Family time

We've had lots of great family time lately. We rode our bikes to get Subway for dinner last night and then rode through this really nice wooded trail. We saw our friends on their bikes on the way and we all hung out for a while. Tonight we went to a thrift store before dinner and found this awesome huge wooden castle building kit for the boys with knights and dragons and all kinds of accessories for $7. We bought that and a power rangers movie, came home and had dinner together and then played. Family time is great. It's so fun.. especially when everyone is in a good mood.
Joren has started saying "no way" and "I try" and "I'm cute". He cracks us up. Eirik woke me up this morning and said, "mom, I want to play chess." So I got the chess board out which we haven't done for over a year and I showed him the rules as we went. He REALLY has a knack for it and is quite good at it. I won't be surprised if he can beat me every time by the time he is 6.
Eirik said to me today, "mom, say that thing again when you were really excited. That was adorable." Is that normal for a 3 year old to be so grown up? You should hear him say adorable.
I bought a pair of designer jeans at the thrift store tonight for $5 without trying them on (no dressing room) and when I got home to try them, I couldn't believe that they fit like a glove. They are perfect. What luck!
I'm painting, designing, doing projects for friends, and working on photobooks. Today, life is really good.

The case of the lost remote.

So it's 9:30 Sunday night... 30 minutes before Design Star * Challenge #2 and I still have not found our missing remote control. It has been MIA for 4 days. Where could it be? So Paul says, "say a prayer". he he he, and what do I have to lose, so I ask the Lord, "Where is my remote control? Please help me find it." As soon as I finish my prayer I think, "I bet our neighbor will let me use his remote control to turn it on at least. So, I walk to our buddy John's house next door and he says.. "you know what? I found a remote control in my gutter 4 days ago. Where did I put that? Here it is. Look, it still works!" (My boys think it is their fossil finder from Dinosaur Cove, so it was in Eirik's backpack sometime about 4 days ago.)
What?? Is that AMAZING? Thanks John; thanks God. Now I can watch my silly show. Laugh if you want. God works in mysterious ways.

Brothers

Thanks to my wonderufully talented Emily for editing this photo and giving me some tips so that I could do the others below. I love how my boys are learning to love each other. Eirik looks out for Joren and helps him all the time. He loves to teach Joren new words one syllable at a time. Joren's vocabulary is expolding. He has trouble with a few sounds like L and R. Consequently he says Flag, Fork, and Frog and they all come out exactly the same.... and not the word you want your kid repeating over and over again! Joren is so physical. He LOVES to climb and nothing intimidates him. He's so brave and if he falls of something very high, he cries and then wants to immediately try it again until he gets it. He loves to get on the highest thing he can and straddle it and say horse. In fact "high" is one of his first words. He's really cute when he dances. He's a very confident runner. He's very independant. He calls his binkie "ma mank" who knows why. He loves dinosaurs and shoes and books. He's always bringing me my shoes, and guests are surprised when he brings them their shoes when it's time for them to go home. He throws himself in my lap the minute I sit down and insists that I read to him. He'll hit me over the head with a book until I read. He loves to wrestle and he will just clobber me. He tries to eat my face and I'm telling you, the kid is all slobber! He has a cute sense of humor. He says the cutest prayers. Thank you is EE OO. I should get it on video.

"Mom, you called me Eirik again! I'm not Eirik, I'm Luke!" (or any other superhero at any given moment...but never Eirik.)

He may be dressed to kill, but he is also dressed to "go out" in his words. What does a mother do when this is what he insists he must wear to the grocery store. I can't tell you how many people have commented on how I need to just put the moon boots away for the summer. What they don't know is that without his Spiderman boots, he can't eat, sleep, walk, talk, play, or even live. All he can do is cry reeealy reeeally loud about it.
Although I hate the Spider man boots, at least they fit. I have been planning this photo for a long time. I bought these boots when Eirik was 18m for his cowboy halloween costume. I got them for $1 at a thrift store. They were black and for girls, but I spray painted them brown which I thought made them look pretty manly and Eirik loved them so much, he wore them until he was 3 and 2 months, which was the point when I insisted that they had to be put away. The zippers won't zip, you can see the spray paint is almost completely worn off, and they were way too small. So it's not just women that put their feet through pain for fashion. These treasured boots are still the subject of frequent mini break-downs, but luckily we replaced them with big, hot, winter moon boots that have velcro and SPIDERMAN!! (hideous and gracious hand-me down from our cousins)
To the blessed cowboy boots of yesteryear: we miss you, and will hold you dear in our hearts forever.

I do love Eirik's never ending creativity and imagination. Lately I have been wishing that we didn't eat sleep and breath Star Wars at our house. {Luke} tells me 18 times a day about how he fought the emperor and he cut off his arm and he lost his light saber. I asked him today how often he thinks about the movie Star Wars. He said, "28 minutes, 28 out of 28 minutes, actually 38 minutes!" (What he really meant by that was every minute of the day.)
Eirik needs to be in the middle of every conversation. He needs to understand 100% of the things going on around him. If Paul and I are having a private conversation, or just one that doesn't involve him, he will come right between us and say, "I agree! I agree! intermittently just so he isn't left out.
We have been reading these chapter books from the library called Dinosaur Cove books about two boys who discover a land of real dinosaurs. Their names are Jamie and Tom. If I'm not being princess Leah, I am definitely being Jamie or Tom and we are on some extravagant adventure. I usually have to wear the backpack with the fossil finder in it. This morning Eirik said : "My mom loves and loves to spit." I said, "hmmmm. I must not know her." He said, "Her name starts with an L. It's Allard. We live in a dark cave by dinosaur cove. My name is Jamie Morgan."
And, that's how our days go.. pretend all day long.

I rewarded Eirik with a trip to ride some ponies if he could go 5 days without a tantrum. He did it and the ponies were a lot of fun. It was a big challenge for him, but he did very well.

Thanks to Ashley for these awesome photos of our trip to the Ann Arbor Arts Festival last weekend! It was so fun, and Ash's post about it cracked me up!

And, although this is totally unrelated, I just found this awesome kids table and chairs from peanutgallerygifts.com!

D and C

So this morning I am going to the hospital for a small procedure called a D and C (Dilation and curettage). I had a miscarriage. I was 15 weeks along when I found out, but the baby had only made it to 9 weeks. Which means that for about 6 weeks I was sick fruitlessly. I feel like it seems a little heartless to say it that way, but that's probably been the hardest part. I have found that during my first trimester I sort of shut down. I turn my life down to just the bare essentials and just get by. So, in a way I lost a lot of time just "getting by". I'm sad about that, bummed that the baby didn't make it, and my friend told me that now is not the hardest time. The hardest time is when several of my best friends that got pregnant at the same time as me will be having their babies at the end of this year. Yeah, she's right, that will be a bummer. But, I read a great quote last night about acceptance from one of my favorite books called Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach

"Acceptance is surrendering to what is: our circumstances, our feelings, our problems, our financial status, our work, our health, our relationships with other people,the delay of our dreams. Before we can change anything in our life we have to recognize that this is the way it's meant to be right now. .......... I have also learned that when I surrender to the reality of a particular situation- when I don't continue to resist, but accept - a softening in my soul occurs. Suddenly I am able to open up to receive all the goodness and abundance available to me because acceptance brings with it so much relief and release. What happens when we accept our circumstances? Well, first of all, we relax. Next we change our vibration, our energy pattern, and the rate of our heartbeat. Once again we're able to tap into the boundless positive energy of the Universe. ...... Today, let go of the struggle. Allow the healing process of change to begin. You're ready to move on."

(I skipped a lot of great things she wrote, and I highly recommend the book.)
Since I found out that the baby didn't make it, I have been a little concerned with myself because I have not been as sad as I would have expected. I wondered if I didn't connect or if I didn't really want this pregnancy, and that's not true. I was really excited. But when I read this quote I realized that I have already been in the mode of acceptance. I have learned that with these two boys I have, I have to accept that the days aren't going to be the way I imagine them, they are going to be the way the boys dictate, and I can fight it and be upset, or accept that this is the way of motherhood. It seems like such a tightrope between accepting and not losing our dreams and will, which are both essential for happiness in my opinion.
I know each miscarriage evokes new and different emotions. If this were my first pregnancy or my 2nd miscarriage (or 3rd or 4th) I know I would take it a lot harder. For the past 3 months I have been adjusting to the idea that I will have 3 children all younger than 4 years old. It was a big pill to swallow and I was ready, but I was letting myself sink so deep into acceptance that I was taking way fewer moments to come up for air where I remember my own will and dreams and my own soul. Motherhood is a lot of surrendering to every whim and want of your children, which is how it is supposed to be, but I think a little more time before child #3 will let me hold on to a little more of that fresh air of my authenticity a little stronger through this journey of motherhood. I've come to see my situation as a blessing. The Lord always knows what we need. I'm glad I know that for knowing that is the only way I can grasp hope in this life. And the future is bright.

And I have had such wonderful friends emailing and supporting me in all kinds of ways through this setback. Erin is watching my kids today for the procedure and Thursday, most of the day and I emailed her this yesterday:

"Erin, So what's the protocol on Thursday? If you babysit for me and I'm feeling ok, would it be totally wrong of me to go tanning or work out or go shopping? I would feel so guilty, but then again, the day is for me to recover right? Is tanning part of pregnancy fat recovery??? :)"
And here is her reply:

"Melody, Oh, didn't you know??! It is a known fact that tanning is a necessary part of the D&C recovery process, and same with working out, napping, going to the mall, reading, and painting your toenails. Of course, all the positive benefits of those activities are highly diminished when you have children with you (in other words, they are not beneficial at all). Seriously, that's all straight from the professionals. "

I included this because I never want to forget how wonderful my friends have been. Thank you all! XXOO

And just so I don't leave you with no images, here are some paintings I loved from my trip to the Coda Gallery in Park City. (a must see destination when visiting PC).

Tracey Lane
Tree Stories

Karen Tusinski
Poppy Bouquet in View

Spectacular Spectacular

4th of July:
Eirik: "I don't want to go to bed, I want to do something more spectacular than sleeping!"