It's a good thing she's little

I don't think there would be room on her bed for her if she wasn't little.



Every one of those toys is meticulously placed. (She won't sleep under her covers because she doesn't want to mess it up.)

This one is on the end of her bed.



I wish she was this meticulous with her clothes.

The problem with women--a general observation

We start as girls. Girls who are told they can be whatever they want to be. A doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, the president. A teacher, an artist, a writer, a business owner.

The sky's the limit! So we plug through school learning what we are supposed to learn, setting goals, making decisions, submitting applications, getting accepted and continuing on down that path.

And along that path somewhere a boy steps in. And smiles. And we smile back. And soon enough along that path come wedding bells. And now the path is less lonely.

And we continue on down that path towards our goals and begin making plans, and putting in more applications and getting a job and loving our job and spending weekends with the love of our life. Planning for the next career move and moving along the path as planned.

And then there is a baby. A beautiful baby growing in our tummy. And we don't know what on earth to expect. Because we've never done this before. Even if it was a part of the plan. Kind of.

But all our planning and all our education doesn't tell us what to do here. It doesn't tell us if we should keep on down the path we started on or try a new path. Or try to merge the two paths seamlessly. (And after all that education, our instinct seems to have taken a back seat.)

And even if we chose to continue down the path we originally planned, something's changed. Even if this baby has good care when mommy is away, mommy is torn. Constantly. Missing something.

And if mommy forsakes that previous path and chooses the baby over all else, something nags at her--loudly or ever so quietly depending on the mommy. Like she didn't finish something she started. Or she didn't keep commitments she made. Even if she just made them to herself.

And if mommy tries to merge the two paths seamlessly, she soon realizes that anything involving children is not seamless. There's always something--an appointment, a fever, a cold, a crying baby in the middle of the otherwise perfectly planned day. (Ever tried to get three moms together? Even if each of them only have two kids?)

With women, any time there seems to be a groove, it's generally upended by a child.

We are the mommies. It's our job. Our calling. Nobody does our job like we do. And somehow along the path that most girls end up on, that important fact is left out. Forgotten until it's staring us in the face.

It's the problem with women. We've forgotten our calling and we forget to tell our girls it will be their calling, too.



Dear society, mommies have very important jobs. More important than doctors and lawyers and scientists and the president. More important than the teacher, artist, writer or business owner. All of them have a mommy. And without that person, they would be nothing.

Nothing.

Maybe women aren't the problem after all.

Or maybe we are.

Ahhhh . . . the memories.

I love holidays with family. I love family. I love my family and I love my husband's family. This Thanksgiving we spent with my family. Making memories.

Memories like playing in the hot tub when it's freezing out. Oh how it makes little girls steam.



And the food--nothing like whipped cream covered olives!



And eating whipped cream but not the pie.



Making and decorating sugar cookies with great grandma.



Visiting the horse we haven't seen in months.



Grace was SO excited to go visit him. She told him, "Shamere! I'm six now!" Made my heart happy. This girl loves this horse and this horse has another little girl to love. Somehow horses do a girl's heart good. Even this big girl who is the little girl's mama.

Violet was very excited about the horse, too. In fact, she didn't want to get off of him or leave.



And grandma had birthday pizza.



Yes, we sang Happy Birthday and we had candles on our traditional turkey pizza. Grace found the candles when we went shopping on Thursday afternoon. They have colored flames.

It was grand. We have so much we are thankful for.

Everything is . . .

PINK!



This is what the sunset did this evening.



I've missed this.



There's something surreal about the whole world turning pink.

Goofy girls

Grace is pretty goofy.



And her littlest sister seems to be following her example.



These kids make me giggle.

I'm still giggling

A few weeks ago I helped in Grace's kindergarten class. Grace really likes her teacher, and I do, too. I've always thought it took someone special to teach a bunch of little kids. And having taught high school for a few years, I have come to realize that while Grace's teacher has no desire to teach high school, I have no desire to teach kindergarten.

This seemed to be a new idea for her and she was just as in awe of me teaching high school as I am of her teaching kindergarten.

Then one of her co-workers walked in.

"Do you have some panties?"

"Yes, I do."

And she digs through her closet and emerges with a little bag of little undies.

I had to giggle.

If I had kept a bag of undies in my classroom, I probably would have lost my job.

Little V is getting . . . not so little.

I'm always amazed when my children suddenly seem to explode with growing up. Suddenly Violet is reaching all kinds of new levels and doing all kinds of new things. She's communicating with words, is obsessed with puppies, gives high fives, thumbs up, and wears her baby cow (which she calls a puppy, but the kitty is a baby).



She is my newest "runner" (Go give this to your sister, please, and off she goes) and the other day when we were getting Calla ready for school, she insisted she have a backpack, too.



She got a new hat a couple weeks ago and she was so proud. She walked around here grinning and showing off for about an hour.



When she was about a week old I told Brent that we needed to get another one because this one was growing up too fast.

But oh they are fun to watch grow.