Category Archives: 2 Mi Familia

All things family-related. My husband and me, the children we made, the grandbebes that thrill us now. Our whole great big, loud, messy family. Love! *sigh…

Sandy-the-Dog & Tuppy-the-Puppy

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think

Young pup, old friend

Sandy is roughly 12 years old (we hauled her home after some one abandoned her at the landfill; she is truly our “junkyard dog”).  We aren’t exactly sure of her age, but we have had her since May of 2001, right around the time Tredessa graduated from high school.    She has been proclaimed younger by veterinarians, up 4 years younger than the years she has been around.  So we call it twelve.  I think that means she is in her 60s, human-year-wise.

Btw, using the opposite calculation, I am not even 10 yet (in dog years), which is nice.

Sandy-the-Dog came to us wild and woolly and looking so much like Chewabaca we wonder now that we didn’t name her that.  But we chose Sandy for the dog in the Broadway-musical-turned-movie the kids so enjoyed over and over and over when they were little, “Annie.”  Serendipitous that a couple of years ago, she actually got to play Sandy in the community theater.

She still loves to run the back yard and cheat at the game of fetch, meaning you can throw it and she’ll run to get it, but then she will jet around like a banchee and never bring it back.  You have to chase her to get it.  That is Sandy for you.  She still seems playful and puppy-like to me because she is sweet and kindhearted and loves people like crazy (so much like my mom, I tell ya!).

Tuppy-the-Puppy of Martha Stewart pet products fame CLICK HERE

But then a real puppy comes calling.  Yes.  Tuppy-the-Puppy (shown above) spent 3 days with us last week.  And holy-moly, that little booger moves fast, jumps high, can switch from forward to reverse and back again on a dime and even though Sandy has at least 50 pounds on her, Tuppy was not shy about trying to be alpha.  Sandy was rather unaffected by her cuteness, but they get along just fine.

So there we were.  Two dogs.  One is super-colorful-fast-forward.  The other living in black-and-white-slow-mo’…

Quite the sight.  I realized how old Sandy really is getting to be.

Tuppy is less than 5 months old and is the picture of a tiger-by-the-tail.  She made me laugh constantly, jumping on my head and biting my nose, snuggling close for a quick nap then on-the-go at 95mph.

Sandy (with an extra-short haircut)

Sandy, true to her German Wiredhaired Pointer characteristics, lives to please us.  She is like a trusted friend, always ready with a warm greeting when I come home, edging as close to my feet as possible when I sit.   In fact, where I go, she goes.

Sandy is going to die and break my ever-loving heart, isn’t she?

Happy Birthday, Tara Powers!

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, ,

Well, this day is as gorgeous as the one on which you were born.  I awoke at exactly 5:55 a.m. {33 years ago} to a deep contraction, one that I knew was “real.”  I hopped out of bed with giddy excitement on the inside and started writing times on a piece of paper.  Having heard many baby-labor horror stories, I hoped you’d be in my arms before the day was out, but began bracing myself for the 24-hour first-time-mommy labor and delivery.  I’d seen the television shows.  At any second I would become almost incapacitated and start screaming for hours.

But no.  I actually went with my mom and dad to the church where they worked for the day.  I tracked the contractions, gentle, strong, but building.  My mom and I went shopping.  Then home for dinner.  Then packing a hospital bag.  Then YOWZERS: need to go now.  But a one-car family and my dad says, “Can you wait until I am ready to go to church for Wednesday night service,” and I do so we can drop him at his convenience.  And You are born 30 minutes after I arrive at the hospital.  Not one single scream.

It is kind of funny to think about that now.  NOW, I would tell my dad: Heck no.  I need to go have this baby.  You’ll have to get another ride!  Hahhaha.

I am revisiting past blogs I have written about you because you are one of my favorite writing topics.

2011

I did the photos with words to try to say everything I saw and adored and there just isn’t really enough space, though I got braver as 2011 went on and I can actually see space where I could have kept adding.  :)   Tara is the firstborn.  I have known her a long time!

I said, “You have the wisdom of some years now.  You are not just a pretty girl.  You are a ravishing woman…”

2010  Click to read.

The year of your surgery, I recalled the night of your birth.

“But later, in that room,  just us two, I knew that you were mine, a gift straight from God.  ‘I don’t know you yet, but I know I love you,’ I whispered, wondering who you’d be and if you could ever love me back.”

2009 ~ The year you turned 30

I wrote 30 wishes for you including lots of good hair days, health and vigor and for the songs of the Lord to be increased through you.  Write, girl, write!, I admonished!  :)

2008

I quoted Lord Byron’s poem, “She walks like beauty in the night,” because that poem has always made me think of my sweet daughter.

I was praying for you then to understand your pivotal role in God’s great story on this earth.  I urged you to speak up and speak out and sing as His anointed!  SO thankful to God for a  blog recording my love for my children and His great faithfulness in their lives!  I LOVE it!  He answers.  He hears and He answers!

And I told you, “I am so pleased with you, baby girl, I bless the day you were born.”  I still do!

2007, the first time I blogged about your birth

I had started bloggin in November of 2006 and got to start telling the stories in ’07.  I revealed the blessing-name “Liquid Joy,” bestowed upon you by dearest family friends.  I spoke of the sensitivity and healing you had brought to my life by your birth and I even spoke of times I feared for your heart and life and how God so faithfully-faithfully-faithfully restored you and there was great rejoicing!

Through the years on this blog so far, the recurring theme about you is: you were a gift to me.  And you are joy.  And God created you for amazing things.  And on your birthday, I celebrate all of it!

O I love you.  Happy Birthday, Tara Jean.  You are a shining star in my night sky!

Sometimes you just wonder

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think

I was looking at really old photos of family members who are dead and gone and realizing that we are just passing through, a temporary part of the the earth’s atmosphere.  But we represent all who came before and we leave our mark on those who will remain.

And I just wonder if, besides wanting to leave a powerful legacy, I have given enough honor to those who paved my way, enough homage to real people whose lives made mine possible?

It feels like, sometimes, we write them off as unsophisticated, or as people whose lives didn’t matter quite as much.  We are so intent on “bettering” everything.  Just like they were, I suppose.

My Grandpa Baker in the mid-1940s….

I wonder what I have yet to learn as I contemplate the people who made me?

Proverbs 22.28 NIV, “Do not move an ancient boundary stone

set up by your ancestors.”

These are the altars upon which we build.

Horseshoes

2 Mi Familia,

This one is for Stef, who can appreciate my momma stories.  :)

About a year ago my mom and I were reminiscing on the phone about the great time we’d had at the Phipps farm during the Moslander Family Reunion of 2009.  Stef and Wrex set up a roping activity and lots of yard games, brought out the horses for riding and baby goats and cows for petting.  My mom was particularly thrilled when Wrex gave her some tips on roping.  She was able to dead-aim her pvc-pipe “cow” with ease under his tutelage and reflected how great it would have been in life to have known this stuff sooner!  There she was, a 70-year old woman, roping away!

finalreunionthepartyisover09-008

We enjoyed a big barbecue on their spacious property and to my mom’s utter delight, we got a big game of horseshoes going before the sun went down.  She has always loved a good game of horseshoes.

As we were talking about it on the phone last summer, she just started joking around and being silly about it, like she sometimes does to make us smile.

“I didn’t do too good at horseshoes in Colorado.  That ground was so hard those horseshoes just got up and galloped away.  They wouldn’t even stay by the pin.  They even tried to chase Joe down.  He finally climbed on one and rode away.”

Yes.  I wrote it down for future joy.  Just like she used to do with our words when we were little.

Norma’s Angel

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

My mama’s namesake horse.

My earliest memories, in the apartment on Washington Street in Des Moines, Iowa, include my mom’s horse collection.  She’d collected wooden ones, ceramic ones, and glass ones as a girl and young teenager.  They were displayed on the plate rail around the dining room and on shelves and even my dad’s desk.  I was fascinated by them and occasionally, she’s get one down for me to hold.

At some point, I guess as her “collection” of children grew, she just got rid of them all.

But I always knew she was horse woman.  A little bit cowgirl.  A little bit Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, she grew up wearing jeans and chaps and walking around her town roping things.

Fitting then, that there is a horse named for her, Norma’s Angel.

My mama the horse whisperer

My mom devoted, in every sense of that word, her whole life to God, her husband, her children and her church family.  I would like to challenge anyone to find an enemy to her.  Just is not possible.  She loved anyone who had an issue with her until they could no longer resist her affection and became, instead, raving fans.  Her love is deep and wide.

When my dad took a church in Ohio and she was 55, I believe, she became a professional horse photographer.  It was just thrilling to see her blossom, like a reward from God for all the years of her dedicated service.  They lived in a rural location and her hobby of snapping pictures turned in to assignments for an Ohio horse publication, where her work was featured on the cover many times.

I have always said that both my mom and my sister can speak to the animals.  And the horses especially responded to her my mom’s gentleness and respect by posing sweetly.

This photo

So a few years ago when they were pastoring in Richmond, Indiana, some members of their church who were horse breeders and racers had a foal who was not doing too well at all.  The small horse was very sick and it touched my mom’s heart, of course.  She drove out to their place and told them she was going to pray for their little horse.  She did.  She recalls the little horse nuzzling her while she’d speak gently to it and stroke its’ mane.

She prayed and prayed for that little horse and it got better.  When they filed the paperwork, they called that horse, “Norma’s Angel.”

It got so strong it began racing.  They sent my mom a horseshoe from its’ first 1st-place win, a treasure to her.

This past week she got to stop by and see her namesake horse and they shared some tender moments, captured by another photographer.  I happened across it on Facebook this morning and it has to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Regal.  Strong.  Powerful.  Gentle.  Beautiful.  The horse yes, but my little mama, too.

I love you so, mamala!

 

http://www.equibase.com/profiles/Results.cfm?type=Horse&refno=7451859&registry=Q

They drove away

2 Mi Familia

The Kelleys with 3 kids, lots of luggage and book bags and the dog with her head out the front window, fur blowing in the breeze.  A perfect Colorado sunset as backdrop.

Very quiet here suddenly.  {the nonna sniffles}

THURSDAY MORNING UPDATE:  I am silly.  They live, like, 2 miles away.  Haha.  All is well.  I just LOVE them!  :)

work day

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, Stuff I Actually Think

It’s Monday.  There is this festival coming up really soon.  Gotta work.

But the sun shines and the breeze causes those fluttering leaves that tend to distract me and a little red-headed girl needs a drink.  Then a snack.  Then another drink.  And then a craft to do.  And then Is it time for lunch yet ?? (which gets repeated a lot of times throughout the day).  Then some cuddle time.  Then coloring time.  Then Can I watch some Netflix, Nonna?  Then finally lunch actually arrives.

The anticipation of Tuppy-the-Puppy joining us today from the kennel where she’s been visiting starts to make life seem super exciting.  Nonna works at the table.  So Gemma brings her work to the table.  Paper, crayons, glue sticks and scissors dot my professional landscape.  When the workload gets too heavy the little girl brings me her hairbrush.  Nonna takes a break to brush spun-gold into soft waves and bebe almost falls asleep as I brush.  She has inherited this love of hair-playing from me.  Is there some one I can pay to brush my hair when I need a break??

We bought Gemma the “je t’aime” shirt as a greeting to her mommy and daddy while they were in Paris.  All week, we have been singing “Freres Jacques” and “Alouette.”

The kids get home from school. The puppy bounds in and a scene from The Brady Bunch ensues as Sandy tries to catch up with this tiny dog running the house in circles to the squeals of three exuberant children.    The doors slide open and closed about 487 times and there is candy, lots of candy.

I keep plugging away at the task list.  Kind of.

Now it is time to do fractions and 3rd grade spelling lists.  *Binary  *Monologue  *Triads.   I did not use these words in 3rd grade.  Yowzers.  More math problems, Reading.  Racing to the swing-set.  When is dinner?  When is dinner?  When is dinner?  Because each of three needs to know.

Task list loses.  Life is a little upside down.  As bedtime approaches and the pj-donning, teeth brushing and potty-going begins, I feel a pang of separation anxiety.  Because in a few days they will go home.  I can jump back into work.  And the silence (and order and accomplishment) will be deafening and I shall miss the chaos of delight it has all been.

Mulch ado about nothing

2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, ,

Mulch.  I just cracked myself up!

I think “Mulch ado about nothing” is one of my best blog titles ever, because I have never ever {to my knowledge} heard it said before.  Hahahahahahhahaha!  Yes, I think it is funny.  I am probably not the first, but I am not going to google-it yet…I will enjoy my utter hilariousness for a minute or two more.

Really, I was just planning to share some very unrelated and yet interrelated ideas and thoughts I have as I meander through the suburban backyard garden.

Garden wisdom I would like to share:

1.  Mulch is a protective cover you place onto the soil around your plantings to help retain moisture, stop the weeds from horning in, avoid erosion and to make pretty.  You can buy bags of red, shredded bark for beds and borders and it looks nice, but mulch can be shredded bark or newspapers, nut shells and any number of other materials.  Even in containers, I like to mulch to discourage all that darn evaporation that happens in hot Colorado on sunny days!

2.  I am late getting started.  So what is new?  It is never too late to garden, though.

And none of us are really late.  Yes, the lilacs bloomed 5 or 6 weeks early and we have had unseasonably mild days and nights.  Yes, the stretch of 80-degrees-plus temps have made us want to hit the pools, but people, I implore you!  Remember it is Colorado.  We could have a major blizzard in May.  I hope not, but we could.  Tender veggies and flowers are safer planted after Mother’s Day.  We can sneak a few into pots, but just be ready to haul them inside at a moment’s notice!

 3.  None of has superfluous time to spend.  And that’s OK.

Just tackle a 5-minute area: clear away dead winter debris and unleash the new green.  Water a little, think about something colorful to add, and voila: off to the garden races.  If we went outside for 5-15 minutes daily and planned to just deal with a 10-to-12-square-foot area, we’d be all over the yard in no time and healthier for the fresh air.

4.  Advice: don’t create a garden too big to handle.

Let’s talk veggies.  Most of us are not gardening to support our full vegetable and fruit intake for the entire year (although I really really really think we should start thinking about living a more self-sustainable life).  But every little bit we do to feed good, clean, organic food we grow in the soil ourselves, straight from the garden to the dinner table to our families – is just a thousand times better!  But people decide to garden and then bite off more than they can chew…or weed…or keep up with.  Start small.  Even a 4 x 4′ raised bed can do wonders.  Be successful with that and then add on.

Me?  I have 3  4’x4′ garden squares and some large pots for food gardening.  I also tuck veggies into other places around the borders because they can look decorative and get needed shade.  I learned everything I ever needed to know about gardening {this is true!!}  from Mel Bartholomew’s Square-Foot Gardening.  HIGHLY recommend!

5.  Advice:  If you are going to grow tomatoes, invest the time to grow the most amazing tomatoes on your block &/or in the universe.

This is a value I wholly subscribe to.  Try all the tips and tricks you ever hear of – from tying the tomatoes to metal stakes with strips of your old pantyhose (for the electrical charge), to burying seedlings with Epsom salts for the magnesium – or whatever else you hear.  Just grow good tomatoes.  It will speak so much about your character as a human being when you can spot the perfect tiny seedling and grow it into a fruit-producing machine that will taste so good.

Oh and, an extra piece of advice for free – never let a tomato go to waste.  Never ever.  Sauce them.  Roast them,  Sun-dry them.  Freeze them.  Sandwich them, deep fry them or salsa them.  Just EAT them for the love of God and all that is holy!

6.  Extreme truth:  there is no reason to garden at all if you are not growing tomatoes.  Don’t try to debate me on this {Bryan}.  Seriously.

Pictured:  The Kelley kids making garden stepping stones for me on a Sunday morning.