Sharing is Caring

Three-year-olds are hilarious. They are also insane. They are in one moment the cutest, sweetest, and most angelic little loves, and in the very next breath, suddenly scream so loud you're convinced you've actually lost an eardrum. I have become a professional manipulator, capable of keeping my cool and diffusing melt-downs, masterfully managing situations where the old Bristyl would've fallen apart. And each time I somehow manage to keep it all together, I feel so good----not because I think anything of myself, but because I can't believe I find so much joy, despite all the chaos, in motherhood.

Are you ready for a laugh? These are a few conversations the twins had last week:

(One day, when Henry's teacher wasn't at school...)

Henry: Maybe she's sick today.

Juliette: Maybe. I hope she feels better!

Henry: Yeah. She's probly at the doctor.

Juliette: I think she got stickers AND a sucker!

Henry: Me too.

Henry knows the name of every dinosaur
in every book we've ever read to him.
My favorite? Balociraptrr (Velociraptor)
His favorite: Tyrannosaurus Rex (which he says perfectly!)

Juliette: One time, when I was a baby, I driveded to Yogurtland in my white car.

Henry: Juliette, babies don't know how to drive a car!

Juliette: Well, I was with a grown up!

Juliette: Last time, I losted my kite.
Henry: (gasp)
Juliette: I know.
Henry: Is it up in the sky?! In outer sace?!
Juliette: Yes. It floated up the sky.
Henry: Can you get it?
Juliette: Henry! We don't have a flying car!


The twins don't quite understand how to use the past-tense. They say:
misseded
finded
losted
makeded
washded


My two favorite sentences are:
"I misseded you!" and "I makeded my bed!"





They both point out letters on every street sign and every store, everywhere we go.
The twins:"Look, mom! It's letter P! P makes the "p" sound! Look, mom! It's letter M! M makes he "m" sound!"
Over and over and over again.

Me:"That's correct! Good job!"
Over and over and over again.

Juliette is still the one in charge, and I suspect she'll always be. 

Juliette: Henry, you're a puppy and I'm a horse, okay? Let's hold hands!

Henry: Okay!

Juliette: Henry, I'm a kitty.

Henry: Oh! You're so cute, Peanut!

Juliette: Do you want to pet me?

Henry: Okay!

Juliette: Henry, SHARING IS CARING! (As she rips his toy out of his hand)

They play together all day long, and I have the great pleasure of playing with them, while London and Elle are at school. I laugh at them, marvel at their brilliance and their thoughtfulness, squeeze them much too tight, and practice, practice, practice my patience. My life is crazy. I love these little twins!

A Geologist in Training

London turned seven, but she's going on seventeen. She has this pretty princess make-up she wears all the time, and it always matches her outfit. I'll catch her and ask, "London, are you wearing makeup?" And she'll respond, "Yeah, but just a little bit. It looks good, right?"

Huh.
I can't argue with that one...

She likes to hang out with my teenage sister. There is nothing she wouldn't do to hang out in Maeci's bedroom. She'll ask, "Um, Maeci, do you want me to help you clean your room? I'm really good at cleaning."

She is a performer, and the most elegant seven-year-old dancer I ever did see.

She is tender-hearted. When the younger kids are acting up, she tells them to settle down. She sets the example for each of them to follow. If I'm stressed or sleep-deprived or exhausted, she rubs my back or puts her arm around me and says, "Mom, I'm sorry you're having a hard day. It will be okay. I'll help you." And then she does.

London is sensitive to the spirit. She hears a beautiful song or an uplifting message, and immediately recognizes that she is feeling the love of God. It often brings a tear to her pretty little eyes.

When she grows up, she wants to be a geologist. Which brings me to her seventh birthday party...

Everything online about a geology party explained mixing sand and plaster of paris in those little tin containers, with a rock or crystal for each kid to personally chisel out. But to me, that didn't seem quite real enough. So I asked Kyle to build me a box, like a sandbox, fill it with cured plaster and sand, and have all the kids chisel together!

The night before the party, we put the kids to bed, and by the light of our cell phones, Kyle mixed and mixed the muddy ingredients on his hands and knees, so they would be dry and set for the following morning. We laughed the whole time, because only I would ask my husband to create a life-size rock-dig for a child's seventh birthday party. And only Kyle, the best husband a girl could ask for, would agree to build it for me! I think he loves me.

When the guests arrived, I told them that there were crystals and geodes just waiting to be uncovered, in a box we had flown in straight from Morocco. There was a station for cleaning and polishing, and a chart to account for each crystal or gem they found. Each crystal, thanks a super kind grandpa we call Popi, was beautiful and genuine. The kids got to work.

The process was much harder than I anticipated, but the kids loved it, and so did the moms and dads who stayed and chiseled away with us. Every stone was found!

We ate cups of dirt, rock-candy cupcakes, fruit salad (with mangoes because they're her favorite), and banana nutella sandwiches.

The kids built a play dough volcano, and I made it erupt with an explosion of red lava.

The party ended with the opening of two Moroccan geodes, and the kids each took home a crystal from the rock-dig.
We all had so much fun!














And for my geologist in training, it was everything she dreamed it could be.










I just realized, I predicted London would become an archaeologist when she was just 1 year old! Remember this?!
Our Little Archaeologist

Oh, I can't wait to see what she becomes!

#coeurdgarvin

For our first family night of the summer, we all sat in a circle, and one by one, the kids added to our Summer Bucket List. Their eyes lit up, and their sweet little imaginations produced this:

Play tic tac toe
Sleepover with Maria
Beach day once a week
Soccer ball at park
Play a Mila's house
Take Charlie to the dog park
Library day once a week
Swim at Nana's house
Sleepover at Popi's house
Bubble bath
Family walks with Charlie
Go on a walk with Marianne and Charlie
Root beer float night
Sleep in a fort
Camp in the backyard with s'mores
Balboa Park
Family Movie Date
Costco hot dogs and cookers
Play with Mila at the park
Go to Auntie Tarynie's new house

This summer, the kids woke up, did their chores, and we set out to knock one thing off our list. It's hard to say which item was my most favorite to knock off... for the bubble bath, I bought Crayola bath finger paint, and each kid had their own color. Four naked babies, laughing, painting, and covered from head to toe in mountains of colorful bubbles, was just about as cute as you can imagine. At the library, the kids picked more books than they could carry. Henry is currently obsessed with dinosaurs, Elle will forever love horses, and London is mostly drawn to Science books. We left each week with a stack of  books like "Meet the T-Rex", "Prehistoric Dinosaurs", "Velociraptors", "My First Horse", "A Guide to Horses", "What Causes Asthma", and "Great Migrations". The day we took Charlie to the dog park, he had an identity crisis. He thinks he's a combination small lap-dog/one of the twins, so he preferred all the people there to the actual dogs we were hoping he'd play with. I think my kids had more fun than Charlie did. "Charlie, is that a friend? Do you want to go play with him? It's okay, Charlie! Good boy!"

We went on two big road trips this summer. The first was to our niece Tayler's wedding in Portland, Oregon, and the second was to the Garvin Family Reunion in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.


In Portland, we went berry picking with all the kid's cousins and their cousin's cousins. There were so many kids, they asked if they could take a picture of our group to put on their Facebook page! We picked 54 lbs of blueberries, 27 lbs of blackberries, 11 lbs of boysenberries, and ate our way through these stupid-good melt-in-your-mouth tayberries. We took the kids to Powell's Book store, a fountain in the Pearl District, ate ice cream at Cool Moon, and had a water balloon fight. The wedding itself was picture-perfect, complete with Tayler and Joel's black labs as the ring bearers. Henry danced the night away with one of the bridesmaids, and I captured Kyle twirling our little princess, Juliette

This is Henry's favorite person: his cousin, Roman. "Mom, he's a boy, like me!
 And he is my bruh-ver! And we is friends!"

London wanted to buy this for dad.

Two weeks later, it was time for the Garvin Family Reunion in Coeur d'Alene. We planned to stop in Yellowstone on the drive up, to knock another National Park off of my family list, and then spend the whole week together. Two days before this great, big adventure, Kyle's boss asked him not to go. PEOPLE. This was OUR turn to be in charge of the reunion. That means an entire year of planning on my part- from the location to the venue to the activities to the meal planning-- not to mention the fact that our kids only get to see their cousins once or twice a year, and they had been talking about this reunion since the one last year. But what do you do when your husband seriously loves his job, they really need him there, and you can't exactly drive across the country with 4 small children by yourself?

You cry.

When Kyle's siblings heard the news, they came to our rescue, and although it was INSANE, me and the kids made it all the way to Northern Idaho. How, you ask? First, we had to cancel the Yellowstone trip. Kyle drove up to Spokane with us, and then flew directly home at 4 am, the morning before the reunion started. And on the drive back home, I caravan'd with his sister and her family to the bay area, and drove the rest of the way to San Diego by myself. In total, 51 hours of driving time. ohmygosh it was tiring- but you know what? All the craziness made me feel welcome in a way words can't describe. I'm only disappointed that Kyle had to miss it!

Coeur d'Alene is just so beautiful. We had activities planned for each day: swimming, boating, tubing, hiking, school-clothes shopping, and we ran out of time and energy every day to check all of them off my list!

Our last evening was the talent show, where each person in the family performs. I have to tell you, that evening was magic--and not because Garvins are naturally talented and seriously musical, but because we really, genuinely love each other. As I gazed around the room, it wasn't Kyle's family that I saw...it was mine.

A Real One

A few weeks ago, my baby sister and I had a conversation about----marriage. I can't remember what sparked the conversation in the first place, but what I do remember is that my sister looked at me and said, in all seriousness, "You and Kyle never fight. I seriously can't imagine you guys fighting. You make marriage look easy."
I tried my best to backpedal.
"Honey, trust me, we fight, just like every other married couple! Marriage is SUPER hard! It's the best thing ever, but it takes SO MUCH work!"

I don't think she really believed me. And that was the moment when I started to think... holy cow, we (married people) are not preparing the next generation for what will be the most important relationship of their lives. A wise woman once said, "If you expect a perfect marriage, you will never be happy in a real one."

So, in this post, technically my eight-year-anniversary post, I want to do more than just insert instagram-worthy pictures and tell the cute stories of our romantic getaway (which of course I'll include, too!), I want to tell you exactly what being married to Kyle taught me this year. And I'm hoping that you'll gain some sort of something that might help you in relationships in the future.

#1 Embrace your differences
Once upon a time, I was on a subconscious quest to carefully craft Kyle into the male version of me. I mean, I'm so efficient, I'm so clean, I'm so organized! But do you know the VERY best thing about Kyle? He is nothing like me. And we picked each other, we were drawn to each other, because where he is weak, I am strong, and where he is strong, I am weak. We are changing, molding, bending into better versions of ourselves, and I love love love how different we are.

#2 Make it easy
"I want you to go to Trader Joe's and buy me pink peonies."
There's Kyle, who feels freaking awesome because he knows exactly what I want. And then there's me, who walks through my front door at least 6 times a day to see a beautiful bunch of my most favorite flowers on the kitchen table, and I smile. every. single. time. and think... ohmygosh I can't believe he picked ME! $7, and 13 little words, people. Universally applicable in marriage.

#3 Lift each other
You're feeling really tired? I'll do the dishes tonight. You're stressed at work? I'll do the bedtime routine. You need some "me" time? Go get a pedicure and don't come home until ten. You're ready to go to bed but I want to stay up? I'll hold you in my arms until you fall asleep, and then fold all the laundry. And sprinkle it on top with a daily dose of: You are so amazing and work so hard for our family! Thank you for everything you do! Or--Wow, this house looks incredible. I love coming home to this!

#4 Change yourself
Make mistakes, and try again. Don't be afraid to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, over and over again. Recognize your weaknesses, and practice fixing them. Go to therapy, where a professional will put everything into perspective, and make you feel whole again. Journal, blog, reflect, and tune-up some more. This year, I discovered that it's only the idea of change that's scary; the changing itself feels oh so good!

NOW, to the romance.

It was my turn to plan our anniversary this year! If you know me, you know about our tradition of planning anniversaries- that we trade off each year, and it's always a surprise for the other person. We ran into a little hiccup, which was bound to happen at some point anyway, when my dad accidentally emailed Kyle the day before our anniversary with all the details of our getaway. Kyle loved it anyway.

We stayed in my uncle's condo on the beach in Rosarito, Mexico--the same place where we had our honeymoon. It was exactly as we remembered it, with breathtaking views of the ocean and the calming sound of waves in the background, playing like a peaceful lullaby. We ate dinner, walked on the beach, relaxed in the hot tub, slept until after 9, played board games, and Kyle serenaded me with his guitar like only he can. I asked him to play a special song for me, one that he played that magical summer when we met on the dance floor. The first two verses are all about kissing a girl, and the third verse is about ending things, because the relationship was never going to last anyway. Nine years ago, when he totally pretended like he wrote the song for me, I thought, "Okay, clearly, he really likes kissing me (ditto), and he only wants this to be a summer fling (ummm, ditto?----Really? Yeah, same, me too. Totally. 2 good 2 be 4 gotten)." He confessed a few months later that one of his buddies actually wrote the song about his high school girlfriend. Now, the words just make me laugh and laugh!

My dad and little sister watched all four children for us, and they were disappointed when we came home, because nothing is more fun than going to job sites with Popi for 2 days.

Eight years isn't that long. I know a lot of people who have been married for decades longer, who are much wiser and much better at it than I am. But can't we also agree that eight years is so long?! If we're lucky, we'll only get to do what we just did ---like---six more times before our time on earth is over. That is CRAZY. I'm determined to not just endure my marriage with Kyle, to not just go through the motions of my insanely busy life, to not just have a bunch of kids with a handsome, intelligent, guitar-playing roommate. What I want is to absolutely love the life we build together, to find so much joy in it that I wake up each most mornings, thrilled to choose him again and again, and to have him choose me, too.