happy valentines day!

(hoping everyone finds the perfect mate.)

merry christmas thursday things!

merry christmas eve, folks! today we're having a lovely day cuddled up watching christmas movies and talking about what time santa will probably get here. we've decided to put a sign on the front door to make sure that he knows it's okay to come in. for my thursday things today, i'm going to list what i've yet to do, and hopefully will accomplish before tomorrow morning.

-bake santa's cookies and zucchini bread for our family party tonite

-wrap presents and stuff stockings

-give all the kids a bath and get them dressed in their finery

-charge the camera battery

-try not to miss my lovey too much while he's working today, hopefully he'll be home before 10.

-a few other tasks i cannot post for fear the recipient of the gifts would read my blog today... hi mom!

i'll probably think of many more things along the way, but that's a good start.

i hope everyone has a very merry and bright christmas, full of love and peace and contentment. hug your babies, sip your cider, kiss your honey and have a beautiful holiday, i'll be doing the same.

i probably won't be posting until the new year, i'm working on a big blog post: my year in review.

love to you all.

gratitude and family.

this weekend we had a wonderful time with brady's family, they came up from amarillo and we had a little christmas party at our house. the girls had been counting down the hours, and they were ecstatic to spend the day with "all their families".

yesterday we received quite a surprising blessing. we got a check from brady's old job, which we weren't expecting until a few years from now. i'm always amazed at how the universe works itself out and relieved that we have a few less worries this holiday season.

the girls have been worried about santa being able to get into the house on christmas, since we don't have a chimney. they've planned to put our cookies and milk on a bench right next to the door and leave the door unlocked so he will know it's okay to come in. i love how their little brains work!

theodore is so very big! sunday morning he pushed himself up to sitting from his hands and knees. he's learned the sign for milk, so his little hands are busy asking to nurse most of the time now.

we are doing so well, and i'm feeling very rich and full of love right now. what a beautiful gift my life is!

i've been thinking...

i'm sure most of you could have gleaned by now that i've been on quite a zen, be here now kind of kick for awhile.

and that's good. it's so good. watching, engaging, being here. it's good.

it's good up until i realized that i've become so wrapped up in being here now, i've stopped being here. i've stopped watching and engaging because i'm so incredibly focused on enjoying the present that i'm missing out on the present. i want to remember every little word and gesture, and i have totally missed the boat.

brady reminded me the other nite that we have so many more christmases to christmas, and it's a marathon, a journey. this isn't IT. it doesn't have to be just perfectly perfect right now. and you know what got through to me the most? when he said "we'll probably have 5 or 6 more couches in our lifetime".

how right is that?

and this morning, my friend sara sent out an email. her baby is 25 years old today. and i just smiled, and sighed, and it totally hit home.

one day, my babies are going to be 25. and christmas will still be here, birthdays will still be here.

and i can relax, right now.

beautiful morning.

the weather forecast says rain is likely today. theodore and i are hanging out, he is gumming a rice cracker and coo-ing. he said "boob" twice last nite just before bed, he was fussing for the nursies and very impatient. emma's and violette's first word was the same: mama. theodore's is boob. i find this amusing and quite appropriate.

today is a big day, thanksgiving at my parent's. we will cook, eat, get a tree, purchase new ornaments and decorate. my parents have a tradition of giving each of their kids a tree ornament every year so when the time comes to move on, we have a good start. their first tree was pretty bare and they decided early on that they didn't want that for their kids. i'm so grateful to them for that. they gave me a box full of ornaments in 2004, and it is always so fun to look through them and see what i've chosen through the years. that little stocking that says brady, i made it in 2002. we still have it, though the stickers are curling at the edges and threatening to fall off. my great grandmother made the little snowflake doilies. my grandma painted the wooden jack in the box. i love having things rich in tradition and history. how blessed i am to have them.

(our tree in 2006)

i want so badly to have holiday rituals and traditions with my children, and at the same time teach them gratitude and appreciation for the privilege to celebrate. i want them to understand that it is our family, being together and making memories that is important and certainly not gifts, greed and excess.

there are so many exciting things to look forward to this season: family get togethers and parties, stories to read, songs to sing, gifts to craft. i only hope i won't get overwhelmed and anxious. it can be so easy to get stressed and snappy when all that matters is being with my children and enjoying our time together. and if things become too much, i should remember it's not too hard to say no.

i would like to know what are some of your favorite holiday traditions? what is the one thing you and your family do that you look forward to most? mine most certainly is our "drive around". on what we call christmas eve eve, we get a pizza and drive around the fancy neighborhoods looking at their light displays. the girls ooh and ahh and get so very excited. there is nothing more fun to me than to watch them being so happy. last year emma called the lights "constellations", i can only imagine what she and violette will come up with this season.

if i am posting less in the days to come, please forgive me. it's just that i will be celebrating and being here now.

(on a side note, my 365 is quite behind. i am having a hard time with this new operating system and i cannot use the photo editing program. i hope to have new pictures up tomorrow, but i'm not making any promises!)

happy thanksgiving!

halloween and a mini-belated-thursday things.

lots of new pics on my flickr.

-spooky tales!
-let them sing it for you. hours & hours of fun.
-unnecessary quotations.
-i'm not ashamed to like this song.

today starts nanowrimo, and i just might participate.

brb

our phone and internet services were down the last few days, and i have to admit that it was a very nice break. i'm not quite sure what was wrong, but the nice at&t guy fixed it right up for us this morning.

on our "break" we had birthday parties for dora & diego, played with playdough for hours and had a successful halloween of carving pumpkins, trick or treating and watching spooky movies. (okay, i didn't like the spooky movie at all, and laid in bed most of last nite listening for ghosts.)

look out for pictures of the cutest bumblebee, butterfly and teddy bear ever in a bit :) and perhaps a few links & things for an abbreviated "thursday things".

lovey day!

7 years ago today i went to a show. and at this show, there was a certain boy i'd had my eye on. and he said "hi lauren", apparently several times. and since he has always spoken very quietly, i didn't hear him. thankfully, a friend said "hey lauren! i think brady is trying to tell you something"... and i perked up considerably and thought "BRADY?! WHERE?!" and i looked up and saw him. and there was this thing, this electric, magnetic, knowing thing. and from that point onward, we were lovies.

we sat on the steps of a beautiful church and talked about big things, little things, everything. we knew that we were inseparable, the new robert and elizabeth barret browning.

and in the last 7 years, we've changed, grown up, gotten married, had babies, and watched our family blossom. but what hasn't changed is the fact that we are always have been and always will be lovies.

i'm now in love with a man, a strong, loving, kind and gracious man. a blue collar working class hero, at the same time a bohemian writer beat poet hippie.

and i know that we were created with the other in mind, and that we are 2 pieces that fit together in the giant puzzle of the universe.

and i know that we will live out our days in peace and joy, and we will always be together.

and i know that when it's time, i will follow him into the dark.

good stuff.

this post could not have come at a better time for me. i so need to take it to heart. no more complaining!

my new mantra: can i change this? if the answer is no, just let it go.

gratitude:
-i know it's cliche, but i'm so grateful for my babies, and that they're happy and healthy.
-my vacuum cleaner isn't broken!
-the delicious supper we had (chicken and zucchini fajitas with homemade salsa! and zucchini bread for dessert... yum!)
-the gigantic zucchini and squash lovey brought home
-getting my flickr organized. i felt so accomplished when i was done. (thanks to h4ppy photos, it was much easier than i anticipated.)
-lovey is off work tomorrow!!!! we haven't had a real weekend in ages, so i'm very excited.

today.

instead of folding laundry, which i so did not do last nite, i'm uploading and organizing tons of pictures on flickr. i can do that one-handed while nursing, laundry is another story! and since theodore seems to be in a serious growth spurt, i'm looking for a lot of one-handed tasks.

the fourth of july is a "holiday" i don't really enjoy. and not because i'm all anarchy or whatever, but because homemade ice cream and fireworks don't entertain me at all. i mean, i could spout reasons for why we shouldn't celebrate christmas, easter, thanksgiving... but i like those holidays. or more accurately, i like how america celebrates the holidays and traditions they've "borrowed". i'm just saying, don't expect a patriotic HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY post on saturday.

i love cloth diapering. it's immensely satisfying, and there is nothing like unloading a bunch of warm fluff straight from the dryer. surprisingly, diapers are the only laundry i like :)

since it's out there now, we've been having church at our house recently. it's just been us and my family, but our doors are always open to anyone who finds their way here. we don't have bulletins or 3 points and a poem, but it's certainly not just hanging out. we usually have supper together around 6:30-7:00, and then talk about what's going on. topics have ranged from what's going on with everyone's lives to how, specifically, do you hear from god to sitting around the computer playing games on sporcle. okay, that last one only happened once, and it was before dinner :)

nap time for baby, commence super fast cleaning marathon!