For Livia Day—our annual celebration of adopting Livia—we do something as a family. Though our girl really loves getting presents, we’re thoroughly presented out by the time June 26 rolls around and boy am I glad we mark the occasion with activities instead of things. This year, after hearing Liv ask to light a fire multiple times, we opted to roast s’mores on Livia Day. Nothing says crazy new neighbors quite like a fire in almost 100 degree heat. Our daughter, however, loved it. She’s become a professional s’more maker after Camp Sonshine, though in all honesty, it’s best to stand at least five feet back when she’s holding an 18 inch metal skewer with a flaming marshmallow on the end.

Lessons learned while making s’mores with our eight year old:

1. We can be too uptight and controlling. Liv didn’t fall into the fire nor did she burn anything. We’re learning to let her do more things on her own. Sometimes parenting isn’t about what you say, it’s about keeping your mouth shut.
2. Marshmallow and chocolate wash out of fabric. They stain it, too. Who cares. Life is short!
3. Two marshmallows combined with a few small squares of chocolate in between a broken graham cracker is one marshmallow too many. (Pass the Tums.)
4. The fire pit should be moved off the patio area and into the open yard. Yeah, that seems obvious. Nothing caught on fire that shouldn’t have, so all’s well that ends well.

My brain is gradually readjusting to the new house and the new season. I have traded the luxury of quiet mornings—journaling, bible reading, book reading, blog reading—with the luxury of summertime parenting. I’m sure I have thoughts to share, but honestly, right now I don’t know what those would be. And if I started considering something of consequence to say (maybe in a journal, maybe here) I’d hear a young voice calling out for me.

I kid you not, just as I was composing that last sentence I heard, “Can I have an ice cream, Mom?”

I am blessed beyond belief. We’ve had lots of transitional moments with Livia lately (that’s code for full-on crying fits, sometimes in public locations). Though Jeremy and I are far from perfect and aren’t always the patient parents we’d like to be, at the end of the day we understand how incredibly blessed we are.

So in the newness, as my brain does some adjusting, I am grateful to witness God’s goodness and faithfulness to us. We are humbled by His gifts.

Hey kids, want to get in the truck?
Sure you can climb up there!
Yep, you can run around, too.
No, you CAN’T ride in here while it’s moving.
Okay. Time to get out.
Now. 1-2-3-4. Get out. Jump down. Now.
No, you can’t get back in. I’m shutting the door.
Slam.

Livia (age 8) and her buds Simon (age 4) and Ian (age 2) have been playing really well together. Gone are the power struggles between firstborns that we used to see a year ago and instead they’ve been doing all the classic neighborhood kid games together. Yes, they are doing this right before we move to a new neighborhood, so it’s bittersweet, but still we’re all glad that our kids are greatly enjoying each other.

On Saturday the kids had free reign over our hose and a deep bucket. They entertained themselves for hours on end and charmed my socks off when they asked for crayons and white paper to make signs for washing other people’s clothes in order to make money. It was a creative move, I’ll give them that. Some soap ended up in the large bucket—they washed Liv’s scooter and some of her clothing instead—and we think it hastened the death of a poor bird later that afternoon. I reached in the bucket to grab what I believed was the last piece of clothing and grabbed feathers instead. But don’t think about that any longer; enjoy some kid pics instead!

Happy birthday to my big kid! Dad and I love you like crazy, Liv. We are so proud of you and are thrilled to get to celebrate you today.

… Age 7
… Age 6
… Age 5
… Age 4
… Age 3
… Age 2
… Age 1
… Obligatory cute baby pics

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.

Liv and her bear Ornament who regularly gets dressed up as a giraffe.

I’m having a moment of This is My Life. This life of mothering a funny, passionate and observant seven year old. This life of attempting to know where a million different stuffed animals are so a classroom of 1st graders can have the appropriate visuals for their presentations next week. (Apparently Livia volunteered to bring the animals other kids didn’t own. Because yes, we own them all. Or we did at one moment in time.) This life of checking the school lunch menu each morning to see if their offerings beat out a turkey sandwich and Clementine. This life of spraying a little girl’s hair with smoothing spray to keep the frizzies at bay, then using just the right elastic so that her hair stays put all day. This life of putting little tennis shoes in the pink Hello Kitty backpack in case her snow boots—and socks as the case may be—get too wet while she’s playing at recess. This life of Special Breakfasts and rewarding Good Learning days and finding drawing after drawing of Mommy and Livia holding hands with hearts above their stick-figure heads. This is My Life. Praise be to God.

I prayed for this child and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. – 1 Samuel 1:27

Friends. Coffee. Brunch. Encouragement. It’s kind of like MOPS on a smaller scale. If you’d like to hear what we heard last week, check out Kerri’s blog. She did a fabulous job speaking.

**Table decor courtesy the creative and talented Tara Mackrill! I love her eye, and it blesses us moms month after month.

There are moments in a mother’s life that she wishes to preserve for all eternity and today we experienced one. This, my friends, is what went down in my house: my child did the dishes. But wait, there’s more. She heard my brief lecture—something about not being able to play right now because there was junk all over the house and I had to put it all away first—and then responded by washing our dishes and scrubbing the sinks. Seriously. She did that without me asking! It was remarkable and precious and thoughtful and so helpful, so so helpful. While she was doing the dishes, I put toys away, dusted, wiped down surfaces, and took out the trash. Awesome.

**Lest you be tempted to look over at your kid who fought you tooth and nail today when you asked him to merely brush his own teeth, take a deep breath. Don’t compare. I realize that sharing good news invites comparisons. For instance, my awesome sister-in-law reports that my niece, age 5, is tying her shoes. My reaction was this: Am I supposed to teach my child to tie her shoes? Whoops! Today dishes, tomorrow shoes, I suppose. ;)

Livia, age 7, receiving some fatherly instruction at dinner tonight.