My favorite time of day

By the time Braden gets home from work I have usually already spent the last 12 or 13hours with the girls by myself. Typically, I am in the kitchen finishing dinner, Anabelle is organizing all my Tupperware, measuring spoons and cups into "families" (sorting them by type, color, or design), and Lila is sitting somewhere in the middle of it all grinning and playing with whatever Anabelle has deemed fit for her to play with. We hear a key in the lock and Anabelle freezes, her eyes look like they're gonna pop out of her head, and she goes running to the door shrieking, "Daddy's home!". Braden comes in and we all get hugs and kisses. We eat dinner and Anabelle can be counted on to say or do something entertaining. Like when she just says "Amen" in the middle of the prayer if it's too long and she wants to eat. Or like the other day when I was cooking she told me she needed to go potty all herself, I just needed to come turn the light on for her. So I did. After a few minutes I call out to her and ask her if she went potty. She yells back, "Yeah! But I'll poop some more if you get me some more yogurt!" What a deal. Then we shimmy the girls into the bath where Anabelle proceeds to use 7 or 8 washcloths so that each bath animal can have a beautiful princess dress. Last week Anabelle got in Lila's face and with all the excitement of the world in her voice yells at her, "Lila! You have a bagina! And I have a bagina! And mommy has a mommy bagina! And we all have baginas together!" I laughed a lot. I'm laughing thinking about it. It is unfortunate that most of the funny stuff that happens at our house relates to the body or one of its many functions. But, it is what it is. Braden recently decided that he would try to practice doing Anabelle's hair after bath time. She is so supportive of his efforts. When I do her hair I have about 6 seconds and anything that isn't secure by then doesn't make the cut. I can do respectable piggy tails while walking the length of my house. But for Braden she will sit perfectly still for a very long time. I walked by the other night and heard Braden saying in frustration that he couldn't do it. Anabelle said, "Dad, you can do it." The pony tail didn't stay in very long and when I went to fix it she batted me away and said protectively, "No! That's Daddy's pony! Just leave it okay?"

Then we jammy up and hang out for a bit. She likes Braden to play her favorite song on the piano (Let it Be, by The Beatles) so she can dance. Braden recorded it so they can dance together. It is most often at times like this when I'm watching Braden and Anabelle dancing together that the thought comes to mind "My cup runneth over". I become overwhelmed with the feeling that we have everything that matters in this world. I am scared of forgetting these perfect moments.

The onslaught of snot

Lila has been basking in a thick coat of her own snot today. She's sneezes faster than I can wipe her (granted I am trying to wipe her while doing a puzzle, meal planning, and folding laundry. But still...).Anabelle and I are also sick, so when the stars aligned for both girls nap times to occur simultaneously today, I quickly decided I would join them and try to sleep this off. Except Anabelle decided not to nap. She instead dumped out the contents of every container in her room and banged her rocking chair against the wall. For 2 hours. At this point I resign myself to staying awake and feeling nasty, but have bright hopes of putting her in bed earlier. I feel a growing excitement about this and envision Braden and I having lots of time with each other tonight and watching The Office in peace. I make this decision and go to get her and she has suddenly fallen asleep. Hey! Grrrrrr! So naturally, I'm feeling slightly grumpy.(Not terribly grumpy-just slightly grumpy. Like if someone walked though the door with an orange gummy bear for me I would totally do a jumping jack). Then I think of Lila who seems to have it the worst and is a glistening pitiful sight to behold,yet has been beaming like a clown all day. Yet another lesson from my kids. She doesn't yet know how to feel bad for herself, so she just trucks through it with a smile and takes it like a champ.

I was noticing the other day that as my Christmas decorations have been put away for a few weeks now, Christmas is sort of out of my mind. I've moved on. But Anabelle is still talking about Baby Jesus at least once a day. She saw someone with something draped over their head and she said, "A Shepard!". Maybe she can't recite Luke 2 but it seems like she was touched by the story of Christmas and is still talking about Christ even after the presents are all opened. I am glad for her simple example.

Another thing I have always loved about Anabelle is the way she thoroughly experiences and appreciates nature. In the stroller she will put her head back, let the wind blow her curls, close her eyes, and soak it up with a small smile. She examines all the leaves, smells all the flowers, and talks to all the animals. It is one of my favorite things to watch her explore earth matter. Something I don't do nearly enough. I hope she never loses that curiosity. I hope she always takes time to sit in nature and be moved, be appreciative. I hope she knows how much I adore watching her and growing with her, because of her.

Pie!

I have leftover giving spirit from the holiday season that has urged me to share this simple, healthy, easy, fast, cheap recipe for pizza dough:

1 teaspoon instant or rapid rise yeast
3 cups flour (I use unbleached white whole wheat flour)
2 teaspoons coarse kosher or sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1 cup water
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine half the flour with the salt and the yeast and stir. Add water and olive oil, stir with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add remaining flour a bit at a time, when mixture becomes to stiff to stir with a spoon, begin kneading, adding as little flour as possible, just enough to keep the dough from being a sticky mess. Knead until smooth, but still quite moist. Then you pile it up with all the leftovers from your fridge that no one will eat, then you hide the leftovers in a mountain of cheese.

Bake it at the hottest temp your oven will allow for about 10-12 minutes. I bake mine in a greased glass 9x13 baking dish.

I won't deny that this is a tasty staple in our home due to the aforementioned virtues of this recipe. In her breakfast prayer this morning, Anabelle was still thanking the heavens above for it ("thank you for the pizza and the Cheerios").That was her whole prayer. But she was really sincere.

Yuletide Festivities 2008

Christmas was a hoot. The trip both ways was smooth sailing- no puke, no blowouts, no tantrums and only one diet coke each way. We spent our time frolicking about the coolest yard imaginable. I feel confident if I had a yard like that it would be a different story to have a whole litter of little curtain crawlers. It's a totally different story when they disappear for five hours at a time. Anabelle looked in her stocking and found a bouncy ball and was happy as a bird with her Christmas score. Braden and I looked at each other and wondered if we should sneak the other gifts back into the trunk and disperse them through the coming years. But the truth is, I bought that canister of Play-doh in November and couldn't wait any longer to bust it open and make Lila into something great. In true Reynolds fashion, there was tons of grub, hardly any sleep, and competitions and games of every kind (including wrist rocket paintball). We got to know the two newest members of our family, who we unanimously totally approve of, and are excited about. Anabelle's still talking about the trip-this morning I found her riding her stuffed horse and asking me if I could get her hat so she could ride her "neigh". She also cleverly renamed Grandpa's horses from "Prince" and "Shay" to "Princess" and "MaShay". It always takes us a while to accept real life after we return from Florida.

Aunt Jess holds Lila, Lila holds Crawdad

Mary and Baby Jesus. Clearly.

Mary's looking awfully cheery for her days "to be accomplished"

Cousin bath time. We can do that. We're from Alabama.

Braden told the little kids to wrestle each other. It's nice to see Anabelle on the recieving end of brute force.



Mexican dresses brought back by Cody and Jess.

Lila's ears are finally in season.

What a year...

We just returned yesterday from a road trip to Florida where we spent Christmas with Braden's family. I had the chance while driving all night to do a little reflecting on these past 12 months. I thought about all that has happened in our lives this year. I came away from this experience feeling immensely blessed. This was no doubt our hardest year- full of hardship and a seemingly endless string of trial after trial. But we learned some stuff. Some really important stuff. Somebody asked me right before Christmas if we had everything we needed, and I told her that we did. Then she asked if we have everything we wanted, and after thinking about it, I realized that those two things have become one and the same to me. And this year has been a tutorial in getting to that place where I have realized a few simple beautiful truths:

-If you have healthy kids, who cares what else you don't have.
-Family is everything.
-Good friends are gifts from God, I really believe that.
-Appreciate each seemingly average normal day with my kids- it means that we are all healthy.
-Be faithful to the Lord, He watches over and guides my life.
-Be grateful

I learned some other stuff too that's less crucial. Like:

-Never ever ever ever give anyone from the La Leche League (or any other breastfeeding fanatic)my phone number. Anabelle is forming complete sentences with proper conjugation of verbs and she can count to nineteen, AND I have another suckling child- so yes, I have stopped breastfeeding her! Stop calling! Sheesh.
-We can live on beans and rice and still be happy.
-Never potty train a child. Should this come up in parenting, promptly ship them away until all bowel issues have been resolved. Growl.
-Don't use any box of hair dye. Don't do it. Seek a support group for the addiction and call a friend to help you through the weak moments.
-Run. It makes me feel good. I learned that lesson this year from not being able to.
-Doctors are not the boss of my kids. I worked hard to grow, birth, and feed them and by golly, I am the boss. I learned to trust myself as a Mom and put the Mama foot down if I need to.
-Slow down. Drive slow. Don't speed. Obey the speed limit.
-GSE is useful for about a million household things. Love it. Look it up and love it with me.
-Take time for the things that matter. Read adult books. Well not "adult books" but books that are on an adult level with big words and less pictures. Some pictures would be good though. My kids won't remember if I dusted or not but they will remember if I took time to play with them and hold them. Take time for Braden, even if we pay a babysitter just so we can go grocery shopping and to the post office without diapers and time outs. Just be together- this matters more than I ever imagined.

I'm not gonna lie- I feel anxious to put this year behind me. To take the doll face I got out of this year and run and never look back. But in the looking back I feel humbled to tears to think of all the blessings. The miracles. The nights I knelt by my bed in the hospital and cried in gratitude for friends, for medical care, for family, for service, for compassion. I could not count those nights. And in each one of those prayers I prayed with all my heart that because I could not hold Lila or comfort her or care for her, that somehow she would know anyway how much I wanted to, and how deeply and completely I love her. I prayed that she would feel the love of her Heavenly Father. Someone held her the other day for a few minutes for me and when I went to get her they thanked me for letting them hold her. She said she felt as though she had talked with God during those few minutes because she had never looked into anyone's eyes and felt such love. I feel like this has been a year of answered prayers -from Lila's health, to Braden's job, and everything in between.