In the Morning

This isn't what our mountains look like in the morning.  

Then again, maybe it is, but I usually have my eyes screwed too shut to notice.

Today I got up at oh-dark-hundred to make breakfast for Wave I.  Ben and Chris attend early-morning seminary before high school starts.  They like to begin their day with a dose of goodness.  I don't like getting up that early, but for me, "that early" extends until "you're still in bed?" for most people.  I get up when I have to, not when I want to.  Trent's alarm goes off, and he springs forth.  Most of the time I don't hear the alarm (he has the Hunger Games tune on his iPhone, and it's not blaring enough to kill my sleep), but Trent wakes me up.  He dashes, I stumble into the kitchen, and we do food.

One of us (usually him) makes breakfast, and the other (usually me, but sometimes also him if I've had a really rough night) makes lunches.  We lay 16 slices of homemade bread (also usually made by him) out across the counter and start slathering mayonnaise and mustard, cheese and ham.  We bag up the sandwiches and sort them into piles with a piece of fruit or some cookies.  Two sandwiches and two fruit into the first Spiderman lunchbox.  Three sandwiches and two fruit in a pile.  Two sandwiches and a fruit in the second Spiderman lunchbox.  One sandwich and one fruit in the lunch bag.

Breakfast often looks like a dozen eggs and most of a loaf of bread, toasted.  Ben and Chris eat, brush their teeth, scrape the car windows if it is cold, and they're off.  We say goodbye to the First Wave, and then we go back to bed.  Sometimes Trent stays up, but I've never had enough sleep yet.

An hour later, we get up again for Wave II.  This one is shorter because David's lunch and breakfast are already made, and he is usually running late.  He runs through the kitchen, grabs his breakfast, munches while stuffing his Spiderman lunch box into his backpack, and dashes out.  The door slams behind him, and I usually go back to bed again.

After another hour of sleep, I am starting to feel human.  Time for Wave III.  Eddie is the most cheerful in the morning, and makes sure to feed and water the animals before walking to school.  I can always count on a kiss and hug before he goes.

Wave IV is the most leisurely, as I can make breakfast slowly for the little people and me.  Sometimes Trent eats with us, and sometimes he has already eaten earlier.  He gets ready and leaves for work, and we start our day.

Every morning I think I should get to bed earlier, but it's so hard with teens who stay up late and a husband who doesn't get home from work until later.  One day I might be a ball of sunshine in the morning, but not with this schedule.  At this rate, I'll be able to be cheerful for my children... when they don't live at home any more!

Mission Monday

Just before Alec left for Johannesburg , South Africa,we got another large white envelope in the mail. This one was for Ben. He was so excited, and invited a bunch of friends and grandparents over that night to eat peanut butter bars.  Oh, and to watch him open the letter. This was the result:

While Alec spends his next two years in South Africa, Ben will be his neighbor in Madagascar!  I wonder if those boys prayed to get away from their mother, because they really can't get any farther away from home and stay on this planet.  They will both be such great missionaries.

We've been learning all kinds of things about these two African nations. Like that the average height of a Malagasy man is just slightly taller than Eddie here.  Ben will certainly stand out. In a good way!  In a good way!

So we'll have another round of getting ready to do. Maybe this time I'll get better organized.

So proud of these boys!

Five Boys

It's been nearly a decade since these boys lost their daddy.  He slipped away peacefully in his sleep after a long, long battle with brain cancer.  They watched him struggle, but they had time to play with him and say their goodbyes.  It was hard.  I was 33, a widow with five young sons to raise.  It was hard.  I haven't written about it yet because it's still hard, but maybe I will someday.

I wish I could send a little message to that younger me.  I wish I could whisper into her ear that these brave little lads would make it through.  We wouldn't be without our share of challenges and difficulties, but we would make it.  I wish she could have seen that one day, they would be like this:  tall, strong, and handsome.  And still making it though.

Wherever you are today, hang on.  You'll make it through.

Irresistable

I was sitting down at the computer, ready to write up a blog post I've been thinking about, when I heard a little voice calling me from the hallway.

"Mom?  Mommy?"  I smiled and answered without stopping my work on the computer.  "Yes, Dear?  What do you need?"

The voice was small and sweet.  "I want you to come give me a hug and kiss."  How can I resist that?

I tip-toed into her room and held her tightly.  "I love you so, so much," she whispered before she carefully placed gentle kisses on both cheeks, my forehead, and my nose.

Oh, I love being a mom!

Quick Shots

Before that first boy of mine left, I had to get a new family picture.  To shirk this motherly duty would be downright shameful.  Especially if you consider that it will be two years before he comes back home.  Two years.  <sigh>  And by the time he comes back, That next boy of mine will be gone.  And the third will be packing up his bags.  It is entirely possible that Chris will go out before Ben comes back.  And it might be four years before I see this again.

And in four years, it is entirely possible that we could have a daughter-in-law.  Or two.  I've seen how those girls look at my boys.  It's with a sparkle in their eyes, like they see something special.  They do.  They also look at these boys with their heads tilted way, way back.  'Cause I have tall boys, I do.  I'm not sure when all this tallness and handsomeness came about, but I've got to capture it while I can.

I am so grateful for my family.  They are for sure the biggest blessing I have.  Every day, in every prayer, I thank my loving Heavenly Father for the chance to be their mother.  Oh so grateful.

I wish I could grab every moment and hang on with my fingernails.  In the very same breath, I love watching the time pass and the buds open.  I can't wait to see what they will become.  It just doesn't get any better than this.

Toss Those Cookies!

We have a new friend at our house, a little blond neighbor girl.  Her name is confidential because she is a minor (I'm laughing at myself), but in keeping with our alphabetical pseudonyms, we'll call her Babby.  Her mom is going to college, so we get to play with her a couple of afternoons  week.

When Babby first started coming to play, she and Angel would shut themselves in the bedroom and not let the twins in to play.  No, not all the time, but occasionally.  I found it hilarious that Freddie and Georgie would wander around complaining in sad voices that there was no one to play with.  Really?  You are twins!  You always have a built-in-buddy to play with!  But Angel was such a good organizer of play that they felt lost without her.  Over the past few months, they have gotten used to playing with each other, and they enjoy it.  It's good practice for when Angel starts kindergarten in the fall.

Angel and Babby took a little dance class together last fall, and were just cute.  Babby is a great little dancer, and I was hoping that Angel would learn some grace.  Our girl dances like a boy - feet planted, hands balled into fists, and hips shifting back and forth mechanically.  But no, a dance class did not give her a smooth dancing rhythm.  Oh well.  They did have a good time together, though.

And they are as adorable as any little girls out there when they wore their pink tutus and curled hair for their dance recital.  Dutiful parent that I was, I made them sit still for the hot curling iron and nasty hair spray, and then took pictures.  That's what we do.

Today, we made chocolate chip cookies.  There were supposed to be consumed in the middle of the night yesterday (early this morning?) while we watched the lunar eclipse, but they somehow did not get themselves baked.  Bad cookies.  Don't you know that the longer you remain in dough form, the more I will eat of you? The eclipse was still amazing without them, especially since Trent made up hot chocolate for us.  Good man.

I didn't know this was possible, but Babby prefers her cookies without chocolate chips.  I'm game for that, and I found some dough at the bottom of the bowl that didn't have as many chips mixed into it.  There's usually some unmixed flour and baking soda down there too.  I'm a great cook.  I picked out a few stray chocolate chips, rolled the dough into balls, and put them on a little plate.  They missed the bus into the oven with all the other cookie dough balls, so I thought I'd microwave them.  I'd had such good success with my microwave muffins, after all.

These cookies cooked in ten minutes in the oven, so I figured that two minutes in the microwave would be plenty.  After one minute, I stopped the microwave when smoke started curling out of its door.  The cookies were badly and un-fixably burnt.  And the smell!  Worse than burnt popcorn, but not as bad as the hair I used to pull out and toast over the open flame in my junior high science class.  Burnt hair is bad.  Oh, so bad.

We turned on the fan and opened windows and doors.  All we could do next was to take the burnt offerings and throw them in the chicken bucket where we put all out scraps.  And take the bucket outside.  Blech.  Toss those cookies, baby.  It took me several more batches of good oven-baked cookies to cover up the smoky nastiness.  But now we have cookies!

And Babby ate the warm chocolate chips cookies anyway.  With the chips.

Missionary Monday

Wow.  It's been a month.  This getting a missionary off took more out of me than I thought.  Now I have to wonder if I should go back and catch up, or just jump in where we are.  That's why I have always had big gaps in my writing - I think I need to fill in all the gaps, and it just seems like so big of a task to do.  Too daunting, so I put it off and the job just gets bigger and bigger.

So I think I'll just jump back in with this:

Can you see my boy?  The angelic one in the back with the glowing face?  I think he's now known as the "white boy."  This picture was taken a week and a half ago when he arrived in the Missionary Training Center in Johannesburg, South Africa.  He'll be all trained and shipping out tomorrow morning.  After that, he will spend the next couple of years of his life in the Cape Town, South Africa area.

You can read his weekly letters on his mission blog.  Oh yeah, and his name isn't really Alec, but you knew that, didn't you?

I love his smile.  He's happy.  And despite the fact that he is literally half a world away, his happy fills my heart.  I'm a happy mom.