It’s 11:30pm…

and the party just wrapped up here.  It started out as an evening at home, just me and the kids.  It ended up far differently. 

6 kids, 4 adults. 

 Music playing over the computer, kids upstairs and downstairs.  Kids playing in the woods across the street. (we told them to occasionally yell “I love you, Mom”, so we would know where they were). 

The little girls played the harp, and watched a movie. 

The adults split a bottle of wine, (and then another one), and visited on the porch.  Ate some cheese and crackers, and some chocolate. 

Laughter as we talked about crazy things our kids(and we) have done, tears as we wept together over the loss of a parent(and the fear of losing one). 

The kids are the ones who broke up this party, begging to go home and get some sleep.  I think the adults could have talked all night. 

Well, there is a kitchen to clean, and a soccer game early tomorrow morning, so I am signing off. 

Happy.

My kids have great friends..

 and those little friends have nice parents.  Here is a sampling of how this combination impacts my life on a regular basis. 

This morning, shortly after 8am, the doorbell rang, and there stood one of the boys’ friends with a bag of salad greens.  From his dad’s garden.  Yum, lunch. 

And this is not unusual.  It is truly amazing. 

Yesterday, another parent/friend stopped by with hot lentil soup and venison sausage, I had just made bread, and we all had dinner. 

Sunday and Monday, that same parent/friend stopped by with potted plants and hanging plants for our deck.  Her mother had passed away last week, and when they ordered flowers for the funeral, they ordered living plants that they could give to friends and family. I was really touched to be a recipient. 

Monday, I was asked  by the sister of a different parent/friend if I wanted a piano.  Crazy, and yes! 

Last Friday, as I was leaving the boys’ school, I was stopped by another parent/friend and told that she had been given 2 sewing machines, would I like one?  Umm, sure!  (this will replace my $6.99 table top machine I got at Goodwill, though NOT my commercial machine I got from my mother-in-law, thank you Carol!)

Last week, at some point yet another parent/friend, stopped by with some tomato plants for my little garden.  Last night my lentil soup parent/friend helped me weed my garden and plant those tomato plants.

This whole parent/friend thing has been a huge, wonderful unexpected blessing that I had no idea was in the wings when I sent my kids off to school. 

So, I will continue to thank God for these new friends, and continue to bake cookies for their kids.  It is the least that I can do. 

We had a great thunderstorm tonight…

and because I love thunderstorms, I am using my position as mom to foster this love in my children.  So, tonight, the rain was coming straight down, and I could open the windows and doors without getting everything all wet.  My favorite kind of thunderstorm. 

I opened all the blinds, turned off all the lights, and Broder and Sunny and I sat down on the couch to watch the show.  We have lots of windows in the living room, so this works out well. 

It was a long thunderstorm, and after a while, the kidlets stopped their chatter and just sat. 

When it was all over, I got up, found my camera, and captured the picture below.

 

Just because…

he is so cute! 

Yep, Sunny’s got a bright and shining future…

as a tattoo artist. 

         

  (those are MY sturdy, painted legs!)

Annie, this one is for you!

So, my motto:   “have standards, just make them really really low”. 

 

 

It happened again…

there was a houseful of kids over here after school yesterday. 

A total of 6 boys.  They ate an entire batch of cookies.  Went through a gallon of Gatorade.  And climbed on the roof of the garage. 

One of my friends labeled our place “the House-o-Kids”.  Perfect.

It’s been one week…

since I had a diet coke. 

I was drinking WAY too many each and every day  And like a good addict, I couldn’t have just one.  So, when it got to the point that I was drinking so much diet coke that the aspartame was giving me blinding headaches, I thought:

HMMM…maybe this is a problem. 

I finished the case I had in the house, and did not buy any more. 

Now I am drinking too much coffee.  One thing at a time, I suppose.

Off to brew another pot. 

So, I have 2 legs…

and they are big legs.  A couple extra pounds around the top of each thigh, dimples at the knees(this is cute on little kids, not on their mothers), ankles dangerously close to the “cankle” zone. 

And I am so thankful for my big, dimply, sturdy legs. 

Sunny and I walked to the library today, it’s a ways, just about 2 miles there, so a 4 mile round trip.  On the way home we stopped at the grocery store.  While we were there a young woman was moving through the aisles.

On crutches, with just 1 leg. 

It was obvious that she had been living with 1 less leg for a very long time.  She whipped around the grocery store, doing what all of us were doing there this afternoon, buying groceries. 

Sunny, being a little kid, asked “why does she have just one leg, mama?’ 

 I  didn’t know the answer, I still don’t.  I tried to explain it could have been that she lost her leg in an accident, or to a disease, or perhaps she was born with just one leg.

But what I do know is this:

When I take my nightly walk around the neighborhood, I will say a prayer of thanks with each step.   

Singing Spring..

The boys had their spring concerts at school today.  I am so thrilled with the creativity I see expressed within their school, and the music they performed was no exception. 

Broder’s class showed off their recoder skills and sang such classics as “make new friends, but keep the old”, “fifty nifty united states” and wowed us all with their rendition of “On Wisconsin”, the UW fight song.  I love living in a university town.  But the best by far was seeing 100+ 2nd and 3rd graders belting out the theme to SpongeBob Squarepants.  Truly remarkable. 

Kjell’s class sang “Dust in the Wind”, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, “What a Wonderful World”, a couple of songs in foreign languages,  ending with “All Star” by Smashmouth, also known as the theme from Shrek. Kids were playing air guitar, pretending to sing into microphones, dancing.  It was great. 

I am so thankful that my kids have been able to attend a school where teachers can, and do, go beyond the expected.  This kind of freedom of expression is why, each and every day,  my boys are excited to go to school.  And this is why my daughter can hardly wait to go to kindergarten in the fall.  What a gift.