eight.

This past weekend was chock full of celebration. In addition to Paulie's birthday, Paul and I celebrated our eighth anniversary. Eight years. Sometimes I can hardly believe it's been that long since we decided to blend our families, already full with 3 little ones. In other ways, it feels like Paul has been part of my life forever, and eight seems like such a small number compared with the experiences we've shared.

Piazza Navona, Rome, 2005

As an ode to our eighth anniversary, Paul posted this fitting tribute on my Facebook wall:

I wanted to ferret out one of my favorite stanzas about deep, abiding love in honor of our august milestone. But all these children are so loud! I can't think straight. Perhaps sadly, perhaps appropriately, the only stanza I can conjure with any lucidity in this foggy-minded kinder-chaos is this, from Eliot's Burnt Norton.

Words strain,Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them.

As I think about it, further down the stanza we do get this, which might work better initially, but ultimately ends up interrupted again by children. 

Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves 
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always -
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

There you go...eight years in a nutshell.

our simple little courthouse wedding, 10/06/2005

I rarely post photos of the adults in this family here on the blog, much less photos of us together. Here we are at the beginning, and, well...a few years ago. Because we're actually bad at even getting our photos taken at all.

2011, photo credit: my brother

a happy Mother's Day

Today was a very happy Mother's Day at our house, and I hope the same was true for those of you celebrating today. Although this post doesn't have much to do with Mother's Day itself, it's partly a brag on my husband and partly a brag on his awesome gift.

My husband is one of the world's best gifters. I have no idea how he pulls it off year after year, holiday after holiday. But he manages swoon-worthy gifts for almost every occasion.  Now, I realize that a bundle of glass jars wouldn't be swoon-worthy for every mom to receive on Mother's Day, but here is why he is so amazing at this.  I have canned with mason jars for years.  I have watched my mother and grandmother can with mason jars for many, many years. I never even knew Weck jars existed until I started following Food in Jars blog last year. But even though I thought they were lovely and would be such fun to add to my canning collection, once I saw the price tag, I tucked them away in my head as a maybe-someday-if-I-stumble-across-some-on-sale.  I never even mentioned them to Paul.

What's kind of funny about this gift is that Paul didn't go looking for the crème de la crème of canning jars on the Food in Jars site to surprise me. He just googled canning jars to see if anyone made jars with an interesting design. And now I am the proud owner of a few Wecks.  I can't even decide what to put in them! It seems like they should have a special batch of very pretty jam or pickles worthy of their beauty.

For good measure, Paul also bought The Sprouted Kitchen cookbook, which he apparently heard reviewed on NPR.  When I opened this gift, I joked with him that he might need to build us a new library just for my cookbooks. However, once I dug into this little beauty, I realized that this book is actually a nice addition to our collection, and in fact, I made the Honey Almond Butter today as I needed to make almond butter today anyway.

I hope all the mothers out there felt similarly cherished and loved on this special day for honoring mothers!

seven

My husband and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary over last weekend.  As he was traveling with Paulie for the weekend, we really didn't get much any chance to celebrate.  We decided that he would take the day off work on Thursday, and we'd spend the day at a winery about an hour outside of town while the kids were in school.  It really was the perfect plan, a bit of togetherness, some relaxing time for just the 2 of us, and no babysitter needed!

I remember when Shelton Vineyards began about 12 years ago.  I have family that lived in the area until a couple of years ago.  This is truly a gorgeous spot to visit, vineyard or not.

The tour was quite fascinating. We received quite an education about the different types of grapes and how they are fermented to produce different wines.

We were even fortunate enough to catch the workers during a harvest.  We saw them pick, load, and dump the grapes into the huge white containers in the picture below this one.

The containers were then dumped into this machine which separated the grapes from the stems.

It was amazing to see how fast they could plow through a giant white bin of grapes.

We also got to visit one of the barrel adoption rooms.  This room had chardonnay in American white oak barrels.

We really enjoyed this quiet little trip for to celebrate our seventh anniversary.  The grapes that are still growing and being harvested right now are cabernet sauvignon grapes so while we were at the winery, we purchase a bottle of cabernet sauvignon to save for our next seventh anniversary.  I can't wait to see what adventures await between now and then.

a beautiful Father's Day

After church and a simple lunch of Paul's favorite flatbread and smoothies, we headed out on a lovely clear morning for a walk around one of Paul's favorite local trails.  We only had one kid in tow after just returning from a trip, but I think he enjoyed this quiet, simple Father's Day celebration anyway.

A beautiful day to celebrate a beautiful relationship...and some of the most wonderful men in my life.  Happy Father's Day to my husband, my father, my brother and to all the other amazing fathers out there!

ten things

Yesterday when Soulemama posted her ten simply good things, I thought that would be a fun way to share ten good things that are happening in my world right now. But as today is the 6th anniversary of the day that Paul and I married and merged our families, I decided that ten things about us and our life together would be even better!

1. 4 kids, 2 by birth and 2 by marriage, all 4 amazing and I'm blessed to call them mine
2. a husband who does the dishes every night
3. someone to make me laugh all.the.time.
4. a husband who makes me coffee every morning
5. someone to listen to one of my many "plans"
6. a partner who thinks I'm crazy for wanting to take 4 kids to London or Alaska, but gamely helps me manage the craziness
7. a daddy who can roughhouse with the kids one minute and then recite poetry with them while they curl up in bed the next
8. someone who will drop everything he's doing at a moment's notice if I merely suggest that I'm in the mood for sweet potato fries from Finnigan's Wake
9. an amazing husband who will send me off to camp or classes and stay home with the kids for a week at a time and make it seem effortless
10. someone who has been with me through thick and thin, laughing and crying, sunshine and rain for 6 years now and still thinks I'm the most beautiful person in the world and the most fun to spend time with

I love you, Paul!

to the daddy of the house

To the most fabulous daddy we know,

1 dress shirt, because we know how much you love them! ;)

{card from Philip}

5 dad bucks, because you always wanted your face on money, right?

{card from Elizabeth}

15 minutes of coffee in peace! ...because our children are considerate that way

{springy greeting from Paulie}

1 lovely sunset to end your day full of German pancakes with peach compote breakfast, homemade pizza dinner (breakfast menu by the mama, dinner menu by the children), plentiful hugs, love, and appreciation

With gratitude for being such an amazing father to our children...

to my husband...

On this, the 5th anniversary of the day we said "I do", I want to thank you for being a constant rock, an ever-listening ear, a continual source of laughter, a willing participant in my crazy schemes (I promise you won't have to carry a 3 year old around on your shoulders all over London ever again.), unflappable, perpetual deep-breathing and calming influence on those sometimes-wild kids, and otherwise most incredible husband. Thank you.

to everyone else:

After reading an entry on Single Dad Laughing that went viral last week (perhaps you also read it), I was again struck and amazed at the wonderful person, and especially husband and dad, that I am fortunate enough to be married to. I've spoken of (or shown) his wonderfulness a few times before, but I think that our 5th wedding anniversary is a perfect time to tell you again. He's incredible not just because he cleans the kitchen every evening, reads and sings to our kids on a regular basis, or buys amazing gifts (yippee for a new anniversary firepit in the backyard!) but because he is a true listener, a champion to those he loves, a self-less giver ("what?! you're tired and need a soy 2-pump-vanilla latte to pick you up...I'll be right back!"), and a loud, roughhousing, giant teddy bear of a dad.

*photo by my brother, who is also an amazing dad

on Father's Day

Today and every day...thank you for being such a wonderful daddy.

He loves me...

While I could go on and on about the wonderful man that I'm blessed to be married to, and I have, I just wanted to share a tiny nugget about St. Valentine's Day. I realize that was days ago now, and the shops have already pulled out their shamrocks, but the sickness which pervaded our house around that time precluded me from writing much. (We're all better now; thanks for the well-wishes!)

In addition to ringing in our Valentine's day with a puking little one on his lap, Paul, with his amazing taste for unusual gifts, came through again with a winner of a Valentine's day present.

Blend Creations, started by a husband-wife design team in 2005, created this Connections necklace. Accented with Swarovski crystals to represent the birthmonth of each member of our family, this necklace is a precious, yet modern and amazingly designed, reminder of my loved ones. What a wonderful hubby I have to gift me with his love and amazing jewelry like this. ;)

I hope everyone's Valentine's day was amazing and lovely!

happy birthday, my love

Although this photo is almost a year old, it's one of my favorites of Paul with (most of ) the kids.  You can't even really see him, which is how he prefers it, but his presence is everywhere--carrying one, holding another's hand, arm around another.

On this, my husband's legal birthday (his actual birthday is up for debate according to family folklore), I would like to tell you some of the many reasons why Paul is the best husband around:

1. When I call to say I'm feeling crummy, he goes out to buy his own birthday cake -- vegan carrot cake, my favorite.

2.  When I call later to say an unnamed child, who is home for spring break this week, left the car door open and my battery is dead, he leaves work an hour early so he can pick up Finn.

3.  When I still feel crummy, he says we should wait to get Indian food (his birthday meal choice) another day so that I will actually enjoy it.

4.  Well...the list could go on and on, but you get the idea.  Wonderful man, this one!

And what do I get such a wonderful man on such a special occasion, what every good caffeine addict needs...a 12 cup coffee press, from which he will undoubtedly serve me the first cup of coffee.

Yumm-o!

Valentine's Day gift

One of the first things we did to this house upon purchase was to paint almost the entire downstairs in vibrant color.  Paul and I are not fans of the institutional-looking off-white that most houses are painted, and we wanted a house that would reflect our taste.  Little did I know that almost as soon as we painted our downstairs bathroom Pale Purple, which is a slightly lighter shade of the Pageant Pansy that covers our living room walls, I would regret the choice.  Not the color so much as the type of paint.  We like the matte look of flat paint, but having 3 then 4 kids in that bathroom almost constantly means that there were ALWAYS streaks on the walls from water, hand prints from sticky fingers before washing, and general messiness.  It drove me absolutely nuts.  So here this week of Valentine's Day, my wonderful husband gave me a lovely gift...he painted SEMI-GLOSS Pale Purple in our bathroom.  Already, the semi-gloss is proving to be an easier cleanup, and I couldn't be happier with that!  To top it all off, apparently Lowe's carries a line of No-VOC paint in semi-gloss so we didn't have to drive all over town trying to find paint that wouldn't off-gas toxic fumes into our house.  Now that is a good thing!

When he was done painting, Paul decided to make a weird paint design on his hands.  I can't figure out where the kids get this stuff!!

Another Snow Day?

Will we get another snow day?

We bided our time,

and waited to see...

(Yes, my newly turned 8-year old already likes Anthropologie catalogs.)

It looks promising!

Christmas in NYC, part 2

The Union Square Greenmarket!  My absolutely favorite place in NYC to waste time is Union Square Park.  The farmer's market is always a fun stroll.  Anywhere that you can find organic Christmas Trees, fresh apple cider that tastes like it's been stirred with cinnamon bark, and a community compost heap, is definitely my kind of place.  This time of year also brings the Union Square Holiday Market, in addition to the Greenmarket.  Woohoo!  I managed to find 2 handmade ornaments for next year.  (It's a secret still, but Elizabeth's getting a cloissoné ornament that looks something like one of these and Finn's getting a wooden puzzle snowman ornament.)

We stayed near Madison Sqare Park, which I hadn't been to prior to this trip.  A fascinating art installation of tree houses (with no access, still scratching my head on that one) all over the park.  You can see one of the houses in the upper right corner in the photo below. 


I managed to drag Paul along for just a bit of shopping, Anthropologie (orange latte bowls for 50% off! If you're a NieNie reader, you'll be able to appreciate that. :), Enchanted (a wonderful Waldorf toy store), and my favorite NYC bookstore, The Strand (18 miles of books in a rather tight space; I could get lost forever).  Paul was even so generous as to carry the bags!

As we were heading up toward Rockefeller Center with Paul's aunt and uncle, who live in Queens, Uncle Joe stopped the car to switch keys to a valet key for parking, and the car wouldn't restart!   As Paul, Uncle Joe and random parking garage attendant were pushing the car out of the street, random parking garage attendant #2 didn't break the car fast enough and it rolled over Uncle Joe's foot.  See tire-print on shoe below:


As frustrating as it was to be stuck in the middle of 48th street with an uncooperative vehicle, at least we had 3+ hours until the Christmas Spectacular which we had intended to fill with shopping nearby.   The fortunate thing about breaking down on a NYC street, is that given the compactness of the city, there's bound to be something interesting nearby.  Aunt Karen and I decided that there are worse places to break down...


than directly in front of a Irish Pub.


When 1 hour hedged closer to 2 without a tow truck in sight, it began to look like Uncle Joe and Aunt Karen would miss the Christmas Spectacular, which is exactly what happened although they did make it back in time to dine with us after the show.  Another quite fascinating NYC sight: the traffic stopped while a tow truck loads Uncle Joe's car.

The rest of the trip was, fortunately, less eventful.  We dined at some fabulous NYC vegetarian restaurants.  (Quantum Leap, we miss you already!)  Then, of course, I was stricken on my last day in NYC with a death-cold that has finally begun to dissipate.  (Thanks for the get well wishes!)