Around Every Single Corner

 

In this life...

 

There are so many unexpected twists and turns...

 

and it really is amazing that I am at this exact moment to meet exact people in this huge world...

 

 and others enter our lives and capture our hearts instantly and by design...

 

and if we stop a minute and feel the breeze in our hair and through the trees...

 

We will remember that we are alive and it's so good to be alive....

 

and there is beauty to smile at...

around every single corner.

A Tug

She's hoping for a tug
at the end of her line

and she spent her last
dime to make it so

with a flashy new pole
and her eyes the color

of sparkles, she pulls
on her green rainboots

to experience the life
of a fishergirl in the

great Idaho pond.  She
waits, still and steady

and wonders what the
tug will feel like and

why it hasn't happened
yet, and I gaze at her

flushy pink cheeks and want
to tell her that I know

what that tug will feel like,

cause

 my

  heart

     just

        felt

               it.

by JW

Hello, Sun

Clouds lay low

and so we had to go

way up the mountain

top, to touch the sun

to say hello, and 

to feel alive 

       again.

Notable moments:

::::::::::sloshing in melty snow water
::::::::witnessing a hundred and more others escaping inversion as well.
::::::the man who barbequed a hamburger and made the world smell good.
::::the single toboggan track that was born a race between Holland and mom vs. Reese and Dad.
(we lost, and so did our cracked sled)
::Greasy Appetizer Feast at Highland's Hollow Brewpub afterwards.

Library Un-Cooping

So, what to do with the kids when you get that "all-cooped-up-is-that-dirty-socks-I-smell" type of feeling in the middle of November?

Go to the library, naturally.

I'm Just a Little Kid!

I'm not going to act like a young lady!  I'm just a little kid!  
   

          -said the mustached-girl to her mother during the tea party.

Touche', Reese. Touche'. 

Captivity

No, this is not my daughter's cry for help.  Well, I sure hope it isn't.

My Holland girl has a hanker for doodling and writing and instead of asking for help verbally, she often writes, "help please" alongside the question she doesn't understand.

Evidently, she does not understand the vocabulary word "captivity". 

I appreciate more than ever before her quirky way of asking for help.  I've been laughing every since.

Love my girl and these impromptu funny times during our education journey at home.

Award-Winning Rolls

These are my rolls.  I made them 22days, 5 hours, and 32 minutes ago. 

They are hard and would hurt someone if used as a weapon.  I mean, they look perfect.  Like I just baked them.  And I swear I didn't put any weird preservative in them. So everyone reaches to grab one, with a hopeful and thankful look in their eyes, until they realize they are really. hard.

But I can't throw them away, so here they sit.  Every so often I ask one of the girls, or Brian, if they want one.  And then I laugh.   I'm one of those people that are far more amused with myself, than others are with me.
I can't bring myself to throw them away.  Not because I take myself and my rolls seriously.  (I am an award-winning baker, now, after all), but because I wouldn't get to ask someone if they want one of my hard-as-rock rolls again.  Or laugh after I ask them that.
And because if I threw the rolls away, it would be nerdy to keep the tray with the second place ribbon on it without the rolls.

My girls think I'm strange.

The funniest part of these rolls, though, is that the girls really wanted me to enter some things into the fair.  So, I entered the only thing I can bake really well.  These rolls. 

For me, truly, the most rewarding part of the fair exhibits, is watching my girls pull in the blue-ribbons.  I love it.  This year, I even had to hold back the tears when Holland realized she won the youth award for creativity, along with a huge blue ribbon and a gift card to an art store.  The excited grins on their faces are so much fun.

So when we went to the box office to allow the girls to gather their prize money, I stayed with the stroller while Brian took the girls up to get their money.  My photographs hadn't won anything, and I know Brian loves to be a part of the fair projects with the girls, too.  I was slightly annoyed when he told me I had to sign the paper.  Really?  You're a parent, too. Why do they need me?  So, I signed.  Then, the lady gave me three bucks.  "What's this for?" I asked.  You won second place.  "On WHAT?"  Then it dawned on me.....my ROLLS!  I laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my face. I totally forgot that I even entered them.  I didn't even try to find them in the midst of all the other baked goods in the Expo Hall.

I'm weird like that. 

I might hang on to these rolls for awhile longer.