you are my jubilation.

live lists, third edition.

Share your magic! Compose a "live list" and email me with the full list or a link to the place I can find it! I'll add a link here and on the sidebar of the polished pickle.

Click on the following pictures to view submitted lists {don't click on the pintrest thingy}:

 

I've collected live lists in the past {it's been far too long} and I absolutely ADORED reading your life loves and ambitions! Keep them coming!

Live lists, first edition 2009

Live lists, second edition 2010

you've never lived until you've...

i've said it before. i'll say it again... i am a a tour guide. best job ever.

welcome to earth children, let me show you how it's done.

in the past we've done some pretty. macical. life-sampling. this summer i have a new agenda of favorites to share with my chillins. here it goes!

*catch a creature, hold it awhile, and set it free
*press a flower and glue it to something
*read a harry potter book aloud
*fall asleep at a drive-in-movie
*jump on the beds in a hotel room
*get caught in a hail storm
*take a dog for a walk
*take a boat ride
*eat jello jigglers
*hold our breaths while driving through a tunnel
*jump off a dock
*do something for someone that they cannot do for themselves
*observe a chemical reaction
*be an audience member and clap really loud
*ambush someone with water balloons
*attend a rendezvous
*dress like ninjas and do something sneaky
*look into two mirrors that face each other and try to count all of the reflections
*decode a secret message
*have an ‘edible art’ dinner
*dress like animals and go to the zoo
*spy on someone
*visit a planetarium
*get buried up to our necks in sand
*enter a children’s art contest
*be thrown and caught in a blanket
*pick berries and make a pie
*write our own song
*perform in a play
*roller skate under a disco ball
*ride on a train
*build a robot that does something cool
*sleep on the trampoline
*climb a rock wall
*invent something useful
*send a message in a bottle
*catch a fish and eat it
*have a handstand contest

oh, yes. this is happening. 

i will do it for you.

some days i get into the thick of one of our adventures and think, "why are we not at home watching a movie right now?"

 i remember when adventuring was a lot less complicated. although, it really has never been easy. i've always ended up carrying everyones coats or sweaters by the end. i've always had to coax crying children into or out of situations. out of necessity our group of five has been able to continue our exploration of the world by bringing less stuff along and trying things that aren't quite as ambitious.

 to tell you the truth i feel like i'm so much less fun than i was a few years ago. i spend much less time playing and much more time holding crying kids. with four there is almost always someone struggling. i shouldn't feel less fun.

i'm going to refuse to feel less awesome than i used to be. if anything i've grown tremendously as a tour guide since my early expeditions with children. my face just doesn't always show my inner enthusiasm for life. i feel my forehead wrinkles multiplying every time the plot thickens around here. but i can't help feeling that a slightly more serious disposition is written in the fine-print for every mother.

 here are some special, edited, mother-child moments. polished pickles.
i really won't remember the parts i edited out. so i'm going to write a couple of quick notes to my future self lest my horrid memory leaves me feeling less adventurous than ever...

megan, when you leave your house it takes thirty minutes to get everyone into the car and buckled. you almost always forget something important and have to drive back and grab it. your kids whine. a lot. they whine because they are too hot or too cold. they whine if you ask them to walk any distance. you aren't always patient with them. they get frustrated and quit when kites won't fly right away and it makes you feel bad because you went to so much trouble to untangle the strings. the baby won't let you put her down so you feel as if you weigh an extra thirty pounds and only have one arm. you drop stuff and have to double back to find it. your camera smacks the kids in the head when you bend over to pick them up. it's always been that way but you never give up because you know they watch the home movies and look at the pictures over and over and smile and laugh. they love the time you took them to the library with hot chocolate and their favorite part is when ossi dumped coco on liam. they don't remember how miserably sticky they were. you don't take them places because you expect it to be sunshine and roses. you take them places because you know you only get a few, short years with them and you want to share everything you love about this world with them. keep sharing the secret wonders you've discovered and expect them to teach you about many, many more.

water under the bridge.

the other night matt and i were talking about the purpose of families and the reasons we go through the things we go through. we decided that families are our favorite aspect of God's plan. here we have a group of people who know the worst of eachother and don't give up on oneanother. how like our Savior's love for us that is! if we want to be like Him, the best place for the practice is within our own families.

just as forgiveness is at the heart of Christ's mission, forgiveness is vital to the success of our family.

when the kids were just babies and we were teaching them conflict resolution one would say, "i'm sorry" and the other would respond, "it's okay." it never really sat well with us because we felt like we were teaching them to say "it's okay that you just hit me." it's not okay. so what would they say instead?

"i forgive you" has become such a common phrase in our home since then. even matt and i tell it to oneanother daily as we work through our many flaws. i am thankful for that minor change in language that has put the need for forgiveness alongside the need for repentance, both indispensable tools for our family relationships.

you must know if you've been following our story that ossi and i are constantly saying "i'm sorry" and "i forgive you" to one another. it's no secret that we butt heads. you may be less aware that our oldest son liam and his daddy are easily entangled in contention. they are so alike that they drive one another nuts. here's the latest passive agressive drawing liam left on the kitchen table...

is this dad getting struck by lightning? yes. yes it is.

every relationship in our household suffers in some way. we are the perfect mix of personalities to push buttons and purge flaws. we couldn't win without a chance for a clean slate, which is a treasured gift of the Savoir in our home. how indebted we are to Him.

i wish i could type the sound that Evy makes when she sees a cat, but it's untypeable.

she's saying it right now as she sits here on my lap. she sounds german or french. and she's super excited. one time i googled pictures of kittens for her and she almost had a heart attack. she kissed the screen for like 10 minutes.

last night her brother handed her an empty bag of popcorn and she was so mad that she passed out. not even kidding. it's funny now but it was scary then. she screamed all her air out in one, shrill cry and plopped over limp. finn and i were pretty much horrified. he was sitting on my lap at the time and in my panic i just pulled a floppy blue baby onto the poor guy. when she started breathing he sighed a huge sigh and said, "mom, i thought she died."

needless to say, evy really likes popcon.

evy is the queen of snuggles. she brings me a blanket often and walks me over to the rocking chair. it's hard sometimes because she just wants me to be still and the three boys have taught me nothing but busy busy busy. i love that she's rounding me out. {figuratively and literally, with all of this snacking on popcorn and snuggling in a rocker.}

oh, how i love my little mama.

draw me close.

drawing with ossi is magical. we draw pretty much the same thing every time.

basically, it goes like this...

1. we figure out how he is feeling
2. we pinpoint what he wants
3. i ask him what's keeping him from getting what he wants and he always says "YOU"
4. we decide that if we take me out of the picture he won't be able to have what he wants anyway because he needs me to get it for him
5. i tell him that i want him to have what he wants and ask if i can help him
6.  we identify the real obstacles
7. we make a plan together to break down the barrier
8. we remember we love each other


there are many reasons that ossi and i need to have this conversation over and over. let me name a few...

1. he has an underdeveloped ability to recognize and express emotions
2. his overreaction to small frustrations causes him to forget the reason he's flipping out
3. he majorly externalizes blame and cannot understand that problems are more appropriately attributed to situations than to the people involved
4. he has grandiose thinking about his own abilities and this gives him the chance to humbly acknowledge that he needs other people
5. i need the reminder that i actually want him to succeed and that we're on the same team
6. we both need a chance to look at the situation logically and after a bit of calm drawing we're ready
7. we are both incredibly persistant, so as long as we correlate our efforts we're a force for awesomeness  {i'm serious. we have done some amazing things working side-by-side.}
8. when we start arguing we forget that we love each other


i absolutely, positively adore my son. and he drives me crazy.

the scriptures tell us, "be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48

ossi and i are perfecting one another, just as i'm sure our Heavenly Father intended.

we love it when our friends and family members with tremendous talent beautify our home.

new gift #1 from a missionary we love dearly who was just transferred from our ward.

new gift #2 from our neighbor and friend around the corner.


treasures.

peter pan's shadow.

pure glee.

bike rides.

home-made scones.

breakfast guests.

strawberry milkshakes.

new friends for the garden.

content.

our breakfast guests the other morning were a handful of the finest young men ever to become missionaries for our church. those boys played the piano and sang for us while they waited for breakfast. our family was in heaven. we get so attached to these missionaries and then they are up-and-transfered to serve in different areas. luckily they are replaced by other outstanding missionaries and our  hearts make room.

you know how a beloved missionary eventually came back to oregon and married my little sister? now it's quite a joke around our household with the missionaries.

we were measuring the boys on our wall {we have a special spot on our wall where we mark the heights of house-guests} and one noticed he was the same height as our now brother-in-law. he then said, "hey, where's my wife?" and when we all laughed he said, "no seriously, where's my wife? i want one."

oh, life is so good.

a warm-weather meal.

cold crab claws. home-seasoned cream cheese spread on triscuits topped with a strawberry and a few drops of balsamic vinegar.

summer lovin'

something about the days leading into summer make me feel all kissy.

even a grocery-shopping date feels like a grand, romantic adventure.

i love being married to this man.

a little brother.

oh, finn.

i wish, i wish.

i know that you are trying to win the approval of your older brothers. i wish i could hurry the process. i know some day they will realize exactly how fantastic you are. but they're little boys and they think like little boys with a younger brother. i promise to help them learn to be kind.

i wish i could help you appeal to them. i try to teach you how to approach them. but you're a little boy and you think like a little boy with big brothers. i promise to help you learn to be cool. the trick to being cool is to just be yourself and stop trying so hard. but i know you want them to like you so desperately.

i know it is especially hard with an older brother who has problems. i know how you try and try and he still holds your faults against you. he does it to me, too. be patient with him. he may be older but in a lot of ways you're going to be taking care of him.

i wish i could skip ahead and see how this plays out. it might look something like this...

you are my comedic relief.

a drive with our family.

i suggest you turn your computer volume down.

sometimes wish we wish we had a volume dial for the kids. or one of those slide-up divider-windows they have in limos. but actually, not really. it's kinda hilarious. 

you are my traveling circus.

breakthrough.

i must tell you how things have changed between us.

i must tell you about the way he sees me now. the way he is starting to trust me and confide in me.

first i had to change the way i see him.

i can't remember every conversation or act of kindness or patient response that has contributed to this break-through, but i do remember one, very inspired drawing session.

i'll tell you about it soon.

boys and flowers.

i took the boys {along with a neighborhood friend} to go flower-picking for may-day. there was very little flower-picking. but a whole lot of fence-climbing, seed-throwing, rock-tossing, puddle-splashing, hill-climbing and stealth-crawling through the tall grass.

i get a variety of comments when people notice that i have three boys. sometime they pat me on the back and say, "poor mama" and sometimes they act like it's a badge of honor. they usually "ooo" for baby girl. and they always say something like, "good luck" when we part.

i absolutely love it. it's like living inside "The Sandlot" or "Stand By Me." see...

and there's little-mama. the girl of my dreams. she wanted to pick flowers with me.

so i have a bit of "Now and Then" or "Little Women," too.

lucky, luck me.