The Malmborgs

Potty Training & Camping

2010-11-30T04:38:00.000-08:00

Mischief

2010-01-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

This is why I have a warranty on my phone. I have replaced it at least 5 times since 2006 (When Rebecca was born). Here we go again....

One Year

2009-12-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe it has been a year!
We love you more than we could have known sweet Eleanor!

What Should I be for Halloween?

2009-11-09T04:59:00.000-08:00

The witch won. Eleanor would have nothing to do with face painting this year and barely let me put her in costume. Next year...

A Little Advice

2009-05-04T19:47:00.000-07:00

While sneaking up to take this picture, I heard Becca say to Emma "and then we just sit like this."

ski day

2009-03-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

new toy

2009-03-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

We recently purchased a macbook. I love it. I could spend all my time with it. I only understand a teeny tiny bit of what it can do and I already love it. I can't wait for this new relationship to develop. The picture has nothing to do with the post, I just think she is so sweet - even when she is so sad.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

Sisters

2009-02-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Nana

2009-01-31T19:20:00.000-08:00

There is nothing I can say about you that is not easier to say to you, so a letter is the best format. I made cinnamon rolls yesterday. I have not made them in a long time. Becca and her little friend Ava helped me and we talked about you off and on the whole time. I told Becca funny stories and we talked about your house. I thought about you all day. Maybe you flooded me with memories to say goodbye? That night I was told that you are "dying." How strange it feels. It could be hours or days. I wish I could just sit by you and hold your hand. I am not sure what I would say - nothing I have not said to you before.I love you so much. I could say those words over and over and never feel I told you enough. I am so blessed to have known you. When I think of how many people share similar sentiments although they may express them in different words and feel them for very different reasons- I think of what a great loss this is to us all here on earth. And though I know you are at peace, ready to be with Pomp and reunited with all those you love, I am selfishly overwhelmed with sorrow. I am just going to miss you so much.
I am so glad my girls were able to meet you and eternally grateful that Becca was able to know you. She asked Alex this morning why I was sad and he told her it was because Grandnana was sick. She looked at me with her sweet little face and said " I know mom! we could make her soup or pasta. Then she will feel better."
I wish I could find the words to let you know exactly what you have meant to me, but everytime I try I am inarticulate at best. This last time I saw you I struggled to find words that I could utter without tears. I had just been missing you and I knew that this would likely be the last time we could chat, but I just sat there and talked about the mundane things in life. At least you were able to hold my babies.
I am counting on you to remember our better conversations. I will always think of sitting around your kitchen table, watching the hummingbirds, or Pomp mow the lawn, or the snowfall, the rain fall or the wind blow and just talking about everything and nothing. I will remember the smell of your roses, your kitchen, and you. I love, thank you, and like many others will miss you terribly.

Update

2009-01-02T20:52:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I have posted. I am not sure where to start...

Eleanor was born. We were (are) sooo happy to finally meet her. She is wonderful.

Gramma came to visit and help out with the adjustment. It was so great to have her here - we wish we had her all the time!

Becca is thrilled. Eleanor seems a little unsure, but we are growing on her :)

Christmas was really fun this year. If you could read the tag on the present Becca is opening, you would read "To: Elle From: Old Man and Grandma T." Elle did not protest. Next year maybe.

Christmas was perfect. We had planned to cross country ski but it was too windy and cold. Instead we layed around the house, played with new presents and then I whipped up a fantastic Christmas dinner.

Obviously we know who really cooked the dinner, but I did make a few small contributions.
menu:
herb roasted cornish game hen with wild mushroom and caramelized onion orzo, garlic braised collard greens, and roasted chicken marsala jus. Served with homemade brioche (my contribution)
dessert: a delicious roasted pecan bread pudding with banana sauce (another one of my touches)
we also drank a tasty wine.

Alex and Becca are spending a lot of time in the snow. Dad is amping her up for skiing this spring. She is very excited.

New Years Eve was a rager. Rachel (my little sister) Rebecca, Elle and I made dinner and cupcakes (to celebrate my birthday). After they went to bed Rachel and I had a fun filled night of video games to ring in the New Year. We did pause the game at midnight.

All in all - life is wonderful. Just when you think things can't get any better - they do.

Welcome Eleanor Reece Malmborg 11.23.08

2008-11-29T14:49:00.000-08:00

Photos of Becca

2008-10-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Isn't she incredible ?! It helps that the photographer is amazing.

First Snow

2008-10-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

It snowed on Sunday! Nothing terribly exciting or long term, the forecast says it will be 71 degrees on Friday. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted...the real snow will be here soon enough or not soon enough if you ask Alex.

2008-10-06T06:12:00.001-07:00

With October being breast cancer awareness month, I thought this t-shirt was darling.....
http://www.save2ndbase.com/index.htm

What Women Want?

2008-09-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

So, I felt compelled to post this. All the discussion surrounding Sarah Palin has been really off putting to me. The idea that I and other women would support Palin merely because we have the same internal plumbing is insulting, as if there are not more important things at stake during this election. I cannot make judgements on her personal life or presume to know how she plans to manage her large family, including a young child with special needs and a pregnant teenage daughter along with the vice presidency. All I can say is that I am a mom, who works full time with children with special needs and Sarah Palin DOES NOT resonate with me. Gloria Steinam has articulated these ideas far better than I could. So if you care to read on, please do....

LA Times
OPINION
September 4, 2008

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton

By Gloria Steinem

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest. Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.
---
Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Second Chances

2008-09-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have never really bonded with Caillou. I know children across the world have, but I struggle with his voice, his tantrums, and other minor details. However, the more time I spend with Caillou, the more I believe he deserves a second chance. Here are my plugs for his show...mom and dad are active, creative, and playful - plus they are super nice to each other. No one in his home or community ever really gets too upset and behavior is managed primarily by positive reinforcement (although at times a firm voice is necessary). He knows kids of different races and different abilities, and he is really nice to each of them. These are highly redeemable qualities in a show for Becca, especially since she loves it. So I am giving him a second chance.

2008-09-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

There's too many kids in this tub,
There's too many elbows to scrub,
I washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine,
There's too many kids in this tub.
- Shel Silverstein

Martha's Vineyard

2008-08-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

We went on a much needed vacation recently and it was fantastic. The whole vacation was a hit. Becca was absolutely thrilled with the pool at the beach (the ocean) and requested that we go there every morning as soon as she woke up. Incidentally she has also requested it more than a few times since we got back, along with the request for sand at the house. She was recently playing in a pathetic little pile of sand in our driveway and she very soberly said "mom, we need to get more sand at the house."
Last, and most important it was so good to spend some quality time with our family. Anyway - relaxing on the beach, spending time with family, and having no agenda lends itself well to a successful and truly refreshing vacation. Granpa, Granma, Uncle Wes, Aunt Katy, and Jadin - we love you guys and miss you much!

Pomp

2008-08-20T20:18:00.001-07:00

My grandfather passed away on July 31, 2008. What a long strange trip it has been. Up until now, I realize I have had very little real experience with death and I definitely underestimated it. Losing my grandfather was a greater loss than I ever could have anticipated. I felt I was ready, at peace with the idea, calm even. I was not as "ready" as I thought. Pomp had been in the process of dying for some time - 91 years to be exact. The last few of those years were rough and the last few months almost unbearable. I know it is often said that eulogies and such canonize people to a level of greatness that maybe they never truly achieved. I would argue that when we lose someone it is not that we make them out to be more than they were, we just recognize that the good they did while here is so much more relevant than the bad. The good is what makes it such a loss when they go. My grandfather did everything for us as children and a lot for us as adults. The following is by no means an exhaustive list; He drove us to and from school, work, the airport, picked us up when we were sick, framed every possible award (including the Presidential Fitness Award that every elementary kid gets regardless if they can do 1 situp or 50), looked at each report card with careful eyes, listened to me when I talked, supported nearly every endeavor, taught me how to ski, ride a horse, drive a car, and that family above all else is what matters. He wrote to me once that "It is time spent with your family that is best of all, those are the moments that tell who we really are." There is not a time I can remember that he was not there if I needed him. He was my first phone call whenever I needed help and often my first phone call when I needed advice. In my eyes (naive as they may be) what he preached and who he was were exactly the same, this is not to say that he was perfect. Is there even such a thing? It is to say that he was good, kind, funny, patient, and loved me unconditionally. That is a hard thing to lose - even when it's time. All I can do know is remember him, strive to emulate the traits I so admired, cherish my family, and do him proud. So Pomp, I miss you, love you, and hope it all worked out like you planned! I could not have done it without you. To quote my cousin who put it so well "save us a seat up there!" I do hope to see you soon Pomp, but not too soon.

Seriously.

2008-07-25T10:59:00.001-07:00

Color Commitment

2008-07-16T20:11:00.001-07:00

I am having a ridiculously hard time committing to colors for this blog. I have the same commitment issues with decorating my house (which is why it is not decorated). I know that color is an easy thing to change - but I don't want to have to change it. I want to do something once, and then move on to something else....I have wasted a silly amount of time on this issue. Maybe I should just leave it white???

Swim lessons

2008-07-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

Becca has been taking swimming lessons. It is so fascinating. She loves her lessons and gets all pumped up when we pull up to Krista's house (swim teacher). She practices kicking, blowing bubbles, "big arms," floating on her back, and jumping off the side. She even practices at home in the bathtub. I wonder how she will fare in the ocean this summer? We head to Martha's Vineyard with Gramma, Grampa, Uncle Wes, Aunt Katy, and Jadin in a few weeks and I wonder if she will brave the water.....
Children are just amazing little beings up to try almost anything, trusting that we adults will keep them safe. They climb into a huge tub of water without being properly equipped and jump into that deep water with no doubt that the adult (who they scarcely know) will catch them. The same characteristics that aid them to move confidently in the world are the same ones that makes them so vulnerable.

Indpendance Day?

2008-07-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

Despite my half hearted disappointment in our country for fostering myths and misconceptions surrounding holidays, I love the 4th of July. It is a great time to hang out with family and friends, grill food,
drink beverages, watch fireworks and let the kids go crazy.
Notice that Ava is in the back pushing the Jeep.
Willingly might I add, because the battery died. That is friendship.

I missed my hubby. This is the couples water balloon toss. I sat out. sniff sniff.

Records show that on July 2nd, 1776 the United Colonies were declared free and independent states. Now, Jefferson's declaration of Independence was adopted on the fourth - (although not all the signatures were even collected until August 2nd, 1776). Which just goes to show that a "document" announcing something overshadows the act of declaring it. That is why we like to have a marriage certificate, right? Some people say it is enough just to promise "I do," but isn't it comforting to have documentation? Anyhow - minor details I guess. Just a reason to rant.When I observe the chaos in the world today, I can't help but think of what a blessed life I lead and how frequently I take my freedoms for granted. So, regardless of the day it was announced, declared, documented etc...I am immensely grateful for these freedoms and the incredible life it has allowed us to lead.

Potty Training

2008-06-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

Becca officially stopped wearing diapers yesterday. So far things are going well, a few minor accidents, but nothing we can't handle. Any "must do" potty training tips for me?

Bathtime

2008-06-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

I just received this adorable picture of my sweet nephew Jadin and I had to post it. Look at those eyes! On Jadin not the duck. There is nothing like tub pictures, which is why I had to post one of my baby as well. I am sure our kids will love them just as much when we start pulling them out in 10+ years to show off how cute they have always been - and believe me I will.

2008-06-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

So Becca had her birthday party today. Nothing too fancy, fun friends, some cupcakes, a few bouncy balls, and hours spent in the kiddy pool splashing around. The water was milky with an inch of grass floating on top before it was decided (moms decided) for sanitation purposes they should exit the pool.

Then and Now

2008-06-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Becca turned 2 today. I can't believe it has been two years already! I remember the day we found out we were pregnant it seemed like it would be forever until I met this baby, but everyone said "time will fly." In that moment I thought "what a trite saying", but nothing has ever been so true. I see her growing up and want to grab her and make it all slow down - or even stand still. However, each new day is bittersweet. Although our baby is growing up, she is growing into this amazing little person that I love getting to know and although I am excited to see who she will become, I can definitely wait.

Nephews and Cousins

2008-06-07T20:29:00.001-07:00

These are my beautiful nephews Jadin (top) and Ky (bottom). Becca adores her cousins and we wish we could see them everyday! Jadin was born in August of 2007 and lives in West Whately Massachusetts and Ky was born in May of this year, so he is brand new and lives in Jackson Wyoming. Ky is here visiting us now, and Becca loves to have the baby around. Hopefully she feels the same when her own little baby sibling shows up in a few months....

Introductions

2008-05-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

Alex
What can I say about Alex that would do him justice? He is an incredible husband and dad, an awesome chef, funny, sweet, works hard, plays harder, and is the perfect package. Although he is a hardcore teaser and at times I want to throw him through the window, I cannot imagine a life without him.

Rebecca (Becca)
Look at her. What more can I say? She is just a really cool little soul. Sweet, funny, adventurous, and a tiny bit bossy. Here she is gardening with me in her lovely little tu tu (made by the talented Kris and Kourtney sayingitsimply.blogspot.com), rainboots, and gloves - what everyone should garden in.

Me (Libbi)
I cannot describe myself, my description is totally jaded by how great I think I am.

The Beginning

2008-05-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

Of this blog that is.
I have been inspired by the incredible blogging skills of all my friends. So here it goes, my attempt to begin and maintain (the hardest part) a blog to keep my friends, family, and anyone else interested, updated on the life and times of this Malmborg family.