things that stir my heart

• watching my husband play legos with our son
• eyelash kisses with my little girl
• cooking a very healthy dinner and inviting family over to enjoy it with us
• having a very faithful 'helper' while I cook, who loves to wear her 'fun-size' apron and taste samples of everything
• reading in a quiet moment
• the way Bonnie's whole butt wags when she sees us
• thinking about how awesome VBS is going to be and that I get to be a part of seeing lives change
• buying tiny little newborn size clothes
• getting an out-of-the-blue phone call from a friend
• sneaking back into my kids' rooms to watch them sleep - it's just about the only time they look like babies anymore
• picking a whole field's worth of wild flowers with my kids
• giving
• reconnecting with people who mean a lot to me
• humbly delivering a long overdue apology
• learning more each day how to be the person God made me to be

Smiles all around

I am so out of the habit of updating - to the point that I'm awkward in doing so.

However, it's been too long and too many terrific and wonderful, worthy of posting about things have happened.

First and freshest on the list is last night, April 12, 2010. While Avery and I were doing our nighttime snuggle, she started asking questions about heaven. She's now nearly 5 1/2 and I began to try and answer as best I could her questions. Without expectation on my part, she asked if she could pray and ask Jesus to live inside her heart.

And we did.

How precious! I have now had the singular pleasure in life to pray that prayer with both of my children. Knowing fully that each in their own way has absolute assurance of their place in God's heart.

There are moments in motherhood that you can really only dream about and pray for - this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime kinds of moments.

It's hard to follow that, but in other news...

Jaron is competing today in his first ever TRIYS competition. He is so nervous! He kept telling me that his tummy was weird. Butterflies! :) No, it's not funny - and he'll probably remember today as one of the scariest days in his young life but still I can't help but grin when I reflect on his nervousness and grown-upness this morning as I sent him out the door.

I hope he's proud of all he's accomplished in first grade - I sure am proud of him!

Also, I am coming off of a very busy Easter and Lenten Season. So I took yesterday and today off, just to be me and to play catch up. It's been amazing!

I wish I had the perspective seven years ago that I have now, to appreciate each day as a stay-at-home mom. What an amazing gift it was! I did enjoy it, but not as greedily as I do now. I'll just soak as much of it in as I can for these two days.

When I get back to work it's time to hit the trails hard and prepare for one hot crazy summer! VBS, Camps, Mission work, and all that comes with it!

Chris is doing really well with the fire department. He seems to have found in this profession a perfect fit. Everyone should be so content and feel as fortunate as him.

Chris and I see that change is on the horizon for us and our approach to this change is tentative - hoping, no praying, that we have heard God's voice and not imposed our wills into the decisions we are now facing.

It's difficult to imagine having any further upset in our delicately balanced world, but it's no small urging that I have been feeling lately. So yesterday, I took the first steps toward getting into graduate school.

There are some very real changes that this life course would dictate, so we're weighing that and all that it brings very carefully right now. Prayers are appreciated.

Guess that just about brings us all up to speed.

Cute, priceless and a little embarrassing

We have added a little Zazz to our nightly routine.

I guess after 6 or so years, the nightly book, bath, brush, tickle, talk, smooch, prayer bit has gotten crusty for them.

So the kids (5 and 6 years old now) have decided to request our presence at a party in their bedrooms.

We knock.
They giggle.
We are invited in.
Upon entering, we see that they have plugged in their special lights and gotten all their blinky-light toys to strobing. They start the beat, in pure techno fashion - and then comes the dancing.

All four of us jump around, flopping our arms, and trying not to strain our backs to the tune of their techno beat. It's an all-out Hoopla.
Little girl actually assigns a syllable to the bass line, "Oots, oots, oots, oots" she says in quite possibly the sweetest, rhythmic voice you've ever heard...

We dance till we jiggle our sillies out and then we finish our same ol' crusty routine.
I love going to their bedtime parties.

Pathetic

If you scroll down and look at the number of posts in November, December, January, and February combined, you will realize that they are less than October's alone.

That's bad. Also, I promised pictures a while back.
Do you see any pictures? Nope.

Well I would say that would mean its time for me to regulate on this blog, wouldn't you?

But I'm not gonna. Not unless I get everything else done.

In keeping with the frequency of updates in the past 4 months, I'll keep you posted...
:)

A 'glass half full' moment

Today I started to feel a little sorry for myself.

I think I only saw my kids for about 5 minutes today.
Wednesdays are hard: today was harder than normal.
Chris had surgery yesterday. I had to take the day off from work (naturally) to be with him.
The surgery needed to happen and everything will be dandy once he's all healed up. But when your spouse has surgery - you get a bag full of stuff to weigh you down- the worry, the emotional toll, the extra portion of responsibility, yada yada yada.

In a job like mine, it's not possible to miss a day and not be a day behind. So today held it's own set of challenges.
I digress...

I had to sell my coveted Jeep. Coveted = bad. I am now the proud new owner of a 'not-as-new' Mercury Villager.
In the Urban dictionary, I am pretty sure Mercury Villager would be defined as coolness. A swanky ride, no doubt.

"Poor me."

Then God blessed me with this beautiful glimpse of his perspective, and in a breath,

"Praise God!"

When my children aren't with me, which nowadays is a lot of the time, they are with my mom and dad. My parents are faithful to pray for my children. They tell them all about God. They teach them things about life, and friendship, and family, and all things good.

Chris was able to get medical care. There are plenty of stories floating around about people who have needed medical attention and haven't been as lucky as Chris to receive it. He'll go back to work and be fine.

Another blessing: we're both employed!

So many reasons to feel richly blessed.

I have a vehicle that runs, is paid for, and is defined in the Urban dictionary as "coolness." What could be better! :)

I could go on with accounts of our blessings, but mostly I want to ruminate on these thoughts.

Even when my thoughts turn to the more negative side, God's viewpoint wavers not.
His thoughts for us are good - I just need to set my mind on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossians 3:2)

Snapshot.

I see a perfectly perched pair of Beauty and the Beast dress up high heels on a step stool next to the sink, a spiderman towel hung sloppily on a hook, and pancake syrup drizzled across the dining room table.

I take a step and hear the crackle of syrup sticking to the bottom of my high heel.
I stealthily steal a maple kiss from my little girl and wriggle my fingers through my son's 'just woke up' hair.

Pillows piled high in my little girl's bedroom, the remnants of a pillow fortress she builds each night to nestle into. Her cheery room is no reflection of her morning mood. She's a cuddler by night, a grumpalufaguss by morning...

My son's bedroom - which looks more like a perfect replica of our solar system - smells just like him. Scrumptious, musky boy. His cork board displays his latest masterpieces, which are pretty good - frameable even. He's much softer in the morning than his knobby knees and elbows appear. His squishy, warm ears plead to be squeezed on his way out the door.

They groggily rummage through their shoes, and jackets, and hairbows as we charge through our morning, preparing for another big day.

Everything in our home begs us to stay, cozily soaking each other in, all day long.
But life keeps calling us to our many different directions.

I can't wait for this evening when we can all be together again!
Until then, Lord, be with them and keep them.

direction

crumbling at Your feet, wearied by self-inflicted complexities,
i find myself effortlessly rescued by Your redemption.

complete loss of control, total abandonment of burden, because for just a moment -
Your irrefutable majesty pierces through this hardened cynicism and i am soft to You once more.

You speak; in a word, my world goes at once from chaotic centrifuge to sane serenity.
undeserved love, unexpected acuity of Your endlessness and depth,
it is revealed to me, how simple it is.

You are in control.
You are THE control.
You lead. i follow.

forgive my ignorant ways.
lead me once more i pray.

Moments of note.

I have been thinking about what I might add to this tasty list of posts. (I say 'tasty' because posts are so infrequent that they had better be purposeful...)
Things have been speeding along quite steadily at this glorious place we call home.
Christmas was beautiful and good. A smallish Christmas. Better than the big ones, for certain.
We are busy, sometimes by choice, sometimes not - but busy nonetheless.

We (Avery and Jaron) have been squealing with excitement at the mere mention of the nearness of Christmas for weeks, and though the "moment" in all it's luster has passed, we are still smitten with thoughts of our holiday.

The EasyBake cookies we make taste better than store bought ones.
Our new Trio castle set has spurred on many an elaborate battle plan that had to be jotted down on paper, lest we forget our strategy in the heat of battle.

So many happy and endearing moments have passed this year, I look over 2009 - and though much change has come our way - there is a constant theme of 'blessed.'

Chris really loves his job. He loves to talk about things that happened throughout his day. To the point that my nearly literally speechless husband has become, at times, downright chatty! It's very nice. What a blessing to see him this happy.

Jaron is a shooting star in his class. Learning so much and really becoming interested in big kid things. He got some cologne for Christmas and he and it have become quite a pair. He wears it always, several squirts at a time, several applications a day.
On Christmas Eve, he was working on a crayon drawing in the living room, I walked by and noticed that as he carefully set each crayon down after using it, he was actually spelling out words with the crayons. "I L-O-V-E T-A-R-Y-N."

Avery is still endearingly adorable. She is so tired of being cute and us telling her cute stories everywhere we go. She actually drew the line in the sand last week and said, "I will NOT be adorable." (Which was completely adorable!) Poor adorable thing! I guess there are worse fates...

My brother and his wife are expecting their first child. We call the baby Yoda. I think the nickname will indeed stick. I am not sure whether Richard's Sweet wife likes it or not, but the child will most assuredly be called Yoda every now and again. I have already bought the baby 18+ month toys and the grand arrival isn't scheduled until July! I cant wait!

My sister is in town and is convinced that my kids carry all things bubonic. We have passed our little 'bugs' onto the rest of my family in a ferocious way. What had us down for moments has kept the rest of the clan down for the count. What a rotten thing to 'give' for Christmas... Sorry Sister!

I hope and pray that all those I love and rarely see or talk to had great Christmases as well.
We are looking for 2010 to be a year that brings about change, although perhaps not as much at 2009. We are ready for a bit less of a whirlwind year!

five

Happy Birthday, my angel.

You're five. Super huge five years old.

I went through your baby clothes up in the attic a few days ago. Tears.
The bracelet you wore during your first few months was so tiny. Almost too small to be a ring for me...

Now...
Your hair is long golden brown and your eyes are giant gooey drops of chocolate.
Your hugs are squishy sweet tight and your kisses are soft drippy wonderful.

You are creative and full of sparkling personality.
You still have the most adorable lisp anybody's ever seen and a dimple perfectly placed on your cheek.
You're everything girly anybody can imagine, everything thoughtful, everything beautiful.
You're a cat person among dog people.
Glitz and glam make you swoon.
While all the other kids want Smarties, you're after a chocolate truffle.
You love long dangly earrings and your nails painted (except for the thumb you use for 'sucking').
You shut the door to your bedroom and sing at the top of your lungs - and as long as nobody's watching, you'll sing and dance all day.
You're the perfect combination of baby and big.


You appeared on the scene quietly as a newborn, and it took you a while to find your opinion, BUT NOW you have this enormous personality, with an opinion on everything. :)
You're not a morning person, but you're always in the mood for snuggling.

You're five.

Delicious, glamorous, enormous, snuggly, adorable, thoughtful, opinionated, sparkling, squishy-sweet, shy, chocolate truffly five.

Five wonderful years make me long for the road ahead.
I cannot wait to know the YOU you turn out to be!

I love you, beautiful Avery.

Feel like I should...

Feel like I should expound on this week.

It's been so epic, I'm not sure where to begin...

Let's work our way backwards beginning with what hasn't happened yet.

On Saturday, I'll be 30.
On Saturday, I won't be at the ladies retreat.
On Saturday, Avery is having an early birthday tea party with mostly family and some of the little girls from her class at school. The tea party is at our house - that's important because ...

On Friday, I will install a chair rail in Avery's bedroom, finish the touch up paint in Avery's bedroom and the living room, paint the other side of and re-install the 8 interior doors (half of which got painted Thursday), clean the house, finish shopping for A's presents, make cupcakes and sandwiches, wrap presents, and go have dinner with my old teacher friends at Cheddar's for my birthday. But first, I have to make sure the house is in tip top shape.

On Thursday, I painted one-side of 8 doors in our house, primed and painted a chair rail for Avery's bedroom, finished busting out our master bathroom shower and found it to be in worse shape than previously expected... Thought about crying.. a lot.

On Wednesday, finished painting stripes in A's bedroom (Painting stripes anywhere should be avoided at all cost. Just my opinion, but for what it's worth - don't do it.) , put the finishing touches on J's bedroom - most of which was painted the previous weekend, shopped for groceries, paid bills, went to a good friend's mother's funeral, she was too young...

On Tuesday, really thought about crying. I started painting stripes in Avery's room. Crazy. Why do stripes make her so happy? 6 colors of paint ladies and gentlemen - but it's soooooo cute and cheery! I also took a break on the master bathroom, which at this point looks like a total loss to me...

On Monday, I began demolition on our master bathroom, only to realize that the damage seems to be much more extensive than previously thought. Our master bedroom carpet (which is pink and, if you'll remember - I LOVE) is toast (rotten from leak in shower), as are much of the baseboards and sheet rock on the surrounding walls...

Monday also happened to be our 7th wedding anniversary.
We were so bombarded with life and all that it entails, we barely got to celebrate - but we went to dinner and it was sweet. And very us.

I am so thankful for him. I could be no happier than to share my life with this wonderful man. Many days, it's hard, just because life with kids and a mortgage and 'adult things' is so unpredictable - but more and more, I find myself endlessly thankful for all the turns that led me to him.
7 years. During that time, pretty much the ONLY thing that has stayed the same is the fact the we are still WE.

These last seven days pretty well round out 'normal' for us.
We work hard. We play hard. We live hard. We love hard.
We have lived and loved and enjoyed so much of each other.
And I am grateful.

So an epic week, no doubt. I am ready to finish up my 20's with a bang and look forward to a more 'normal' and less insane decade in my 30's. Please tell me things magically slow down in your 30's...