My Mama's Birthday

On October 20th, my mama turned 60!  I am not a very good gift giver.

 However, I was killing time doing my new favorite past time, and came across this idea.  This year has been tough for my mom with losing her dad (and little did we know that 6 days after her birthday we'd get the call that she needed to get to Idaho asap to sit next to her mama for 2.5 before she passed away.), and I wanted it to be SPECIAL.  So, I decided to copy that idea to a tee.

The response was phenomenal.  I think I ended up with 83 notes from 58 people.  It was SO COOL.  There were hand written notes and emailed ones.  Pictures.  Notes that had me crying and notes that had me giggling, alone in my kitchen.

Every single note was special.  There were some from people my mom grew up with, and some from my friends now (who are her friends too.)  My kids, and even Joel, wrote notes.  The 'crown jewel' though, was from my mom's uncle, who wrote about the day my mom was born and the first time he saw her.  He wrote about my Papa on that day even.  Priceless.

 

It was freaking amazing.

I bought coordinating bright paper for the emailed notes and bright purple envelopes.

After school that day, the kids and I took Mom to the coast for dinner.  It was late October, but we were blessed with a gorgeous day.  For once, there was no wind at the beach- such an incredible evening.

Once we sat down and got settled, Mom opened the cards the kids had made here.  So sweet.

Then the card from me, where I told her about her other present, a weekend away with just me!  We rarely do things just the two of us, so it was a rare treat for us both! 

 

She was super surprised.  And happy.

 
After that, I couldn't wait another moment.  I was SO excited to give it to her!  As soon as I pulled the stack on envelopes, my mom started to cry.  In the first envelope I put the letter from me, with an explanation of the project.  The second held the letters from Joel and the kids, and the third had the letter from my mom's uncle.  We were both ugly crying before our cocktails even arrived, and we definitely made the waiter more than a little nervous!

 She's going to kill me for posting this.  It was super emotional for us both though.  I'm so thankful my mom thought the project was as special as I thought it was!


Our dinner was so good, and my mom read her notes, one by one, as the evening progressed.  The kids were so good, (Carter was a little freaked by all the crying), and they hung out on the outside deck for a little while.

When we were finally done at the restaurant, we decided to walk down to the ocean for a minute.  It was getting late, but it was still so nice out.

My mom was only about halfway done with reading all the letters but when we got back to our house, I put the kids to bed and got in bed myself.  She wasn't tired yet and I heard her for quite a while down stairs giggling and laughing as she read through the rest.



It was an awesome day.  We had no idea, none, that a week later my Grammy would be in her last few hours, and I am so thankful that the timing was what it was so my mom could enjoy her day.  Happy Birthday, Mama!  I love you!


And THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all of you who contributed! 

Soccer, Fall 2011

I really {really} love Fall soccer.  This year was especially exceptional, truly. Joel coached G's team, which made our life just a tiny bit more nuts, but was mostly just really fun.  And for the first time, we had two kids playing soccer!  It was Carter's first season and he LOVED it.

 Carter's teams was called "The Golden Jedis", and Carter was so ready to play hard, after years of watching G play!  I didn't get a lot of pictures, since I was chasing Rebeka or running back and forth between fields since games were often simultaneous.

G's team was stinking good.  They were undefeated, or, as G said, "Undefeatable!" 

We were blessed with nearly perfect fall weather, and it was just awesome.  That being said, the season ended at just the perfect time- when we were all starting to grow weary of the multiple evenings a week and the rain and colder temps were just about to make us really whiny.

Well. Hello There.

What to say?  The usual?  So busy!  So much going on!

And it's true really.  I have four 'babies' and it's wild.  I'm currently typing with a 19 month old on my lap, as she tries to figure out the code for my iphone (aaaannndd, now she's disabled the phone, temporarily), as she kicks her legs to the music that's she's somehow turned on.

Spending much time online is tricky with a very busy, curious, and cute 19 month old.  Plus there's the whole 'blink and she's grown' phenomenon.

Also, we moved.  Moving is a really big job.  Like, REALLY big.  I hope we don't choose to do that again anytime soon.  But I do love love love our new home, and our new neighborhood is pretty much the funnest thing ever.  (We are now in VERY close proximity to many of our VERY favorite people.)  AND, now my kids ride the bus to school!  Can I get a WOOHOOOO?  It's seriously the best thing ever.  Change my life good, I'm telling you.

Another excuse is that my computer is limping and barely with us.  It's a gigantic pain to get pictures off of my camera and an even more gigantic pain to get them on this blog.

And finally, grief.  Grief is weird.  It's exhausting and sad, even the kind of grief that is just a part of life.  Even the kind of grief that is accompanied by a measure of relief and extreme gratefulness for what was.  It's tricky and really sad.  It's the ugly cry at movies that are supposed to be funny and new grief at old things that you thought were taken care of.  It's weird and it's kind of stolen my words for a while.  But, I miss blogging.  I miss having this record and journal of my life, of the good and the funny at least.

So, no promises.  But we'll see.

And just because you need a picture:

She's pretty fun.  (The other three are pretty awesome too.)