meaningful

"mommy, come here!"  they yell.

"mommy, mommy, come outside!"

 "come swing with us,"  they insist.

 i put down all the things that keep me occupied indoors: dirty dishes, tidying, sweeping, laundry, lesson planning, penny pinching, facebook... 

 and recess with my three a.maz.ing people.

"look mommy, watch!"

i look. 

really look.

 and laugh.

"mommy, you should go on the swing!

come on, i'll help you."

as she helps we giggle.


she pushes.

and i swing.

they holler and cheer, "yeah! mommy, isn't the swing fun?!"  


it is fun.


after we swing they show me their fortress.

they built it together. 

 they lead me past the fort to a small patch of wild flowers. 

the wildflowers invite her to twirl in her tutu. 

she picks me a dainty flower from her dance floor.

he sits beside me, places his almost 14 yr old hand on my back.  
without words he tells me he is delighted i put down the meaningless for the meaningful.  
i listen. 
really listen.

next, they lead me over to a cluster of boulders, which they have named "bobcat rock."  i watch them climb.   


they show me the waterfalltrickle.

which leads into the creek. 

and i think about the gift it is to be, "mommy."
i am overjoyed that they call to me.
want me.
 
i'm honored to be invited into their backyard world. blessed to have it shared with me through their eyes. 

and i am so glad that i put down my not-important and 
took hold of my so-important.
 

michael's dad

this was michael's father's childhood street.
his father's home.
  the place where his father was a boy.

i imagine him there.

imagine him being pulled in his radio flier wagon.
the wagon he still has. the wagon he has pulled his own grandchildren in. 

 i look down san nicolas and la plata street, and think of him
 playing with his favorite neighborhood friend, whose name rhymed with his.
what a pair denny & kenny must have been!

i imagine him tinkering with his train-set near the christmas tree.
the same train-set his own boys and grandsons have tinkered with.

i think of him eating his mother's meatloaf.  i know he smothered it in ketchup.
he smothers everything in ketchup.

i think of the little boy feet that balanced on the bricks his own father laid at the lawns edge.
now his son, a man, walks in his steps.

today that boy is 66.

he is
husband,
father,
grandfather.
he is
kind,
  servant,
integrity,
hard-worker,
laughter,
teacher.
 he is
legacy.

Proverb 13:22 says
"a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children."

so today, dennis, on your 66th birthday, i say thank you.
thank you for living a good story.
your children delight in the steps you have taken,
and follow in them. 
thank you for seeking God and for encouraging your children to seek Him.  
thank you for leaving your children and your children's children a legacy.

we are blessed to be written into your good story.

happy birthday! 

smells like roast beef

as i type the house smells like roast beef. it smells like roast because yesterday as i was getting fish out of my freezer to make for dinner {yes, fish! eaten 6x since jan 1.},  i discovered a roast and a ham that my sister," toni bologna full of macaroni," brought us in january. discovering food you didn't know you had in march when gas prices are astronomical is AWESOME.
{thank you, t.b.f.o.m}.

while i am typing, my husband and daughter are hanging this chandelier.

as a gift for my birthday i asked my creative m.i.l., cindy {who the kids use to call "cinderella," because we told them that was her real name}, if she would make me a chandelier for our new entryway.

i didn't give her any suggestions. cindy is very creative and really good at making things.  she made my husband.  'nuf said.

i like the simplicity of the chandy with the burlap shades.  thank you cindy!

 

sometimes i am good at making things too.  i  made her.  

emilie is wearing an apron because before she and michael were hanging my new chandelier they were making foccacia bread to eat with our roast for dinner.

{good thing i walked 4 hilly miles earlier}.  

as you can see, while michael and emilie hung my chandelier, i was being annoying helpful by taking  photos of them.

i snapped this shot immediately after fulfilling my one job of turning on the light.

upon seeing michael's expression on my canon power-shot screen i announced, "i am going to blog that picture!"
to which michael responded,  "no you're not."

as i post the photo, unaware michael, is done hanging my new fancy chandy and is immersed in a game of wii with noah. 

noah had his mop hair cut this week.
against his will.

thankfully, after his locks were abducted a few girls swooned over him and his new do {the girls may or may not be limited to his mother and sisters}.

 

16 weeks of puking, and i made him too.

i made her last.  

josie is pictured with my "grandaughter, elise denise." someday she will make me real grandchildren. hopefully she does not name them "elise denise." 

although i am not as inventive as my m.i.l.,  last week i attempted a bit of creativity and whipped up this pillow.  it took 30 minutes and no puking to make {unlike another pillow which claimed to take 30 minutes, but consumed an entire day}.

 it was so easy to make that another 30 minutes later i had an identical pillow for the other couch.

the striped couches like the pop of red color.

my walls on the other hand are undecided on the pops of color that they would like to have permanently reside on them.

none of these colors is a contender.  they were slathered on two weeks ago and will likely remain here, driving o.c.d.-me crazy, until gas prices go down.

gas prices have made paint purchasing impossible.

gas prices have also made pot-roast purchasing impossible,
which is why i am really thankful for the roast my sister gave us months ago.

which happens to be ready now. 

as well as the homemade foccacia bread. 

while i inhale dinner i'm going to think about how very good my life is, despite unpainted walls and sky rocketing gas prices.  i'm going to think about free roasts, a gifted chandy, a handsome man, and 3 amazing children, which God generously provided for me long before i asked. 

what has God recently provided you with before your asking?

sometimes i do stuff...

like cook, 

and craft, 

and pay attention to my children.

one time this week i managed to do all three at the same time.

lucky for you i lived to blog about it.

while i was crafting and not ignoring my kids i made soup. 

pasta figiole.

ingredients: ground turkey, chopped carrots, garlic, 1 can kidney beans,
 1 can white beans, 1cn diced tomatoes, 2 boxes veggie broth, ditalini noodles,
oregano, garlic salt, pepper (seasonings to taste). 

first, brown ground turkey in pot. next, add garlic (to taste), broth, carrots, tomatoes, beans (drained & rinsed), seasonings. then, heat on medium for 30 min. finally, add in 1/2 box of ditalini noodles, and continue to cook for 20 minutes.

serve. 

mmm, soup!

while the soup was simmering

the girls and i made this crafty valentiney banner thingy.

what you need to make a snazzy banner like mine:

7 sheets of scrapbook paper, heart-shaped cookie cutters for templates, scissors, glue-stick, sewing machine, and computer/printer.
we chose the words "Be Mine & XO" (freehand 521bt was our font choice). 

we cut out the hearts and words, 

laid out our banner pieces and selected the layout,

then stitched it together on the ol' sewing machine. 

too easy.

after finishing the banner we had enough left-over paper to whip up a 

little love for the entry way window/mirror.

AND then emilie had a brilliant idea for the scraps...
a little valentine's day love for her doll house! 

after helping emilie add her valentine's day banners to her doll house i snapped a few pix of what was happening around her dollhouse.

notice that dollhouse-dad is in the kitchen cooking, while dollhouse-mom is watching t.v..
yeah, my kid knows me well.
notice dollhouse-emilie playing with her dollhouse as dollhouse-josie looks on.
i can tell you what is going to happen...
as soon as dollhouse-emilie steps away, dollhouse-josie is going to do some rearranging.
dollhouse arguing will erupt, and dollhouse-me will have to get up from
my gilmore girls rerun and go referee the girls' dollhouse argument.
ah, life in dollhouse-ville.

have you done any valentine's day decorating?
what's your favorite winter soup?


 

Rewind

its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

yeah, i know, Christmas was so last year, but indulge me a little {okay, a lot}

as i rewind 

and ponder a bit of what i treasured about Christmas, 2011.

this Christmas looked a lot like this

Michael painted the kitchen, repainted the kitchen, then painted the kitchen again! because "third times a charm."  after painting was kinda done he installed granite tile counters, grouted, added bead board, appliances, and more.
with the kitchen make-over we knew Christmas wasn't going to get the attention we so enjoy giving to It.  Christmas was okay with that and came anyway.

because we were kitchenless the kids and i went to mama holly's to bake our Christmas goodies. 

mama holly, who had a nasty cold, was so happy to have us there!
as she taught emilie to knit she said,
"i'm so glad you don't have a kitchen, i think you should make it a tradition that
you bake here every year."
mama holly gives me generous love and the gift of home.
i don't know what i'd do without her.

we'd like to thank Home Depot for not only selling us paint {a lot of paint}, but also our Christmas tree. 

the kids woke our Christmas morning to the usual birthday breakfast party for Jesus. no balloons or streamers this year, BUT we did surprise the kids by setting the table with the Christmas dishes that had been buried in a box in the garage
{up to that point we'd been enjoying all our fine crock-pot meals on paper products}.
i'll have to share about all our birthday traditions sometime, but for now, just one, and that is to pick junk cereals to accompany the meal.
so this year while standing in the cereal isle before Jesus' birthday i asked the fam, "what cereal would Jesus choose?" the kids shouted a few of their favorites, before my witty husband, michael, chimed in with what we quickly realized was the correct cereal choice for the Savior,
"LIFE!"
it was funny!
i guess you had to be there.

something that really blessed me this Christmas was that noah, emilie and josie decided to go in together and buy gifts for each other with their own $.
they were as THRILLED to give as they were to receive.
my children are coolawesome!! 

even rudolph thinks so!

another thing that knocked my mommy Christmas socks off was how
intentional my children were about the advent season.
i usually have thoughtful activities planned for the entire advent season, but with the move and the chaos i had to embrace that Jesus would come {advent= coming, expecting} without my assistance.
still, i was a bit saddened to be missing the opportunities to create memories for my children. 
BUT something extraordinary occurred, my children created the memories for themselves by recycling many of the memories we'd made together past Christmases!
I LOVE MY KIDS!
this was hands down my favorite gift this Christmas {that and the kitchen}.

for the first time in our 15 yrs of marriage we didn't send out Christmas cards
{be on the lookout for our Ground Hog's Day card on Feb 2}.
i figured we'd have to throw in the towel on creating and giving
our favorite kind of gifts- thoughtful and personally made.
but michael and i pulled a couple late nighters and created a few that we couldn't wait to give! 
a personalized crossword puzzle for his crossword-puzzle-loving-grandmother was one favorite,
and a few canvas wraps we designed were the others. 

maybe a new business in the near future
{to pay for all the painting that still needs to be done}?

a few other highlights were:
cheney cousin Christmas night at our house.
17 of us in matching scarves, whipped up by my m.i.l. cindy,
to wear to Christmas eve service.
the cousins unwrapping the first gift, baby Jesus, from under the Christmas tree, followed by gramps reading the story of Jesus' birth to them from Luke.
uncle jack's tender heart and encouragement. 
michael's grandma opening her canvas wrap of Psalm 23, and saying
"Psalm 23 is my favorite"
{we knew}.

Christmas day at my uncle and aunts, joseph & mary
{really.  joseph gabriel, born Christmas day, and maria gloria)
my cousin ava {2yrs} jumped into my lap!  she likes "prima"
{cousin in portuguese, and her name for me}.
sitting with my 5 aunts, i teared up and said, "i love my aunts." to which one teared up 
and then another.
my aunts have been a source of joy to me through the years.
seeing my grandmother, josefina, surrounded by her daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren {with another on the way}, i asked {in portuguese}, "is your heart full?"
and she lit up and replied {in portugeuse, of course}, "oh yes, very full, it is coming out of my chest!"
my nephews both calling me "favorite tia denise." love. 
a fun Christmas double-date with my sister and bro-in-law.

all these, the treasures i don't want to forget from Christmas, 2011.

thanks for indulging me.
you can fast forward back to January, 2012 now!