so in love with

The New Guys

Okay, so it's mostly a madhouse around here with three extra munchkins...

 

It's messy,

 

and busy

and fun

and entertaining.

They're playful

and sweet.

It's great really.

 

And it's exhausting too.  We have a good time though.  We love them.  I don't even mind making thousands of cups of juice and picking up millions of toys a day.  

Because, The New Guys? Wonderful.

Good Days

Lots of 'em lately.  Okay well, Monday was pretty terrible, but the thing is-  Tuesday?  A whole new day.

So that was awesome.  There is just so much to be thankful for.  Good, good stuff. 

It's all gravy you know?  Giffen made dinner (including appetizers) Monday night. 

Gabe told Emma that she was "Just the cutest girl in the whole world" today on our walk home. 

Emmy mastered a pirouette this afternoon, kind of.

Grace snuggles with me every morning now.

Fly is busy, busy, busy.  And so so great.  Oh! Our wedding site is up- check it.  Boy do we love Love Stories.  

If you don't hear from me for a bit it's cause I'm super busy enjoying autumn, and cuddling kids, and loving life.

 
Oh and speaking of cuddling!  How flippin' adorable is Cole? 

I know right.

I don't know, it's not that there aren't bad days it's just that...  that sun keeps rising and shining on brand new days.

Anywho, life is good an all that jazz.  

Jesus loves me (and you, and you, and you over there, and you in the back) this I know.  Also, my kids rock my socks off pretty much daily. 

 

The Way She Loves

A couple of things about Grace:

            When I got pregnant with her I was on the edge of depression.  Kind of scared about where my marriage and life were going.  A little overwhelmed with the three Little Wonders that I already had, and well just not in a great place.  So the news that I was pregnant hit me like a ton of bricks, and not in a good way.  It was very unlike my other pregnancies where I sort of fell in love immediately with the little being inside of my belly. 

After a couple of days of laying in bed half hoping the pregnancy test was wrong, I went to lunch with Debby.  At that point she was still mostly a formal-ish mentor.  We met up at La Madeline and while standing in line, she noticed my pout-iness.  She asked what was wrong and I sort of mumbled out “Oh, I’m pregnant.”  Now Debby is kind of er…  reserved, or, I don’t know, she‘s just not very reactive.  She’s kind of known for keeping her cool.  Anyway, so I halfheartedly say “I’m pregnant.”  And she- I’m not kidding you, she jumps up into the air and kind of screeches out some excitement and hugs me.  It was bizarre.  Wonderful and bizarre.

            I did my best to calm her down “Oh, no.  We’re not excited.”  That’s what I said.  In a very Eyore kind of tone, I tried to talk her into being sad about me having a baby.  Didn’t work though.  She was super happy about it and I thought “Either she knows something I don’t know or she is crazy.”  I gotta be honest, I was leaning towards crazy. 

It really was not until Pie was born and I laid eyes on her sweet little face that I totally fell in love with her.  But man did I fall hard.  She, like all of my kiddos, is so uniquely special and wonderful.  Gracey’s uniqueness though is an effervescence of well, Grace.  Her gift to me and I think to others is that she loves easily and well.  I hope that all of my kids have some of this gift, I think they do, but it is just her nature to love and be loved without pretense.

Our life was Turned Upside Down before she was even a year old.  Her babyhood  was so totally different from my other ones, not as peaceful, less ideal.  She spent more time away from me than any of my babies did.  And now she is so, so, so independent.  She will never remember living in a house with both of her parents.  Her birthday and holiday memories will only contain one parent or the other.  Hard stuff to think about, only for me though, not for her. 

 

She might be tiny but her spirit and her capacity for Love are huge. She is fierce, my little Gracey Pie, fierce, and undeterred, and sweet, and funny, and too smart for her own good, and loud, and proud, and beautiful, and generous, and kind, and full of words and life and love.

So the other day when I looked at this photo I thought back to Debby jumping to congratulate me about being pregnant with Grace.

And I thought- She totally knew.  

Bridget

Happy Birthday Bridge-

One of the best friends anyone in the whole world could have, for all of the wonderful reasons Erin wrote and more.  Love shines through her pretty much constantly.  I really can’t remember ever looking at her and not seeing love in her eyes.  One of those friends who is there in heartbeat when you need them, before you even have to ask.  She is a giver and a doer.  One of those friends who in good times will celebrate and laugh with you, and in hard times, will hold you up and help you. She just loves so well.  I think maybe this has to do with how well she is loved and how well she receives love.  This girl has an enormous capacity to do those things.  She is open and warm and bright, jeez she’s bright.  

She and Erin are two of my very best friends.  So very different, but still they are friends, a feat I hope my girls manage when they are grown ups.  And they are something like sisters to me, so, so thankful for that.

My girls have them to look up to though and I love that.  They love their “Bidget” dearly and she loves them back the same and the boys too.  So I have this amazing friend and my kids have this amazing aunt and I am so incredibly grateful that so much of our lives run together. 

 

Brigdet Alison,

You are beautiful and lovely and sweet.  Thank you for loving me the way you have.  Thank you for big-sistering me.  I could maybe never thank you enough for the way you love my kids.  And for helping me through the crazy awful mess that was last year.  This next year I’m sure holds big amazing things for you.  Can’t wait to see where you’re gonna go and what He’s gonna do.  I’m sure whatever happens you’ll shine, you always do. 

Love you so so much always,

Amber

 

Yummy

Fact:  It is physically impossible for me to clean my kitchen when my girls are playing in yummy light.

 

Fact: These cookies are healthier than most breakfast cereals.  

Fact: We eat them for breakfast sometimes

 

Here's the recipe.  It's a combination of a couple recipes and adjustments I've thrown together.  They aren't pancake-y like some applesauce cookies because I adjusted the baking soda and flour amounts. Although removing the oatmeal, besides removing some of the nutritional value, does make them a bit more pancake-y, don't really recommend it.   And the applesauce adds sweetness so these need less sugar than most cookies.

Yummy Healthy Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup applesauce
1/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 four
1 tsp baking soda
3 cups quick oats
1 cup chocolate chips 

   1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
   2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, applesauce, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy.
   3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla.
   4. Combine the flour, salt, and baking soda, then gradually stir into the creamed mixture.
   5. Finally, stir in the oats and chocolate chips.   (I sometimes refrigerate for 15-20min. before baking so they won't spread as much, keeps the middle nice and soft and the outside  crispy)
   6. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet.
   7. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

 

Fact: A cookie-less house leads to two-year-olds biting their sisters.

(No sisters were harmed in the making of this storyboard.  Okay maybe a little, but I made her some cookies very shortly after.)

Running Dialogue

In order to avoid the “How was your day?”  “Fine.” scenario around here, we play a little game.  Each night at dinner, every person says their high and low for the day.  Highs are generally things like “I got a 100 on my spelling test” or “This spaghetti is so yummy.”  Lows range from “My friend at school said something mean to me and hurt my feelings” to “I don’t like eating broccoli for dinner.” Hopefully this does a few of things.  Hopefully it teaches them to all listen, to pay attention, to ask questions and to care about others around them.  Hopefully it is giving them a time and space to talk about their feelings and have them validated.  Hopefully it is giving them some perspective and helping them understand that things are generally not all good or all bad. 

These are things that I am only just figuring out and wish I’d understood more clearly earlier in life.  Concepts I would love to help them have some comprehension of.  Mostly it’s just fun for me to hear them talk about their days and discuss whatever issues they might have, big or small. 

Life has been pretty good around here lately.  A few nights last week, there were no lows at the table.  They celebrated with fist bumps and high fives.  I explained that it was not the most important thing that we not have any lows, but more important that we were all able to sit and talk with each other about the good and bad things in our lives. 

Really I have no idea what impact any of this will have on their lives.  Kinda wish I could fast forward and sit down with their adult selves and see, but I can’t.  I do think it is keeping an oh so important running dialogue going between me and My Loves. 

Hopefully. 

Cooking (Eating)

   

    Not really news to peeps who know me, but earlier this year I struggled with some disordered eating issues.  I jokingly said many a time when complimented on losing weight that "divorce does wonders for the figure."  Unfortunately that's partially true.  For me it was for all the wrong reasons though. 

    Among the hundreds of things that were shaken in me over the last couple of years, self image was one of the most shaken, and understandably so I think.  The lack of control I felt over my life contributed as well; I compensated by trying to control anything that I could, that mostly played out in my eating habits.  I went from healthy changes like cutting down on snacking and eating late at night to eating nothing but a half slice of dry toast, raw spinach and tomatoes in a day. 

    Not eating gave me some sense of control and hunger felt good.  Things were not good.  My goal went from being healthy to being thin.  The thing is towards the end, I realized I wasn't in control of my eating at all.  It was in control of me.  Twice when I went to have a cookie with my kids, I found myself literally unable to swallow it.  Something in my brain told me that eating a freaking Oreo would make me fat.  I walked to the trash and spit it out.  And then I freaked out.  And then I got help.  With lots of counseling, prayer, talking, more praying, grieving and letting go - I'm kind of in love with food again. 

    Everything in moderation of course, but my goodness cooking and eating are fun.  We eat a pretty healthy, mostly vegetarian diet around here.  We go for walks and bike rides.  Some pizza and a little dessert aren't gonna kill me.  I'm only just discovering this.  Let me tell you, it's a super fantastic realization.

    So here's a recent recipe that we (almost) all loved (Gabe had his sans eggplant and mushrooms).

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound eggplant, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
• 1/2 pound medium fresh mushrooms, cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 3 small zucchini, cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch slices
• 2 sweet red pepper, cut lengthwise into 6 pieces each
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 (15 ounce) container reduced-fat ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 (26 ounce) jar meatless spaghetti sauce
• 12 no-boil lasagna noodles
• 2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh basil

DIRECTIONS
Coat two 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pans with nonstick cooking spray. Place eggplant and mushrooms on a prepared pan. Place the zucchini and red pepper on the second pan. Combine the oil and garlic; brush over both sides of vegetables. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes. Turn vegetables over. Bake 15 minutes longer. Remove eggplant and mushrooms. Bake zucchini and red pepper 5-10 minutes longer or until edges are browned.
In a bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and eggs. Spread about 1/4 cup pasta sauce in a 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Layer with four lasagna noodles (noodles will overlap slightly), half of ricotta cheese mixture, half of vegetables, a third of pasta sauce and 2/3 cup mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with half of basil. Repeat layers. Top with the remaining noodles and pasta sauce.
Cover and bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 5-10 minutes longer or until edges are bubbly and cheese is melted. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

Nutritional Analysis: 1 piece equals 361 calories, 15 g fat (6 g saturated fat), 31 mg cholesterol, 820 mg sodium, 40 g carbohydrate, 5 g fiber, 19 g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 2 lean meat, 2 starch, 2 vegetable, 1 fat.

More yummy recipes to come.  And if you have or are struggling with eating issues.  I feel your pain, there is hope.  Let's have a coffee sometime. 

My Job

You guys.  My job?  Love. 

Seriously. I somehow get paid to do what I love.  I somehow get paid to do what I love with one of my best friends.  And I get to spend tons of time with my kids.  And fulfill this very real need that I have in me to capture moments, and faces, and laughs, and ways, and tears, and hands, and glances, and toes...     Another day I will write about what photography is to me and how it found me and how I adore it.  

Tonight I am just fully aware of how blessed I am that this is what I get to do.  

Lucca's Mother

Monday at five, dinner is on the stove, homework is being done at the table, I’m in sweats, Grace is having a fit about something, the house is in a state of post school disaster.  And then some Italians come to my door. Claudio, a man who speaks pretty good English, Carmen, a woman who speaks no English, and a girl who looks to be about thirteen and doesn’t speak at all. 

The man explains that this woman had a son, Lucca, who came to live here in this house a little over two years ago.  Her son was going to flight school, training to be a pilot, and while he was here, his plane crashed and he died. Carmen, the mother, would like to come in and walk through the house where her son lived before he so tragically died.  All of this is explained to me while the kids are running around, asking when dinner will be ready, throwing things and, well, just doing what kids do.  I ask the three lovely Italians if they can wait five minutes while I attempt to get my home in some semblance of order.  They nod and smile and I close the door and scramble around throwing piles of things into closets and begging my children to please, please calm down and behave. 

As I open the door again I notice how incredibly beautiful Carmen is.   She is tiny with olive skin, in her fifties maybe.  Her hair is black, long, silky, movie star hair.  Her eyes are dark as dark can be and already wet with tears.   She glances up at me in between stretches of floor gazing and a lump forms in my throat.  Claudio is talking, explaining still, but I don’t take my eyes off of her.  Her sadness is heavy and kind of hangs in the air.  If I can take some of it, even for a little while, I will, because I can’t imagine going through what she’s been through.  I can't imagine losing a child, can’t imagine my son going to another country for school and never coming home. 

Claudio is not her husband or the boy’s father, he is the lawyer who handled getting all of her sons things settled when all of this happened, he is here to translate for her, but really she has little to say as I walk her through the house.  She grasps my hand and we walk back to the bedrooms, a tear or two falling along the way.  The translator does not follow, so when she does ask me a question or two, I have to stumble through my broken Spanish vocabulary, figure out what she is asking in Italian and attempt to answer her as best I can.  The whole time I’m whispering “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…”

“The bunk beds are the only thing left that was here when Lucca lived here.” I somehow manage to communicate.  She slowly walks over to them one hand cupped over her mouth and runs her fingers down the wood.  She says something in Italian that I gather to mean “Where were the beds before?” and I explain that they were in my bedroom originally.  She clutches my hand again and we walk to my room where again she places a hand on her mouth and a few more silent tears fall.  We stand there for a few minutes while she scans the room and takes in what she can of the place where her son last lived.  The man and the girl are still in the living room where my kiddos are tuned in to PBS and all too impatiently awaiting dinner time. 

As Carmen and I walk in to meet them, Claudio thanks me and we begin to say our goodbyes.  He tells me they will be visiting the crash site the next day and thanks me again.  Carmen looks up from the floor once more and utters her thank yous.   Her shoulders shrug hard with the shudder of holding back sobs.  I hug her, hard.  She hugs me back and weeps into my shoulder.  We stand in my kitchen and cry together.  A few minutes pass and we dry our eyes, look at each other and begin to say our goodbyes again. 

I ask Claudio if I can pray before they leave, they agree.  I stare at the floor, mumble a quiet little prayer for peace for them all, and grace, and of thanks for Lucca and this encounter that we’ve had.  She holds my hand, looks at me with her glassy eyes and says something I don’t understand.  “She would like to pray for you as well” he says.  And then she strokes my hand and stares straight into my face and delivers a graceful few lines in Italian that he translates to “Thank you for these beautiful children and what a wonderful mother you are.  May God never allow you to be separated from them.” 

Tears in my eyes again, I say “Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Thank you for bringing her.  Thank you for coming here.”  I hug them all, the girl last, the girl who did not make a sound the whole time.  I ask if she was his sister, she softly replies “No, a friend” and I hug her again.  As I walk them to the door, passed my children with their very bewildered looks, the girl stammers “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…” all the way out she mumbled it and as I went to close the door she pushed it open a little, looked me in the eyes and said it three more times.

And they were gone.  And I stood stunned for a few minutes at our profound encounter.  I hope never to forget it, the beauty, and sorrow, and pain, and love that passed through my house that evening.  I let it wash over me for a bit, the emotion, the intensity, the incomprehensible grace that surrounded us.  Thank You, thank You, thank You.

Cooking With Pie

We made chocolate-chocolate chip-banana muffins yesterday afternoon.  About half way through the process I went to go check on the boys out front.  Since the batter was pre-egg, I figured it would be fine to leave her with it for a minute.  "Here Pie, you stir.  Don't eat it."   And then, well, I came back to this:

"Oh, hey Mom."

"Grace.  Did you eat some?"

"Who me?!  Nuh-uh."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah.  I Didn't eat any."

"Really?  It looks like you ate some."

"Noooooo."

"Well, what's that all over your face?"

"Hmm...  Don't know."

She's a mess that Pie. 

Not to be trusted with muffin batter that's for sure.