"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

~Robert Frost







Monday, July 19, 2010

On husbands...


Recently Ashley decided that she would like to marry her daddy when she grows up. She had been looking at our wedding pictures and asking me if she could get married too...I told her that when she was a grown up lady (we're talking at least 30 here, just for the record!) then maybe God would bring her a wonderful man to be her husband, just like He did for me. She tilted her head to the side and looked at her daddy sitting with me on the couch, and happily decided, "When I am a big lady, Daddy can be my husband!"


While Lamont grinned like crazy over one of the biggest compliments a daddy can get, I laughed and told Ashley that he would always be her daddy, but he's already my husband, so she'll have a different husband someday. It seemed like pretty straightforward logic to me, so when she disappeared down the hall with a little smile I figured that she was sweetly accepting my prior claim on our favorite man.


Out she bounced again a few moments later holding Curly the teddy bear. With the world's most mischevious grin on her little impish face, she tossed the teddy bear casually into my lap and announced, "There you go, Curly will be your husband now, and Daddy is going to be my husband!!"

Friday, July 9, 2010

On swimming and sisters...

(I know I haven't blogged in...um...close to a month. And I've missed it -- a lot! I've tried over and over to blog about our upcoming move to St. Maries, ID. And because I have such mixed feelings about the whole adventure, my blog attempts haven't been coming out the way I want them to. So for now, we're skipping over the elephant in the room (hey, it's an elephant in MY room, ok?) and picking up where we left off...blogging about my silly, precious girlies!)

After a spring and early summer of steady 50-60 degree weather and endless rain, this last week has thrown some astonishing heat at us. The kind of heat that makes you hurry outside to play in the morning right after breakfast, because from about 10 o'clock on it's too hot to be comfortable, and even playing in the sprinkler doesn't sound too appealing because of the sun beating down on you... So when friends invited us to the river with them this morning, we jumped at the chance to have fun and stay cool splashing around for a while! To be honest, I didn't think we were going to the river -- whether it was something she said that confused me, or more likely just my brain doing its own thing, I understood we were going to a park with some sort of splash fountain or something. But following her directions took us right to a sandy beach on the edge of the little Spokane river, and at first I was a little panicked about having all three girls at the river by myself! It was a perfect spot, though, with lots of sand and shallow water, and we had so much fun. Now that I was tricked into doing it once, I can't wait to do it again!
Since we carried home with us about half the sand on the beach, the girls got to prolong their water fun with a bath before naps. (Even so, sand keeps mysteriously appearing around the house.) And after their bath I put them in these dresses that my little sisters made for them...

...and they were being so silly with big squeezing hugs and tackling each other!
When our girls were all born so close together I started praying they would grow up to be best friends. And oh my goodness -- they really are! So many people have skeptically told me that we would regret having three so close together. That more importantly, our children would regret it and resent it. Comments like that hurt and are frustrating, but they are also wrong. Our daughters are the joy of our lives, and the very fact that they are each only a year apart has already made them the best of friends and playmates. They are such gifts to each other and to us, and they know it, and I am so grateful for that!