My Motherly Musings

I know this is probably incredibly cliche, but I really didn't know you could love each of your children this much. I get that you don't love your second any less than your first, but I think I always sort of thought of it like the general love-ness of your life increases and you have overwhelming good feelings about being a mother and all of your children, but this is like, mind boggling awe and fierce devotion on a very individual level. I love each of my children absolutely with all of my being, completely independent of eachother. Wow.

How full my mom's life must have been with 11 to love like that. I am loving my children right now, and I don't really want the time to go quicker, but I am just so excited to meet all the rest of my children (I'm not even pregnant again yet, my body hasn't reset from the last one yet, so stop speculating!) I want to know them, who they will be, how many of them there are. Nothing can even come close to comparing with this feeling of motherhood. It truly is what it is all about.

I deserve a major award

Neoma owes me for this one. She put off and put off figuring out a costume for Sam, who wanted to be the muppet Rowlf the dog for Halloween until the Thursday a little over a week before Halloween. It was only started then because she decided to go to the community Harvest Happenings event that Saturday. I prodded her to get started on it and helped her find some brown clothes that could make a really make-shift costume (borrowed leggings from Willow, Neoma's fleece jacket) but we still didn't have anything for the ears that would say "I am a dog." Neoma thought about going to the fabric store to buy fleece or feaux fur or something, but she didn't do it. I went looking through my fabrics and remembered I had cut off the cuffs of a new brown linen jacket that the sleeves were too long on. I didn't think I had thrown them away, but I couldn't remember where they were. I finally looked through a box of old worn-out clothes that are in too bad of shape to give to a thrift store, but I just feel stupid throwing fabric in the garbage can to go in a landfill and be buried forever. I ran across the pants shown in this picture here:

They are fabulous double-knit polyester with the crease down the front of the leg actually sewn into place. Looking at them again, I couldn't remember why I put them in there in the first place. I think the stitching must have been coming out in some places.

Regardless, I took those defunct slacks and refashioned them into this:

Yes, that entire ensemble, except for the cardboard piano in his hands and the socks on his feet used to be my pants. And there was very little left over, too. You may all gasp in awe. Thank you, thank you.

Our Prize-Winning Pumpkin

Yes, this Jack-o-Lantern won us an actual award--the people's choice award (the only one given. They didn't have like, official pumpkinly trained judges or anything) in the adult division of our community Harvest Happenings event. Yes, we beat out all the other (4) entrants. The competition was fierce (they had made no provision to ensure people only voted once--who knows how many people tried to stuff the ballot box!) but we prevailed (even though Willow voted for Neoma and Jason's pumpkin)! We recieved a large black and orange ribbon and a cool gift basket with lots of yummy things and a scratch-and-sniff gift card to blockbuster (it smells like buttered popcorn).

But even aside from the competition, Kevin and I had a lot of fun carving this. We used some woodcarving tools we seem to have accumulated at some point. Idid the vegetables and Kevin did the basket. It wraps a little further around the pumpkin than you can see well. Our only disappointment was that they couldn't display it in the dark or with a candle inside, so it didn't look quite as cool (but we still won anyway, so hey).

I know you're jealous

I know this is every woman's dream. And he's all mine!

tender mercies and other awesome things God does

10 points to the first person to correctly identify each of our costumes. Ready, Go!

Our ward at church had a Harvest Party on Halloween. As you can see from the picture, I enjoyed it immensely. Actually, I did have good time and was able to participate in some of the activities like getting pictures taken, going on a wagon ride, helping my daugher "fish" at the game booths, and taking my kids around to the cars for the trunk-r-treat. This was also what everyone else got to do, but it was especially cool for me because I was the person in charge of it all, and that meant that things were running smoothly enough that I didn't have to pay attention or fix things the whole time. That is what is so cool.

But what amazes me the most is how God is willing to to come right into your life and give you answers to the most seemingly trivial things. Case in point (Warning--this will be a long and tedious story in which I describe in great detail aspects of events that you will probably never care about but make for a thorough understanding of how I feel about what happened): The place where the activity was held is a Christmas Tree farm owned by members of our ward. It is an awesome venue, but comes with the uncertainty of being outdoors in rainy Northwest October. The only permanent shelter available for us there is the selling shack, which is empty this time of year. It is also the only source of electricity in the area, so we try to make that the place where we have the food. The problem: it's a pretty tiny shack with only one entrance. Actually, there are 2 entrances, but the second is a narrow back door onto a short boardwalk connecting it to the storage shed behind with an extra-large step down to the ground on the side. Two years ago when I went to this event (this is the first year I have been in charge and I missed last year's) they had tables set up all the way around the edges of the room (where the outlets are) and the crockpots of chili and other food on them so people enter, walked around the food loop and exited the same door while others are still trying to come in. It was a mess trying to get through the buffet line. So my task was to streamline the process.

I had been meditating for weeks on just how to do this and was not much further along than a niggling feeling that the back door should be able to be used. The owners were leary about using both doors and exiting the back because of the tricky step down at the end. I still hadn't come up with anything by the time I arrived in the morning to set up. I was still wandering around waffling about what to do--so-and-so said this needs to happen, so-and-so says this won't work, so-and-so said this will be a problem, so-and-so said ... etc--when finally it hit me, as I shortly realized, as a stroke of inspiration: I am the person in charge of this event. No one else is supposed to decide how this works. I have done my due diligence and gathered ideas and opinions, but now it is time to decide, and I am the one who has been called and set apart to recieve the promptings and direction to make this work the best possible way for the people it is intended to bless.

With this in mind, I said a fervent prayer, turned around toward the building and saw it again with entirely new eyes. The tricky step at the back door is really only a trick if you are trying to go down it in the dark with your hands full. This years event was earlier than past years, so it would not be dark, and if we had the beginning of the buffet line at the back, people could enter that door instead of exiting it. Thus, they would be able to see it clearly on the way up and their hands would not yet be cumbered by their food. Such a minor change, such a seemingly simple concept, but it made all the difference in being able to go forward with the planning and set-up. The second challenge was that the shack was too short for a line that would allow for all of the chili to be set out on a single line and too narrow to have two lines for people to go down both sides of (besides, this is somewhat of a chili show-off event, so I wanted all of the things people brought to be available in one place, not divided between two separate lines). Also, the outlets for the crockpots were all along the walls, and though we had extension cords, they would be pretty trippy and likely to be snagged and pulled down hanging off the edges of the tables.

I was stewing over this, looking at the tables set up in the shack when I litterally had a vision of how it could be. The picture was flashed into my mind of two tables set up side by side in the place of the first table of a buffet line with a single table centered at the end of the other two. The extension cords were run from the walls under the tables and up between the two so there were no hanging over the edge where people would walk. There were heavy carpets to cover over the extension cords on the floor, so they would not be kicked or caught. The two tables together provided more than enough room for all of the pots and pans of chili that would be brought and the last table easily held the cornbread, condiments, and desserts.

It blows me away that my Heavenly Father would condecend to so thoroughly answer my mundane dilema. I know it was from Him. It was a seemingly secular subject, but though very much in my own body and while I was thoroughly awake, I cannot claim that the extremely complete picture that was planted in my mind was at all of my own making. I love the Lord. It was a brief and simple vision, but it made everything work well. It was one of those things that bless lives not because they make themselves known, but rather by being entirely unnoticed. The arrangement of getting food at a ward activity is not typically something people remember after the event as having enriched their life, but they can remember if it was horrible, and that experience can overshadow anything positive that may have happened there. In that way, a proper arrangement is a spiritual matter, in that it allows other, more spiritual things to be at the forefront. It was such a problem in the past that one of the major things people remembered was how horrible the set-up was, so much so that people actually did notice and remark that things flowed smoothly this time. How often do you hear that at a ward potluck, "Wow! This dinner was so fabulous--we could actually get through the line!"

And now another Awesome Thing God Does, and I don't think Kevin will mind me sharing it. Yesterday I got home from being out with the kids and Kevin was just finishing watching a movie. I left the kids with him for a moment and came back in the room to find the kids playing around just fine and Kevin leaning over with his head in his arms on the counter, sobbing. It took several minutes before he had composed himself enough to talk to me, during which I am frantically trying to figure out whether he was injured, whether he got horrible news, whether he was just so touched by the movie he was watching, or what. He just kept shaking his head, no, no, no to everything I asked. Finally he could choke out, "We have wonderful kids." That was all. He'd had a moment, entirely unsought for, when he was divinely granted a view of these people who are our children in all of their eternal glory, as God sees them, and it moved him to tears. As Kevin put it, it was as if Heavenly Father whispered to him, "there is more to this person than you can possibly know," and then He showed him. Wow. I love my husband.

My Father's Legacy

My dad died about 6 years ago. That's just preface--this isn't a somber post. At that time I received my inheritance. Some people get property or trust funds or jewelry or furniture or a house. I got $5 and eyebrows. My David Andrew Crapo Memorial Eyebrows, to be exact.

I have always had eyebrows, and they've always been a little bushy, but since they were blonde, they've also never been overbearing. But about the same time my father passed away, I started getting eyebrows--that is, individual eyebrow hairs--that are longer and thicker and coarser and stick out however-the-heck they want to. I know some of my other siblings get these, and they had them before dad died (presumably because they are older and so had already grown into them). They do everything they can to eradicate these erratic wisps. But secretly, I like them. My dad got these same absurdly long individual hairs, so when ever I see mine, I think of him. Sometimes I do break down and pluck or trim them, but they always grow back, and I am glad.

Willow's favorite song

So, Willow's favorite song is currently "Jesus Dying, the Wicked Mans Hit Him," or in other words "Oh Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown." This stems from her favorite story, which is currently "Jesus Dying, The Wicked Mans Hit Him with a Reed." Which all started with the events in the "Momma, tell me something" post. I would tell her stories about Jesus when she asked me to tell her about Jesus, but pretty soon the only one she wanted to hear was about when he died, then was resurrected and Mary Magdalene saw him. So she got in the habit of specifying, "Momma, tell me about Jesus Dying." Not wanting to emphasize the negative, I would try to gloss over the dying part to get to the resurrection. She would have none of this, so she refined her request to "Tell me about Jesus dying, the wicked mans hit him." After a while of telling her this story, she requested it during our scripture reading time, so I decided to look up the actual scriptures that portray it. It was there that I was reminded that what it actually says is that Jesus was scourged by Pilate, and the soldiers hit him on the head with a reed they had previously given him as a mock scepter. (I think it may also say the leaders of the Jews hit him as well, but we didn't read that mock trial part.) After reading this, Willow added that part to her request, "Tell me Jesus dying the wicked mans hit him with a reed." The desire for this story also tainted her requests for lullabies. I will often ask her what she wants me to sing, and she will choose, but she has been so fixated on this story that she asks me to sing it, too. Oh Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown was the only one I could think of that sort of told the story, and she still asks for it about every other night. I sing it to the tune of If You Could Hie to Kolob, because I don't remember how the melody actually goes.

She is actually pretty good at tellingh the story herself, at least the important parts. It usually goes something like this: "Jesus dying, the wicked mans hit him. After 3 days, Mary Magdalene cam to a tomb, a stone was rolled away, it was empty! A man came up to her, say 'woman, why weepest thou?' 'because I don't know Jesus' body is, you took it?' 'Yeah!' And then a man come up to her, it was Jesus! He alive again!"

I love my little girl so much!