does it count?

This is the latest issue of Artful Blogging. Here is an article about the Wish Studio and how Mindy rocks for making such a great place for creative types to commune.

See that middle picture? The one with the nest and the blue eggs? That's mine.
(See? Isn't Mindy so sweet to submit something from little ol' me?)

But the only problem is they forgot to put my name in the photo credits.

Number 33 on my list is "get published." I left it vague, because really, you just never know what direction life is going to take, but I was going to check it off my list when I heard that my picture was going to be in a magazine. And such a beautiful magazine at that. (Have you see in it? You should. You need to pick it up and look through it's thick glossy pages nice and slowly. Lots of inspiration and loveliness.) But now it doesn't really feel like it counts.

But that's okay. You know its me now, my little blogging friends. And I love you guys! It was still exciting to see a picture sitting there that I took with my own camera. It was in my front yard in the holly bush right outside my kitchen-sink-window. I was getting ready for two babies to arrive. I could hear the baby birds calling for food after they hatched. And now its sitting there on a page in a magazine.

So here's what happened after I took the picture above:





My little buddy and I ate that yummy blueberry pie. We talked about the sweet crumb topping and then I told her to stop hogging it all.

what day is it today?

So my babies turned one on Friday. (what?)

Things didn’t go how I imagined them.

I had thoughts of joy and deliciousness floating around in my head. Celebrations of life, overflowing with abundant love and thankfulness.

Something like that.

What day is it today?

Well, last Thursday, the school nurse called and sent home the first kid down. (This is one drawback to having a large family: there are more people who can get sick.)



Friday: messes and fevers instead of joy and deliciousness.

One! Can you believe it? It’s been one of the most crazy and amazing years of my life! Twins, and I didn’t even die! I came home from the hospital and although I was practically dead, somehow I recovered. Mostly. I think. And then I was like a deer in the headlights, just staring at the light and love. Totally overwhelmed by it. These darlings!! My whole family has grown in love in such an immense way. And these darlings just keep making my heart ache with love when they look at me with their beautiful faces and smile at me with their innocent selves.

All these thoughts were floating through my head and I wanted to acknowledge it in a big way, and instead everyone hated the dinner I made and the cupcakes were over baked and dry. Which really didn’t matter anyway because by the time we got around to singing “happy birthday” the babies didn’t want anything but their cribs.

And the dry cup cakes just sat there and no one wanted them. Such a sad, sad fate for a cup cake.

“Mommy, we didn’t even wrap presents for the babies!”

Whatever.

I have been holding feverish babies for…what day is it today? And my whole body has been tired and exhausted and stressed and pushed to it’s limit (but really, I know what its limits are for reals and this wasn’t even close. It just made me cry a lot while no one was looking.).

But there they are upstairs, sleeping. And I love them. My life is better with them here. I am affected forever. I am changed. I know myself better. I know that so much more is possible than we think, if we just push ourselves a little harder and do it because it’s the right thing to do. (that makes sense to me even if it doesn’t to anyone else. I have one year old twins, so I can say stuff that doesn’t make sense, you know.)

Okay, now I’m off to do some pilates before the little darlings wake up.

One year! And I still have 20 pounds to go. No more excuses, right? That’s all everyone gave me—one year.

“Give yourself a year.”

Pew! (<-- that was the sound of how fast one year just flew by.)

color your own valentines

I have been doing some coloring pages for my daughter and she enjoyed them so much that it gave me an idea...color your own valentine pages! She was very excited about it and the other kids jumped on board.

They gave me some ideas.

My 5th grader was worried about what she could give to the boys--nothing too mushy. She liked the "u rock" idea.



My 2nd grader said he wanted to give the girls "hugs".
I thought that was cute.

I put them on my flickr page in thier own little set so that you could print them off and have some fun with them too. Just print them off on some white card stock and get out the crayons, colored pencils, markers, glitter...choose your poison. I still may do some more, if I do I'll add them to the set as I go.

you put it on your head

I've been a crocheting fool lately. I have been craving yarn.
I made this little cutie from a tutorial I found here.



We have them in several colors and sizes. The children thought it was so cute without the pom pom that they talked me in to not putting one on. But I may still do it yet. My five-year-old says she likes it because it's what "the towns people would wear."

I wonder which town she's talking about?





This little Wee One won't keep anything on her head.

It's sad.

She has no hair.

It's cold outside.



Here's another little ditty I made spur of the moment. I had a craving for a crown. I don't know why, I just thought it would be cute if I could crown a baby, but crowns are always so hard and that would make me feel mean. So I had my crochet hook in hand and saw a little "edge" in a book that looked like a perfect crown.



She doesn't even realize it's on most of the time.



Except when she does. Then she grabs it and takes it off and climbs on top of me when I'm taking her picture.

listen

Listen: original mixed media on clayboard

One day while listening to an address given at church, the speaker was talking about the importance of meditation and that we need to make it a daily practice. I was quite young and I looked up at my mother and asked what meditation was. She explained simply that it was when you took the time to stop and think and listen. I looked at her bewildered, “Do you mean that not everybody does that?” She stopped and looked into my eyes and smiled and shook her head, no.

I remember trying to read the look in her eyes. Her familiar eyes were like looking into a mirror. But at this moment, I couldn’t quite read them. Were they filled with humor? My little daydreamer. She can’t imagine a world where people don’t stare out of the window until they grow weary. Was it remembrance I saw? I remember when I was young and didn’t have five children running around and I had the time to meditate.

I had a realization at that moment: Meditation comes naturally to me. But it might not always be as easy as I grow into adulthood.

The beach is like a holy place. It takes me away from the stress of my life and my burdens and leaves me with time to meditate. It happens naturally whenever I end up on the shore. No matter the season or time of day, the sound of the waves creeps into my soul and my body lets go and makes room for me to listen. Just listen.

This painting was inspired by this thought process. My realization from years ago has indeed come into fruition and I no longer naturally meditate. I have chaos surrounding me on every side, to-do lists filling up my space and children needing me for every imaginable thing. So I need to remind myself to stop. Breathe. Listen.

good morning. good afternoon. good evening.

Good Morning



When I lived in Salt Lake City I served breakfast at the Market Street Grill. (mmmmm. I'm craving breakfast, lunch and dinner from there right now...just imagining what I would order...okay, done.) They used to serve ham with french toast and it was the perfect compliment. I think french toast might be my favorite. At least today it is.



Don't you like my new little plates? I got them for Christmas. They make me happy.


Good Afternoon



I took this as I was getting one of my littlest Littles up from her nap. I realized that I have never taken a picture of her little space. And her little space makes me happy.

That is one of my paintings. I posted about it here.



Those are just little yarn balls I hung from the ceiling. I got the idea from reading Nie Nie's blog while I was on bed rest. It is such a simple idea, but I find it very satisfying and pleasant. And the wee one likes to watch them.



I made the little birdies sometime during the pregnancy, thinking about my little winter birds.

Good Evening



After the Christmas season ended, I was longing for some simplicity. All the decorations seemed stifling and I couldn't get them down fast enough. So I just have been lighting tea lights on the mantle and calling it good.



These cute blocks were a Christmas present for the babies. They haven't played with them much because all the big kids are having fun making words. This one was thunk up by my awesome babysitter who hates mayonaise. I thought it deserved a little spot on the mantle for January.

Have a happy day, friends.

this is how my day was today:

happy zone

We've had a happy week of it around these here snowy parts.

We usually have Chinese take out for New Years Eve. I don't know why, we just do.



We did something fun this New Year's Eve which I think I will try to continue in the coming years. We are pretty wimpy about staying up until midnight and of course the children have never made it at all, so when my dad mentioned that midnight in London is 7:00 here, I jumped on it. This year we celebrated the coming of 2010 with the Brits. The kids had gathered all kinds of noise making devices and we counted down (in a rather bumbly fashion) and wished each other happy new year at 7pm in British accents. (my favorite: Happy New Yeah, Govnah!)


this was my fortune. perfect. could be my motto.


#1 likes the night life.


#2: "cooking is easy. good taste is hard. that's why you call take out." He didn't get it. I had to explain it to him. You know he's the only one of my kids who will cook for himself. He even has made me breakfast in bed!


#3 does everything she loves and nothing she doesn't.

So then after a nice game of Jenga and Uno (when I was told to stop taking pictures)and a lot of noise making and yelling about the new year (which the babies slept through), we lit nine candles on the cake. The children decided that nine was the right number - they wanted to make a wish for the new year and blow out the old year.



And let me just insert here that this cake was horrible. It was heavy and dry. Not only that but I used a LOT of butter and egg yolks and spent too much time on it. It almost made us late for ice skating! So to bite into it was a sad disappointment.

(But it wasn't so bad yesterday morning when the kids and I ate it with milk for breakfast.)

So the whole house was sound asleep when the rest of the new englanders were ringing in 2010.

But at 1:45am I did get awakened to hold someones hair back as she vomited up all her Chinese food. Pobre cita. We were all laughing the next morning about how she spent her first moments of the new year.

And since I promised a picture of our favorite pom pom project, here you go:





I've loved looking at everyone's thoughts about the new year and the past year and your reviews and pictures. It's all wonderful!!



kisses,

me