Oh, and the menu is FINALLY back.

Today is August 8th. August 8, 1999, Jim and I were engaged. As we already had a date set (shhh, don’t tell anyone), I knew it was coming, but it was still the coolest ever. The day before my mom had let is slip, she asked me, “why does Jim want to talk to me?” I figured that he was going to ask her permission, but pretended like I didn’t know. No reason to ruin the surprise. I guess she said yes because the next day we were on our way to Aspen.

It was a Sunday and he picked me up early. I’ve lived about two hours away from Aspen since I was in 2nd grade, but this was my first (and only) time there. I remember construction on the road and massive fields of condos being built. As we neared the town, I pulled out my finger nail polish. I was pretty dern sure I’d have a ring to show off and I wanted my hands to look nice. Traffic slowed to a crawl and I had plenty of time to make my fingers perfect. There was some sort of music festival going on in the outskirts of town and traffic was jam packed.

When we finally arrived in town, we then had to search for parking. I remember being floored at the cost! Like two dollars for an HOUR! It was ridiculous. We shopped around town, taking our time to stop and listen to the street musicians. I remember a particularly cool area that was shaded by flower surrounded trees and paved with grass lined brick. There we listened to a teenage girl beautifully playing the violin.

As we meandered around town, we came to the gondola that took trips up the mountain. We decided to check out the top of the mountain and Jim paid the expensive fare (something like $6/person.) The view of Aspen was beautiful. And so was the view on top. We hiked around for a few minutes, noticing the fancy restaurant being built. As we rode back down the mountain, Jim was very antsy. He kept shifting his weight, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

About halfway down the mountain, he smoothly moved to one knee. It was perfect. And I stepped off the gondola engaged! The rest of the day is kind of hazy to me. I remember eating at the Hard Rock Cafe, and not being very impressed. I think after that we headed home, it was my step dads birthday and we were supposed to be back in time to have cake. I remember calling all our friends to tell them the news. It was a perfect day.

Six years.. it’s a long time. But I have to say, I love him even more today than I did six years ago.

Monday
Grilled Sasauge and potato salad with sour cream

Tuesday
Spaghetti and green salad

Wednesday
Subway

Thursday
Gooey BBQ chicken with crunchy pea salad

Weekend
Camping all weekend!!!

Yesterday, just after she made this comment:

“Yesterday after reading this post I walked into my livingroom and saw one of my kids had also gotten out our letter stamp. I immedietaly thought of Honor and grabbed it and ran to find a spot they couldn’t find it again. I knew if I would have come back for it later, we would have had a repeat of your situation.”

Then just after that Honor came to me holding the damn stamp, ink cartridge removed, hands blue. AGAIN. He somehow, without the aid of a chair, got the cartridge off the counter. Trust me, this boy is not that tall.

BEWARE! there is something in the air… you are not safe!!! Hide your stamps and for good measure everything else that has ink.

I can’t believe that Honor will be two at the end of September. Didn’t he just turn one? It’s really amazing how much he’s changed. I remember lamenting that he’d never speak and now he says everything. He gets his little baby point across in two word sentences.

Asking for more chicken: “More bock, bock?”
More soup: “Some. Soup. Please?”

Everything he can’t find is “hide.”

Many times you will ask him a question and he will answer, “yeah” in the deepest voice you’ve ever heard a 1 year old speak in.

At any mention of a nap or bed time he runs to the kitchen yelling, “meiowk! meiowk!” (milk)

Every morning after he gets his sippy cup of juice he says to me with the most serious face, “Boots.” He’s never once said “Dora” it’s always “Boots”

Perhaps his favorite thing to talk about is bugs. He will talk forever about a “yuck bug” and is braver than me when it comes to “yuck bugs.” In the evenings, our front steps are swarmed with cockroaches (disgusting I know!) and Honor will scramble to step on every one saying, “step. yuck. bug. YUCK!” He will also talk about a fly like it was the coolest thing in the world.

He thinks that he can get out of trouble by coming up to me, holding out his arms and saying, “Hug, mommy? Hug.” And, ahem, it’s not like it’s ever worked. No.. not at all….

But I think that the best thing he has ever said is the thing that is sure to melt my heart every time, even if he looks like this:

is, “Nuggle Mommy. Nuggle mommy.”

And then I scoop him up and hold him very tight and for a short moment, I forget that he’s covered in goo and that the playroom carpet is now blue and that I’ve got to order a whole new thing of eyeshadow and that he broke the arm off my glasses and that he just can’t stay in his bed.

My sister always reminds me that I’ve always wanted a son just like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. Somehow, God, in his infinite wisdom, decided to fulfill my wish. That’s what I call a sense of humor.

So yesterday, while I was chatting with Joelene, Honor found our address stamp and got the ink cartridge out. He had ink everywhere, including the playroom carpet. This is after a good scrubbing.

His hands (and the carpet) are still blue. His lips, not so much. As always, he’s so proud of his destruction.

Today I’m following him around and not letting him out of my sight. I’m taking a risk right now because I can’t see the couch where he’s watching Dora. I’d better go…

Yesterday was my good friend Brooke’s birthday. I feel absolutely terrible about it because instead of emailing her to wish her happy birthday, I emailed her to freak out. (And all I have to say about what was freaking me out is this: of all aspects of my life, church should not be the one that causes me so much heartache. moving on…)

Brooke turned 26 yesterday. And I know that she’s so worried about being in her late twenties now, but don’t you think she’s so cute?

Notice her birthday present, another one skein wonder, this one out of Rowan summer tweed.

Seriously she doesn’t look a day over twenty five.

Happy birthday Brooke! I love you and I thank God that you’re in my life. And for what it’s worth, I consider 26 to be the mid twenties.

Last night we threw a wedding shower for our friend Josh and his fiance Heather at the church. Josh has been our youth pastor for the last year and is now moving on to get married and then go to Bible school. He’s leaving town next week. The shower was just wrapping up when we heard Eden’s blood curdling scream from the next room. The kids had been playing in one of the classrooms and somehow Eden fell and busted up her nose on the Lego table.

Jim went to get her and as I saw him walk by with her I noticed the blood gushing out of her nose. We cleaned her up in the bathroom when we realized that it was cut pretty deep in two places. We decided to take her to the ER for stitches. My mom met us at the hospital to take Honor, because there’s NO way we could have contained him there (good LORD!) and the waiting game began.

As we went through the check in process, we had to endure the many judgmental questions about our waiting to immunize. Because, you know, we’re waiting because we hate our children and want to do the worst possible thing for them. Sometimes the medical field can’t understand that they do more harm than good at times. And it’s frustrating to have to defend your parenting choices to everyone in the hospital.

She had x-rays, and luckily it’s not broken. She kept saying that she wanted to go back to the picture room. I think it was because she got to ride around on the hospital bed. And luckily it wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, the doctor just glued the cuts together. Eden said that they were going to “blue her nose.” Probably the worst part of the night for her was when she got her first shot ever, a tetanus shot. Poor kid, it was awful! And it made me glad that she hadn’t had to endure any other shots before.

I think the worst part of the night for me was when we got home and crawled into bed and I started processing the night. Of course the “what ifs” began running through my head. It is the worst imaginable thing in the world to even think about your child dying. How would I continue if I lost one of them? It fills me with panic to even think about it. It makes me want to lock them up in a padded room in the house and never let them near anything dangerous. But I can’t. I’ve got to let them face all of life’s dangers, take all of life’s risks. All I can do to protect them is trust God that he will keep them safe. Letting them go is the hardest part of being a parent and it’s the most inevitable. And I have to say, it kind of sucks.