Already?

H: Today at school Elsa asked me to marry her. She asked to kiss me on the lips but I said no, she can only kiss me on the finger.
M: Well, that was probably smart, with germs and all.
H: Here smell my finger. Can you smell Elsa?
M: Yes, it smells like a very sweet friend.
H: I think I will marry Elsa. I like her because she always holds my hand. And I like holding her hand because it is small like mine and it is soft and smooth and because she always wears dresses, everyday she wears dresses. And because she always smells good.
M: Those sound like good reasons. I like Elsa too.
H: Yes. But I will not marry her now Mama, because I am too small. I will marry her when I am old. Like 15 or something.

And another

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return."

I read this the other day on a blog that I recently discovered thanks to my friend Kenna. I don’t know who said it, but it resonated with me. I’ve noticed, since becoming a Mom, that much of my time is spent doing mundane, every day tasks and it is easy for me to get fed up with the “Normal day” routine. But time goes by quickly. Henry is 4. He started taking showers and is washing himself. Our days of taking baths together have passed. He is starting to read and some day soon I wonder into his room and find him with his face in a book and no desire to snuggle up for our bedtime stories. Pretty soon he will sleep in on the weekends and our Saturday mornings together watching cartoons and eating cheerios will be over. Soon he may not be interested in baking cookies with me or painting our faces like cats or pretending that we are being chased by pincher trucks on the ride home from Gigi's house. But for now he still holds my hand and buries his face in my thigh when he is nervous. And he still likes for me to rub his feet after we turn the lights out at bedtime. He still likes to sit on my lap whenever we eat dessert and he still calls for me at night when he has a nightmare. With all my might I am fighting the tendency to go into autopilot on a Normal Day. I’m pretty sure, in the end, they will be the days that mean the most.

LOVE

Happy Valentines Day to all our blog friends! Our Valentines Day celebration started on Thursday night. While I made dinner Henry sat at the table and wrote the names of all of his friends at school and his own name on each of his 21 Valentines. He made his Valentine envelope at school on Monday and, once again, the teachers told to us that he spent the most time of all the kids creating his envelope. He loves art and will spend all of his center time (the time at school when they do art) creating beautiful paintings. He was very excited to get Valentines from his friends at school.
This year we are celebrating by spending the whole day together, doing some of our favorite things-like baking, painting and bike riding. We are starting the day out by letting Papa do one of his favorite things: sleeping in. Henry and I are making heart shaped waffles, fruit and facon-bacon for breakfast...we are hoping the smell of good food will wake our late sleeper. Last night I made Henry a choo-choo train sweatshirt for Valentines Day. Papa gave me a delicious German Chocolate Cake (my favorite). And Papa is getting lots of rest, his favorite dinner and a beautiful painting by Henry.
Yesterday we made cupcakes and cookies...


We hope your Valentines Day is full of sweet treats, warm snuggles, your favorite things, lots of rest and, most of all, that you are surrounded by love. Lot's of love.

Back log

I'm not going to lie, facebook has made me neglectful of the Bean blog. It's just so easy to post a picture from my phone with the click of a button. Most of you are facebook friends, if not here are some of the pictures I've posted over the past few months. I call this, What we are up to-

Laughing:

Eating (kind of):Enjoying sunny days:Baking:

Reading:

Playing:

Playing in the snow:

Sledding:

Helping: Freezing:

Building:

More Building:

Getting into trouble:

The good stuff

Last weekend as we sat around our dining room table eating dinner, Wade was what we call in our house "actin' a fool", which basically means slapstick humor, funny faces, falling out of his chair...if you know him then you know exactly what I am talking about. Henry was cracking up. Pink cheeked, food leaking out of his mouth, incredibly loud laughter...if you know him then you will also know exactly what I am talking about. It was one of those wonderful moments as a parent when you look around at the life you are trying to create and feel a sense of pride and immense joy. Of course, Henry then began the difficult task of trying to follow-up Papa's jokes with some of his own, which mainly consisted of him mimicking the things that Papa did. One of his jokes was "You know what's a good joke? You are." Of course he did not mean it in the way that grown-ups take it, which is what made it so funny. The best part was every time he would make a joke he would throw his slice of pizza down on his plate in victory. Like -"Yeah, I know that was a good one". Awesome.