Monday Blessing

Tonight was a blessing. It was just one of those spontaneous, beautiful day decisions to enjoy it that made us pack a picnic dinner and head out to a large park and campground nearby. John and Ellen (our youth pastor and his wife) came along. We ate and talked and laughed and kerplunked rocks in the water (my version of skipping rocks) and threw the football and got the football stuck in the tree and threw sticks to get the football out of the tree and slid and see-sawed and swung.

When darkness signaled the end of outside fun we came back to our house for real caramel-dipped apples. This is truly a bonding time and essentially levels the playing field for all involved in the activity of trying to eat a REAL CARAMEL-DIPPED APPLE. Strings of caramel swung gracefully from the tips of our noses down to the middle of our chins. Otherwise intelligent conversations were hilarious through stuck together jaws; it was great! Grace licked every last drop of caramel off of the outside of her apple and then placed her apple in unsuspecting Ellen's empty bowl, so she could go after the caramel stuck in the bottom of her own bowl. We played Yahtzee.

Now, I am tired and heading to bed reflecting on the blessing of this day.

Uninspired

This is my "I should be posting on my blog, but I'd actually rather read my new Cottage Living magazine that came in the mail today while drinking hot tea" post. Which means I'm feeling more loungey than inspired...

I realized that I have been tagged by my sweet cousin Katie from her great blog http://katie-memorablemoments.blogspot.com/. This means I'm supposed to come up with as many people to tag as I have letters in my middle name (I think). There was also something about rules and posting them so we all do it right, but I'm not very good at remembering those things so I'll sum up:

My middle name is ANNE, so I'm supposed to list a fact about me for each letter of my middle name, you know, a fun acrostic...

A llergic to mold and cats. Yep, cats even bring up the old A sthma (that, if you're counting, gets me two points for 1 "A")

N uts. I like them, all kinds, and I'm sometimes called this.

N ear-sighted, but not as bad as Greg used to be. Soft contacts work fine for me.

E Not sure what to say here, except that I really like that I do, in fact, have an "e" at the end of my middle name. Kind of sets me apart a little, I think.

Well, now that I have enriched your life with these facts, you have a handy way to remember each thing, because all you have to know is the simple acrostic "A-N-N-E" (all except for the "E" might throw you).

I am now tagging my sweet cousin Annalisa, sweet fellow-employee-for-a-day Tara, sweet Kristen who I don't think has been tagged before, and um, our new youth pastor John. The rules are: do what I did, but be more eloquent.

Autumn in Iowa

I just returned from a FABULOUS weekend in Iowa! I was absolutely blessed by my time in that beautiful state with dear friends and my sweet sister. I had the opportunity to be "the speaker" at Faith Bible Church's women's retreat. This is where we were before moving to Kansas. Greg was the youth pastor at Faith for about 7 years.

God is so good for bringing me to Iowa in the fall; it was breathtaking. As I drove through the rolling hills covered in gorgeous, inflamed tree tops within a soft green carpet on Sunday morning and listened to my favorite worship music, I thought there was no better worship service I could have attended that morning. Several times I was moved to tears at the creativity of my God. I was moved to tears that this Creator is in fact my God, my Heavenly Father. Then I drove by a series of small green hills with occasional creeks cutting into the landscape leaving beautiful crevices, perfectly etched.

To be honest, I was tempted to temporarily accept these scenes as truly heavenly until I rounded the highway curve to see a mangled deer on the shoulder where the still-present highway patrolman had just moved it. The scene was terribly out of place within my frame of mind. It was shockingly unfair as a matter of fact. I had never seen (I'm obviously not a butchering of my own meat, hunter-type) such a gory sight. I tried to reconcile my emotions...

I came to the conclusion that I am not in heaven yet; life can be painfully shocking. I also couldn't help feeling blessed by the scenery I drove through even after the deer. God's amazing creativity as revealed in His creation here on earth sustains me, strengthens me. I realized once again that here on earth the two co-exist, pain and sin with beauty and salvation. They don't go together very seamlessly - they allude to a home to come, my hope.

AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

We've heard the dreaded news all parents hope they won't hear...

Your daughter needs B R A C E S.

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Yup, I innocently took Abby and Emma to the dentist on Monday for cleanings. The good news is that neither of them has any cavities.

BUT

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Abby is a CLASS 2. That, I found out, means she's a slightly more complicated braces fix than a class 1. Her molars don't line up; apparently that's a problem. I was in a daze as we were whisked from the cavity-free good news dentist chair into the ORTHODONTICS CONFERENCE ROOM.

*

All I was thinking was, "Do you know how much those things cost!!??" Yes, actually they do and they presented me with payment plan options.

*

Now we have a wonderful dentist, and he is offering us a very gracious discount; the problem is they still cost more than our first family vehicle.

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All of you seasoned parents are chuckling right now thinking to yourselves, "Just wait, Kelly. This is only the beginning. College... it's right around the corner. Maybe, just maybe the braces will be paid off by then."

*

The comic relief of the experience was Grace responding every time the word "braces" was said. She genuinely thought everyone was saying her name. "How come I have to be with Abby's teeth?" The best quote (this was all going on during what should have been her nap, so she was a little tired), was said at some point during the description of what the braces do. "What is me is, Mommy?"

*

I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that ALL of Abby's baby teeth are gone. Every one, I mean EVERY LAST ONE of her teeth are adult teeth. When did this happen? How did we get here?

updates

Grace started riding her new big girl bike today. She loved it; it's definitely more efficient travel than her trike. Here is the song she sang today while she rode her bike (make up your own tune that sounds catchy; Grace is always creating unique tunes of her own design for her songs):

I have a new bike;

Daddy put on training wheels.

I ride in the street with somebody else.

I ride all by myself in the street.

I hurt my knee...

Right here.

She actually did NOT ride all by herself in the street, but it certainly makes for a more dramatic line in the song.

Emma has started crocheting a sweater for herself. We bought all the yarn last night, and this is how far she has gotten today. It will be BEAUTIFUL!

Abby has found a new sport - volleyball. She is really enjoying it and doing quite well for having just begun to learn. Although she is left-handed, she has realized (thanks to Miss Brandey, the former volleyball coach who is also left-handed) that she can really launch her overhand serve right-handed. I didn't get a picture of that today, so I'll have to post one later. For anyone who may be wondering, No - Abby did not apparently get her volleyball skills from me!

Conquering the world in Corduroys

Do you ever wake up in the morning and put on a pair of pants that makes you feel powerful? That's what happened this morning. It's finally feeling like apple-pie-craving autumn around here, so I put on a favorite pair of corduroys this morning.

I love these pants.

They fit just exactly right. They're not too short (which can be a challenge for me), they're not too tight anywhere, they're not too baggy either. The color is just right - kind of a stone shade. They are EXTREMELY COMFORTABLE. They make me feel like it is more than okay to be me.

I bought these pants at a re-sale shop (which makes them all the more precious), they are Banana Republic (which means I'm somebody), and they have a tiny hole right in the rump where Rosie, the bad dog whom I love, sunk her teeth into them as a puppy last winter. So far the hole hasn't posed a problem, but it can only grow. The days of appropriateness for these pants are numbered.

The thing about these great pants is that they make me feel like I can conquer the world. All day I've pondered my dreams, wondered what great things I should pursue. Now at the end of this day, I feel like I'm in kindergarten. The reason for this is because my list of what I should consider pursuing includes: going to school part-time to work toward my master's in speech pathology, working on my sign language skills to work toward becoming a certified ASL interpreter, writing, making little wire and ribbon angels through this work-at-home company that pays $2.50 for every finished angel (okay, that's not a dream, just money), teaching beginning knitting classes (once I've improved my own skills), becoming an ebay seller extraordinaire, learning guitar and becoming an acoustic rock star...

There's this problem with trying to figure out who I am, who I think I am, who I want to be, who I actually could be. I know I love being a wife, a mom, a child of my Heavenly Father, and beyond that I'm stumped. What if I pursue something that I'm not actually cut out for?

These dumb pants have me all confused.

Friday

Fridays make me happy.

Last night I was babysitting for another couple who we swap babysitting with for date nights. I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and gave one to each kiddo before getting them off to bed. Coleson is in kindergarten, and halfway through his cookie he stopped, looked at me with a deeply thoughtful expression, and said,

"This cookie is making me eat it too fast... (deep sigh)."

I thought that statement was excellently put; I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before. It's NOT ME who is to blame; it's THE COOKIE.

These are pictures from our perrennial garden (which we are enjoying immensely) and a quote from my Smith & Hawken calendar which I also enjoy. I'm about to speak at a women's retreat in Iowa in a couple of weeks. This quote is quite in line with where my thoughts have been lately...

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.