the best of 2011

One of my favorite bloggers puts together a post of her personal bests for each year. I thought I'd give it a go myself and had such a cool time going through my favorite pictures, reflecting on the past year and all the good things we packed it with. I give you, my best of 2011:

the magic maker

I’ve been thinking about this all month. Not sure how it’s going to all come tumbling out, but I’m just going to start typing. (The picture above is me in 1st grade. And I still have that skateboarding girl, I'll have you know. I know right where she's at at this very moment...)

Now this thought I’m about to share isn’t totally new to me. I’ve felt it since Ivar was born, but this Christmas it became quite pronounced. This year I hardly decorated, cookies made me nauseous and we didn’t have any snow. It was an odd Christmas to be sure. But it made something very obvious: If I don’t decorate, the house doesn’t get decorated. If I don’t bake, we don’t nibble and munch all season. If I don’t make my house merry and bright, December can slip by like any other month. I am the magic maker.

I get really nostalgic for Christmas' in the past. But what I'm realizing is the ones I am dreaming about are the Christmas' where I merely took in the magic. The ones where somehow it all got done. Someone mysterious was doing all the gift purchasing and then wrapping those gifts into the wee hours behind a locked bedroom door. Someone else bustled in the kitchen for our ham and hot fruit and creamy potatoes. Someone else did all of the organizing of company, planning of special festive outings, decorating and party planning.

Turns out, my mom was busting her hiney every December. My mom was making the magic. And I’m just realizing this now, at age 30.

I mean, I knew it, I just didn’t really know how much work it entailed.

It’s a big responsibility! My sister-in-law Lisa told me that at some point the week before Christmas it dawned on her that she simply was not going to get it all done. She knew it days before execution. There just wasn’t enough time. And so after Christmas dinner, Lisa disappeared and wrapped the presents we were about to open just moments later. She was doing her magic, you see.

So to all the mom’s who met each other at Target late at night, to all the mom’s who ran to the corner store for another pound of butter and some more vanilla, to all the mom’s who got out all of the Christmas decorations and now are staring at them hoping they’ll put themselves away, I guess I just want to say, You’re magical.

And it is worth it. All the love and attention to detail my mom poured into my childhood Christmas' were not lost on me. And now it's what I'll strive for with my own kids. Starting next year. When smells are lovely again and feeding my son lunch doesn't take every ounce of energy I have. But look out Christmas 2012. I'll be back. And I'll be magical.

a christmas to remember...or try to forget.

Ivar got the flu on Christmas Morning around 1:30 at my folk’s house. We had celebrated Christmas Eve with the Groves and went to my parents to sleep overnight for Christmas Day with the Harringtons.


Unfortunately, it was violent and messy and long lasting. Basically, it was awful. It’s hard to watch your baby dry heave. But I do recommend if you’re a first time mom, try to be with your mom when your baby gets the flu for the first time. Because as a first time mom, you really need a mom of your own to mother you while you act as the mother to your baby. At one point in the night Rory said to my mom, “Margaret, you can go back to bed if you’d like.” And I told him mom was up for me, not for Ivar.

Another handy thing about being at mom’s is that she has an abundance of wash clothes and bath towels which is what we used to wrap our baby in and catch his mess. He blew through his clothes quite quickly and this served as a pretty great system considering how unpredictable the whole thing is.

We came back home on Christmas Day, and my folks headed to my sister’s to celebrate with her and her family. Ivar threw up throughout the day, but babies are funny and sort of bounce back between episodes. So we opened Christmas presents by the tree, watching the Yule Log and laying very low. I felt really ill after such a terrible night of sleep.

Monday came and I felt better than I have in months. I sorted my art supplies, switched a book shelf, and my folks came over in the evening to help with more projects. I was so motivated to sieze this new found energy! We swept, mopped, took the tree down (I know, pretty early, but what is the point of sweeping if you are going to take the tree down a few days later?!!) and the Christmas decorations (all three of them I had put up.)

Then my mom got sick. Really sick. 36 hours after Ivar, and she was down for the count. They left our house with bucket in hand and three hours later my dad caught the bug too. An hour after that Rory and I were hit. It was like war. This flu bug was picking us off one by one.

Monday night will not soon be forgotten. All three of us in this little home were violently ill and it was terrible. Terrible.

Tuesday came as a slow recovery day. But Ivar still threw up Tuesday night and then again last night. We took him to the doctor today and the doctor thinks the last three nights have been formula related with his system having trouble digesting the lactose in his bottles. So we’re onto soy formula and hoping this might be the key.

Did I mention that Annika’s little baby Svea got it too? And now Sonna has it. That family is like domino’s about to topple over and I am so, so sorry for them.

My dad is out grocery shopping for us right now, restocking the essentials: bananas, apple sauce, gingerale, saltines and bread. We’re a sorry sight here on Girard. Wouldn’t recommend coming too close.

Just thought I’d check in before the new year. Sorry if this is all too much information. I sort of just wanted to write it out so that years from now we can read it and thank our lucky stars it isn’t the Christmas of 2011.

cookie swap 2011

Monday was the Great Lisa Groves Cookie Swap 2011. It's my favorite event leading to Christmas, and even though the thought of making twelve dozen cookies made me gag, I decided to partake.

I got my game on. Thursday I mixed three batches of batter for the Sugar and Spice cookies. They're my favorite, and ginger cookies seemed like a good and smart idea for this pregnant lady. On Friday my mom came to help me bake them all. The first batch came out flat and greasy. They looked like this:

Mom started asking questions. Questions like, how much butter did you put in each batch of dough? To which I replied, "well, it calls for 3/4 cup butter, and I used three out of the four sticks in the box." I knew my error as I said it. I looked wide eyed at my mom and she sighed, "Oh honey, you are so pregnant."

And then she proceeded to spend the rest of her day in my kitchen whipping up three new batches of dough, attempting to resurrect the double butter batters with oatmeal, which sort of made them taste like greasy gingersnaps with oatmeal, baked all 12 dozen cookies from the new batter, cleaned my kitchen and went home after it was all over.

Can we get three cheers for my mom?!!

The cookie swap was, as always, fantastic. I love this gathering. I am very much included only because I am a sister-in-law. The rest of these ladies have been friends for over 20 years... they started out having babies together and now are sending them off to college. They have done plenty of life together and it is a privilege to get to listen in, watch the friendships in action, get to be a part of the stories told, the heartache shared and the deep laughter.

And it's always nice to come home with twelve dozen different cookies. Rory might love this event even more than I do, if that's possible.

rub a dub dub

Confession: Ivar hasn't been the most hygienic baby for the past six months. At some point around six months old, he decided he didn't like baths. (I'm realizing that this probably was because I was still bathing him in the kitchen sink in the baby tub because our bathtub is really high on the sides, a claw foot that sounds fancier than it is. The sides are really high which makes it hard to kneel and reach the baby...) As a result, bath time has been a wrestling match, usually ending with me as the soggy loser and both of us tuckered out. It's not terrible, but it's not fun either and leaves a mom a bit unmotivated to get the baby in the bathtub.

But something changed recently and we've got a little fish on our hands. He loves bath time. And I am realizing that the mom's who make bath time a part of their bedtime routine are really just trying to save their sanity. Because bath time comes at fall-apart time. The time when everyone needs to go to bed, but it's still just too early.

Bath time turns 6:00-7:00 into splashes and happiness, and mom's get to sit on the closed toilet seat and rest their weary selves for a moment. It's such a win win. Ivar looks nicer without crusted oatmeal in his hair and I get to sit in a steamy, humid room with a happy baby.

advent and preparation

We have a tree up with beautiful white lights on it. And I have a fisher price nativity set my mom gave us a few years ago that Ivar likes to play with (and by play, I mean throw the shepherds and wisemen around). But other than that, I haven't put up one single decoration. Oh, except the barn to a nativity set that I brought upstairs a few weeks ago...but I haven't unpacked any boxes to find the people, so it's just a barn. No peeps in the stable.

I just don't have it in me this year. I'm tired. I'm queasy and I sort of don't think I can handle adding more clutter to our stuff. As it stands our house is strewn with brightly colored toys and tupperware and it already feels full. More decorations just seems like it would be too much.

In an effort to comfort myself, to give permission to this years lack of tradition-making, I have been on a quest for fun advent ideas. And I found this post and wanted to link to it so that next year, when I'm feeling spry and energized, I can be the supermom I know I can be. Just not this year.

So check out this link of fun ideas for the 25 days leading up to Christmas. She has great ideas for family outings, special nights at home, service projects for others and then writes about that super fun idea of wrapping up all of the Christmas books at the beginning of the month and then letting your kids unwrap one book a night all throughout December and reading it before bed. I love this idea.

egg in the hole?!!

I am working my way through Pioneer Woman's cookbook and thought it was so odd she put a recipe in there for a piece of bread with a fried egg in the middle. Her cooking is always a bit more complicated than that.

But last night, as a last ditch attempt at supper (we're low on everything...) I decided to give it a go.

And oh my goodness, it was good. It wasn't just eggs and toast. It was like something different, with some egg baked into the toast, and the toast in ready position to sop up the runny egg. I don't even usually like sunnyside up eggs, but with enough salt and pepper I am a believer in this SUPER EASY and hey-that-felt-like-a-real-dinner recipe.

Here's her "recipe." I have a feeling I am really behind on this one. My guess is that many of you were raised on this, but egg in the hole is a new find for me, and I couldn't be more happy to have found another easy-peasy supper to add to the mix.

little house

Oh have you seen Little House lately?!! It's perfect for me right now because the frames don't move too fast, and the only food they show is ma pulling out bread from the oven. I can't get over how sucked in I get to these episodes. I called my sister yesterday after having watched the episode The Blizzard. I started crying at some point in the middle of the show, and by the end it was the ugly cry. And then the show was over and I still was ugly crying.

Annika watched Little House faithfully when she little and she claims all of her forehead wrinkles are from watching this show and the worry and heartache she took upon herself on behalf of the Ingalls.

Anyway, if you're looking for a good gift for some girls in your life, I can think of few things better than the books or the dvd's.

my party chicken.

My friend Emily sent this to me this morning and it made me laugh out loud. Because I really need to find my party chicken again. I have been so moody with this pregnancy. (That post I wrote on Friday was so crabby...and you can even pinpoint the moodswing in my writing!) I'm not sure where my party chicken has been, but Emily has unlocked it. Thank Goodness.

christmas lights

 

 

Ivar has some news to share...

That mushroom shaped loaf in the oven is supposed to be a bun. As in, we're pregnant! Expecting our second baby sometime in mid July.

I took the test one night when Rory was out with his brothers. This was the forth month I took the test and was really banking on another not pregnant result. I had planned in my head that I'd take it and let myself be disappointed on the couch that night while Rory was gone.

But lo and behold, that second line appeared. At that same moment the cat was trying to paw itself into Ivar's room, so I had the cat in one hand, the stick in the other and kept repeating to Toonces the big news. He didn't care. He just wanted down.

I didn't know when Rory would be home and was dying with all the time I suddenly had on my hands. So I googled "fun ways to tell your husband" and ended up wrapping the pregnancy test, making an invitation to the birth of our baby, put a bun in the oven, threw one in the toaster oven and tried to keep myself occupied.

Rory came home and I was waiting to read his mood. Maybe he'd be too tired and I'd wait until morning to have Ivar give him the positive test. It would be fun to have Ivar involved.

Rory was in a great mood, super chatty recounting the night. We were reheating some leftovers in the kitchen when he spied the toaster oven. In rapid fire, like some auctioneer, he blurted, "Do you know you left a bun in the toaster oven? Wait is that a bun in the oven? Do we have a bun in the oven?!!"

I was totally caught off guard. He pieced it all together so fast! I think it was my mother-in-law who later pointed out that I have clearly trained him well to look for riddles hidden around our house.

I was shocked! He wondered how I had wanted to tell him the news. I said I didn't know. I had like 14 plans and hadn't decided on one yet. But this was perfect. He figured it out.

We sat on the news for 6 minutes. Then Rory said, "I want to tell my brothers." And I suggested we wait until Thanksgiving when all the families are gathered anyway. And Rory repeated, "I think I want to tell my brothers. Like right now." He dialed Kyle. And then Troy. It was fun. It was high energy. We didn't get the flip camera out. :)

Within 24 hours all family knew. Even our little nieces and nephews, which basically means we were shouting it from the rooftops.

I had my 8 week check-up yesterday and got lots of blood drawn and a few shots. I'm not feeling great with this pregnancy. Totally different than Ivar, but I'll share more about that another day. For now, this is joyous news! We are having another baby!

My favorite story so far comes from Ruby, my four-year-old niece. Her mom had told her we were having a baby, but that it was a secret that she couldn't tell.

When I saw Ruby a few weeks later, I asked her, "Ruby, do you know I have a baby growing in me?" Ruby nodded and smiled and ran to her mom and said, "Mom! Aunt Becca already knew she had a baby in her! And I didn't even tell her!"

here's what's cookin.

I've been cooking lately. That's a big deal. I'm sort of an uninspired cook usually, excited to find ready-to-heat meals at Trader Joes, excited to make another eggs and potatoes breakfast-for-supper sort of meal. But lately, I've been chopping. And grating and things have been bubbling and my house smells amazing.

I'm not sure what brought about this change. I think seasonally, when it gets so cold, there is something in a Minnesota mama that wants to get her family real close and feed them warm things just to ward off the offensive temperatures. So we've had lots of soups and hotdishes.

I also read a quick read called My Homemade Life, a food memoir that painted a picture of the process of cooking that sort of challenged how I see myself in the kitchen. Typically, my goal is to get food on the table, bellies full and the kitchen cleaned up so we can move onto the next thing. This book made me wonder if I'm missing the joy involved in the simmering, the smelly garlic fingers that linger for days, the actual process.

This little shift has helped considerably. I'm not afraid to try new recipes. And as the food memoir recommends, I follow the instructions and ingredients exactly. That's always been my biggest problem. The Scandinavian in me tries to omit the chili peppers, and then wonders why her corn chowder is so bland. Well, I committed to the chile's and that recipe is pure gold.

So, since this little blog is my own journal of life happenings, and because I hope to reference these recipes that shined a bit brighter than the others, I thought I'd post the favorites with hopes of more chopping and mincing and simmering.

Pioneer Woman's Corn Chowder with Chiles
Land a livin. This was so good. Full of cream and butter and bacon, I welcomed it all and it did not disappoint. We ate most of a loaf of crusty bread with it, and that was key. It's a soup for dipping. Pioneer woman is not afraid of butter and cream, and I decided not to be either. But if you are, her recipes will freak you out. They will terrorize you in the night. But I'm not scared.

Pioneer Woman's Lasagna
I used her recipe from the cookbook, which is slightly different than this one on her website in that it uses fresh basil and parsley, and honestly, after eating it with the fresh stuff, I think I might be too snobby to go back. It was utter perfection for a lasagna. Saucy, but didn't fall into a soup when I served it. I mean, perfection.

Paula Dean and Jessica Sprague's Chicken Noodle Soup
I think I've blogged about this soup three times now. It is just that good. We use broth instead of stock and like that much better. And also we cook our own chicken breasts in the oven (using this method for oven roasting) and have much juicier chicken that way. And then we never add the noodles to the soup until it is time to serve. We cook them seperately and mix the soup and noodles in our individual bowls when it's time to eat. They don't get soggy and that's important. And I leave out the cream and Parmesan cheese, but will sprinkle some mozzarella on it if we've got it.

Tuna Noodle Casserole
I had a hankerin' and it wasn't going to go away. I doubled this recipe and it was fantastic. Hit the spot. And spots for days after as it made so much.

And another super easy, I love this meal: Trader Joes Naan bread (toasted), Hummus, Tzatziki Creamy Garlic Cucumber Dip, and chicken breasts seasoned with Lawry's and covered in fresh squeezed lime juice. This meal takes 10 minutes to put on the table and Rory will comment the whole time, "we should have this once a week." It's easier than frozen pizza!

Alrighty. Enjoy. Happy Eating. I sure am happy when I eat.

yarn globes

Have you met my niece Josie yet? She's the best. In the picture above she was dressed as a green bird for her middle school play, Seussical. She's fun, animated, kind and we adore her. Ivar adores her. She adores Ivar. It really works out well for everyone.

We got to have Josie over the Friday night before Ivar's Ball Party. I had seen tutorials for Yarn Globes before, but was thinking I'd probably scrap this decoration. It was getting to be to much. But with the news that Josie was coming over I got a second wind. If there is a girl I'd like to make a yarn ball with, it's Josie.

It was a total mess. And so fun. We worked hard on how to best execute this project and by the end, we were a slick machine.

Basically we are soaking the yarn in a combination of water, modge podge, elmers glue and flour..with no real ratio of one to the other. We just sort of dumped and stirred until it felt about right.

We made three balls and we got so slap happy. Might have been the glues we were sniffing, might have been that it was getting late, but I felt like I was in 7th grade again. We took breaks for huge bowls of icecream with chocolate syrup. We took breaks to watch America's Funniest Home Videos with Rory. We took breaks to watch Josie's dance routines for the play. We sang Sara Groves songs so that Rory had to tell us to keep it down or we'd wake the baby.

We hung the balls to dry in the kitchen overnight and then I brought Josie's to her at church so that she could pop the balloon and sneak it out one of the holes, leaving just the hardened yarn shell.

They made pretty decorations, and now they are hung over Ivar's crib, which delights him to no end. He points them out to me every time I put him down and every time I get him up. And I reply, "yep. those balls are still there!"



grandma b's funeral

The funeral was a sweet, sweet time of family. I kept thinking Grandma would have loved it.

I cried the hardest while the whole family was gathered in the basement of the church before we walked in for the funeral. Seeing us all together and knowing that it might just not happen ever again, was a death I was grieving, just as much as Grandma's. Obviously I'll see all of them over and over, but it won't ever be the same. Death to a chapter in life, I suppose. I know this from Grandma and Grandpa Harrington's deaths. I miss that we don't all drive to Waverly for Christmas and wander around HyVee and Walmart the day after Christmas with Uncle Mark and Aunt Jane. I miss lingering over the continental breakfast in the Super 8 before heading to the nursing home. I just miss that chapter. And I know something similar is about to change with the Bredbergs too. I am most sad for that.

***
My cousin Daron gave a great talk on Hope and Humming, reading Psalm 108 and telling how one can't really hum unless they have a deep peace inside of them. Grandma hummed all the time, no matter what she was doing. And that was an outward evidence of the joy and contentment she felt on the inside.

My cousin Mark told a story at the wake. He told about how Grandma had a way of making ordinary moments feel special, and how on the night before his wedding at the farm, they found the dress shirt he was going to wear the next day in the clean laundry. Grandma walked the shirt over to Mark's mom and asked her if she would like the honor of ironing the shirt her son was going wear the next day. Mark said his mom would typically pay no attention to such a small task, but somehow the way Grandma presented the shirt made the ironing feel important, sacred. And so she ironed the shirt and she still talks about how special that was for her, how much love and care she took and how Grandma helped her see the holy in the ordinary.

That's what I'm going to miss the most, I suppose. Grandma was a quiet work horse. Always a project. Always turning the ordinary into something sacred.

It was hard for me to really be sad about Grandma. There was time for closure, and many had a special moment of prayer, a verbal blessing, a heartfelt farewell. It was time. I feel very badly for my cousin Kathy who is expecting in May, that Grandma will never meet her first baby. And actually I feel most badly for Kathy and Sarah. Grandma was basically a second mom to those two, always folding their laundry, at every game, involved in every 4-H project. I was keenly aware of how different their grieving must be from my own. I was definitely the city mouse and they had grandma in the country. And now to have Grandma miss meeting Kathy's firstborn...I can't imagine how hard and disappointing that must be.

Her funeral was so full of Jesus and why we are here, and what it looks like to live a life for all the right reasons, focused on the truly most important things. Dad preached and did a really excellent job. Got in a political comment, just enough to make the whole family laugh/squirm, and somehow even that felt right.

I didn't get to see her apartment emptied out. I think that would have been helpful. Also, she didn't look like herself in the casket, I didn't think. Her lips were spread too wide. She definitely was not in that body anymore, that's for sure. During the wake she was in one room and the family was in another all together, laughing, eating, talking. And when I went to her casket I felt so convinced that I was touching a shell. The party was in the next room over. She would have been by the food.

***
Just one closing thought. I have shared a few conversations and emails with friends talking about how they wish they had such a family. And I guess I have two responses: 1) I wish you did too. and 2) This family is far from perfect. But the truth remains that love and forgiveness fill in a whole lot of hurtful places, because this family knows the Lord. And what is so inspiring to me, is that somewhere, generations before me, a husband and wife decided to bend a knee and made a promise, "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." And now, because of some great, great, great, great grandpa and grandma, I am living in the blessing of a Christ-filled family. There are hurts a plenty, but there is even more grace. That's the difference. So to the friends who wish their family behaved something like the Bredbergs, I guess I'd say, bend a knee. And you'll get be the great, great, great, great grandma or grandpa to some great, great, great, great grandchild like me one day. And she'll be unable to find the words to thank you for the gift you have given to her.

passing on the faith: a repost

Tomorrow is Grandma Bredberg's funeral. The service will be at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Dunnell, the same church where she was baptized, confirmed, married, baptized her seven kids, confirmed her seven kids, married off most of her seven kids, and buried her husband. It's going to be a celebration, but I definitely am bracing for the sadness to hit. I have a feeling it is going to hit hard when it does.

I wrote this post two winters ago. I am reposting it for two reasons: First, there is something so dear and precious about a person's handwriting. Second, because what is writen is the foundational truth of life.

We are right in the middle of 'Believing God' and I am, once again, learning so much. But for me the coolest thing about the study this time around is getting to do this Bible Study with my mom and my grandma. Not to mention the women from all different parts of my life who have also joined in this online study. It is a sweet community, and I am grateful.

When I was in Mesa, I found this list taped to my grandma's bathroom mirror. It's the five statements that the study is based upon, and part of the study is to memorize them. I saw them taped on her mirror, in her handwriting, and in that moment realized what a true treasure this opportunity truly is... to get to study and learn God's Word with my grandma. My heart overflows with thanksgiving for this sweet 10 weeks of growing in faith with her, and for her strong example to never stop learning God's commands and to always follow Jesus.