Sunrise, Sunset

For the last month I have been tackling a major project which I've wanted to do for many years. I have gone through all of my scrapbooks and scanned almost all our pre-digital photos into the computer. Then, I have spent hours organizing all the photos and videos into digital folders and labeling the folders. This will make it much easier to find photos for any reason, and my first reason will be to pull out pictures for a graduation video for Bailey, who flies out of our nest to her apartment at BYU virtually the moment she graduates.

It has been an interesting experience to live in the past as I immersed myself in the images of long ago years.  I've had a lot of thoughts run through my head during this time, and I'm not sure I can capture all of them. But here are a few.

The years have gone by so fast. 

Years ago, I remember a friend with older kids telling me "blink a few times and your kids will be grown up and leaving home."  It's true.  I can clearly remember what it felt like to welcome each of our babies to our family. Those were exhausting and wonderful times.

I remember at least snippets of what each stage of life felt like, as our family grew from two to six people over 15 years. The kids grew and we did our best to meet the needs of our family of little demanding people. And then our older kid(s) entered adolescence and we tenuously balanced the needs of teenagers and young kids. Each stage has blended into the next, gradually transforming the demographics of our family.

We are definitely in a different season of life now.  

We have left the world of "young family with numerous kids" and now are squarely in "kids are leaving home way too fast and it is getting quiet around here."  I have loved looking at the pictures of my little cuties.  They were and are wonderful.  I miss snuggling their little bodies and laughing at their funny antics.

But I am also OK with the fact that life has moved on and there are new challenges to tackle.  I love the fact that as my kids hit the young adult stage they are delightful and interesting people I want to hang out with.

As I look through old photos, I wish I had captured more of the everyday moments.  

Posed pictures are great, but it's the snapshots of life as it was which are so meaningful now. I never would have guessed how precious the mundane details of everyday life are to me now. I especially like pictures which show life like it really was . . . messes on the counter and the floor, a child throwing a fit.   . 

And I want to slap my silly scrapbooking hands for trimming and cutting my pictures into tacky shapes, thereby removing all traces of the background.  Sometimes what is happening in the background helps to tell the story.

As I organized pictures of the last 7 or 8 years especially, I was dumbfounded at how we fit so much into our days and weeks and months.  The photos tell a story of one big event or activity or challenge after another.  Seriously, just organizing the pictures made me exhausted and I couldn't help but wonder how we pulled it all off.  How did we not just collapse when the pace of our life was/is so extremely busy and we were coping with all the behind the scenes challenges which don't make their way into pictures? As I was pondering this, I realized the only possible answer. We handled it one day at a time. Sometimes one hour or one minute at a time. Just like we do now. We focused on the next hurdle and did our best to cross it while holding everything else together, and only when we cleared the hurdle did we worry about the next one.  That makes it manageable, and it's only in retrospect that I realize how large a mountain we have climbed.

Other than the big events which provided the structure to our lives, as I looked through the photos I also realized that most of parenthood is the summation of a lot of little moments. I know our kids were most influenced by the unplanned and unstructured interactions and discussions. Sometimes I beat myself up for getting distracted by the to-dos and missing a moment of connection. But my photos remind me that we have had a lot of great connection times. Lots of traditions and memories. And lots of interactions which weren't photo worthy.  If I had a chance to live it all again, I would focus even more on the fantastic people living in my home, but I think I have done a reasonably good job juggling life and focusing on people.

I do wish I had taken the time along the way to learn to take better pictures. I've always meant to do it but never made the time. But, blurry, unfocused or overexposed, at least there is some documentation of our lives so far.

This song from Fiddler on the Roof has been playing on repeat in my head for weeks:

Is this the little girl I carried?

Is this the little boy at play?

I don't remember growing older

When did they?

When did she get to be a beauty?

When did he grow to be so tall?

Wasn't it yesterday

When they were small?

What words of wisdom can I give them?

How can I help to ease their way?

Now they must learn from one another

Day by day

Sunrise, sunset

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears.

  

I feel privileged to have been on this crazy rollercoaster of a life with my family. Dan and I love being parents. I can't imagine anything I could have done with my life which would have been as rewarding as raising these four remarkable people.  I'm looking forward to many more years of memories. (And hopefully some good pictures.)

Porter Theme 2015

It took us awhile to decide on a scripture for our 2015 theme.  

This year we are going to focus on Philippians 4:13:

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."  

I hope that this year we can study what this scripture teaches us about our own abilities and the absolute necessity of learning to draw on the enabling and strengthening powers of the Savior's Atonement. I think the key word is through.  It is through Christ's power that our abilities are magnified and we are strengthened. To me, this is powerful and empoweringing.  We can do all things. We can overcome all challenges. But only when we are strengthened through Christ's power, which is absolutely available to each of us.  

During the FHE in which we chose this scripture, I felt impressed to talk with the family about the words of the hymn "Where Can I Turn For Peace."  

Where can I turn for peace?

Where is my solace

When other sources cease to make me whole?

When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,

I draw myself apart,

Searching my soul?

Where, when my aching grows,

Where, when I languish,

Where, in my need to know, where can I run?

Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?

Who, who can understand?

He, only One.

He answers privately,

Reaches my reaching

In my Gesthemene, Savior and Friend.

Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.

Constant he is and kind,

Love without end.

I printed out the lyrics and we studied them as a family, looking for phrases which resonated with us.  (I wish I could say that this was an amazingly uplifting experience for every family member, but it wasn't. I do hope that some of the discussion penetrated the maelstrom of feelings in the room that night.)

I see so many phrases and words in this hymn which are powerful to me. I have a hard time reading it without getting emotional.  Just a few:

quiet hand to calm my anguish

reaches my reaching

gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching

Constant he is

He, only one

I thought it was interesting to read a little bit about the life of the author Emma Lou Thayne and some of the trials which preceded the writing of this poem. She dealt with significant family struggles and worries for her children which were tearing her apart.  After this poem was turned into a hymn, and shortly before it was to be published in the LDS hymnbook, she was in a terrible car accident.  A crowbar flew off a truck and came through her windshield, almost killing her and severely damaging her eye and face.  For 7 months she was in great pain and couldn't lift her head or read.  She said in her re-telling of this experience that this experience caused her to "reach" as she never had before and to learn better what it means to rely on the Savior.

I appreciate the fact that Emma Lou Thayne's poem states beautifully what my Spirit feels.

Most of all, I appreciate my Savior and I want to do a better job of using his ever-offered power to bear my burdens and strengthen my weaknesses.

Other random February and March moments

In February the girls and I enjoyed a Girls Night On the Town.  First we ate at a quirky Portland healthy food restaurant (hard to see in the picture, but there are random posters and action figures all throughout the restaurant. Somehow it works in a "Portland is Weird" sort of way.")  Then we attended the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of Cinderella at Keller Auditorium.  It was fantastic, with impossible-to-figure-out special effects (Cinderella spun around, and before our eyes her dress transformed into a ballgown. Twice. It was magical!)

This was the photo I took at the end of the "no sugar week" Bailey and I observed the week after Valentines Day.  This was the very moment Bailey was finally able to eat the chocolate pieces in her favorite Costco Trek Mix. 

It was ROUGH to cut out sugar for the week. We had to be very creative to satisfy munchies when all sugar and chocolate was unavailable.  But, we both felt really healthy and I even lost a few pounds that week.  Of course, the minute the challenge ended I went right back to my sugar and chocolate all-the-time diet.

Actually, to be truthful, Bailey and I decided that we have no desire to avoid sugar all the time, but we realized that we consume too much added sugar in a myriad of foods. We vowed to do a better job of avoiding added sugar which isn't totally delicious, and to save our sugar for the really good stuff!

In other  news, these are the cleanest shoes in town.  And proof that sometimes I'm moving a little fast through life.

Dan always brings home his stinky Crossfit workout clothes in a plastic bag.  I do not touch the clothes directly (eeeeww), but use the bag to dump them directly into the washing machine.  One Friday night I dumped in his clothes, added some more dirty clothes, and started the washer.  A few times during the cycle I heard a thump, but our water-efficient front load washer makes strange noises all the time.  It was when I removed the clothes to the dryer that I realized that I had washed Dan's expensive, purchased last June at Nordstrom, black Ecco dress shoes.  I'm guessing that it's not a good idea to wash leather dress shoes in water and detergent?  I stuffed them with chamois cloths to suck up the water and put them in the sun to dry.  They actually don't look any worse for the wear, but Dan says they feel a little different . . . .  

And it's back to the theater . . . when I bought tickets for Cinderella around Christmastime, I couldn't find good tickets sitting together, so I bought tickets for just the girls and me and we all sat separate. I decided to buy tickets to Guys and Dolls the next month so that Dan could attend a show, and I bought tickets for the girls again.  And, once again, the tickets were all separate, but at least they were good seats!

However, as the date of Guys and Dolls drew closer, we realized that the day was just packed with events and I wished I had not bought tickets at all.  Dan felt too overloaded on that day to enjoy going to a show, so the girls and I saw our second traveling Broadway show in 3 weeks.

The morning started with the Pinewood Derby.

The girls and I left directly from the church to Portland for the matinee show of Guys and Dolls. It was fantastic!

While we were gone, Dan finished his preparations for the multi-stake dance that evening. He once again has let the people in charge know that he is ready to let someone else be the official stake deejay. We'll see if anyone listens this time. I know I'm biased, but he is going to be hard to replace.  But, his free time is getting more and more precious.

The girls and I got back from Portland just after Dan left to the church and just in time for Bailey to get ready for a party and Aubrey to get ready for the dance.

Before the dance, we picked up one of her friends from theater and a few friends from the ward, including one who was attending her very FIRST dance. As is the tradition, I stopped with the girls to get ice cream to celebrate the first stake dance.  I was proud of Aubrey and the other girls. They all were so kind to each other and helped Hailee feel excited and comfortable.  Aubrey even showed Hailee how to slow dance in the middle of McDonald's, which was certainly a memorable moment!

March 20th was Joseph's first Cello concert!  He was part of a large orchestra concert at Aubrey's school, VSAA.  He did such an amazing job and was the most smiley and most handsome 4th grade cello player in the world.  

Afterward we took this picture with his best friend Alex and with Aubrey before we all left to get frozen yogurt.

My chances to attend field trips with my kids are dwindling fast. I enjoyed being with Joseph on the 4th grade field trip to Clark County Electric.

And one final moment from this last month, but I don't have a picture of this one.

One weekend Dan and I were invited to a birthday party for one of our friends in the ward. We spent a few enjoyable hours hanging out with the group of 6 couples. It was on the way home that I realized that all the other couples except one are empty nesters, and that one couple has one child at home, a junior in high school. As much as I enjoyed the company of everyone at the party, I was slightly horrified. 

Are we now classified with the older, empty nester group? Impossible. We simply do not feel that old. And, because we have 4th grade Joseph at home, I still feel like we belong with the "young kids" group, but I'm realizing that our age and our friends now indicate otherwise. I'm still coming to grips with this fact. I'm filing this in the same category as "I'm too young for reading glasses" (even though my eye doctor disagrees with me on this fact).  

Catching up with Joseph

I noticed as I sorted through recent pictures that Joseph has enough photos to justify his own post.  

At the Blue and Gold Cub Scout Banquet the boys set up a display of things they made and things that represent their interests.  He displayed a toolbox he made, his pinewood derby cars, a few Percy Jackson books (his current favorite series, but that is constantly changing), Pokemon cards, cello and piano books, and a family picture.

 Close-ups of the cool toolbox he made and decorated.  It is a Percy Jackson theme, with authentic Greek lettering, Percy's weapon Riptide, and Poseidon (because Percy is the son of Poseidon, you know.)

Getting his Bear Award in Cub Scouts

All dressed up for Western day at school.

 A fun photoshoot with Bailey (at Bailey's insistent request) on the afternoon of his birthday.

 His 4th grade flashlight project. He and his Dad built and re-built a homemade flashlight four times, but they had a terrible time getting the wires to stay in contact with the batteries to complete the circuit.  Dan and I were both near collapse the night before it was due, and nowhere near able to solve the perplexing problem.  Our good friends came to the rescue and soldered the silly wires to the battery.  Don't even get me started on what think some of these parent school projects. But Joseph's flashlight (in an old iphone box) turned out great.  

A picture from the "flashlight museum", where all the kids showed off their creative flashlights.

That afternoon it was so beautiful outside that Joseph and I sat on a blanket on the grass for a few hours and read books. It was beyond wonderful in every way.

 I had to take a picture of my favorite cello player leaving rehearsal and some beautiful spring blooms.

 Another project which is way beyond the capabilities of a 4th grader.  Pinewood derby. I will not say more.  Except that there is a reason why it is Dan in this picture instead of Joseph.  Joseph did a great job designing and painting the car, but the other requisite machinations are not in his skillset. It's a two week long project.

 Bliss on a Sunday afternoon.  Here Joseph set up his new Lego Mindstorm set to assemble his first robot.  Notice his friend Stampy the Wolf keeping watch behind him.