We are now officially past all of that. Well past all of that. When I (slightly jokingly) suggested earlier in the week that we snuggle up and watch an Elmo video together, all three of the boys scoffed and yelled how “babyish” Elmo is. Then I suggested (again, jokingly) that we curl up with some Baby Einstein videos and they all looked at me with a blank stare.  How could they possibly have forgotten the hours of brilliance we watched together with classical music and moving toys on the screen? Weren’t they ever-so-slowly becoming baby geniuses? (By the way, you can now watch full episodes of Baby Einstein videos at youtube)!

Of course there are days where I have a hard time with all this time passing quickly. But honestly, I love each and every stage so much, and the life of parenting boys just gets more and more exciting as they get older. Sure, I look at old photos of diaper-bulging onesies and toothless grins, mashed peas all over a smilng baby-face and videos of the sweetest little baby voices. but now I get to have honest-to-goodness conversations with those smiling boys. I love being with them every day as they grow up!!

My last pre-schooler, five-year-old Adam’s only goal in life is to catch up with his brothers in all things academically. He’s very committed to his reading and math because he like being able to sit with a book like his big brothers have been doing recently. He is about to finish the 9th book in the Fly Guy series:

He’s begging for “more math!” each day as his math lessons aren’t long enough. He whizzes through the worksheets, so we’re playing more of the math games that come with our curriculum, and i’m finding some adding practice for him that he does if he feels his math lesson wasn’t long enough. After his lesson on place value, he practiced addition with an angry-bird “color-the-sum” activity.

Today, for Presidents Day, we all did an “Abraham Lincoln fact-craft” and we read one of our favorite books, George Washington’s Breakfast. This is Adam posing with his Ab craft:

It’s a little blurry, but these are the facts that we listed inside the Abraham Lincoln top hats. he read the dates as “one thousand eight hundred and sixty one” instead of “eighteen sixty one.”  i couldn’t bring myself to correct him as it was only a reinforcement of his place value lesson earlier this month. later on i’ll help him read the date correctly:

When Rowan and Sawyer were finishing up their Lincoln facts and I was telling them that Lincoln was the First Republican President, I asked them if they remembered what the other majority party was in our political system. Sawyer said, “Hermetrats!” I don’t know where he came up with that answer, but there you have it, the country according to Sawyer: Republicans and Hermetrats.

(For the record, he does not know what political party to which we belong, nor do the boys know our political leanings. At this age, they need only to know the facts, not their parents beliefs. They love President Obama, and we wouldn’t have it any other way at this age.)

i have not forgotton our offspring in my latest “making” adventures, i promise you. in fact, here they are sporting their brand new, made-with-love from mama sweaters!

adam DOUBLE LOVES his sweater!

rowan THINKS he likes his sweater.

they have yet to wear them out anywhere. in fact, for some reason, they all put them in the garage the minute after i snapped these photos. good thing i’m so in tune with my boys to know exactly what they love to wear! i will never be that aunt who crochets big bold sweaters that never see the light of day….

*lest you think i’m serious, these were made by me, but not knitted. we were invited to an ugly sweater party back in december, and i cut up an old afghan and sewed some granny squares onto the ugliest sweaters we could find. the boys decided nto to wear them to the party at the last minute, so they’re up for grabs if anyone likes them!

longtime smithical readers may remember that i was on a team at my old church that organized a weekend writers and womens retreat that Lauren led. here is the blog post about that (i was pregnant with adam in this picture!)

i’ve been a fan of Winner’s work since that year. Mudhouse Sabbath still remains my favorite of her work.

i’m still a fan of her writing, but this latest book was one on which  i found i couldn’t connect as much with her. i don’t have a conversion story, and my faith grows stronger and more in depth as i grow older. however, inserted among the prose that wasn’t as engaging for me, are chapters like this one, that i cannot do justice talking about (nor can i read them out loud, as i tried to read it to kenny and ended up crying.  so i just gave it to him to read).

so, i give you a gem of a chapter, and know that some of you can relate to this, as i’ve had many a conversation with a lot of you over the years about communion, the eucharist, the Body and Blood and One Flesh.

an episcopal church in a small town in upstate New York has asked me to come preach. The town is home to two vineyards, there seem to be more maple trees than people, and the church is bedecked Gothic revival, all arches and parapets and stone sinews you can see. I find myself wanting to move here the minute I arrive.

at the eucharist, i serve as a chalice bearer, following along behind the priest, offering the cup of wine to parishioner after parishioner. some clasp the cup and guzzle with what looks like relish; some are daintier, more polite, as though handling fine crystal; some don’t touch the chalice to their lips but, practicing what’s called intinction, dip the wafer into the wine and then consume the crimsomed host.

i don’t know the people in this congregation; i don’t know anything about the triplets who sport pink glasses and bobs like cloche hats; i don’t know anything about the man with one arm, or the college-aged woman who surely shops at thrisft stores, today clad in a polyester paintsuit circa 1969, the jacket and pants and blouse all squash-colored yellow with cinnamon trim. and it is only later, after i ask the priest, that i learn something about the elderly couple who, near the end of the communion train, come to the rail and kneel, fragile as mushrooms.

what i learn later is that for a dozen years, he has been afflicted by a wasting disease, an intestinal disease that makes it almost impossible for him to eat – he lives on Ensure and lemonade. but at the altar i don’t yet know that, i only know what i see: they each take a wafer from the priest; and when I come to them with the chalice, the wife dips as i say, “the blood of Christ keep you in everlasting life,” and she eats her wafer, and then her husband likewise intincts his round of Christ’s Body into the wine and then he hands the round of Body and Blood to his wife and she eats his wafer for him. there at the Communion rail, i don’t yet know what illness lies behind this gesture, I know only the couple’s hands and mouths, and that I am seeing one flesh. I have read about this, heard sermons about a man and a woman becoming one flesh; and here at the altar, i see that perhaps this is the way I come to know such intimacy myself: as part of the body of Christ, this body that numbers among its cells and sinews an octagenarian husband and wife who are Communion.

Since becoming a member of Pinterest back in October? November?…I have been absolutely fascinated with pallet interior design. “Pallets?” you ask.  ”What on earth could you do with old, dirty wooden 3×3 trays that sit outside most business loading docks that would be attractive on the interior of a home?”  Hmmm…obviously you have never seen the pins of pallet furniture and wall hangings at Pinterest. Let me show you a few of my favorites:

The pallet picture holder:

Pallet wall art:

Pallet shelves:

And a pallet patio moveable table:

These are on my radar, and I see piles of pallets everywhere now. I’m scheming in my head how I can ask a business if I can take a few of their old dirty pallets off their hands for free?

My friend Courtney pinned and actually DID the most elaborate pallet project yet: a wall covered with pallet wood. I know, sounds a bit “rough.”  But that’s the point!  I asked her a bit about the project, but I’d love to share with you the pictures first. She hosted our Book League this week, and I was able to snap a few photos of the lovely family room wall (click to enlarge):

She put her husband to work tearing apart the raw wood from old pallets they found at his work place (free material!). They did nothing to the wood: no sanding, no staining, no nothin’.  They just cut the wood into different lengths and then nailed them to the wall. The best part about the project is that there was no precision cutting, measuring and nailing needed. The more rugged, the more beautiful. And I believe their wall is gorgeous. I have three walls I want to do this in our basement/family room!

His email read, “Liz, This is incredble…I taught these kids when I taught in Hagerstown, MD!” and it took me a minute to realize he was referring to the parents in the story.  Kenny was a high school English and Grammar teacher right out of college for three years before he moved to Pittsburgh and started his current career in software. When he saw the story, he realized that this was a local family (they had recently moved to the Pittsburgh area) now. What a coincidence!  So he forwarded their story to me.

I clicked on the link and the whole time I’m blinking back tears, I’m wondering how it is I recognize this family, when I didn’t know Kenny when he was a teacher. It finally dawned on me that I read Leighann’s blog, Living with Three Hobbits and a Giant, about a year ago. I recognized the blog title right away, and I quickly wrote back to Kenny and said, “Incredible!  I used to read her blog!”

So I dashed off an email to Leighann, not knowing how she’d receive it, explaining to her who I was, and how we “found” them. I wondered if they could come for dinner soon or would it be weird for them to “hang out with an old high school teacher?” Within a few hours, she wrote back:

“Liz, Yes, it would be weird to hang out with an old high school teacher. Henry and I decided we will do it since you seem so cool, but on the condition that we continue to call Kenny “Mr. Smith”, especially since he thinks we are still kids.”

I immediately loved her sense of humor.

Last night, we were graced with their family’s presence in our home for dinner. We were both so excited to meet them, me for the first time, and Kenny, for the first time in nearly 20 years. Our children bonded over the pasture fence feeding the animals, and then eating together at the “kids table,” then building a fort and playing legos. I loved listening to Kenny, Henry and Leighann talk of old students, teachers, and families from the school.  The evening went way too quickly…we had such a great time chatting.

If there is an age difference in any of us, you wouldn’t know it. It was an honor getting to know such a wonderfully warm and loving family, and we look forward to many more “getting-togethers” with them!

Liz and Kenny, Leighann and Henry (and Ryan!)

The kiddos...

Pin SUCCESS!
This was GREAT fun experiement: faux lava lamp.  The boys and I took it to a friends’ house and we were able to do it with the boys in her house as well. My favorite part was hearing the boys’ hypotheses: “It’s going to BLOW UP!”  ”It’s going to be LOUD!”  Neither of those happened, but the experiment was still awe-inspiring for these young boys. I thought the resemblence to a real lava lamp was uncanny .  We highly recommend doing this in your kitchen laboratory!

Pin FAILURE!
This experiment, making our own super balls,  wasn’t as fun as we hoped. We had to try it twice, and when it finally worked, the balls barely “bounced.” After about 30 minutes, they collapsed into puddles that couldn’t be shaped back into ball-form. We made a bunch of different theories about why this failed for us:  Perhaps my cornstartch was old? The humidity was too high? Who knows. We weren’t impressed.

Pin that I’ll KEEP in my arsenal!
Create your own crossword puzzle. Such a fun way to reinforce spelling lists. Completely customizeable for age and range of words. I print out a few of these for each of my boys per month as an alternative to “spelling workbook” day.

And a JUST-FOR-FUN pin!
this is my “yeah, right!” pin. she looks to be smiling, making you think you can actually accomplish this pose. yeah, right!  that’s not a smile, it’s an evil grin. it’s an impossible pose, and it went right into my “deleted” file.

Go over to Leighann’s blog and add your own Pinterest-inspired post at her Pinterest Party!

~~~

It is just before 7:00 a.m. as I type this, and the sky to the east (to my right) is just beginning to lighten. This is the earliest I’ve seen light at this hour in a long time. So no matter what the groundhog says, I am content to know that spring is right around the corner!

I found Rembrandt’s work (to the left) of Simeon in the Temple purely by accident. The boys all touched on Rembrandt in their co-op on Monday, and I wanted to show them some more works of his. When I found this, I was amazed at how many paintings of New Testament stories he painted in his lifetime. This one is thought to have been his last.

It’s been 40 days since Christmas, which makes today the Celebration of the Feast of our Lord or the Feast of the Purification or Candlemas. (Another reason I am including this painting in this post)! It is the day to bless the candles in the church, or in your home, and say the song of praise of Simeon (whose words are always on our lips as we sing the Nunc Dimitis):

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace;Your word has been fulfilled.My eyes have seen the salvationYou have prepared in the sight of every people,A light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people, Israel.

So whether you celebrate six more weeks of winter or an early spring, whether you bless the candles in your home or remember the faith of Simeon and Anna in the temple when they beheld the Messiah, think on the light that this day celebrates: more light returning to our days and the light of the Messiah, revealing God to the nations.

we returned home today at suppertime, yet it was my Nana and Pop Pop’s home we returned to in my mind as the aroma of roast beef with gravy filled the house, and dinners around their dining room table in philadelphia poured through my memories: the textured wallpaper in their dining room, the “old fashioned” football or basketball games they’d pull out for us to play with, the soft-padded basement floor with speckles, the tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies wrapped in wax paper and kept on the top of the refrigerator. it felt as though we were important guests as the dining room table was always set so elegantly, the bathroom filled with frilly rose soaps and hand towels to match.

after supper, Pop Pop would pull his bible out and read from a devotional (Daily Bread, maybe?) and then read through his KJV and closed us in prayer.  i would help clean up by being the dryer of the dishes. Nana would wash them, and i was never allowed to wash – only dry. as a grown up, a kitchen-owner myself, i totally understand why i was never allowed to be the washer. but still, i asked if i could wash every time.

nostalgia triggers are all around us, every day. pay attention!

he’s been playing every single week in church while the other pianists take a break for various reasons;  he’s been playing the piano in our home in the evenings — The Messiah during christmas, and some very complicated too-many-notes* classical pieces from his vast collection of sheet music; and just recently, he’s taken on playing the piano score for a local theatre’s spring musical in which Rowan and Sawyer are participating.

when he’s done playing, he’s always needing to warm his hands by the fire. and it’s not like he can play the piano with gloves on. so i whipped up a quick pair of fingerless gloves using a dark chalky-colored wool that i’m sure is sock yarn that my mom gave me.

i’m not sure how warm they’ll keep his fingertips, which i think get the coldest, but perhaps the warmth of the wrists and lower hands will keep the fingers from getting too cold. or something.

they were very fun to knit, and it was good to have a project i could keep in my purse and easily take with me to meetings and rehearsals this week. i made up the pattern, using size 5 bamboo needles:

cast on 40 stitches
knit the first 8 rows
knit in stockinette stitch for 6 rows
knit another 6 rows
then knit in stockinette until the piece measures roughly 8 inches (dependent on the wrists their being made for!)
knit the next 5 rows, and cast off.
putting right sides together, fold piece in half length-wise and stitch up the side, making sure to leave an opening for the thumb.

* that was a reference to a scene in Amadeus, my second favorite movie of all time, the first being Chariots of Fire. yes, even my movie taste is stuck in the 80s.

join others over at Stuff and Nonsense’s Fridays Unfolded ~

i celebrated by picking up my needles and casting on to knit a “honey cowl“.  i’m using bamboo yarn which is very stretchy, so this cowl will hang low around my neck.

i like to refer to it as my “honeycomb” cowl as i think the “right” side of the piece resembles the symmetry found in a honeycomb. of course, there is no symmetry in my knitting. a few mistakes here and there make it more of a wobbly hive.