Good morning sunshine :)

Last week, after I wrote my entry, I had a realization.  Beyond the fact that I'm getting sleep, I think the (relative) calmness of our life has contributed to my reawakened desire for creativity.  In the past year, I have not had one major transition.  No moving.  No wedding.  No baby.  Yea, Yoni had a little deployment, but in the scheme of transitions, I consider that minor... From June 2007 until April 2011, we had at least two major transitions a year...

While thank G-d, they were all wonderful things, they nevertheless drain a lot of energy.  In the temporary absence of these major transitions, my energy can be focused elsewhere - on parenting, being a good wife, and creating!

With that in mind, I have been thinking a lot about the beauty in our routine and our predictable lifestyle these days.  Over the weekend, Adina and I got a stomach bug and we weren't feeling too hot for a day or so.  Today, when we both woke up feeling healthy, I really appreciated feeling joy in spending the morning with the kiddos...

Good morning sunshine,
Good morning blue skies,
Good morning my sweet baby,
And your sweet blue eyes.

Come snuggle with me,
Rest your head on my shoulder.
I hope you'll still do this
When you're a little older...

A quick breakfast we eat,
Then we hear your sister's call;
We excitedly enter
Her room down the hall.

A big group hug,
We get dressed, we sing,
I thank Hashem each moment
For the joy you both bring.

Your giggles, your hugs,
Your smiles etched on my heart
Give each and every morning
A beautiful start.

My kiddos in the morning after breakfast, cuddling on Libby's bed

Now here are some pictures from the past couple weeks since we came home from Dallas after Pesach...

Ze'ev at Seward Park on Lake Washington

Adina on the pebble beach on Lake Washington

 

Ze'ev eating his birthday cupcake.  Mmmmm

All of Adina's friends eating their cupcakes for Ze'ev's birthday

All of the kids playing on our swingset together.  

They all took turns pushing Ze'ev :)

Reconnecting with old hobbies...

Now that I'm finally (thank G-d!!) getting good night sleeps on a regular basis, I feel like my creative juices are rejuvenated for the first time in a while.  I only have a couple of pages left in Ze'ev's first year scrapbook (I've managed to do this for both kids so far - YAY!) and I even started Adina's "Rest of her childhood" scrapbook where I made three large pages for her second year of life.  Once these are all in their completed forms, I'll probably scan them and post them here.  It's been so nice to scrapbook again.  Not only do I know how much I'll enjoy looking back on these albums in the future, but the process itself is incredibly therapeutic for me.  The process of choosing color schemes, cropping the pictures to different shapes, and arranging it all into an aesthetically pleasing page never fails to put me in a good mood.

I feel so blessed that I have so many hobbies to turn to when I need to take some alone time and decompress.  For this very reason, I have always been completely baffled when people complain of boredom.  If there's not something I have to do, a half a dozen activities await my company.

Another aspect of my teenage years which has deteriorated recently is my writing.  This blog was my first attempt at getting that back, but last week I got inspired to go even further.  I so deeply want to start writing poetry again!  From ages 13-20, I wrote at least 3-4 poems every month - if not more!  This process was similar to scrapbooking in that the writing process relaxed me, but I also composed for the joy I anticipated in reading the words over and over again.

Last week, when Yoni was away, I spent about 10 minutes every night reading through my old poetry.  Writing again might take a little bit of time, because those skills are a lot more rusty than my scrapbooking ones were, but continually reading through my old work is the first step.

Until I am able to write new ones that I deem share-worthy, I have decided to share a couple of the ones that I wrote in the past that still seem pertinent to my life today.

This is one of my most recent - March 2008.  I wrote it with dual meaning.  I felt like it applied to both the process of falling in love and getting married and also the process of becoming more religiously observant.  Both experiences reflect commitment and faith.  Interestingly, when reread today, it can also describe the process of becoming a parent:

A feeling,
A state,
A vision,
A sound;
A touch,
A desire
for something
profound.

A moment,
Eternity,
A future,
A past;
A truth
so real
comes on
so fast.

A thought,
a point
of no
return.
To grow,
to connect,
to strive,
to learn.

To grasp,
To hold,
To know,
To be;
To leap,
To hope,
and trust
in Thee.

The faith,
The courage,
Daring
and strong.
To believe
in depth,
to want,
to long.

To discover,
To seek;
Know me
Through You.
Harmonious
Peace
Pure
and true.

This was a very different style than anything else I had ever written, and I loved being brought back to that moment, months before the wedding, facing a future of adventure.