FIRST IMPRESSION OF TURKEY HANDS...

i can still remember learning to trace my own hand when i was in kindergarten and doing so over and and over again on reams of old printer paper (the old school kind with the holes all the way down both sides of each page that were used to feed it along the printer).

this year adelaide has become quite skilled in this artistic ability herself. at the beginning of november she and i helped each family member make a turkey hand and decorate it. we punched holes in our turkeys as well as leaves we found outside and strung them together in a garland. 

as the month went on the same garland that once made me smile began to pull at my heartstrings a bit. as it was fading and bending, it began reminding me that the hands it represented wouldn't stay the same forever either. therefore a more lasting thanksgiving decoration inspiration came to be.

on a long, blank canvas (that has been in the top of my closet for quite sometime just waiting for turkey hands i guess) graham used acrylic craft paint to make the tan background (i love seeing his brushstrokes when i look closely).

next, using more acrylic paint i painted the hands of each family member brown and the feather colors of their choice (some were easier than others). then i added eyes, beaks, waddles, and feet.

after it had throughly dried adelaide copied the verse we chose on the canvas using a sharpie marker (i love her handwriting being captured just as much as the size of these hands).

"We will celebrate your abundant goodness,

and joyfully sing of your righteousness."

Psalm 145:7

MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF PIRATES...

like many all things i said i would never do in motherhood,
i have swallowed my words and pride once again.
this time concerning skulls and crossbones.

oh how many times have i lamented the fact a normal cute shirt is ruined with a pirate emblem.
if the manufacturers must add something nautical why not an anchor? a crab? a whale? or anything else.

but yo, ho, ho, what do you know... the pirate world snuck into my heart one thirty-minute segment of jake and the neverland pirates at a time. ever since we first watched the show last fall our own kids have transformed into these characters often. each time we go to the park i load up adelaide and graham, but when we get there they only refer to each other as izzy and jake.

at christmas last year, graham's favorite gifts were jake's spyglass and headband, and bucky the pirate ship. he has played with them almost daily ever since. then the kids received a special package from abilene for valentine's day. it was complete with their own pixie dust, vests, and interactive treasure map that looked like our own backyard and they developed into these characters even more.

it came as no surprise when they told me what they wanted to be for halloween this year (and how wonderful that we had almost all their costumes already on hand). the surprise this year was simply that coordinating costumes worked out once again. every year i prepare myself for it to be the last matching year, but this halloween jake, izzy, and skully the parrot made quite a trio at october birthday parties, trunk-or-treat, trick-or-treating, and passing out candy on halloween night. and all the while i found myself thinking even skulls and crossbones look cute on these heads.

and now a walk down costume memory lane...

the chicken and the egg (2006)

lobster and chef (2007)

baby zebra (2008)

ade-lady-bug (2009)

the toy story gang: woody, jessie, mr. and mrs. potato head (2010)

little red riding hood and the big nice wolf (2011)

rapunzel and pascal, her chamelon (2012)

a pirate's life for them (2013)

click here for another halloween tradition at our house

MY FIRST IMPRESSION ON THE FIRST...

my FIRST IMPRESSION of a BROTHER...

from my earliest memories my parents and i prayed for another baby for our family. correction, my parents prayed for a baby. i prayed for a sister. and i am thankful every day God answered those prayers yes with my sister sara kate. sometime during the eleven years before i had sibling i was once a part of a completely hypothetical conversation where we were discussing what it would be like to have a pool in our backyard. for some reason my feelings on the subject were summed up by stating the following: i'd rather have a sister than a pool but i'd rather have a pool than a brother.

i now know there is so much more good to brothers than i realized. i've talked before about what a pleasant surprise a son was, but it is also so neat to see what a treat he is as a brother. i am so glad that sandwiched between the sisters in our family is an incredible brother. beyond the pestering and typical brotherly antics there is a jackpot of joy that would be missing from our family without this brother.

this brother is a sidekick.

he is creative and hilarious and kind.

he evokes more laughter than most comedians.

he is as loyal as they come.

this brother is a protector.

he is thoughtful and entertaining and relaxed.

he is quick to apologize for any bulldozing.

he strives to keep the peace and loves so well.

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.

- Marc Brown

MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF HAZANNE...

hazanne [heyz-an]

noun

1. a female raised in bugtussle, texas.

2. daughter of wayne and cora sue, wife of bill, mother of five, grandmother of thirteen, great-grandmother of four.

3. exceptional stain-remover, fried-chicken-maker, and truth-speaker.

can also be used as adjective/adverb/verb

1. that is so hazanne.

2. pulling a total hazanne.

3. hazanne-ing it.

synonyms

unique, entertaining, loving, devoted,
hard-working, above and beyond.

when my cousin marka sue and her son deacon came to visit a couple months ago we had many
"hazanne" moments. leading up to their visit as we were texting back and forth. our texts were long and detailed and awesome to both of us. evan laughed when he saw the chain of messages and summed it up by saying, "you two are hazanne texting hazanne."

we took it as a compliment and it's completely true. we are her two oldest grandkids and i think it's safe to say we have a lot of her heritage in us. there are pieces of hazanne that crop up all over our lives and i love it.

no detail is too detail-oriented. no questions is off-limits to ask her (except the middle number of her weight). no topic is left unturned when she is talking to you. no sandwich will ever be made more perfectly to your liking than when hazanne makes it. she is stunningly beautiful (with her contagious smile, the strongest arms ever, and natural hair color) but even more beautiful is the way she lives her life. i think of her when i read proverbs 31:30, "charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." 

she's a studier of people and a studier of details. she knows how to do anything (from cleaning out the bottom of the city dumpster to getting ink out of bedspreads). she is willing to help however she can too (from ironing tablecloths to laminating and other ridiculous things i have asked for help with through the years).



she has this gift for making each and every person feel loved individually no matter what else is swarming around you. she makes moments with each person in our family a priority. hazanne's younger brother once commented that she is the only person he knows that somehow raised five only children. one of my early memories is coming home from kindergarten while she was visiting us in oregon. she asked what i wanted for an after-school snack and when i answered sautéed mushrooms she whipped up a batch immediately.

she is the inventor of  "treat of the week." raising five kids on a minister's salary was no easy feat but she and bill used creativity to include lots of fun in their lives. the special details she knew about their kids determined each of their treats... my uncle mike loved asparagus but since it wasn't always in the budget he would sometimes be the recipient of the "treat of the week" when she would bring it home from the grocery store especially for him. over the years "treat of the week" has evolved to be our title for any special treat along the way, they aren't necessarily weekly but they are always given with love.

all five of their kids went to college in town and bill and hazanne's home became home-away-from-home for so many. friends become like family as they feed (phsyically, spiritually, and mentally) so many who have entered through their back door. years later my college friends fell in love with them too. when my sister-in-law mel was at acu and flying home for the weekend, hazanne jumped at the chance to be her airport shuttle. that alone was sweet but as always she took it one step farther and quizzed me on mel's favorites hoping to have it ready for her in the car. and mel tells how hazanne wouldn't let her lift her own bag out of the car but insisted on doing it for her.



when i was in new york working at camp for the summer she and bill came to visit to see firsthand the place that had became so special to me. then on my weekend off they drove my friend abbe and me hundreds of miles while we caught up on sleep in the backseat. they knew my dream to visit all 50 US states and since the majority of the states i hadn't visited were in the corner where we were, they drove us to many neat landmarks over three days to help make my dream reality.

 i had awesome roommates all of college, but two all-star ones were bill and hazanane. i loved living with them the semester i student-taught.  this was the only year of my life i liked tea and i only liked hot green tea. i am not a morning person and neither is bill, so hazanne said she knew exactly how to handle both of us, neither of us wanted to speak until 10am unless necessary.  she managed to say "i love you" without saying a word before i left for the classroom each day. as soon as i got out of the shower there would be a perfectly timed cup of sweet hot green tea sitting by the bathroom door waiting for me. my dirty clothes hamper was empty almost every day. the few articles of clothes i'd worn the day before would magically be clean and neatly folded on my bed each afternoon when i returned home. it wasn't uncommon to find a pot of my favorite soup on the stovetop even when they had dinner plans out with others.

the next year i met evan and there is no doubt about whether they approved. hazanne has told him too many times to count that if she could go to the store and pick any boy in the whole world to be my husband she would pick evan every time. she always follows this by thanking him for loving me well.



watching her with our kids is icing on the cake. she doesn't take one thing for granted. she tells me often this is just more wonderful than she even could have imagined. she says she never dreamed she would get to see not only her kids and grandkids grow up but great-grandkids too. it is wonderful to watch my kids play with marbles and set up shop in the creative corner at their house just as i did so many days myself. and it is music to my ears to hear another generation affectionately call them by their first names, "bill" and "hazanne."



she was influential in my love for playing forty-two. she has taken care of me when i had the chickenpox, dry sockets, warts removed, and stomach bugs (although her overeager lysol usage didn't help me recover from puking). when asked for advice, she gladly shared her seasoned wisdom for taking care of a busy household as well as taught me how to help others in crisis situations. she sends encouraging texts and affirms with honesty and love.

some could say we are spoiled by her. but i find it interesting that being loved so well doesn't make us want to be a consumer of love but rather motivates us to love others this well too. i can't help but smile thinking how many lives are touched directly and indirectly because of the love hazanne has poured into so many.

she is a one-of-a-kind treasure. 

MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF A CHAIN STORE BATHROOM...

in 2011, a supercenter opened near us. on my first visit i was most impressed with the clean bathrooms. i remember wondering if this was just because it was new but hoping it would stay so pristine.

the kids and i began walking to this store during the day and i continued to be impressed with the overall cleanliness of it. some would be deterred from walking due to our heat or crossing busy streets, i however have idealized walking to get groceries ever since spending a semester in england. since i have often wished i could walk more places here we make the most of the places we can get to on foot.

although we have walked there many times, the most memorable store visit of 2012 was the early morning in april i hopped in my car and went. i drove to the store to buy a pregnancy test and cheerios. since everyone knows the first pee of the day is the most reliable i potty-danced in the aisles and through the checkout then proceeded right to those clean bathrooms to find out the test results. it was there that i first found out mae was growing in me.

now it's 2013 and i am still frequenting the same store. one recent evening mae and i went for a stroll while evan and the big kids were out. we needed to get a few things and ended up wandered the aisles a little too long. the sun went down so we called evan and the big kids to be our pickup car. since they were still a few minutes away i slipped into a restroom stall to feed hungry mae while we waited.

i had to laugh at all the times (pre-motherhood) that i rolled my eyes at moms who had their whiny, full-diaper, tired kids out at the store late in the evening. as with most things i said i'd never do as a mom i am now one of those i rolled my eyes at. as i walked by this clean restroom mirror holding my sleepy, disheveled hair, full-diaper baby i stopped and smiled remembering another moment i had been in this restroom with mae. that morning i stood in this same spot and first found out about the girl that now sits on my hip.

(the good thing about this month's first impression coming on the twenty-eigth instead of the first is you only

have to wait three more days until the next first impression... assuming it acutally comes on the first)

FIRST IMPRESSIONS ON THE FIRST...

my FIRST IMPRESSION of THE SLEEP CYCLE

not so many nights ago graham asked me, "momma, what is that bed in the nursery for?"
good question buddy. now i actually have an answer. mae's nursery is in full-time use.

i know their is scientific data and factual information about the human sleep cycle but my observations of baby sleep cycles can be summed up like this: i have a hard time changing even a teensy-tiny detail as long as sleep is happening. i'm not superstitious, but please don't ask me to change what kind of swaddle blanket, sleepsack, or bed is currently being used. i do not want to mess with a good thing where sleep is involved.

baby sister first slept in her hospital bassinet.

there are people who can't sleep a wink with a baby in their room, i am not one of those people.

i am the person who (not-so) secretly loves when we all need to pile into one room on vacation and have a slumber party. should i happen to wake up in the middle-of-the-night i can see all my favorite faces around me. so when we came home she snoozed comfortably swaddled in the rock&play sleeper next to our bed. eventually she grew and her legs seemed to hang out the bottom forcing me to retire it. 

she graduated across our bedroom to the antique bassinet (minus the bunny) that evan slept in as a baby. most of his extended family slept in at as babies too, and it is just the sweetest thing. 

maybe the adorableness of a baby sleeping in this bassinet contributed to my inability to move her out of it and out of our room (but it's much more likely i just have issues, see this post from five years ago). 

for over four months we had this sweet third roommate in our room.

but the day finally came that we knew somebody was ready to graduate to her own room. we could no longer carry on conversations without her waking up. she stopped tolerating the lights being flipped on and off. she was getting too tall for yet another bed. and so our little petite pipsqueak moved into the giant crib.

it's as if she knew i wouldn't have the strength to make a sleep change, so she demanded it. one night she cried and tossed and turned downright refusing to go to sleep in her bassinet. so i reluctantly moved her into the giant crib and homegirl instantly set up shop sucking her thumb and fell asleep. and so her adorable (if i may say so myself) nursery now has a new occupant. this room has belonged to a baby since the day we moved in. it's been a well-loved room at our house.

adelaide's nursery became graham's nursery and now it has become mae's nursery.

i know the day will come when these nursery walls will be painted over.

one day a baby will no longer occupy this room of our house.

i'm thankful today is not that day.

what joy seeing this smile brings when i walk into this room each morning.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS ON THE FIRST...

my FIRST IMPRESSION of FIRST WRITINGS...

it doesn't seem that long ago when we brought home this dark-haired, chubby-cheeked baby home to  our second floor apartment. while evan went to class, adelaide and i moved between the living room and bedroom, spending our days getting to know one another. i took each step meticulously as i carried her up and down the stairs of our building to go on an adventure (a walk to the mailbox) together. i listened carefully to her cries longing for the day i would know what each one meant, as others assured me i'd learn to do. through it all i knew the day was getting closer when she would be six weeks old, and i would return to spending these days with my classroom full of kindergarteners. 

i remember that first day back at work. i blinked back the tears as i missed my girl while making the drive to school early that morning. and then as my students began walking through the classroom door i was momentarily distracted by each of their faces i had missed. the bodies that filled my classroom had once seemed so small next to the lines of other elementary classes. but now they seemed like giants in comparison to the twelve pounder i had at home. 

i was in awe that each of my five and six-year-olds had once started out small and unknowing like my baby at home. that there had been a time they simply ate, cried, and slept. and now they revolted against falling asleep during rest time, ate cheetos, and could actually tell me what made them cry.

thanks to a wonderful long-term substitute i came back to a classroom full of writers. kids that could not only write their name but even some complete sentences and stories. it was such a fun thing to watch. even though i had witnessed it with each class the previous four years too, it all took on an extra measure of delightfulness now. it is pretty incredible what all can be discovered in five years of life.

i finished teaching that school year, then have been able to stay home since. and now here i am in awe all over again as my own small, unknowing child has turned into one of those five-year-old who can write. it began with her name. next she was writing other letters as she asked us how to spell something. and now she has entered my favorite stage where she attempts to read and write anything and everything. i recall what those feelings myself. what it's like when i discovered how to read and write. the world appears differently almost overnight as you suddenly get to take in each written detail around you.

a few things she has written i've captured with the camera,

and of course there are many, many more in my mind too.

when i asked what each sign said she read these things to me:

"Dear Mom, Happy Birthday!"
favorite birthday card i've ever received

"welcome to the Grocery Shop C-E-C-S-E-L-A"

i tried to sound this sign out and asked her how she thought to name her store "Cecsela"
only to be informed, "you say all the letters, you know, like HEB!"

"Jesus loves us for the bible tells me so.
Yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me,
yes Jesus loves me the Bible tells me so."
i absolutely love this reminder that "Gesus luvs us"

"Daddy and Mommy"

clearly she applied the rule "double e always says e" on our chalkboard placemats that night

"This is for Graham from Adelaide, please like it!"
tomato, to-mah-to, like, lick

"I love you little Mae"

truer words have never been written

"Momma is cool"

obviously i love this one

"Hi! My name is Adelaide and that is a good thing."

so glad she approves of her name

"Writing is an extreme priviledge but it's also a gift.

It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone."

-amy tan