basketball season 2014

2014 basketball had many great moments-so fun to watch them all grow in their skills and understanding of the game. i appreciate bobby's ability to foster every aspect-his energy and his love of teaching them is a gift. 

grant's skiing birthday and time travel

i am hoping this can be a new birthday tradition-skiing at snow creek for grant's birthday. the boys all took a snowboarding lesson inspired by the winter olympics. grant ended up switching to skis-so he could race down the hill like last year but roy and dale kept trudging away with the boards. thank you -to sharon for watching ben for the day (we could not have done it otherwise!)

-my mom who brought the boys up from oklahoma and was a tremendous help with making the weekend a success.

 can you believe he is 10 years old? i don't usually get too sentimental about birthdays-but 10 just seems like such milestone. i was reflecting back on those first days after he was born-the rocking and the feeding and the overwhelming joy i felt. i clearly remember sitting with him, holding him and realizing that this was what i was meant to do. i was meant to be a mama-and rock, and hold and sing and give love. it was a missing piece moment. i was filled up. 10 years of being a mama to such a lovely and wonderful boy. happy birthday grant!


and now to the time traveling reference. bobby and i watched a movie called 'about time' this past weekend. when the opening scene started with 'the luckiest' by ben folds i had a feeling it would have an impact on me-as that is one our songs.

maybe at another time it would come across as sappy, overly dramatic and a bit manipulative to the emotions-but sometimes those movies hit you at the right time and instead they seem to be deep and though provoking.

the take away message for me-
if you could go back in time and relive each day-what would you do differently to make that day better. ordinary days hold all these opportunities for special moments-how can you make those moments happen? how can you alter your attitude to actually be able to see those special moments as they are happening?

also
as our memory locks a moment in place one of the strongest forces that it hangs on is your attitude at the time-
if you can figure out how to place yourself in a positive attitude-then the memory becomes a positive one.

this is a lot from a movie-i think the whole 10th birthday is turning corners in my thinking.

so because i can't go back in time to relive each day-i have to use reflection on each day to change how i live the next one. most of the changes i want to make involve spending more time enjoying-
more time enjoying listening to emily and ben in the bath, more time enjoying watching anneliese teach ben how to jump into puddles.

now i have not been doing this long enough to figure out how i can clean the house, fix food, clean again, fix more food, edit pictures, clean again and enjoy all these moments-but i will start trying a little at a time to figure it out.

snow days in 2014

we were out of school 3 days last week due to a winter storm that gave us about 8 inches of snow. it was not the best conditions as it was between 10-15 degrees outside-but the kids still braved it to hit the slopes :)

and my favorite thing about snow days is the extended amount of time for playing together. no basketball practices, no waking up early-just being together. this bear is one of ben's new favorite things to carry around. he says bear 'bun'-so it is very cute to listen to him talk about his 'bun'.