up to my elbows in.....

Spent most of yesterday working on this with the HSF.

Isn't it pretty?

We make a comical bunch of amateurs, the HSF and I and our offspring.

There was a literal abundance of blood, sweat, tears, screaming, laughing, crying, and running in circles.

This is the lot of those mothers who want to get anything accomplished 

(you know, that lasts more than 10 hours).

for a cause

It's been an emotional weekend here at Grandma's house (if you are me).  BYU lost, Mr Renn made significant headway in the realm of career decisions, I attended the General Young Women meeting for my church, and I tried to be supportive of several friends going through really hard times.  As we've pointed out, that is sometimes tricky for me.  Plus my heart sank and dissolved into a puddle at my feet when I learned that a friend from my neighborhood growing up (Laurie Moss) was recently diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  Her little family is out in Michigan where her husband's attending medical school and my little brain has been trying in vain to comprehend all the implications of such a difficult situation.  But, what I can do - I will do.  And I'll challenge you to do the same.  If you're localish - here's an opportunity (you can bet I'll be there...):

Ready Freddy

Guess what we've been braving this week?



I am not the least bit inclined to go on about potty training, but I sort of need to mention a mothering experience that led to this adventure.
Back in December I had the distinct thought (impression?) that we ought to get a little potty training seat for our Captain.  Sir O never used one, he took so long to have interest in potty training that we jumped right to the miniature toilet seat that fits over a regular toilet, and that was that.
Mr Renn was quick to blow off my impression because the Captain is 2 full years younger than Sir O was when he began potty training in earnest, and so Christmas came and went.  But the thought never went away.
So last week when I finally happened to be in the land of Ikea, I decided it was important to finally act, and so I braved the store by myself with all 3 kids, just to get a potty.

And every time the Captain has sat upon it, he has performed.
And every time he performs, Sir O says "Conragglations!"



In other words, it is going well.  Funny how that happens with motherly impressions.  I just need to buckle down and decide we're doing this in earnest and not just for fun.  (And, you know, be house-bound for a month or two).

Maybe there's hope for my diaper budget yet.

a portly gentleman

A certain 5 month old has been packing on the ounces lately.



 He's getting down-right squishable with multiple chins and chunky thighs.

Luckily Mr Renn's parents will be home  from Argentina in less than a month so they can kiss his cheeks.  I don't know how they can stand such a wait.  Sometimes I can hardly handle waiting for the kid to wake up.  This is the age of irresistible smushing.  I'm learning to enjoy these things before they're over.  Maybe if I have 12 kids I'll perfect it.  Or I'll lose my marbles.

it's about time

My glasses are 4 months shy of being 5 years old.  I think at that point you can safely say you are due for a change.  You can also safely say you've probably worked yourself into a rut, and that a big change is not likely.


So when Mr Renn and I ordered new glasses last week, I did not make a drastic departure with my choice of frames.  Slightly fancier, but the same basic look.



The only big change is that I FINALLY have prescription sunglasses.  For the first time in my adult life I can simultaneously wear sunglasses and SEE!  You can't know what a big deal this is unless you are privy to the same conundrum.
Watch out bright world, here I come.

little wonders

The first miracle, hopefully there are many more to come this Spring:



And I'm finding that Pinterest is the perfect tool for me to share floral ideas and concepts with clients.  It's also pretty perfect for lots of other things.  If you want an invite, let me know!

luck - the kind you make

As revealed by my frantic facebook postings, I entered St. Patrick's day unprepared.  Renn had not been able to find chocolate gold coins at Winco where we'd seen them before, and I found myself lacking ingredients and adequate time for the recipes I'd planned to attempt.  (Because, uh, corned beef takes a week to make).

So after sending Sir O off to preschool this morning, I decided to pull myself up by the bootstraps and make it a festive holiday anyway.  I figure this is the year Sir O will start remembering things, and I've got to put at least a little pressure on myself to make some good memories (and traditions) for him.  To put myself in the spirit I decked my face out with rainbow eyes.  (It worked)



Then I hustled off with the younger boys to Wally World in a desperate attempt to round up festivity in a cart and return home before Sir O got out of preschool.  (We beat him by 2 minutes).

I threw some green into lunch by giving the boys a large serving of edamame with their corndogs.  Such a balanced meal.



I then turned into a mad woman in the kitchen.  I thought distracting the Captain with a cupcake would be a good idea.  I thought wrong.



But in a few short hours I managed to pull together a roast that sort of resembled corned beef and cabbage.



And construct a lazy-version of a rainbow cake.  I combined this idea with this to make it not take 40 hours.  I wanted to experiment with ombré frosting, and I love how it turned out!





I also put together a rather slap-dash leprechaun treasure hunt.  If you want to spend a few minutes laughing at Sir O you can watch it here and here.



And now that I've run myself borderline-ragged, I'm signing off.  Like so much of blogdom I'm spending tomorrow in silence.

It's hard to know what to do in times like these.  I personally can't spend much time glued to news or I get so emotionally wasted that I can't function for my three little men.  But I am re-learning what it means to have a prayer in my heart always.  A constant, constant dialogue is brewing between God and me.  Mostly He lets me talk and occasionally reminds me that death is not the great tragedy that we think it is, and that our mortal suffering is finite, whereas Christ's was infinite in scope.  We should do everything we can, but ultimately, He's got the whole, wide world in His hands.

the seed of faith

On Monday Sir O and I planted the first flower seeds of the season.  (We're nearing the 8 weeks before last frost marker, so I needed to hustle).  It was fun and it was messy and it was a revelation in how little faith I have sometimes.  We planted impatients, delphinium, and forget-me-nots.  All of which have seeds so tiny I had major difficulty separating them.  And the majority of my brain said, "there is no way any of these are actually going to germinate."  They seemed too small, too inanimate, and I was too aware of my own inexperience.  "I don't really know what I'm doing, so I'm probably going to screw this up."



But I followed the directions for each flower type with diligence from the part of me that still had faith in this endeavor.  And I couldn't help but thinking of the whole experience as a microcosm of my entire mortality.  Perspective, people.  If we remembered that every germinated seed in the world is a miracle, and responded accordingly, I think we would find the world an endless parade of marvels.  Kind of like my 4-year-old finds it.

mysteries and guilt trips

This is my friend Jen.



She is a sweetheart, with a backstory so convoluted and sad that you wouldn't believe it if I told it to you.
And intense disappointment just keeps finding this lady. This being the clincher.  She lost her baby, Jonas, just before her due-date last June.
So when she contacted me and some other friends from college about joining her for a segment Discovery Health(?) was doing about her we were all a bit confused about what was going on, but more than willing to support her.
It turns out there was a reason we were so underinformed.  The point of the shoot was to film her somewhat reluctantly sharing with us that she is pregnant again, and actually due on the 1 year anniversary of Jonas' still-birth.  The reluctance, sadly coming from the "silence" she experienced when she tried to share her abysmal news with her 400+ facebook friends and received fewer than 30 responses.  I will forever be quick to point out that facebook is a horribly inadequate medium for sharing information with any emotional weight, but it is not uncommon for people to feel isolated when they are going through the trials that render them most in need of support.  Sadly, the more "socially acceptable" the trial, the easier it is to extend supportive words and gestures.  But when people are going through pure emotional black-holes, experiencing things that nobody likes to think or talk about, then it seems that suddenly nobody likes to think about or talk to them, either.  I've heard this concern over and over from people swimming in the implications and aftermaths of divorce, depression, addiction, suicide, and other life-shattering experiences that people generally don't know how to discuss in a comfortable way.
And I, for one, am a guilty party here.  Sometimes words just fail.  You can't say it will be okay, because "okay" is relative, and the only "okay" that most people are capable of contemplating when drowning in sorrow is the "okay" that they were before their world caved-in.  You never know what stage of grief a person is in unless they are able to communicate it to you - and that makes worlds of difference in whether a "How are you?" would be exactly what they need or would make them revert into hysterics.    I'm the sort that just wants to give hugs without words in such situations.  Words are cool, but there are things they cannot do.  When proximity means physical hugs and affirmation are not an option, I really struggle and my struggle, sadly, probably comes across as silence.
Luckily, in this case, we all got a chance to assure Jen that she had been very much on our minds and in our prayers.  And I turned into the blabbermouth of the century because suddenly I had an outlet to talk about feelings to my heart's content and people stayed awake and listened.  The poor, poor editor who has to shut me up in post-production, I'm so sorry.
So, tell me readers, what wisdom do you have about supporting and loving people when it's hard this way?  I am determined to learn how to keep my timid self from turning into silence for someone who needs my love.

38 years, and every one means something

You may or may not have seen this before:

This picture of my grandpa and my aunt was taken 38 years ago this week.  After more than 5 years as a POW, he came home to kids who had grown up without him.  Despite the part where I wasn't born yet, I can't help feeling like it was an important day for my life.  And despite the thousands of times I've contemplated it, I've never managed to feel I've wrapped my brain around the whole thing.  It's just too big, and the repercussions ripple out far beyond my cognizance.  But I'm certain that God was in it; He's in all hard things and waits for us to learn that love doesn't just mean soft and easy pleasant things.  Love is often born in a crucible.  Refiner's fires are often the only way we can become what we didn't know we were capable of.  Wisdom, patience, charity, and dignity are usually cultivated during the least pleasant experiences of mortality. If we are willing.

(My dad, and his dad - same week)

highlights

That was easily the most jam-packed weekend I've had in a long while.  I like having places to go and things to do, but I'm kind of glad that this Monday finds me with nothing to do but recoup and reorganize.

Last Thursday and Friday were the annual UDA convention and Mr Renn had a research/literature review article to represent, as well as some CE courses to attend.  We were able to make a spur-of-the-moment temple trip that night (thanks Mom!) and cap the evening by requesting neapolitan shakes at In-N-Out. We recommend it, if you are into that sort of sugar-consumption.

Saturday was stuffed to the gills with errands.  A baby shower, an Opera date, and Mr Renn and I FINALLY ordered new glasses.  I've been wearing the same pair for almost 5 years.  And I am getting prescription sunglasses for the first time.  My future headache-avoiding self is thrilled.   And I made Rose's German Chocolate Cake for Mr Renn's brother's birthday.  I toasted the coconut and skipped the nuts, but I think it was a hit.  (I didn't get to eat much myself.... so those who tried it, how was it?)

Sunday, after church, we had two family birthday parties, and then (just as our Gentleman had a mind-boggling blow-out), I had to slip away to participate in a cable TV filming for my college friend Jen.  I expect that adventure will warrant it's own post if I can get it written in a way I'm satisfied with.  Just know this - there were tears and guilt and limonatas, and oodles of constructive conversations.  And I was mic'd.  Yikes.

Doesn't all of that kind of make you want to stay in your pajamas until noon?  That's exactly what it did to me.....

productive nothings

Despite the sparsity of posting I've been crazy busy of late. Any moment that the weather cooperates my boys and I escape outside and I weed like the dickens trying to get flowerbeds presentable. The first flower seeds came in the mail this week and I mapped out an elaborate sowing schedule.  Spring spring spring spring spring.  Can't get enough of it.



On top of this lunacy has been the unglamorous process of getting a business up and running.  A friend from high school asked me to do her wedding flowers in April and I decided to take the plunge.  I haven't got much to show for myself yet - I own a parked domain name, I have a tax id and my business license is in the mail.  But I've been pouring hours and thought into it.  And I'm apt to steal hours and thought from blogging rather than from my boys.  Can't exactly apologize for that.  Although eventually it ought to all mesh such that my business ventures are more bloggable.  That's the goal anyway.



AND teething - there's been lots of teething.  See? - crazy busy.

Best breakfast-dessert of all time

My parents try to have all their kids come 'round the first Sunday of every month for dinner and a Family Night.  We rotate assignments and my mom and I (and Mr Renn) take turns making proper Sunday suppers.  March's get-together happened to fall on the eve of a hugely stressful business trip for my mom - and so she found herself scrambling to come up with a dessert that wouldn't require use of the oven (since we had a turkey kicking it in there in an attempt to free up freezer space).  Who would have thought that would be the recipe for dessert perfection?  Mr Renn suggested Waffles with icecream, such as we've adored at Zwahlens, then my mom perked up.  "I've got a recipe for chocolate waffles!"  Can you see the sublime direction this was headed?



Chocolate Waffle Sundaes

Chocolate Waffles from Annette Lyon's book.

2 eggs
3 TBSP oil
1 tsp vanilla
1.5 C flour
1/3 C cocoa
2 TBSP Sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 c milk
1 tsp salt

" In a medium bowl, beat eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; set aside.  In a smaller bowl, combine dry ingredients.  Add to wet ingredients and stir until blended.  Beat for about a minute to give the eggs a little loft.  Pour the correct amount into your waffle maker and cook until iron stops steaming.  Makes about 8 small waffles"

Serve while still quite warm with ice cream, whipped cream, strawberries, and hot fudge sauce.  Enter nirvana.  Bring friends.



And I have to say, there's nothing I love more than hanging out with all my family.  My crazy brothers bring some awesome energy into the house.  Because, no matter how old they get, it's pretty obvious they're still little boys inside.

let's pretend - Nicole's Party with HSF

I've been reading Nicole's blog since it was about 20 posts old.  She's one of a handful of people I've watched become blogging superstars.  I found out she was working with my good friend from college, Leith when I spotted a photo of Leith in Greece on her blog almost 4 years ago.  You know, once you feel like you have less than 5 degrees of separation from a blogging celebrity you sometimes forget that they don't know you.  It would help if I wasn't so skimpy about leaving comments - but I spend too much time on the internet as-is.  I can't start beating myself up about that.

Nevertheless, when Nicole announced she was throwing a party in Orem last week.  I couldn't think of any reason I ought not to go - other than that I'm a loser.  So I asked HSF to join me since she loves me despite my loser-liness.  Mr Renn begrudgingly took over parenting duties on short notice and we went and had a grand-old-time.



We ate the awesome rainbow cake
We tested out the online classes
We chatted with people much cooler (or at least much braver about being cool) than us.
I got to feel tall for one of very few times in my adult life.



We touched $800 pillows
We reveled in being surrounded by expensive breakables and not panicking about keeping small children from obliterating them.
We missed our kids a smidge.



We talked for a long, long time about how desperately we both need words of validation.  And the crazy things we do to try to warrant them. And how our husband's think we're beyond crazy for it.
Then I came home and got to hang out with our gentleman.  All.Night.Long.  Sleep, who needs sleep?

Good thing I love my job.

Life is Good

The best things in life are not the easy things.
In my case, there are 3 little boys near the tippy-top of that particular list.
Ok, 4.
And despite the fact that my weekend was steeped in every variety of bodily fluid....  (blood, check. vomit, check, urine, check.) I'm still glad I got the chance to be the one in the thick of it all.
I'm (finally) starting to figure out how it is that people say straight-faced and sap-free that being a mom is the best job in the world.  Not something you can truly believe without trying it on for size; or at least wanting to with all your heart.

58 degrees today

Sometimes you've just got to get out of the house.
And sometimes there is a sleeping baby keeping you from leaving the house.
(I am of the "never wake a sleeping baby without good reason" persuasion)
So today during Sir O's preschool I took the Captain out in the yard and started playing gardener.  We wallowed in mud and prepared a flower bed for spring.  Lots of raking involved, which the Captain is fortunately proficient at.



Although, truth be told, he spent most of the time doing this:



Our gentleman did eventually join us, and he seems quite thrilled with the idea of his first spring .  I suspect there's something of a green thumb in this baby.



Let's hope the weather holds.  We've got one flower bed down and about 40 to go!  (And by "we"  I mean..... you know....just me.)

paradigm shift

A rather random series of clicks led me yesterday to mamapundit's blog.  (And it had nothing whatsoever to do with politics).  I spent over an hour poring over her posts about her recently deceased oldest son and peeling away layers of my artifice to let it pierce the real me.  This post especially made me think and feel more than I have in weeks.  Since becoming a mother of sons I am normally excruciatingly sensitive to disturbing thoughts such as these, but today I needed them.  Sometimes you need the hard-slap rather than the gentle-tap to remind you where your heart should be.
So today I spent time loving-on each of my boys with their faces in my face.  I tried to memorize their profiles and their scents and their unconscious noises.  I said "I love you" so much they started laughing at it.  I kissed stubbed toes, I read stories, I answered every one of the 400 "why" questions I got asked today.
And I was thankful.
Today was a gift.