Christmas tree in morning light

I had a Christmas card all picked out and waiting for order in an online shopping cart. Our family of three, cracking up and being super silly at Disneyland last summer. I don’t know what kept me from pulling the trigger, but I didn’t order it.

And now that card doesn’t feel fitting.

Our family looks a little different today than it did three weeks and two days ago. We are still the Tredway Three in legal terms. We are still the Tredway Three in history and in permanency. But something else is going on that makes it, well, odd to send out a card with the three of us featured. We are the Tredway Five right now.

There are five seat belts in our car that get used every time we venture out as a family. Thank goodness for the larger sized sedan we purchased last July—we can just barely fit two carseats and a 9 year old in the back seat. There are five place settings at the table every time we eat a meal. Three normal size forks and two preschool-sized ones. Three Fiestaware plates and two Spiderman bowls. There are potty seats haphazardly tossed next to two toilets in the house. Boxes of diapers trip me as I walk into my office and piles of boy pajamas sit in the previously all-girl-all-the-time bathroom upstairs. Our house is again filled with blocks and board books, little puzzles and farm sets. An often grabbed-for Febreze has a twin upstairs in our vain attempts to mask the odors that come alongside diapered toddlers, and we’re still getting the rhythm of what goes in the indoor garbage can versus the outdoor garbage can.

Two precious faces have been entrusted to our care. For how long, we do not know.

Jeremy and I are Mommy and Daddy to two extra little people who already have a Mommy and Daddy. We drive home each evening to pronouncements of, “Here we are! We’re home!” and we say, “Yes! We’re home!” Because what else is this place if not home? Here you are safe, we say. You are fed, bathed, hugged, snuggled, disciplined, sung over, prayed over and loved in a million different ways. For however long you are here, this is your home.

So you see my predicament in blithely mailing out a Christmas card with three goofy (or Goofy) Tredways on the front. We are still those people, and yet we are not those people at all. For now, for this season, there are five of us. For better or for worse, the Tredway Five.

Pssst… Wanna see our Disney pic? Of course you do. I LOVE this shot. Makes me all happy inside.

Livia and I both really enjoy making valentines together. I say this as an explanation because a lot of moms feel that they are somehow “less than” when they don’t enjoy activities like this. If you are one of those moms, take a deep breath, admire the things you do well (if you actually make dinner for your family on a regular basis you can feel superior to me already, I give you full permission), and don’t feel like I’m sharing my life in order to make you personally feel like a failure. So we like markers and glue and glitter at our house. That’s all.

One lesson of making valentines is to not wait until the night before the Valentine’s Day Party. Because the afternoon/evening before probably involves an appointment with the pediatrician and a child who really isn’t in the mood to write out her name and her classmates’ names on 27 cards. You might find yourself giving permission for skipping homework and counting this exercise as homework enough (not that I’d do that, this is purely hypothetical), and you will for sure find yourself in moments where you, the mother and non-class-participant, is still gluing and cutting while the actual class-participant is nowhere to be found.

The moral of the story is this: don’t wait until the night before the party.

Livia received tons and tons—27 perhaps?—of adorable little valentines from her classmates. She’s still polishing off suckers and pixie sticks. One valentine in particular charmed the socks off me, though. It was a simple construction paper heart absolutely plastered with girlie stickers like Tinker Bell and unicorns. On the other side of the blue heart were five little tic-tac-toe boards handwritten by a 2nd grader. You could feel the sweetness and generosity and creativity of one little girl oozing from this one piece of paper.

I think sometimes we make life too complicated for our kids when maybe all they need is a ream of construction paper and a few stickers.

On the evening of Thanksgiving I found three chefs buzzing about my kitchen, two dudes talking around the table, and—where was my child?—probably two little people watching Phineas & Ferb. A few minutes later my parents showed up and we ate some crazy good tacos for dinner. Our Lawton Thanksgiving meal was held on Friday instead and that evening started my hosting duties.

I love to host. I love having the party right there in my house. Sharing our home with friends and family, letting them make me dinner (not a required thing, but those yummy tacos were not made by me!), getting up in the morning knowing the fun continues; I really enjoy it all.

So now I have a question for you all: What do you appreciate when you are being hosted in someone’s home? What special touches make you feel comfortable? What kind of attitudes are helpful when you are a guest? What should a host do? And what should a host avoid? I welcome your thoughts!

Candlelight always feels a bit magical, but candlelight glowing orange from the inside of a pumpkin is something else entirely. Livia placed the tea lights, wisely allowed her mom to light them with short matchsticks, and got real close to watch the flames lick and dance in the carved faces.

Look at this happy and quiet scene! What’s going on? Hours and hours of pumpkin carving, that’s what’s going on.

We bought pumpkins really early in the season and my carvin’-happy child couldn’t wait to get started. Using the teeny tools from a store bought kit, Livia cut up two pumpkins and did almost the entire thing, start to finish, by herself. (I only helped when the stems presented a challenge.) Over the course of a weekend I’d say Liv spent about five hours pumpkin carving. Way to go, kid!

Know what’s scarier than a scary jack-o’-lantern? A scary jack-o’-lantern that’s molding inside. So yeah, neither of our carved pumpkins made it until Halloween.

Also known as the Horn Creekers or the Horn Creek Reunion Tour 2012.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, our group met and became friends at a PCA camp in Horn Creek, Colorado, almost 20 years ago. Ten years ago we began our girls’ weekends in Minnesota—and all of us agree it’s one of the best decisions we’ve made.

From left to right: Autumn, me, Bryonie, Charity, Haley.

When did normal life get to be a race? I wasn’t aware it was until last weekend when I finally put my feet up and, hallelujah, read a book. There was all this pushing and pulling and running in my life. Hurry to get Liv to school. Attempt to be super productive at home. Conquer the laundry pile, conquer the dishes, conquer the recycling. Rush through my photography work, making sure all my ducks are in a row. Hurry to enjoy my last few relaxing minutes before Livia gets home. And then let her relax, too, but only for a few minutes before getting homework done (my favorite moments of the day as I’ve already related). Time for dinner! And bed! And hello, let’s start again.

When did life take on this pace?

Perhaps that’s the best part about leaving town for my annual girls’ weekend at a lovely lake house in Minnesota: the break from running life’s race. The chance to see that life actually isn’t a race at all and that I’ve turned into into a frenetic, pressure-filled run for no reason. My moments of removal from the daily grind allow me to reflect, to reorder, to find joy again in my calling.

A respite by the lake.

Filled with food and drinks and books and conversation with some of the oldest and dearest friends I can imagine.

I am grateful.

It’s Easter morning—He is risen, He is risen indeed!—and I am at home blogging and partially watching episodes of My Little Pony on Netflix. The stomach flu not only knocked me out of attending Redeemer’s Good Friday service, it also left me as weak as a kitten Easter morning. So while our church family gathers this morning to worship our risen Savior, we are at home resting. The ingredients for our Easter feast sit quietly in the refrigerator awaiting a postponed meal with my folks. Fortunately Livia was still able to hunt eggs, an annual tradition with Grandma & Grandpa, yesterday afternoon. I’m pretty sure she would’ve burst into a million disappointed pieces if she had to wait longer to find all those fun Easter treats.

I leave you with shots from our egg-dyeing extravaganza Thursday afternoon. In the past I’ve run to the grocery store to buy more eggs to dye as one dozen is never enough. Lesson learned: three dozen eggs is just right to wear out my crafty kid. We had fun and she was ready to close up shop before the last three or four were complete—perfect. This year I baked the eggs in the oven per Renae’s suggestion, using this Alton Brown recipe. Though it felt incredibly odd to place the little eggs directly on the oven rack, I loved this method of hard-cooking eggs. They turned out perfectly and only a few cracked (with no drips at all). I should note that not only did I steal Renae’s idea of dying eggs in glass coffee mugs, I also requested those specify mugs for Christmas as I’ve long coveted Renae’s. See what living next door for eight years does for you? Identical kitchenware.

Happy Easter, friends. We worship a living Savior today, and every day of the year! Praise God.