The Big Reveal

When Brynn moved out over a month ago I decided to make her old room into Clare's room. I was totally hating the green we had put in Clare's room so this was a good excuse to redo the nursery. Not to mention her room would now be further down the hall and a closet would be separating her from Sage's room. Brent's step mom, Jane, made these beautiful curtains so I was searching for an idea that would work with them (something modern and still little girl) and I found it in last month's issue of Parenting magazine. When Bruce and Jane visited this weekend they put the final touch to the room by hanging the curtains for me. Brent knew I was doing something in that room but I did not give him any clues as to what so this is the big reveal for him too. I'm totally happy with it and even though it probably took about 15 hours total to do, I would definitely do it again.

A Great Gift Idea

In my need to sometimes rush time a bit, I'm beginning to think about Christmas and I was going through my list of ideas I keep when I see something in a magazine or online that would seem like a great gift. I love to give gifts that are personal and meaningful and this one I've held onto a couple of years now because I think it's absolutely brilliant. You can send a picture of a house and this company will hand paint it onto an ornament for $30. I love this so much that I plan on getting one done for every house we live in. The website has a ton of other really great ideas, this one just tops my list. Anyway, check it out at http://www.personalcreations.com/shop/product.asp?product_code=3793&world_code=1&category_code=302&subcategory_code=3034&search_type=subcategory#

Bundle Up!

It has been uncharacteristically cold here in Omaha this past week and I'm LOVING it. There is that nice, crisp autumn briskness to the air that I look forward to every year. Fall is, hands down, my favorite season. To me fall is sitting by a fire in my cozy, chocolate brown sweater and sipping a cup of hot apple cider as the leaves slowly float to the ground around me. I always conveniently forget that all those gorgeous crimson and burnt orange leaves are going to have to be raked.

To be honest though, what I love the most is the clothes. All the cheesy summer clothes that always end up grimy after a sweltering hot day, are traded in for new duds that are effortlessly fabulous with an air of sophistication to them--that is, most clothes leave this impression except the sweaters with leaves and apples sewn on them. Ladies you know who you are, please stop wearing them. It is not necessary to attach felt leaves to you clothes to make them suitable for fall.

Back to the weather. The temperature has been dipping in the evening so in the spirit of Sage's book "Apple Tree Christmas," (Don't get me started on how it's possible to pick apples to hang on your CHRISTMAS tree) in which a terrible blizzard comes and the family that lives above a barn needs to bundle up the two girls and make a bed for them under the kitchen table next to the wood stove because it could drop to forty below, I too prepare the girls for the cold nights ahead in which I refuse to turn the heat on for. Yes, we will survive the frigid night the same way the Ansterburgs did except our nights will be in an actual house and not a barn...and it isn't quite a blizzard that we're experiencing...oh dear, I don't have a wood stove, just a gas fireplace and Sage might squash Clare if I lay them down together...however, I did rush out to buy them some thermal pajamas and I did make quite a show at bundling them up! That's right, for two nights we braved the cold until night three when the girls started waking up because of the constant chatter of their teeth and I was forced to turn the heat on. Well, maybe my great inspiration from "Apple Tree Christmas" will be to go pick apples with the girls this week and then bake dozens of apple pies in my wood stove...oh wait.

To Love And To Cherish

Brace yourselves, this blog is a bit mushy.

Six years ago I made the best decision of my life; I married Brent. Since then our marriage has grown into something that we both treasure and protect. There is a long story on what it took for us to get to the point of marriage that maybe I'll write about some other day but today I just want to say that I really love this man. Seriously, he is an amazing guy and I keep trying to figure out what I did that was so great to deserve him. He's brilliant and yet so humble you would never know just how smart he is. Everything about him is true to who he is, his words, his actions--there is no pretense, just honesty. He is not one to lavish on me or spew out romance constantly but there are words and letters (oh, he writes the most beautiful letters) spoken from the heart and I never have to question if he really means it or is he just saying it.
I use to work at a tv station that aired the Dr. Phil show and I would have to watch it and there was one thing that Dr. Phil said that I've never forgotten. He talked about how a husband should always aim to treat his wife in such a way that if she walked into a room filled with hundreds of other women she would feel that no one there was as loved and respected by their husbands as she was. The room could be filled with thousands of women and I know this would be true for me. And honestly, it just makes me want to love and respect him more.
You'd think I would be really sad that we can't be together this year on our anniversary but you know, I'm really okay with it. The doorbell rang yesterday and when I opened it all I saw was this enormous bouquet of flowers with legs at the bottom of it. Right after I brought them in the house Brent called and then we were able to chat online and see each other with our webcams. It wasn't a candlelight dinner at a fancy restaurant but it was still wonderful. However, I do hope this is the last anniversary that we spend apart.

Love this!

Okay, here's my new item that is regularly thrown into the grocery cart. It's Breyer's fat free double churned ice cream--specifically the mint fudge. It's wonderfully creamy and only 100 calories per serving. You would never guess it's fat free. I love to find desserts that are low cal and low fat and still taste like a wonderful treat. You can enjoy a bowl of ice cream with no regrets and no thoughts of how this will cost you a few miles on the treadmill. My wonderful in-laws (who also read this blog) were just here and are usually less than thrilled at being offered something labeled fat free, however, they are doing really well on their new health kick and were willing to try it and from what I saw they were surprised at how delicious it was. That, or they were being super nice in my delicate case of being one step away from losing my SANITY! Anyway, if you have Breyer's ice cream where you live, try it and let me know what you think.

She Cracks Me Up

Since Brent has been gone Sage has been dealing with his abscence in different ways. At first she would pucker up her lips and say at the most random moments "I miss Daddy." Then she would sit with the video he made of himself reading stories to her and she would grab whatever book he was reading and read along with him--that is, she would read the story at her own pace, often reading one book as he goes through three others. Then she started to take a liking to a bear that when you squeeze the paw you'll hear Brent telling Sage he loves and misses her and so on. So she squeezes the paw and as soon as she hears his voice she holds the bear up to her face and yells "I love you Daddy. I miss you." That one still chokes me up every time she does it.

The other day she was playing with the money from her piggy bank when I grabbed a dime and asked her who the man on it was. She studies it for a few seconds and then very seriously says "It's Daddy." To which I, barely holding in the laughter, respond "that's Daddy?" She brings it up so close to her face that she's looking at it cross-eyed. "Yes...it's Daddy."

Personally, I don't really see the resemblance between FDR and Brent but hey, if it makes her feel closer to her Daddy, then move over FDR!

He Restores Me

I'm tired. Don't worry, I'm not going to sit hear and boo-hoo to you. I just need to tell everyone that going solo with the girls day after day is exhausting. The good news is that for the last week Clare has slept through the night (thank you Lord!) and then one of them usually wakes up at about 6am. However, I'm beginning to think that tiredness has more to do with the little amount of time that I get to myself. Most days their naps end up staggered and so that leaves me with about an hour to myself at night before I head to bed. That hour is very precious to me.

So that brings me to tonight. I got a babysitter because tonight was the MOPS (Mothers of preschoolers) open house and I had thought it would be a good idea to join. Everyone says that it's good to commiserate with other Moms', right? This group meets in once a month in the evenings and then I think they also organize some playgroups. As this afternoon hit and let's just say that someone must have THROWN herself off the wrong side of the bed after her nap and was determined to make it known to the rest of the people in this house, I started to dread an evening surrounded by moms talking about their perky little children. All of a sudden the idea of me joining MOPS just sounded ludicrous to me. If there is one thing I know about myself it's that when I'm stressed, my true introverted side of me comes out and I just need to be by myself to recoup. So when Erin showed up to babysit I told her I was heading to Borders bookstore for the evening.

Ahhhh.

It's like getting a brain massage.

Here's the frosting of my evening; I'm walking through the aisles, still feeling pretty sorry for myself, which then annoys me that I have such a bad attitude so I start asking God to help me and to strengthen me. Literally two seconds after my quick prayer, my eye catches the name of my most beloved author, Corrie Ten Boom. If you've never read her book "The Hiding Place," please do. It's an amazing story of her survival during WWII after her family was arrested for hiding Jews and then the life she led after she was released. Just seeing her name brought tears to my eyes because the way she lived her life and just gave all of herself to God has inspired me more than I can describe since I first read "The Hiding Place" in junior high. Next to that book I saw her name with a title I'd never heard before, "I Stand At The Door And Knock." It's a book with forty never-before-published devotions that she wrote. This book was just published this year even though she died in 1983. I can't even tell you what this is for me except that there are tears running down my face right now. I feel like tonight God stepped in and did something for me that Brent would have done if he were here. It's almost like He said "Oh, she could use some cheering up. Let's show her this book, it will make her happy." It wouldn't have surprised me if I had found a bow on it! There is so much in this world that I don't know, or understand, or can begin to comprehend but what I know for certain is that God loves so completely and tenderly--we have all but to ask and He's there to show us how great He loves.