Colorado is art

The world is a canvas that God has already painted, perfectly. I look around here, where God put extra touches on His art, and my heart rejoices "I sing for joy at the works of your hands" Ps 92:4

Learning to capture nature in my camera is one of my personal challenges on this trip. It's great fun, and also very humbling. How many times have I heard, "Pictures don't ever do the mountains justice".

This is so true, much like taking a picture of a sculpture or taking a picture of a painting isn't anything like the original.

Being IN God's creation, that's the true art experience. Here are some of my amateur attempts to capture it in my camera.

Colorado love

We loooove Colorado. I highly recommend it.

We have been staying in a small town at 9000 feet elevation where Mocha Man is playing in a music festival. It's an absolutely stunningly beautiful town. The mountains surrounding it are fabulous. And not only that, but the atmosphere here is equally as fabulous, a bizarre mix of serious money, rugged-casual-outdoorsy-types (the locals claim that this is the birthplace of mountain biking), and Texans.

Yes, Texans.

I haven't yet met an extremely wealthy, outdoorsy Texan, but I'm on the lookout.

At church this morning, I noticed 3 distinct types of cars in the parking lot: SUV's with mud caked on them and bikes strapped on top, SUV's with Texas licesnse plates, and Lexus SUV's . They seriously all fit in at least one of those categories. Oh yeah, and then there was our humble little Honda Odyssey.

When people give us suggestions of good hikes to take, there's always ALWAYS the point in the conversation where they say, "... and then y'all'll go up this steep, bumpy... oh, now wait... what kind of car do y'all have??" And then they say, "Oh, no, you probably wouldn't make it up that road!"

So, y'all, we don't fit into any of the categories, even in the slightest... but it doesn't seem to matter. It's a comfortable place.

We have been swimming, hiking, walking the town, and swimming some more.

The hiking has been more fun than I expected, mostly because, well, 3 year old boys are just a mite less wimpy than I remember 3 year old girls being.

The boy can truck through some hikes.
And no good Colorado hike is complete without a cold river crossing. See the smile on their faces? Ya, Taz even enjoyed that, when the water was well above his knees at the deepest. Freakishly cold. Recently-snow-kind-of freakishly cold.



Of course, his sisters have stepped up and mothered him. And it's nothing short of a miracle that he's actually allowed it and kind of enjoyed it. I'll call this phenomenon Colorado love.




Colorado love.

Celebrate!

We celebrated so many things on this July 4th. First and foremost, of course, we celebrate the constitutional freedom we have in this great country.

We celebrate with our newest family members, remembering God's abundant grace to them in recent months.

We celebrate part of the fulfillment of an almost 50 year old dream.
"I have a dream that one day...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

We celebrate summer.

And sprinklers.

And pesky brothers.

And adorable little girls.

And birthdays (7 out of 10 of us have July birthdays!)

So much to celebrate, so much to be thankful to God for.

A Latte Pictures

Pictures say a thousand words, right?

So here's a couple thousand words...

For whatever reason, my writing juices have dried up and it feels like more of a burden than a blessing of creativity lately to sit down to write a blog post. So I'm going to roll with it and share some photos instead. :)

After having a few conversations with friends about how I don't want to be one of those moms whose only passion is her family, and with encouragement from Mocha Man, I decided to pursue something as a hobby.

That is, a hobby that's not coffee.

Coffee is a great hobby, don't get me wrong. But it's only good for one (maybe two) cups a day.

Photography is something I've been interested in for a really long time, but with inspiration from the fabulous Megan Quist, I just recently decided to take the plunge and take my camera off the automatic settings and start figuring out how to shoot in Manual mode.

Here are my first few documented baby steps:


Of course, no good photo shoot is complete without an outtake or two. This one has me rolling every time I look at it:


I need a title, don't you think?

These next few are Taz in typical fashion.
I know, I know, he's wearing a purple velvet cowboy hat. Shhhhhh... don't tell him.
(He thinks it's a Pirate hat)


And, please, someone tell me when and how this happened:

*sniff* Stop growing!!!

Seriously?!!!?! Seriously.

All of you know that with small children, if you suddenly realize your house has been quiet for a long time, and any of the preschoolers are unaccounted for, you're in for trouble. I had an experience like this the other day.

Thinking I better go find Taz and see what he was getting into, I walked into the living room and found this:


I am hereby under the tutelage of Taz, master of yoga.

Chopsticks + Taz

Random ramblings on perspective

As Spring nears, I feel the urge to clean coming on. It's like nesting, in overdrive. Only there's no baby coming.

The past few years, I have been in a losing battle with the clutter and dirt in my house. It seems impossible to keep up with it, and just as soon as I get it clean (which takes 13 hours of non-stop effort), it's messy again.

I think I *might* be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, and I know it won't be like this forever.

Perspective.

I've watched and/or been involved in some major, life-changing events in the lives of friends and family the past month or so. God lavishes grace upon grace on those who need it.

Perspective.

Over a month ago now, thousands of people in Haiti lost every single tangible thing this world has to offer. Homes, wives, husbands, children, sight, limbs, health.

Everything.

Perspective.

Many orphaned children in Haiti have been given the biggest gift they could get: homes, moms, dads, siblings, vision, hope, health.

Perspective.

Funny how when I go back and read where this post started, my battle for a clean house seems ridiculous.

Perspective.

Matthew 16:25 - For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

James 1:2 - Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

Perspective. I want more of it, please.

Haiti Fundraising Dinner

HAITI FUNDRAISING DINNER

Looking for a way to help Haiti?

Dinner to benefit For His Glory Orphanage

in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Friday, January 22, 2010 5-8 pm

For His Glory Orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti is home to 130 children. Many of the kids are waiting to be be united with their adoptive families, including Philippe and Patricia in the photo with their awaiting parents, Dawn & Lee. The orphanage has been damaged, but the children are safe! They are in desperate need of money to repair structural damage, as well as to provide medications and safe drinking water. The orphanage is not only trying to provide for the children living there, but also providing humanitarian aide to others in need.

Please see the following website for more information, or to donate to the orphanage directly if you are unable to attend the dinner.

www.forhisgloryoutreach.org/earthquake_relief

Dinner held at Calvary Lutheran Church

341 Hamline Ave. South, St. Paul

***FREE WILL OFFERING ACCEPTED***

Please call Sarah 651-328-0928 or e-mail scullysj@gmail.com to RSVP

WALK-INS ARE WELCOME!!

100% of proceeds to benefit

For His Glory Adoption Outreach

** Pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, beans (courtesy of FAMOUS DAVES), chips, and ice cream (courtesy of KORTES) sundaes

Some help in getting out the door

For all of you who live in cold climates and who have small children, you KNOW that your time triples trying to get out the door when you go anywhere in the winter.

Put on child's coat.
Put on the gloves.
Put on the hat, while child takes the gloves off.
Put on the gloves.
Instruct child to leave gloves on.
Put on your own coat, while child takes the hat off.
Put on the hat.
Instruct child to leave hat on.
Put on your own mittens and scarf, while staypuff marshmallow man child has fallen on the floor and can't get up.
Get child up off the floor, and start to head out the door.
As you are walking out the door, you realize your child doesn't have shoes on.
Put down all of your things and put child's shoes on.
Head back out the door.
Child says, "Mommy, I'm poopy!"
Mommy has a meltdown.
The End.

Really, this is at times such a trying experience~ and can add SO much time to the morning!

So. I have a tip. I got it from my fabulous mom, which is kind of ironic because she raised her children in the US Virgin Islands and San Diego, CA, where I'm pretty sure she had no need for the tip.

The tip changed my life. (Relatively speaking...)

Teach your 2-year old to get his coat on by himself. You still have to zip it for him, unless he's a fine-motor skill developmental wonder...

First, put the coat out on the floor with the arms out and the front open a little.
Have your child stand on the hood side (this seems counter-intuitive, but trust me...)
Teach child to put his/her hands in the arm holes and flip the coat over the head.
Voila, the coat is on!




This might not seem like an important revelation, but think of all the things you can do while your child is getting on his own coat! And, it teaches self-discipline.

2-year olds LOVE to do things by themselves. Win-win, I say!

Hope it helps you!

Oh, and if you haven't already been able to tell, I'm ALL for kids doing things themselves as early as they can, which is why I was positively GLEEFUL to discover the coat thing.

This sometimes backfires on me, though:

Some recipe love

Fall in Minnesota. I love the 48 hours of fall we get here. This year especially, it seems like the leaves changed colors, and then 2 days later, a hefty wind came and whipped the leaves off in a matter of hours and now it's brown. The good news is the wind came and whipped the leaves out of my YARD, so it looks like there will be no yard work!

I woke up yesterday on pumpkin day and had a hankering for some pumpkin bread of some kind to munch on with my latte, and I was so pleased with the results, I'm going to share! Plenty more "pumkin-ish" days ahead to try this one out!


Pumpkin Scones (adapted from this recipe)


Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1T plus 1t baking powder
1 1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t ground ginger
3 t ground cinnamon
1/8 t ground cloves
1 t salt (decrease if you use salted butter)
1/2 cup butter, cold
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
15 oz can pumpkin puree
1 c chopped nuts (I used candied walnuts, but plain wlanuts or pecans would be good too)
3 T white sugar
1 t ground cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and brown sugar.
Cut in butter using a pastry tool, until butter is pea size.
Mix in nuts.
In a small bowl, beat eggs and mix in pumpkin, then add them to the dry ingredients.
Just before the mixture is completely combined (should still be a little crumbly), plop it all onto a cutting board, pressing it to about a 9" circle.
Cut into wedges. Mix white sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle on top of scones.
Bake for 11-13 minutes until tops are golden brown.

Yummy. We had some left so I froze them, but I think I'm going to go get them out and eat them tomorrow!

Here's some video love

Speaking of boys, here's a video of Isaac this past summer on his favorite method of transportation around the neighborhood, the scooter.

I think I'm scared that he's doing this at 2.

Unexpected blessings

Surprises are the best, aren't they? For me, they're always so much better than experiencing something I've been anticipating, something I'm expecting to be amazing.

Such as, Grass is Always Greener on the OTHER Side Syndrome (Hereafter referred to as GAGOSS).

Before I had kids, I worked as a teacher in a local school district. I would leave at a little before 7:00am and drive a little way to work. I always saw cute moms with their cute little jogging strollers and their cute little athletic wear and their cute little bums running with their cute little babies.

At 7:00 in the morning.

And, in my cute little GAGOSS mind, I would think "Ohhhhhh, I just WISH I could be a mom so that I could jog with my baby!" And I would imagine that woman going home to her Pottery Barn house, taking a long sudsy shower with the scent of Clinique Happy bubbling all around her. (HARDEEHAR HAR!!!)

Oh, what a life that would be! And all I need... is a BABY!

GAGOSS.

Ask me if I EVER got up at 6:30 to take a baby on a jog? No, ma'am. I did jog occasionally with 2 kids in a double jogging stroller for a short stint during which I was training to run a half marathon.

But, y'all. It was not a pretty sight. I had no cute little athletic nothin'. I was wincing and sweating, huffing and puffing. Clinique Happy was nowhere to be found.

GAGOSS let me down. In a very big way.

Surprises are way better. When you think something will be a certain way, and it's so much better than you expected. Or if something just hits you as amazing that you never expected at all.

That's sweetness.

In no particular order, like...

Sweet sibling moments.

Timers on cameras

Big stairs. Little kids.

Rock skipping lessons

School Uniform cuteness. And little brother excitement. (Thinking he was actually going to stay at school that day! oops...)

"What??!! Snow in early October?!"

Yes, even the earliest snow in 24 years had its sweetness, too...

Faces


A homemade latte while camping.
Not in the least bit unexpected, and uber-anticipated, but oh-so-sweet!

Boys vs. Girls

I'll never forget something my friend Kimmy said to me as she watched me in the hallway at MOPS one morning - I was with my two (at the moment) demure, shy girls, probably around age 2 and 4. They were quietly holding my hands, waiting for me to finish my conversation with someone before we went to their classes.

Kimmy's son had just kareened down the hallway making racing sounds worthy of a NASCAR track, turned the corner and disappeared out of sight. We could just make out his distant screeching and crashing sounds when she said to me, "Jenny, miss mother of quiet, sweet girls, I just can't WAIT until you have a BOY!"

We all laughed and I knew she was right. A boy would totally rock my world.

But, I didn't know how MUCH a boy would rock my world. I knew he'd be different, I just didn't GET it, you know? I guess not until you live with it 24/7 can you fully understand the difference.

I get it now. OK?! OK, Kimmy? I GET IT.

As a toddler/preschooler, Corene was told something one time and she never repeated it. Sometimes all it took was a stern look and she would burst into tears, never to repeat the dreaded sin.

Ava was "fiestier", I had to tell her something at least 3 times, because she's just more of a tester.

"Do you REALLY mean it, Mom? Let's try it again and see what she does..." was what she did on a regular basis. But, then she'd usually figure out that I really meant it, and she knew what her expectations were.

Taz now. He's hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. He does some testing as well, of course, but that's not the heart of it. The thing with him is that he just DOESN'T GET IT. Here's how it goes:

Something looks fun.
(notice there's no step here about THINKING ABOUT IT)
Fun thing is implemented.
Mother is not happy.
Mother tells Taz if he does it again, there will be a consequence.
Taz acknowleges the instruction.

Something looks fun, and there is vague recollection that it was INDEED fun.
(thinking? nah...)
Fun thing is implemented.
Mother is NOT happy.
Consequence is implemented.
Taz says he won't do it again.

Something looks fun.
Fun thing is implemented.
etc.
etc.

He reminds me of Dory, from "Finding Nemo", the sweet blue fish who suffered from "short term memory loss". Oh mothers of boys, tell me these quotes don't ring a bell for you:

Dory: "Wait! Something tells me we should go through the trench, not over it."
Marlin: "Bad trench! Saaaay... hey look, Dory! Something shiny! I think it went up there, over the trench!"
Dory: "Oh, really? WHERE? LET'S GO!"

or this one:

Marlin: "Here are the rules, these are very important: You can bounce on the tops, but DON'T TOUCH the tentacles!"
Dory: "Okaaaay, something about tentacles! READY, SET, GO!!"

Have you ever heard about the testosterone wash that unborn baby boys receive at some point in their development that actually severs some of the connections between the right brain and the left brain? Here's a tidbit:

The corpus callosum is the largest structure connecting the right and left sides of brain. This pipeline of more than 300 million fibers functions like a powerful, lightening fast, monster cable that enables both sides of the brain to communicate with each other and process for each other.
The gush of testosterone actually causes sections of the corpus callosum to decrease
in size by dissolving portions of the connection or by decreasing the growth of the
nerves.
From His Brain, Her Brain by Walter Larimore, MD

I find this absolutely hilarious in parenting this "other sex", as well as, quite frankly, very helpful in my own understanding of him and how he ticks.

Now I understand why he just delves into something he's been told multiple times before not to do. He's "acting", not "processing".

Here's another amazing fact from Dr. Larimore's article:

Male brains contain about 6.5 times more gray matter — the “thinking matter”. Female brains have more than 9.5 times as much white matter — the “processing" matter.

I don't know why this surprises me, it's so obvious that men as a whole are very different than women as a whole... but it's just fascinating to hear part of why.

It's amazing, the way God made us. It causes me to be all the more in awe of our Sovereign creator who designed men and women, boys and girls, so different and so complementary.

And it makes me giggle.

Moving along...

So, now that I have officially fallen off the blog wagon, I have a dilemma. Do I try to do a quick recap of the past several months or do I just move on as if I've been blogging all along?

I could do a highly caffeinated recap of the summer, all the birthdays, the homecoming of our niece Olivia (who's not really our niece, she's our cousin, but that's a whole 'nother story), our vacations, the start of school, etc.

I have had a resolution of sorts to begin blogging more regularly again now that school has started.

But, honestly, a recap overwhelms the pants off of me. So I think I'll just pretend y'all are caught up, and maybe I'll get around to talking about the summer sometime in the dead of winter when I have nothing to talk about.

SCHOOL! It is in full swing now. We love our school. Really, I couldn't be happier there, and my girls are thriving on the structure school provides. The structure that I have so failed at implementing in my home. I try, mind you... but, alas, I fail.

I am a free spirit... to me, the best days are those where you don't know what your schedule will be until after it's already done.

My Ava is similarly wired, I think. She NEVER asks what we're doing today, she NEVER needs a plan. When she's in her PJ's and I say, "Ava, let's go to the park!" She can jump up and be ready to go in a heartbeat.

Corene, as you might imagine is not wired that way. On Wednesday she asks "What are we doing on Saturday?" She's wired more like her father. "Mom, can I have a Google calendar, too? I want to write down everything I need to do so I can look at the month and know what I'm going to do."

"You're SEVEN! You do NOT need a Google calendar!!"

But she does need structure. She thrives on lists and charts. At any given time, you can find lists scattered about our house, on scraps of paper, of various things. Ideas for where to go on her date with Daddy. Possible games to play with the neighbors when they come home. Name ideas for her newest stuffed animal recently acquired from a garage sale.

OK, so school. Pictures to come. Is there anything so cute as kids in school uniforms?

If you want a sneak peek, check out this post of my friend Jenna's with some pics of Corene on her first day (the Kindergartners started 2 days later, so Ava's first day pics are coming)

Ta-ta!

We LOVE Olivia

And, apparently, the feeling is mutual:


More later.

(Promise)