Category Archives: Thoughts

Good Things to Come

There’s a lilac tree behind our old house in North Dakota that blooms this time of year. We first arrived there in the fall and its leaves were green and soon to turn. Little did we know that it would bloom in the loveliest shades of purple just a few months later.

At the end of our first [cold and windy] winter we anxiously waited for new life on the trees and leaped in excitement when all the tiny buds started to appear. We wondered what kind of tree this would be, and waited, hopefully, for flowers. Then it sprouted little leaves! —then tiny blossoms that grew and puffed into copious shapes of butterflies! It was beautiful and refreshing and we loved it so much.

It was our favorite tree. It gave the sweet aroma of spring and new life and hope for such good things to come. And there were so many good things that came. Long days in the sun, dear friends, new landscapes, and sweet time together. And of course the happiest news of our twins to be.

Then the winter came again. It swept the branches bare and gave some very dark, cold days. It was long and hard and I was very much pregnant with twins. I often looked through my kitchen window to find a blue bird or a bunny finding comfort under those branches, as if to bring me comfort too.

We left for Utah in early April when snow still covered the roads and fresh color seemed elusive. The twins were born in May and with their blessed arrival we began a trying journey through what Jake and I would call three of the hardest months of our lives. Rest was elusive for all of us, and the babies struggled so much in their little bodies. It was hard to see a light of normalcy ahead.

springtime backyard

One week in, we returned to our home in ND and there found the prettiest purple blossoms welcoming us home. This simple backyard bush gave the sweet aroma of spring and new life and hope for good things to come. And there have been so many good things. Two healthy little girls, three states to explore, four times the strength I’m guessing we used to have, and a joy greater than we could have imagined.  We couldn’t be more grateful for where it all has brought us. Definitely closer, and surely blessed. #mamanotes

This River


Esther started walking this week! It’s so fun to see her toddle around, it’s the cutest thing. It’s hard to think that they will only be babies a little while longer. A few months maybe? Is there a moment of change? It seems they gradually grow into their toddling bodies with each new tooth, new word, and next step and we see it all and celebrate every one. But then they are walking and talking and eating just like us and we realize how quickly they left their babyness behind—how quickly their arms reach out instead of up and their bodies curl less in our arms. It’s like a river of childhood, where the baby months seem to pass most rapidly.

The rapids have been strong this year with two, and half the time I am so busy holding on that there has been little rest in the surroundings or the details. But calmer water is already steadying us, they are sleeping through the night and off playing with toys, and I am reminded that this time, this sweet baby time is so precious and fleeting! I can’t help but ache a little to leave behind the water that is passing so quickly, their sweet tinyness and greatest neediness, however rapidly it has tossed me.

So I am embracing it all and riding in the river too—cleaning their hands and kissing their cheeks, still holding them while they sleep and playing with them while they play, with the energy of my heart to keep me afloat. And I’ll still hold them close, for as long as I can.
#mamanotes

In the Sunshine

We are in California now, living just an hour from the beach in beautiful spring weather while much of our family and friends are still sporting heavy coats and scraping ice from their windshields. We are taking walks in the sunshine, swimming on the weekends, and taking drives along the coast. I think about this and my nose gets all tingly and my eyes water because I longed for this so much. I wanted it so intensely at times, and here we are living in it!

At this very time last year when our days were hazy and our home was surrounded in mounds of snow for months on end with hardly a temperature above twenty, I laid on my couch with my growing belly under mounds of my own darkness. Pregnancy has a way of intensifying emotion, and I was struggling to get out from under it.

But I changed in those months. I grew, closer to Him. I reached up to the Savior and pleaded for His help, more than I ever had before. And He lifted me. In quiet moments I felt strengthened, inspired, and encouraged and I can’t even pinpoint exactly how, but I remember those feelings. They brought me closer to heaven and closer to Him.

So as much as I am heart swellingly grateful for this time in the sun, I am deeply grateful for the darker days that brought me here and brought me to Him too.

At the end of my pregnancy I updated my blog with some of these experiences from my journal and the crumbly feelings I was having. They were so raw at the time I first wrote them that I didn’t really care to share them. But ultimately I felt the desire to because I think there is value in sharing the struggles, and if it can help someone, the sweet strength I felt along the way too. You can find these under the category, “pregnancy,” which is on the right side on a computer or scroll all the way to the bottom on a phone.

Lullabies Tonight

Dear Ava,

You asked for lullabies tonight, and usually I’d sing you some while you give me your arm or your back to tickle, but this time you wanted songs from the computer. You learned how to find and play them the other day and that’s been so fun for you. Sometimes I’ll come into your room and you have the happiest Christmas music blasting while you organize your trinkets in the desk drawer. You love to find special places for your things and organize them. Lately your special things are seashells from our trips to the coast and little pieces of fabric from Grandma’s sewing room. Remember how you made me a little bag for my things all by yourself? I am still amazed how you did that. I love how you didn’t wait to try something you’ve never done before. I get caught up by that sometimes.

When I went to the computer to turn on your songs tonight I saw my playlist of lullabies, lullabies I played so often when you were a baby. It had been so long. You wanted to listen to them too, so we played them. I wonder if you remember them. I laid there on the bed with you while you drifted off to sleep, your baby doll snug beside you in the little bed you made for her. It was your second day of being six and I was just grateful that you still picked a baby doll for your birthday and loved her just as much as when you could first carry a doll in your arms.

Grateful you’re still little.

You seem older in so many ways.  You watch out for your little brother, stay in bed at bedtime, and call me out when I forget about painting your nails like I said. Today you wrote our names in chalk on the driveway and decorated them in hearts and stars. Remember how nervous you were to draw hearts until Daddy showed you the easy way? Now you draw them all the time. They were my favorite when I was little too. You love to draw and paint and create things, and you are so very smart. You are reading and adding and figuring new things out all the time. I just wish I could keep up with you, discovering it all for the first time again. I feel like my attention is split so many ways these days and my energy has waned, but my love for you and all the wonderful things you are becoming is only growing. And oh how I loved spending the day with you yesterday. We got our nails done for the first time together and went shopping and ended the night with chocolate cake and slurpies with the rest of the family.

Tonight you fell asleep so quickly. Just an hour ago you were giggling under the trampoline with your cousins, playing until the day was gone. I laid there between you and your brother on your bed and listened to our lullabies, the very songs I listened to when I carried you closest in my growing belly. I’d fold your tiny clothes and dream of what it would be like to hold you and care for you. Oh how I dreamed.

And then you came.

The sweetest gift of motherhood came bundled in the prettiest blue eyes and the most precious feeling. I never wanted to leave the hospital because it felt like heaven was there with us, as though I could feel your angels staying there in our room, pouring out their love for you too. And then we brought you home and the feeling stayed. Maybe they stayed too.

I remember holding you on our bed in our little room, awed at the way your little fingers curled and your eyes moved. It was all so amazing to me. I wanted to care for you the best I could. I remember warming your bath towel in the dryer so you wouldn’t feel cold, and then your dad would air it out before using it so it wouldn’t be too hot.  Sounds like him doesn’t it? He cares a lot too. These songs makes those early days with you seem so close. What a blessing it is to love you. And oh how we love you, so very very much.  Happy birthday my sweet Ava. 

#mamanotes #birthdayletters

When you cannot do what you have always done

“When you cannot do what you have always done,
then you only do what matters most.” -Robert D. Hales

I have felt really exhausted lately. Rarely a good night’s rest, and so much to do on so little sleep. And free time, what’s that?

But two years ago a sweet sister missionary in our lds branch wrote this quote on a bookmark and gave it to me (before I even knew I was pregnant with twins). It’s from David A. Bednar’s conference talk a few years back, quoting Robert D. Hales. Little did she know how much I would entirely CLING to that comforting reminder two years down the road.

When I focus on the things that matter most, I can feel like I am doing enough. I am trying to remind myself that it IS enough, but what’s clear is that this is where my JOY is.

This morning I asked myself, “What is most important for me to do today?”  My mind was full of a hundred things I needed to do, or wanted to do, but only a few were MOST important.

Pray. Read my scriptures. Love on my family and take care of them. THIS is my joy.

Having done these things by the end of the day I felt like I was doing alright, despite all the things I didn’t do. These are what matter most, and “what matters most lasts the longest.”

Even then, I still managed to shower, put a few loads of laundry through (through, not folded and put away 🙂  read to my kids, feed them, take them to the park, write a mamanote, make soup for dinner, wash some dishes (after the kids went to bed), and order more binkis online.

I DIDN’T pick up the clutter, wipe down the counters, finish the dishes, vacuum the floors, CLEAN THE BATHROOMS (been on my list for a while now 🙈), go through those bills, research that baby rash, trim the kids’ nails, exercise, meal plan, edit pictures, order winter clothes for the kids and new sheets for us (completely ripped while I stood on them last week to get pictures of the twins,) update my blog, play with my kids more, make family videos, take a nap, among so many other things I needed or wanted to do. (This is still a HUGE improvement from a few months ago when I hardly had time to pour myself a bowl of cereal and eat it.)

But somehow, I feel ok with that. Those things will move over to tomorrow’s list, but today I filled with the most important things, and that is always enough.

#mamanotes