I loved all the easy things about today. And today was not a particularly easy day. In fact, I woke up this morning wishing this day would end already. Today was a day for growing and becoming a (hopefully) better person, and also being in physical pain from your own nervousness. But I’m here to chronicle the easy things about today.

Today I loved:
The cool wind and cooler temperatures.
A batch of totally butt kicking good fresh salsa, and guacamole.
Chips and the afore mentioned salsa for lunch.
Olathe corn on the cob for dinner, with a bit of delicious melted butter.
Helpful kids.
Kids who actually want to listen to me read a book (with very few pictures, mind you) to them.
Looney Toons.
Kids actually going to sleep right after we put them in bed.
A Lindt white coconut chocolate bar.
Reconnecting with an old and dear friend.
Putting my hair in a pony tail.
Wearing my new sandals.
Helpful friends at swimming lessons.
Selah’s soaking wet and cool body wanting hugs in the heat.
Selah’s expanding vocabulary.
Easy plans for the next day.
An accessible Father who very obviously loves me.
Goofy Facebook status posts.
Caring friends.
A hubby who is easily made happy by a quick skateboard ride in the cul-de-sac.
An entertaining book.
Paper plates.
Being able to make my children giggle.
Imparting wisdom.
Having wisdom imparted to me.
Letting it go.

Notable memories from my 20’s.
-Got engaged and married at 20. Went on a week-long honeymoon of snowboarding at Breckenridge.
-Turned 21 in Utah. On a Sunday. Ha ha.
-Went to California for a family reunion; Kev’s first time joining our family in one of these highly anticipated events.
-Had a job making and painting rocking horses (and dinosaurs, dragons, and swans), and stuffing their butts. (The cushion that one would be sitting on.)
-Went to NYC for the first time, 6 months after 9-11 to work for the afore mentioned company at the American International Toy Fair.
-Became pregnant with my first child.
-Attended a sculpting class with my mom in Loveland, CO from the lovely Paul Lucchesi.
-Graduated from Mesa State College with a degree in Art.
-Gave birth to Drew in January of 03.
-Attended my college graduation ceremonies with 3 month old Drew, where we walked across the stage together, on my very first Mother’s Day.
-Got my very first skateboard, and slowly began learning how to skateboard.
-Sold our first (well, technically Kev’s first) house.
-Moved into Kev’s grandparents studio apartment for 9 months while we searched for a new house to buy.
-Bought our first house in November of 2003, and Kevin promptly began renovations.
-We went to Oklahoma (my first time ever) to visit Kevin’s family, and drove down through Amarillo, Texas to see the Cadillac Ranch.
-Drew turned one.
-After almost 5 months of tearing down and building up, we moved into our home in April of 2004.
-I became pregnant with our second child.
-My sister, Ariel moved in with us for a few months.
-We went to California, and participated in a family reunion. Drew’s first time seeing the ocean.
-My sister, Hannah graduated from college and got married.
-I gave birth to Beau in March of 05, after going 2 weeks overdue, and trying various natural methods to get him to come out, including acupuncture. (I will never try to induce labor through any of those methods again!)
-I started my blog, about 2 months after Beau was born.
-My sister, Ariel got married, after a grand total of 6 months of dating, and a 2.5 month engagement.
-We purchased our first Mac laptop, which I quickly commandeered.
-We bought our Nikon D50, and began taking all kinds of wonderful pictures.
-I began going to a pottery studio on a regular basis (3 years after graduating college…ack!)
-My sister gave birth to her first child, Zoe in 2006, and I was blessed enough to be there to witness the event.
-We went to Oklahoma to visit Kevin’s family, and so he could shoot some important video of his grandmother reading her famous books.
-I became pregnant with my 3rd child.
-I gave birth to my first daughter, Selah, in July of 07, exactly 2 days after Kevin’s birthday and 2 days before mine. (And also on the day of our friends wedding which Kevin was supposed to video-tape)
-Two weeks later, we went out to California for the 3rd family reunion of my 20’s. While we were there, I had my first ever blogger-meet, with Heather, which was pretty cool.
-Drew started Kindergarten.
-Kevin was let go from his job of almost 9 years, and promptly started his own business, which is actually doing pretty well!
-Ariel had her second daughter, Bella, which I was also fortunate enough to witness.
-Much to our mutual surprise, I became pregnant with our 4th child!
-We took an impromptu whirlwind vacation to Nevada, California and Arizona, logging lots of mile driving and lots of fun!

Of course, my twenties are filled with many more memories, some good and some not so good. I guess I wanted to point out the good ones, and let those be the ones that define my twenties. (Who wants to let the bad things define your life anyway!?)
For my thirtieth birthday we didn’t really have a big shindig. (Mostly because, I’m the person who plans those kinds of things around here, and I didn’t really want to do that for my own birthday!) So I got together with my two good buddies and their brood on the day of, my mom and sister, Ariel, the next day, and was lucky enough to be taken out twice by my hubby, who really made sure I was as pampered as could be these past two days. He went outside and played with all (6) of the kids so my buddies and I could chat and relax inside on Thursday, and was doing his best to make sure I didn’t lift a finger (I kind of thwarted his efforts there a little bit. What can I say? The mothering, cooking, housekeeping is very ingrained.) Friday, he watched all three of our kids so I could have lunch and go shopping with just my mom and sis. Then Friday night, his grandparents came up and generously watched the kids for a couple of hours so we could go on a date to our favorite place. I’ve felt like I was on vacation for the last 2 days! It’s been great!

Some things I hope to accomplish/ do in my 30’s:

-create a whole set of stoneware. (really, it’s a shame that I haven’t done this yet. But I HAVE created 4 kids!)
-buy a camper and go on many, many fun camping trips with my family.
-get back into drawing and creating decent works of art, as well as showing them.
-help my kids do their best in life, and at school, etc.
-be the most awesomest, k.a. wife to my loverly hubby!
-grow in my relationships with my family and friends.
-travel, travel, travel.
-learn to ride a bowl (as in skateboarding.)
-snowboard lots and lots every winter.
-teach my kids how to snowboard
-possibly go back to college.
-keep up on all the cool things I do now, and get better at them.
-grow in my relationship with my God, learning more and more about Him, and His love all the time.

Dear baby girl,
Actually you are not such a baby anymore. Each day you are becoming more and more a little girl. And you are not just any little girl, you are a brave, determined, daring, confident, smart and innovative little girl. There is not much that scares you. (Unfortunately, this means I have more to be worried about!) There is no obstacle that is too big for you, no thing that you can’t get around. Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is yours to explore. You are naturally curious, and imitate anything that catches your attention. Most of the time you are trailing after your brothers, trying to be a knight, pirate or Jedi right along with them. You are also constantly under your Mama’s feet trying out everything that she is doing whether it be balancing the checkbook or cooking dinner. I have a feeling you’re going to be very helpful once your understanding and abilities kick into gear.
You are a joyful little girl, and such fun to be around. Always happy and smiling (unless something is not the way you want it,) your laugh is delightful to hear, and your little words (some we are beginning to understand), are cute and petite just like you. The best thing to hear from you is “I love you!” said in a high sing-song voice many times over. (Just in case we forgot!)
There are definitely days where your antics and shenanigans test my patience, and make me wonder about God’s sense of humor when he decided to say “yes” to my request for a daughter. You have stretched me in ways your brothers never did, and definitely gotten into twice the amount of trouble already. But you have also brought a joy to my life and a completeness that wasn’t there before, and I’m sooo thankful God entrusted you to my care. This year will bring another change for you, as you will cease to be the youngest member of our family. This year you will gain a sister, and I’m so hopeful that you will be the best of friends! I’m so glad you get to experience the joy of having a sister, I know I sure do!
So happy birthday to you my first baby girl! I’m looking forward to watching you grow and change in the coming year, and am so happy you’re my daughter!

2 days

2 weeks

2 months

I love you munchkin!

Day 6

Yeah… I got lots of “Brady Bunch” comments on this one. But basically this is what happens when you’re kind of bored and can’t think of anything better to do than make faces at your camera…

Day 7… a video!

This a very short glimpse into my daily life. It’s kind of goofy and awkward, but that’s pretty much me. Oh, and also- I’m not wearing any makeup, and since I’m a blonde it looks like I have no eyelashes. (I hate that.)

Here is the garden two weeks ago.

Here is the garden yesterday.

Um, I think it’s safe to say that I planted my plants a little too close together. What can I say, I was trying to squeeze in as much I could. I think next year I’ll have a bigger space. On the other side, the plants are starting to take over the sidewalk. There are already several tomatoes on the vine, they’re just not ripe yet.

Tons of little grape tomatoes on the way! Yay!

…and here’s someone lurking in the jungle…

Here is day 3. Just a simple shot of me and the boys. If you look closely, you’ll notice that Drew is about to lose his first tooth, and that both of the boys managed to have a genuine smile. (That is nothing short of a miracle!)

Day 4. Looking up. What else can you do after a crappy day? If you caught my tweet yesterday, it said that “I wished I were Vulcan” (Minus the bad hair,) meaning, I wish I had better control over my emotions, or none at all. We’ll just call it “hormotional.”

Day 5 with the theme “Hands”. Today was a much better day. I was able to (finally) go over to the pottery studio and play in the mud. I did this early in the day this time, because every other Wednesday, by the time it gets to evening the only thing I feel like doing is sitting in bed. It was a good call. I was by myself (plus), got to listen to my own music on my iPod (plus), and was not tired (plus.) I am working on bringing my pots up into a “bottle-neck”, for lack of a better term, and was not entirely successful today. I need to get a little more instruction from my mentor at the studio.

Just hanging out with my girls on the front patio. Sunday was a great day to have the Relax theme for sure. We had a leisurely morning of doing nothing, and then headed over to grandma’s for lunch, and then back home for a nice long nap. Then we enjoyed the rainbow and the front yard together. That is Kev in the background, playing with his wide-angle lens. I don’t know if he’ll make an appearance this time or not, but I’ve sure been trying to get him to!