Cakeman

I would guess that anyone who even remotely knows my husband would consider him a “manly man”. He loves sports – football, basketball, soccer, golf. He loves the outdoors – hunting, camping, fishing, hiking. And most other pursuits guys often associate themselves with – NASCAR, snowboarding, wakeboarding, remodeling our home. For as long as I have known him he has been the quintessential guy’s guy.

I have learned over the years that as typical as these sorts of men can be they can occasionally throw a curve ball at you – like, have some random little tiny softer side that you never would have expected. My friend’s husband, for example, paints her toenails for her – totally surprised me. My uncle used to be the one who braided my cousin’s hair. And did it quite well I might add.

Now, while Ross can be all kinds of sweet to our children and me, I have never really found that one random – dare I say, slightly more feminine – trait that contradicts the rest of his entire personality. Until now. The signs were there; I guess I just never noticed them.

Six years ago, when we were still somewhat newlyweds, my birthday was approaching. My parents, for reasons I cannot remember, announced they would be out of town for my birthday. In a slightly pouty manner, I am sure, I whined to Ross about not having anyone to make me a birthday cake. Lo and behold when my birthday came around, Ross – Mr. I don’t know how to cook and have never baked anything in my life, made me a beautiful Rocky Road Chocolate birthday cake.

Although I think he may have made that cake again for me somewhere along the line those skills had mostly been retired until last March when I asked him for a little engineering help with Tyler’s dinosaur cake. I was surprised and amazed how into it he was. What a perfectionist he was. How he actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

Cut ahead to last night. We had a date night planned. Well, not really planned, more like we had a grandma available to watch the kids. As we threw around ideas of where to eat and the cloud of knowing everything I needed to do before Bailey’s birthday party hung heavy in my mind I suggested maybe we could just grab a quick bite to eat and use our kid-free time to work on Bailey’s cake together. And wouldn’t you know he took me up on it.

Actually he more than took me up on it. He ran away with it. He worked on the cake with precision, questioning my ideas, giving design input, working and re-working the fondant until he thought it was perfect. A little part of me was wondering, “hey, wasn’t this my idea” but a much bigger part was thinking, “this guy is amazing”. Don’t tell anyone, but I think he actually may be better at cakes than I am! He is way pickier, he’s a total perfectionist and the truth is he’s good.

So here’s the product of our date night - a good part of it the crafty art of a wonderfully manly man who indeed has a curve ball of his own. But even more than a passionate cake decorator this man is a passionate daddy who gives his very best to the two little ones in his life. Happy Birthday, Bailey and Happy Father’s Day, Cakeman!

Briefly

So I finished a book recently that placed heavy emphasis on prioritizing – your life, your days, your minutes – every thing really, in order to make sure you are a) using your time effectively and b) leaving no task unfinished. It’s been a fun and useful challenge, but also a challenge that a) leaves me pretty darn tired at the days end and b) leaves blogging a little lower on the list these days. (Anyone pick up on the prioritization in that paragraph alone? I am more obsessed with this theory than I thought!)

Anyway, even though I have been over a week without a post, there have been several that have been swimming laps in my head in my head but haven’t made it made to the keyboard. And, seeing as though they probably never will, I’ll give you a brief run down.

Birthday Parties: Tyler attended an all-boy, 4 year old birthday party on the farm last week that just about melted my heart. Watching my eldest offspring run around as an independent little boy – doing independent little boys things– was hilarious and endearing and frightening. They played in the hay, sprayed hoses at each other, ate pizza and generally tore around the place happy just being boys. Even more, two of those boys will be the buddies sitting next to Tyler in his pre-school class this fall. Never had I been so thankful that God gave me a little boy to watch learn and grow, until a day later…

Training Wheels: Ross and I wanted to buy Tyler a bike for his birthday last March but he simply didn’t want one. We tried coaxing him along but all he wanted were dinosaur toys. At 4 years old they don’t really have a grasp on the whole “ask carefully because you only get big presents for Christmas and your birthday” concept. So Ross and I gave him something small for his birthday and decided when he was ready for one, we would buy him the bike. And last week, he decided he was ready. On our way in to the True Value store to run a completely unrelated errand, Tyler spotted a perfectly shiny, orange and black bike – one of only two bikes in the store. It was adorable to watch him become completely enamored by it, bashfully ask the store clerk how much it cost and anxiously tell his daddy (via my cell phone) every detail about it. But not nearly as adorable as watching his face when daddy came home after work with that very same orange and black bike. Now for that completely unrelated errand we running…

Happy camper: I was paying the tax and license fees on the camp trailer that we purchased a couple of weeks ago. Nope, I am not a camper. Lingering effects from our crazy road trip a month or two ago included a realization that our kids love an adventure, we are all pretty good travelers, and life is short so we really want to enjoy as much time with our kids as we have – and so, we bought the trailer. Prior commitments left us grounded for the first 2 weekends of ownership so this past weekend was our first excursion as a camping family and it. was. fabulous. The forest, the river, the campfires, the deer, the elk, the food – we loved it all and can’t wait to hit the road again.
So that should catch you up fairly well, it’s not all inclusive but, for now, it will do.

Dawn of a New Day

Don’t you hate it when you clean out and scrub the kiddie pool like a good mother bear, ridding the watering hole of any harmful bacteria that might harm the little cubs. Only to have one of those little cubs toss a handful of mud in it.

Don’t you hate it when you run out to the trailer for just a sec, both kids in tow (thankfully!) and as soon as you shut the door to the house you realize, completely out of habit you have locked the door…with the keys inside…and now you have to call your husband….and ask him to come home…and this isn’t the first time that you have done this…or the second…or, cringe, maybe even the fifth.

Don’t you hate it when you spend a good share of the afternoon carefully crafting a lovely dinner, proudly incorporating a few of the vegetables you just harvested from your garden only to have to force every single member of your family to choke down even a taste of your Cauliflower Gratin and the Romaine lettuce in the salad is so horribly bitter you can’t even talk yourself into choking it down. And then, just for kicks, you burn the chicken. All of which you get to carefully scrape into the garbage can.

Don’t you hate it when you carefully collect all the items necessary to properly wash your car – soap, bucket, drying towels – so as not to tread back into the house, on your perfectly clean floors, with wet and dirty feet to gather forgotten items but while you are washing your car the kiddos decide to “wash” your drying towels.

Don’t you hate it when you have an incredibly sweet moment with God and in that moment you are able to relinquish some of your biggest questions about your future to Him and one day later He asks you to do something that – to quote Dr. Seuss – scares you right out of your pants.

Of course there are far worse things going on in the world, but from my little corner, it’s been quite a week. A week where nothing goes quite as planned. A week with detours and sharp curves. A week demanding patience, Plan B and the ability to go with the flow. And, let me tell you, going with the flow isn’t exactly my strong suit, just ask the savior of a locksmith that I am married to.

But, thankfully, tomorrow is Sunday. A new day, a new week. Better dinners and a car that’s already clean. How bad can it be?

Okay, bub, just please not today.

I’ve known for a few years now that my kids would grow up with more memories at the cemetery than I would. I knew that they would know more about death, about heaven, about remembering someone you love than I ever did at two, at four, at six. And for the most part I have been okay with that. It is what it is. It’s a fact of our lives, a truth of our family and since the kids will never remember a life without visits to the cemetery, carefully arranging bouquets and cleaning a marble headstone it will, at least for a few more years, seem normal to them - like something every family does occasionally.

What I didn’t know is what kind of questions my kids might ask, what kind of thoughts they might have about this seemingly normal part of their lives. And I’ve never really thought about how I would respond or what I would say, until today.

This morning as Tyler sat at the kitchen table eating a snack he asked me if he and Bailey were going to die. I paused for a moment and said, “yes, none of us will live forever”. After thinking about that for a second he said, “well, when we do, mommy, you can go to the cemetery and leave lots of flowers by our stones”. Trying not to let myself think about that too long I quickly added, “well, I hope that doesn’t happen for a long time”. “Oh, I do” was his immediate response. “Remember when you told me what a good place heaven is, mommy? I really want to go there”.

As much as I am thankful for these teaching moments, for this sweet, little boy – at whatever level of understanding – setting his heart on heaven, I can still feel my heart break – just a little bit – all over again.

Growing Green

I can’t seem to stop taking pictures of my garden. For one, I love, love, love this little, creative, organic wonder - a tiny testament to God’s handy work. But also, while my kids are perfectly photo worthy, they don’t stand still much, limiting my opportunities to learn about the varying effects of all the settings on my new camera. So I turn instead to the latest immobile object of my affection - my garden.

Here is the dear broccoli that sacrificed itself for our dinner Monday night.

And the cauliflower that will grace our plates this evening.

These baby bell peppers are just about ready to make their debut.

I spy baby burgundy beans.

The hope of peas to come...

Hurry up dear tomato for I have a salsa recipe waiting just for you.

Stawberry blooms, a delighful sign of wonderful things to come.

Itty, bitty sweat pea oh how tasty you will be.

Bear with me as I am exploring the worlds of photography and gardening all at once. I promise to return to posts of more content in the future....it may just be after gardening season is over!