Jared and I have not exchanged Christmas gifts with each other for the last several years because unfortunately money does not grow on the trees in the backyard. I have sometimes felt a little sad about this, but all such silly sadness was swept away recently when the best gift ever was given to us. Actually the gift comes with its own bitter sweetness, but I will explain.
This big, beautiful piece of stainless steel is a wondrous espresso machine. I will confidently say that Jared and I fully appreciate what is actually sitting on our counter as we have been (somewhat secretly) coffee junkies ever since living abroad for a year. We fix it every morning, grind the beans (in a magic bullet (have you seen those on TV?) which I would not recommend but then again money does not grow on trees and so you have to use what you got), obsess over getting the first cup, and so on. I think we swore that we would never be THOSE people, but alas we are. Maybe a gradual lack of sleep over the last 3 years with the arrival of little ones has gotten us to this point. Anyways, we were given this espresso machine by our dearest friends who recently moved away and had once owned a local coffee shop here in town. We are so tremendously sad to see them go, but in their parting I am thrilled by their gift to us. It is like Christmas morning every morning (almost) to have wonderful lattes, espresso, and so on all without much effort or clean-up. So in some ways this gift really seems to be making up for all the years without gifts for one another. It is so fun for Jared and I that we have been making coffee at night, laughing out loud at how good it tastes, how we feel like we just ran to Starbucks (which the closest one is an hour away), and feeding our slight addiction more and more each day. In fact, I am thinking of opening a coffee stand on the grassy median outside our house. "Main Street Coffee" sounds like a good name. I can just see Alder and Kingston now, taking orders from car windows, then calling the order into me via a walkie-talkie, making money, becoming a real barista. Wait, this image cannot work. Alder loves to sit down in the middle of the street and collect rocks and Kingston will wander from here to Mississippi without looking back. Yeah, not such a good idea. Maybe in a few years.....
Moving on. I have found myself impressively full of energy for my children lately. I do not have the kind of energy this late in my pregnancy to pick up the dog food that Alder spilled this morning whilst feeding Ally and so it still, at 10:00 at night, lays around me on the floor, under the desk, and trailing on into the playroom. I just cannot bear the thought of bending over and the energy it will take to clean up one more mess today. So I will wait until Jared gets home from his business dinner and nicely ask him to sweep it up for me. But I do still seem to have a lot of patient energy for my children. We are doing crafts, having a lot of learning time, reading, building amazing train tracks around their room, mastering floor puzzles, and even making gingerbread men and decorating them. I am sure this energy will die off in the next several weeks as my body gets pushed to the limit and this baby's arrival nears. For now though I am enjoying this time with my two boys who are so fun and bring me such joy. We had such a great time last week making these cookies together after nap time, cutting them out, decorating them, and eating them (which is their favorite part). Alder and Kingston both loved the activity and it really held their attention. It also helped pass the time during these dreary winter days that darken so early and make entertaining the children a little more difficult.
