Beloved Times & Realizations

Tonight as Hayden is falling asleep I sit at the foot of his bed, with my arms on the mattress and my head resting there.  He cuddles his stuffed monkey, covered with his cozy and his little socked feet stick out from under the covers.  The socks are black and white striped and they remind me of the way Hayden imitates the referees while Arnie’s watching football.  I hear Mason’s soft snoring from his spot across the room, right in time with the sound machine that’s supposed to help them settle deeper into dream land.  Suddenly the simple contentment and peacefulness of that moment crashes into me like a wave.

I realize that for the past few months I’ve just been so caught up in the everyday busyness that we haven’t had any of those moments.  Well, the moments have been there, but I’ve missed them.  The time passed and I let it slip right by without grabbing hold and cherishing.  A part of me aches at the realization.   Isn’t that part of my goals and dreams for my family… that we hold on to the simplest but still so important things in our lives?  It is, and yet we haven’t.

This insight has come at a perfect time.  I’m about to start a work from home position that I plan to do while the boys are sleeping, but that means more time cleaning, preparing meals, etc while they’re awake.  So it will mean new things for us, finding a way to take the time and still notice the joys of life that have slipped by for the past few months, but at the same time watch my schedule get busier.  I see that I need to prepare for it, to be ready to contend with the hectic and demanding so we can preserve the calm and beloved.

Beloved times like tonight, staring as striped socks and listening to baby’s breathing in the sweet night.

This Moment {Fun with Family}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by Soulemama

Baking Up Traditions

We have been doing our activity advent calendar since December 1^st.  I have to say that its been a big hit so far.  But today was definitely the best day yet.  Today we made Christmas cookies.  Its my great grandma’s recipe, and she told me that she used to make them when she was a little girl.  There’s something incredibly sweet in Hayden making the same cookies that his great-great grandma used to make.  I took a bunch of pictures and am going to take them to her when we head up to Michigan for the holidays.  (Yes, my wonderful Gram is still alive- 92 years young!)

We make Christmas cookies every year.  But this year was extra fun.  For the first time Hayden could actually cut out the cookies, shake the shaped dough into his palm and hand it to me to put on the cookie sheet.  He helped me cut all 4 ½ dozen cookies.  Then we took a break for lunch and rest time.

The break in the activity was great, after that though, he was ready to get back at it.  I frosted while Hayden decorated.  He did a great job and actually decorated them all!  I couldn’t believe it, I thought that he’d get bored and I’d end up doing most of the decorating.  Nope.  He had a blast and told his Daddy every detail about it.  He even remembered decorating cookies last year in our Memphis home.  That time he only decorated four cookies, this year…over four dozen!

Mason was great too.  He sat contentedly in his high chair squishing up banana (occasionally eating some too.)  When he started to fuss I just cleaned him up and set him on the floor and he happily played at our feet and crawled all over the living room.   The afternoon followed the same pattern.

It was so wonderful to see something that I did with my Mom, and that I’ve done every year since moving out of the house become a family tradition that my own sweet boys can be part of.

Rolled dough, baked cookies, frosting, and a sprinkling of colored sugar equals a joyful day to be cherished forever.

I even set the camera up and took some pictures of myself with the boys.
The lighting leaves a lot to be desired, but I still love all the moments...

Mason loved exploring while we baked.

The finished product.  Yummy!

Happy Craftmas!

So yesterday I looked at my project list and suddenly grasped that, um, tomorrow (now today) is December 1^st and I had yet to finish Hayden’s Activity Advent Calendar!  YIKES!  So I worked on it until one am, realized that I had about three hours of work to go, wrote his first day’s activity down, put it in the incomplete calendar and went to bed.

Today Hayden happily pulled open the first box and didn’t seem to mind a bit that most of the rest were unfinished and (if he’d opened them up) empty.  But the partial advent calendar (and the date!) made me realize how much there is to do.

For Christmas I have several projects going.  Felt balls for Mason, a satchel (just like in Tangled) for Hayden.  Decorating our homemade Christmas tree- where we make almost all the ornaments for it. Qwillows for the nieces, hats & mittens for the boys.  Not the mention the Advent Calendar currently sitting on the table staring me in the face. 

Yes, much to do, along with the shopping, preparing holiday dinners, going to parties, wrapping (lots), sending out Christmas cards, Arnie traveling (lots), and then heading up to Michigan for the holiday itself.  Much to do indeed.

But honestly, I’m not overly worried about it.  If I were, you’d never read this post because I’d be too busy going crazy with projects.  I’m rather excited about all the fun things that I have to do.  And the deadline means that I might actually get them done.  I’ll finish the calendar tonight.  Then make a list for the rest, and start working on them tomorrow.  Now the state of my house while getting these projects done is, well, a whole ’nother blog post.

Time to get crafting!

Christmas Photography

Pinterest has become a new pastime for me.  I’m not actually a member yet, I’m on the waiting list.  But that doesn’t stop me from perusing hundreds of pins and bookmarking every favorite idea I come across.  These ideas range from crafts to do with Hayden to recipes, and led to my first attempt at a photography shoot.

Oh, I take pictures all the time.  And I do mean all the time.  But I saw this adorable photograph and just had to try it on my boys.  So I hung up white sheets, taped lights to them, laid down the toddler mattresses and covered them with a furry soft blanket.  The tutorial showed icicle lights, but I only had straight lights on hand, so I purposefully strung the lights rather haphazardly (if that makes any sense.)  I was so proud of my set up and couldn’t wait for the boys to wake up so I could try it. (Unfortunately the tape couldn’t hold the sheet up anymore and fell before I thought to get a photograph of the backdrop.)

I gave up when the urge to yell at Hayden for rolling over his brother for the umpteenth time almost overwhelmed me.  Then I loaded the pictures to the computer and, being addicted to taking photos and obviously a glutton for punishment, we went back downstairs after lunch with the plan to take a few more pictures of the boys together since those turned out the worst.

I was chagrined to see the sun out in full and shadowed lines across my carefully planned photo op.  So, I did what any desperate mother pretending to be a photographer would do and I used painters tape to tape a white sheet over the window. 

The lighting was actually much better than the morning’s light had been.  The boys were still pretty uncooperative and some of the morning together photos were actually better.  Then I put Hayden down for rest time and went back down with Mason and shot about 10 more pictures while he didn’t have his brother trying to claim the spot light.  Those are definitely my favorites of Mason, the lighting was so much better and I was able to get his attention with some funny noises and also just take pictures of him playing with the ornaments. 

I have to say that the results made it totally worth it.  The pictures aren’t perfect, some are awful, the focus is off on some of them and there are random feet, fingers and toes missing in others, but overall there were several that turned out pretty good.  I learned so much about picture taking, the hands on experience was great and thankfully I’ve got my boys to experiment on so no else’s children were tortured in the process.  I’m also excited about the pictures and proud of myself for venturing out and trying something new.

Purposeful Moments

It only takes a moment to create memories that will last a lifetime.  The holidays always start me thinking about family, togetherness and traditions.  Its so easy to get caught up in the mayhem of the holidays, the buying gifts and forgetting that the whole point of a family dinner is the gathering itself.  Not the turkey on the table or the gifts under the tree.

I’ve been trying over the last few years to do things with Hayden (and now Mason) that will hopefully become lasting traditions throughout the year.  Some of those things are big things, such as Thanksgiving dinner.  Others are smaller, but still significant.

For the past two years, the day after Thanksgiving we go to a light festival of some sort to kick of the Christmas season.  The first year we went to the Memphis Zoo Lights.  Last year we went to the Shelby Farms Light Drive.  So this year I wanted to do the same, but being in a new place, plus the cost and distance made it hard to find an event that worked for us.  Eventually I found a wonderful neighborhood just 15 minutes up the road where 6-7 houses decorate elaborately and all the lights are timed to music.  It was small but beautiful.  It was so fun to see an everyday neighborhood transformed into a Christmas light show.  It really lifted our moods even higher and put us in the “Christmas Spirit” if you will.

But again, it made me think of all the things that create a sense of family.  The rest of the weekend was spent Christmas shopping and decorating.  It would have been easy to get busy and just want to get it done.  But instead, I let Hayden put ornaments on the tree anywhere he wanted… and I didn’t move them.  He helped Daddy put up lights outside while I fluffed trees inside and put up stockings.  We spent time saying, “Merry Christmas” over a cup of hot cocoa (even with it being 65 degrees out.)

Those tiny moments in between, the purposefulness of it all, creates traditions, connection and lasting memories that will tie us together for years to come.  They are what make us family.



{This Moment}- Holiday Beginnings:Sweet Endings

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama