back at it in 2015

Just a month in and 2015 is off to a rollicking good start.  We rang in the new year with family-reunion-a-polooza!

It was pretty awesome to get about 2/3 of the family together under one roof for a wee stretch of time.  Awesome, and crazy, and kid fabulous!  9 cousins! Thankfully the weather was mild so nobody froze too bad and the kids were able to range outside for most of the time, where they soldiered on sledding until the very last of the snow melted.  Army-sized meals were prepared, and the decibel level in the house was equivalent to a rock concert at any given time. 

About a month before this insanity all went down I broke down in my own little moment of crazy and brought this home:

Actually, that's about three times the amount of dog I brought home in December.  Puppies grow at an even more exponential rate than children. Artemis "Aurora-Rapunzel-Cinderella."  She has pretty much won us all over heart and soul.  Every time we turn around she is just sitting there with those eyes full of unconditional love seeming to say, "I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me, or feed me scraps of moose meat."

As things slowed down & got very chilly outside towards the end of January and our house seemed strangely quiet (for the first time ever maybe) the kids and I have  been reading lots of books.  We have a cook & book theme going on and they are totally diggin' it.  This week we read

The kids baked the apple pie recipe from it (they did the majority of mixing and chopping themselves) and were quite delighted with the result.

Other than that we are just crafting, and garden dreaming and doing some nesting in this last little stretch of winter time.

father's day

There are many reasons to love this guy.  He mans the BBQ in a princess tiara with no shame, he tells the very BEST bedtime stories, and gives the highest pushes on the swing.  He is the keeper of the keys to all the 'chines (Eli's word for machines), he keeps the fire going, the dishes washed, and the freezer full.  He works hard everyday, and then comes home and puts in a second shift.  I can't imagine a more wonderful human to raise children with, and I know the kids couldn't ask for a better dad.  We are thankful for him every day, but on this day especially we like to say it again.  

Happy Father's Day!

Good things...

 We caught a fairly large & spiky looking caterpillar in the greenhouse this morning.  Sadie made it this comfortable home in a jar.  Eli offered it some of his meat to eat--so I guess that is our new family pet.  Name still unspecified.

Bugs and worms are a subject of much fascination amongst these two.  Eli has been smacking mosquitoes and squishing flies in the windowsills.  He is getting pretty ninja about it, so I was only partly surprised when he brought me a bee pinched between two fingers last week and said proudly, "skeevo!" (mosquito). Yikes! Poor bee.  We are working on insect identification.  So much to learn!

 Some days I just can't even believe how fast these children are growing.  They are different sometimes even one day to the next.

Eli has started using the potty and is talking up a storm. He wants to be doing everything that Sadie does these days.  He is beginning to get into imaginative play which is so cool to see.  He is also a major fan of his DaDa right now. Despite his natural bent towards all things rough and rowdy, he is a perfect snuggler. Seriously, I couldn't have asked for a more cuddly child.

 It seems like Sadie has grown by about 4 inches this year.  She has so much more hand-eye coordination and independence than last summer.  Yesterday we had to go to the dentist to get a shard of something sharp (flaked coconut maybe?) dislodged from her gums and she didn't even shed a tear.  She is all about princesses, fairies and fancies, but she is strong and brave too.  She seems to be gifted with a keen understanding of the natural world, and she is a whiz at plant identification.

Hello Good Life, it's DaDa here.  Mum left her blog post up partially unfinished so I thought I would take an early Father's Day license and say how much I appreciate the wonderful, intelligent, insightful, compassionate, patient, gifted and altogether beautiful woman of this house that we all love to call Mom.  Thanks to YOU, Tara, for helping me be a good DaDa, and growing this fantastically crazy and delightful bunch of grommets we call our family.  That's all, DaDa out.  Back to your irregularly scheduled Good Life...

a bouquet for Sadie

All last winter Sadie handed me bouquets of dried flowers from roadsides and ditches.  On our walks through our woods and nature trails she collected brittle yarrow and grass tufts by the fistfull. When the first blush of spring kissed our landscape she lined the windowsills with mason jars of dandelions and cranes bill, wild roses and dogwood. What an extravagance, now that summer is here, to be able to go out with clippers and fill a large vase with cut flowers from the garden.  It seems like maybe only yesterday or ages ago that I was little girl like Sadie, filling up any spare glassware in my mama's kitchen with whatever loveliness the season had to offer. It is a joy to hold a gathering of stems and blossoms for a moment, then tuck them into a vase to see them fall this way and that with an unstudied elegance.  They may only last a day or two (or sometimes just an hour or two) but I hope with all my mother's heart  & my cupboard of canning jars that Sadie never outgrows the joy of gathering flowers for the kitchen table.

rocket science

 We all took advantage of the mild spring weather today to work outside getting some raised beds put together for the garden.  I guess more accurately, Loren & I were building raised beds.

 Sadie & Eli were building a rocket ship.  They spent a couple hours happily entertained inside the frames, with some pots, dirt, and the ever popular "bucket-o-birch-logs."

The joy and imagination of childhood.  It isn't rocket science, and yet, it kind of is.

reflections

I.
In a different time
a long ago life where bare feet tiptoed through wild forests
soft and soundless against carpets of ageless moss
we might occasionally catch a glimpse of ourselves when passing by
a still pool or lake's edge
but mostly we saw our image reflected
through the eyes of our family, our lovers, our children, our tribe.

Not so long ago
mirrors were not a household staple
and a portrait was a solemn and momentous life event.
In the fading light we stared at the rough-hewn boards of a cabin wall
as we smoothed our hair with water from a basin and hung up our hat
a rumbling stomach chased away vanity's ghost
as we sat down with family to break the evening bread.

II.
In this day
we are surrounded by our reflection
a mirror on every wall to catch us from every angle
to hold our wrinkles and flaws in high definition
to make us linger a moment longer
scrutinizing

We have a camera in our pocket to capture and store proof of our lives
with a click of a button we record moments instantaneously
and watch the playback, sometimes before the moment has even finished passing.

We have pages of our children looking spotlessly beautiful
books filled to bursting with neatly documented details of weddings, birthdays, graduations
sporting events, vacations, new homes,
Life's firsts, lasts and in-betweens.

With a click of a button we can broadcast these images
to hundreds or thousands of people
our friends, family, family friends,  friends of friends
and total strangers
But somehow there seems to be no time anymore to look deeply into another person's eyes
to take in the smile lines, the smudges, the unspoken
the whole of a living, breathing, unedited human being.

III.
My little girl has experimenting with self-adornment.
She engineers extravagant creations using up the entire contents of the button jar.
Placing these garlands around her neck she is like an tiny, ancient queen
but she has not once asked to look at the finished product in a mirror.
Maybe it is the satisfying weight of 57 buttons against her chest
or the reassuring sounds of wood and glass and metal clicking softly together
Maybe its the way her little brother reverently runs his fingers across the necklace,
so uncharacteristically gentle.

I picked my camera up to photograph her radiant joy and creativity
but then I set it down.
I thought, just this once, let the moment go uncaptured by shutter or screen
Instead, let her see her own beauty reflected in a mother's loving eyes.

The Bigger Picture

As I write this I am enjoying a quiet house (Loren put himself to bed with the kids) and a cup of herbal tea.  There have been very few moments of stolen solitude this month.  February can be a tough month for me, smack in the middle of winter and prone to the post-holiday blues etc.  I vowed to make it different this year, and different it was.  We came down with round two of the stomach flu.  I didn't even know you could get it twice in a winter. You can.  That knocked me out.  For two weeks.  I was so tired I could barely get through the days.  I think it terrified me--a glimpse of what it would feel like to not be able to care for my family and self--that threw me into an emotional tail spin and just as I was getting back on my feet the kids came down with a hacking cough, irksome enough to keep us all awake at night. I did my best to snuggle them and humidify them and use homeopathic remedies galore.  I even slathered them in garlic-infused coconut butter before bed (this actually kind of worked, and made them smell like scampi).  It seems like--knock on REDWOOD--that everyone is on the mend. Except that poor Eli is now undergoing a major sleep regression.

 He has decided he is too big for naps, and after a crappy 30 minute morning nap he refuses to sleep for the rest of the day. I might be more willing to roll with it if he weren't so fiercely grumpy.  Like sister looks at him wrong and he flings himself onto the floor in a writhing tantrum of agony grumpy.  Ugh.  It's not pretty.  And nap time involves an hour of screaming, thrashing and pleading--and that's just my role.  All this attention aimed at the youngest has left the eldest out of sorts, and she has decided to embark on a journey of a thousand whines.  I'm not going to lie.  I have locked myself in the bathroom more than once this week, and turned the fan on just to have the impression of quiet.

Weeks like this are hard.  They make it hard to see the beauty in the journey. It becomes easy to loose sight of the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.  

But these little people who have pushed me beyond my physical and mental limits this month also anchor me with the daily reminder to celebrate small triumphs.  A peaceful bedtime, a dinner cooked that everyone ate and enjoyed (so rare these days).  The delight of a pocket full of Valentines brought home from preschool.  Polka-dot socks and a twirling dress.  A hot cup of joe in the morning.  Pine cones.  It doesn't matter how many pine cones there are in the world, Eli picks each one up and treats it like its the finest treasure in the kingdom. 

And isn't that how we should approach our days?  Each one a precious gift--a rare treasure to be clutched tightly even though it will inevitably crumble a little in our awkward, well-meaning fingers.  Many times this week I have had to scrape myself up out of a self-pitying heap and remind myself of this. Take a breath, start over.

I know that someday in the not-so-distant future I will get to have an uninterrupted conversation with another grown-up.  Go on a date with my husband.  Make some friends here in Palmer.  Finish some of the house/woodworking/sewing projects that need to be done.  But for now we just need to find our rhythm again. 

and we will.

Thirty-three....YIPPEE!

Check out the blaze on that there birthday cake!  Actually, I feel like I haven't aged a bit this year.  Literally, because through some mathematical miscalculations I actually thought I turned thirty-three last January. All year I've been thinking I was thirty-three, and telling people so. Therefore, today when I actually did turn thirty-three it was no big thang. Besides, I've always loved my double-digit years. 

And what a perfect birthday it was.  Loren gave me the day to do whatever I fancied.  After a delicious Sadie & Dad prepared breakfast, and a sort-of sleep in (Sadie kept coming in the room and waking me up by telling me NOT to come in the kitchen because there was a big surprise happening in there) I got to go on a date with my favorite spa buddy for a mani-pedi.

 It was just so nice to have some mother-daughter time.  I can tell that Sadie has really been craving some one-on-one time which is hard to do these days with Eli, aka "mama-velcro boy."  It was a fine thing to get to give this little girl some of my undivided attention.  And also a fine thing to snuggle up that aforementioned little boy when I got home.

Later, after a beautiful walk in the snowy dusk, I came home to a warm house, full of people I love.

And an amazing dinner cooked by Loren...

All day I felt loved and pampered by my peeps. I can't even imagine a nicer way to ring in my thirty-third year.  If this day was any indication of what's to come it's probably going to be one of the best years yet.

raindrops and cedar

I've been meaning to post a little something about our family vacation to Southeast Alaska (yep, we are now officially those Alaskans who vacation in Alaska).  Being back in Southeast always makes me a little homesick for the ocean.  

And a lot homesick for family

Now that several of my siblings have young families of their own, I really wish we could be closer, so that Sadie and Eli could see their cousins more than a couple times a year (and I could see my brothers and sisters!)  But, heck... we'll take what we can get.  It's no picnic traveling with the small ones.  There were viruses and teething miseries and sea sickness and tantrums a plenty on this trip, but still it was lovely in it's own respect.

There was the gift of time spent with loved ones--both family and dear friends.  Breathing in that Southeast aroma of cedar and moss. There was delicious venison roasts and mom-made meals a-plenty. It was so nice to just be there and be present with family that I actually did a very crappy job at photo documenting the trip.  You know, sometimes it's good not to have a camera stuck to your face every moment of the day just in case something cute or memorable happens.

There were friends to be made--both furry and feathered

and grandparents to converse, play with and snuggle with. 

The kids loved it, although on the last day Sadie got very homesick "for her chickens." 

After several weeks away it felt sad, but good to come home to our own place and fall back into familiar routines.  Our dry-bags are unpacked and our hearts are full of happy memories. 

And that is where we find ourselves this mid December, with a healthy dose of elving happening and lots of time spent building new holiday traditions of our own.  

Merry. Merry. Merry.

kitchen bitchin'

I try not to make this blog a space where I whine...too much... but I'm going to today.  I love my kids, they are truly the light of my life... but they are also a holy terror (squared) when it comes to dinner time.  Am I the only mama out there who dreads the arrival of the five-o-clock hour?  This is pretty much how things go at my house during every dinner time:

4:55 After coming in from a fun nature walk, both kids are in a great mood.  They are peaceably playing with legos in the sun room.  They don't see me sneak into the kitchen and start peeling veggies....or do they?

4:58 I haven't even finished one carrot before the screaming starts.  Sharing has ceased.  Sadie is hogging the toys.  Eli wanders into the kitchen to seek comfort and to unpack the contents of the lower cabinets for the fifth-million time this week.  Oh, good.  He's tall enough to reach drawers now, so he starts by pulling all the appliance manuals out of one drawer.  While I am picking those up he pulls the silverware drawer out completely, emptying the contents all over himself and the floor.  Thankfully, he isn't injured.  After I comfort him and get him set up drumming on pot lids with a safe {I think} wooden spoon, in comes Sadie.  I guess it isn't that much fun when you have all the legos to yourself.  Now she needs a wooden spoon too...the one Eli has.

5:15 Both kids are playing, underfoot, but not close to the stove, so should be golden, right?  
I put a pot of rice on the stove to cook.  Oh, now Sadie is wildly swinging the broom around the kitchen.  Eli is screeching because he wants the broom.  I shoo the children out of the kitchen after admonishing them about stove top safety.  I've only peeled two carrots.

5:30  Kids have decided to run laps through the living-room kitchen loop while chasing the dog with brooms...well, they both have a broom now, so that's equitable.

5:45  Have tried to redirect the activities to something less dangerous.  Kids have crayons.  Eli is eating his, Sadie is drawing.  Why are they screaming at each other again?  Eli is using his crayons to make dots.  Sadie wants him to make lines.  I want a shot of tequila, but dinner is mostly in the oven.

6:00 I am trying sweep the floor. I turn to grab the dustpan, Eli is foraging for snacks in the swept up debris.  Ugh.  I hear Loren's truck in the driveway.  "KIDS, YOUR DAD'S HERE!" Ok... good, I should be able to get stuff done for a few minutes while they mob their dad.

6:15 Kids are playing in the bedroom with Loren, the house is quasi-presentable and I am just getting the table set.  Loren calls for me... Me, "what?" Him, "Come in here and look at how cute these guys are."  Me, "no."  Him, "no, seriously." me, "no, SERIOUSLY, no." He gives up, probably thinking I am a terrible human being.

6:20  We are sitting down to eat.  We light the dinner candles, say thanks, and Sadie immediately begins to state which things on her plate she "doesn't care for"  Me, "You liked carrots on Monday." Her, "I don't like them cooked."  Meanwhile, Eli is smashing food in his hair and throwing rice on the floor.  Actually, it is landing mostly on Toby's back, because he has taken up a permanent residence below Eli's highchair.  Toby cant reach his back, so Cash is eating the rice off  his back.  Nice teamwork dogs.  I make a mental note to wipe down the wall after dinner.  Eli starts to scream and furiously sign "more."  It takes us a few tries to figure out what he wants.  Sadie has generously given him ALL of her carrots.  He wanted a fork, it turns out.

6:30 After 15 trips to the kitchen to get a fork/salt & pepper/water or milk or both/ napkins/ a towel to clean up a spill I get to take my first bite of food.  I think of the movie Christmas Story and the line, "my mother hadn't enjoyed a hot dinner in fifteen years." I totally get that now.

6:40 The children are done with dinner, and it's pretty much certain that one or both of them need to go straight into the bathtub.  So Loren and I rock paper scissors to decide who gets to finish dinner ala bath monitor.  Sigh...

Is there some magic chill-pill that I'm unaware of, or is this just the reality of dinnertime with a three and one year old?  Someone please tell me that this is just a passing phase, and that once again some day I will be able to enjoy the gift of relaxed and relaxing food preparation...sipping wine, chopping the vegetables while I have a thought to myself... and maybe even an uninterrupted conversation at the table?  I know this is totally a first world problem, and I really am thankful to have good food to offer my kids and even 10 minutes to sit down together as a family.... I just can't help but feel like I'm doing something wrong here...or at least that I could streamline this process somehow to be more peaceful for everyone involved.  Thoughts?  Tips?  Any suggestions welcome (except sitting the kids in front of a t.v.--I really don't want to resort to that on a daily basis).

she says...

On Life's Mysteries:

"Mom...nobody knows when or when not they are going to die...it's a mystery.  And not even Huckle {cat from Richard Scary's Busy Town Mysteries} can solve it."

  "Mom, what does God looks like?"  me: "I don't think anyone knows exactly Sadie, what do you think God looks like?" "I think god is kind of bigger than a grownup, but more like a kid"


 On Growing up:

"Mom, what's a submarine?"  after I explain... "I think we should get one of those when I go to college...or maybe a cow?"

Me, "Sadie, what am I going to do when you get to be a grown up lady and you are too big to give me kisses and snuggles."  Sadie {with exasperation} "Mom. When I'm a grown up lady I will be BIGGER, so I can give you BIGGER kisses and snuggles." Duh.

On Family:

 "Oh mom look!" {squeals with delight} a WHOLE family of mushrooms living under this tree! There's a mom a dad and two kids...and {looking at one that's all tipped over} this must be that one guy who always falls down?!"  There's one in every family.

(Dad is trying to explain a character in a story...an owl who is young but also very wise like he's old) Sadie, "So he's kinda like a babka?"

Elias turns one

At this very hour one year ago I was 42 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty down in the dumps because I was fairly sure that I was never going to have my baby. Little did I know that in just a few hours as a blue moon was rising I would naturally deliver an 11 pound baby boy at the Geneva Woods birthing center.  The arrival of Eli was swift.  One minute I was in labor and the next minute I was holding a yollering, red-faced baby in my arms--that's how this little man made his entrance into the world--full of vigor and ready to let everyone know it.  After a year of getting to know this guy, I think that part of his personality is very much the same.  He is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kinda guy.  His happy is a BIG happy, and when something is amiss, well...he lets you know about it.

But more often than not it's the big happy that we see these days.  In the last month or two Eli has really developed a snuggly side, and he is working so hard on being gentle...which is a challenge for a baby his size with very fast reflexes and the astounding ability to grab with a deadly sense of accuracy.  We will all breathe a collective sigh of relief when he learns that noses, lips and eyes are not detachable from people's faces.

He is an observant little guy and he loves to be outdoors.  He examines things with an intense focus.  And he has an impressive associative memory for someone his age.  I see the wheels of language development spinning around in his little brain--that point and look to someone for a definition motion over and over again. 

It's so interesting watching the way your second kid puts things together--a whole different process in many ways than your first.

 But of course, Eli's point of view is bound to be different because he will never know a world without sister Sadie there.  Sometimes I wonder if it gives him just a little extra sense of security.  He seems to rest easier than I remember her doing...but it could just be that he needs the rest because he is always on the move.  always.

And this is his motion posture.  His chest is in a whole different time zone than the rest of his body, and it arrives at all appointments just a few seconds before he does.  It cracks me up--kind of reminds me of a rooster. 

We had a quiet celebration of Eli's first year on this eve of our little guy's birthday.  Some gifts decorated and wrapped by big sister (she decided to gift him with a dinosaur and a mama gorilla with a baby on her back--very Godzilla & King Kong Loren pointed out).

A peach pie, and a boquet of flowers from the garden.

lots of help with the unwrapping of gifts

and testing them out

In true one-year-old form his favorite thing was the stickers on the wrapping paper.

But the peach pie came in a close second.  We sure do love you Elias.  Your first year has been an adventure and a gift and we are looking forward to many more to come. 

 

And of course, I must post this picture of the birthday boy in his birthday suit so that when he is a teenager he can roll his eyes and be all embarassed when the family photo album gets dragged out and dusted off.  Be thankful son...at least you aren't rockin' a mean mullet like your mama did...

yet:)

August in the Garden: Flowers and Squash

 

August is a good month to stop and smell the flowers.

Zinnia Green Envy, Love Lies Bleeding, Rannuncula, Baby's breath & Nasturtium

If I could give awards for the strangest & coolest looking thing I grew this summer it would have to go to the Bells of Ireland,

Accumulator of most biomass in one growing season goes to Borage, as pictured with Sadie for scale.

The sunroom porch is now officially a flower jungle.

Out front in the fern garden is Astilbe, more pink Rannunculas, Zinnia, Calendula, Nasturtium, and the most riotous hot pink geranium I have ever laid eyes on. 

Begonias, Astilbe & more Begonias...plus enough strawberries to make this an edible landscape for little grazers.

  

 

A wiggle of rannunculas and Papaver somniferum.

 The lovely blue of delphiniums by the front porch.  Pretty even when they are tipping over because you forgot to cage them up...oops.

and out back it's a pumpkin party (top) plus a good bed full of brassicas and some winter squash growing with nasturtiums, rutabega, sweet allysum, and bee balm.

This summer has been ridiculously hot, sunny & gorgeous for Alaska.  I had no expectations of what this gardening adventure would bring, so honestly I feel pleased as punch with what we've come out with so far.  We have enough lettuces and greens to feed an army of rabbits, we have been enjoying broccoli, kale & chard, and will hope to have a few tomatoes and zucchini soon. Sadie constantly grazing on carrots, so even if we don't end up with any big ones, it makes me happy that she is experiencing the marvel of pulling those perfectly delicious little orange baby ones out and munching them as the day goes by.  She is such a wee forager, if she isn't eating carrots you're sure to find her in the raspberry patch. Next year, we are going to get a little more serious about the business of putting food up for the winter.

 It would be amazing if we actually get some squash, or one of our tiny pumpkins grew into something substantial...but hard to say if they will.   There is just a whisper of fall in the air these days.  The fireweed has almost bloomed to the top.  Here and there a golden cottonwood leaf is falling.  How can it be August already?

but August is always my favorite too... So much energy to savor the last and sweetest drops of summer and busily plan for the cool months ahead.

Hard to believe that just this same time last year we were eagerly anticipating the mystery baby:

And now he's nearly one... full of wonder and sweetness, toddling all over the place, saying half-words and starting to look more like a little boy than a baby. 

My oh my, how the seasons do fly.