m-i-l

(david wanted me to clarify--they are about to hug in this photo...)

july 2001: david called me from a payphone the day he entered the mtc. we had randomly become pen pals before we served missions for the church, and he was calling to say hello for the first time, and goodbye before we separately entered our missions (he went to illinois, and i went to brazil). when he called, he was in utah, and i was in maryland. it was 5am his time, 7am mine. when i asked him what in the world he was doing, he said his mom woke up with him and agreed to take him to a payphone so he could call a girl he had never met in person.

june 2004: david and i were sealed in the washington d.c. temple. when david and i told his parents we were getting married, they asked, "which temple?"

david was baptized into the LDS church when he was 17. i have never known my in-laws to "subscribe" to a particular faith/religious institution, and here was their only son--their only child--joining a faith that is more than church on sundays. it is a way of life, a change of life, a different culture than mainstream america. i wasn't there when he asked his parents permission to be baptized; i wasn't there when he started going to early morning seminary; i wasn't there when he wanted to go to church on sundays instead of the family camping trip on the weekend. i imagine it was hard to watch their only child become a person other than who they thought he was.

two years later he left the house to serve a mission for this new faith. they may not have understood his reasons for wanting/needing to go, they may not have recognized the young man who was leaving, or the young man who would return two years later, but they supported him because they loved him as their son. i imagine it was hard to take their only child to the airport not fully understanding what a mission entailed, where he would be, who and why he would teach, how testifying was so crucial to his own spiritual development.

one year after returning from his mission, david and i were married. when david and i told his parents we were getting married, they asked, "which temple?" knowing full-well they would not be permitted to enter the temple and witness their only son be sealed for time and all eternity across an altar. knowing they would wait outside on the temple grounds. knowing they would travel hundreds or thousands of miles to watch us walk out of the temple as a married couple. i imagine it was hard to simply ask, "which temple?"

david has enriched my life, softened my edges, buoyed my heart, completed me. i imagine it was hard to let your son go so freely--but i thank you for him.

this woman needs no title...she *is* the title

as my mom doesn't like blogs, i am not going to name any names. and i tried to find photos that were slightly older, so she maybe wouldn't be as recognizable when compared with her current self, but that's near impossible. my mom has hardly aged--she's found the fountain of youth and is as gorgeous now as then. the only thing that's different is the hair. and maybe the clothes.

(this one is my favorite)

i can't express what my mom has taught me. or tried to teach me. or continues to teach me. here is a woman who worked hard to get the education she has, works hard as a very intelligent career woman, works hard to save every penny she makes. and what does she do with it? for herself: shops at thrift stores, buys groceries only when they are on sale, eats every meal at home. i don't want to give you the wrong impression--she isn't a "ragbag" lady. she loves to cook (and therefore has yummy, healthy ingredients in her cupboards), makes top-notch pies, dresses very stylishly (i used to leave little notes on her bed asking her if i could borrow a particular shirt to wear to school the next day), the list goes on. my mom is courageous, kind, always looks out for the other person, is constantly seeking to improve herself, and delights in the Lord. she is also the last person who would want public recognition, but i want to publicly thank you, mom, for being more than the "requisite" mom.

here's what she lives for: her children. she fills our pantries/cupboards hundreds of dollars over, takes us on shopping sprees, sends us fun "care packages," helps us buy our first homes (she still rents), helps us with our school loans, takes us on awesome vacations. she says she wants to make up for what she couldn't do for us when we were growing up, but i don't think she realizes there's no way to replace what she *did* do for us growing up.

because of my mom,

i know who i am

i know where i came from

i know where i am going

i know i'm a good mom.

before we get too dramatic, my mom has also made me laugh. a lot. my favorite # 1 all-time laugh: i think this happened after watching the never-ending story and seeing gmork lurking in the shadows of that cave--hello, scary!!

i couldn't fall asleep one night because gmork was under my bed (as well as gremlins and jaws). my mom spent probably an hour with each of us individually tucking us in at night. she would sing us lullabys, rub our backs, talk with us about the day. this continued well into my teens, and i can neither confirm nor deny how old my brothers were when my mom stopped tucking them in at night. looking back, i now realize the hours of tucking in probably postponed the hours of homework/studying she had to do each night. back to the story--so i couldn't sleep, and even started to cry because i had worked myself up to really see gmork under my bed. my mom came in, and reminded me that we had watched america's funniest home videos that night. we had all laughed at a video of a very (cough, cough) healthy baton-twirling girl. my mom said, "honey, a hungry wolf is not going to want to eat your skinny little bones, he's going to eat that baton-twirler!" i burst out laughing, and my tears turned to laughing tears. on a side-note, i am sure that baton-twirler grew up to be miss america or something.

thanks for scaring away all the wolves, mom.

**addendum: i have since received permission to post a recent photo:

woman of pure gold

everyone loves their grandma. here is mine, claire edel zeleny:

my grandma is beautiful, classy, has great taste, and is full of the perfect manners that only grandmas have. most of all, though, my grandma radiates the pure love of Christ. she is constant in patience, love, and her faith.

she taught me how to conduct music, 3:4 and 4:4 as they were the easiest for my 8 year-old hands. if i got lost?--no problem! "just go down at the bar." i have never forgotten that advice, and cannot tell you how many times i have gotten lost or missed a beat or got off rhythm...and it was no problem! i could just start fresh at the bar of the new measure. i led music in relief society today, and smiled to myself as i got ahead of the beat; i thought of my grandma and started fresh at the new measure. it really works!

at her 80th birthday party we listened to her life lessons at the end of the meal. the very first thing she started with? bearing her testimony. every lesson she shared she tied to a scripture. in that moment, sitting with the group of family and friends of various faiths and religious backgrounds, my grandma became more to me

than the grandma who played memory with me,

who took the cousins out to the smorgasbord restaurant,

who kept a dress-ups box for us,

who had the best mr. men book collection,

who split her beautiful costume jewelry with one of my cousins and me,

who shared her cracked glass colored vases with us,

who willingly sent us home each summer with bags and bags of frozen blackberries, raspberries, and peaches--

my grandma became a woman of strength, integrity, loving kindness, and fearlessness as she declared her allegiance to and love for her Savior.

man of iron

(photos by steve ruark, from the following article)

Explore Baltimore County: Man of Iron: Metalworking tradition lives on at blacksmith's forge in Perry Hall

i remember driving there every summer, passed the farmer's fruit and vegetable stands and through the corn fields, "deep" into the countryside for this suburban girl; i remember the 3 or 4 different kinds of lunch meat, the smell of rye bread, mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, and pickles for lunch sandwiches; i remember "exploring" the basement, eating dried peaches and playing hide-and-seek in between the rows of shelves full of treasures to our 5 year-old eyes; the summer breeze perfumed with bursting blackberries and raspberries; the tree swing next to the shop, glazed with freedom; i remember the smell of his clothes, laced with iron shavings; the smell of his shop--fire, smelting, iron, wood; his no-nonsense stride as he made his way to the forge, unchanged in 30 years.

this is my grandpa. raymond alois zeleny.

teddy bear from paw-paw

fall

winter

how to celebrate easter in remembrance

my sister-in-law had this link on her blog, and i couldn't pass up the opportunity to share it.

part of the reason we love the name pace is because it means "passover" in hebrew. we discovered we were pregnant while teaching the old testament in gospel doctrine at our church. we had become emotionally linked to this particular "holiday" after teaching the passover lesson and its beautiful imagery and symbolism. the first passover occurred when moses was trying to convince pharaoh to allow the israelites a 3-days' journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices to their God (exodus 3:18)--this eventually escalated to a request to free the israelites completely. having been in captivity for hundreds of years within the egyptian culture, it was moses' job to remind the israelites of their sacred heritage through the covenant of the fathers (otherwise known as the abrahamic covenant); performing the sacred ordinances and sacrifices were part of that covenant. pharaoh refused, and the "10 plagues" began.

the final, and worst, plague was the death of every firstborn in all the land (exodus 11:3-6). to protect the israelites (whom the Lord interestingly called His firstborn), the Lord instructed them to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and to take the blood and mark the doorway of their houses. the blood would be a token to the destroying angel to pass over that particular house, and the firstborn within would live (exodus 12:12-14). the whole purpose of the old testament is to look forward to Christ. the sacrificial blood on the doorways wasn't merely a token to escape mortal death, it was a token of the liberty, redemption, and sanctification we would receive through Christ's sacrificial and atoning blood. here was a promise to escape separation from God.

Christ could have dismissed the destroying angel, He could have chosen a "passing over". He instead chose to cover our doorways with His life.

it is not His sacrificial death we celebrate, but His atoning life--3 days after hanging on the cross, Christ rose from the cold, stone tomb, and walked. His resurrection draws all men to Him (3 Nephi 27:14), brings about the conditions of repentance (Helaman 14:18), allows mercy to claim the penitent (Alma 42:23), loosens the bands of death and sin that bind us down to destruction (Alma 7:11-15), ransoms mankind from the effects of the fall (2 Nephi 9), makes intercession for all the children of men (2 Nephi 2:6-9).

how to celebrate easter dapper-style

owls in season

we were going to do pace's room in noah's ark style, but then we couldn't find any crib sets we liked. david found a super cute owl bedding set from dwell studios at a great price, so we are now doing owls. i am finally getting to some artwork for the walls. going along with the owl theme, i'm painting winter/spring/summer/fall with a little owl hanging out in his tree. summer is done, and winter is almost finished.

little bear, little shrimp

pace had his 6 month appointment yesterday and the poor kid went from shrimp to shrimpier. he weighed in at a whopping 15lbs 10oz, which places him in the 15th percentile. he's finally made it to the 50th in one area: he's 26.5 inches long. the dr. isn't worried at all because he is bright, healthy, strong, developing just fine physically/mentally/etc., and he is putting on weight, just slowly.

in his defense, he does have a little buddha belly, cute little snuggle cheeks, and chubs on his little legs--they are all very well proportioned, is all--no outlandish muffin top, thunder thighs, or double chin for this kid. we were calling pace our little bear, but now we're thinking of calling him little shrimp...

and his personality is hilarious. he is so curious, social and timid at the same time, vocal, snuggly--all good baby things rolled into one.

we have started purees! pace loved the novelty of the spoon. the first few feedings were fun for about 4 or 5 spoonfuls of rice cereal, and then the novelty wore off and he wanted to eat the way he was used to eating.

pace was much more excited to wear the cereal then to eat it...

so then we tried butternut squash--instant hit. that's a happy face, trust me.

on sunday, i spent an hour and a half steaming, roasting, and pureeing zucchini, peas, sweet potato, butternut squash, apple, and pear. i had all the ingredients on hand, used one pot, one baking pan, one mini food processor, and about 5-6 oz of breastmilk. fast, nutritious, inexpensive, homemade, not full of preservatives, dyes, processed junk...remind me--why are the grocery stores stocked with purees for babies?...

this is where pace burns off the calories he consumes. try asking this kid to be still...not a chance. i'm in trouble when we starts crawling, toddling, walking, running...it's never going to stop!

phew--some down time--i love chillin with my little man. and finally some sun! i think i can count on one hand the number of warm, sunny days we've had this spring. the rest have been cloudy, cold, rainy, and or snowy. if we see sun outside, pace and i are on the front porch watching the cars go by.

warm enough for a picnic lunch with dada. pace loves being outside, touching the grass, leaves, flowers, etc.

when pace first discovered his voice, he gave tarzan calls all day long. tarzan quickly developed into full-out screeches/squeals. he sounds like a mix between a hungry pig and a barn owl. there are times he lets out blood-curdling screams that i am sure would make the neighbors call dcfs if the windows were open. here he is in his new toy letting out a squeal of delight at the top of his lungs.

pace loves: being outside, his dad, his mom, waking up in the morning, his ladybug toy, his hippo stuffed animal, jumping, singing "i'm a little teapot" with the motions, watching his "baby can read" videos (in particular, loves to see this one boy in the video named graham), playing peek-a-boo, swings at the park, kicking in the pool, reading night-night books with dada

pace dislikes: loud, sudden noises (hair dryer, kitchen appliances, etc), strangers, getting ready for bed (although he goes down really well!), dr. visits/shots, waking up from naps

25-31

i know you're all dying to hear how we finished out the meatless month of march, so here it is:

25: i remember that day was a cold, blustery, snowy day, so i thought soup would be great for david when he'd walk in from work. so i made vegetable soup and was about to throw some biscuits in the oven when david walked in carrying fancy bread and cheese, so we made gourmet grilled cheeses to accompany the soup. david also brought the sunshine with him!--the minute he walked in, the snow stopped, and the clouds parted just enough the let the sunshine in.

26-27, the usual leftovers...

28: you can never have too much chips + salsa. or enchiladas. or poblanos enrolados. or tamales. that night was cheese and chili tamales with salsa and cottage cheese, a steamed veg/bean packet, and citrus on the side. mexican food would definitely be my last meal request.

29: i know this looks like we cheated, but it isn't a real burger. a boca burger is basically a bunch of soy product pressed together, colored and flavored to look like a burger. that process makes it sound worse than it actually was--they weren't that bad.

30: potato parmesan gnocchi with a steamed veg pack, salad, and garlic bread. hello, dinner!

31: for our last meal i decided to re-make huevos rancheros. this time we had the right ingredients on top!

what did we have for dinner the next night? i think i made meatball subs, a pizza with chicken sausage, and then (forget leftovers!) my favorite sunday meal: roast chicken with roast potatoes/carrots, grilled asparagus, steamed broccoli/cauliflower with cheese sauce, and gravy...mmmmm.