be who you are...

... say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. Dr Suess

they are my family... i grew up with them, loved them, irritated them and moved far away from them. but none the less, they are my family. when i saw them over the long weekend, i felt found and loved.

of course, dave loves me and i love him right back... of course, jackson and ryan love me, and my heart bursts for them... of course, my mom and dad love me, they have too : )

but to be moved to tears when held by your family--my grandma and my aunties and uncles, to whom i was a major pain in the ass--is like the world smiled on me again. i felt valued, and that's kind of overlooked when you're in the middle of nowhere without family to fall back on. so to them i say:

uncle jon-- i love memories of you and listening to KBPI in the blazer!

annie and kaitlyn-- slow down, and remember who was your first visitor in the hospital!

aunt 'chelle-- thanks for recognizing jackson and coming in the front yard to hug me hello!

granny-- i miss you... and that's all i can say about that right now...

mallory-- dave loved you sitting on his lap, telling me he was your boyfriend! i "love" that i got to see you for about 30 seconds all WEEKEND!

daniel-- we love ali, and the boys have taught all of their friends how to play jungle-ball and that a real water fights require ice water!

aunt suzie and uncle dan-- we love that we were your first house guests! you were better than any bed and breakfast in the world! plus, what B&B, takes you shopping too? it was a sweet set-up, and can't wait to come back!

i love you all!

ps: i'm going to post the other pictures... soon...

with a little help from my friends...

when we first were thinking about going to colorado, i was so worried about imposing on people... i don't know why i'm so weird about this. maybe because my family never stayed with family or friends. however, we are always welcoming people into our home--we love when people stay with us! so i have no idea why i'm slightly psycho about these things...

imposition or not, i'm so glad dave called sweet pea and beans' parents to let them know we were coming! brad is dave's colorado-idaho connection, and we are so lucky to have meghan thrown into that deal! so anyway, after a pretty severe reprimand from meg, and the visual of only getting to see beans as we drove thru their neighborhood... it was decided we'd stop by for a bbq after the rockies' game. why am i so weird about these things? we had so much FUN with our friends!

my boys were behemoth's compared to the little guys, but it was so much fun to see them all play together. my guys wanted to teach sweet pea to play "ghosts in the graveyard" but tamed it down to just hide-n-seek. they ran that poor little kid ragged, but were pretty impressed that he wanted to be IT all of the time. they were a little confused by why SP was taking the trains from the tracks they were building for him...

but ryan surmised that he and jackson were more "mature" and would have to be patient with SP when they played with him again here in july. and jacks said, "well, he's not playing with my lego trains." we're going to have to work on that maturity and patience thing, i guess, before july.

and here is beans just loving dave tickling his tootsies... babies love my guy!

thanks for being such great friends to us!

ps: if the folks at o'dells should happen by this blog and are happy with dave's product placement here--that is a beauty shot--they can repay him with a few sixers or seeing what they can do about getting it up into our neck of the woods!

take me out to the ballgame...

... or how far would you drive for a rockies game?

dave loves the rockies, and has been broken hearted since last october when rock-ober wasn't meant to be. he spent all winter analyzing, reading up on what the off-season predictions would be, and just getting ready for the new season to begin and his team to rock away all of the competition... and we sadly know what's happening there*!

but that's neither here nor there... because whatever the record, we packed up friday morning and drove 10 hours to colorado so we could take dave to the game as an early father's day surprise!


we watched our team win in overtime on friday night, and so we were STOKED for a great game on saturday afternoon... by the time the mets had scored 5 runs on the first inning, ryan was hungry AND thirsty...

we told them they had to wait until the 3rd, which they did pretty well. but at the top of the inning, they were up and ready to go. but this is what ryan does when he's bored--he's a bony-maroni, so don't worry about that--and if you have been on a fishin' boat with our boy, Ryan will clean out a cooler if given enough time!

so no matter how badly the rockies lost the game, or how much money was spent, or how much whining he heard, dave told me that this was about the most perfect day... nothing like being at coor's field with his boys! and he deserved a near perfect day for being such a great dad!

more colorado trip pictures are coming....

*what is going on with the rockies?

happy birthday, papa!

it was my dad's birthday this week...

and i have been searching around the files for a great picture of him with the fella's...

and then it made me think that the best pictures i have of him are the ones i carry around in my heart. when we lived in colorado, he fell off a ladder and was at my mercy for a few weeks--if he wanted to go anywhere, I GOT TO DRIVE HIM! then when he got in the car accident, he was again driven around by me... more of a treat for me than it was for him, i'm sure. it was great because, i knew that i had to have my car clean before he'd get in... so my car was clean! oh, if he could see it now, i'm sure i'd lose driving priviledges.

papa went with us to story times and then out to lunch at village inn or applebees... oh, applebees is where ryan threw up under the table when he was sitting by papa! and what a trooper he was when jackson turned one, and threw up all of the birthday on papa--who didn't throw up right on top of little jacks!

then i also think of the wrestling and pillow fights--he's such a great papa that he lets two little boys throw pillows in nana's living room! i remember every sunday night after dinner and before we went home, there would be mayhem... which usually with ryan getting tickled so much he'd pee his pants. but all three of them had grins from ear to ear.

there were car shows that papa took them to just to see the "cool cars", and they still do that when we're in arizona. they go to the mc-a-donalds on wendesday nights, and there are all of those gray-beards lovin' that two little guys are there to spice up the action. papa took the boys to the ok corral, and started ryan's admiration for doc holiday... and he's never afraid to look that the snakes and creepies that the boys love at the desert museum.

and i also think that jacks loves baseball so much because papa loved playing baseball with him-even when he was a tiny little guy. in 2003, we all spent the afternoon of july 4 at the park playing baseball... no one complained about the heat, we we're having too much fun!

we love you papa, and we can't too see you in

D I S N E Y L A N D ! !

brothers...

being an Only child, i often have a hard time understanding sibling relationships. i'll be the first one to admit that i'm bad, bad, bad with interpersonal realtionships because i've never had a fight with someone that i'm forced to share a room with. when someone hurts my feelings, i can totally write them off... this is not what i see people do when they have siblings. they have that 'forgive and forget' gene that i'm trying to cultivate.

on the other hand, we've been hit with a trifecta of our friends losing parents. so i'm my fear of losing my parents and being completely alone, i'm forever telling jacks and ryan to be thankful for each other, and that they are the best friend each of them will ever have. but being an Only, i'm realize that i'm probably being naive that all siblings are friends, let alone best friends.

then they surprise me...
...when jacks congratulating ryan for a soccer goal!

... and here they are being so much fun in Yellowstone last weekend...

after rereading and thinking about all of this, i guess that i do have my fair share of fights with someone i share a room. and upon that thought, dave is the best friend i have ever had...

... so not only is he my friend and husband and he's a great dad, too. so whatever the boys learn about siblings and relationships, it will be from him. i know that jacks and ryan will be great brothers and wonderful men!

and PS can anyone explain WHY this isn't laying out like i think it
should? i've been struggling with getting words to wrap around pictures...
but it's NOT WORKING!!!

school field trips...

remember when you went on field trips and sometimes there was a fun stay-at-home-mom who lead half the class, and then there was the witchy SaHM who was usually my group's leader...

well, thankfully today i was neither of the two!

today, i was just jackson's mom who has a cool job at the library, and i was rewarded with a big smile today when he walked in!

there is jackson in the middle of his 3rd grade class, paying attention to the other librarian talking about our local hero, wilson rawls. it's moments like this that make me love him even more than i did this morning when i woke him up. seeing him in his element, makes me appreciate the fact that he's a good kid and i'm probably not as bad of a mom as i'm prone to think.

one more thing... i've been awol because of finals. so i thank everyone who prayed and cooked for me, and hopefully next semester won't be so horrid! oxox

why, why, why?!

some people think i'm full negativity, latent hostility and have a bit of a superiority complex, and perhaps they are right... or as jake gyllenhaal said in the good girl, they just don't get me!

altho i get my feelings hurt way too eaily and lash out, i generally forgive easily--usually in 30 seconds, and once i love you, i'll love you forever and do whatever i can do to make you happy. of course, there are those who have pissed me off again and again; and i forgive them, but i'm not inviting them to my bar-b-que...

where am i going with this... oh, yeah, all morning i've been fuming over the snow. i know we're not the only ones dealing with the snow today, because bret sanders just mentioned that he's seeing the snow outside his window over mike's camera. but i guess, i hoped that may would be the start of spring. since we're in the throes of soccer and baseball and it's spring for God's sake!

oh yeah... soccer... last night as we stood in the snow--yep, that's what kind of great mom i am--watching these 8-9-10 year olds play soccer, the fun vanished from the game and all of the sudden we were in the midst of a racially fueled pissing match! let me say, that we obviously aren't any better than anyone else, because we have three excellent players on our team who we've nicknamed the "brazilian national team" because... well... because they are hispanic and are just truly amazing to watch play the game.

so here we are in the last quarter of the game, and there's a question over a goal attempt. two or three plays later, this kid on the other team is holding his face and sobbing like a little girl instead of playing defense. his parents run out there, and rescue their kid. it's bizarre... all of the soccer-moms start the murmuring, what's going on-what happened-is he okay-is dave going to call the game yet... oh, wait, that was just my thought.

so this is how it went down... a kid on the other team disagreed with the ref's call, our team backed up the call, the kid then said to one of the three, "you don't know anything, you stupid mexican," our kid retaliated, and the name caller started to cry. this is what i find to be the most interesting and distrubing:

• where would a kid pick up such a statement--parents maybe?


• the kid's easy ability to throw such racial slurs--and not expect retaliation


• the fact that our boy did that shoulder-to-shoulder shove during normal play of the game--no punching in the face was involved


• not only did the kid hurt our player's feelings, but then he lied to make himself look good


• our player offered no apology, just looked up at his dad with tears glistening in his eyes and said, in english, "but, papi, he called me a stupid mexican." and his dad hugged him, smiled and continued to pass put snacks.
  

who's to blame? i just don't know, but i can tell you i gave jackson and ryan the what-for over this. we talked about the ignorance of people who call names, and who might not tell whole truths. and after my tirade, ryan says to me as he pensively stares out the window, "why does this have to happen at every game? last week some kid said the same thing... so, can i have 2 or 3 scoops of ice cream at baskin robbins?"

it scares me that we let our boys walk around with these ideas floating around freely. and i'm not naive--i know this isn't a new thing or that i can protect them from it, but it still has got me in a funk. i hurt for that boy and for the other two who also feel the sting of the name-calling. i have my opinions about immigration, but i have no idea what it's like to be in crystal "clean" idaho as a different nationality. i do know what it's like to hold your child when they have been crushed by someone's need to make your child feel small. your heart aches for that little bit of childhood that has been ripped from them, and celebrate that (hopefully) they'll remember how much they hurt and will think twice before hurting someone else.

i hope that dave and i are raising jackson and ryan to be open-minded enough to appreciate everyone as God's creation. and then again speaking of God's creation...

... is spring ever going to come?