I love him so

 After two truly craptastic mothering days (they should fire me!) and some other current stress, I was grateful for the gift of today.

I awoke and texted my sisters, wishing our dad a happy 70th birthday.

I mixed yogurt with chopped fruit and berries and raw oats and nuts as light came in the kitchen windows. That was happy. (And yummy.)

And you know what?

Today, the sun shone. 

Even though it was cold, the sky was blue! (Blessing!)

I took valentine decorations off my mantle and put spring up in its place while listening to the Weepies and Claire requested a Tim McGraw song she loves.

(And yeah, if you're in Utah, I know what you're thinking: there's snow outside. But maybe forsythia and boxwood will encourage the outside world to follow suit.)

Late in the afternoon, the girls and I drove to dad's grave to put some flowers there.

When we got back, they headed out with their dad for a while and I went out on a run as light was slipping from the valley. It was dark by the time I got home.

I mixed cake, lit candles on the mantle, and sat down to do some work.

The kids came home, and while we waited for the cake to come out and then cool off, Claire and I sat on the couch singing "The Wheels on the Bus," and then I whistled various tunes and she'd guess the songs.

We put 4 candles in dad's cake (cuz...70!), sang Happy Birthday, dished it up with ice cream, and read together.

And as I go to sleep tonight, I'll talk with God about how grateful I am for a gentler day: for those bright yellow rays that brought hope and joy, for my children, for the opportunity to learn and try again and apologize, the chance to be humbled and see my faults, and for being able to run and move my body. I'll express gratitude for a warm house and food to eat.

But also, I'll thank God for the blessing of a kind and wise father and friend. 

I love him so.

Christmas is Here

A week and a half ago we went with friends to pick out a tree on Saturday night.

We didn't get home til after 9:00 and didn't get the tree in the stand and straight until like 10:15.

I wanted to get the lights on the tree, because I hate having something left undone.

(Cuz I'm a fidget like that.)

The kiddos drank hot chocolate and ate chocolate chip cookies I'd made that afternoon.

We put this on (Which, btw, if you've never heard and you have smaller peeps, you've got to give it a listen with them!  I love it, too, and I'm full grown, I think.), and they curled up with blankets in the chairs and on the couch while I strung lights for the next two hours (probably).

I even added the bubble lights from my dad's tree, cuz the kids wanted them on there.

Turns out, I'm finding them delightful and comforting and beautiful.

The next day we strung ornaments on a golden sunny Sunday afternoon.  We turned on carols from King's College and got busy decking the halls.

I found myself a bit nostalgic as I thought about my dad (who gave us most of our ornaments and Christmas decorations in general) and traditions and my grandmother and great-grandmother.  

Remember this post?

Yeah.  

That's why.

It was beautiful and lovely.  

I pulled things out to set up on the hutch and piano and figured out the mantle sitch. 

Did a repeat of the sweater wreath from last year, because I like the homey simplicity of it.

And basically, Christmas has arrived here.

Brown

Yesterday, when I walked into the house after church, I thought of a favorite book from childhood called Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Color, poetically going through every color and what one might associate with it.

I thought about brown.

"Brown is the color of a country road

Back of a turtle

Back of a toad.

Brown is cinnamon

And morning toast

And the good smell of

the Sunday roast.

Brown is the color of work

And the sound of a river,

Brown is bronze and a bow

And a quiver.

Brown is the house 

On the edge of town

Where wind is tearing

The shingles down.

Brown is a freckle

Brown is a mole

Brown is the earth

When you dig a hole.

Brown is the hair 

On many a head

Brown is chocolate

And gingerbread.

Brown is a feeling

You get inside

When wondering makes 

Your mind grow wide.

Brown is a leather shoe

And a good glove---

Brown is as comfortable

As love."

As I came in the back door, the air was rich with the smell of roast and onions that I'd thrown in the crockpot earlier that morning.

We read on the couch in the afternoon, the boys put together a gingerbread house and Christmas tree, sets they'd gotten as gifts last December (yes, I know), while the girls watched and I peeled potatoes and we had an old conference talk by President Monson going in the background about gratitude (something I mentally took note of to come back to with the children in November when we make our gratitude tree).  

I've always loved light streaming in through windows.  

It's something I frequently notice, a free gift of love I feel every single day.

Later on, we ate that roast for dinner, with mashed potatoes and scratch gravy and a salad and carrots and beets and onions.

We took a walk in the neighborhood, 

came home and read together in my room, and then I was up late visiting with friends, cleaning up my kitchen, making pumpkin spice muffins for the kiddos for breakfast.

Brown is something else at my house, too.  

She's taken residence on my mantle, with her sister colors of 

copper, rust, gold and amber. 

I like having sentinel owls in the living room, nuts and ginko leaves and gourds, symbolic of harvest and color, and the little glass pumpkin my dad brought me from Cape Cod several years ago.

Wishing you all a lovely Labor Day, folks.

xoxo

Scarf Wreath

My goal for my Christmas mantle 

this year was simple.

Not flashy.

Not a lot of stuff.

Toned down.

(Actually, it was my goal for my fall mantle, too.)

So I fell in love with this wreath that I saw in this month's Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

Super, super easy to make.

Literally took maybe 10 minutes, and only because I rewrapped the scarf a couple of times to get it how I wanted it.

You could make it with any color scarf, and add any embellishments.

Just buy a straw wreath form, grab a scarf, some pins, and some ribbon to hang it with and you're good to go.

Wrap the scarf around the wreath form, pinning it as you go to hold it in place.

Once you get all the way around, you'll have something like this.

(with a flourish of ribbon, of course)

 Last night, as I was decorating the mantle, it looked like this.

 And this morning, in better light.

So easy, and it fit my goal perfectly.

Toned down, simple, calming.

(Tomorrow I'm going to post a last fall treat to make with kids (or without!) that I think is genius, and post a favorite recipe that could be included in your Thanksgiving feast.)
Happy Thanksgiving week!

Wreath Love

Last Saturday night I made the project I've only been waiting to do since last year when it came out in one of the fall issues of this magazine.

Here is my counter, supplies all spread out, before I began:

A big black bowl, full of the water/dye mixture.

A roll of paper towels to put under wet, dyed corn husks.

Gloves.

Corn husks.

A straw wreath form.

The picture from the magazine makes all the corn husks look so uniform.

I started in and was nervous I wasn't going to like it, because some husks took the dye better than others.  There were striations that were more white than colored.

But ah, as they started to dry, I could tell.

And the next morning I knew.

It was gonna be a love.

Monday afternoon, I hung it up.

 (closer up, you can see the various colors in the striations)

It's now the harvest welcome for the front door.

Letter for the 1st of March

Thinking about you tonight. I've tidied up, hauled out my Spring/Easter decorations to put up tomorrow in spite of the snowflakes falling outside. 

It's beautiful, but I'll turn a blind eye and put green and blossoms on the mantle and encourage the daffodils pushing up thru the ground outside the front window. I'm about to turn in with my book and snuggle the down comforter.

I hope you're well. It's a comforting thought to know that I can click a button and off it will go to find you. It will travel thru the cold, wintry night here to a bright (I hope) morning there - in an instant! 

 So, if you happen to be at your desk this fine morning as it arrives, you'll know I'm thinking of you, right now, and wishing you a lovely first of March. I love you.

xoxo

Learning What It Means

I got fidgety.

Never loved the wintery mantle.

Still haven't figured something out for January that I totally love up there.

So I went on to love month, and decided that from here on out, I'll probably just celebrate the love directly after Christmas.  Why not?

As I got into it, I realized I wanted to celebrate the love we have for each other -- beginning as a couple, morphing into family.

And I wanted it simple.

 Family photos.
I chose the candid sepia photo we used for our wedding announcement.

My current most fave picture of Mimi with her dad.

The pic of me laughing as the boys were trying to smooch my cheeks.

The mantle became an expression of something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

The other night Scott and I were talking about the progress we can both see and feel
 that has been made in our relationship in the last year.

I've thought a lot lately about how the person you marry becomes such a significant choice.

You don't even realize how significant it is when you are doing it, even if you hear yourself saying, "This is a HUGE decision, a HUGE choice."

You don't know that yet.

But it's really starting to sink in for me.

When I come away from gatherings with folks that I love dearly, and feel that comfort in knowing that I don't have to explain myself to him.  He understands me in some ways where I don't have to say a whole lot.

That he loves my kids the same way that I do, because they are his, too.

That we have such a collective history, becoming more and more intertwined.

That he has seen, and accepted, a lot of my weaknesses and still is there for me anyway.

That he has forgiven a lot.

We've walked through several trials together, some pushing us apart, and then have had to fight to come back together.

Sometimes that feels like a crazy uphill climb.

But more and more, I just realize how much we share.

It doesn't mean that he always gets me or I get him.

It doesn't mean that we have 100% crossover of our interests and what we understand.

It doesn't mean we always like the same stuff or share the same opinion.

It doesn't mean we respond to everything the same way.

It doesn't mean we always understand each other and never ever get in a fight because of miscommunication (insert: hahahaha).

What I'm learning though?

It DOES mean it's about letting someone enrich your life, being willing to open up and not be scared of the differences or the beauty you find there.

It's about having a companion, and being a companion to someone else.

It's knowing you have someone to go home to, knowing someone will be there.

It's about recognizing the dual journey,and learning to count the steps together and not the differences.

It's about learning how to make better choices and grow up.

It's about humbling yourself and making it not about YOU, but about US.
It's about thinking about the other person, and how they feel.

This can be hard stuff, folks.

Lately for me it has been thinking a lot about being loving.

Choosing to love.

Not expect.

Not define.

Not put within a certain bracket.

Not compare.

Rather, I am trying to appreciate and respect more.

The more I honestly practice this and focus, the more I find to appreciate and respect.

The more I AM a companion, the more I notice how he is that back brace for me, too.

It's a continual give-give.

We have a lot of love to celebrate, a lot of learning and growing and stretching.

Not to mention the 3 little people we have now that just further us.

And being a family doesn't mean you have it all figured out or that things are always pretty.

It's about having someone to share the journey with, someone who helps you learn and discover a lot about yourself.

It means trying and loving and working at it the best you can, and noticing the miracles that happen along the way.

New Beginnings in 2012

Last night I began the take down/put up process: taking down Christmas, putting up Winter stuff.

I love the start fresh feeling that comes with the new year.

I wanted to capture that freshness and make it seem alive in my front room.

Something invigorating.

I'm still pondering resolutions.

Did you make any?

I want mine to be realistic, measurable, and based on character improvement.

Soul changing.

Person defining.

Love based.

I hope you rang in the new year with joy.

I was sad all of our family togetherness time with our families was over.

It was so much fun.

Today I am taking the tree down. I'm kind of sad to take it down because it was beautiful.

But I'm feeling invigorated by New Beginnings.

We're going to read, go to the grocery store for milk, and go HERE to restock our plugins to make the house smell yum.  They are having their semi-annual sale and it is a crazy good sale.

I promised the kids fireworks before bed tonight if we have a good day.