and treated ourselves to a book to enjoy over said coffee.

 We went kyaking on smooth and pristine waters.

 

 We went hiking to Englishman Falls. This is a photo of the aftermath of the falls that was right behind me, but the falls were literally so HUGE that I couldn't get a photo of them with my wide-angle lens. It was like a mini version of Niagara Falls and then all that water that water disappeared into a rock cavern and shot out the other side. It was unbelievable.

 We rode a lifeboat in the pouring rain out to a tiny island where we enjoyed lunch at a floating pub.

 And Jeremy noted this combines a few of his loves in life - docks, saltwater, pubs and beer.

 And then we drove up to a gigantic bridge over a river and went ziplining. Very fun. Very distracting.

 It was also pouring down rain during that excursion, but we are not fair-weather people.

 It was good to find out that no matter how much we could pack in or look forward to this vacation, we miss our kids. And sometimes it feels really good to miss them. And good to get home.