The Embryo

- by Carol Lynn Pearson

Love is no eagle
Strong amid
The heights.
It is an egg -
A fertile,
Fragile
Possibility.
Hold it warm
Within your wing,
Beneath your breast.

Perhaps in heaven
Love can live
Self-nourished,
Free.
But in this world,
Where mountains fall
and east winds blow,
Oh, careful -
Love is embryo.
---------------------------------------------------------
(going into this new year, I am pondering the embryos I am nurturing in my life, where more care should be taken, what needs more nourishment, etc. I guess whenever I think of relationships and how much we need to care for and work for them, this poem comes to mind, so I thought I'd share. {I had to dig through some old High School papers to find my old copy of this - haha. It was just stuck in my head and I needed to look for it.}) Also, this quote I ran across the other day:

"Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and intimacies, and soon their places will know them no more, and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to "keep" by force of inertia." - William James

What's on your mind this New Year's?

a winter's walk

Just a few random thoughts and pics from a walk:

- We had a really lovely Christmas. We really did. And I have a ton of posts backed up in my brain to write.

-But temps in the 30's meant I could walk outside yesterday and not freeze my tail off. It started off sunny, then the clouds from the distance rolled in. But I loved my walk - and taking pictures along the way. Hope you enjoy them.

- This is a hard time of year for me. I was doing really well, just in general, until I started thinking about this past year and the things I had wanted to accomplish. And when I start thinking about where my life is going and things that I need to change, it is really really hard for me not to get discouraged. Both the evaluating and the looking ahead processes are hard for me at the moment. Ugh. New Years. Perhaps I should skip it. But it is so in my nature to reflect, and assess, and make lists, and goals, and want to feel like I am doing ok in a measurable and meaningful way. It's not something I let go of easily.

- I love seeing the fun, quirky and imaginative things my kids do and I want to be a fun mom and do fun creative things with them and love this extra time with them. But at the same time they are driving me absolutely bonkers. Seriously. And I am not the mom I want to be.

- And why is it that I seem to have this capacity (and need) for almost endless sleep??? I've been sleeping approx. 10 hrs every night easily and still sleepy and ready for a 2 hr nap in the afternoon. I seem to never feel rested and energetic no matter how much sleep I get. It is unfortunate, really.

Anyway - well. There's that. Seems there might be a little symbolic significance to the progression of sunlight to cloudiness reflected in these photos. haha. Now if only to find a way to disperse the clouds . . . hmm . . .

How is winter treating you?

Merry Christmas to you all!

We're not getting Christmas cards out this year, so here are our greetings instead. Hope you like it!

A photo from our church Christmas party family photo booth:

And a screenshot from our wonderful holiday greeting video:

Go here to see our cute little video.

Wishing you and yours peace and joy and all that is the best of this season. :)

(I'll be doing some major blog catch-up in some of the quiet(er) moments after Christmas. See you then!)

14 years

" you are my delight

and my comfort all night

and I'd wrap you up tight

in my arms . . . "

- from Niamh Parsons,

"An Paistin Fionn"

Happy Anniversary, Zac.

(go here to hear the song this quote comes from. It's one of my very favorites.)

( PS - I've been blogging for 5 yrs now (!!) and posted wedding pics for each of our anniversaries in that time. I'm working on transferring my older posts from the old blog into this one so you can see them all. Because I know you want to.) ;)

a day in the life

Yesterday just seemed like I was driving back and forth all over the place all day long. And as I sat and thought about it, I really had been. Want to see? Yes, of course you do.
Here was my day:

8:00 drive kids to school
drive home
call Dr about pain Isaac was having in his groin
9:15 go to zumba
drive home
11 go pick up Elisabeth
come home
11:30 go pick up Isaac and check him out from school early
go to Dr, he sent us over to the hospital for an ultrasound
12:30 grab some fast food lunch on the way to the hospital
1:30 ultrasound for Isaac's pain issue (everything looked normal)
2:30 go home
2:45 pick up Samuel from school
home again
nap for 20 min.
3:30 send Isaac off to piano lesson
3:45 take Elisabeth to dance class
4:45 back home
start dinner
5:30 take Abigail to violin Christmas party
home again
6:30 go pick up Abigail, wait 30 min for the party to finish
back home to pick up a white elephant gift
7 drive Abigail to church youth group
back home

And in case you're wondering what Zac was doing during those evening run-arounds, he stopped at the store to pick up Isaac's prescription for an antibiotic (in case there was an infection causing his pain). Then he helped Samuel and Elisabeth with their homework while I played chauffeur, etc. And cleaned up dinner. Then we both got the kids to bed.

And that, my friends, is a day in our life (or a part of it anyway). Wasn't that fun? ;)

Third Advent (and weekend fun)

My sister Heather came for a little visit from Tacoma, Washington. She is staying with my mom until Tues so we tried to spend some time with her over the weekend. First up, The Muppet Movie (with all of us, Heather, Chelsea and mom).

I thought it was simply hilarious. The kids liked it too.

Chelsea and Heather:)

Then we went to see the Lights at Temple Square (pictured: the Salt Lake City Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Mom and Lowell, Chelsea, Heather and our family all went.

I was trying to figure out my iphone camera, not always succesfully. But there's a blurry shot of Chelsea, me and Heather.

And a cute picture of my girls with Aunt Heather.

Lights! Besides Samuel being bound and determined to get himself lost in the crazy crowds, and causing everyone quite a bit of stress and frustration, it was pretty fun.

And then Heather and mom came over on Sunday to join us for dinner and our Advent fun.

Samuel had a photo heyday with Heather's camera. He is quite the fledgling photographer, that boy.

And we played Apples to Apples Jr and a very cool Truth or Dare card game that I bought for myself for Christmas last year.

And lots of fun photo ops. :)

(ps - have I mentioned how much fun I am having with my iphone? all these fun edits on an app called Camera+. yay! And don't even try to tell me I'm just getting carried away . . . because I won't hear you.) ;)

Anyway - loved having a chance to visit with my littlest sister. This is the first time she has lived out of state so we miss having her around. Hoping to see her again tomorrow before she hops on plane in the evening!

christmas dance recital

Last weekend Elisabeth had her first Christmas dance recital, or open house. She takes a combo class that does 15 min each of tap, ballet and tumbling. Sometimes she really loves it. Other times she throws a fit and doesn't want to get dressed to go and says she hates it. Whatever.

Her little dances were really cute though. And she was very excited to have her own recital!

Abigail cried when we entered the studio and she saw the names of her previous classmates on the program (but they performed in a session before Elisabeth's so we didn't actually see them). It was so hard to see Abigail so heart-broken - but, oh I don't know. We're just doing the best we can with the resources we have. ugh.

So, here is Elisabeth!!

I think tumbling is her favorite part (and also her strongest suit) so too bad they didn't get to show that off for us, but it was really cute to see her perform.

I am considering switching her to solely gymnastics in the future because I think she would do fantastic, but we'll see. It'd be further away to do that and lots of factors to consider (not the least of which is this tricky balance between activities for all the kids).

For those of you who are my FB friends, take a peek at the youtube video of her dances there!:)

Second Advent

Today for Advent we made homemade hot chocolate and coffee cake, sang some carols, watched (most of) a Christmas devotional, and some other Christmas videos and drew names for our annual family Secret Person exchange. This year we're just doing service and simple homemade gifts (if we can manage it) for our Secret Person - and just the kids are doing it for each other so Zac and I can concentrate our efforts on helping and making sure everyone is receiving some kind of service.;)

On some other notes, I keep finding more and more and more fun apps on my phone and I just want to talk about it all the time because I'm just so excited. I'm blown away by it all - seriously. So much fun, useful, helpful, educational, organizational and fantastical stuff!!! WOW!:) I need a weekly budget for all the apps I want to buy. And I'm getting nervous about the 8 gb capacity on my phone. haha. I think I'll be able to restrain myself. We'll see. I just might have to get selective at some point. That might be a good thing.

And this is the month of recitals and concerts and Christmas programs. Lots of kid updates in that regard coming your way!!:)

And I am finally getting into Christmas mode. Hooray! Shopping is just about done. Planning begun for Zac and my birthdays and our anniversary. I can listen to the Christmas music on the radio now and not immediately cringe and change it. I've almost reached 100 books read for the year (only 1 more!!!). Things are feeling good.

Also, did you know that Amazon music has a free holiday song every day for this month?? Quite exciting. Go check it out.:)