The inspector said we needed to brace the deck or have it looked at and every decking company could “fit me in” if we wanted to build a whole new deck but just to brace it or do a minor repair nobody would give me the time of day. So I decided to bother one of my most beautiful friends, Ilise (seriously - this woman looks good pregnant, not pregnant and everywhere in between - always beautiful) who married into the Walker family of men and boys and they bought a decking company in Papillion called Decks, Decks & More Decks. They came to my rescue! Her hubby, Robert, came out the very day after I called to measure and then his brothers, Chris & Jeff came a few days later to brace the deck. It made such a difference and they were so fast! It was so great to see them. Now I know two things about the Walker family: 1) they marry beautiful women (Ilise & Albanie) and 2) they do great deck work. Thanks, guys! Love from the Rolfsons always. If anybody needs deck work in the Omaha area - you can’t do better than these guys. And come and visit us in Texas!!! It’s not Costa Rica, but…we’ll do our best.

I know, I know, it’s already all over Facebook but I had to share my thoughts about Cole’s tae testing this past Friday evening. He has worked so hard to finish this up before we move to Houston. The pic above is NOT Cole - it’s an adult in the class that also tested for his and got it. Cole made the same break before this man did - Cole got his on the first try - and it took this guy 3 times but he did it!!! It was just such a great shot, I had to share. If you click on it, you can see all of Cole’s and Gabe’s testing pictures at my Flickr account.

Here’s another pic - love these boys. They have worked so hard! I hope we can find a place they love as much in Houston. We will miss the many friends we’ve made at Gretna Tae Kwon Do - lifelong memories for sure. I called a few places in Houston and it sounds like his black belt will be honored everywhere but no matter where we go he’ll need to relearn all the colored belts to be a junior instructor to help lead the classes. We’re lucky to have such a willing kid. That’s almost like starting over but I understand why. The kids look to Cole already to help them with their lower belt ranks and he would need to help them with those wherever we go - even if they’re different from the ones he’s already learned. I am so excited for both Cole and Gabe and the skills they’ve learned. I told Cole they’ll pay off for the rest of his life if he doesn’t get lazy in his old age!!!

The realtor’s sign has never, ever looked as good as with it’s “SOLD” sleeve on it. Cole admitted he went out and hugged it after he watched the realtor put it on. HOORAY! Fingers still crossed for a smooth closing…

We have a signed contract and signed counter offer. Now, pray that all goes smoothly (don’t you think we deserve some of that smoothness?) through closing. It has been a rough year. We have learned much about our limitations, of which there are many. Showing a large house with 4 boys for 10 months has been no easy task, and the last month without hubby has been lonely. Those who love me best outright lie and say that I’ve handled it very well. I highly doubt that, but my only real benchmarks are: nobody’s dead, the house did get clean enough to sell and we all made it to church on time most of the time. Even if one week Ben was in his camoflauge rain boots (it was National Rain Boots Week, didn’t you hear?). I am now in MESS mode - living proof that we do have lives and we don’t have to clean all the time!!! I will NEVER apologize for a messy house again - I will be proud to LIVE there with my complicated, busy life. Socks and shoes strung out all over the mudroom means that my kids are here, alive, healthy and playing and remembered to take their shoes off - good kids that they are. Books and magazines strewn about means we have a little time to sit. And think. And ponder. And perhaps even learn something. It’s only day one but I have high hopes for days 2, 3 and beyond…here comes SUMMER!!! I say, bring it on!!!

p.s. The clematis pic is from our backyard deck - we will miss some of the plants we have babied for six years. Don found a replacement “vine” in Texas but it was a little too Little-Shop-Of-Horrors looking for me!

Thank you, friends & clients, for the birthday cards in the mail!

Thank you, dear Facebook friends, for taking the time to email me short notes of love and encouragement.

Thank you, dear sister, for bringing over flowers and checking up on me (even if Mom did ask you to do it!). It helps.

Thank you, dear sister, for taking care of Mom & Dad this week and helping me feel better with an overly generous gift card (which will be completely used by me, I promise, I’m not even sharing!).

Thank you, crazy friend, for being so utterly creative and helping me have fun and vent my frustrations at the same time. I am so glad you didn’t get a ticket by that policeman.

Thank you, kids, for always being willing to help and snuggle only sighing mildly when you’re asked to pick up your things for the zillionth time.

Thank you, Don, for bringing home chocolate upon request and letting me sleep in.

Thank you, neighbor and friend, for your listening ear, cooking magazines, and rescuing my child from wandering the neighborhood.

I have been blessed!

Embedding is not allowed so here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
Thanks for the link, Robyn via Facebook. Very inspiring 7 minutes. I hadn’t heard of this before! Fantastic stuff. I’d like to replay this one over and over again…

I have been obsessed with reading French blogs lately. They are so interesting! What is it that makes French women so interesting and beautiful? Here are some of my favorite places to lurk:

1. Claire et Coutures
2. Lili lui
3. Mars Avril Mai
4. Nabe fabric
5. Douceur Temeraires

6. Autour d’Une Tasse de The
7. Trois-Trente
8. 22 Rue
9. Mademoiselle Milou
10. Les Manies de Melanie

That last one makes me want to have my own little French baby named Fleur just so I can knit her a sweater like that!!! Sooooo precious. Hope you enjoy the links as much as I have. I also have to thank Zoelioth - my first French blog place that I lurked.

This past Sunday was about as perfect as any day could get. Gabe was sweet and brave and got baptized on his 8th birthday. His teacher, Miss Gibb, came and many friends and family. We are so lucky to have him in our family! Gabe is funny, smart, generous and kind (not to mention cute). We had a lovely time at the church during the baptism and yummy treats and cream filled cake afterwards. Thanks to all who came for making it such a special day. It was good to see cousins that we don’t see enough as well as old friends from Papillion. We love you all.

Forewarning: soapbox ahead. So I bought that older but very nice serger last week from Craigslist. It had been sitting in someone’s home unused and is practically new. I was so excited about it that at church Sunday I wanted to get some ideas from a seamstress acquaintance. I humorously mentioned it took me a whole day to learn to thread the machine and she said, “Well, I have a such-and-such with an air threader so I don’t have to worry about that.” I was immediately disheartened. Instead of helping me with ideas of what to CREATE with my new serger, the biggest, best and newest seemed to be more important. I am so anti-big, anti-best and anti-new lately that it saddened me. Why do we always need to upgrade? Why can’t we appreciate (heaven forbid WORK and LEARN) how to use older things do they don’t end up in landfills? Really threading my old machine isn’t so bad. You just have to - gasp - look at the manual and use it enough to remember how to do it. I realize there are times when we really do need to upgrade (our friends, perhaps? okay, just kidding) but we need to start thinking more about the consequences of our choices - even in sewing machines. Just because you CAN, doesn’t me you SHOULD. That has been my mantra of late and it applies to so much more than sewing machines. I like to think that if I had millions of dollars I still would not indulge in $1,000 per night hotel rooms. There are so many better things to be done with money. Children are starving. People are living in poverty. I just can’t personally justify that kind of excess. I love this Repair Manifesto found on Replayground but originally from Core 77 via Platform 21. It’s all in the little things because those little things add up - if we all were more aware and tried just a tiny bit harder - we really could have a big impact. One of my favorite scriptures is in the Book of Mormon, Alma 37:6 “…by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” Go small. Go simple. A big hurrah for restraint (if only I had a little restraint on my blog…ah, I’m not perfect, either). Off. Soapbox. For now.

P.S. This little episode regarding sewing machines comes after a couple of times when I heard women at my own church who should know better bragging about the biggest, newest, and best type of stand mixer a person could buy. Viking, Kitchen Aid, Magic Mill….please. Do whatever works for your family - bread is just about as good made by hand.

First I suppose a little back story is in order. Gabe and Jack have been participating in a reading competition at school. When they read for 15 minutes a night for a certain number of nights they received a certain shell or starfish or sand dollar as a prize. Well, with them both enjoying reading, they got all of the prizes available. At the end of the competition (Friday February 27th) they held a prize drawing that included all of the kids’ names. Jack’s name was drawn and called out over the intercom to come get a prize and he was awarded a ukulele. He was very happy to get it so we ‘tuned’ it last night and the kids have all been playing it and singing along.

Fast forward a few hours and the kids (except for Cole) are in bed so that Lizabeth, Cole, and Don can have an online scrabble tournament on Facebook. After three games we notice that it is almost midnight and we still have not prepared for the house showing at 10:30 the next morning. We hastily created a list of things that we needed to accomplish before the showing so that nothing gets missed, set the alarm for 5 a.m. so we can get it all done and head to bed, noticing that now it is after 1 a.m. Somehow we are ‘blessed’ with a wakeup call (wrong number) at 4:30 a.m. We decided that we should get up and moving anyway and began the day by making beds and doing dishes and shoveling the 6 inches of new snow.

Later when we are well into the cleaning routine and the kids are up the hilarity begins. Jack and Ben are standing in the hallway when I hear the following discussion:

Ben: "Is that your bitar?"
Jack: "It’s not a guitar, it’s a ukulele."
Ben: "It’s not a huku-lady, it’s a bitar!"
Jack: "No, it’s a ukulele not a guitar!"
Ben: "It’s not a huku-lady, it’s a bitar!!!"

This continued back and forth for probably ten or twelve times before I totally lost it and began laughing out loud. Then on and off throughout the day the same discussion has ensued. Ben still thinks it is a ‘bitar’ and NOT a ‘huku-lady’ no matter who tells him differently.

After the showing when we were all back home and resting, the kids were watching a Scooby-Doo video Ben was playing with the huku-lady when a scene right out of a Quick-draw McGraw cartoon occurred. (For those of you who are too young, look here: QuickDraw McGraw cartoon at YouTube) Ben climbed up onto the chair where I was dozing and kabonged me right on the forehead. I awoke, grabbed the kabonger and very loudly explained that we do NOT hit people. He cried for a bit until I hugged him and we were all better. Then Cole looked at me and said, “Dad you’re bleeding!” Sure enough, I had a split in my head right above my eyebrow. We debated for a bit whether or not it needed stitches, and finally decided that since no one lost a finger or had a chopstick in their ear, we could skip the emergency room and applied a little tape and I went back to dozing. I really didn’t want to either visit the ER nor pay the $100 deductable for said visit.

Added Monday morning by Lizabeth: I think it’s funny that Don categorized this under “Things to be Thankful For” on my blog. Nice perspective! Or, perhaps…you’re not thinking clearly from being bonged on the head?!?

I originally posted about the top photo from Cookie here. First spotted on the Cookie website, there was “Keep calm and carry on.” Now there’s “Make do & mend.” Common sense with a visual reminder. Great for the times we are living in. Make do & mend originated with Bold & Noble but spotted on Decor8.

We had to get away. From the constant weekend cleaning for open houses and showings. So, we thought we’d be proactive and go stay with my parents for the weekend and just hang out. We had a lot of fun! Don, Cole, Gabe and I tried rollerblading for the first time. We ate glorious food cooked by somebody else. I love having my Mom around - I will miss her so much when we move - she is fun to talk to. My Dad watches Western movies all the time. One of the best things I like about my parents is that I know they both are always there for me. They’re the kind of parents who would respond if I murdered somebody like this, “Well, she must have just had a bad day!” Okay, so they wouldn’t justify murder but they would find SOME way to be my advocate. They are about as Christ-like as parents get and I’m so glad they’re mine.

I had just finished a new Everlast: Strike class at the gym and needed to get milk at the grocery store. I love Baker’s because of the Manager’s Special milk. Anyway, there are two boys who work there with Downs Syndrome who bag groceries and help you to your car. I frequent the store enough that I’ve been helped by them at least a few times. I’m ashamed to say I still do not know their names. Well, today I was standing there, holding a very heavy Ben, with my hair still half wet from showering at the gym - no coat - just a sweatshirt and the weather was plummeting into the single digits with extreme wind and snow pellets. I was freezing cold but it didn’t bother me at all because of what I was saw: one of those divine moments when you witness the Lord’s hand in everyday details. I happened to have Daisy, our chocolate lab, with me in the car today because while I was at the gym, somebody was going through our house that is for sale. I asked the bag boy if he was afraid of dogs and he said that he wasn’t. Well, when the car door opened and he started loading groceries, she kissed him and when he was done he stood in the car door and hugged and kissed that dog and told her that he loved her for the longest time. It was really touching. There was no pretense, no social mores or taboo, he just kissed that dog right on the snout. I was freezing, holding Ben, and my heart was so warm that the cold didn’t bother me a bit. I can see why dogs are so therapeutic to us all - it just took a very special bag boy to help me remember that.

Fewer moving parts. Top loading high efficiency. GREAT price. This machine usually sells for around $900 but Don and I put in a marathon clearance shopping trip to Lowes and Nebraska Furniture Mart last night. It was next to a brand new Whirlpool Duet high efficiency front loader in a discontinued color of shimmery brown (normally about $1,000 but for sale at $550). The Fisher & Paykel was marked down because it had been returned. The Whirlpool was new but the color was discontinued. After talking to the service people there, we had actually decided to NOT get a high efficiency machine until after we moved because they can be difficult to move and expensive to fix. We were looking for something really cheap to get us through then after we moved, I could use the machine to felt and we would replace it with a new high efficiency set in Houston. Well, the price of this thing convinced us. Fisher & Paykel warranty it for TWO years (Whirlpool only offers one year) and then we splurged for the 4 year Lowe’s plan that starts AFTER the 2 years are up - so our washer is covered for 6 years. We had a 10% coupon, too, so this is how the deal went down: $324 washer plus $59 delivery fee (we wanted them to take away our old one) plus $26.81 tax = $409.81 for TOTAL washer, delivery, takeaway. Add the other $99 for the policy and we spent just a bit over $500 for our new high efficiency washer. I’m so excited to have a top loader because a) I don’t have to bend and b) I don’t have to buy a podium/stand and c) they are much sturdier and more reliable than the front loaders and d) better for felting. What convinced us is that we saw the same exact machine at NFM for $900 that very night. It was a difficult choice. The shimmery brown Whirlpool was pretty but it wouldn’t match my already white, working-perfectly dryer. So that sealed the deal. I can’t wait to try out all of its features. You can check out the machine and capabilities here and here - then you will KNOW we got a smokin’ deal.

What?! I officially have a teenager?!? News to me. Other than being the world’s biggest eavesdropper, Cole is nothing like your typical teenager (give it time, right?). He is still a great kid and I’m proud of him and glad he’s in our family. He is like a superhero - kind, helpful, courageous, righteous, strong, smart, imaginative, friendly - and he has only one weakness that I know of: spelling. It’s his achilles heel. Not a bad trade for a superhero.

Memories of Cole from when he was a baby: he cried constantly because he had reflux. We had to do step aerobics to bounce him to keep him happy. He has always loved animals - especially dogs (and they seem to love him, too). He is also a very good big brother - he has helped take care of each of his three brothers. His first word was “Jesus” (seriously, even before mama or dada). He has always made friends easily and has a great sense of humor. The daycare he went to as a baby called him Mr. Personality. He enjoys piano, just quit trombone (with our blessing; we’re just not band people), is a brown belt in taekwondo (sooo close to black!), scouting, camping, swimming, etc. I asked him if he wanted to live in the country or suburb when we moved to Houston and he said without hesitate, “country”. He’s just an easygoing kid. We are grateful for him! We’re proud of you Cole.

Yesterday, at church, he got to be the Bishop’s helper and he held the microphone for a confirmation and had to sit up on the stand all during sacrament. His brother, Jack, looked up and said, “What’s Cole got?” (we were thinking microphone) and then he answered his own question by saying, “Cole’s got the priesthood?!”