I have not written in quite a while, mainly because the summer has demanded that hot days be dealt with by a dip in the pool, a bike ride under some shady trees, travelling to see family, or watching grandchildren run through the sprinkler. I know that the days are short and another summer has nearly slipped past. My little ones are getting ready to return to school far too soon.

The heralding of school still puts me in mind of the future and change. Remember when that meant new school clothes, unsharpened pencils and that pink eraser in a little zippered pouch? Then the clean notebook paper, that would become a burden later to fill, but right now held only the pristine whiteness that said we would learn something new and would write things that we could not yet imagine?

I know the calendar has not yet even turned to August, but our two go back the 16th!

I need to learn to live in the moment. To realize that I should now be intentional about what last things I can eke out these passing summer days. I want to make a trip to the mountains, to see the streams and smell the pine. I want to get the kids to do a couple of new art projects (Devon won first place in our local art show this summer!)

What things are your children experiencing in these final summer days? Things do not need to cost money, so here is a list of low cost ways to make those days a little more festive:
A walk in the park, a free dog show, or petting zoo.
Our town has free movies in the parks, see if your town has a schedule of events
Lay on your back in the yard and imagine pictures in the clouds…then make up a story.
Read a story in the shade
take a ride in the wagon after dark and listen for crickets
we filled our hot tub with cool water and left the heater off, makes a nice pool!
Take some little cars out under the trees and make a town with roads in the dirt
Go to the farmers market and let the kids pick a vegetable they have never tried.

I hope the rest of your summer is full of great memories. The kids will remember the little things more than even the big things, don’t believe me? Do you remember the sound of the Popsicle truck? Check the rest of your childhood summer memories, I think you will be surprised!

No Comments »

I am thinking of this today because of my own lack of silence and a need to turn off the noise and busyness, with not much knowledge about how to do that. I was thinking about summers when I was a kid.
There is an old saying about the lazy, hazy days of summer, and for all practical purposes those are gone. Now in their place are plans, lessons, travel, summer homework, television, video games, computer hours.

The fallout from all these options of things that capture the mind and attention, is the loss of something wonderful.
Maybe some of you are old enough to remember when adults were unconcerned about what we wanted to do, and had little or no guilt about just letting us be kids. no thoughts of enrichment, furthering our educational goals, and the outcome was creativity.

We got bored. Seriously bored. I would sit with neighbor kids under the shade of the willow tree in the backyard, just laying in the grass. “Whadda ya wanna do?”" I dunno, whadda you wanna do?”

Then would come the listing…we could, ride bikes “nah, too hot”, we could color, nah, wanna play army? ( this would mean the sandbox, getting out all the army men and some trucks, using pieces of wood to build walls and bricks to make a higher lookout point etc.. or getting broomsticks for rifles and chasing each other around.) Maybe we would then decide maybe we wanted to have ice cream, because the silence allowed us to hear the ice cream truck a few blocks away. After being refused money for ice cream by our parents, we thought maybe a lemonade stand would let us have ice cream tomorrow…yeah! “I’ll make the sign, you got crayons?” then we would go house to house to find the stuff we needed, a table, water, lemonade mix or real lemons…then we would not have the adults make the lemonade, we did it, we came up with a new recipe…sometimes sale-able , sometimes not.

Boredom + dreaming = creativity. This is true of children and adults. We go at breakneck speed thinking that we have to get this and that done…or we schedule every waking moment for our kids and then wonder why they don’t know how to play.

I have not been very creative lately, I’ve had too much to do. Can we stop and take some time to sit beneath a tree, dangle our toes in the water, hear the crickets at night, watch fireflies, listen to a robins song from her nest…and what if we get bored…will we think of something wonderful, or fill the time with pre-packaged games and lose that gift?

Maybe you could give a gift to yourself and your kids today. Tell them no Tv, or anything electronic. No lessons today, just a day to “be” . They will groan, and whine, but hold your ground. Just lay around and let it happen. I think if you give them several of these days this summer, they will find, and so will you, that the mind and heart become engaged in life again, and who knows what you will do!

1 Comment »

This weekend Paula and I had the privilege to go to Ft. Carson and donate 500 books to the little ones. We read our stories, asked some questions and got some wonderful hugs! Here are a couple of the people that helped us do that, friends from the West Childcare Development Center on Ft. Carson, as they assemble the books with dogtags to pass out to the children there

After the passing out of the books , we heard of a tradition there are Ft. Carson that we had never heard of before. We were told that if we came back to the post late at night, 300 or more soldiers were coming home from Afghanistan! The tradition is, that as the busloads of soldiers come in the gates, the firetrucks, lights flashing , horns blowing, drench the buses with water, symbolizing the washing off of the dirt of foreign soil and welcoming them back home.

Because this particular homecoming was happening inthe middle of the night, families anxiously awaited their arrival at the event center about a half mile from the gate’s roundabout. The only ones to witness the firetrucks and that part of the celebration, were one little boy and his mother, and these two grandmas!

As we joined the families of our brave service-members, we were struck with the beauty of the welcome. Prayer, the Army song, a reverence for the completed mission and thanks to the families who had endured or lost. Then a joyous reunion of smiles, snapshots, laughter, hugging and tears. What a privilege to be there.

As we left I thanked a young soldier and asked if he would mind if I gave him a hug. I had never gotten to see the homecoming of my own boy, twice from Iraq. He obliged me.

Welcome home each and every one. Thank you, from all of us, for the work you do and have done. May God bless and keep you, and your families!

No Comments »

Today we traced around the kids so they could send themselves to Daddy for his birthday coming up in June.

I think that the kids enjoyed the idea of travelling folded up in an envelope all the way to Germany. This is an easy project which lets the kids be creative about what they want to wear, what they want to do to make the picture their own.

All you need is a roll of craft paper , some crayons and markers and some tape to tape it down to the floor so it doesn’t slide around. The other good thing about it is that Daddy not only gets this great artwork, he now knows the size of those kids who may have grown a little since he was home last!

Hope that if you try this easy and inexpensive gift, that you will have as much fun as we did!

No Comments »

Yesterday my granddaughter Devon and I went out to Paula and Barry’s farm. Going there is always a treat, and Paula and Barry, always make it special for the kids. I have always believed that all children should live on a farm ( my deepest wish as a child) surrounded by Gods beauty in open fields, and creatures both wild and domestic.

Visiting the farm means that the kids get to run and explore, jump on the trampoline (Barry is a very good sport and jumped with them last time), climb into the treehouse, and have Butters, the resident golden retriever, accompany them to the pond.

This visit, Butters waded into the pond and gently brought this big toad out as a gift for Devon, who was very happy to put him in a plastic container and bring him home. Later, after Papa and Uncle Joe had admired the toad and her mommy got a chance to enjoy the fact it was not going to her house, Devon let it go in the long grass behind our deck. Big toad will find lots of bugs out there and probably another toad or two.

Getting out into the country is a healing thing for us under pressure, in a hurry people. It is a place where you can take a deep breath and not feel like there are a thousand more things you should be doing ( sorry Paula, I know you have those thousand more things..even with living on the farm) . Even though I was there to bring illustrations for our re-do of our website (get ready..it is coming soon!) it never feels like work to go there.

It is the end of spring and the start of summer. School is out tomorrow here in Colorado, and the kids may have more time to hunt for toads, swing on swings and take walks. I am hoping for a summer of some of those “lazy days” they talk about. Other summers have passed too quickly with too much activity and not enough gently thankful days.

Paula and I have gotten our invitation for the 4th and 5th of June to take our books to Ft. Carson and give them to the preschoolers there. We can’t wait! Yes, I know that is not filed under “lazy days” but that is a special high activity blessing!

Hope your spring is off to a good start and things are hopping!

No Comments »