Eleanor is 10!

10 years ago sweet girl joined our family!  What a delight she is.

 10 things about Eleanor-

1.) She is kind and thoughtful and is always thinking about other people and their feelings.

2.) She loves to laugh.

3.) She is brilliant and especially loves logic and writing.

4.) She is honest and true to herself and has an amazing sense of what is truly good.

5.) She is loving and makes sure that her friends and family feel special.

6.) She enjoys cooking and looking for great recipes.  And really loves Pinterest!

7.) She is happy with being a quiet soul even in a very loud world.   

8.) She works to see the best in every situation and in every person.

9.) She is a planner and loves a list.

10.) She wants to be an interior designer some day, she enjoys design and fashion so I'm sure she'd be great!  I think she would make the most incredible teacher :) but I know whatever she does she will do it amazingly well and with grace and a heart that will make the world a better place to live.  That's just the kind of person she is, always leaving things a little better than she found them.

Happy Birthday, Eleanor! We love you like crazy! You are such a gift!

The rain is gone!

It wasn't raining this morning and I got to run!

I read Daring Greatly a couple of years ago and want to read parts of it again in the new year.  I love how this manifesto reminds us about the important stuff of parenting. It's just too easy to get bombarded by all the noise and forget about the beauty in the people we are raising.  I've noticed over the last week how much my kids are growing up.  They are such caring, strong, brilliant people.  They are humble and brave and so funny, too.  They are patient in ways they have not always been, they are understanding of the faults in others and have empathy.

Christmas in progress

Lucy's gift to our family.  A portrait with "I love when my family plays board games together.".

Christmas has been beautiful this year!  We've spent lots of time with people we love and have had equal amounts of down time to veg out and relax.  In fact, it's after 11am and Emma and Eleanor are still in bed.  I'm looking forward to Eleanor's birthday on Thursday and JANUARY!  I love January!  Eleanor asked me the other day...mom, what month don't you love?  I love them all for their own reasons but just for the record, April is my least favorite month, followed by March.

I will now get back to the laundry and dishes and bills but I'm still in my pajamas and still drinking coffee and still listening to Christmas music so I'm happy!

It's Christmas Week- Balance!

I've come to believe and accept that we celebrate two distinct Christmas' in our house.  There is the real Christmas, the whole reason for the holiday and the one that brings the Baby Jesus.   This is the one that calms my soul and makes me giddy with excitement for the day to arrive.  The one that every single year I feel like I get a little closer to actually capturing.   

Then there is the one with the cookies and the tree and all of the stuff and I love it, too.  Not in the same deep way but in a very real way.   The balance for me is to to not let this loud, flashy Christmas overrun the real thing and make us so exhausted that when the Baby Jesus shows up, we're just too worn our to even notice. 

 Christmas week is here and we're enjoying the cookies, and tree, and stuff but I still feel the true spirit in my house this morning. 

   The kids are finished with school and I get them all to myself today!  I will let them sleep as late as they want and pajamas will be the look of the day.  My 5:30 run was sidelined by a thunderstorm so I've been happily reading and puttering for the last couple of hours.  My shopping is complete, menus are planned and shopped for, outfits have been chosen, cards are nearly finished----I just relaxed and prayed and read this morning.  This is always my hope, that I will have a few days without "preparations" to just enjoy the season.  It doesn't usually work out.  This year, after lots of lessons learned, it did.  

Plus, these girls!  They are like having my own elves.  They helped with Christmas cards, wrapping, cleaning, you name it!  Tweens can be a challenge but they can also be the best help!

Not our actual tree.

Every year I'm certain we've found our best tree yet.  Not this year.  It's super pokey,  thin, short and crooked.  We loved it on the lot.  I blame the fact that it was so warm the Eleanor wore shorts to the tree lot.  We weren't in our right minds.

We replaced our yearly visit to Tilles Park with the Zoo lights.  Great change!  Last year, about 2 minutes into our trip to Tilles, we all wondered why we keep going.  A couple of times is fine but we'd worn that place out.  

A tradition we've not yet worn out is Christmas painting in Columbia.  We celebrated Christmas this past weekend in Columbia and

had a wonderful time together.

Emma-clarinet, Eleanor- violin, Sonia- flute, Lucy- clarinet

The girls put on a Christmas concert last week with one of Emma's friends.  Yesterday, they did a production of the Nutcracker.  These are some of my favorite times!  I suspect today will result in a few shows!

Here's to a Christmas week full of celebrating and keeping in mind what all this celebrating is about!

I'm still standing

but my feet are blistered and I don't ever want to run another marathon. 

This photo was taken moments after finishing.  I was so happy not to be moving.  The race was HARD.  Much harder for me than my first marathon.  I won't bore you with all of my thoughts on what made it harder I'll just say it was hard.  I finished in 4 hours and 17 minutes.  Guess what?  I finished my first marathon in 4 hours and 17 minutes.  Weird.

Running this marathon was the brainchild of my mom.  This is my her 60th year and to celebrate she wanted to run one more marathon.  We (all of those pictured above, plus one more) wanted to join in the celebrating and run with her so we signed up!  Except injury hit and our plus one had to back out.  Then, a huge injury hit my mom.  So severe that she has been walking with a brace for over a month and will have surgery next week.  We were all broken hearted when she told us there was no way she could run.  It seemed cruel that the person who really wanted to run in the first place was sidelined.  As is typical of my mom, she didn't spend any time feeling sorry for herself  Instead she became our number one cheerleader for the remainder of our training.  Then when race weekend arrived she made us a carb loading dinner, gave us a pep talk when none of use was too peppy and dropped us off right at the race start.

And then, along with these amazing people she followed us around Memphis, yelling and cheering and helping us to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  

None of us had a stellar race, but it was still a very, very good day!  We had a great meal at Rendezvous, and then had a wonderful evening of laying around watching movies together.  

The girls were with my dad and Kyra all weekend so of course they were as happy as could be, which only added to Kevin and I having a really great weekend...we could relax! 

So glad to have this accomplishment behind me!  

Wrapping up November

This was a November to remember.....maybe the best ever!

 I miss all kinds of things about my Nana and Grandpa.  I miss the way my Grandpa never ever called me Melissa, only Doll.  I miss the way he whistled and hummed and how his worn Bible looked in his lap.  I miss his goofy jokes and happy laugh.  I miss my Nana's great big smile, and her even larger laugh.  I miss the way she squeezed all my air out when she hugged me and how she never ended a phone call without "Jesus Watch Over You".  I wish they could have met my girls and how I wish my girls had known them.  The weekend before Thanksgiving was as close as it could be here on Earth.  We made my Nana's Italian cookies.  My Aunt Mary Ann flew in from Colorado and on 

Friday she and my Uncle Ben made lots and lots of cookie dough!  On Saturday we all came together in my kitchen and made lots and lots of cookies.  We laughed and shared stories and it felt so good to be together.  

I'm thankful for the never-ending love of my grandparents.  I'm grateful for family who care about keeping traditions alive and for passing down those traditions to my kids.  

After Cookie Fest we traveled to California for Thanksgiving.  

And it was perfect!!!

The girls were fantastic travelers.  They made traveling easy and I am so thankful for that.

We spent a day in San Francisco.  The girls had a great time at the Exploratorium, an awesome science museum.  This was outside of the museum.  We spent about 20 minutes working on getting that bird to stay put while Lucy got close!  We drove down Lombard Street and went to Ghirdelli Square.  I'm thankful for a family that loves to explore!

 We stayed in a house in Sonoma County.   There was no way to come even close to capturing the beauty of this area.  I am so thankful to have had a week in this little bit of heaven.  My heart and mind were soothed by this beautiful place.

 Our animal lover was so happy!  This horse lived next door.

 And the dog lived next door too and was Lucy's constant companion the whole trip.  Her name was Reecie and she and made the trip for Lucy an absolute dream.  I'm thankful that Lucy can find such joy in animals, its makes me smile.

This happened while we were gone.  Emma and my mom are officially the same height!!  I'm thankful Emma and my mom are so close...not in height of course by in heart!  

We ran a couple of times while we were away plus we ran a turkey trot.  Not your ordinary turkey trot...a trail run!  I'm thankful to be a runner but I'm ready to cool it on the miles.  Less than a week until the marathon!

My brother! 

 He's amazing.  He's smart and fun and the most generous person you could imagine.  

I loved being with him last week.  My girls loved being with him too. 

Eleanor kept a journal while we were gone and it read like dream.  Games,games, games, a hot tub to play in, a trip to a winery, out to eat, a turkey trot trail run, a zip line in the yard, s'mores by the fire pit, drinks at the coffee shop, a tire swing for fun, Hallmark Christmas movies,  Thanksgiving crafts, delicious baking,  and staying up late every night.  He made sure we had a perfect vacation.  

I am so thankful for my brother and I'm grateful my girls are so blessed with him as an their uncle.   

Behind!

No surprise, I'm behind.  I've been feeling incredibly grateful though, just haven't taken a moment to write!  I'm at Telle Tire right now having my tire replaced because it keeps going flat.  This week has been that way, a lot of little annoyances.  Nothing huge just irritants.  Today I'm thankful that I've kept each of these annoyances in check and they haven't done a thing to my happiness.  

I'm certain it has something to do with this place and the fact that I start every Monday with my 6AM  Core Group.   Meeting at 6AM either makes perfect sense to you or sounds insane.  I'm really grateful for a group of amazing ladies who think this makes good sense.  

  

I am also certain my joy has a lot to do with this girl.  In the last week she's cut her hair, changed her name, then changed it back again and been defiant more times than I can count.  Sometimes it's hard to be 5.  Sometimes it's hard to be 39.  I'm so grateful that we get to be 5 and 39 together.  

And these two!  Oh my goodness.  On Monday I told them I'd pick them up from school if it was raining.  I looked outside around pick up time and it didn't seem to be raining.  

I even sent her the above text, so there was no confusion about pick up vs. driving.  They arrived home drenched!!    They were laughing so hard and thought this was one of my ploys to have them work together and bond.  It wasn't but I think it worked anyway!  I'm so grateful to get to raise sisters!

On Monday night Eleanor had her first violin concert.  She absolutely hates playing the violin.  Hates as in she voluntarily went to a math review before school this morning so that she wouldn't have to go to violin lessons.   I'm grateful that Eleanor is learning that she is able to do really hard, not fun things.   I'm also glad there was a math review this morning so El could have a little break! 

I'm grateful that we are a flexible family.  In the rush to get Eleanor to that math review and Emma to school we forgot to feed Lucy.  Ok, I forgot.  We were almost to Lucy's school when she said "boy am I hungry!"  EEK!  Thankfully Lucy's school is near a Schnucks where there was plenty to make her happy and fill her tummy.