Another 365 days of family life

I am not mailing a holiday letter this year. Fingers crossed, we will send out some recent photos but who wants to read a holiday letter anyway? Aha! Here you are. So here goes an annual update for all visitors to my humble blog...

First of all, we haven't made any headlines. No incarcerations, lottery winnings, alien visitations, burning-building rescues, impressively high summits reached.

We don't even have any pet acquisitions, medical procedures, or furniture rearrangements to report.

There was one big change. I quit my job. Since February, I have been a SAHM (in Internet speak that means "Stay at Home Mom" and also "Sh@& A$@ Ho Motherf#@*er" - I think both apply). We had not planned on making this change and in fact, I quit only four days after we decided it was what I was going to do. But we all needed some more nurturing, support, and connections to the compmunity. We all needed more flexibility and time.

Days at the house are wonderfully full, exhausting, and occasionally quite gross (ahem nose picking, getting thrown up on at Ikea, and pinworms!!!). And very busy - with new things like school roles (2nd year as room parent), volunteering, and various community projects.

Ultimately, It has been wonderful. I really appreciate the chance to give back and invest more time in our kids, our schools, and our community.

And the family - what have we actually been doing these past 365 days?

Trains. Mostly trains. Building them. Crashing them. Building them again. The boy loves this. The boy could do this all day, every day.

And glue guns. And glitter. And fabric. And just about any combination of things that you can put together to make ART. The girl lives and breathes for this. Mom joins in a lot and makes her own messes sewing and crafting. Must be in the genes.

And building. Engineering. Creating. Realizing just how cool it is that their Dad has master Lego skillz.

Then there's all this growing. Darnit-all, they won't stop growing!!

Mom has to stop, lean over and pant every time she remembers that next year Henry will be in kindergarten. Just HOW has time gone by so fast?! Lucy uses the adult dictionary. She recently asked if she could have a phone that texts! Henry uses the "whatever" hand sign and is nearly independent in the pool. Our once-blobbish creatures are growing up!

There is a lot of reading. We have checked out more that 500 items from the library. True, many of these were barbie readers, formulaic fairy adventures, and books covering the schematics of various engines. But there were some great reads in there too. One wonderful aspect of spending so many years reading to children, is that we have been exposed to a large portion of ALL the authors in the children's section. We have discovered some new favorites (Oliver Jeffers, Alison Jay, Jane O'Connor, Donald Crews, Tom Lichtenheld, Brian Biggs) and revisited many still beloved from our youth (Richard Scarry, Arnold Lobel, Beatrix Potter, Margaret Wise Brown, E.B. White, Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Syd Hoff, Dr. Seuss).

Henry's book obsessions interests have hovered around engines, dragons, robots, and (yes) trains. Sometimes reading to him has unexpected results - like the time he adopted a pet spider named "knuckles" after reading Charlotte's Web. Our very sweet kid. With a very creepy spider in his room for a long time.

We are thankful that Lucy is reading well enough that we no longer have to read her barbie and fairy books to her (Queue hallelujah chorus). Instead, Jeremy has taken delight in watching her mind explode as he has read her the first three Harry Potter books and The Hobbit. BOOM!

This year cemented the ritual of Friday movie night. There is to be pizza at dinner. Must be pizza. Then jammies. Then movie starts with popcorn. Has to be popcorn. Sometimes (please oh please oh please) there are a few treats hidden within. Five gummy bears are happiness. Ten marshmallows are a cause to celebrate!

Game night is also new. But instead of Candyland and Uno (as I had planned), we play mostly made up games that include adventuring under blankets, pretending to make kids into burritos, jumping through obstacle courses, or dancing to kid favorites (Everything is Awesome and Roar might be their top faves for the year).

Fighting entropy cleaning takes up far more time than we ever though possible. Turns out, the kids are very good mess makers. With all that goes on, the place can go from relatively neat to hurricane wreckage in a flash. We love to play with other kids but having several kids over to play means our whole house is a blender with the lid off. Legos. Everywhere.

Amidst the chaos, I like to feign civility pairing classical music to household chores. Chostakovitch - Valse N. 2 for carpool. The Barber Of Seville for picking up toys. Goldberg Variations for office filing. Yo-yo Ma playing Bach for just about anything. Strange pass time? Well, I dare you to go through the car wash listening to The Lakme Flower Duet and not be moved.

The kids are learning to love music. Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King is a perpetual favorite. I'm happy to be passing on my love for classical music to them, as my mother did for me.

After the kids are tucked in bed, parents find escape in watching Star Trek reruns and Hannibal episodes. Mystery, adventure, gore - bring it! There is sweet relief in letting go of any thoughts related to reality, family, and life balance.

We traveled quite a bit. We visited Nauvoo, Illinois where my mother was serving a mission. There was one fun (and very loud) trip to Great Wolf Lodge. And we spent most of the summer traveling through Idaho and Utah.

We took our first family camping trip, staying overnight at Nehalem Beach State Park. We forgot matches, but the campground had outlets to charge our phones. Somehow, Jeremy managed to feed us with recipes he probably hasn't used since scouting days. Yes - tinfoil dinners are every bit as good as we remember! The kids loved it all so I'm sure we will be pressured into camping again soon. Maybe we will even remember matches next time.

July 24 was the eco-fest film awards and presentation of the eco-hero award for 2014 to Papa. Seeing Papa honored and featured in The Lost Fish on the big screen at the Hollywood Theater was bitter sweet. He would have been overwhelmed with all the attention. He would be so happy to see that his work for the lamprey is moving forward. Papa was also featured in DamNation which came out this year (now on Netflix). It is a blessing that his voice, his laugh, and his fabulous face are so beautifully captured in these films.

July 26 was the one-year anniversary of Papa's drowning. The family and many friends gathered for his stone setting. In some ways, this whole year was about accepting the loss of Papa. And about trying hard to bring the purpose of his life into ours.

Jeremy continues his great work for all Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum (salmon people). He did presentations in many schools this year including Lucy's and Henry's. We enjoy supporting him whenever possible, especially when that includes winning a hula contest and playing lacrosse.

And now this is getting ridiculously long.

But how can I possibly some up 365 days for our family?

The number of dishes washed? The number of noses wiped on my shirt? The number of times we have asked children to put on their shoes? The clothing sizes grown through? The number of socks we have lost? The number of sticky items I have found on the bottom of my purse? The number of I love you's and hugs? The number of moments I want to pull my kids into my lap and never let them go?

Whatever the numbers, it all adds up to something wonderful, something exhausting, something so amazingly precious and beautiful it is sometimes hard to breathe.

We are so blessed. So grateful for our health and our friends and family. So grateful for peace and love in our community. So grateful to be together.

Our best wishes for all the same to you.

With love,

Margaret

See some (not very organized) 2014 photos