Beauty crowds me

As part of my weekly homeschool reading and writing lessons with Julia (age 11, daughter of a friend), we are currently reading Fairest by Gail Carson Levine (it's a twist on the Snow White story). Along with this book, we are doing a study of beauty--reading different excerpts and poems, watching video clips, listening to music, and searching for beautiful objects, sights, sounds, smells, etc. in everyday life. I call it our "beauty quest", and the point of the activity is to broaden our understanding and increase our appreciation for different types of beauty. I was pretty happy/relieved when this brain wave floated through my head a few weeks ago because thinking up fun, thought-provoking topics to discuss and study at a sixth grade level is a challenge.

To kick off our study of beauty, I searched out an Emily Dickinson database online and we read some of her better-known poems about beauty together. One of the assignments I gave Julia was to read one of these poems three times each day until our next lesson and then write what she thinks it says about beauty, in order to let the words really sink in and to help her find/internalize the meaning in them. In preparation for that lesson, I had already read these beauty poems dozens of times, trying to unravel their meaning. Symbolism in poetry does not come easily to me, but I found that after the tenth or twelfth reading that the words started making more sense. I thought about them a lot and then early one morning while my kids were crowding into bed with me, trying to get me up before I was all the way awake, I had a mini-epiphany.

BEAUTY crowds me till I die,

Beauty, mercy have on me!

But if I expire today,

Let it be in sight of thee

--Emily Dickinson

My kids are beautiful: pure, clever, fun-loving, deep-sleeping, creative, sensitive, and loving. They also love to CROWD me. They seem to have this inborn need for closeness--whether it's piling into their parents's [queen sized] bed or kneeling on the floor to play shoulder to shoulder--their personal bubbles are much smaller than mine. Sometimes I have to run away and hide in the bathroom for some space! Beauty crowds me till I die, Beauty, mercy have on me! Those words came to mind as I looked over at Rose's long dark eyelashes closed on her peaceful porcelain face one morning. She had crawled into my bed and fallen back asleep. Was it a crowded moment? Yes. Was it a beautiful moment? Yes. 

Sometimes I feel smothered by children (for some reason I always thought that three kids was a relatively small number--hah!). But if I expire today, Let it be in sight of thee. Yes, I still seek out my personal space and solitude to recuperate from the intensity of my kids' perpetual dog-piles/endless loud requests. But I always go back for more, because being crowded by beauty is one of the best parts of motherhood.

 Blonde hair, thick black eyelashes--this girl will never need makeup.

The sun rises over the frozen tundra of eastern Washington, poised to attempt raising the temperature into positive digits. This is the coldest, snowiest winter of my entire life! Brrrr, it dropped into negative degrees overnight all week, and as I type this, snow is gushing from low iron-gray clouds.

 Before and after my run this morning: seven degrees when I started, 10 degrees five miles later. I borrowed Jeff's balaclava and felt like quite the bandit, running through town. None of the cars that passsed by could tell that I was laughing at myself for the entire first mile. Kissing Jeff goodbye before I left was amusing. Doing snot rockets was equally amusing. I quickly discarded my sunglasses because breathing through a covered nose/mouth shot that warm breath straight up to fog my glasses. By the time I finished running, my lower legs and arms were bone-cold and ice was forming in my eyelashes--a couple of times my eyes got stuck closed! It was freaky, so I wiped the ice out of my lashes periodically after that. And that one escaped strand of hair was stiff with white frost.

Amber is not allowed to go outside without a grownup, and 100 kisses would not cheer her up. Stop running into the street then, little girl!

 While I was cleaning up a nasty poopy accident this week, Amber put on her own clean pants and undies. She's off-again, on-again with the potty these days. Some days she does not use the potty once, other days she wears undies all day long. Third child bonus: I'm not stressed about potty training! She knows how to use the potty just fine, so when she's in the mood, it's great. Eventually she'll ditch the diapers completely.

Another tooth bites the dust! When will that dangling middle tooth finally fall out? It has been flopping around in that big space for a month. Also: Rose loves it when her hair is all fluffy after braids.

 Attack of the fluffy side ponytail

 Have I mentioned the reading? Rose read her first big book a few weeks ago--Go, Dog. Go!

 Speaking of beauty, we got to go on a temple date together last week for the first time in months. It was wonderful. Jeff thinks selfies are weird, but how else are we ever supposed to get pictures together when Jay isn't around? We had an entire week of sunny days this past week, but the temperature never got above 20 degrees. I have been debating whether I would rather have thick dark fog and 40 degrees or bright sunshine and 15 degrees. Not that my opinion can change the weather, but that sunshine and blue sky looks pretty nice from my current spot by the monochromatic snowy window.

The backbone of the lower Yakima Valley, gaunt and etched in snow.

 We had some seriously static crazy couch hair going on the other night.

 Five folks in a row on our first family movie night of 2017. I thought I was being all subtle and sneaky with my peripheral phone-photography, but Jeff noticed--hahaha.

Starting off right

This morning Jay started his day off right--with a quick game of Quidditch. He found our broom and started riding it around the house. Then he started launching himself, on his broomstick, off of the couch. He decided that our green broom is a Comet 260, and the old yellow broom I use in the garage is a Firebolt. Jay is on a Harry Potter kick, and has been for at least a year. We finished listening to all seven books on CD for the first time with him in the car last year, and then he started reading the books himself about 2 months ago. He is reading book 5 and just soaking up as much of the wizarding world's culture up as he can. It comes out in such funny ways, like Jay wearing his Hogwarts cloak all day on Saturday. And Jay shooting spells across the dinner table. And the wizard duels between Rose and Jay. I am happy with his magical experimentation, especially if it replaces his more...realistic experiments with things like spray paint and hammers. You can Expelliarmus me all you want! Although we do have a house rule--no unforgivable curses. Especially at the table.

Jay got a model golden snitch in his stocking at Christmas. 

"I'm a beater!" [using Amber's fairy wand as a club--typical brother, haha] 

Amber loved all of the dashing about, and followed behind on her trike. 

I watched Jay run along the couch and launch himself off the arm rest a couple of times before warning him of the possible injuries he could incur by landing hard with a metal pole between his legs, ha ha ha. 

When Rose finished practicing piano, she wanted in on the Quidditch game too.

It's a new year!

We gave Jay and Rose permission to stay up till midnight on New Year's Eve and all afternoon they gathered supplies to entertain themselves and stockpiled them in Jay's bedroom. They went to bed at 7pm like usual, but they were allowed to try and stay up till midnight. We told them if they were still awake at 11:45pm, they could come out and ring in the new year with us. Jeff and I descended to the basement to while away the time watching episodes of Castle. After each episode, Jeff went up to check on the kids. Amber was asleep after the first episode. Jay and Rose were still awake after the second episode, but they were lying in bed reading. After the third episode, all three kids were asleep. I felt a little bit bad for them because they were so excited to stay up late, but also kind of relieved because our kids do not do well on low sleep levels.

Jeff started tinkering with his computer and I worked on a last blog post of the year. Midnight came and we said HAPPY NEW YEAR, then went to bed. 

Jeff is a good dad. Amber has started treating the potty with a too-casual attitude, resulting in many baths. This particular bath was not from an accident, though. She stood up on the potty, slipped, and fell in, splashing toilet water all over herself. 

Still, that soft pink-cheeked blue towel bundle.

Our traditional New Year's Eve dinner spread: hot cracker dips, little smokies, and fancy cheeses and crackers. I threw in some spinach and sugar snap peas to give us a healthy crunch. This year's cheese choices: Comte and Cranberry Wensleydale (going to Costco together to pick out our New Year's cheeses is also part of the tradition--we did that earlier in the week).

 rewind: Costco/Target run for New Year's food (Dec 27th)

Brush those teeth!

New Year's Day--Sunday. It snowed 4-5 inches and with no snow plows in sight, we stayed home from church. We played games together and when the snow slowed down, we all went out to play in it. Jeff shoveled the driveway into a big pile. The kids sledded down the pile while he was building it, then we burrowed into it and made a snow cave. After an hour or so out in the COLD, we tromped back inside for some hot chocolate and board games. We were all a little overtired from staying up late the night before, so the games were interesting. Picture 3 inattentive, goofy/crazy/LOUD/wild kids and 2 goofy/sarcastic/exasperated/laughing parents sitting around the kitchen table playing Jenga, Uno, and Slamwich. It was a circus.

 Isn't this the cutest chubbly little bird of all time? I took this picture through our front window, where these little guys twitter around our front trees year round. I fell in love with them when I was nauseous/pregnant with Amber and all I could do to avoid puking was sit still and stare out the window. They are so entertaining and I love how they fluff out their feathers in the cold! I Googled them and I believe they are called black-eyed junco birds. ADORABLE.

On Sunday morning/New Year's Day we had a sister salon and I painted the girls' fingernails. They felt beautiful.

 Amber's pretty little fingers playing with trains--so delicate.

 Santamber

One of Jeff's French students gave him these mugs a few years ago, and I have wanted to take this picture ever since. Jay has taken close to 90% of the Shaina-Jeff solo pictures in the past five years. 

Amber ended our second game of Jenga quickly, by attacking the stack. Here she is poised for action.

We were loopy and laughing at everything by the end of Uno. Then dinner and BED, sweet bed.