Traditions

I love creating and continuing traditions with my family.  Traditions that make us laugh like always getting ice cream from 'Captain Sundae' the day it opens in the spring (even if temperatures are in the 30's!)

Then, there are more serious traditions that I love, like Lent.  I am not one who believes you must always 'give up' something for Lent.  Instead I believe that it should be a time of remembering, improving, and growing.  Remembering the sacrifice, improving and growing in to a better person over the course of the 40 days.  This year I did 'give up' two things.  The point of the 'giving up' however, was to inspire growth.  I gave up refined sugar and shopping for myself.  These two things may seem random and disconnected, but in my life there was a very logical connection.  When things are busy and I feel stressed two of my favorite stress relievers are shopping (just a cute little shirt) and sweets.  I use these things to create a false calm in my life.  My goal for Lent this year was to fast from shopping and sweets as a way to remember that I cannot always have what I want at the moment I want it.  As a way to find strong, nurturing, and healthy ways to relieve stress and feel real moments of calm.  I have found wonderful replacements in things like pottery, reading, snuggling, and creative cooking/baking.  This message carried over to the Lent journey of my 9 year old triplets who all gave up their 'DS' in the hopes of finding more time to play.  Play outside, play with legos, play with crafts.  It was a wonderful conversation around the table that brought them from the act of  simply 'giving up' to the question of 'how do you want to grow and improve by doing this?'

As we approach Holy Week we are reflecting on what we learned over these past 40 days and asking new questions about how we can carry the traditions of Lent with us for the rest of the year.  Remembering the sacrifice made for us, improving and growing as we live our lives. 

What could you do?

Tonight at dinner we looked ahead to the last week of Lent.  We posed the question, "What could you do to make your school or classroom a better place this week?"  The kids thought for a moment, and their answers were full of beautiful simplicity:
A:  "I could play what my friends want to play while we are on recess."
S:  (after a little prompting from her sister) "I could go outside everyday this week to play with my friends" (vs staying inside to 'help' the teacher...which is wonderful but apparently causes her friends...and her sister to miss her)
N:  "I could offer to be the 'referee' in our 2 on 2 football tournament"  (apparently the same boy did it many days next week, and no one really wants that job...because they want to play!)

Abby making the lives of her feathered friends better by creating her own recipe for birdfood!

These simple and sweet answers caused me to think, making our lives better doesn't have to start with a large, grand or expensive project.  We can start in our homes, at our tables, or in this case on our playground.  What can you do this week to make the lives of those around you better?

'The future belongs to us'

The kids had their school, "Celebration of Learning" tonight.  They sang beautiful songs and Noah had several speaking parts (in front of ~600 people!). 
For the grand finale the entire school sang "The future belongs to us" while baby pictures of the kids flashed on the screen.  Seeing my sweet tiny triplets on the screen while my beautiful/handsome big kids sang away was priceless (and tear worthy). 

Oh, they are getting so big....so fast. 

Words

I got a vintage typewriter yesterday.  It turns out you can still get ribbons (yes, I called it ink at first) for them!  Ever since we plugged it in (it is electric!) it has been a constant joy in our house.  It coincided nicely with the poetry unit the kids are doing in school.  They have me wonder struck each night with their amazing poetry.  They even challenged me to create something today...which I did.  I wondered if the constant 'rat a tat tatting' would grate on my nerves in a house that is already at max volume at times.  But what I found is that as soon as the typing begins...I smile.  It is such a wonderful sound.  Lately I have been thinking a lot about what happens around our kitchen table.  It is something I hope to write more about in the future, but for this week the sight of kids typing poetry on a 1960/1970's typewriter is making my heart full. 

Note:  Our correction is still a little rough, pardon the typos and white out!  Give us a break, there is not DELETE!!!

Guardians of Childhood

For Sunday night movie night last night we watched, “Rise of the Guardians”. This movie came out around Christmas time and is based on a series of novels by William Joyce. Admittedly the movie does not deal at all with the ‘real’ meaning of Christmas and Easter, if you can get past that it had an amazing message for me as a mom. In the movie Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth fairy, Sandman, and Jack Frost are all appointed to be ‘Guardians of Childhood’. Each of them has at their center something that protects childhood. Santa has wonder, the Easter Bunny has hope, the Tooth fairy keeps all the baby teeth because in each one precious childhood memories are stored for when they are needed, Sandman has lovely dreams, and Jack Frost has fun (he does after all bring snow days!) Each of them takes an oath,


“That we, one and all will watch over the children of the world. To guide them safely and surely from the ways of harm. To keep happy their hearts, brave their souls, and rosy their cheeks. To guard with our lives their hopes, their wishes and their dreams. For they are all that we have, all that we are and all that we will ever be.”

I loved this movie.

Although as parents we have so many ‘jobs’ I believe one of the most important is to be the guardian of our kids’ childhood. I want to have at my core as a mom wonder (my word for the year!), hope, and fun. I want to make memories with my kids that can be stored and recalled on a day happy thoughts are needed (and yes, I do keep their baby teeth!). What would this look like in my daily life? What small changes could I make keeping this in mind? I want to keep happy their hearts, brave their souls, and rosy their cheeks. For they truly are all that we have, all that we are and all that we will ever be.

Happy 9th birthday!

Today our miracles turned 9.  I'm not sure where the 9 years have gone.  I'd be lying if I didn't say that this feels big....9 feels like 'big kids' even pre-teen.  But today we celebrated our miracles.  9 years ago they began their lives oh so tiny.  Looking back could we have ever dared to dream how they would grow?  How they would laugh?  How they would love?  I always tell people that I knew those tiny little angels would be fine, but I also could never have imagined how amazing they would be.  Nor could I have ever dreamed how much I would love them.  Tonight as I sit in a quiet house, I cannot do much except say 'Thank you'.  From the depth of my soul I am thankful.

 We started our day of celebration with breakfast at Deboer.  All of the grandparents met us before school!  Is there a better way to start the day than a candle in a donut!?
Tom and I went to school to share a birthday lunch with the kids in the cafeteria!  So fun to join them with their friends!  After lunch we peeked in on their class, can you spot the 3 birthday hats!?  (they were so excited that their teacher had purchased 2 more!)

Tonight after art class we shared our third meal of the day together.  Even though poor Tom left the beautiful steaks he purchased for dinner at Meijer....in Grand Haven...our cheese soup and chocolate cake (from scratch) was amazing! 

What a beautiful day filled with love and laughter.  We are blessed. 

Birthday Sunday!

We are in the midst of a birthday marathon!  Today we visited DeVos Children's Hospital to drop off the birthday gifts the kids received to be donated from their party.  Today we even got to go up to the new NICU.  It was not the same place the kids were born, but still a potent reminder of where our miracles began. 

After the hospital visit, we started our second annual 'shopping day'.  We took the kids to 4-5 'mystery' locations to pick out a gift.  Today we visited 1. an antique store (max $5 to find a treasure)  2.  Schulers Books  3.  late lunch at 'On the Border'  4.  Clothes shopping  5.  Toys R Us

We are now at home enjoying a little 'super bowl party' (aka lots of junky snacks!) 

Such a blessed time, why not celebrate for 4 days straight!