The Rose, Hawthorn Twig and LIly

The Rose, Hawthorn Twig & Lily

Many years ago Japan was walled in as a nation. During that time, learned men studied nature and met with little groups of men and women at night and taught them lessons of life.

One morning, when one of these learned men was about to leave the gates of the city to go out to study nature, a workman stopped him and said, "When you come in tonight from your studies, will you please bring me a rose that I may study the whorl of the petals as you pointed out last night?"

"Yes," said the learned man, "I will bring you a rose." He had not gone far before a second man accosted him, saying, "Will you please bring me a hawthorn twig tonight?"
"Yes," said the professor. And, even before he got through the gate, a third accosted him, saying "Will you please bring me a lily that i might see the lessons of purity that you gave us last evening?" And the professor answered, "I will bring you a lily."

Just as the sun was setting in the west, the professor entered the gate of the city, where the three men met him. To the first, he gave the rose; to the second he gave the hawthorn twig; to the third he gave the lily.

Suddenly the man with the rose said, "Why, here's a thorn on the stem of my rose!" And the second said, "And here's a dead leaf clinging to my hawthorn twig!" And the third, encouraged by the fault finding, said, "And here's dirt clinging to the roots of my lily!"

The professor took the rose from the first, the twig from the second, the lily from the third. He broke the thorn from the stem of the rose and handed the thorn to the first; he plucked the dead leaf from the twig and put the dead leaf into the hands of the second; he took the dirt from the roots of the lily and gave the dirt to the third. Keeping the rose, the twig and the lily, he said, "There, each of you has what attracted you first. You looked for the thorn and found it. It was there. I left it purposely. The dead leaf was left on the twig, and you saw it first. Purposely I left the dirt on the roots of the lily, and the dirt was the first thing you saw. Each of you keep what attracted your attention; I will keep the rose, the twig, and the lily for the beauty I see in them."

--David O. McKay

Shopping Carts

These days if I have Cooper and Cassidy with me, I pretty much only shop at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club.  Sam’s Club shopping carts (and Costco) are the only carts that can fit two kids side by side up front.  So I park in between the stores and use the Sam’s carts for both stores. 

When Cooper and Cassidy were about 18 months, they had been to the store maybe three times in their whole life.  Such a stark contrast to when Allie and Kara were their age.  I remember taking Kara to the store when she was maybe just 10 days old.  And with Allie, I lived for our weekly shopping trips.

But I have grown more confident in my being-the-mother-of-twins mindset and I now am not quite so scared to go shopping with them.

Probably because they so rarely get to go to the store, they are actually pretty good.  They have had their moments though.  Cooper biting Cassidy’s ear.  Cassidy scratching his face in self defense.   But we are slowly working through those things.

While we were shopping the other day, I noticed something they were doing.  I don’t even think they noticed it.  It was one of those heart melting things for me. 

Footsie!

 

Their feet were touching for a big part of our trip that day.  It was so cute.  They didn’t discuss it and it didn’t bug either of them.  They just sat there as we went along swinging their feet together.

They can fight and whine and make each other mad but they still have a bond that is so unique. 

  Twins.

Water Balloons

Happy Birthday Paul!  Steve was in town and offered to babysit so Paul and I could go out for his birthday.  (Thanks Steve!  That was very brave of you.  Hope it didn’t scar you for life!)

Water balloons are normally a great addition to any birthday celebration.  They are fun to play games with and occasionally even throw back and forth at each other.  And it is even sometimes funny to launch one at an unsuspecting individual.

But in certain circumstances, a water balloon can become a weapon and an unsuspecting individual can become The Victim. And that is exactly what happened to me.

Paul and I were standing outside the entrance to Best Buy talking to Kelly Panter and her boyfriend Sam.  A car pulled up in front of the store a few feet away from us and let out a passenger.  Then the car started to pull away from the store.  Another car was directly behind them.  As the second car passed us, the passenger guy launched a full water balloon out the window directly at me.

And it hit me square in the face.

It took me completely by surprise.  I recoiled immediately from the impact.  It was so shocking.  It took me a minute to comprehend what happened.    I had been standing in the middle of Paul and Kelly.  I was soaking wet and Paul was wet and Kelly was splashed too.  They both checked on me and Sam took off.  He wanted to find the car.  Paul wanted to go too.  I did NOT want either one of them to go.  If that car would do this to a group of people in front of a public place with lots of other people near by, what else might they do?

And I was ok.  My face stung from the impact and the inside of my lip was cut a little bit.  But I was very happy that it was just water.  It could have been so much worse.

Sam wasn’t able to find the car because they had taken off.  I am totally ok with that.

I guess the people somehow knew that it was Paul’s birthday and wanted to join in the celebration.

This would be one of those occasions where the balloon was definitely a weapon.  And I was the poor little victim!

 

 

Paul snapped a picture once we got in the car with his phone.  The flash was harsh and its hard to see but the balloon hit me on the right side of my face and lip.

On the road again.

The spring in Las Vegas is unpredictable.  We have gone from days in the 90’s to back in the 60’s.  And the wind!!  One of the local weathermen said 2011 is in the top 10 for windiest springs on record.  I do love that it stays lighter later and the evenings are pretty enjoyable.

One feature I really love about our house, is how open it is.  We have quite a bit of tile and that has been great because I let Cooper and Cassidy have their bikes inside.  Last year for their birthday I really wanted to get them trikes.  I scoured through Craigslist searching for the perfect one.  Well, I ended up with 5.  I’m not sure exactly how it happened but it did and I am really ok with it.  Each one has it’s own unique characteristic that is keeping it in the mix.  And it comes in really handy when we have little friends over.  Even Allie and Kara enjoy scrunching up on them and chasing Cooper and Cassidy around the house. 

Cooper and Cassidy love wearing their helmets.  Sometimes they’ll wear them around the house just for fun.  They have only ever ridden indoors but lately, we’ve been able to spend more time outside and really put the bikes to use. 

We must look like quite the spectacle.  Some friends of ours gave us a bike trailer.  Unfortunately the winter wasn’t kind to my bike or Paul’s bike.  I need to get new tires or tubes for mine.  So we haven’t been able to hook up the trailer.  The kids were just itching to try it out, so Allie hooked it up to her bike.

They call it the ‘choo choo train’.  I especially love it when Cassidy smiles so deliberately for the camera.  That little girl has the sweetest face and such a great smile.  She just cant seem to make it work for pictures though!

She must have got her training from Kara.  Kiki insisted on posing for a mini photo shoot.  I wanted to snap A picture of her.  She kept wanting to do just one more.  Ten pictures later I convinced her we had ‘the shoot’.

                                    

I just love seeing Coop and Cass riding in the street.  It is so funny to see these two little people out on the big wide road.  And they look like they are peddling so fast.  For some reason they kind of remind me of bobble head toys.  They kind of just bobble on down the street.

I had to drop something off at Bobbi’s house so Allie and Kara and Cooper rode their bikes and I pulled Cassidy along in the wagon.  She wanted to ride her bike too but she only likes to do short distances and I was afraid she would tire out.  I was also worried that Cooper wouldn’t be able to make it there and back and I wanted the wagon for him to be able to jump in if needed.  He had a blast following behind Allie and Kara.  (you can barely see the girls up ahead) 

                         

He made it all the way to Bobbi’s house.  I had him get in the wagon on the way back because it was hot and very bright.  I wasn’t sure what to do with his bike.  I tried carrying it for a minute but that got old really quick.  So I wedged it against the wagon and the handle and we made our way home. 

                           

Thank goodness for cell phones!  It has been great to pull them out for the quick little snap shots.  Almost all of our pictures have been taken with our cell phone cameras.  Allie took this one on our way back from Bobbi’s.  It was too bright for poor little Cass and Coop snagged one of the girls sunglasses!

I know we look like a circus train but we all love it!

A Cowboy and A Princess

The imagination of two and a half year olds are so great.  And Cooper and Cassidy really benefit from having older dramatic sisters.  The other day Cooper came running into the kitchen to show me what they had created.  Cassidy was in the hall as Cooper dragged me around the corner.  They greeted each other happily and were so pleased with themselves!

Cassidy put the straw hat on Cooper and said, “My Cowboy!”  I asked her what she was.  She answered, “A Princess!”

I love that play together.  They really like doing things together.  It about melts me when they will hold hands on their own as they walk somewhere together.  And this is especially cute to me because this was own their own. 

No big sisters were involved in the making of this cowboy and princess!

note to self:  Find Cooper some masculine dress up clothes for the future.

What’s that noise?

Have you ever closed your car door with the strap of the seat belt or the end of rope or backpack hanging out? 

Last week as I was driving to pick Allie and Kara up from school, I kept hearing a clanking noise coming from outside my door.  When I got to school,  I opened my door and checked to see what could be making the noise.  I couldn’t find anything.  I deducted that I must have closed something in the door and that by opening the door it fixed the situation.  So I sat back and waited for the girls to come out. 

A few minutes later, the girls came out and Kara walked up to my door.  She had a confused look on her face.  What was causing her to look so confused?

Perhaps this.

Apparently, the sound I heard as I drove 45+ mph down the road, was the other pair of car keys- hanging out of the lock on the door.  And, if you look closely, you will see that the key that is shoved in the lock- is the key to our mailbox.

Earlier in the day, Cooper and Cassidy had been playing with their bikes and had gone into the garage.  They came in and talked about “mommy’s car yocked”.  I didn’t think much of it.

Apparently I should have.

I think it’s even funnier that I checked to see what the noise was and didn’t see the keys.

I wonder what the guy next to me at the light thought.

I guess I should get the decal “Got Twins!”  Maybe that would serve as enough explanation.