Happy Easter!

Easter is a wonderful holiday. I love the traditions, love the season, love the meaning behind it.

Wishing everyone a full heart and a full basket on this Sabbath Day.

A New Year

**There's nothing like seeing Christmas through the eyes of little ones.**

I have friends who take issue with the whole idea of New Years Resolutions. Their general beef, as I understand it, is why wait for January to make resolutions? I get that. On the other hand, I am not averse to a built in reminder to stop and reflect. My life gets so busy that it's easy to just keep on moving without setting new goals or taking a step back to survey where we've been and where we're going.

When I graduated from residency, one of the strangest things for me was the fact that I no longer had an academic or training schedule to mark time by. Life just stretched out in front of me as one great expanse. I think the whole New Years phenomenon fights against that in a good way. It breaks down time into pieces that we can measure and make sense of. As I’ve read blog posts recently, I've seen a lot of, '2010 was a struggle, but 2011 was restorative.' Or, "2011 brought change" etc., I think it's nice to have these discreet time frames that we can assess, learn from, and then move on from. It's like September for those of us no longer in school. A fresh slate. Or, to modify an Anne of Green Gables quote, 'A new year with no mistakes in it'. (uh, well...it was eight days ago.)


**Taking her new bitty twin on a ride on Drummer's new radio flyer.**

So what are my resolutions? Well, they look an awful lot like last years. So many of the most important goals are lifelong journeys.

But there is one overarching thing I want to keep in my mind this year. As I lay in bed last weekend, contemplating the new year and letting my mind consider what I would want to pay more attention to in the new year, one word came to me: Teach.

And then as I thought about my children, where I feel the most urgency to apply that word, two more came in quick succession: by example.

Yes, I want to seize the moments I have to teach them directly about the world, about how to be a good person, about what is important and right.


**She's all about teaching her doll children the way the world works. Finally, she's the boss!**

But I also want to remember that everyday they are watching me, soaking up my example.

Recently while we were driving, a car cut us off, causing us to get stuck at a light. Tiny said, "Oh! Why is that car being so annoying!?" I laughed in the way you do when you hear your own words parroted back to you. And I made a mental note to keep my trapper closed on the road.

But it also underscored what a powerful opportunity we parents have to put out into their world the things we really want them to be infused with.

Last week while the kids were playing in the basement, I sat on Rockstar's lap, and He and I laughed as we talked about the day. Eva looked over at us and a huge smile appeared on her face. "You guys are silly," she said. It occurred to me that a lifetime of witnessing moments like that will do more to inform her opinion of how to have a loving marriage than anything I could sit down and tell her.

How I handle my mistakes and persist in hard things will likely be as pivotal for my kids as any pep talks I could give them about 'not giving up'.

How I look out for those around me will naturally teach them how we treat our fellow man.

So, this year, I do want to accomplish lots of little concrete goals that I've jotted down in my iphone. I do want to think about who I want to be. But more importantly? I want to think about who I want my children to witness me being.

Happy 2012, everyone.

Merry Christmas

**Breakfast with Santa. Drummer looks nonplussed.**


**Who is this guy, mom?**

It's true that the holidays can be a little crazy. There is a lot of baking, wrapping, shopping, mailing, caroling, writing, and decorating to be done. And by the number of articles I see about reducing holiday stress, this is a pervasive issue.

I'm not immune to December getting crazy, though I think I reduce my stress by reducing expectations for myself. i.e., I am not the mom delivering plates of 10 varieties of homemade cookies (though I will decline to say how many of those received that I have eaten!)


**Cookies that I did not make, but have enjoyed tremendously. c/o my MIL.**

But any time I start to get stressed, I make myself think about the Christmas's of just a few short years ago.


**I had my eye on an a semi pricey advent calendar, but wanted to save money. I found this DIY on Oh Happy Day and am pleased as punch with the result. Hopefully next year I'll actually put things in them.**

I've always been a Christmas junkie and so the medical student/resident years were especially hard during the month of December. I wanted so much to bathe in the holiday spirit--to sit by the twinkle lights, go see the nutcracker, and drink hot chocolate at home by the tree. Working the hours I was, that just wasn't going to happen. I would dream of a Christmas Future where I would get to indulge all of my Christmas fantasies.


**Our mantle came with a plug right in the middle. Hooray for more twinkle lights!**


In order to quiet the longing for a month of Holiday Immersion, I'd bring my ipod shuffle to work. Clipped inside my coat where no one could see, I'd put one earbud in, tucked under my long hair. The Christmas carols played on a loop while I walked around the hospital; writing orders, checking on patients (I hit pause!), and answering pages. It helped--my own tiny connection to the holiday season.


**Hark! Drummer spies a train at a gorgeous exhibit we visit every year.**

Now that I'm living that Christmas Future, I feel like I'm duty bound to enjoy it doubly for all the years I couldn't. But I also remember with fondness my small efforts to make the holidays work within the season of life that I was. Because as much as I adore all the parties and gift exchanges, I know that's not what it's really about. For me, it's about the birth of our Savior, back in the meridian of time. And the magic of that was as present with me in my scrubs and clogs, in the four white walls of a hospital, as it is now in my cozy home with carols blasting.


**My connection to Christmas.**

My Christmas wish for you is the same whether you are having an ipod-shuffle-in-your-ear kind of Christmas or a month of Christmas Immersion: That at least some corner of it be Merry and Bright.

Merry Christmas.

Curtains Down, Curtains Up

You know, when it first starts to get dark at 5:00 in the evening, I get a touch of anticipatory anxiety. Winter must be almost here! With Thanksgiving a mere week away, it's hard to ignore that fall will soon be a memory.

And after months of indulging my wanderlust, I sometimes worry that winter will make me feel boxed in. But then I think about the yin to my wanderlust yang, which is coziness. And winter? Winter is the season for coziness. A curtain goes down on the routines of warmer weather, and with that it's curtains up on popcorn popping, hot chocolate stirring, and general homey togetherness.

There are a lot of pleasures to anticipate in the coming months.


**But while the seasons are in transition, I'll savor the lovely days that still come our way. When we stumble upon 65 degree weather, we race off to the zoo for one more chance to admire lions and tigers and flamingoes. Oh my!


**Tiny was entranced.**


**Don't worry, little man, these days will come again. And in the meantime, don't count out trips to the zoo with snow on the ground. It wouldn't be the first time.**


Though our routines change in the winter, we make room for new ones.
Less zoo, more indoor playroom. Fewer outdoor concerts, more movie nights in. Less ice cream (!!!), more baked apples.

And the search for new routines unearths some pleasant surprises. My urge to get out of dodge (read: the kitchen) on Friday evenings is seasonless. So since we can't have outside BBQ's anymore? Well, we decided to head on over to a diner where the lights are always on.



**Chocolate Milkshake Joy.**





**Multiply said joy when it's a shared chocolate shake.**




**We got the windowseat, which was great for our very social Drummer.**


**He waved at nearly ever passerby, and was rewarded with lots of return waves and giggling smiles.**


And it was awesome.

Cold weather? Flu season? Dark evenings? I'm ready for you. Because your fabulous counterpoints include so many of my favorites: Chrismas carols, snowflakes and twinkle lights. And Diner frequenting. :)

Plus, change is always on its way. The winter solstice hits before Christmas, and the idea always surprises me that the light has begun its slow march towards luminous evenings again, when it seems like it just did the opposite.

I guess that's just the way of things.

****************************************************************
To close, I'll leave you with a few links. I work with the youth group at church right now, specifically the girls, and so I think a lot about how to empower them. In honor of them, here are some of my favorite girl power links:

*I'm trying to figure how how to incorporate one of these into Tiny's room.

*I read this article about standards nights months ago when it first made the rounds, but it's still the best article I've read on the topic. I want so much for these girls to understand how powerful they are, and to understand where that power comes from.

*Another article that made the rounds a few months ago, but that I still contemplate as the mom of a young girl.



**Keep on Rockin', my friends.**

Happy Friday. Warm, cold or in between--let's make it good.

This and That

**This is your health article for the week. If you Zumba, do it safely!**

**It takes a lot of this...**


**...to get to that.**


But really the point of those pictures is my sweater. As it turns out, sometimes I swap style secrets with my patients. I've owned this polka-dot skirt for a few months, and really love it. I'd tried it with a few different tops, none of which did it justice. Then my patient walks in wearing the same skirt with the pictured sweater. It perfectly matched the orangey-red stitching on the skirt (which you probably can't see in the picture). I told her how I'd been styling it, she told me where she bought the sweater, and we both left happy. :) Now hopefully we won't both be wearing it at her next office visit.

**This boy's cheeks get more and more delicious. True Story.**



**That was a total 'mom moment'. I'd been playing dressup downstairs with the kids in the morning. Around lunchtime, I came up to see that I'd had this on my head for hours. And, I mean, why not?**




**I love how this shot makes it look like a host of angels were blessing our McDonald's Ice Cream Cone. Tiny's face even mirrors corresponding awe. I've taught her well the value of these cones.**



**That was my first foray into fancy little girl hair. I know it's a messy attempt, but can I get a round of applause here? Cause I was the girl who couldn't do a french braid to save her life while growing up. I finally got around to looking at the blogs with tutorials a friend had sent me, and realized I might not be as hopeless as I'd thought.**




**This was our first visit to the American Girl Doll Store, which was a hit. We'll go back on a less crowded day to get Samantha's hair done, etc., This trip? Tiny was thrilled that she got to pick out whatever she wanted from the bistro dessert case. Which ended up being a pink lollipop.**




**We had a great Independance Day, celebrating with family. This:**


**led to this:**


**then this:**


**and finally this:**


I love the Fourth.

Happy Weekend!