Superman, Four Years Old

April is going out like a sopping, shivering lion here in Minnesota. But we refuse to kowtow to drenching doldrums. Here, we party. Especially when we've got a birthday to celebrate! 

So yesterday Superman and Little Professor helped make Starlight Yellow Cupcakes (no, I don't know why Betty Crocker named 'em that way. They're kinda sparkly once baked, I suppose). Superman picked Papa's apron to wear. Hence "The Rev" and the emblem of the Greatest Football Team Ever.

"Cheeeeeeese!" A.k.a. The normal posed Superman face.

The "Nice for Mommy" posed face.

 My helpers were stellar. They moved a little quick with the ingredients (and for the camera), but didn't spill much and really, really, REALLY enjoyed helping with the mixer on high-seven-speed. (Little Professor kept whispering for Superman to "make it go faster!")

I told them to help me take some selfies. "What's a selfie?" asked Little Professor. Because he spends time reading The Magic Treehouse series instead of Facebook (or analyses of media culture). Anyway, per usual silly boys, they kept making silly faces. So I finally did, too. If you can't beat 'em, silly with 'em!

 

As usual, I forgot to take a picture of the cupcakes going in the oven, coming out of the oven, pre-iced, or even iced. Suffice it to say homemade cake and icing are mucho better than the boxed kind. And green food coloring makes a mess. But a bright, cheerful one.

So the big day came. We like to spread out birthdays here, so there's still presents and cards waiting to be opened in the next few days. Superman had fun playing with stamps this morning, building a monstrous tent house with four blankets and an American flag (disguised as a blue handkerchief), and reading birthday books. His sibs, especially the Little Professor, were so excited! LP even made him a second card, complete with its own envelope and label, that he placed by Superman's pillow during his nap so he'd find it when he woke up. 

Papa came home to pick up Superman to take him to get some eggs--one of his favorite foods--and to give us a little time to do some decorating and last-minute wrapping.  Little Professor hand selected four cars--significance in numbers here--to give to Superman. He wrapped each one in tissue paper. And Superman LOVED them. Brotherly love on display! Then he came home to a little surprise, some gifts, a lot of screeching excitement, and bacon.

Only the really excited kids stand on chairs!

 

I love it!

 And the little sibs didn't want to miss out, either. Pearly Girl kept a close watch. And Small Dude bounced up and down with excitement.

Did someone say "PARTY?!"

We celebrate birthdays with simple things--cake, icing, a few gifts, lots of love. Maybe someday we'll have a no-holds-barred birthday bash, but for now, it's a happy day to spend together, share some squeezes, thank God for His good gift of life.

He wanted eggs and sausage and toast with jam for his birthday dinner. Who wouldn't grin?

 A year is no time and a year is a lot of time. Here's Superman last year with his green cake, and here he is this year with his green cupcake. May you be blessed with many more, our dear son!

Sweet Quiet

What sweet quiet

is soft rain

through open windows

and the flutter of an evening breeze

and a few nesting birds

and the wordless murmurs of a young boy

quickly wakened, and relaxed,

drifting back to sleep.

Spring, Incoming

Sunshine and blue skies with snow portend of brighter days ahead.

It's sleeting and snowing here today, which isn't the greatest mood-lifter. But as our Little Professor pointed out today, spring officially begins in just a few weeks! Let's just say we're counting down the days. Yes, we know that the snow will last here for probably at least another month. But it's waning snow, heavy snow, and flowers can still come up through the wet, last vestiges of winter. And that's great news.

Old, Gold Friends

Growing up, I always wanted a bosom friendship like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry shared. I was blessed with a twin sister--a topic worthy of not just a blog post but an entire book. Probably a series!--but I guess I was attracted to the allure of finding a female kindred spirit that didn't happen to come from the same parents and share the same uterus as I did. I made a few good friends in high school and never lacked for people to run around with, but especially my senior year I felt lonely a lot. I'd made some really great friends over the summer at Lutheran Summer Music the prior summer, and those four girls gave me a wonderful blessing of deep, if quickly made, friendship. I hoped I found a hint of that bond in college.

Well, God was gracious, and He gave me a dear, wonderful friend in Monica, who was my roommate throughout college, excepting the year I studied abroad and she took a turn as an RA. To this day she and I are great friends, and words can't express how thankful I am for her. Funnily enough, she grew up in the same area as Papa, and they attended the same Lutheran grade school, though not at the same time. (I've learned that I really like blond, stoically Lutheran, super awesome Milwaukee-area-bred people. Call me a wannabe-Wisconsinite.) Anyway, Monica and I made friends in other contexts at school, and through a long and circuitous route we befriended and were friended by a group of terrific girls. Our senior year we all tried to live together in a ramshackle house just a block from campus, but the house could hold six, and we were seven. So Monica and I roomed together in an apartment with two other awesome ladies and popped over to the Green House throughout the year to hang out and visit.

Fast-forward eight years to now. Some of us have married; some of us have traveled; some of us have lived rural and some of us have lived urban. All of us have completed master's degrees; all of us are still trying to live the lives that God has set before us in the ways He would see fit. We've never been together again, all of us, since graduation, until late in May. After kicking around a 30th-birthday-year get-together for almost a year, we finally settled on having a reunion here over Memorial Day weekend.

I wish I could adequately express how logistically perfect everyone's travel, job schedules, and life events generally had to coalesce to make this happen. Suffice it to say that we managed to get all of us together in rural Minnesota (which was amazing by itself!), when just weeks earlier three--I think--of us had been overseas (China, France, Switzerland/England) and Monica and I were between babies (C nearly six months old, Monica's babe about a month from birth). On paper, we didn't do much: ate a LOT, took walks, visited the Monument, went to church together. It was perfect. We laughed a lot and cried a lot and didn't stop talking for forty-eight hours (with a few winks for sleep in there). And I can say that just thinking about those precious days together make my eyes water and my heart swell. These women are incredible. We have our differences, as everyone does, but we support each other and love each other. "Keep the old," the saying goes about friends. They are gold. They are priceless, and their friendship is priceless.

I could go on and on about this, but I'll leave with this: thank you, thank you to Monica, Julie, Gretchen, Sarah M., Katie, and Sarah S.--to all the Green House girls. You are old, gold friends--bosom sister-friends!--and I pray we will have many, many other reunions as we age.

Jules brought some decorations!

Together after church. So incredibly special.

In Like a Lamb

We're beginning to see glimpses of spring here, despite the snow piles everywhere. I've heard birds chirping--such a solace after weeks and months of outdoor silence, excepting the wind--and I can smell spring coming. I kid you not. I'd like to think I'm smelling the Chinook so happily received by the Ingalls clan in The Long Winter... and actually, I probably am. Look at this!

Thirty-nine degrees! Bust out the bikinis--spring's almost here!