Good to the Last Drop!

If you know me at all, you know that I have a love affair with coffee. It's not at all just about the caffeine boost -- although, as Stephanie Piro says, "Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee!" And as a busy mom of three even busier little girls, I'm awfully grateful that caffeine comes in the form of the comforting deliciousness that is coffee! But really, for me coffee -- whether a steaming latte, a rich mocha, or even a strong cup of plain black coffee -- is the ultimate comfort food.

My amazing husband gave me an espresso machine for Christmas last year, and I've experimented endlessly with it -- Lamont always wants a caramel macchiato, so 9 times out of 10 that's what I make him in the morning before work, but I love to try new drinks all the time. I can do iced ones, but I prefer hot, and I think my all time favorite is a simple peppermint latte with a crushed peppermint candy on top. Oh my...it is simple perfection in a cup! Lamont loves peppermint mochas, and I love peppermint white mochas -- it's an important distinction, mind you.

And what situation in life doesn't call for coffee?? A strong cup to start out a blurry-eyed morning, a pumpkin spice latte to warm your hands on a chilly autumn day... My very dear friend Holly, at http://www.hollyclousephotography.com/, became my very dear friend over literally hundreds of delicious coffee dates! *happy sigh*

All that said, I'm sharing with you a couple of my decorating tributes to the delight of coffee -- just because. :-)
I love my kitchen clock! I seriously think I smile every single time I look at it.

And these adorable wall plaques are so delightful that just admiring them is almost enough by itself without me actually making coffee...almost.

My two other favorite coffee quotations (along with the Stephanie Piro one above), both by unknown authors:

"Mothers are those wonderful people who can get up in the morning before the smell of coffee."

"Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation."

She's a dancing queen, young and sweet!

Today was Ashley's very first dance class, ahhhhh! I somehow managed to send her into the dance studio all by herself, and if I happened to be hovering outside peering through the window during her whole class, well -- that didn't hurt anyone, did it??

She did great, and had a huge smile stuck on her face the whole time. There are ten little girls in her class, and they already seem to be forming the strong, instant friendships that only three and four year old girls can manage. It was precious watching them holding hands in a big circle and skipping around together. :-) Her class is a tap/ballet combo class, but today seemed to be mostly getting to know each other and some basic stretching and jumping and dancing in circles. So cute!

Ashley wanted her picture taken at the house before we left...

And I stole this shot of her as she first surveyed the studio; she was a little overwhelmed for a moment, but then she jumped right in. Sometimes I feel like she is more poised than I am...

She flew straight into my arms after class with a heart stopping smile and declared, "That was so much fun, and now I'm ready to do it again!"

That Was Then...This Is Preschool!

I know that I'm overly sentimental, but I couldn't help posting this picture of my darling newborn Ashley almost four years ago...

Followed by the pictures I took today as she proudly sat down with me for her first day of "real" school.

A bona fide preschooler now, my firstborn daughter is racing through her early years with a zest and energy that makes me beam with pride at the same time I desperately want her to slow down now!!

A Day In The Life!

The last few weeks I've been coming down with a case of severe baby fever. I don't know exactly why...I suppose it's a bunch of different things. Friends are at all different stages of pregnancies, from adorable early baby bumps, to counting down the last few days until the due date. Their pictures and stories make me smile. And it's fall now (I can say that now that it's September, although it's been feeling like it for several days), and that smell of change in the air makes me restless. (I know, I know, "restless" doesn't exactly equal "baby fever". But this time it does.) It's also the time of year when I reached the ends of all three of my pregnancies, and even having taken last year off I still perk up around now and think of babies. And finally, Ashley will start preschool next week. I'll be teaching her here at home, but still. It'll be an official beginning of a new stage in our lives, a signal of my little girl growing up and reaching into her future. And that's actually shaken me a little bit, which I didn't expect. Anyway, however the reasons come together, I have been thinking seriously about the possibility of us having another baby, maybe kinda soon.

Today my girls teamed up to dispel me of that notion!

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I'm doing an 8 am workout with a bunch of ladies at the church, and the girls enjoy their playtime with our friend "Miss Shannon", at her house. We have to leave by 7:40 to get us all where we're going on time, so this morning I was busy working on our quick getaway when Bethany started crying... One sniff confirmed that a dirty diaper had entered the building, and one horrified look revealed that my daughter had decided on a taste test. (Um, excuse me? You think you are grossed out about that? I had to clean it up!!) Judging by the crying, she at least didn't approve of the taste, so if there is any justice in this world we will never have to deal with that again!

Having arrived slightly-but-not-too-terribly late and completed a great workout, I decided we would stop at the playground on our way home to enjoy some of this crisp fall weather. I've been trying to get outside with them everyday while the weather holds up, so yay me! However, we'd been there no more than 10 minutes when Hannah, halfway up the stairs on the playground equipment, suddenly shrieked and announced in a piercingly loud, distraught voice, "I'm going potty!!" There were at least 10 other people at the playground, giving me pitying looks. Sigh...double sigh....

Having dragged 3 disappointed little girls back to the car (you would think a mother of three would be prepared with extra outfits for a trip to the park, wouldn't you? Well, I'm afraid you would be wrong!), I was focused on getting Hannah out of her wet clothes, and missed seeing Bethany sneaking up to the front seat. Bethany is unbelievably obsessed with coffee, as in un.be.lievably! We have had more coffee incidents with her than I could fit into a blog post. Anyway, she managed to slip past me and grab my very full, very hot coffee. And yes, oh yes, she dumped it. Her jacket kept her from being burned, but her clothes were absolutely soaked and stained, and so were many, many things in the car. Triple sigh....

So back to that baby fever -- I think I can feel it cooling down right now. Thanks, girls!

On bunkbeds and best friends...

The big news around here is the bunkbeds that Ashley and Hannah moved into about a week ago. We have had entire songs created and sweet bedtime prayers of thanks devoted to their new bunkbeds! Ashley sleeps on top, and is overwhelmed by her good fortune and how amazingly big she must be to be trusted up there. :-) (I never would have thought a not-quite-4-year-old could sleep on the top bunk, but she has a guard rail the whole length of the bed and is actually a motionless sleeper!)

Hannah seems perfectly delighted with her lower bunk, and I love how little children are so excited and thankful for the things they're given that they don't think to wish for more...it hasn't seemed to occur to Hannah that she might wish she could be on top.

They really, really love their bunkbeds. :-) And finally, Bethany has also graduated -- she is now a big girl and the very proud owner of a toddler bed. After almost four years, we no longer have a crib in our house!

The girls all share a bedroom now, and I love having them all together. It seems like perfection, tucking my precious girls in together at night, praying for them to have a sweet sleep in the same breath that I pray they will always be best friends and share their lives together. It is strange but wonderful to watch our children growing up like this!

Livin' the Life!

Here in smalltown USA, everybody smiles and waves, every stranger is assumed to be a friend, and nobody locks their doors. (The previous renter of our house told us, "We never locked a door the whole time we lived there, day or night!") There is no suspicion toward anyone, and no concern about being taken advantage of by your neighbors. It is completely foreign to my previous mindset and the way people act toward each other back home, but I like it, and I'm trying to embrace it. My new outlook was tested today, however, when my doorbell rang and I opened the door to a long-haired, creatively pierced teen with a spaced-out look on his face. "Assume the best!" I chided myself internally as I pasted on a questioning smile. "People are friendly here, he's not going to bite!"

Then he opened his mouth and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. If you've seen the kids' movie "Finding Nemo", the best description I can give is that this guy was the human version of Crush, the sea turtle/surfer bum in the movie.

"Dude!" He greeted me happily. "So how're you doing and everything?"

He lounged to the side as he talked, feet and hands moving rhythymically to a beat that only he could hear. As I stared at him in amazement, he continued,

"Check this out, you get to help me out today! See, I'm in a program that'll send me to college, which is a totally sweet place to go, ya know? Like, if I just do the program, then I get a scholarship to go, and I mean dude! That's the best plan for the future, ya know? So did you go to college and everything?"

Biting the inside of my cheek to keep back my laughter, I informed him seriously that so far I've done more of the "everything" part of that question than the "college" part, as I'm only partway through my degree but I'm married with three little girls. Pure delight took over his face.

"Ahhh, dude, you're livin' the life! For real! I mean, that's why I need to go to college, just to live the life. So like, do you love it?"

Strangely comfortable and greatly enjoying the encounter, I told him how we'd just moved to town and that I do, indeed, love my incredibly beautiful life. With a big grin he put his fingers to his temple and closed his eyes.

"Check it out, I'm psychic! I've got it, I've got it, you're from...Washington! Am I totally right?!"

Smiling wryly as I glanced at my Washington license plate on the car a few feet away from him, I told him that his talent was astonishing, and then tried to direct him back to his purpose in coming.

"Right, so I totally just get to travel around the country this summer and have people buy these magazines and books and everything from me," from nowhere he produced a list of various magazines, "and when they do, I get points, and when I get points, I get to have my scholarship, and start livin' the life like you are!"

As I looked over the list I told him thanks, but I don't need any of these....

"Oh totally! Like, nobody needs them, but they just do it to help me out, ya know? Are you sure you won't buy one? What'll I do if I don't get any points? I'll feel, like, unloved and everything!"

The anxious words were belied by a happy grin, and somewhat reluctantly I stuck to my refusal to buy, and offered him an icy Mt. Dew instead.

"Oh dude!" He joyfully poppped it open and gulped down half the drink at once. "You are so totally awesome! I mean you really do know how to live the life!"

"Well," the rhythymic movement stopped for a moment and he stared at me earnestly, "this has been so awesome. It's just what life is all about, ya know? And so we'll always have this, and that keeps it real. For real."

With that profound statement he nodded at me, and then the odd swaying movements started up again as he turned and sauntered casually out of my yard and back down the street, heading out into his totally sweet future. Livin' the life.

On Moving, and Many Other Things!

First off, the answer is no.

No, I don't have pictures of our new house to show you. None of the inside, of rooms being slowly cleared of boxes and beginning to look a little tiny bit cozy and welcoming. None of the outside, with a wilderness of flower boxes and landscape beds which I am giddy about finding the time to start playing with. Not even one little picture of the swingset in the backyard that prompted Hannah to exclaim on our second day here, "I just love this new park that we have!" Sorry, I have not one single picture to show you!

But I will next week. ;-) I have been hobbling through this week, to the best of my ability, with severely limited internet access. Currently I am (perhaps? not totally sure) online via an uncertain connection Lamont rigged up for me on his work computer. It is slow (which may be the understatement of the year) and extremely unreliable, so unfortunately there is no way I can use it to upload pictures of our fabulous new house. Actually, it remains to be seen whether I can even post a blog post sans pictures...we shall see.

Next Tuesday our internet should be hooked up, and I will not quite admit to counting the hours, but let's just say that there is a possibility I could be that lame! On the plus side, the somewhat crippling lack of online connection to the world that is not in St. Maries has given me lots of time to focus on turning this new house of ours into a home. It's getting there. :-) This house is way bigger than our old house, and the furniture is a bit sparse in places for now, which is fun because my imagination gets to run wild. I should mention that other than a bed, the guest bedroom is currently pretty empty. And the walls are bare. I don't really feel like sharing my limited pictures and decorations with a room we hardly enter. So if you come visit us (and please do), don't feel too unloved. I promise to get to it eventually!

Predictably, I have so much to say I could write for hours. There are more interesting things to tell about the beginning of our new life as Idaho residents, honestly. But they, like the spare room, will have to wait! It's one of those seasons of life when there are too many things needing to be done to allow for much sitting and prosing on the computer. Let's see if my sensitive little internet connection feels inclined to post this now....