Mother's Day 2016

We say in our home that motherhood is not for wimps.  No, it is surely not.


Because I am a mother, I face the most challenging and heart-wrenching moments of my life, that have much deeper long-term and personal implications than anything I could face outside of my home.  I often feel like I am fumbling around in the dark for answers because each child is unique and the solutions to the things they are going through are neither obvious nor clear nor the same as the brother that came before them.  Often I am required to have blind faith and take steps forward, hoping and praying for a desirable outcome, and redirect if necessary.  As the boys all now sleep through the night and those sleepless nights of the younger years fade, sleepless nights of the older years unfold...too many "what-ifs?" and "how do I helps?" spinning through my brain.  I face my greatest fears every day as a mother, because I can imagine nothing scarier than something happening emotionally or physically to one of my boys.

But all of these things are true only because I am so deeply in love with these amazing boys of mine.  What a great gift that kind of love is!  All the anguish, fears and unknown paths of motherhood are unquestionably worth the challenge just to be able to love them ever stronger and witness them living their lives. 

I feel such joy in their successes and am inspired when they face the hard things in their lives with courage.  I marvel at how they struggle and fail, and then get up and try again, never questioning their ability to press onward.  I melt as I see them embrace faith, lift their chins and live for God.  I learn from them as they test me and challenge the things I believed I had mastered, only to discover how much I still have to learn; and they are constantly asking more of me than I thought I had, it can feel like I am ceaselessly givinggivinggiving, yet I always seem to find the reserves.  With that, gratitude is something I have learned to appreciate deeply when I get it, but never expect; and, often, when the benefits of the direction I am trying to send them are still off in the future, I receive the opposite of gratitude from them.  Yet, because of these boys, my own heart has never been more grateful.  I am taught the art of letting go and release, when all I want to do is hold tighter and faster.  I am strengthened in my resolve to do better when I misstep, because, like the Masai warrior protecting his herd, I cannot let my guard down nor allow myself to fail them.  I am their defender, their mama bear, their champion and their cheerleader; and it's OK if because of that they think I am mean sometimes, and it's fine if they are angry with me because I am asking them to look again, try harder or do more.  Sometimes they have to rest on my belief in them as they find their belief in themselves.  I am better in all ways because of them. 

The precious moments when I hear them laughing together, listen to their delighted chatter at dinner, hold them close as they work through a heartache, witness them deeply involved in something that sparks their passion, see the light of understanding dawn as a difficult problem is solved, talk with them about all that is going on in their world, give them the gift of a new experience...all the many millions of small moments in a lifetime that heap the sparks of joy upon them...those are just bonuses.

I am a mother.  And I love every part of it.  Just as I love every part of them.

Breakfast and wonderful homemade gifts in bed!

mine.

If little boys were boogers, I'd pick you...five times over!

The real gift of the day: 30 minutes of play on the trampoline without a fight and when they came in it was because they were done, not because someone had "ruined" it!

The Bits: All of April

Well, there you go...we're all caught up on April's fun!

A fun morning with the kindies at the Space Foundation!  I have truly enjoyed my weekly volunteer time with Tommy's class this year.

We love watching our Z play!

Found in the mailbox.  Good thing I peeked before I grabbed!

Luke discovered that "Lucas" means "bright or light-bringing" while doing research for one of his classroom projects.  I love that his teacher wrote him a little note!  Coincidentally, our last name, Conlin, means "hero."  Light-bringing hero...not a bad name!

Tommy's picking up some moves from the big brothers!  Although it looks like he's knocking the kid down, he actually just stepped in to steal the ball and the kid tripped over his leg.  No foul!

These days, he's never one to back down from a battle, even when the match-up is against a 6'4" opponent.  Unfortunately, during this game, Zac sustained concussion number two, his second in four weeks.  He took an elbow to the head from said 15-year-old behemoth after winning a header.  His symptoms were worse this time, he actually got sick to his stomach and had a severe headache, so we spent the afternoon at Children's Hospital, where he was monitored.  This second concussion was thankfully not as bad as the first, even though the symptoms were worse, they cleared up more quickly.  Apparently, it is easier to sustain a second concussion when there has been a recent trauma.  So he's out for at least three weeks, and we are strongly considering allowing him to practice, but keeping him out of games for the remainder of the season.  He's only got the one brain, after all!  He understands and wants to be healthy for high school fall season, but he's pretty glum about it. 

It was fun finding my kids' names and notes on the volunteer thank-you posters hanging at the Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast.

Spring has finally sprung in The Springs!  And we have to make sure to enjoy it to the fullest between snowstorms. 

New dart guns for all means fun games of Hunt and epic Nerf battles...and a lot of whining and crying scattered among it all.

Such a pleasant evening for a drive!

I think there's still some spring underneath all that snow.

A note from a friend who also happens to be one of Ben's teachers at the middle school.  Hearing that the awesome kid we believe Ben to be is the same kid others see out in  the world made our souls sing--and got me a little teary.

Loved it.

It's officially official.  I was elected as next year's PTO President for AIES.  I'm a little crazy and a little nervous and a little scared and pretty excited.  Best of all, I have an amazing board to take the journey with me.

Zac is such a great big brother.

Josh's fifth-grade all-French production of Louis la Grenouille was great!  Josh was a stagehand, and in the pictures you can see all the things he helped with: mics, sound and curtain.  He also was part of the choir.  Bravo, Joshie and all the fifth graders!

Earth Day sunset

Ward talent show night!  The young men were in charge this year, so Adam, Ben and Zac all participated by default; the Deacons performing a Scout skit, the Teachers lip syncing to "All the Single Ladies," and the young men's leadership performing the Spitting Contest skit.  Adam made an awfully cute redneck!  Josh also got in on the fun playing two quick piano pieces.

Sunny springtime Sunday.

There are a lot of changes coming to our soccer boys next year.  Over the next couple of years, competitive youth soccer across the nation is in transition from school-year age group teams to birth-year age group teams, so our club has chosen to make the shift after this season.  It will split up all the boys' teams and move our boys from being in the older half of their teams to the younger half.  Plus, the club was accepted into a one-year trial for a special kind of national program called a Developmental Academy.  It creates elite teams of kids who are incredibly serious about soccer, which isn't really applicable to our boys.  They love soccer and work hard every practice, but don't have the intense single-focus for it that the DA is asking for in its players.  But the DA will pull several boys from the regular team structure to this special team.  Finally, for Ben's team, because it will be all '02s next fall, some of those kids will be freshmen, and playing high school soccer.  So there's another chunk of kids gone.  All in all, it's going to bust up a lot of teams, which is just heartbreaking.  We really like all the boys' teams, but we particularly love Ben's team, and it's crushing us that these changes are going to devastate the dynamic his team has right now.  This year has been kind of a golden season for this group of boys.  They're great, skilled kids with a nice group of parents, and the boys are really connecting to play some fantastic soccer.  So far this spring they are undefeated.  I love this picture of Ben with a few of his teammates after he scored a goal in one of their games.  It really captures the camaraderie that makes for an amazing team!

So far for the middle school track season, three of the four meets have been canceled due to weather.  It's a huge bummer!  However, the one meet Ben has actually had was great!  He placed 1st in the 1600m with a time of 5:48, 1st in the 800m with a time of 2:36, and set his own 400m PR with an amazing 1:07 run as anchor in his 4x4 relay, making up a 50-yard deficit and pulling his team from third to first.  All the races were 7th-grade-only, so he didn't race 8th graders.  It was a sight to see!  He's so small and unassuming on the starting line and then...BAM!  Lightening!  It's a joy to watch him fly!

Colorado sky.

A little something for everyone.

Our magic middle is growing up!  The middle school prep for Josh is coming in the month ahead.  Band instrument selection night kicked it all off.  Although it's not something the 6th grade band usually allows, due to his musical experience, Josh was given permission to play the alto sax next year, as long as he has some private lessons this summer and hits the ground running in the fall.  He's really excited!

It's all fun and games until someone starts crying.

At the middle school info night for incoming 6th graders, we finally got the chance to see Ben's school mile record plaque in the MRMS gym.  He is hoping for the 8th grade record, too, but he's sitting around a 5:38 for his fastest mile right now, so he has a lot of work to do to get to 5:13!  A cool little story, Ben was a track practice a couple of weeks ago, and the high school track team was out for a run.  Connor McCabe ran down to the middle school track and said, "I want to meet this kid who's breaking all my records."  Then he introduced himself to Ben and congratulated him and said he was looking forward to running with him when Ben was in high school.  We think Ben will be a freshman when Connor is a senior.  It was really cool and super classy!

I think these kids are ready for middle school!  I know their mamas are not.  (Ella, Kaitlyn, Josh, Eli and Kitty at MRMS Intro Night).

An awesome throw-back that our family friend, Nathan Brown, posted in honor of my mom's 70th birthday!  The Brown and McKenzie families Christmas '87 or '88.  The crazy thing is that Zac is older now than any of us kids were in the photo, and the kids in the photo are now about the age of the adults.

At least spring lives on inside our house!

Snowy Saturday crafting.

It was a pretty awesome weekend for Josh.  Fifth grade dance party one night and JoJo's 11th birthday at a parkour gym the next!

Party Like a Fifth Grader

Friday night, Josh and his fellow fifth graders from AIES were treated to an awesome dance party to celebrate the near-conclusion of their middle school years.  The family that threw the party, the Eids, have done this for all three of their girls and their classmates.  We have been lucky that Zac, Ben and Josh have lined up perfectly with these darling girls, Lexi, Natalie and Kitty, and all have had the chance to have this fun end-of-year celebration.  All of the 5th graders were invited, and about a third showed up.  They had the best time!  They danced, laughed, ate a lot of junk and just seemed to be having a ball.  Josh certainly proved he's no wallflower!

We adore the Eids and are so glad that our boys have their girls as !  I have had the opportunity to work with Diane in the PTO, and will follow in her footsteps as president.  She already knows I will be frantically texting and calling her on a regular basis as we go forward. 

Zac came along to party it up and help with the set-up, music and clean-up along with his pals Lexi, Luke and Chloe, three of his fellow RHS freshmen and classmates that he has been in school with since we moved here 8 years ago.  They call their little group of long-time friends (with some additions over the years) "The Fam."  Diane, Alexia and I are happy to see this new generation, The Fam 2.0, carry on for Kitty, Eli and Josh's class!  Josh is blessed with amazing, smart, clever, funny and "good kid" friends, and as a bonus, they have amazing families who we are so thankful to have as part of our village!   

 

Grateful for Grandparents

Adam and I are so incredibly grateful for our family's tribe.  It is really an incredible group who make this family of ours successful.  Our people.  The extended family and friends who come from many different areas of interest, from school to church to Scouts to soccer and more, and locations, from Washington to California and stops in between.  These are the people that support us, root for our success, love us, lift our boys up and tell them that they are important and valued, and assist us with it all, and often go out of their way to be a presence in our boys' lives.  I truly believe that this tribe is a huge part of what makes our family what it is: my bit of heaven on earth. 

Most significant of all of these cheerleaders for our kids is their two sets of amazing grandparents.  The visits in the past month from these wonderful grandparents are prime examples of how this tribe makes us all better, happier people, and is a testament to how lucky my boys are to have the grandparents that they do.  My mom took an extra week from her schedule to stay after the birthday week so she could see Zac's show, and I know my Dad wishes he could have stayed but work needed him, too.  Dan and Nicolle drove out from Seattle, braving snow storms all along the way, to make sure they were here for Zac's first theater experience.  During their visit, they cooked us delicious meals and entertained the boys while we ran carpool circles, they attended the elementary school Science Fair and helped keep the house in order; there were board games and card games and implementation of crazy art ideas and books read and snuggles galore.  For Adam and I it is always so fun to just sit and visit and have time to talk with these parents of ours, who are also our treasured friends and advisors.  They are the best! 

It is humbling and awesome and we are endlessly grateful for all the ways they support our family every single day.