Lovely

Nobody tells you that the hardest part of motherhood isn't the lack of sleep you get, potty training, or disciplining.  Everyone tells you about all of those things and often give you their expert advice on how to survive these difficult tasks.  But nobody tells you the hardest part of motherhood is learning how to become a part-time chef.  For some reason, us moms take it to heart when we spend quality time in the kitchen preparing what we think is a delicious and nutritious meal only to receive scrunched up noses and bursts of "ewww", "I don't like that", "that's disgusting", or "what is that?".  With dropped shoulders of failure, I pull out that old faithful response my mother so graciously passed down to me, "You'll eat it and you'll like it."

However, you can imagine my surprise tonight when I decided to try something new and received a completely different reaction.  Although there was a little skepticism at first, as I dished out the meal they all dug in and loved it.  How rewarding!  What a feeling of accomplishment!  Not only did they show their appreciation by cleaning their plates, but my son gave me a surprisingly unusual response to the crunchy chicken meal.  "This crust is LOVELY"

Something to brighten your day...

There are no better memories than those you create with family and friends.  This past weekend the kids and I traveled to my parents house and then headed to see an old friend from college.  We made great memories hiking at a state park, adventuring into a cave, swimming at the hotel, staying up late to play board games, and laughing...lots of laughing.

After arriving at mom and dad's house and transferring everything back to my car, I gave my dad a big hug and then embraced my mom.  Realizing I never know how many more of these moments I'll have, I closed my eyes and just thanked God.  At that moment, my two oldest (ages 8 and 6) came running in and joined in on the hug and started chanting "group hug".  Hearing this, my dad crossed the room with a gigantic smile on his face and engulfed us all into his comforting hug.  We were not quick to withdraw, but instead lingered in the moment that God blessed us with.  What a perfect ending to a wonderful trip.

Sweetness...

Laughter is good but every once in awhile it's nice to have something simple and sweet to tug at your heart strings.  That's our little Ellie.  Don't get me wrong.  She keeps us laughing too, but her sweetness has an impact on everyone she meets.

At a family gathering recently, Ellie was being awfully shy around my side of the family.  She doesn't see them often and it takes her some time to warm up to the cousins and even longer to warm up to the aunts and uncles.  Uncle Mark has a way with children and always manages to get the kids to warm up to him fairly quickly.  Every time he came near Ellie, he would wrap her up in a hug and say "Uncle Markie loves you".  Little did I know that this occurred several times throughout the day.  As the family members went their separate ways that evening and I gathered our bags and suitcases, I heard a little voice chanting behind me.  I smiled as I heard Ellie's sweet little voice, and as I focused in to make sense of her toddler talk, I realized she was repeating "Uncle Markie loves me".  My smile grew and as I turned around I identified a small photo of Uncle Mark on the table beside the dresser.  And there stood Ellie, gazing at her loving uncle and repeating with the sweetest expression "Uncle Markie loves me."  And I whispered, "Yes Ellie, Uncle Markie loves you" and wrapped her up in a hug.

OlYMPICS

The summer olympics in London have been a favorite of the Curl household during the past couple of weeks.  As we were hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa, Tyler starts to ask Grandpa about the track race.  Grandpa tells him that the top 6 advance.  As he is watching the race he looks at Grandpa and asks "Does that mean he gets to go to the feature?"  To him, every race has a feature! 

A little while later Tyler blurts out "I hope someone other than the US wins.  I want to hear another song.  I already know that one."

And we laughed about it the rest of the night.