february extras

This month had its highs and lows.

No different than any other month, I suppose.

Here are the extras...

We'll start with a high...waking up to this gorgeous frost one Saturday morning.

I ran outside in my pajamas to take these pictures.

I'm sure the neighbors were thinking, "Freak!"

But, really...how can I resist when God shows off like this?

Moving on to another high...miss Peach has grown fond of leg warmers.  She calls them "warm legs" and thinks she looks like Fancy Nancy when she wears them.

hmmm...this isn't quite a low, but it has caused a few tears.

Tulip learned how to open drawers...and close her chubby little fingers in them as well.

thinking about walking

doesn't matter how the day is going

when you see this happening on your kitchen floor, the day goes from zero to sixty in about three seconds flat.

oh, the diapers!

I had to let the elastic out in the legs again.

There it is...that little pang that I feel every time I admit to myself that she is growing up and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

low of the month...we've had some rough, rough nights with this one

i don't know if it is teeth or growing pains

but there have been a few nights where she is just unconsolable

however, things have been better lately, so we got real brave and moved the girls into the same room!

I love it!  There is something sooooo sweet about them sleeping in the same room together.
And they love it!

We hear them talking to each other sometimes, after we've closed the door and it makes me so excited for that bond of sisterhood to unfold.

The other great part is that this opened up one of our bedrooms for a play/toy room.  I don't mind toys in our living room, but honestly, it was starting to suffocate me.  So, most of them have been moved into the new toy room and I've reclaimed a bit of our living area.  It's been a win/win situation!

sisters together in one room - one more point for the high side of February

no month would be complete without a little color to jazz things up

my mom brought these melt-in-your-mouth cookies when she and my dad came to visit just before Valentine's Day

the high - duh, they were delish

the low - i lied to Peach and told here they were all gone just so i could save a few (or 7) for myself!

not going to win any mother of the year awards for that one.  :(

drama over owies

honestly...i know that someday i will miss her little voice, but the high-pitched whining has.got.to.stop!

these photos were taken by my sister-in-law, Jen

the last weekend of the month, we took a family road trip to western MN.

J stayed with the girls at his parents' house while I traveled on another hour and a half to see my great-grandma.

She's a shell of the go-go grandma I grew up knowing and seeing her was so tough and so good.

I had the undeniable joy of combing her hair, rubbing her back and weeping tears over her almost-96-year-old hands.

I prayed for her, laughed with her and told her that I loved her a thousand times over.

What a great privilege - to return the favor.

Now that I have children, I realize how desperately they need to be loved.  And the fact that she did that for me...rocked me, held me, told me I was important...well, it made the drive seem not that far and the time away from my girls seem not that sacrificial.

The silent, reflective drive back left me thinking about all the highs and lows that 96 years will bring you.

Certainly, sitting in a nursing home with no memory of the ones you love is a low, low, low.

And seeing her like that, well, it hurts.

Chalk up another low for February.

But in the midst of that sadness, I managed to thank God for the shining sun, the fields stretching as far as the eye can see and the contrast of empty branches against a blue, blue sky.  Wish I would have had my camera with.  I'm learning that even in the midst of pain, there is no life if there is no thanks. 

So, I make the choice to be grateful, even when it is hard and the answer to the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" is honestly, "I don't know."

When I returned to J's childhood farm, my father-in-law had a few "treasures" to show me.

He knows I like old windows from barns and have used several to make picture collages in our home.

He'd saved some from a barn that he was having torn down.

After I picked out a few, he went on to show me the contents of an old one-room school house, filled with dusty, dirty remnants of the 100 + years of Wacek's that have lived on that land.

I came home with a trunk load of treasures and have been busy ever since, turning these old, dirty vases, pots, screens, crocks and jars into something beautiful.

Turns out that when we give choose to look for the good, instead of waiting for it to come, we see that it was right there all along.

Peach took great delight in helping J turn these little gems into bird feeders.

I took this old drawer and, with a little paint and pretty paper, turned it into our living room book box.

Grandma is still in the nursing home.

Tulip still wakes when I most need rest.

Peach still whines about things that really aren't that big of a deal.

And no matter how hard I look for the good, difficult will still be a part of my life.

But March is knocking at the door.

Offering difficult, hard, joyful and wonderful.

It's all part of life.

And I get to experience it all...lucky me!

Spring is just around the corner.

And I have a feeling there's a whole lot of beautiful comin' our way.