In the Dark

 A funny thing happends the minute you loose power and everything goes dark.

There's a hint of panic at first. There you are minding your own business and then you are in the dark

Then Relief when you've made sure everyone is ok.

Then Excitement when you bring out the flashlights and go exploring

I love the look of your house as it's all lit with candles. A soft glow. A calming effect.

There is a very satisfying feeling you get as a parent as you show your children that there is nothing to be scared of.

"Take your flashlights and go see what you can find"

And then they do.

The best part is after the lights come back on, and they run around the house turning them back off.

CHRISTmas Time is....Over?!

As I read on Facebook about Christmas decorations coming down and people feeling relieved that they are happy to have their home back, it makes me sad.
I like my Christmas decorations. I think it makes it feel more like home. I always feel like something is missing when they come down. It makes me want to leave them up all the time.

I was talking to my mom about this on the phone this morning. We find it odd that when people take what reminds them of Christmas out of their house it feels more like home.

Christmas is all about remembering Christ. Remembering the love and the spirit that He brought to this earth. Isn't that something that we would want to keep in our homes? Isn't that something we would want to be constantly reminded of?

I'm OK with the Santa's and Snowmen going back into the boxes, I'm OK with the tree coming down, to me that's more winter, not Christmas. But to take down my nativity's, my more "religious" decorations makes me sad. I think every year of why I can't just leave them up. I think that this year I will. I will leave up my nativity. I want to keep that true Christmas spirit in my home this year.  I want to be constantly reminded of, and keep that spirit of love and life in my home all year long.

My mom suggested that I take down the colored lights in the kitchen window and exchange them for white, I like that idea. Lights are calming and peaceful. What I want our home to feel like.

Christmas Time is Here

This is our first Christmas in our new house! We decided to host it at our house. I am so excited. Everything is getting all Christmas...E. Christmasy...Christmasie...Christmasee...Huh?!  ANYWHO. Christmas is at our house and we are decking the halls, sidewalk, dining room, and all other places you can...deck...orate! =D
I have been thinking and thinking about Christmas traditions and what traditions I want our family to have. I've been thinking about my husbands family traditions, my families tradition, and friends family traditions.
What do you do when you have so much to choose from. Well here is what you do

I love that my Mother-in-Law makes goodies plates for her friends and family
I love that every year we read the Christmas story Christmas eve, Right before we opened up our new homemade Christmas pajamas (although the boys do not have homemade Jammie's, I hope that someday they will)
I love having toast and hot chocolate Christmas morning
I love having pizza or Hickory Farms crackers, cheese and meats for dinner Christmas eve
I love the oranges in the stockings (I love it even more that both my family and my husbands family does this)
Real Christmas trees. The fluffiness, the pine smell in your house. love it all.
Fake trees. weird, I know. To have them back to back like this. I love my Mother-in-Laws tree. It's fast, convenient and very low maintenance. It's easy, and simple. Our compromise, A real one when we're home to take care of it, a fake one when we're going somewhere else.
Movies. Christmas movies. We only got them out once a  year. We were not the ones watching Frosty the Snowman in the middle of summer. It was in the Christmas box. It came out the day after Thanksgiving and went back in sometime in the middle of January. I liked it that way. It made them special.
Christmas stories. A different one every night. and although we are not at a point where we can do one EVERY night, we do have a couple for Christmas eve.

There are a lot of traditions I wish we could do, but lets face it. You have to pick and choose the ones that you and your family like best.  So to you and yours. Merry Christmas and enjoy your family and it's many traditions, whatever they may be.

Something Magical

When I was little and it snowed, It was AWESOME!!!! Not that it's not awesome now, but when your little there is just something about snow that lights you up. Something magical.

It snowed every year where I grew up. It's notorious for being 102 in the summer and 10 in the winter. It truly is the best place on earth! Where the seasons actually change.

Spring is filled with April showers and May flowers.

Summer is filled with pool parties, sprinklers, Popsicles and water fights.

Fall is Burgundy, orange, and yellow leaves, rain, wind, and jackets

Winter is snow. snow. snow. Which means snowmen, snowball fights, sledding, and the one thing that rules it all...snow forts!

One year it snowed quite a bit. I'm talkin knee high quite a bit. now when your a grown up, knee high on a 6 yr old isn't that much, it's a lot, but not as much as your 6 yr old thinks it is. It was the perfect kind of snow. Just wet enough to stick together but not so wet that it was just a bunch of slush! It must have been my dad's day off, or he called in sick. I'm not sure which.

My parents always made sure that snow was a magical thing, and not this burdensome thing that most adults make it out to be. I never remember my parents complaining about driving in the snow. I never remember them having a negative attitude toward the snow. It has always been a magical, wonderful thing.

We woke up to snow that day. My mom and dad got us appropriately outfitted to go out and play in the snow. My dad in his flannel shirt and snow boots. us in our coats, hats and gloves. Out we went.

My dad, is awesome. That's it. He is THE. MAN. and when it comes to making stuff, especially out of snow?! Forget about it! He is KING of snow!

All I remember is him piling snow up in the front yard...tons of it. Shoveling it up and up and up. I remember trying to figure out what he was doing, and then I saw it. The greatest defense against any incoming snow balls. The biggest snow fort I had ever seen! It was as tall as I was! It was awesome and my dad had built it. Next came out the best idea my mom had ever had and she was the queen of all things snow related. 5 water bottles...not just water bottles, Squirt bottles filled with water...not just any water but Colored water!!! Colored Ice water so that we could Spray paint our new snow fort! In that moment my parents were the coolest people in the world.

Snow should be fun. Snow should be magical and wonderful. Snow should strike a certain feeling inside you, something I plan on passing on to our children!



Power anyone?!

Last night we had a pretty bad windstorm. Now there's something you need to know about me, I. LOVE. STORMS! Always have. Probably always will. I credit this to my parents, both of them!
I grew up in a valley. A place where you could watch the storm circle your town before it hits. We would hear thunder and run outside. We would stand in the back yard or sit on the front steps and watch my did predict where the lightning would strike. It has always amazed me how accurate he was! He would point, and then it would hit, right where he would point! I remember wishing and wishing that the power would go out. Most kids, I understand, are afraid of power outages, but that's where my parents ruled!!
We would stand out side with Dad watching the storm go around the mountains, circling our little piece of paradise and when it would start raining, we would wait a little longer, feeling the rumble of the thunder and counting the seconds between it and the strike of lightning. Predicting how far a way it was. We would stand outside until my mom stepped out and told us that our hot chocolate was ready. We then would go inside, put on dry clothes and sit in front of the fire, that my dad had now built and drink our homemade hot chocolate. Always made with milk, cream, real cocoa, vanilla and some cinnamon and nutmeg (for "nutmeg is the spice of love") Topped with real homemade real whipped cream!
When, and if the power went out my mom would light the candles that she had strategically placed around the house the minute the thunder started, and my dad would grab our flashlights. We would then sit by the fire and listen to our mom or dad tell us stories. Whether from a book or from their days growing up in Seattle.  We would play games. and sometimes just talk. We would talk about everything and anything!
It was a bummer of a time when the lights would come back on.
It is because of my parents turning something potentially scary into something fun and exciting that even as an adult I get all excited when the trees sway, rain pours, and lights flicker!

Happy Birthday!!

Today is/was my mom's birthday!!
I have spent all day thinking, pondering, and drafting what I was going to write in tribute to the woman who made me who I was. After many attempts of putting it in to words, this is what I've come up with.
I am thankful my mom was born. Because if she wasn't, I wouldn't exist!
I'm grateful for all my moms hard work to not kill her children.
I love that my mom loves all her kids not matter what, or how many faults we have!

Thanks mom!! Happy Birthday!!!

When it rains...

Yesterday it rained. All day. I've been hearing on the news about how there could be so much rain in some areas that they are on flood watch! Not surprising since we live on the west side of Washington, where it rains 8 months out of the year, but that's not the point.
The point is:
When I was about 12, it rained. It rained really hard.
A little background. I grew up in eastern Washington where it rains 4 months out of the year it rains oct, nov. Snows dec-feb. and then rains in march and April.
Well it rained in Feb.  It rained a lot, and it rained warm. which, according to "experts" the warm rain melted the 3 ft of snow that had accumulated and it melted into Mill Creek which apparently wasn't equipped to handle that much water. So the great valley of Walla Walla Flooded.

Well. While everyone else was hiding in their house preparing for the worst, my sister and I sat on the couch with the windows open listening to the rain. Between arguing and listening to the rain apparently we were driving my mom crazy because at one point she said to us, "Go. Out.Side!" . . . You did notice the POURING Rain, right mom?!

Well because we were perfect little angels, we did as we were told. shorts, t-shirts, and no shoes or socks, to play in the pouring rain and flooded streets! I remember that the water in our neighborhood was level with the curbs, and in some places spilling over the curb and into the yards. As my sister K and I ran, jumped, and skipped through the murky, muddy streets, laughing, and enjoying our instructed 'rebel' moment, one of the neighbors around the corner felt it necessary to step out and instruct  us to go home. When we told her that our mom told us to go outside, she did not believe us (obviously! What kind of Mother would send her children out to play in the pouring rain with no coats, shoes or socks....when the whole town is FLOODING!?!?! My mom. That's who!) This neighbor was very upset how inappropriately we were dressed. She was very concerned that we would step on a rock or something. K and I laughed and kept running!

It's funny how some of the best memories are the ones that were created out of parental desperation and don't cost much, to anything at all.

In the Early Morning

It's funny to me how when I was younger, and relatively clueless. I loved my mom. I appreciated my mom. I knew who my mom was and what she stood for.
Or at least I thought I did.

My mom worked hard. I mean just look at us. Our hair is done, our faces are clean, our outfits match at least one other person. We are all smiling, well almost all of us. The house is clean, decorated for the appropriate season and clutter free. But if you look even further, My MOM is smiling! and even looks like she means it! A lot of work went into this picture, which at (my guess would be) 5, I didn't appreciate as much as a I do now.

Now that I'm the Mom and am the one responsible for the matching outfits, clean faces and managed hair. The clutter free, clean, decorated house. The truly happy smiling faces. I gotta tell you. It's a lot of work, and not easy blow through it kind of work.

It's the kind of work where you start at NOON to have everyone ready by 6, and hope and Pray that everyone stays clean and shiny. But can't get to upset if they don't.

The kind of work where after everyone else is ready to go you rush to get yourself ready and hope you don't look rushed in the end. Because as we all know, once you shower and the rush, you can't rush to fast otherwise you sweat, and the the shower just wasted time.

The kind of work where you get up at 4 in the morning because your 3 yr old wont stop coughing, and then you stay up because by the time you get the 3 yr old calmed back down and possibly ready to go back to sleep, your 2 yr old gets up.

So. At 4 this morning as I was listening to my 3 yr old cough his toes up. I started thinking about my mom.

My mom who had a 3 yr old 4 times. My mom who cleaned rooms, sorted clothes, washed dishes, and uncluttered a home. My mom who most likely also rushed to get all 4 of her kids and herself ready for church that started at 830am. and then took all 4 of us by herself (My dad worked Sundays when I was little) and when we got there, relied on her friends and other members to keep an eye on us because she lead the music!

In everything that my mom did. It amazes me. It amazes me that she was able to do that AND create a warm, loving, and fun environment for her family and children.

This blog is to record, remember, and share memories I have of my mom. From my earliest remembrances to a phone call I had that day. All mixed up and in no particular order!

My mom loves music. Her house is always filled with some kind of music. We all played an instrument, whether it was your vocal chords, cello, flute, french horn, trombone, drums, violin, saxophones, piano, trumpet....lots of music. She spreads the love of music to her grandchildren.

30 yrs later, and they still got it!

Our most recent family picture.



This one's for you Mom!