4/12

Dear Buddy

Snips and Snails

At Two

Now I Am Three






I guess it's normal to feel this way, like time flies. We've just had so many changes, so many LIFE EVENTS since finding out that we were expecting Buddy. I finished grad school, Hubs changed jobs, I changed jobs, Hubs earned his doctorate. We moved across the state, to a new city with new friends and new jobs (again).

The one thing that remained consistent was our little family of four. We stick together, fight, laugh, play. These kids have a funny habit of growing up and it's incredible to watch.


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The birthday doughnuts just keep getting bigger!!

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2/25

2011

Just because.

2/15

Spent a little time tonight with a friend who's got a baby and a toddler. It reminds me so much of those days when I had a baby and a toddler. She's got a girl and a boy too. Then my own two, now ten and seven, independently bathed, brushed their teeth, and got into bed. As I tucked them in and kissed them goodnight, I realized how great it is to enjoy each phase we are in. This phase has some definite perks!!

2/14

Blast from the past. My funny Valentine.

1/15

Now ages ten and seven, sometimes I get a little nostalgic about those two baby faces.

We have had ten smiling years of parenthood...

1/2

Wrapping up the season...

The memories in each little ornament hold more joy than could ever be put into words. 

spring baby

Please excuse me while I get a little nostalgic...

I remember how much fun it was to dress her up and take her outside. I'm trying to remember what those long stretches of one on one time felt like. How wide-eyed she was about every little discovery.

She's still much the same. She still gets excited about new adventures and makes sure that there is joy in each day. She still likes to get all dressed up to go out. And she still likes it when we get some 1:1 time.

Tomorrow she'll be nine. Today, I'm just trying as hard as I can to remember that day. March 14, 2004. She was almost eight months old and I was as happy as I'd ever been.

And it just keeps getting better.
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First Food

My Bee was born before I had a digital camera.
Before blogging.
Before facebook.

This was her first food. Rice cereal at 4 months of age.

It was very exciting. As was everything our perfect first baby did.

She will be NINE on Saturday, so the next few days will be spent scanning in a few of these memories. Now preserved in digital format. Though in my memory, this seems like it could've happened last night.

Blink.
And it's nine years later.

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A Little Pasta Angel

This little angel was made lovingly by yours truly during Sunday School in 1986.

She has hung on a Christmas tree every year since.

I've glued her arms back on, a couple of years ago she lost half of her wings and this year her one arm actually disintegrated before my eyes. Painted pasta must have a 25 year shelf life.

I considered rebuilding her, trying to give her a few more years, but no. I decided to take a few pictures and then send her on her merry way. To live with the bunnies who made a home in my blankie at the dump when I was in 2nd grade.

My goal is to make these with my kids next year. They really are cute. And God bless the Sunday School teacher who had the patience to make these with us! I think it will be a fun little craft and then we can have lots of new pasta angels next year to hang on the tree.

Sometimes I get attached to the strangest things! It was hard to tell her goodbye.

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Goodbye

Two years ago, on December 19th, he turned 89 and we had a big party.
He turned 91 last Monday and we thought warm fuzzy thoughts about what a wonderful grandfather he is. I wasn't there for his birthday, but missed him all day long. I knew for sure that I'd make a visit over Christmas break.

Then on Saturday, he passed away. My Grandpa was granted entry into the pearly gates for Christmas this year.

Happy for him. Sad for us.

I will always remember:
*boots
*chocolate in the refrigerator
*a deep, slow voice
*a warm laugh
*bread and butter
*gentle hands
*oatmeal cream pies

He called me Melanie Rose. I like that.

Oh, I love my Grandpa Harold.
Heaven got one of our good ones this time.

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Dear Old Dad

Dear Dad, on Father's Day,

I'm sorry I put your Jeep in the lake all those years ago. It was such a lovely shade of orange, if only my short little legs could've gotten that brake engaged before she went under in a bubbly disaster!

I'm sorry for the years 1992-1996. As a current parent of a daughter, I can only imagine what my dating years did to your nerves. I was a good girl, but can only imagine what you must've thought every time I dressed myself up for a date and headed out that door. I know that I will begin suffering the paybacks for that in about 6 years.

My apologies for my left-leaning, liberal ways. Despite your best attempts, your daughter is a democrat (gasp) and thanks for just letting that be. I know it must boggle your mind how you raised a child who would have such different views. Thank goodness you never let that come between us, though I know I drove you crazy in my undergrad days, trying to make you see the wisdom of my ways!

Thank you for taking me fishing when I was little, thank you for letting me hang around the garage, and thanks for letting me be me. I credit these experiences for my high school physics teacher assessment that I had great mechanical skills (the best of any "girl" he'd ever taught, but we'll skip over that little piece of sexism shall we?).

Thank you for being the grandpa that you are. My kids so look forward to coming to your house, they love you the way a kid should get to love a grandpa. For the tickles and candy and jokes. That's just how it's supposed to be.

You never shied from being the parent. From giving some tough love.

Thank you for loving my mom the way you do and thank you for teaching your kids about loyalty, hard work, and respect. I know that I found the right guy, a guy with many similar traits, because you set that bar high. 

If only everyone had a dad like you. What a world that would be.

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Gma Pat

I think of her often. My grandma, my dad's mom. Actually, I'm lucky enough to still have both of my grandmothers. A fortune I am very aware of and so completely grateful for.

She's still here, living with her husband of 62 years (a husband who turned NINETY this week!). Sometimes I get sad that I don't see them more, but try not to dwell on that. Focus on the positive, that's what I'm trying to do.

I identify with my grandma, her mom too. I think I look like them.

It's my grandma's hands that make me think of her most. When I'm sitting at the table, a mug of something warm. My hands go to the napkin or coaster and sort of slide it back and forth while I sit. And then I think of grandma Pat and how she does that too. I wonder if she's doing it that very minute. Then I smile.

I put my thumb to my mouth, sort of resting it on the spot where my teeth are crooked. I do it all the time while I think. Just like Grandma.

It will be something that stays with me my whole life. I'm just sure.

I only hope my life can be as long and full and wonderful as the one she is living. That I can convey the peace, the contentment, the calm that she does.

Better visit grandma this holiday, I think maybe I'm missing her just now. 

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Grandma's mom, that's me on her lap.

(This is one picture I didn't have to make sepia, time has done that all on its own.)

Grandpa, Grandma, and me. Confirmation Day, 1991

Gee! Those are some puffy sleeves, Mel.

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Ornaments

Click on the collage if you want to see the tiny squares...

Each ornament on our tree holds some sort of memory, a story. We will not make any magazine lay outs. We will not win any prizes for the perfection that is our tree. But each year we enjoy getting out each one. Remembering the who, the when, the where. I have the ornament from my first Christmas. The ones I received from grandparents. Ones that I made. I also have some that hung on my grandparents' tree and a few from my parents'.

Both kids have an ornament box with their name on it. They love getting out their small collection of ornaments, remembering each one. Deocrating the tree is like a trip down memory lane.

The photos from the collage are from several different years. I can't help myself, each year I take the pictures knowing that there are plenty already! There is something about the beauty of that tree with the lights and all of those funky oraments. I just sit at night at look at it.

It's just one more thing that makes this season a highlight of our year!

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'09

One more year of memories, then I can get up to date with all of the fun we've had so far this year.
It seems a little silly, considering there is a post from last year I can look at. Merry Merry. But it's the PICTURES that I love to look at! They tell such a story all on their own.

Last year, it was all about snow. And snow. And snow! Luckily we had already had lots of family Christmas celebrations before the big storm, so no plans got ruined and we really did just enjoy the time at home.

I can't believe Christmas is next week already! In my head, we've just moved here...school has just started...I honestly have to look at the calendar every day to remember that it's mid-December!

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'08

We're up to 2008. My B is in kindergarten (kindergarten!!) and her brother is no longer a baby brother. She now can use that word, "brother", with that tone that all sisters can use. But they really do like each other, almost all the time.

We enjoyed the season so much with two kids who know how to have some fun!

Two weeks to Christmas and we've got so many new memories to make!

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Engaged

We interrupt this tour of Christmases past to remember December 8th, 2000. What a night. The night I got engaged! Seems like something worth noting, a decade of commitment...this June we'll celebrate ten years of marriage.

I wrote the story of how it happened here.

And wrote about our time together here.

What amazes me most is how long ten years sounds...but how short it has felt. How quickly the time passes, how easy it will be to spend ten more years together. And ten after that. And God willing, ten more and more and more and more...

And by easy, I don't really mean easy. Because sheesh, being married is work. But work that is worth it.

So worth it.

Our first Halloween together, we were engaged six weeks later.

 A perfect match.

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'07

After posting the pics from 2006, it felt right to move on. A tour of Christmases, I guess.

There were too many, I just couldn't pick! When in doubt, I make a collage. (If you click on it, you can see it extra large.)

What strikes me is the difference that one year could make. The year before my little guy was a chubby-cheeked, 7-month old. Then he's a toddler, running around the house like he owns the place.

And my girl, there she is suddenly a long-haired preschooler.

That year, 2007, that was a ROUGH year. When I look at these pictures, I remember none of that. I'm so happy that you cannot see it on the faces of my kids. They are happy, healthy and full of spirit.

If the camera had turned on me, you would have seen an grief-stricken mom with bronchitis and pneumonia.

But it doesn't matter anymore, which has me smiling this morning. We made it!!

It feels good to me to look back. I'm so grateful for where that past has gotten us, today being so good as it is. And yes, it makes me a little weepy too.

As it should.

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Oh the cuteness. The kids and I were scrolling through November of 2006 this morning.

My heart.

Jolly Old England

First time on an airplane, first time in another country, first time to see the Atlantic Ocean

When I was eighteen, just weeks after graduating high school, I had the joy of traveling to Great Britain with classmates, our English teacher and a few chaperones. It was certainly the farthest I'd been from home and still is.

I loved every minute of that trip. While friends took naps on the bus, I sat with my face practically pressed to the window. I didn't want to miss one hillside, one fence, one barn. Thinking about it now, I get giddy just imagining 18-year old me drinking tea at breakfast with my best friend. Peeking out the hotel window at the lights of London. Ordering a drink! in the hotel bar, legally. Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Canterbury, Bath, Brighton, London. It was AMAZING.

My mom's best friend travels a lot, she's seen so many places and actually took this trip with us as one of the grown ups on the tour. When I got emotional looking out from the top of Dover Castle, she said that I've surely lived in Dover in a past life. She was certain.

One pastime I've happily picked back up since staying home this fall is reading for pleasure. By pure coincidence I picked up a couple of novels by English authors at the library. As I've finished each one, I feel like every thought in my head has a British accent. This reading led to watching several of my favorite Jane Austen movies, which led to watching a British miniseries, which led to watching a movie about The Young Victoria. Netflix now recommends British Period Pieces to me in its creepy "I know what you're watching" way. I've taken most of their picks and loved them all. My brain continues thinking in a British accent and I wish I could find a way to use bollocks in daily conversation. I start calling things bit and saying 'round. I'm a wannabe. Wanna be British.

Today I began reading a biography about Queen Victoria and will then move on to a historical fiction piece about London. I can't get enough.

I hope some day that we can take a family trip to England. I'd love to take J to Stratford-upon-Avon, he loves Shakespeare. And I just know that he'd enjoy Oxford in the same way that I did. I'd love to retrace my teenage tour as an adult, to take it all in again.

Maybe if I start saving now, we can go when B

graduates from high school. I may have to start a shoebox.

For that's how it started for me then. I had a shoebox with a hole in the top. When I got to England I used that money to buy an Oxford sweatshirt, some purple pleather shoes, and a Gap tshirt (what the?!). It was the trip of a lifetime and I hope to share it someday with my family.

Until then, I guess I'll have to settle for movies and books...

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