Back to December

I took my kids to Yogurtland today. It was actually a bribe because they didn't want to go back to school. There used to be one about 2 minutes from our house, so we took the kids on Fridays to celebrate the end of another week, or Mondays after family night, or other times when we were just craving something super delicious. But two months ago, our Yogurtland closed its doors without any notice at all, and we haven't been since! Today's venture was a twenty-minute drive, and ooooh so worth it!

I sat there in Yogurtland, just watching my children, and I almost couldn't handle it. All four children were sitting together, enjoying their most favorite flavors and toppings, and each offered me a bite of their yogurt. And then they started offering bites to each other, reaching their arms across the table to share mango or peanut butter or "baniwah" with their very best friends: their siblings. "Oooh! Can I try yours?" "Thank you!" And as I watched them, I had this beautiful moment of clarity that I hope to never forget. I choked back my proud mommy tears, and thought----Sheesh. Of all the things I'm doing wrong, I must be doing something right.

This Christmas break, I had three glorious weeks to spend at home with my kids. Usually, I plan a trip or two, but not this year! Instead, we played at local parks, performed Science experiments, went to museums, built forts, read books, cooked delicious meals together, cuddled A LOT, and said a tearful goodbye to my sweet great-grandmother. She was 95.

And when it was all over, my kids BEGGED me to home school them.

London- "Mom, please! You're so smart! You can teach us all the things you know, and then we can be together all the time!"

Elle- "Yeah, Mom! We like being with you! It's so fun!"

Henry- "Yes, and we can see all the dinosaurs togever!"

Juliette- (screaming/laughing, running through the house, while Charlie barks and chases her)

I love being loved by my kids. I have decided that there is nothing better than being with them. Am I slightly crazy?
Okay, don't answer that.
But really, my fellow moms--- please tell me I'm not alone????!

London holding our homemade donuts. Holy delicious!
We filled the insides with marshmallows, which melted into the centers
and made them oh so sweet! 

The kids made this volcano from clay, painted it, and watched it erupt.
They got a whole Science Experiment Kit for Christmas from their cousin
 Layla, so we did an experiment almost every day.

Juliette is obsessed with plate tectonics. She asks me to tell her about it daily.
This room at the Natural History Museum was her favorite!

The only thing I wanted for Christmas was this pasta maker.
This is London and Elle making fusilli for chicken noodle soup.
 Chefs in the making!

Grandma Hollie came to visit for a few days, and we showed her all around Coronado
and Balboa Park. The kids were so happy to have her with us!

Homemade spaghetti and meatballs. The twins actually made this batch of pasta!
They stand on little white chairs they carry in from the toy room. Henry always sneaks
 and puts too much dough in, and then laughs hysterically when I catch him!

Grumpy Mary. 

Here, my kids are watching the sunset from a home my dad just finished building.
He threw a gingerbread-house-making party there to show off his beautiful work.
Somehow, I didn't get a single picture of a gingerbread house, or the house itself...

This is me and and Gramma, at her 90th birthday. Here, I'm pregnant with Elle.
 This is when I told Gramma (Eleanor) that we had chosen to name our daughter
 after her. Her response? "How 'bout that!"

We feel so lucky to have had her in our lives for as long as we
 did. How many people get to know their great-great-grandchildren?! We love her
 dearly and we will see her again.

When I look at these pictures, I don't want to forget how many times Juliette told her siblings that they were getting coal for Christmas because they were "being mean on purpose!", or how the twins asked to sleep with the girls in their beds almost every night, and they cuddled together under those light pink covers with the happiest smiles on their faces, or how by magic (insert wink), a piano appeared in our front room on Christmas morning. I wish I could go back to December, and relive our precious memories over and over and over again.

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.