50's Day

Nate and Evie love 50's Day at their school! It's how their school celebrates the 50th day of school for the year. Here are a couple pictures:

 Simon didn't participate in 50's Day. :)

Showing off their dance moves!

 This has nothing to do with 50's Day.
I just really love that these two still choose to share the chair! 

Simon is 3!

Sometimes we wonder where in the world Simon came from. He's so different than Nate and Evie. In many ways, Nate and Evie have always been very much alike, so we got in a really good parenting groove with them. Simon is completely throwing our parenting for a loop. Many days I just don't know how to correct his behavior in a way that he'll respond to.

But, he's by far our most sensitive child. He gives the best hugs! He's a fast learner. He wants to be anywhere and everywhere his older brother and sister are, and he wants to do everything they get to do. I definitely feel his pain as the third and youngest child!

He's our Simonster and we love him. He requested an oo-ah cake for his birthday. He still calls Curious George and all monkeys "oo-ah's." I hope that never changes!

Halloween 2015

So. Much. Candy. We live in an older neighborhood, which means trick-or-treating is hit or miss. This year it was mostly miss. But the pro was that the people who were giving out candy were giving it out by the handfuls! Our kids somehow came home with full buckets.

Evie was a ballerina. Nate was one of his favorite book characters - Dink from the A to Z Mysteries series, wearing a skeleton shirt. Simon was a disgruntled construction worker. He refused to be a happy, or even a content, one. :)

We've created a tradition of trick-or-treating with our neighbors and their little boy, Chet. Some of their friends joined this year, and it was great. There's nothing better for parents' nerves than a bunch of hyped up kids running down the middle of the street together!

We carved pumpkins a couple days before. Nate's was a scary face, Simon's was a rocket, and Evie's was a cat with the moon behind it (hers isn't pictured here.)

 A picture of the picture.

 Scary faces.

Here's the whole trick-or-treating crew.

Mid-semester

Well, I'm mid-semester, wishing I had time to blog, and dreaming of my (somewhat) carefree days of summer when I could do things like this:

This picture is helping me push through today. Hope it brings someone else a smile! :)

Crazy Hair Day

The Winklers come to Texas

My sister and her kids came to visit this past week. We don't get to see each other nearly enough, so I was really glad to have them come for a few days. It was loud and chaotic at times, but it was well worth it. Ethan and Ellen have grown and changed so much since we saw them last summer. The cousins played like cousins do - with a lot of laughing and a little aggravating. They're figuring each other out. And the goodbye wasn't much of a goodbye this time because we know we'll be seeing them again in another month or so when we travel to Kentucky. I know the trip wasn't easy, especially for you, Elizabeth. But we're SO glad you came!

 Evie reading to Ethan and Ellen before bed.

 Simon and Ellen playing with bubbles. Ellen knows exactly how to push Simon's buttons. And Simon is going to be a really good soccer player one day. He can throw himself on the ground and act like he's been injured like you wouldn't believe! But I really think these two will be good playmates someday soon. :)

 Ethan!

 Simonster.

 Lining them up for a picture.

 And then Ellen runs off.

She's back. Now for the impossible - to get all five of them to look at the camera and smile. Evie's face is my favorite in this one! The face she's making perfectly describes her mood that morning.

 This is as good as it's going to get. Not bad!

Disney's The Jungle Book Kids

Nate and Evie attend a charter school whose focus is on the arts. They take dance, theater, music, and art in addition to their core subjects. Each semester they work toward a performance to show the skills they've been learning in dance, theater, and music. Grades Kindergarten-2nd perform together. This semester they have been especially excited to be preparing for Disney's The Jungle Book Kids. Evie was a flower and Nate was an elephant in the elephant troupe.

Their arts teachers do an INCREDIBLE job preparing for these performances, and I've been blown away by each one we've seen so far. So, I was really looking forward to seeing The Jungle Book. Nate and Evie have been listening to the music for it and singing the songs all semester (so of course I have them all memorized too), and they've even been acting it out for fun at home. The performance did not disappoint, and we were especially proud of Evie. She has improved tremendously since the fall semester performance in her confidence on stage and in her ability. She was comfortable on stage, and it was such a gift to watch her perform so confidently. And she LOVED every minute of it! Needless to say, we are proud of both of them!

 It was difficult to get good pictures of the performance, and I really just wanted to watch and not worry about pictures anyway. This one turned out okay. Evie is the flower in the front row with the black leotard and green tutu.

 My little flower holding her flowers. :)

Nate with his elephant ears.

Evie is six!

Evie turned six last week. SIX! I'm not very sentimental about my kids growing up, but every once in a while I'm surprised by how time has passed. Evie was born on Memorial Day, and her birthday fell on Memorial Day again this year, so we had fun reminiscing about the day of her birth. It was really nice that everyone had the day off and we got to spend the day together celebrating our girl. We played putt-putt golf and arcade games in the morning, followed by lunch of her choice - tacos at Rosa's Cafe. I made cupcakes in the shape of a princess dress (which didn't turn out as nicely as I'd hoped), and some neighbor friends came to eat cake and play outside for a while in the evening. Even though she was disappointed not to have a party (I'm holding fast to our decision not to throw birthday parties, but to spend birthdays as a family), I think she really enjoyed her day!

Catching Up

Here are just a few random pictures from the past few weeks. Life has slowed down quite a bit for me since my classes ended. I took two classes for the first time this past semester, and I finished them four weeks ago. I took two so that I could take the summer off, and I am SO EXCITED to have the summer without classes! I'm looking forward to just being with my family without having assignments in the back of my mind.

School will end for Stephen, Nate, and Evie on Friday, so it looks like summer break is actually going to come. I had some serious doubts about whether or not we would make it this far a few months ago. :)

Here are those pictures I mentioned:

 Evie's reading has taken off in the past few months. 

She enjoys reading to Simon even though he doesn't always enjoy it back.

Simon has made this ball his official seat for choosing a book. 

I guess bending over to see his choices was too hard.

Seven Years

Today marks seven years without Mom. Mother's Day and the anniversary of her death has come with much less anxiety this year. Whatever the reason, I'm thankful for the abnormal quiet of these past few weeks. It has been a difficult semester, and my writing energies have all gone to academic writing. So, instead of writing some new reflections on the day, I'm going to re-post what I wrote last year. My thoughts are very much the same this year - minus some of the dread of the upcoming day. 

The picture above was taken in September 2006. Mom came to Turkey for a visit, and we planned to surprise her with the news that I was pregnant. Instead, we met her in Istanbul to tell her the news of a miscarriage and we spent a few days there while I was recovering. Of course "recovering" meant showing Mom around the city. This picture was taken during a quick trip to the Black Sea.

And here is last year's post:

So, here we are again. Another Mother’s Day. Mom died on Mother’s Day six years ago. So, this is the first time since then that we’ll celebrate the anniversary of her death on Mother’s Day. Every year I dread Mother’s Day. Advertisements for it begin the day after Easter (although this year I saw a commercial the evening of Easter), and escalate until the day. Especially the week before. Every morning show and talk show and commercial is finding the sweetest and best ways for you to celebrate your mom this Mother’s Day. It makes me nauseous.

So, I can run and hide during this season. No TV. No radio. No ads of any kind. No social media (which isn’t such a bad idea anyway). Or I can use this season to lean in. I can remember how the Lord spoke deeply into my soul that He is enough for me AND for these little ones I spend my days with. And then I can recount how He has proven that time and again. I can ask the hard questions. I can rest assured that I’m not the only one.

I can reflect on the kindness and goodness of the Lord. I’m a different mom than I would’ve been without losing my own mom. When your world is turned upside down, so are the things you value. You see things differently. Rough edges are smoothed. Character is sharpened. Being a mom is a really hard job. But walking with joy in the hard – not escaping from it or even pushing through it, but finding unspeakable joy in it - is what will make me a better mom. Because of this - because He’s taught me these things through loss - in the places of my heart where bitterness should be, gratefulness lies instead.

Soon after we lost Mom I clung tightly to verses like Psalm 147:3 that says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” I said many times that time doesn’t heal all wounds, He does. And it’s true. He does. But I thought healing meant that I would eventually reach a point of not grieving anymore. Of not being sad. Of not missing her and not wishing she were here. I get frustrated sometimes because I feel like I should be over this by now. It’s been six years. SIX years! Why can’t I shake this?

But I think I was wrong. She was my Mom. I’m not supposed to get over her. I’m supposed to honor and love her in the days and years after she’s gone. And I’m supposed to remember the examples she set for me – especially the one of clinging to Jesus in the midst of grief.

The anticipation - the anxiety and the dread - of the upcoming day is always worse than the day itself. I know that six times over. It’s been ugly. But, as Sunday approaches, I’ll try not to hide. I’ll go to Muffins with Mom with Evie. And to a tea party Mother’s Day celebration with Nate. I’ll let them celebrate me. And, by His grace, I’ll be an example of joy and gratefulness to them during these days.

Painted Piano

Three years ago we bought a used piano. It's almost identical to my Mom's that my sister Elizabeth has at her house - a Baldwin Acrosonic. I got one just like hers mostly because I knew it was a good one and I didn't know what else to look for. We decided shortly after getting it that we'd like to paint it. It's in our dining room, and there's a lot of brown wood in there, so we thought a burst of color would be nice. But knowing that painting a piano would require sanding and days of work, we kept putting it off. A few weeks ago I starting reading about painting pianos and came across something called chalk paint. It's a little pricy, but you don't have to sand or prime furniture before using it, so that made it worth the price for me. You just paint it on and add a wax coat to finish it. I found a specialty store nearby that sells the kind of paint I wanted and I bought a pint of it in provence blue. 

Since Simon takes really good naps these days and I'm on break from school, I used his nap times last week to work. I decided to take the piano apart (even though some people say you don't have to) because I wanted to make sure I did the job well. I started taking out screws, and the thing came right apart. It was pretty cool and I was a little bit proud of myself for disassembling it by myself. I covered the keyboard and pedals with tape and starting working. It only took me two days to finish (although I think I need to add a couple more coats of wax still). Now we have a blue piano! It's a very bright and happy color and I really like it. Here are a few pictures of the process:

I don't have a before picture, but here's a picture my friend Crystal 

took a few weeks ago with her son Chet and Simon playing on it. 

Pictures to go with the previous post

I took some pictures of Evie riding her bike last weekend. Stephen got an extra run in by running back and forth along the trail with her. It's a good thing he did. She almost landed in the creek a couple times. She's still learning how to use her brakes.

Nate is watching in the background.

Evelyn Ray

This little girl decided it was time to take the training wheels off her bike last week. I didn't get any pictures of it, but she did it! She learned how to ride a bike. We're really proud of how determined she was and how she didn't give up after falling over and over and over. Her poor little legs have bruises all over them. She's not quite ready to go far ahead of us on her own, but she's doing really well. Hopefully I'll get a picture soon.

 My sweet ...

and silly girl.

Classic Simon

Simon really likes to dress up - in Evie's clothes. His favorites are her princess dress and bath robe. He would wear them all day if we let him. I might need to invest in some more dress up clothes for him.

Playing with his "choo trains."

Lovely.

I took this one in Evie's robe a couple months ago. 

This week he's been wearing this robe on top of the princess dress. 

He makes me want to be two again.

Simon's 2nd Birthday

This bright-eyed boy turned two a few weeks ago. He is embracing his two-year-oldness and living it to the fullest. My mom used to say the nursery rhyme to me that goes, "There was a little girl,  Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very, very good, But when she was bad, she was horrid." I might know why she used to say that. :) Don't know what we'd do without our Simonster.

Halloween 2014

Watching our neighbors across the street put up Halloween lights.

Our Halloween: Nate was Spiderman, Evie was a bunny, and Simon was a biker. He played the part pretty well. Our sweet neighbor, Chet-monster, joined us for some trick-or-treating this year. They had a blast going door to door!

This picture with Simon reminds me of this one when Nate was a biker: 

They were just a few months apart in age. See any resemblance? 

They might be brothers. :)