blessings.in this mess.

as i sit my my living room filled with toys that we dumped from their bins and never returned, my little girl is spinning on a zebra with sunglasses over her eyes trying her hardest to become dizzy.  dizzy doesn't seem to faze her, she enjoys it. she's the crazy one ;)   my little boys are here chewing their gum like cows in my ears, one in the left, one in the right, and i realized how blessed i am. in this moment. i am sure that in a few moments, someone will do something to cause another to cry -- but i know right now that we are here, and we are mostly not sick (the last 5 days have been rough with a stomach bug. the three of the kids. ughhh), and we are currently enjoy each other's company. and we are blessed. i know that we are blessed always, but my humanity doesn't always let me see the blessings through the tears or in the messy.

today, i do see messy. and i see beautiful. in this moment, we simply are being.messy.beautiful. and it is so good.

blessings! and joy!
nicole mArie

Christmas, in new ways, this year.

Christmas, this year, was different.
Christmas, this year, was smaller than other years.
Christmas, this year, was still as beautiful as it ever has been, but for different reasons than years past.

My little family didn't have many places to rush to this year.  We didn't have houses so completely full of people that we all felt overwhelmed or unable to visit with those people who were filling said houses.  I know that I felt comfortable, and pleased, and blessed to share my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the people who I did get see and visit with, though I did miss those who were unable to celebrate with us, too.

After a trying 4 pm mass on Christmas Eve for my well behaved and mannerly tired and cranky children, we went to my maternal grandparents' house for a traditional (to us) dinner of kielbasa,  potato salad, ham, and baked beans. :) Oh, so good. We've been eating this meal on Christmas Eve and also on Holy Saturday for as long as I can remember. I wonder if it tastes so good because we do only eat this twice a year?  Either way, yum-o. We spent the evening there and it was lovely. It was quiet because some family members couldn't make it, but still, it really was lovely.

We "did" Christmas morning at our house with our children who were so very excited to wake up to a few presents and a trampoline! (Which, btw, has saved my couches and them from my admonitions in the short time that it has been in our house.  It looks ridiculous in my living room and will eventually get moved, but gosh, it's a brilliant idea [Thank you Aunt A and Uncle K for being brave enough to do this first!] and child energy steal-er. win. super win.)

Then we went to my mom and dad's house for brunch with my immediate family. We spent time together, all of us: my parents, my brothers and my sister-in-law and their son, my husband, and our silly littles. It really was relaxing and fun to just be. to not rush. to just visit and laugh with each other. to be. together. Yes, together. We don't often end up together, not all of us at-the-same-time-in-the-same-house-in-the-same-room, because we seem to have crazy lives, but when we do find the moments to be together, and I allow myself to soak them in (them: the moments, them: the people), they (the moments) can be wonderful (because of the people).

Our late afternoon/evening was spent with my husband's family.  Fewer people were part of that celebration than usual, but again, it was still wonderful.  It was also calm. Oddly, calm is a relative term as there were 11 beautiful children running around and full of Christmas! What I found to be so very beautiful, this year especially, is that I don't just view them as,  "my husband's family" anymore. They are just another part of my family. They are just my.family.too.  I love this. They are a part of the whole that I call family. His sisters and brothers-in-law are just that, my brothers and sisters. They are just mine. They love just me. I love just them.

My family, in it's whole.ness, is messy.  Even in the messy (and there is much mess), it is still beautiful. and it's mine. all mine. and for this gift, the gift of my whole family, I am thankful. I know that I am blessed.

I learned, in new ways this year, that family can't always be all together. For this reason or that, every single person can't show up to all of the places all of the times. Sometimes family members find themselves apart because of sickness, or because of weather, or because of the many miles in between, or perhaps, because of conflict.

I learned, in new ways this year, that if family members are apart, to accept the distance and love from afar.

I learned, in new ways this year, that it's also about being able to make the choice to love those in your presence more deeply. More fully. More gracefully.

I learned, in new ways this year, to appreciate those in front of me in ways that I hadn't previously.

I learned, in new ways this year, that my darling children and my husband can bring me Christmas Joy not just on Christmas day, not just during the season of Christmas, but on any of the days. on all of the days. I just have to choose to see it. To see the joy. That's the secret, I think. The choice, the seeing. The act of choosing, and the act of seeing. When I do choose, and when I do see, I am overwhelmed with grace.

Be overwhelmed with grace.
Blessings! and Joy!
nIcole mArie

Messy.Painted.Pumpkins

This is a wonky looking post tonight because I'm tired of moving the pictures around.  The gist is that we made a mess today.  We painted our pumpkins.  It was an adventure.  The littles had a tremendous time, and I found out that I really want to be "that-artist-mom-who-laughs-at-messy-little.people-and-allows-them-unhindered-creativity" I am not. I was freaking out because Max mixed blue into yellow paint. And then Grace dropped pink on the floor, and got some on her clothes.  I was laughing at myself struggling with the mess, so I eventually joined in a bit and painted on paper (as I didn't have my own pumpkin), and then we put handprints on the wall ;)  Perhaps I'll rearrange this all tomorrow.

Until then, Blessings and Joy! nIcole mArie

She demanded milk.

My dear darling daughter woke up this morning at 4:45ish.  (It may have been 4:43, or 4:47, but for purposes of my retelling, I'll go with 4:45. ish.) She was demanding milk.  When I say demand, I mean crying and wailing and screeching.  The sort that means my sleep is contingent on her demands being met.  It's not something malicious, it's apparently just what toddlers do on occasion.  *head in hands*

Sounds simple enough, right?  Nope.  There's no milk in the house.  I want to sleep. How do I go back to sleep if I have no milk? How?!

I went into the kitchen.  I peered into the refrigerator past yesterday's leftovers and around the ketchup where I had hoped to find a full gallon of milk -- or even a teeny tiny bit of milk. A drop of milk?

There was no milk.  I knew that there wasn't milk. You already knew that there wasn't any milk.  

And then I looked again.  Yes, again. This time my eye caught a container that looked like this:

Don't judge me.  Half-and-half is great in coffee.  It's smooth, it's dairy, it's white.  And I'm a mother.  Mothers improvise. I am good at improvising, usually. (Once, though, when I turned my son's much loved puppy into a crispy mess in an old dryer,  he didn't like that we were going to replace his Mr. Puppy with a new one.  We had an elaborate story about how Mr. Puppy went to the spa and came back, um, different.  He didn't buy it one bit.  He chose the crispy.fuzzy puppy over the impostor.  We gained a new family member that day, his name is Cousin Puppy, cousin of crispy.fuzzy Mr. Puppy.)

This morning, I needed to be good at improvising because I needed to sleep. Sleep deprivation causes strange things to happen.


I poured some half-and-half into a sippy cup and filled the rest with water. Seriously, how could I make her drink it undiluted?  That's just...wrong. gross. ew. *hangs head in shame while giggling*

I stumbled back into the room and handed the cup to my girl child.  She took it. She drank it. She fell back to sleep. *sigh of relief* I fell back into my bed and I giggled while telling my husband what I just did.  He mumbled something to me, but I don't think he was surprised, and he rolled over ;)

Woo!  Parenting Win?  Parenting Fail?  Who cares?!  A little bit of desperate creative thinking, and the girl child and I both slept for a few more hours.

At least I didn't use heavy whipping cream.  I could have, you know.


Blessings! and Joy!
nIcole mArie

i wonder how it came to this

When I was was a teenager I had a blog. And I liked it. And I liked to write in it. Then I stopped. I think that life changed, and I stopped writing in it. And that blog still exists, and it is funny to read it over remembering who I was then, wondering where that part of me is now. Wanting that part of me back and wondering if I can still have that part of me when I am not at that place in my life but wanting it in my life now...

When I was in college, I started to write again, but this time, in journals. And I didn't just write about my day to day experiences, or use them to inform people about stuff. I wrote for me. I wrote poetry, and I wrote a short story now and again. i wrote a lot of words. And then I stopped. Life again? And I also want that part of me back. I like the writer inside of me. She is messy and beautiful all together.

My insides are full of words. My insides are full of magic and creative-ness and mess and beauty and those parts of me need to get out. My insides want to be on the outside of me. And I am trying to write. again.

I am trying to be messy.beautiful on the outside. and I am terrified of judgment. and of you rejecting who i am. so be careful. i am fragile. today. and probably tomorrow. but i am excited and willing and ready. to put my insides on the outside.

I can.