I am feeling like quite the "domestic" lately. I made my first blackberry pie last Friday, which turned out both beautiful and delicious. It was made with blackberries that Alyssa and I picked in September and the pie crust recipe was given to me by my grandmother. After reading all the Harker girls' blogs, I was inspired to make butterhorn rolls for dinner on Sunday. I was in a hurry to get them done, because we were expecting company for dinner, so the first batch didn't have enough time to rise, but the second and third batches were just heavenly.

I finished our Christmas cards, and they're just sitting in my purse, waiting for me to take them to the post office on my way to Enrichment, for which I prepared four fleece blankets for tying that we'll take to the senior citizen's center tonight.

I babysat my pregnant friend's two boys today. They played in the back yard with Alyssa for a while, but we spent most of the time baking and decorating Christmas sugar cookies. I fed them a healthy lunch that had food from every food group, although Porter didn't eat his apples.

I pulled myself out of bed this morning, for the second day in a row, to go to the gym. I pulled myself out of bed, even though my legs are still burning from all the lunges I did yesterday morning. I've drank 7 out of my 8 glasses of water, and I've restrained myself from eating all of the sugar cookies that I didn't send home with the Lofgran's.

And the accomplishment that I'm most proud of today (the blackberry pie and butterhorn rolls are gone, so I can't enjoy them right now) is the fact that I made it to Blockbuster in time so we can finally see "Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest."

So if you gloss over the facts the there's still sprinkles all over the dining room floor, or that there's still unpacked suitcases in our bedrooms left over from Thanksgiving, or that the kids and I ate chicken divan from Saturday's dinner because Brian's still on campus studying, I'm doing pretty well. I'm having one of those weeks that I enjoy being a wife and mother. I enjoy having a clean house, and I enjoy doing those little extra things that make life special.

It hit me a while ago that Alyssa's getting older, and it's time that we start making our memories really count. I remember being four. I remember the house we lived in while we were still in Utah. I remember watching the Monkees and arguing with Gretchen. What really sticks out in my mind is the time she was being her meanest and I told her to get off my property. She said she wasn't on my property; she was on the side walk, and that was owned by the city. I can still feel the embarrassment caused by my ignorance, even though I was only four years old.

I know that Alyssa's going to remember the "little house in Forest Grove" for the rest of her life. I want her to have good memories of this place, and I want to start making good traditions to build our lives around. I don't know if you'd count "not finishing laundry" as a tradition, but hopefully she'll remember that I bought special pink frosting just for her sugar cookies, and that we sing Christmas carols by the tree every evening before bedtime, and that her mother let her help make the pie crust to the most beautiful blackberry pie that was ever baked.