the roaring lamb

Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Mom

2011-09-17T10:04:00.000-05:00

i have the.best.husband.ever. seriously. he got up with the kids this morning so i could leisurely get ready for the day without a little person hanging on my leg, narrating my movements ("mommy do make-up! mommy do make-up!).

and then! he sent me to starbucks! alone!

there was a time i frequented starbucks. it was my favorite place to write, to work on my bible study, to meet students. ten years, one husband and 2.5 kids later, i'm not always sure what to do when i get here. its a little foreign to me to order a drink AND pull up a chair. my typical starbucks run now includes a drive-thru.

it's been a busy month at our place. and, the october calendar is filling up even faster. [for all three of my dallas readers, we're coming to visit at the end of the month!] i wish I could figure out time during the day to write more consistently here, to record for posterity the ins and outs of our days, but for now this will have to do :) (Michael wrote about our recent camping trip, if you want to read about it.)

my sister becks (do you mind if I spell it that way?) has been know to say that sharing "confessions" is the best way to get to know someone. so, in her honor, here are my confessions of a stay-at-home mom. with two children three and under.

don't judge.

1) going to the pool occasionally counts as a bath. i KNOW.

2) tomato sauce on a pizza is definitely a veggie. i strive to get two veggies a day into my little people (one at lunch, one at dinner). it's a bonus if one is green.

3) i don't usually get up before the kids. at least not by much. they're learning to sleep in (7:45 is our current norm) and its heavenly. maybe some of my need for sleep is due to the baby. maybe i just like to sleep :)

4) i l.o.v.e. having luke (3) and ava (2) at home. most of the time. we've intentionally chosen not to put them in formal preschool this year. but, i do sometimes struggle with envy toward my friends who can run errands alone. eat an uninterrupted lunch with a friend. go to the bathroom alone. it's the little things, people. and then, i (try to) remind myself this is only a season. and a beautiful one at that.

5) if you see my children in public and they are well-behaved, please tell me you noticed. parenting young children is exhausting and i often wonder if i'm doing okay.

so, there you have it. my confessions. your turn!

happy birthday, pretty princess!

2011-08-26T16:02:00.006-05:00

my pretty princess,

today you are two. i can hardly believe it. when i woke up this morning, i was thinking about where i was two years ago – at the birth center holding my brand new baby girl, the one who made a dramatic entrance into the world. and my heart. but, i'm sure by the time you read this letter, you'll have heard that story more times than we can count.

you've grown a lot in the last year. i'm not sure if it's because you're a girl, or because you have an older brother to mimic, but your verbal skills blow me away. you've been speaking in sentences for several months (though, at first they were certainly short sentences) and i've never heard you confuse “i” and “me.” luke and you both have a big vocabulary, and sometimes the things you say make me laugh.

a few weeks ago, we were choosing a veggie tales dvd to watch. you picked lyle the kindly viking. when i confirmed it's what you wanted, you replied yaaa. i asked, ava, are you a viking? your reply? no, i ava!

you are a fantastic eater. about 10 months ago, we had our friend miss kelly over for dinner. we were eating pasta, bread and broccoli. you started verbally requesting more while signing, but we weren't sure what you wanted more of. we asked if you wanted pasta? no. bread? no. finally, your little voice rang out bro-wee. the three of us big people looked at each other in amazement. what 14-month-old asks for more broccoli?! obviously, you did.

you out-eat luke at many meals, but are not a large, overweight toddler. in fact, at your two-year well visit with dr. cooper, you weighted 27.3 lbs (59%) and are almost 35 inches tall (72%)! your favorite foods are peanut butter sandwiches, carrots, broccoli, fruit of almost any kind, and chick-fil-a (though luke has taught you to be scared of the person in the cow costume).

you love to play games. if daddy and i can make something into a game, you are quite happy. today at the grocery store, you were pretty grumpy, whining and crying because i wouldn't let you have your way. in a funny voice, i started saying, ava, you're driving me....bananas! you immediately began cackling. again, mommy! again! even an older man who passed us on the aisle realized that the game made you a much happier little girl.

you love to run and chase with luke, though he tends to play a little rougher than you can handle right now. but, you'll do your best to keep up with him. you're learning to kick a ball, which will allow you to play with him even more. you also like for luke to be happy. i don't want you to always feel its your responsibility to make him happy, but it is sweet to see you sharing your toys, even when he's whining. miss suzanne brought you a balloon for your birthday. you loved it! and so did luke. he stood to the side of the room crying because you had the balloon, so after a few minutes, you went to him, handed him the balloon and gave him a hug. you love your big brother, ava.

you'll be a wonderful big sister! your baby that aunt linda gave you for christmas last year is one of your favorite toys. you sleep with her, push her in the stroller, give her a bottle and her woobie. and, even occasionally spank her. as long as you don't spank your baby brother, i think we'll be okay!

at the beginning of the year, i started to teach luke to memorize bible verses. after our first verse (eph. 6:1-2), we realized you were learning the verses, too, even though you could barely talk! so far, you've memorized eph 6:1-2, john 3:16, prov. 4:23 and we're working on eph 4:32. you love it! daddy and i hope to instill within you and luke both a love for God's word. i pray for you, my sweet girl, that you will truly be a woman of wisdom, as your name implies. that you will delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night (psalm 1). that God would see fit to use you to bring much glory and honor to his name. ava, daddy and i love you so much.

it is a joy to be your mommy. i love you!
mommy

lazarus, come forth!

2011-07-09T17:20:00.001-05:00

i've decided that perhaps it's time to resurrect this ole blog of mine. i'm not sure how often i'll have time to write, but it would probably be good for me to have the outlet.

a notable update since my last post (we did indeed move to the atlanta area, by the way) -- we're having another babe. due around the end of the year. we're excited, hesitate about what it means to be a family of five, and ready to embrace the challenge of another newborn (most days). though i'm definitely not ready for the sleep deprivation. are you ever, really?

today, we had a few friends over to swim. luke(3) and ava(2) loved having friends around...luke especially loved playing with his buddies. one highlight was watching the three younger boys hold hands and jump into the pool together: cuteness. the kids l.o.v.e. the pool and, even though both are a long way from swimming sans floaties, they are little fish. ava, particularly, isn't scared of anything.

but, with a flotilla like this, who would be:

taking a quick break on the side of the pool. he rarely lets go of his fish swimmie, even when he's out of the water. it's cute.

meet me in...atlanta?

2010-01-25T15:34:00.000-06:00

it's been a year now, a year that michael's been looking for a job as a pastor. and, a stressful year in many ways. we've seen many doors crack, but not a single one stay open long enough to shove a toe through.

perhaps that's my fault because i prayed that God would only open one door. as in the one.

such is the way God seems to work in our lives.

before christmas, michael was contacted about a job by a ministry that is dear to both of our hearts. an organization that God has used to bless us and provide for us over the last almost-five years. it's something we both believe in.

but it's not a church.

it's a job that would offer an opportunity for him to be mentored by a really cool guy, to gain experience shepherding a staff and growing a ministry, to use his background in business for the kingdom.

but it's not a church.

michael's a great fit, in all respects. i worked for this ministry for four years so he understands the people he'd be leading. we've served as volunteers for even longer. since the fall, he's been interviewing and screening prospective volunteers. he's got the gifts to be successful in the role.

but it's not a church.

it's been a week full of prayer and questioning and asking God what he's up to. wondering and trying to guess why he might be taking us to a job that's not a pastorate. feeling like the hundreds of hours michael invested into the job search might be in vain. he'd would really love this job. but, his heart, my heart, it's with the church.

and so we've prayed that if this is where he's calling, God would close every other door that remains cracked. and he is. just last night michael talked to the search committee chair of the church he was farthest "in" with. they like him, really like him in fact, and he was their top candidate, but several older folks on the committee really want someone older than michael, with more experience.

we're slowing starting to dream and realize this really might be it. which is exciting.

and terrifying at the same time.

today, michael will call his prospective supervisor and let him know we'll come visit atlanta and see the ministry there. and we're praying that if this isn't it, God would slam the door shut.

because really? we don't want to be there if that's not what he has for us.

so, we ask that you'd pray with us:

*that if this is the direction God has for us that we'd continue to grow in excitement, especially michael;
* that michael and i would be like-minded about where God is taking us;
* that if this is not the direction we should go, that he would make that abundantly clear.

can't wait to see what he's up to!

a little distracted

2010-01-24T20:39:00.000-06:00

i know it's been awhile. and, i have things to post. i was going to do that tonight.

by i got distracted by this. and then, the screen was a little too blurry from the tears, so i couldn't see to type.

so, i'll do it tomorrow when my heart isn't so distracted.

cari, i miss her, too.

pea-nut, peanut butter!

2009-12-02T07:00:00.002-06:00

during my four years of college, i had four different roommates. mandy and i lived together for three years. we hardly knew each other when we agreed to be roommies. and, for the most part, we were a good fit. (right, roommie?)

unfortunately, mandy doesn't like peanut butter. couldn't even handle the smell.

in a small dorm room, without a real refrigerator, there're only so many "meals" you can make.

and there's only so many places you can hide from the aroma of a new jar of peanut butter.

when mandy was around, i didn't crack the lid. that's the kind of roommate i was.

the other night, i was looking for a milk-free snack when i remembered a recipe i stumbled on during my pregnancy with ava. peanut butter popcorn.

before you knock it, you really ought to give it a try. and to help you to that end, i'm sharing the recipe. yum!

in a small pan over medium heat, combine 1/2 c. sugar and 1/2 c. light corn syrup and stir while sugar melts. add 1/2. c. peanut butter and stir until melted. remove from heat and add 1 tsp. vanilla. stir over 6-8 c. popped popcorn.

peanut butter and popcorn. two of my favorite milk-free snacks.

if i'd had this recipe as a college freshman, mandy and i might not have last three years.

i'm sure there will be cheeseburgers in paradise

2009-11-30T20:08:00.003-06:00

it's amazing what a mom will do for her baby...

a few weeks ago, ava and luke (2) both went to the doctor (my new best friend) for an ear infection. luke's ears were clear, but ta-da: miss ava marie had her very first ear infection.

we left with a prescription for amoxicillian, which never worked for luke. within 24-hours, she was acting much better. however, a few days later, she didn't sleep well. as in, she woke up. every. stinkin'. hour.

let me remind y'all that she still sleeps in our room.

based on luke's ear infection history, i called my new BFF as soon as the office opened. i was positive the antibiotic wasn't strong enough and ava was still in pain.

our fabulous doctor gave her a thorough examine and sat back, in his casual manner, on his rolly chair.

the good news, he told me, is that it's not her ears.

my thought? that's not good news. because? if it's not her ears? it's something worse.

he asked a few other questions. had she been sleeping well? yes, five to six hours each night. was she always congested? yes, my little snuffleupagus.

i think she has a cow's milk protein intolerance. he explained that sometimes this crops up around three months of age. and probably will last a year or two. it can cause serious problems (fortunately, ours are minor). it's not a full-on cow's milk allergy, and because of that, it won't show up in allergy blood tests.

our action plan? to remove all cow's milk products from her diet to see if that helps. which means removing all cow's milk from my diet.

did you realize there's cow's milk in pasta sauce? and bread? and most of my favorite food products.

so, i've given up cow's milk. at home, it's been easy. i can substitute soy milk or soy butter (and even soy sour cream) most of the time. but when we're out, it's not so easy. i was grieved this weekend to forgo a fabulous mcdonalds cheeseburger (the perfect meat to bun ratio).

at first, i wondered if this really was the solution to our problem. i mean, what if she just had a few bad nights? and so, i had a pre-thanksgiving meal, loaded with butter and milk.

our problem is definitely the cow's milk. the three of us hardly slept for four nights.

my poor baby.

and thus ends my obsession with yogurt and granola.

another heartbreak

2009-11-25T20:15:00.001-06:00

for the third time in just over a year, michael and i have friends who are losing their precious baby.

would y'all please pray for our friends john and jennifer? their baby boy was born on monday and was diagnosed this evening with trisomy 18, or edwards syndrome, which is a chromosomal abnormality. as you can read in the article, most trisomy 18 babies only live a few days. a year would be a long time.

we are devastated with them.

Lord, come quickly.

bittersweet (ˈbi-tər-ˌswēt): pleasant but including suffering or regret

2009-11-16T20:21:00.000-06:00

when you first hold your newborn baby boy, you don't think about what life will be like two or three years down the road.

at least, i didn't.

over the last ten days, luke (2) has made all kinds of "big boy" transitions. he's officially and completely given up the woobie. last night, he asked to sleep on the futon instead of in his crib...and he stayed on the futon until michael went into his room a little after 7am this morning (he also napped there today and didn't get up). and, he peed on the potty three times today.

my life is about to drastically change.

as i look at ava, it's hard to imagine what life will be like when she's two. it's so hard to look down the road and remember that i won't always be sleep deprived. my life won't always revolve around her three-hour routine. i won't always have to carry her everywhere we go.

in a flash, she'll be potty-trained, walking and talking (probably non-stop) and i'll mostly get a full-night's sleep every night. can you imagine?!

i'm thrilled for luke to be growing up; i'm so proud of him!

but, as i told michael last night, i'm a little sad for myself; i'm sad to be losing a little bit of my baby. so for now, i'm going to reval in all things baby girl.

and my heart stopped

2009-11-11T08:00:00.003-06:00

a few weeks ago, i took both kids to check out a local thrift store. luke (2) didn't want to ride in the stroller, so with ava in my arms and luke holding my hand, we trucked across the parking lot and into the store. as we crossed the threshold, luke caught his foot, tripped and fell. nothing too out of the ordinary for an on-the-go toddler boy.

a granny voice piped up behind me. boy, she said. you're going to have to learn to fend for yourself!

my heart stopped. my hands were certainly full with his 8-week-old baby sister, but i knelt beside my boy and helped him to his feet. i can't protect him from all the spills in life, but i will always be there for him. having a baby sister doesn't mean mommy can't take care of him. my boy does not have to fend for himself.

thankyouverymuch.

later that week, we visited san antonio (if you're waiting for an update, the visit was great, but we still don't know if that's where God is leading us; we'll let you know when we know). i really enjoyed the small church and the more intimate worship service. we sang a song (whose title i unfortunately don't know) and one of the lyrics said you're a defender of the weak.

as i sang the words, my heart immediately ached for my children, specifically for ava, my tiny newborn baby girl who can't do anything for herself. she personifies weakness, not because she is "defective" or broken, but simply because that's what a baby is. i want with all that i am to defend and protect my baby girl. both of my children.

as a mommy, it's what i do.

and suddenly, i realized that's what God's doing for me. i don't know exactly what he's protecting me from as we wait in this job search. bad choices. unhealthy church experiences. something that's just not the best. but, i know and am confident that he is protecting me.

in that instant, i was able to more deeply internalize my lesson of trust from this summer. i don't know what he has planned. but, i know it's going to be okay.

and i stopped flailing my arms and kicking my feet at God.

blueberries and more

2009-11-10T20:12:00.001-06:00

while you wait for me to finish my birthday letter to luke, i thought i'd share a few photos from the last several weeks.

blueberry pancakes are a big hit...as you can tell.

here's our princess chillin' in the double stroller while everyone else went ga-ga over the planes flying overhead.

the birthday cupcake. you can probably tell, but it was a bigger hit than the blueberry pancakes.

a fabulous birthday gift for a boy who loves cars. he thinks he should be able to drive it on the busy street in front of our house. it didn't go over well when i told him he had to stay on the sidewalk next to me. note the trunk rigged in the back. that's so he can carry his books and trucks with him. and he does...

luke and superman at our church's fall fest. isn't the curly-que fabulous? superman's mom is pretty fabulous, and creative, too.

one of our more recent family photos, also from the church fall fest. aren't we all cute?

~~sleeping beauty~~ miss ava, doing what she does best!

a toddler's tirade

2009-11-08T21:16:00.003-06:00

the last many months have been fun watching luke (2) grow. we celebrated his birthday at the airshow (photos and birthday letter to come) and he loved it. he's talking more and i can almost have a conversation with him. almost.

along with his new love of words come more choices and opportunities to assert his ~~preference~~ will. and stubborness. which leads to more battles of the will. luke, honey, mommy and daddy always win.

this morning five minutes before we were ready to walk out the door to church, my baby (who clearly isn't a baby anymore) disobeyed his daddy. i don't remember what he did originally, but on his way to time out, he threw a fit. in our house, throwing a fit while being disciplined in time out is a spanking. so, michael calmly explained what was about to happen. and the boy was properly spanked. y'all, he would not calm down. all he had to do was sit on his bottom and he refused. the child was spanked several times before he consented to daddy and we were late to church.

the fit-throwing is hard to stop in a two-year-old. he doesn't understand enough yet. all he knows is that the big person in his life isn't letting him have his way. he's developmentally ego-centric, so all he understands is the world as it relates to him. when he doesn't get his way, a fit ensues.

this summer, i was the toddler throwing the tirade.

spiritually speaking, that is.

i wasn't getting my way and God was going to hear about it. i wanted for michael to have found a job and for us to have moved by the end of july. i wanted to be settling into our new home when ava made her appearance. every time a potential job fell threw, i found myself kicking and screaming at God.

not literally, but still throwing my own little tantrum.

just like luke isn't capable of understanding the full picture of his life as i see it, neither am i able to understand the full scope of our life through God's perspective.there are lots of reasons i don't let luke have his way. sometimes, what he wants isn't healthy. the boy loves dumdums and if that's all i gave him, or if i gave one to him every time he asked, he'd get sick.

sometimes, luke doesn't get his way because his choice is dangerous. i've ~~shrieked at him~~ calmly called his name as he was about to put a key in an electrical outlet. his choice could have killed him.

sometimes, he doesn't get his way because i have something for him that i know he'll love even more. but he can't even imagine what i want to give him. on his birthday at the airshow, luke had tons of junk food. at one point, i need to refuse him a dumdum because i knew what was coming later that afternoon. a birthday cupcake. i wanted him to be able to enjoy the cupcake to its fullest, so i didn't let him eat something else that would have potentially taken away the joy of the cupcake.

but luke can't understand those things. all he knows is that he hasn't gotten his way. michael and i are trying to teach luke to trust us. we want him to firmly believe that we have his best interest at store and that we long to bestow wonderful things on him. what father doesn't want to shower his child with gifts, right?

this past summer, God kept telling me no everytime i turned around. every potential job. every new opportunity. like luke, i can't imagine what God has in store for me, and in middle of july, it was hard to believe that whatever He has planned is good. all i knew is that i wasn't getting my dumdum. i was struggling to deeply trust the Father-heart of God.

like most of you, i still have a lot to learn about trusting God's goodness and waiting for His plan to play out in my life. but, unlike luke, i've learned (in this situation) to stop throwing a fit and to sit on my Father's lap and allow Him to hug me. and to listen to Him whisper in my ear that He loves me and that everything is going to be okay.

and it will. becaus what Father doesn't want to shower his child with gifts. right?

in which i keep reminding myself, i AM a runner

2009-10-16T07:40:00.002-05:00

i casually started working out again a couple weeks ago. by casually, i mean i took walks with the kids. and, last week, i even walk-jogged on treadmill (meaning, i walked more than i jogged).

but yesterday? yesterday was the day. the day i laced up my shoes and decided to run outside. run is a term i use loosely right now. merely seven weeks after birthing a beautiful baby. the first time in ten months. ladies (and Dad), it was tough.

i non-ran for 30 minutes, but didn't even hit three miles, a fact that will not be repeated on this blog. i am sloooooooow, y'all. i ran along my normal route, remembering the sidewalk cracks and places the pavement needs to be repaired. it was a muggy afternoon and i was sweaty before i hit the first corner. i felt very un-attractive, what all red-faced and glistening in my form-fitting fitness attire.

but you know what? i felt good.

well, not really good good. i won't feel that for awhile. but, it felt good to be really working out, getting my heart pumping, doing something physically challenging. which, honestly, is why i kept going. i kept thinking, if i can run a marathon, i can do this.

and i did finish. i plan to do the same tomorrow.

a review: your songs by harry connick, jr.

2009-10-15T20:28:00.000-05:00

i had the chance to review harry connick, jr.’s new release your songs, which hit shelves sept. 22. aside from the free cd, i didn’t receive any compensation for this review – and it’s my honest opinion.

i enjoy jazz, but i don’t consider myself a connoisseur of jazz. the soundtrack of my life doesn’t resemble the best of jazz. life with a toddler and newborn just isn’t that calm. but, i love the chance to hear new music, so when offered the opportunity to review harry connick, jr.’s new cd your songs, i seized it.

i thought the cd would be especially fun because each track is a remake of an “oldie by goodie,” including songs originally performed by frank sinatra, elvis, the beatles, nat king cole, to name a few. i figured any re-do of these classics would have to be smashing, right?

this album doesn’t disappoint.

my first chance to listen to the tunes was on my way to a doctor’s appointment for ava, with both kids in tow – admittedly, not the best occasion. i didn’t think i was distracted, but left the car feeling flat, like something was missing by hearing someone other than elvis (or my husband) croon can’t help falling in love with you in my ear. initially, i felt connick’s voice wasn’t deep enough to satisfy my memory of many of the originals.

however, as i’ve continued to listen to the cd, i've really enjoyed it. harry's voice is different, but not incapable of singing with the same pizzazz as the original performer. and, because it’s a jazz cd, he can get away with singing the songs a little more mellow-y and not quite so deep.

and the instrumentals. for this album, harry performs complete with a full jazz big band and string orchestra. as a former saxophone player (in jr. high school – ha!) i love hearing the sax solos. the music behind the vocals is reason enough to buy the cd. i love it!

this album is a great addition to our itunes mix. and, a great addition to our next romantic dinner – after the kids are in bed, of course.

if you need some pizzazz in your music collection, i recommend you check out your songs by harry connick, jr.

Album Tracklisting (Originally performed by):
All The Way (Frank Sinatra)
Just The Way You Are (Billy Joel)
Can’t Help Falling In Love With You (Elvis Presley)
And I Love Her (The Beatles)
(They Long To Be) Close To You (The Carpenters)
Besame Mucho
The Way You Look Tonight
First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Roberta Flack)
Your Song (Elton John)
Some Enchanted Evening
And I Love You So (Don McLean)
Who Can I Turn To? (Tony Bennett)
Smile (Charlie Chaplin)
Mona Lisa (Nat King Cole)

a reason to smile

2009-10-04T17:06:00.000-05:00

michael has an interview in san antonio in a couple weeks!

ava and i will go with him. we'll have dinner saturday evening with the senior pastor and his wife, attend the church sunday morning, have lunch with church leaders and then michael will have his interview before we come home.

while san antonio is the wrong direction from our families, we're excited about the church and the position. it seems like it could be a really great fit for michael.

we'll share more after the visit!

someday, her husband will thank me

2009-10-03T13:48:00.000-05:00

i know it's been kind of quiet here at senor elefante. adjusting to this little one has taken much more time -- and energy -- than i anticipated for numero dos. i assumed we'd basically go on with life, just having added a little body and subtracted a great deal of sleep.

oh, i was so wrong.

the last five weeks were rather stressful. ava lost a good bit of weight the first week of life (at least one pound, though possibly more). and even once we thought things were going better with the whole breastfeeding gig, she didn't gain weight like she should. so, we spent several weeks breastfeeding and then bottle feeding and then pumping.

it. wore. me. out.

i had told michael that i would fight to breastfeed her until she was six weeks old. i breastfed luke for 14 months and really enjoyed it. my little guy isn't a snuggler, and it was a way i could connect with him and snuggle him when no one else could.

but, we were getting no where. i called linda the lactation consultant several times. and, several times, i was so close to throwing in the towel. and would have if it hadn't been for linda's encouragement. i love that woman.

despite all that, we couldn't figure out why ava wasn't breastfeeding well. her latch looked good. her chin moved up and down. i had her evaluated by a breastfeeding peer counselor. we took her to a chiropractor. everything looked good; she just wasn't transfering milk well to her little tummy.

i started researching (hello, wikipedia) and began to think she might have a slight tongue tie. tongue ties normally aren't a big deal: someone whose tongue is tied can't lick an ice cream cone or *ahem* french kiss. but, babies need to be able to stick their tongues out in order to breastfeed well. if the band of skin under the tongue is too tight, or short, the baby can't stick her tongue out far enough to suck well. our pediatrician hadn't said anything about a tongue tie, and it didn't really look tied, but my gut told me that was our problem.

lovely linda gave me a referral to a pediatric ent doctor and we set an appointment for thursday. it took the doctor 20 seconds to diagnosis miss ava's tongue as tied. so, five minutes of topical anesthetic, a quick snip and an hour later, we were out the door.

problem solved.

because her tongue tie was mild, the doctor wasn't sure how much the clip would really help. but, it has made all the difference in the world. baby girl hasn't had a bottle since thursday afternoon. nor has she wanted one.

my heart took a deep sigh. of relief.

we are back to finding what normal should be with two kids. and i love it.

someday, if she ever gets married, ava's husband will thank me.

a front porch entrance: my perspective

2009-09-06T10:02:00.000-05:00

the birth story of ava marie

aug. 25-26, 2009

with ava, unlike luke, i began having very mild, random contractions about 10 days before she was born. several times, i would contract for about an hour early each morning before getting up, and once contracted all afternoon. these contractions were noticeable, but never painful, probably just strong braxton hicks.

on tuesday, aug. 25, i had my 39w5d appointment. i declined an internal exam, but talked with our midwife about making sure i wasn’t pregnant at 41 weeks. she felt like it was crucial for me to have the baby before then. so, she schedule me for an appointment the following monday to “stir things up” and included an appointment for an NST with their consulting physician. i was disappointed to have to look at these steps, but wanted to make sure we were doing the best for our baby.

that evening, my sister suzanne and her fiancé jerry came over for dinner. we had a great time and luke loved playing with jerry. our home was filled with laughter. they didn’t stay long, but at some point during dinner, i began having contractions that were short, but very uncomfortable. i didn’t mention it to suzanne, who was planning to be at the birth, because i didn’t want to jinx myself, but told michael as soon as they left.

after cleaning up, we laid down to watch a movie, babbette’s feast. during the movie, i timed contractions. they were lasting about 30 seconds, but were only 10 minutes apart. after the movie, we packed the rest of our bags for the birth center and went to bed around 11pm.

i fell asleep quickly after realizing the contractions had spaced out to 20 minutes apart. i was bummed because i thought labor was fizzling. i figured i’d wake up in the morning, like normal, and we’d go on about our life. in fact, michael had planned a “fun day” for our family. despite being disappointed about labor dying down, i was looking forward to spending the next afternoon with my “men.”

i woke up suddenly at 2:33am. i might have been having a contraction, but what i realized was that i had to go to the bathroom. as i left the bathroom, i had a really strong contraction that had me leaning on the sink and breathing deeply. i woke up michael to help me keep track of the time. i had another contraction 10 minutes later that was equally as strong. and then, they started coming five minutes apart, lasting 30-40 seconds.

during this time, michael decided to take several trips to our car with our bags – we had a lot since luke was going with us to the birth center and would likely still be asleep. at the time, i didn’t think his trips were necessary, but i’m so glad now that we didn’t have to worry about everything when we were ready to leave.

we timed contractions for an hour – i tried to lie down, but spent most of that time on my birth ball. after an hour at 4am, we called our midwife cherie. we chatted for awhile, she listened to me through a couple contractions. since she wasn’t the midwife to deliver luke, she asked about how long i’d pushed with him. because i’d had a lip of cervix, i ended up pushing about 1.5 hours, which is what i told her. however, once that lip was gone, i pushed about three times, which is the information she wanted.

if i had known to tell her that, the story might not have been as exciting.

at that point, my contractions were very painful, but i only felt them low in my uterus. cherie wanted us to call back when the contractions were higher and longer – she told me that would probably be an hour or two. she also recommended i take a bath.

i was thrilled with the prospect of a hot bath, so that’s what i did. michael grabbed a chair and sat with me in the bathroom timing the length of contractions. i wasn’t as comfortable in the tub as i’d remembered being with luke (looking back, i’m sure i was much farther along in labor at this point than i was when i took a bath in labor with luke) and so, i didn’t stay in the bath long. i got dressed, and leaned against the ball instead. at this point, i kept wondering, sometimes out loud, why we didn’t choose to go to the hospital so i could have an epidural. i also wanted to be at the birth center instead of at home – labor felt much more intense than i remembered and i wanted the support of our birth team.

around 4:30 or 4:45, i started to feel really panicky during contractions. i also told michael i thought i might throw up. i had to hold his hand or touch him during each contraction so that I stayed “grounded” and focused through the pain. still, i was only feeling contractions low and they were varying between 45 and 60 seconds, but not consistent. in hindsight, i’m pretty sure this was transition (the panicky feeling especially makes me think that). however, michael didn’t think to be looking for it already and i didn’t have enough cognitive awareness to recognize it myself.

we called cherie at 5am. she asked if i was ready, and said i was. she told me she was dressed and would meet us at the center. we had farther to drive than she did, so i never thought to call her when things picked up. i also should have told her initially I was feeling a lot of pressure in my bottom and that i was feeling panicky. however, for some reason, those things didn’t cross my mind. i just wanted to get to the center.

michael finished gathering a few things while i rocked on the ball. at some point about five or ten minutes after i talked to cherie, right as he was getting up luke, things changed for me – i needed to push. i looked at him abruptly and said, we need to leave NOW.

we practically ran out the door. i remember michael asking me to grab luke’s small backpack (which i normally carry when he carries luke) and i couldn’t. we live on the fourth floor and had to walk down a long hall to the elevator and then back down another hall to our car. i had three contractions during that time, including one in the elevator; michael says they were about two minutes apart. the entire time, i knew we had to hurry and tried to convey that to michael without yelling at him.

the drive to the birth center, which is 15 minutes, was excruciating; i felt every bump and every pothole. with every contraction, i tried to breathe deeply and to not push, but they were awful. like many women say, it really felt like a freight train moving through my body and i could do little to stop it, especially while seated in the passenger’s seat! while driving, michael called both sets of parents and my sisters – including suzanne who was meeting us at the center. the whole ride, i was encouraging him to run red lights, which he did, and get there as fast as he could.

right before we got to the center, i had a contraction that required me to push. at that point, my water also broke. fortunately, it didn’t gush yet. as michael stopped the car, i jumped out and almost ran up the stairs to the porch. he later told me he thought i was going to get sick. i was surprised to find the house dark and the door locked. i couldn’t figure out why cherie hadn’t turned on the lights, which is now funny to me.

i kept telling michael, this baby is coming, this baby is coming. i think he knew things were serious when we got in the car, but it obviously wasn’t until then that either of us thought we might have an unassisted birth. i was scared to be just the two of us, but knew i couldn’t NOT push. i pulled my pants to my knees and knelt and leaned on a bench on the porch. michael considered calling 911 because we were only three blocks from a major hospital, but called cherie instead (the time stamp on his cell phone was 5:38am; we'd been on the porch only a minute or two). she was four blocks away and sped toward us. at that point, i asked michael to help me take my pants all the way off. i felt the baby’s head and knew i couldn’t stop her from being born. it makes me laugh now to remember that all i kept saying, over and over, was this baby is coming.

because it wasn’t even 5:40am, it was still dark, but dawn was approaching. all of a sudden, cherie was on the porch with us. she told us that when she got to the porch, the baby’s head was almost out; she could almost feel the ears. she and michael helped me to sit back and with one more half push, ava was born. cherie later told us that ava had her cord around her neck fairly tightly; i’m so thankful cherie made it in time to catch her. in that moment, neither of us would have thought to look for that. we estimated her time of birth to be 5:40am, based on the time michael called cherie.

as a funny side note, when i jumped out of the car, michael wasn’t sure what to do with luke. so, he rolled down the window and left him in the back seat, buckled into his car seat. cherie didn’t realize he was there and told us she thought his cries were from a cat in heat.

because of our location, cherie ran inside to grab supplies while michael and i tried to get ava to cry (she did finally whimper). we immediately cut the cord so we could be moved. cherie gave the baby to michael and helped me inside without making a mess. this was the point where michael was most scared – he was left with the baby, whose face was bruised from being born so quickly and with her cord around her neck, and cherie was tending to me. we later talked to her about it and she said she wasn’t at all concerned for the baby because she had made noise and breathed. her main concern at that point was getting all of us inside so she could see and assess ava from there.

suzanne also arrived right after avaa was born. cherie had her run inside before us to strip the comforter and pillows off the bed. then, she got luke from the car and set him up in his pack ‘n play. cherie did have to warm ava and suction her mouth, but she still apgar-ed at 9s, despite her completely bruised face. fortunately, the bruising faded quickly and was almost gone by the time we left the birth center, six hours after birth.

a lot of my mom friends with two children told me how it wasn’t “love at first sight” with their second child. michael and i can relate to that: though we loved ava before she was born, we weren’t in love with her the moment we met her. but it only took a day before we were head-over-heels for this little girl. she’s our little lady.

in honor of, well, labor day

2009-09-04T09:12:00.000-05:00

yes, yes, yes...baby girl, ava marie (blog pseudonym -- if you know us and want to know her real name, just email; if you know her real name already, please use her pseudonym when you comment), was born last wednesday! and, since we have a newborn, i thought it would be appropriate to participate in this meme.

i will be posting her birth story, as soon as i've had a chance to finish it. however, michael's version of the story is sure to be more exciting. and, he'd really love it if you commented on his blog...plus, he's already posted the first several parts (yes, there are parts...). check it out.

if you're interested in participating in this meme, let me know, and also go post a comment at rocks in my dryer. c'mon...it'll be fun!

How long were your labors?

luke: nine hours
ava: three hours (yes, it's an exciting story).

How did you know you were in labor?

luke: contractions that began gradually that morning picked up around dinner time (while we were enjoying dinner with good friends).
ava: i woke up at 2:30 to go to the bathroom and had a lean-on-the-sink-so-i-don't-pass-out contraction on my way back to bed. it was fast and furious from there.

Where did you deliver?

both at the birth center, though ava was almost born at home. on accident.

Drugs?

nope, though with ava, i kept asking michael, "why aren't we going to the hospital again?"

C-section?

nope

Who delivered?

our midwives, carol (with luke) and cherie (with ava), though michael came within about two minutes of delivering ava. i tell you, it's a great story.
she made her entrance into this world in her own way...i have a feeling she's going to add a little drama to our small family!

seven quick takes friday

2009-08-07T08:36:00.000-05:00

i'm back for seven quick takes with jennifer. this seems to be an easy way for me to blog amid the crazyness that is our life. enjoy.

1) i had a great appointment with our midwife on tuesday (we're 37 weeks and officially full-term, by the way). baby looks good. and, she thinks cheerio is a girl! the babe is on the small side and has a heartrate in the mid-150s, both typical for a girl. even though i've been thinking it's a boy, i'm starting to get excited about the possibility of purple and pink.

i'm also thrilled because i've not gained as much weight as i did with luke -- my goal is to stay under 30lbs, which is totally do-able at this point. with luke, i gained 35.

2) last weekend, michael surprised me and took me to san antonio. i didn't know we were going anywhere until an hour before we left -- he had my bag packed and everything! he had lined up my sister to stay with luke and wisked me away for a relaxing weekend sans child. it was heavenly. we stayed at a fabulous hotel (seriously, my favorite hotel ever) and slept in and watched tv. and walked along the riverwalk. and ate dinner without worrying about a little person's meal. and talked. and talked. and talked. it was wonderful.

the entire weekend, we only got one photo of us together and we were super hot at the time. we laughed about how we look like an "old" married couple in it, standing several inches apart with michael's arm around me. but, as i said, we were hot. so, you don't get to see that picture...just these.

3) wednesday, we took luke to the zoo. we took him a little less than a year ago, when he was really too young to care, and this year he did better. however, wednesday was h.o.t. we managed to make it through the primates, which luke loved, before he was done with it all. he still enjoyed some of the animals, like the elephants, but mostly just rode in his stroller while we walked in the shade as much as possible. michael and i had a lot of fun, even though we sweated buckets, too.

one highlight of the zoo was the train. the last time we rode a train, luke was not amused. this time, he loved it. he sat in my lap and we choo-choo'd the entire ride.

4) my last day of work is next thursday. it feels very surreal. i went to my last staff meeting yesterday. this next week will be busy as i wrap up and get everything ready for a new yet-to-be-hired person to take my place. but, i'm really looking forward to staying home with luke for a few weeks before the baby is born...that is, if i get a few weeks. michael thinks the baby is coming aug. 31. i think cheerio might be early. regardless, we're excited.

however, being an unemployed family is a little scary at this point in our lives (it wasn't such a big deal four years ago when we moved here without a job...and without kids). michael is going to start interviewing cares teams (he had his first interview today and enjoyed it) and that will bring in a little money. it also gives him something productive to do outside the house, which is good for him.

5) michael dubbed july the "month of the word" for luke. his vocabulary has exploded. he's still not putting words together for short sentences (stubborn boy...where does he get that?) but he can communicate really well. my favorite is his word for banana: beebo. it's really cute when he's asking for the banana.

6) michael is still diligently job-hunting (if you know of a church position, there is a "finder's fee"). he had an interview last week with a church in iowa, but that didn't pan out. we were pretty discouraged, but trust that God has something else planned for us. on good days, it's not hard to trust, but even on good days, it's hard to find joy and purpose in the waiting. but, he is in the waiting, right? (is that the line of a contemporary christian song? i've been singing it, whether it is or not...but someone help me out!)

7) one of my surprises last weekend on our trip was a new lens for my camera. i was pretty jazzed. ~~for those photographers who read my blog~~ heidi, it's a 55-200mm nikkor lens. we enjoyed taking pictures with it, though i admittedly am still figuring out how to make my lovely camera do what i want (even though i've had it over a year! gah!). i'm looking for a good deal on a 50mm/1.8 lens and then i might be set for awhile, though i'll probably put a new 18-55mm zoom on my christmas list. just to have my amateur bases covered. for the time being, i mean. three lenses in a year? that ought to hold me for awhile...

as a bonus, here's belly picture from our san antonio trip. taken at 36 weeks.

hope y'all have a fabulous weekend!!

my 21-month-old battleship

2009-07-28T21:07:00.000-05:00

since michael has been staying home with luke this last month (at least more than i have), he's often eager to get all three of us out of the house when we have the chance. today, he recommended the mall. so, we headed north to a local mall with a great play place for children.

i had taken luke here for a playdate probably six months ago. then, most of the children playing were toddlers and preschoolers. still, he was overwhelmed and it took a long time for him to warm up to some of the smaller structures. i figured this afternoon would be better because he's been there before.

yeah, not so much.

late this afternoon, most of the children playing were "big kids," elementary-age children who were really too big to be there. and they were running. luke finally got up the gumption to explore and not 30-seconds later, a six-year-old plowed him down. literally. at least the kid stopped to make sure he was okay, but by that point, i was already holding luke. he realized after a few tears that he wasn't hurt so he hopped down to wander some more. again, 30-seconds later he couldn't find me and panicked.

it was all over at that point. my non-cuddler was quite content to sit on my lap and watch the other kids. he made one more attempt to wander three feet away to a crocodile, but a big kid came by right as he got there and he was back to my lap in .7 seconds.

the child is not what you might call adventurous. granted, he is teething and not feeling super great, but in new situations where he's not acclimated, he's never been adventurous. if it doesn't seem "safe," he's hesitant, testing the waters with his big toe and then running back to play in the sand.

i love my son. with all my heart, i love him. more than i thought possible, in fact. but, as i am the adventurous one in our marriage, i've had to come to grips with the fact that my son is not like me. what's more, he's not like i would choose for him to be.

i see being adventurous as an asset, a character trait to be lauded. brave. bold. unafraid. exciting. whole-hearted. unabashed. explorers, after all, get all the glory. lewis and clark. neil armstrong. columbus.

and yet, there is one i love even more than luke who exhibits the same hesitancy and, at times, uncertainty. in him, i (usually) see this as a trait to be greatly admired. it's one reason i fell in love with him. it brings stability to my chaos. it protects me from jumping off the deep end. it keeps me sane when i take on more than i should.

when michael and i were first married and beginning to realize the impact this specific difference would have on our marriage, he decribed our relationship to me in an analogy i still remember when i'm ~~frustrated by his slow decision-making~~ patiently waiting for him to come to a decision i made my mind up about three days prior.

he said he's a battleship and i'm a destroyer. (hang with me here...he had to explain it to me, too.) destroyers move quickly and flit back and fort within the fleet. they're made to move fast and to take out smaller targets. battleships are huge ships. they take a long time to change direction, but when they do, they are the most powerful of all ships. and when all that power is chanelled in one direction, its a force to be reckoned with.

i'm coming to terms with the fact that i probably don't have a son who is a destroyer. he's a battleship. all 23 lbs of him. he's a 21-month-old battleship.

and one that i love with all my heart.

you're right!

2009-07-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

obviously, i've been thinking a lot about cheerio's gender lately. (keep voting in the poll -- and leaving comments!) i thought i would share this funny story with you. lisa belkin, at the ny times blog, mother lode, shared a story about a doctor who was reknown for making accurate gender predictions of babies...

what was his method? he guessed! then, he would write the opposite gender in the patient's chart. when the baby was born, the parents either marvelled that the doctor was right, or told him he had guessed wrongly. in case of the latter, the old doctor would simply show them the chart and say they must have been mistaken because he'd written down his guess.

either way, the parents were amazed that he was "correct."

how's that for ethical?

happy monday, everyone!

seven quick takes

2009-07-24T09:04:00.000-05:00

this morning i'm participating in seven quick takes hosted by jennifer at conversion diary. its a great way to get bloggers (me...) to post things they wouldn't ordinarily post. or, to just post in general. which is fun. i think. so, here you go.

1) i had oatmeal and peaches for breakfast this morning. that's a big deal. i haven't had oatmeal since i found out i am pregnant -- and i love it. especially with a tasty peach. however, my midwife doesn't love for me to eat it. she wants me to eat lots of protein especially for breakfast. today, i rebelled. it was delicious. it was a fabulous decision. i have one more peach so i might rebel again tomorrow. shhhh...don't tell!

2) two nights ago, michael was running a bath for luke and stepped out of the bathroom. he returned to find our little man sitting in the tub, clothed, up to his waist in water. it was hiliarious. crocs, diaper, shorts and a huge grin. he was also still clutching his kitchen utensils (his new favorite toys). he was so proud of himself. for the record, we have huge garden-style bathtubs -- they're hard to get in and out of.

3) i woke up yesterday with a head cold. it stinks. i feel crummy and, between the baby scrunching my lungs and the congestion in my head, i can't breathe. and, being 35 weeks pregnant, there's not much i can take. ugh. i got a bad cold close to luke's birth, too. it really is no fun. i'm hoping this one doesn't move into my chest. hoping and praying.

4) my husband started a blog. wow-zah! i'm not allowed to share the link with you yet. i tried to the other day and he pitched a "man fit." once he's ready to unvail it, y'all will be some of the first to know. he's using it to post his notes from sunday school lessons and to job search. he also has a link to video clips of luke and a fun slide show.

5) michael had a phone interview earlier this week with a church in canada. we could become canucks. it seems like a neat church not far from winnipeg. he's the only american they are still considering, though they are also looking at a handful of canadians. like all his phone interviews, we'll see what happens.

6) we're about to become van owners, which makes me a mini-van mom. how did i end up here?! and i think i'm actually excited about it. God dropped this opportunity in our lap, we were able to sell our smaller car, and have the cash to buy the van. so, we're going for it. the problem is that the van currently lives 1000 miles away. anyone from indiana want to make a trip to see us? and drive our new van?

7) luke is talking up a storm. michael said recently he'll remember this july as the month of words. luke's newest word, as of this morning, is "na-dle," as in the noodle pool toy (we've spent not just a little time at the pool this summer). we're working on two word sentences, but he's pretty stubborn and doesn't like to combine the words when we ask. it's funny. and fun to see him learning and growing! my little boy is getting so big.

***************

don't forget to vote in the poll regarding cheerio's gender. leave me a comment and if you guess correctly, you could win a prize! c'mon...it'll be fun!

what do YOU think?

2009-07-22T21:12:00.000-05:00

i'm curious what you think.

its getting close to the time of pregnancy that our midwife said she could fairly accurately guess the gender of the baby. up to this point, 35 weeks tomorrow, i've thought cheerio is a boy. i've nothing to go on, other than intuition, but that intuition was right with luke. i'm not sure if my intuition is based on my past experience or if it's true intuition. that's not possible for me to determine. but, these pregnancies have been very similar, aside from how tired i've been this go-around.

the old wives' tale says that if the heartrate is faster than 140 its a girl; 140 or slower is a boy. that was also correct with luke. his heartrate consistently was slower than 140.

over the last month, cheerio's heartrate has been 156, 138 and, today, 153.

let me know what you think! vote in the poll on the right and leave a comment below letting me know how you voted. cheerio is due at the end of august, and i'll leave the poll open until he or she is born. there will be a small prize for someone who guesses correctly.

so, go vote!

ding-ding, all aboard!

2009-07-17T15:46:00.000-05:00

friday morning, michael had the fabulous idea to take luke on a free trolley ride through town. round-trip is only about 40-minutes, so we knew the little guy could handle it. as an added bonus, the adults had fun, too.

the trolley we rode was air-conditioned (yay!) and originally built in the 1920s in australia. random, huh? once it was retired in sydney in the mid-1980s, it made it's way to dallas.

our trolley "operator" (he corrected me when i called him driver) was random, too. he's been an operator for 50-ish years, he said. while he was personable, michael and i decided it takes a special person to become a trollery operator. i'm sure driving the same 40-minute route all day long gets old.

the woodwork in the trolley was beautiful!

luke loves trains, and loves to say "choo-choo!" by the end of our trip, i think i'd convinced him that "ding-ding!" is just as cool. what a fun family outing!

how i met your father: our love story, part xv

2009-07-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

before i could grasp what was happening, my knight was on his knee, holding my hand. even though i knew it was coming, i was stunned. oh my gosh! this is it!

i love you, he said. i’m a poor college student and i can’t afford a ring. but i want to know if you’ll be my wife.

*************

in half a second, i threw my arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. i was so happy that i almost forgot to say yes!

yes! absolutely! nothing would thrill me more. the fact that he wasn’t giving me a ring didn’t matter at all.

we stayed in the gazebo for awhile, dancing to the cd he’d mixed of our favorite love songs and staring starry-eyed at each other. we sure thought we were in love. it was enough for the moment.

after awhile of googley-eyed bliss, we blew out the candles, collected the roses and cd player and started back to the car, leaving the gazebo as a testament of love, declared for the first time that night. we loaded the car, hesitant to leave and bring anyone else into our world.

michael leaned against the car, reached into his pocket and casually said, here’s your ring.

i held out my hand, expecting the bulky ring he’d removed earlier in order to better hold my hand. instead, he placed in my palm a beautiful, simple diamond engagement ring. i gasped in the light of the street lamp lining the park road.

i looked up into his face. really?! i asked. i was stunned. i would have married you without it.

he smiled and his eyes danced. i know, was all he said.

it was perfect. both the night and the ring.

what am i supposed to do again?

2009-07-11T10:16:00.000-05:00

here i am sitting a rather quiet panera. after all three of us slept in this morning, michael gave me the morning "off" and took luke for "dough-dos" (read: donuts) at the shop next door. i love panera bagels. i love the free wifi. it's a perfect fit for a quiet morning alone.

but it's been so long since i've had time to sit and write, uninterrupted. what am i supposed to do again? i've spent the last 15 minutes surfing other blogs and sites. it's so hard to get started...

how about an update on what we're doing right now in the "waiting?"

we're trying diligently to prepare for baby cheerio and for our major move, but with so many things up in the air, it's difficult to plan. neither of us really wants to live out of boxes for two (or more) months. that makes any sort of packing tough. last week, i organized all of lukes clothes, from newborn to what he just out-grew or is out-of-season. four tubs worth. that doesn't count what i set aside to give away. thanks to many generous friends who have passed clothes along to us, the child was not in danger of going naked! and, if this next child is a boy, he'll be well-clothed as well.

this week, my project is to organize my clothes. i have tons of stuff that, obviously, doesn't fit right now...and won't fit for awhile. my goals is to get everything that i can't currently wear or is out-of-season out of my closet and into tubs for easy moving. this will probably be a bigger task than luke's clothes (which i finished in an afternoon) because at least his clothes were already somewhat organized by size. i'm starting from scratch here. but, having those two things done will help me feel so much better about organizing for these two life-changing events.

after clothes, i'm moving onto books. my books need to be sorted and packed. before we moved to seminary, i once told michael i'd love to have an entire room devoted to a library, with built in shelves and books all around the room. he thought i was out of my mind. just use the library or borrow from a friend, he said. but now, four years later, my faithful husband is dangerously close to having a love-affair with his books. it's become a joke to us that now that he has more books than i do, he understand why i want a library. we might actually have one some day... he loves his books!

hopefully, our children will inherit the same love of reading, though perhaps in more moderation than their parents!

i'm trying to talk to luke more about what it means for us to have a baby. it's hard to know what he understands since he's still gaining verbal skills, but since he understands more than he can say, i figured it doesn't hurt to talk about it. he goes to the midwife with me, so we've started talking (meaning, i'm telling him) that we'll go to the doctor to help get the baby out of mommy. babies cry and mommy will need to feed the baby. he'll be a good big brother and can be a good helper to mommy. big boys wear shoes and run and play; babies can't do those things.

when we've asked where our baby is, luke has for awhile pointed to my ever-expanding stomach (or my chest, whichever seems to be easiest from his position). the other night, while playing with an older girl, he held a doll and talked about the baby. so, he gets the concept.

but baby cheerio is certainly going to rock his world!

life after 29

2009-07-04T19:40:00.000-05:00

i know, i know...some of you probably thought i'd fallen off the face of the earth after june 1. but i'm here to tell you, life doesn't end at 30... the month of june, however, was much busier than we anticipated. i'd love for the rest of the summer to move into relax mode, but i don't think it will. we have a lot going on.

i went on a staff retreat for four days at the beginning of june. it was fun and i stayed up way too late playing mafia (and getting better at lying). but right before i was about to walk out the door, michael walked into our bathroom to find this:

the look on that boy's face is priceless. he was so proud of pulling off half a roll of toilet paper. the pile was much larger before he stuffed half it in the toilet, right before i snapped the photo.

while i was gone, my sister rebecca was here to help take care of luke. they spent a lot of time together while michael was working. we couldn't have done it without her. thanks becs!

we spent the rest of the month working hard and chasing luke -- and a lot of time at the pool. the maternity swimsuit i bought this spring was one of the best purchases i've made all year. we try to get the little man out of the apartment and down to the pool once a day. he loves the water and with the temperature consistenly above 100 the last two weeks, i've loved the water, too. it's going to be a hot summer, friends.

michael's brithday was last week and, with suzanne to watch luke, i wisked michael away to san antonio to see the musical wicked. unfortunately, i left my camera at home, so we didn't get a single photo. we were gone for only 36-hours; after we arrived friday night, we ate dinner and went swimming in the roof-top pool with eight of the kids staying at our hotel. the next morning, we ate breakfast along the riverwalk, poked our heads into shops and browsed the mall. the musical itself was fabulous and we both woke up sunday morning singing the score. if you have the chance to see it, you really should.

we both loved being child-less for one night (let's admit that life with just two is easy compared to chasing a toddler), but found ourselves talking and thinking often about our little guy. with a face like this, who could blame us.

michael's job hunt is going...recently, several churches have expressed interest in him, which i know is encouraging for him (and me!). he's been super diligent to send out his resume (usually about 20 a week), so it's good to get positive response! we're really hoping to move back to the midwest, but the churches he's heard from are spread across the country: california, new joisy...er, jersy, iowa, indiana, texas. even though it's not been in my timeline (i'd planned for us to have already moved), it is exciting to think about what God might have in store.

i was telling a friend yesterday that michael and i go back and forth with how we're doing with this entire process. sometimes, i'm really encouraged and michael is down; other times, he's the one excited about what God is doing and i'm struggling to "cultivate faithfulness" (my verse for this season, psalm 37:3). mostly, i'm discouraged that i'm still working, but we need the income. my heart is home with my boy and i hate that he doesn't have my full attention. when i have a bad day, which seems to happen about every two or three weeks, it's usually because i'm struggling with the balance of giving my all at a job i'm not passionate about right now. just six more weeks and then i'll be done. i'm ready to pass the torch. it's hard to walk with a foot in two worlds...

little cheerio is doing well, at just over 32 weeks. heart rate is good, measurements are good. i'm actually feeling really great, as well (i hope that's still the case in another month). i've been walking consistently, after taking off the month of may, and i think swimming has helped keep any swelling from the heat at bay. i feel this baby move a lot more than i felt luke move, which is pretty crazy to me. i have suspicions that the baby is a boy, but we still don't know (and we'll both be thrilled if it's a girl, too). only eight more weeks or so until we find out.

our current thought is that the baby will be born here, the same place luke was born, and we'll hopefully be able to move into a new season sometime in september. it'd be ideal for us financially for michael to have a job by mid-september, but depending on when the babe decides to appear, that might not be doable. here's hoping for a slightly early baby!

i'm hoping this coming week to get another chapter of how i met your father posted (for you, mrs. ellison). it's long overdue, i know. so, stay tuned!

happy fourth of july!

30til30: day 1, bobby joiner and indiana winter camp

2009-05-31T22:04:00.001-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in a specific order.

day 1: bobby joiner and indiana winter camp

i told my parents when i was five that i wanted to trust Christ for salvation (i’m sure those were my exact words…). i had a vague understanding that i had done bad things and that Jesus could save me from being forever separated from God that through his death on the cross. i didn’t experience a radical transformation and i didn’t learn much, if anything, about what it meant to have a relationship with Christ.

that all changed when we began attending grace church.

my family began to attend grace evangelical church when i was 16, at the end of my sophomore year of high school. i began realizing that my friends were different from me – sure, we all knew the sunday school answers to questions asked of us, but they seemed to have something i didn’t. i slowly began to realize that was a relationship with Christ.

it was tradition at our church to go to a week long camp over the new year, indiana winter camp – like summer youth camp, but in the middle of the midwest winter. while it was certainly geared toward high school kids, it was a “family camp,” so a lot of families with children and adults came as well.

since i never missed an opportunity to be with my new friends, i signed up for camp immediately.

that year, bobby joiner came to camp as our guest speaker.

i don’t remember what bobby looks like. i honestly don’t remember a lot of what he talked about that night. but i do remember being at a point that i didn’t know how to make my rebellious relationship with my parents better. i remember bobby talking about his own relationship with his dad – and the struggles he’d had. i also clearly remember thinking, if his life isn’t perfect, but he knows God the way he does, maybe i too can have a relationship with God like that – before i “clean up” my life.

i remember it being a very emotional moment for me. i cried a lot, but couldn’t explain what was happening in my heart. however, as i look back, that was certainly the point where i surrendered my life to what Christ would have for me…and allowed him to take the reins – in my relationships at school, with my parents, with my future.

that cold evening, in a small chapel in the middle of the woods, changed my life more than any moment before or since. i wouldn’t have made many of the decisions i’ve made if it hadn’t been for that night. this list would be filled with very different things if God hadn’t captured my attention through bobby. i most likely wouldn’t be married to the best man to ever come into my life if it hadn’t been for bobby’s commitment to speak the Truth.

i am forever grateful for the faithfulness of a man whose face i don’t even remember.

30til30: day 2, michael

2009-05-30T21:45:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 3, mom

2009-05-29T22:18:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 4, dad

2009-05-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

so, we took a great memorial day getaway to cloudcroft, new mexico with several of our friends. i tried to get ahead and it just didn’t happened, so now i’m playing catch-up. i do plan to have this series wrapped up by monday (june 1!), i’m just not sure how all that is going to work out. but regardless, this was the post planned for thursday, may 28.

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i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in a specific order.

day 4: dad

i was born the year my dad turned 30. the oldest of three girls. we grew up in a very loving home. having grown up rather poor, my dad did his best to provide us with everything he could – which was quite a bit – without spoiling us.

when i was nine, dad entered me in a contest to win free karate lessons. before i could officially enroll in class at the studio, he wanted me to prove my perseverance – at nine years old, i had to run three miles without stopping. if i wasn’t tenacious before, i became so that night.

from my dad, i learned the value of hard work. we spent hours slaving away in the yard and gardens. in fact, our neighbor occasionally teased that there are such things as child labor laws. we worked hard, but we certainly weren’t abused. though dad wanted us to never go without, we still had to earn our way to camps and other activities. working in the yard was one way we earned money for those things.

my dad is also one of the most generous people i know. he paid for (private) college for each of us girls. each of us had a car to drive when we turned 16. every time michael and i are in town, he takes us out to eat.

my dad is loyal and faithful, especially to his family (a characteristic rebecca inherited). While he might not always agree with the choices his siblings or his girls make, he will support us regardless.

i did well when i chose to marry a man very much like my father.

i love you, dad.

30til30:day 5, suzanne michelle

2009-05-27T22:31:00.000-05:00

so, we took a great memorial day getaway to cloudcroft, new mexico with several of our friends. i tried to get ahead and it just didn’t happened, so now i’m playing catch-up. i do plan to have this series wrapped up by monday (june 1!), i’m just not sure how all that is going to work out. but regardless, this was the post planned for wednesday, may 27.

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i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in a specific order.

day 5: suzanne michelle

the addition of suzanne to our family was traumatic for me. i was a verbal 29 months when she was born. and, i wasn’t happy to give up my ownship of our parents. my very first memory surrounds her birth. and, competing for our mom’s attention began a cycle that took 20 years to break.

for years, we competed over everything. because we were less than three years apart, we had many of the same friends (who were often siblings themselves). we took piano lessons together – and suzanne was better than me. we had many of the same teachers in school – and suzanne made straight A’s.

though we played together as children, once i got to be a teenager, we didn’t spend much time together. suzanne has a very acute sense of justice and didn’t like that our parents occasionally treated us differently – especially if she felt i got the better end of a deal. but that, in fact, is what finally brought us together.

i had just graduated college and was about to spend the summer living at home before i moved to the philippines. i don’t remember what happened, but we blew up at each other over something that suzanne didn’t think was fair. for the first time, mom made us genuinely work out the conflict.

and we’ve been fast friends ever since.

suzanne challenges me. we are very different, both in how we look and how we act – most people don’t even think we’re related. she sees things different from me. i appreciate that she wants to live honestly and authentically. she's willing to deal with difficult situations and conversations and doesn’t easily back down from what she believes to be true.

i admire suzanne and her relationship with Christ. her willingness to walk with others inspires me.

30til30: day 6, rebecca rose

2009-05-26T22:18:00.000-05:00

so, we took a great memorial day getaway to cloudcroft, new mexico with several of our friends. i tried to get ahead and it just didn’t happened, so now i’m playing catch-up. i do plan to have this series wrapped up by monday (june 1!), i’m just not sure how all that is going to work out. but regardless, this was the post planned for tuesday, may 26.

*********

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in a specific order.

day 6: rebecca rose

i was five-and-a-half (an important distinction at that age) when rebecca was born. i can vividly remember lying in my bed on the top bunk the night dad drove mom to the hospital, praying in all earnest that the baby would be a boy. i desperately wanted an older brother, but would have settled for a younger brother.

as it turned out, God knew that our family needed a rebecca rose. not a joseph kenneth.

growing up, the three of us girls had a ball together. we rode bikes during the spring and summer, spent days exploring the woods behind our house, built snowmen and snowforts and snow angels on snow-days. we played often with janie and kenneth. the five of us were mostly inseparable. they even helped us weed the flowers when we were grounded.

suzanne and i weren’t always the best big sisters. we bribed rebecca with “little monies” and convinced her to crunch the dead flies in the window sill as we waited for the school bus. she wanted so much to be a “big kid,” but we were always a step or two ahead. she did a great job keeping up as much as her little legs would allow.

rebecca brought laughter and joy to our house. she loves games and singing and playing. she cares deeply about what others are going through and will lend an ear regardless of the circumstances. she values family and will do anything for any of us.

even though as a kid and teenager i didn’t excel at being a big sister, rebecca has excelled at being a younger sister. she wants to be engaged in our lives and ask often about luke. she has taught me a lot about what it looks like to be a true friend to your family, that there is truth in the phase, blood is thicker than water. that’s especially true for rebecca. and i love her for it.

30til30: day 7, caden chastain

2009-05-25T22:25:00.000-05:00

so, we took a great memorial day getaway to cloudcroft new mexico with several of our friends. i tried to get ahead and it just didn’t happened, so now i’m playing catch-up. i do plan to have this series wrapped up by monday (june 1!), i’m just not sure how all that is going to work out. but regardless, this was the post planned for monday, may 25.

*********

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in a specific order.

day 7: caden chastain

with all my heart, i wish this wasn’t one of my 30 things.

last fall, our dear friends lost their precious baby girl. though i haven’t written much here, in many ways, i’m still processing caden’s short life and the impact her death has had on me. michael and i still have moments of grief, made fewer only by the fact that we are somewhat disconnected from our friends in indianapolis.

here are a few ways my life has changed as a result of caden’s life:

i hold my own little boy tighter at night when i rock him
i don’t cling to his life or the life of his sibling in utero
i’m more easily moved by others walking through grief and i’m more likely to shoulder part of that grief
i am often reminded that this life is not all there is; reality is coming!

because i really don’t feel i can do justice to something that so profoundly marked my life such a short time ago, here are the words to a song we sang at our palm sunday service at church. i cried throughout the entire song, and especially the last two verses, as i thought, this is every christian parent’s prayer for their child and it’s wholly true for caden.

my Jesus, i love Thee, i know Thou art mine;
for Thee all the follies of sin i resign.
my gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
if ever i loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

i love Thee because Thou has first loved me,
and purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree.
i love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
if ever i loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

i’ll love Thee in life, i will love Thee in death,
and praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
and say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
if ever i loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

in mansions of glory and endless delight,
i’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
i’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;
if ever i loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

~william r. featherston

30til30: day 8, sherwin and julie

2009-05-24T22:04:00.000-05:00

so, we took a great memorial day getaway to cloudcroft new mexico (more on that soon) with several of our friends. i tried to get ahead with this series and it just didn’t happened, so now i’m playing catch-up. i do plan to have it all wrapped up by monday (june 1!), i’m just not sure how all that is going to work out. but regardless, this was the post planned for sunday, may 24.

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i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in a specific order.

day 8: sherwin and julie

when i married michael, i was blessed to gain a sister. julie and i have never shared clothes, but we’re sisters nonetheless. and, just over two years ago when she married sherwin, i got my first brother (which, by the way, sherwin, i always wanted growing up…).

julie and sherwin add a lot of spice to michael’s and my life. we laugh together. play boggle together. cry together. eat cheesecake together. shop together. they are definitely a blessing to us. it’s nice to not be the only young woman when we’re with michael’s family.

it has been so fun to watch julie be an aunt to luke. even though we live over 1000 miles apart, she is an amazing aunt. when we’re together, she dotes on my son (note to adults without children: the single fastest way to the hearts of your friends with kids is to dote on their children). when we’re apart, she begs for photos of him. she just might brag about him more than i do. and i love it. i cannot wait until we get to watch her and sherwin be parents. someday in the future, that is…

julie was such an integral part of michael’s life while they were growing up – and as a result, a major part of my life. their childhood and friendship shaped much of who my husband is. and, it is a joy to be part of that now.

30til30: day 9, papa rick and momma c

2009-05-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 10, kandice redman

2009-05-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 11, purdue nav ladies, sarah, michelle and amanda

2009-05-21T07:49:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 12, reed and marian

2009-05-20T21:59:00.000-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 12: reed and marian

as i’ve written about earlier, our church and our sunday school class has played a major role in our lives since moving to dallas. a huge part of that has been reed and marian.

reed and marian are the ages of our parents (roughly) and have children our age (their catherine is just several weeks older than me). they have been actively mentoring young couples for years. reed is the primary teacher of our sunday school class and marian leads our bi-monthly women’s bible study.

they have both had a profound impact on our lives. in many ways, they have been our parents in dallas. they have encouraged us and supported us and allowed us to learn from their years of marriage and parenting. they have honestly shared their lives with us – both the good and the bad – and been a great example of what it means to walk with the Lord for decades.

reed is the best motivator i know. this year, he and marian have established a reward system for those in our class who memorize scripture. for every 20-30 verses we each memorize, they will pay $500 per person toward a $2500 cruise we’ll all take at the end of the year. michael and i are so excited about going – and eagerly learning our verses.

but, there has been one specific way in which they have really ministered to us this last year.

about 25 years ago, reed and marian lost their daughter wendy in an automobile accident. though i know it must still be painful at times to talk about and we still see tears in their eyes on occasion, they have openly discussed the tragic circumstances and how it impacted their lives.

when we found out that our dear friends andy and cari lost their daughter caden last fall, reed was the first person michael called. reed doesn’t even know andy and cari but he cried on the phone with michael as my husband shared the news. his father’s heart broke with michael’s and remembered the pain that our friends were facing. over the weeks and months, reed and marian have spoken with us about what walking through grief was like for them and how we can support our friends, even from a distance.

keep praying, marian once said. that’s when it will get hard – when people stop praying.

i really believe that every young couple needs a reed and marian. they have deeply impacted our dallas-lives and the last four years wouldn’t have been the same without them.

my 100 things

2009-05-20T20:31:00.000-05:00

for those of you who don't know, it's a blogging tradition to post 100 things about yourself in honor of your 100th post. well folks, this is number 100 (took me long enough, don't you think?) so, drumroll, please...

100) i met my husband when i was 16.
99) we weren’t high school sweethearts and didn’t even date until after we both graduated high school.
98) my first job was teaching karate lessons when i was 14 years old.
97) i didn’t get paid for it until i was 16, but my dad got a break on the price of my own lessons.
96) i got my black belt when i was 14.
95) i competed in lots of national tournaments and one international tournament while in high school.
94) i’ve broken my nose three times.
93) twice, because i got punched in the nose during karate tournaments. i won both fights.
92) once playing powder puff football my freshman year of college.
91) the second break was the worst, the only break that was crooked and needed to be set. the british girls’ coach set it for me on the spot while i gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. but that’s a post unto itself.
90) the only time i went to the hospital was for the last break, which was also the only break to bleed.

89) i also tried kickboxing, but quickly realized it wasn’t for me.
88) i didn’t like sparring men twice my size or going home with a headache each night.
87) i played tennis for several years into high school. it’s a much safer sport.
86) now, i’m a runner. but, a slow runner.
85) i ran the dallas white rock marathon this last december. all 26.2 miles. it was only the fourth official race i’ve ever run as an adult.
84) the first was five years ago on thanksgiving morning. it was a 5k. i was beat by a 9-year-old boy.
83) luke was born in a birth center which means . . .
82) i’ve only been to the hospital once in my life, for breaking my nose.
81) i decided i wanted my children to be born naturally before i ever got pregnant.
80) not because i’m some super woman. i’m definitely not.

79) but because i really believe that the research shows that natural child birth is best for the mom AND baby.
78) i don’t think less of my friends who’ve had epidurals.
77) or scheduled c-sections.
76) but, giving birth naturally was one of the most empowering things i’ve ever done. i know that sounds new agey, but i don’t mean it to. it was just . . . amazing. but also intense and painful.
75) we use cloth diapers most of the time.
74) some of my friends think i’m a little granola and i’m okay with that.
73) my favorite beverages are sweet tea and coffee. but only good coffee.
72) currently, i love peet’s coffee. my friend stephanie introduced me to peet.
71) i rarely drink soft drinks because i don’t care for the strong carbonation and “bite.”
70) my favorite food genre is italian.

69) i worked at the olive garden for about ten months and still love to eat there.
68) as a server, customers often asked me if our chef was italian. i usually just smiled. i wanted to tell the truth: our head line cook, along with most of the kitchen staff, was mexican. and our culinary manager was american, mid-western american. but he didn’t cook much.
67) it probably isn’t a surprise at this point that my favorite fast food is fazoli’s.
66) it makes me very sad that there isn’t a fazoli’s in north texas.
65) i’ve grown to like tex-mex since moving to texas.
64) but, there is good tex-mex in indiana, too. for some reason, people don’t believe me when i say that. but, there are a lot of mexican migrant workers in indiana and, thus, a lot of authentic tex-mex restaurants.
63) mostly, i still go for the chips and queso. but, now i eat the guacamole, too.
62) as a kid, my favorite food was fried chicken. as a former southerner, my mom makes great fried chicken.
61) i grew up with two younger sisters, so i don’t know much about raising a boy.
60) dr. dobson’s book, bringing up boys, was my first purchase after we found out we were having a boy. it’s a great book.

59) i’m thrilled to be raising a boy. he’s already so much fun! and energy.
58) as i was growing up, i wanted to be an astronaut, a veterinarian, and an artist.
57) i was six when the challenger disaster occurred.
56) i decided not to be an astronaut when my friends told me i would die if i went to space.
55) i decided not to be a veterinarian when my parents told me i would have to clean up after the animals.
54) i love to create, whether with words, paint or with the shutter: in addition to painting and pencil drawing, i like photography a lot.
53) in high school, i really thought i might go to art school after graduation.
52) our high school art teacher sent us on a three-person field trip (with a friend’s mom as chaperone) to the local, well-known art school to check it out.
51) my guy friend walked unknowingly into a nude drawing class. we were all three naïve enough not to know they had nude drawing classes. that’s when i decided not to go to art school.
50) now, i’m an artist only on random occasions, but i am a writer. at least on this blog. someday, i hope to get paid for what i write.

49) the first job i ever got paid for (besides babysitting) was teaching karate lessons.
48) i’ve also been paid for asking, do you want fries with that? at chick-fil-a. that gig lasted about three months.
47) and for driving a water truck at a gravel pit one summer. i got to wear a hard hat and steel-toed boots. it was a fun job.
46) and for washing windows. i fell off a six foot ladder, but i’m okay. thanks for asking.
45) and for editing our college newspaper. so, i guess i have been paid for what i write.
44) and for guiding rafts safely down the rapids of the arkansas river in colorado.
43) i once fell out of the boat i was guiding.
42) it happened in the rapid where the photographers take your photo, so i have series of pictures somewhere of the entire happening.
41) the people in my raft didn’t know i was swimming in very big waves until the photographer on the rock got their attention and pointed at me.
40) now i get paid to make sure other people do what they are supposed to do for a really cool ministry. it’s a lot of fun and i can’t imagine doing anything else.

39) except for being a full-time stay-at-home mom. which is what i’ll do once michael gets a job, hopefully later this summer.
38) my first job post-college was working with the navigators in manila, the philippines.
37) i lived there for a year with four other post-college 20-somethings.
36) we worked with students at ateno university and university of the philippines.
35) it was a life-changing year in many respects.
34) through that year, God developed in me a heart and passion for adoption. thankfully, michael is also excited to one day adopt one or more children.
33) it was also a year in which my relationship with God grew in very intense ways. i still can’t really explain it.
32) and, it was a year in which i got to do a lot of writing: journaling, creative writing and emailing to my boyfriend-now-husband back home (we have a large box of printed email from that year).
31) i made a quick decision to come back to the states when things started to feel unsafe to us in our area of the city.
30) i then had the opportunity to work with the navs at purdue, where michael was still a student.

29) for the first time in our relationship, we lived near each other.
28) and we’ve never lived apart since.
27) before we moved to dallas, i got paid 40 hours a week to do about 4 hours of work. i worked with, by far, the most unique people i’ve ever worked with.
26) it was the industrial engineering department at purdue. enough said?
25) they were a quirky bunch. one guy was asian and i could only understand about half of what he said.
24) since they didn’t have much work for me at the time, and had hired me to work on a paper they were still working on research for, i had a lot of time to entertain myself.
23) that is when i first started blogging, almost four years ago.
22) this is the third blog i’ve had in those four years and i plan to keep it for awhile, though michael would like me to change the name (he can’t spell it).
21) i also got to surf the internet and look for a job in dallas.
20) when michael and i got married, he wanted to be a dentist

19) but, we changed courses pretty dramatically when he wasn’t accepted to dental school and ended up here in dallas.
18) after sitting in class for a week, michael came home and said, i’m so glad i’m not a dental student!
17) we’re about to have our second child who will be born at the same birth center where luke was born, assuming we still live in dallas at go-time.
16) this time, we’re not finding out the baby’s gender. i like surprises; for michael, it’s more of an economic deal. he doesn’t want to pay the out-of-pocket costs for the ultrasound.
15) we’d like to have a large-by-today’s-standards family. maybe five kids.
14) probably at some point we will adopt, probably locally, but we’ve not ruled out international adoption.
13) we have a multi-racial family by marriage and we’d be excited to have non-white children in our own immediate family.
12) i have been out of the country three times: to the philippines, to greece and to canada.
11) actually, i went to the philippines twice.
10) i went to athens, greece on a mission trip while in college.

9) i went to niagra, canada with some friends while visiting new york. the state, not the city.
8) in greece, we got in “trouble” for climbing on some ruins in corinth. i don’t know exactly what happened, but our greek friends said it wasn’t pretty.
7) our greek friends also thought it was hilarious to say, it’s greek to you!
6) the canadian side of niagra is really pretty. the american side is really dumpy.
5) but the falls from either side are beautiful and romantic, if you’re with a certain someone.
4) but, i also think gazebos are pretty romantic. if you want to know why, make sure you read our love story.
3) and camping under the stars, which we haven’t done much since moving to texas.
2) it's taken me a long time to compile this list. uncharacteristically, i've been working on it for months.
1) i'm glad it's done.

30til30: day 13, marrying my love

2009-05-19T22:26:00.000-05:00

there have been a small handful of specific days over the last 30 years that have changed my life. one day that i wouldn’t trade for the world has been marrying my love and best friend, michael.

we got married on a beautiful december day five years ago. for a midwest winter day, the weather was perfect: sunny and in the 50s. we were young and didn’t understand enough to know that we didn’t yet love each other. not really, anyway. but it was the single happiest day of my life.

the day is somewhat a blur. i got ready at the church with my sisters and bride’s maids. i didn’t see michael until my dad walked me down the aisle. and then, all i saw was him. our pastor spoke about finding fulfillment first in Christ so that we could love and serve each other. we said some vows. lit a candle. kissed.

and then the party began.

michael and i often talk about how much fun we had at our reception. how every wedding we've attended since has paled in comparison to the fun we had at our wedding. it wasn’t anything fancy, but we were surrounded by all the people we loved most. and we knew everyone there. everyone, all 200-something-odd people, were promising to love and support us and help us as we figured out this new relationship.

we’ve certainly not been without struggles or disagreements. but, marrying this man has been the second best decision i’ve ever made (stay tuned for the best decision…). he challenges me. he sharpens me. he loves me. he is more than i ever dreamed possible in a husband.

i am blessed to be his.

i love you, babe.

30til30: day 14, serving as a CARES team

2009-05-18T21:12:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 15, white rock marathon

2009-05-17T19:37:00.000-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 15: white rock marathon

in december, i ran the white rock marathon, something i’d never had ambitions to do. it kind of fell into my lap, and though i would have been happy passing it on, i kept at it.

and i learned a lot.

physically, i learned that i am capable of pushing my body, of setting goals and achieving them. every time i had a good run, i’d grow in confidence and my ability to complete the full marathon. training for and running the marathon was one of the most difficult things i’ve done in a very long time. and i’m glad i did it (though i had to be pushed to start it).

but i learned a lot spiritually, too. you see, training for a marathon is a lot like running the spiritual race.

as i trained for the marathon, i did most all of my long runs with my friend kiley. running with her literally kept me going on mornings i would have preferred to stay in bed. most of time, i’d sleep poorly the night before we’d meet for an early morning (read: 5am) long run. if i’d been training alone, i wouldn’t have finished the training – i’d have stayed in bed.

sometimes, our spiritual life is like that. if i’m not surrounded by friends who are running at my pace, or even pushing me to go just a little faster, i’m likely to quit. life gets hard and, when there is no accountability, it doesn’t feel worth it to put in the long hours of “training” when you wake up tired.

also, i learned the value of new shoes and “running to win.” i knew from the beginning that i’d never be close to winning a 26.2 mile race. in fact, i’d be thrilled to not be last to cross the finish line. there are things in running that would slow me down or even take me out – old shoes, for example. i started training with a pair of shoes that weren’t well-suited for my feet. after a few weeks, my knees started to hurt. it was vital that i buy new (and expensive…*sigh*) shoes that fit me well so that didn’t injure myself. i also needed to run with a plan. if i didn’t have a plan in mind, i never would have been able to finish the race. i wouldn’t have been conditioned to run what was required.

spiritually, life is like that as well. i have to make sacrifices, throw aside encumbrances, if i want to be in it for the long haul. if i’m not willing to make the investment, i won’t go very far. i also have to have a plan for how i’m going to get across the finish line. God will certainly use things i never imagined to grow me in Christ-likeness, but if i don’t have a plan, i’m selling myself short. and i won’t be conditioned to finish the race.

and lastly, i had to keep the goal in mind. when i forgot why i was training, i got easily discouraged. at the end of one training run, while kiley was tacking on another mile, i met two men who were training for their second marathon. they had passed us while we were finishing up and encouraged me to keep training, to keep running, to keep my eyes on the prize. they knew what it felt like to finish a marathon and challenged me to continue to go the distance because i could.

as we walk with Christ, it’s vital that we, too, remember the goal. it’s not happiness or comfort or prosperity. it’s to be changed into his image. we focus on Christ, our goal, so that we won’t grow weary and lose heart.

therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God. for consider him who endured much hostility by sinners against himself so that you would not grow weary and lose heart.

hebrews 12:1-3

30til30: day 16, diane k.

2009-05-16T17:12:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 17, barb h.

2009-05-15T22:21:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 18, noah's ark

2009-05-15T22:19:00.000-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 18: noah’s ark

as a sophomore in college, i was an r.a. in the freshmen women’s dorm. though i lived across campus from the majority of my friends, i loved the energy and enthusiasm of the women who lived on my floor. that year, three of the women had attended high school together. when they arrived on campus, they were still excited about the senior trip they had taken that summer to noah’s ark, an outdoor adventure company in colorado.

it wasn’t the first time i’d hear of noah’s ark. my roommate had friends who’d worked there and her mother had recommended i look into working there as well. at the time, i wasn’t interested. but as i heard more from lori, rachael and leanne, i decided it was something i wanted to do.

when i arrived at noah’s ark at the end of may, i had never before been whitewater rafting. the first time i rode in a canoe at age five, i cried throughout the entire trip, much to my parents’ chagrin. and here i was, thinking i could brave the rapids every day to safely deliver risk-seekers to their destinations. i remember standing by the river for the first time, looking out across the expanse of water, wondering, what was i thinking?

i had a lot of fun at noah’s. rafting was hard work – i used muscles i didn’t know i had. it was also humbling for me. as guides, we had to train for at least 60 hours on the river (noah’s guides trained for closer to 100 hours) and pass a “solo” guide test before we were allowed to take regular paying passengers. i was the last of our class to pass my solo guide.

but by God’s grace, i learned to conquer my apprehensions and fears and have fun on the river. i mastered some of the hardest rapids we ran and had a lot of fun pushing myself. and, there’s nothing like suffering hypothermia and facing death with someone to knit you closely together. our guide class had a blast challenging each other and learning together.

in addition to rafting, we also backpacked and rock climbed. leading groups of teenagers, without cellphones, computers or watches, into the colorado backcountry was thrilling to me each time i went. climbing 14-thousdand foot mountains and sliding down glaciers was exciting. spending five day stretches playing in God’s creation gave this mid-western kid a love for the beauty of the earth i’d not developed.

at noah’s, i learned the difference between being a thrill seeker and an adventure taker. i am the latter. i love adventure, but do not seek out thrill, like many of my coworkers did. i continued to grow as a leader as i made choices that affected people who relied on me for safety and security. and i had fun experiencing God in the depth of the colorado rockies.

30til30: day 19, fellowship sunday school class

2009-05-13T21:47:00.000-05:00

30til30:day 20, karate

2009-05-12T22:56:00.000-05:00

obviously, i'm a little behind with the 30til30. our weekend was much busier than we anticipated and michael and i are both still exhausted (i took a three-hour nap today and still feel worn out). i intend to post days 21 and 22, just not tonight. you can look for them over the next week. but, don't miss them, especially if your name is lisa.

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 20: karate

i was nine-years-old when my dad came home with a surprise for me: i had “won” three free karate lessons as a studio not far from home. unknown to me, he had entered me in a “contest” (in which every kid won). i was ecstatic. for years, i had watched teenage mutant ninja turtles (heros in a half-shell) and daniel-san and dreamed of being able to do the tricks they did.

of course, there was a catch.

i had to run three-miles without stopping.

i accomplished the task with minimal training, which is a story unto itself.

i don’t know if karate was something i immediately excelled at – my parents didn’t push me, so i only attended class once or twice a week. but, i do know that over time, it was something i got to be good at. very good, in fact. my sensei saw potential in me and asked my dad if i could compete.

when i was 13, i went to my first national tournament. at 14, in addition to a knocked-up jaw, i took home a bronze medal from nationals. i won my age division the next three years. competing is fun, it’s in my blood. and i loved this sport.

when i was 14, i began teaching classes as an assistant. shortly after that, i took over the 4- and 5-year-olds. as a 16-year-old, my friend john, my boss’s son, and i ran our studio for a time. i quit a prestigious job at chick-fil-a asking, do you want fries with that? in order to pick up more hours teaching each week.

and i trained hard. during competition season, our team would give up saturday afternoons for training, in addition to regular training during the week. i remember once coming home with an ugly fist-sized bruise on my upper left arm. my dad wasn’t impressed and told me i couldn’t go back if it happened again. and so, i learned not to get beat.

i learned a lot at the studio. during some rough teenage years, it was a place i could belong. teaching karate lessons was something none of my friends could do and so it gave me something to be proud of. teaching lessons was my first lesson in managing people. my first lessons in genuine leadership happened at the studio, too, as i watch my instructor and followed his footsteps as i taught my own classes.

the biggest thing i gained from karate is discipline. that probably sounds rather cliché, but it’s entirely true. though we trained as a team, karate is not a team sport. though my sensei could coach me from the sideline, he couldn’t land my kicks or make my blocks effective. if i wasn’t disciplined in my training, i wouldn’t succeed.

running those three miles as a nine-year-old was a great introduction to what would be the next eight years of my life. and it was worth every step.

30til30: day 23, andrea and ella mitchell

2009-05-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 23: andrea and ella mitchell

tomorrow, my sweet friend ella celebrates her third birthday. her mom, andrea, is one of my closest friends. we first met when andrea was about seven months pregnant with ella. she was my first dallas friend to have a baby and the shower for ella was the first shower i went to in dallas.

[girls, let me take a minute and say, y’all know how to throw a shower! i specifically remember thinking, i feel like i’m in a magazine!]

from the minute i met andrea, i knew that i wanted to be her friend. she is funny and outgoing and fun to be with. and real. that’s one thing i appreciate most about her. and, her husband joe is really cool, too. i really wanted michael to be friends with him (which he now is) because i thought they’d get along great (which they do) and so that we could all hang out together. finally, we convinced the mitchells to like us and now we’re great friends. *smile*

three years ago today, with the rest of our sunday school class, michael and i eagerly awaited news of ella’s birth. unfortunately, through events you can read about at andrea’s blog, things didn’t go smoothly for ella in her first hours of life. she contracted strep b, which resulted in meningitis. which, resulted in many hours of uncertainty over ella’s life. andrea and joe were told she might not live through the night.

in a way i’d never experienced, our class banded together to fight along side the mitchells for ella’s sweet life. they asked for a 24-hour prayer vigil and, ironically, michael woke up at 3am, the only spot unfilled, checked his email and prayed for ella.

our class prayed, cried, took meals, sat at the hospital. and, rejoiced when ella went home with her mommy and daddy.

today, ella lives with cerebral palsy. she has the sweetest smile and the best curly hair. and she loves michael, which of course wins her points with me, too. it’s fun to watch her play with her little brother and to watch her eyes light up and listen to her talk to you when she knows you’re talking to her. she is a joy to be around.

i’ve learned a lot from ella. to esteem her life for the fact that she is made in God’s image exactly as he intended, not for what i think she might be able to “give.” to value prayer because it’s powerful and effective and we still regularly see God answer it in her life. to remember that we fight the battles of this life together, side-by-side.

as i’ve walked the last three years of ella’s life with andea, i’ve grown to appreciate her tons. i love her honestly and vulnerability, especially when it comes to spiritual things. i’ve learned to be less guarded and more open. i love being able to take luke to her house and just veg together while the kids play. i love that we value the same things and want the same things for our families. and that we both want to pursue Christ, though we both do so imperfectly.

i can’t imagine having lived in dallas without these dear friends.

happy third birthday, my sweet girl!

30til30: day 24, grace evangelical church

2009-05-08T20:37:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 25, grandma helen

2009-05-07T20:05:00.000-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 25: grandma helen

as i was growing up, my mom’s parents lived a 10-hour drive away, so we only saw them a couple times a year. my g’andy passed away when i was five and my grandmother when i was 14. because of the distance, i didn’t get to know either of them well and have only vague memories of g’andy.

though we lived near to where my dad grew up, both of his parents died before i was born, both of un-natural causes. my grandfather was killed by a drunk driver when my parents had been married only a couple years. his girlfriend at the time, helen, was also in the accident and hospitalized for nine months. because my mom was new to the family, she felt out of place helping to coordinate the details of my grandfather’s funeral and grieving with the family; instead, mom spent hours upon hours at the hospital with helen. over the months, my parents adopted helen. after i was born, she became my “grandma.”

grandma helen wasn’t a christian when my grandfather died. my parents invited her to church and were with her the evening she decided to trust Christ as savior. in fact, my mom was able to tell that God was working in her heart and asked if she wanted to talk with the pastor. before she died, grandma helen told me the story of her choosing to trust Christ and how much my mom had meant to her.

grandma helen was never married and didn’t have children of her own. because of my parents’ relationship with her, i can’t remember a birthday or christmas celebration without grandma helen (as i got older, i realized that she only did this for my sisters and me, not for my cousins). every year for christmas, she gave me a can of olives because she knew i loved them (and she gave my dad tube socks every year, even though he didn’t love those). even if she couldn’t be with me on my birthday, she’d call just to sing to me.

as a little kid, grandma helen babysat me often. she allowed me to jump on her bed and play with her cat. no jumping on the bed, she’d say with a mischievous smile.

when i was in second grade, our family again began attending church with grandma helen. at this church, she was known as the worm lady because she gave gummy worms to all the kids after church. i loved knowing that my grandma was the lady all the kids loved.

easter of my senior year of college, my dad’s family celebrated at my cousin sharon’s house. while the men were out in the living room, the women sat in the kitchen, telling stories and laughing more than i ever remember laughing with my cousins. grandma helen was the life of the party! as i drove back to school that afternoon, i had the vivid thought, it will never be like this again.

shortly after that, grandma helen was diagnosed with cancer. by the summer, she was living in a nursing home. i spent a lot of time sitting on the edge of her bed, playing my guitar and singing. she told me about the grandfather i never knew. and we shared often shared strawberry shakes from steak ‘n shake.

and always, as i was leaving, i’d turn and say, remember, no jumping on the bed.

grandma helen passed away while i was living in the philippines. for a child who grew up without real grandparents, grandma helen filled a void in my life i didn’t realize was there until i came home. she was a wonderful grandma and offered love intentionally and without limit.

i wonder if she’s in heaven tonight, jumping on the bed.

30til30: day 26, elisabeth elliot and five aspects of woman

2009-05-06T21:06:00.000-05:00

30til30: day 27, sharon h.

2009-05-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

for those of you who are following along with me, i know i got behind a day. i'll have day 26 posted for you before i got to bed tonight. thanks for sharing this with me!

********

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this list is in no particular order.

day 27: sharon h.

when i first moved back to indiana and to purdue university, michael was attending a decent-size presbyterian church with excellent preaching. the music was fabulous. by default, i attended alongside him, never thinking about finding a church of my “own” – i loved this one the moment i first sat on the cushioned pew.

the fall that michael and i were engaged, i began attending a bible study led by sharon, our pastor’s wife, and another woman. here, i got an education in two things: beth moore and all-things motherhood. without knowing it, i had enrolled in a mother’s of preschooler’s bible study. i’m sure i turned five shades of red the day one of the ladies shared a story about pumping. i’m not sure i’d ever heard of such a thing!

through this bible study, our premarital counseling and other avenues, i got to know sharon and we developed a friendship. she is very different than any pastor’s wife i’ve ever known, fun and creative and stays home with her children – things that i wanted to be as a wife and mom. for the first time, i began to think that maybe i could be a pastor’s wife, too.

here michael and i are on our wedding day with sharon and her husband david, who officiated our ceremony.

michael and i had quite an adjustment to marriage: we were both working two jobs, he was still going to school, we were involved in the navigator ministry. in addition to getting to know each other, we were being pulled in a million directions.

sharon spent a lot of time with me that semester, weekly sharing a mug of coffee or hot tea, praying with me and allowing me to share the struggles of being a newlywed. without judging me. loving me all the more. challenging me to know Christ more deeply.

i saw in sharon a heart for women and a passion for Christ that i wanted to emulate. she prays with passion and conviction, unlike anyone else i’ve ever heard. i saw her gently shepherd the women in our church with a heart for them to know Christ more fully. as a young woman, she deeply inspired me.

i wouldn’t be the woman i am today if it weren’t for my friendship with sharon. and, i probably would have been a lot more hesitant about being a pastor's wife!

30til30: day 28, apartment life

2009-05-04T16:20:00.000-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 28: apartment life

when michael and i first moved to dallas almost four years ago, we were homeless and jobless. friendless. churchless. we didn’t have a clue where to shop for groceries. everything that goes with moving to a new city – that was us.

while michael prepared for classes, buying books and reading syllabi, i hunted for a job. i’d already declined an administrative job at a local church because the job wasn’t a good fit for me and the salary wasn’t a good fit for a one-income seminary family. but we needed money coming in and so i diligently searched job ads and went on a couple interviews. as anyone who’s searched for a job knows, job-hunting is tiring work.

the day we moved here, i heard that apartment life was hiring an area director. i was interested in anything that would pay bills. but for some reason, i never did anything about the job. i don’t remember why. it just wasn’t a job i could see myself doing.

michael and i got to know jeff, the area director who worked with us at our apartments. he encouraged me to send in my resume. we interacted with kiley and sarah at the day-long orientation for cares. the people who worked for apartment life were cool people. but still, i didn’t apply.

until jeff called one morning.

he was sitting at starbucks, he said, and was screening a few applicants for the role while his supervisor tina was out-of-town. would i meet him with a copy of my resume so he could “interview” me? thirty minutes later, i was sitting across from him at the porch of a nearby starbucks, talking through my experience and what it was like to work for apartment life. i had no idea what jeff was thinking or what would happen next. but, i was getting excited about the job.

jeff closed the interview by saying something i’ll never forget: we’re all christians. if you don’t hear back from us, just give it to Jesus.

but i did hear back. a week or so later, i met tina at another starbucks for a two-plus hour “interview” that never felt like an interview. at this point, i was really excited about the job and wanted to work for apartment life. michael later told me that while i was gone, he thought through what we required to make ends meet. he didn’t think a non-profit would be able to pay enough and wondered how low we could go.

but, tina offered me the job and told me about the compensation package. i was floored. God was providing for us and blessing us in ways we never imagined.

working for apartment life has shaped me greatly. i’ve learned to work with christians who think very differently from me, but who i know love the Lord. i’ve been part of a team of different personalities and gifts and offered my piece. i’ve come to be able to better work through conflict with those i manage, communicating trust and grace in love. i’ve developed friendships that will impact my life for years to come.

i've been reminded that God can provide above all we ask or imagine. in ways that astound us, even four years later.

apartment life has been a breath of fresh air to me. i’ve been loved and cared for and nurtured and challenged. and always free, free to be me and free to move on to something else when God calls me.

it’s that freedom that makes apartment life such a great place to work.

30til30: day 29, living in manila, philippines

2009-05-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 29: living in manila, philippines with the navigators

the decision to move to manila with the navigators collegiate ministry for what i thought would be two years was an easy decision. i knew what i was holding onto and i knew what God was calling me to be willing to let go of. whether i made it to the philippines was his call; from me, he simply required obedience.

when we left for manila, my passport had only one stamp, from a “mission” trip i’d gone on in college to athens. manila is a city of 14 million people, which compared to new york city’s eight million is enormous. i’d never been to a third world country and had no idea what awaited me.

you can’t travel to a city like manila and not be struck by the poverty. we lived in a city of metro-manila called quezon city, across from a prestigious university where wealthy countrymen send their children. in the half-mile walk to campus, we passed squatters villages and street children and more poverty than i had seen in my entire life.

for the first time in my life, i understood the term street kid. the children around us played in the street because they had no where else to play. they greeted us daily with shouts of ate! ate! (or, auntie, a term of endearment for any woman older than the speaker). as best as we could, we built friendships with the children around us.

i also had a chance to build a friendship with a poor squatter named carmen and her husband rodolpo. the corner by our house was a depot for tricycles and rodolpo and carmen sold snacks (including friend quail eggs and bottled soft drinks) to passengers and drivers. as i’d wait for a trike, i’d make conversation with carmen, and through my broken tagalog and her minimal english, a friendship was born.

easily in her fifties, though poverty ages a person and guessing her age was difficult, carmen had two daughters and several young grandchildren. the entire family lived a short walk from rodolpo’s merienda stand. one afternoon, my new friend invited me to walk to her home. she led me down a familiar street and quickly ducked into an alley i’d never noticed. we wound through the tiny slum and eventually stopped outside her home.

a home which could easily fit inside my current bedroom and housed at least six adults and even more children.

but carmen was proud of what she had. she bought me a coke and showed me her tv. i sat on the one chair while she sat on a mattress. i was stunned at her generosity and hospitality to share the little she had with her rich american friend.

manila changed me. as i daily saw children who lived without parents, God grew within me a heart for adoption. as i walked carefully beside trash heaps, i determined to take better care of the earth God has entrusted to me. as i saw people without, i strived to live a life of simplicity. as i experienced life in another culture, i learned that God is bigger than my american box.

eight years later, i haven’t forgotten those lessons. and i still invite God to blow the top off my box.

30til30: day 30, editing the andersonian

2009-05-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

30til30

2009-05-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

tomorrow, i begin a series of 30 posts leading up to my 30th birthday on june 1 (hint, hint). i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30 and even more challenging to do justice to the way God has used these people and situations in my life. i hope it inspires you as it has me.

i also hope you'll join me these next 30 days as i celebrate God's work in my life to continue to mold and shape me into the image of Christ.

what a wild ride it is!

how i met your father: our love story, part xiv

2009-04-29T23:53:00.000-05:00

a few weeks after i decided i wanted to marry michael, things in manila seemed to get very intense. looking back, it’s tough to determine how heated it really was. but, two of my four teammates and i felt very unsafe. after a lot of thought and prayer, the three of us made the decision to return home. a week later, we boarded a plane bound for the states.

and like that, i was going to be near to my boyfriend for the first time in our dating relationship.

i was able to move to west lafayette and our relationship continued to deepen. through our rushed decision to return to the states and the situation surrounding that, i had spun through an emotional cyclone. i struggled for months to get my bearings.

to say that impacted our relationship would be an understatement.

add to that the fact that aside from the four months we dated before i left for manila, we’d built our entire relationship from a distance. learning to communicate face-to-face and work out differences in person was challenging.

but we persevered and one week, at the end of july, michael asked me if i’d go on a date with him before his schedule picked up with the start of classes. we planned to spend the weekend in indianapolis with his family and have dinner together on friday.

that morning, i distinctly remember sitting at my desk wondering, i bet he asks me to marry him soon. i bet today is the day.

we’d never talked about us getting married. he’d never told me he loved me. little did i realize how soon that moment would come.

on our way to indianapolis, michael informed me he had plans to hang out with andy when we arrived. i would need to find something to do at his parents’ house for an hour or two. i was annoyed. he wanted to take me on a date, right? not andy. but, i didn’t complain. instead, i hung out at his family’s home while his sister and parents flitted in and out of the house. it was weird, but we’d been dating long enough that i felt comfortable there, even when no one else was around.

finally, michael came back and cleaned up for our date. he’d uncharacteristically insisted that i wear a specific dress and he got more dressed up than normal. we took a picnic basket and blanket to our favorite park where we sat sweating in the muggy july sunset slapping buzzing mosquitoes.

at the time, i thought it was extremely romantic.

as we ate, michael asked me what types of things i find romantic. walks on the beach. picnics in the hot sun. small gifts. notes. and gazebos, i added as we packed up the picnic basket. i find gazebos romantic.

the entire evening, michael made odd decisions that flew by me without notice, especially after he’d insisted on seeing andy before our date. when we arrived at the park, he settled us in the middle of a sunny field instead of under the shade of the trees on our favorite hill. we talked and laughed and as the sun started to set, we took a walk. when he held my hand, he removed my bulky ring which bothered his hand and tucked the ring in his pocket. our conversation was light, skimming and jumping along the surface. we walked around the tall “weedy” grass instead of along romantic paths near the lake.

but, i was so engrossed in the ruggedly handsome man near me that besides a fleeting thought about our picnic location, i hardly noticed.

as we rounded the corner of weeds and “our” grove of trees came into view on top of the small hill, something out of place appeared. something large and white with small lights dancing on the ground. something i’d never seen before.

a hundred yards away, i looked suspiciously at michael. what’s that?! i asked.

i don’t know, was his stiff reply. let’s check it out. and that’s when i knew something big was in store.

as we approached, i began to make out the shape of a gazebo. a gazebo tall enough that michael’s 6-foot-one-inch frame fit comfortably inside. wide enough that he could stand inside with his arms outspread and not touch the walls. he made it, he told me.

i was astounded. i kept repeating, you made this?!

he’d left a dozen roses on the middle of a small blanket decorated with other rose petals. small tea light candles lit the walkway to the gazebo and danced around the edges of the blanket. a small radio played quietly a cd of our favorite love songs.

we danced. under the stars surrounded by twinkling light. we danced to several of our favorite songs. and i kept asking, you really made this? i still hadn’t figured out how he had created such a work of art without my knowledge. it must have taken hours. actually forty-seven, i later found out.

after we danced for awhile, michael stopped. there’s something i want to say.

before i could grasp what was happening, my knight was on his knee, holding my hand. even though i knew it was coming, i was stunned. oh my gosh! this is it!

i love you, he said. i’m a poor college student and i can’t afford a ring. but i want to know if you’ll be my wife.

it's the bloggy thing to do

2009-04-27T07:41:00.000-05:00

i don't know about you, but i am lovin' following the compassion team as they blog about their trip to india. having lived in a third-world country, i can imagine some of the poverty they see and experience. but, they do such a great job conveying the images around them.

i especially liked this post by pete and this one by shaun. if you haven't, check them out. it's the bloggy thing to do.

if you're interested in learning more about compassion or sponsoring a child, you can click the button on the right. i highly recommend the click.

******

in other senor elefante news, i'm beginning 30til30 on saturday. yikes! check back in this week for another chapter of how i met your father (i hope!) and other various ramblings, i'm sure.

two under two

2009-04-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

i think i've hit the stage in pregnancy when ~~people~~ men aren't afraid to "guess" that i'm with child.

women have been noticing for weeks already.

i took luke to the grocery this week rather early on tuesday morning. he's a great shopper at this age, makes eyes at all the older ladies and generally gets along with everyone. at 8:30 in the morning, we can fly through the store and be home in less than an hour. even with a good shopper, it's best for everyone involved.

this week, luke and my pregnant belly got us a good bit of attention. in addition to the normal glances and smiles, as we were paying and having the groceries bagged, an older asian man waited for us so he could walk out with us.

though i tried to listen closely, his english was rather broken and i struggled to understand him. he asked luke's age and about the baby. i might have told him i'm having twins. he made me a little uncomfortable as we got closer to our car and he insisted on touch luke's hands. but he finally said good-bye and went on his way.

after i finished loading the car, i started to take my cart to the corral. halfway there, a mid-30s-ish man offered to take my cart to the corral for me, noticing that i had my hands rather full with a little squirmer. i thanked him, but was surprised at the attention.

i feel compelled to add, i wasn't wearing my wedding rings, y'all (it was one of those days of pregnancy when it was too uncomfortable).

you think that had anything to do with it?

how i met your father: our love story, part xiii

2009-04-22T20:09:00.000-05:00

here's the next chapter of our story. if you're just tuning in, you can read the previous chapters by clicking the link how i met your father in the labels sidebar. on another note, can someone make me a button for this? or teach me how?

we spent the next several months emailing and it wasn’t until my birthday at the beginning of summer that michael first called. while it looked like we took our relationship slowly this time, we were actually barreling forward. we had enough history to know about each other and the rest of the time i spent in manila was about deepening that relationship.

my teammates and i had planned to stay in the philippines until spring 2003. with that timeframe in mind, i had subconsciously decided i would determine whether i knew michael was the one a couple months before i came home.

as the summer turned to fall, michael entered his last year at purdue. he invested his free time into attending job fairs and looking for potential jobs. he told me all about each opportunity and i listened patiently, wishing i could be with him to experience what he was telling me.

until one night.

we had been talking on the phone when michael mentioned to me a job option for a large corporation which would have him moving around the country every six months for two years, learning new facets of the operations. as a business student, it was a great opportunity. he talked about it as though i would wait for him those two years, living my life hundreds of miles from wherever the job took him.

that night, i realized i never again wanted to live apart from this man, separated by the pacific ocean or several states.

that night, i realized he was the one.

unfortunately, it was about six months too early. or so i thought.

seven quick takes friday

2009-04-17T08:35:00.000-05:00

normally, fridays are pretty calm around our house. i usually get errands done earlier in the week and then we relax on friday. however, i have several things work-related to do today and i'm leaving for an over-night retreat at 1pm. i wanted to blog, but don't have a lot of time (or energy, if i'm truly being honest with y'all -- which i do strive for). so, i'm participating this morning in seven quick takes, hosted by jennifer at conversion diary.

1) like i mentioned, i'm going to a women's retreat tonight with my friends from church. somehow, someone from the church managed to hook a connection with nancy leigh demoss and she's coming to spend the weekend with us. the retreat is only one night, actually less than 24 hours, and i hope to come home revived in heart, but doubtfully revived in body. we 20-somethings (i have another six weeks to be a 20-something!) will stay up late and still have to get up early so as not to miss nancy. but the fun and refreshment (relationally, spiritually, emotionally) will be worth it!

(thanks, friend, for making sure i can go this weekend!)

2) i have six weeks to consider myself a 20-something. june 1 is the big day. i really haven't thought too much about it, except that i'm planning a 30 til 30 series for the 30 days leading up to my birthday (begining may 2). michael said he's consider doing the same thing later in the month, which means he'd actually have to start a blog. stay tuned...

3) luke has been really fun lately. he turns 18-months next friday. i can hardly believe he's not a baby anymore. he loves to dance to any music (especially my sister's cell phone ring tones) and play outside on our balcony. he can entertain himself for minutes with a small broom michael picked up for him at the hardware store across the street. he's also talking quite a bit, though most of it we still can't understand.

isn't he cute? i love this picture. it's from a couple weeks ago (okay, a month ago) during spring break. we took a picnic one afternoon when michael was off from class. as you can tell, the oatmeal cookies he's holding were a big hit. aren't the trees in the background pretty? i think they're dogwoods.

4) as i've been packing this morning (yes, it takes me awhile to pack for an overnight trip...), i laughed to myself about how i've picked up an annoying habit of overpacking and i'm desperately trying NOT to do that now. i've had my overnight duffle bag for years, i actually bought it when i lived in the philippines. my teammate lisa bought an identical bag. once, when we went out of town for 10 days, we both packed our little adidas duffles and a school-sized backpack. now, eight years later, i pack the same bag when i leave for two days. it's a sad reality.

5) i just realized i forgot to put michael's dinner for tonight in the crock pot. oops. i think it will still be cooked in time if i cook it on high until i leave...

he's having this recipe from allrecipes.com

easy and delicious chicken

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 (8 ounce) bottle Italian-style salad dressing
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup chicken broth
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
In a slow cooker, combine the chicken breasts and Italian-style dressing.
Cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours.
Drain off the juices, and shred the chicken meat. In a medium bowl, mix the soup, broth, cream cheese, basil, thyme, salt, and pepper. Pour over the chicken in the slow cooker. Continue cooking on Low for 1 hour.

sounds tasty, or rather delicious, doesn't it?

6) the seven quick takes has not been very quick for me. i started writing a couple hours ago. the cute little toddler distracts me. he wants to be fed and stuff. silly boy.

7) it's raining today. i was a little disappointed as i had wanted to take luke for a walk before i left, but i love the rain. it would be a great day to curl up with a good book and snuggle under the covers. but, i don't have a book -- or time to read today. i just finished reading great expectations last week. i'm on a classics kick. before that, i read to kill a mockingbird for the first time since sixth grade.

what should i read next? any suggestions?

y'all have a great weekend!

166 (no, not the number of days since i last posted)

2009-04-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

166.

it came clearly and quickly, much quicker than i'd anticipate. thwump-thwump. thwump-thwump. thwump-thwump. i was prepared to lay on my back with my shirt pulled up to my ribcage for several minutes before that beautiful sound came through the doppler. but, instead, i didn't have to wait even five seconds to hear the precious heartbeat of our second child. 166 beats per minute.

that's right, k2 is growing and preparing to join us toward the end of august. i'm 19 weeks pregnant, for those of you who like to count these things. we are ecstatic! but, perhaps you understand the reason for my bloggy hiatus.

i didn't intend to be gone for so long, really. i had planned to share our joy with the world wide web after we first heard the heartbeat six weeks ago. however, chasing a toddler has me far more tired than i realized possible. when luke sleeps, i usually take a nap as well. by the end of the day -- between working and taking care of our little man -- i'm worn out. and, well, blogging was put on hold temporarily.

but, since my fan is calling (thanks, cari), i figured i needed to get back into it.

we wanted our children to be closer than two years and luke will be just 22 months when this little one is born. as a not-very-verbal 17-month-old, he's starting to get the concept of a baby. he points to my tummy (or sometimes my leg or my chest) and says ba-bee! he regularly points at other babies, so even though he doesn't understand all the change that's coming, he is staring to understand baby.

in other family news, michael graduates in just five short weeks (or is it four, now?). i've been spending a lot of my online time helping him look for jobs. as his "secretary," i've even been sending his resume when i see a job i think might be a good fit. it's been fun because i like to dream of the possibilities.

currently, he's being considered at three dirfferent churches, though that means different things at different churches (for example, one church is considering 19 others as well). even if one of these panned out, it will probably be awhile before we know where we're moving. we hope to be moved (or moving) by the end of june. that would give us two months to settle as well as find another pre-natal care provider and get used to him or her before the baby is born.

so, we've definitely got a lot of change coming. i'll try to write about that here -- as well as continue how i met your father (for you, barb!). i've got some other things i've been thinking to write about or creative ideas to post. so, my plan is to be back for good.

ps. we don't currently plan to find out the gender of k2. that might change, but for now is the plan. so, you can be surprised with us.

good-bye faithful woobie

2009-01-27T08:18:00.000-06:00

yesterday, luke had his 15-month doctor appointment. he's growing. he has an ear infection (again). he got a shot.

but the most traumatic part of the appointment, unknown to luke, is that dr. nale said it is time to give up the woobie.

my heart fell.

lukie has been attached to his woobie (aka pacifier) since he was only a few weeks old. i gave it to him in desparation one afternoon when he wouldn't quit crying and he has loved it ever since. he sleeps with his arm tucked around fluppy, one woobie in his mouth and one in his hand.

i knew this day would come, but i'd hoped that it would be his decision to let go of this little comfort, not daddy and mommy snatching it from him. but, in addition to potentially affecting his speech, children who use pacifiers after 12 months of age are more likely to get sick, according to dr. nale. so with that, michael and i decided the woobie would be on its way out.

the doctor said it would take a couple days for luke to adjust, but that he's resilient and it would be harder for us than for him. we could give up the woobie cold turkey, slowly cut off the nipple until he couldn't hold it in his mouth, put it out of reach and constantly tell him no when he asks for it. none of those sound like good options to me.

i mentioned to michael that we could let thursday be the last day for the woobie so that he had all weekend to adjust before going back to MDO on monday. but, when michael emerged from luke's room last night after laying him down to sleep, the woobie was in his hand.

i was shocked. and honestly, really sad.

my little boy isn't a baby anymore. he's growing up. tomorrow he'll be in kindergarten and next week he'll be moving off to college, not needing me to cuddle him or kiss his boo-boos or fix his breakfast. though maybe still wash his laundry.

i know the point of parenting is to grow up little independent people who are capable of taking care of themselves and, one day, someone else.

i just didn't realize it would come so fast.

i run for cari. and for tina.

2009-01-22T14:46:00.000-06:00

i discovered over the last few weeks that when you take an unexpected blogging hiatus, it’s difficult to get back into a rhythm. what to say? i have a lot to write about. and i guess i’ll just take it once step at a time and catch you up on our life over the next several days. or weeks, as the case may be.

the marathon was pretty amazing. yes, i finished it. yes, it was one of the most difficult things i’ve ever done. but, it was somehow fun, too. weird, i know.

my running buddy, kiley, and her husband chad picked me up early sunday morning so that michael and luke didn’t have to fight the crowds at the starting line. it was a really warm day for december. i think the temperature at the start was around 50 degrees. when i finished, it was probably around 70. that’s hot for such a long run. and, it was insanely windy. which is never fun for long runs.

we hydrated. and used the port-o-lets. we prayed together as a staff. and then we were off.

it was a really fun run through downtown dallas – and the weather was beautiful at the beginning, even with the wind. the first half of the half-marathon is run along the marathon course, so we saw several of our co-workers. we cheered for steve as he pushed tina along in her special chair. i also noticed that our first several splits were much slower than i anticipated (maybe 30 seconds). probably all due to the wind. seriously, it was brutal.

michael, luke, my sister and her roommate were planning to see us at miles 4, 8, 12 and 22. we planned to walk every 5 miles. and, at first, we did really well that way. we made it all the way to the lake (10 miles) only walking once. but around the lake the wind really picked up – though i didn’t know it was possible. and, it got much hotter and kiley doesn’t do well running in the heat. so after walking at mile 10, we also walked at mile 12. and 14. i have no doubt that the wind was gusting at 40 mph. it was wicked, almost blowing me sideways at times. around mile 13, i quit tracking our pace.

we saw chad at mile 14. the heat and wind were really beating kiley at that point. we ran together for two more miles. and then, when she had to walk again, she told me to keep going. with a bit of disappointment that we wouldn’t finish together, i kept going.

even though i wasn’t running with kiley, there were a lot of people still cheering me on. i passed chad again around mile 19. five of our coworkers were running a relay that went a long the marathon course so every five miles or so, the group of them would be waiting for their next runner and cheering like crazy for us. seeing ginny and emily’s wide eyes and huge grins definitely boosted me each time i saw them.

the next three miles around the lake weren’t too tough. mostly flat, or down hill. but the wind never let up, so it wasn’t easy. after the lake come the dolly parton hills, where guys with huge balloons in their t-shirts cheered us on. and then the next couple miles through a residential area, until at least mile 22, were up hill. at that point, i thought my quads, which had never hurt before when running, might give out. but, many of the residents came out to cheer on runners and it encouraged me to keep going.

i kept looking for michael, telling myself that when i saw him i could walk a minute. i passed the place i thought he’d be and ran a little farther without seeing him, so i walked. a mile later, the course went passed the seminary where several of our friends, and my cheerleading crew were waiting for me – with a glass of starbucks water, my favorite.

michael had changed his clothes and was running the last three miles with me. at that point, i could talk just fine, but my legs would barely move. i think michael was amused that my mouth was running so much faster than my body.

we ran passed the birth center where luke was born. michael asked which was harder. without a doubt, unmedicated childbirth is more difficult than running a marathon. if i had wanted to quit running, i could have. in childbirth, you can’t quit.

throughout the entire marathon, everytime i wanted to walk, i prayed for cari. and for tina. the first 13 miles honestly weren’t horrible. but the last six, i prayed a lot. i thought a lot about how life is a marathon. we’re urged to run with endurance the race marked out for us. we don’t get to chart the course, to choose the flattest land or the easiest weather. and, my friends can’t quit. they have to keep going despite the challenges and the grief. and, honestly, that kept me going. if my friends can’t quit, i won’t quit. with tears brimming in my eyes, i told michael, i run for cari. and for tina.

mile 25 goes right by our church, again downtown. several of our friends had stayed after church to wait for me and cheer me on. i loved seeing them! michael kept trying to encourage me to pick up the pace for the end, but i just couldn’t much. i ran the last three miles at about 11 minutes per mile.

and as the finish line came into sight, something magical happened to my legs. it was as if new life was put into them. i was able to finish at an amazing pace. at least, it felt amazing. there weren’t a lot of people finishing with me and it was so awesome to hear the announcer call my name as i crossed the line.

and then, it was over. yes, there were lots of hugs and congratulations and pats on the back. but really, it was kind of anticlimactic for me.

granted, running a marathon is an amazing accomplishment. one that i might not ever do again, though i still enjoy running. i ran several times over christmas, but have only laced up my shoes once since arriving back in dallas. but that, my bloggy friends, is for the next post . . .

so, maybe i am a runner

2008-12-09T07:00:00.000-06:00

i have a confession: unless you live near us, or are related to michael or me, you might not realize that i'm running marathon on sunday. a real-live 26.2-mile marathon.

yes, i realize i'm insane.

two years ago, i started running again, after retiring from my running career at the end of seventh grade. i've never really been a runner but i wanted to be intentional to work-out and running is something michael and i can do together. by together, i mean that we run at the same time, not next to each other. apparently, i run too slow for michael to run with me.

but don't worry, i'm not bitter. anymore.

so, two years ago, we bought each other running shoes for an early christmas present and began running. we set the goal to run a half-marathon in late spring and began training. i learned that i really like running if i'm not concerned about my speed (see above comment about being "slow").

and then, i went and got pregnant. according to our ob, it wasn't a problem for me to run the half-marathon. just don't get your heart-rate too high, she said. as long as i felt well, i could complete the half.

but then, i went and got morning sickness. which apparently can sometimes act like all-day sickness. and so, with six weeks left to train, my half-marathon goal went out the window. it's hard to get motivated to run when you feel like leaving your stomach on the sidewalk.

but, i wanted to run a half-marathon before we move from dallas. i wanted to get back into my new-ish sport. there is a popular marathon here in december which includes a half. so, i decided that's what i'd run.

i hadn't yet started my training when in may, my company took us on a staff retreat. part of the retreat was focused on helping us to grow as individuals in several areas of our lives, including our physical health. ceo stan challenged us to run the marathon i already was thinking about. i figured it'd be fun to run the half with my co-workers.

but, several weeks later, stan stopped me. the half doesn't sound like a katherine thing to do, he said. you need to do the full thing. i still think he's crazy.

here i am, though, less than a week from the starting line, having trained for about five months. throughout all this time, i've wanted to write here about it. training for something this difficult and time-consuming has really given me a lot to think about and process. thoughts i've wanted to share with you.

but, when it comes down to it, training for this marathon has also been intensely personal, in a way i didn't expect. my real-life friends know i'm running and often ask about my long runs (how much did you run this week?), but aside from that, it's been tough to talk about this feat with anyone but my running partner, kiley (who, thanks to this challenge, is running her second marathon this year). it feels like bragging to just announce, i spent my morning training for something that only 1% of americans ever accomplish. what did you do today?

and so, i've been mostly quiet about this big deal. but there you have it. with only five days before the gun goes off, i've broken the silence.

wish me luck.

how i met your father: our love story, part xii

2008-12-08T07:00:00.000-06:00

here's the next chapter of our love story. i'll keep writing, but december is an insanely busy month for us. i doubt i will make much progress until we leave town and i have some emotional space to write.

i'm also thinking through some other posts, but am not sure if i'll get to those. unfortunately, december will probably be a fairly quiet month here at senor elefante because its a very "loud" month in our home. i seriously don't have a night without something planned until dec. 19. *sigh*

stick with me! i promise to come back after the new year.

************

i don’t remember how many days passed before i knew michael had received my letter – from 8000 miles away, i’d sent it priority air mail, hoping it wasn’t lost on its way. but, i do remember that my teammates and i were preparing to leave for a 10 day trip to the province when the email came.

i wish i remember exactly what it said, but the words are long lost in the emotion of the moment. i’m sure it was simple: i still like you and would like to begin to pursue you again. for the first time in our relationship, michael stood the chance of being rejected. he didn’t know my heart still longed to be with him. so, writing to ask me to give him another chance was a bold move.

he’d given our relationship a lot of thought, had been through a very difficult time himself and was ready to begin our relationship again. he later told me, he knew at that moment that if i agreed to “date” him, he wanted to marry me.

there wasn’t an internal struggle for me whether to pick up our relationship. i knew i loved him and wanted to be with him. my heart was still hurt, but i figured that could be worked out. and so, separated by the vastness of the pacific ocean, we began to date again.

it wasn’t until i returned from my trip that we really nailed down what our relationship would look like. i anticipated being in manila for another year. how often would we email? (often) how often would we talk on the phone? (not for awhile and less frequently than we emailed) would michael come to manila to see me? (sorry, i’m a broke college senior, he said) but, i was once again his girlfriend.

and my heart was on cloud nine.

in honor of thanksgiving

2008-11-26T07:00:00.000-06:00

my wonderful in-laws traveled almost 1000 miles to spend thanksgiving with us. if we're all honest, they come to see luke -- we spent two thanksgivings alone here before he was born. but, regardless of why they come, we are thrilled they are here.

if michael and i were alone this year, we had planned to spend the afternoon with friends and their family. then, i wouldn't have had to do any ~~more~~ cooking, aside from our one-dish contribution to the meal. i've already cooked three turkeys for our neighbors, in addition to mashed potoatoes, stuffing, gravy and pie. i was thrilled to not have to cook another meal.

the three turkeys i cooked initially turned out really well, if i do say so myself. the first year i roasted a turkey, i cooked it in a bag and it wasn't done enough to my liking. since then, i prefer to simply roast them (maybe next year i'll try a brine), which is simple and they turn out well.

which is more than i can say for the first ham i cooked.

michael and i had been married a few month over a year when we decided to host easter lunch for his parents and a few guys from the university dorm. michael's parents were traveling an hour and a half and single guys never bring anything to a family dinner so i made everything for the meal.

i'd never baked a ham, but it seemed easy enough. i bought a smll boneless ham and followed the directions completely. because, after all, i am a rule-follower. sometimes.

well, almost. when i got to the step that told me to remove the inner wrapper, i didn't. there wasn't an inner wrapper on my ham. i looked several times and poked at the ham. it just wasn't there.

i used my mom's recipe to glaze the ham and popped it in the oven after we got home from church.

i checked it with my meat thermometer at the appropriate time and the ham was a llloooooong way from being done. i was a little surprised, but it was the first ham i'd ever baked. i knew nothing about cooking times and just assumed it needed a little longer. besides, we had a pretty ghetto gas oven and it ocassionally didn't light entirely. or cook quickly.

thirty minutes later, the ham still wasn't done. or really, even close to done. everyone had been sitting politely around our living room, chatting together, but i was starting to get anxious. in a hushed whisper, i called my clueless-about-my-dilemma husband into the kitchen to consult with me about our options.

his suggestion shocked me: microwave the ham. microwave it? he couldn't be serious. you can't microwave a family holiday dinner.

at least, my mom never did.

but, i was out of options. so i did what any desperate young wife would do. i put the ham in a corningware dish, glazed it again and set the microwave for three minutes. when i pulled it out to see if it was helping, i suddenly realized why it wasn't baking quickly. the inner wrapper that i hadn't removed was shriveled around the ham.

i had spent the morning glazing the wrapper of the ham instead of the ham itself.

fortunately for me, the ham still tasted great, at least my mother-in-law claimed it did. and, we had a fabulous dessert afterward.

no one can mess up chocolate.

to the confused (so i hear) souls in indy

2008-11-25T16:30:00.000-06:00

as you may have noticed, on this blog, i call our son luke, which if you know us personally is obviously not what we call him in real life. it's a made up name for the blog.

i chose a "real" name as opposed to a nickname, because i figured it'd be easier for me to write (though, now i'm not really sure that would have been the case). i chose the name luke because i really like it, but it's not a "top contender" for michael for names for any future sons we have.

i decided to use a pseudonym for him because i'm trying to protect his privacy. i have no clue where life will take us when michael graduates from seminary, or life will one day take luke. while writing honestly, i want to protect and honor his privacy. most likely, michael will be a "public figure" of some sort, even if it's just small-town locally. our family might really have a fish-bowl feel. i don't want to make that worse through my blog.

and so, you'll never find our last name on our blog, either.

its just a personal decision for our family.

make sense?

how i met your father: our love story, part xi

2008-11-24T07:00:00.000-06:00

the first few weeks in manila were a blur. we had a lot of decisions to make as a team, yet we hardly knew each other – which adds to the stress of making decisions in a new culture. the three of us girls lived in a large house for a couple weeks, each with our own room. as we adjusted to the newness of everything, i spent a lot of time on my bed with the door shut, crying and thinking. and missing home.

as we moved into our permanent apartment a couple weeks later, things didn’t immediately get easier. but, as we fell into a routine and started working on campus, i did find myself thinking less often of michael.

something amazing started to happen as the days ticked on. God began to teach me of himself in a very deep and personal way. as i mourned the loss of the man i loved, i saw God in a way i never had before. i became convinced of his goodness. his righteousness. his faithfulness.

even when i didn’t understand it.

one morning, as i sat in our garage (which we used for many things, but never for housing a car) with my feet propped against our gate, i read psalm 139.

“…if i take the wings of the dawn,
if i dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
even there your hand will lead me,
and your right hand will lay hold of me…”

those verses became a source of comfort to me over the next several months. from where i’d grown up, i had moved almost as far east as possible, i’d taken the wings of the dawn. i was dwelling in a very remote part of the sea. and still, regardless of my circumstances, God promised to lead and guide me. to be faithful in all his ways and kind in all his deeds (psalm 145). i began to become convinced that God would be good to me, even if it meant heartache for awhile.

slowly and surely, my heart began to heal.

i still had moments of intense sadness. like the time i stumbled across a file of email michael and i sent each other. i mourned the loss of my friend.

like the time i received a cd in the mail from one of my sisters. many of the songs reminded me of michael and i cried as i sat on my bed with my back against the cold cement wall. i mourned the loss of my love.

but mostly, i began to move on.

i moved on changed in my heart. because of the work God was doing, i wasn’t bitter or angry. our first five months in manila were filled with a very real sense of God’s presence for me. i was growing and deepening in ways i don’t believe i could have with michael only an email or phone call away.

i still really, really missed him. and loved him. i wanted to be with him. but i was beginning to imagine life without him. and because of the things God was teaching me, that life didn’t seem so scary. or horrible. i knew that i would be okay if God never brought our relationship to be again.

and then, i started to hear through my friends and family that michael was asking about me. wanting to know what i was doing, how i was, if i had plans to come home over the summer.

as strange as it sounds, my immediate reaction was hurt. and then confusion. when he broke up with me, i understood him to say that he would not pursue me. and here he was, trying to get into my life through my family.

if he didn’t want to date me, why was he pursuing me in this roundabout fashion?

i was confused and distracted, hurt and yet still hoping. my head started to spin and i struggled to get my bearings. all the grief i thought had passed crashed to the surface with those four simple words from someone in my family. michael asked about you.

and so, with the help of an older guy friend i trusted, i did the opposite of what i wanted to do. i spent a week writing the most difficult letter of my life, as unemotional as i could write, asking michael to please stop talking to my family about me.

as i wrote, the rest of the grief and sadness i had poured out of my heart. how i was able to write without manipulation was only an act of God. more than anything, i wanted michael to pursue me.

and here i was, asking him to do just the opposite.

it was the greatest act of surrender i’d made in my life, greater than the sacrifices i’d made in moving to manila, for i knew those were but temporary. here i was telling God this is what i want, but whatever you do, whatever you require of me, you are good. when i finally and completely let go of my relationship with michael, i had no idea if God would bring another man into my life. or if i would spend the rest of my days single.

i cried every day for a week. the day i mailed the letter, i came home from the post office and collapsed in a heap on the shoulder of my teammate lisa. i was exhausted and spent. i cried myself to sleep that night for the last time.

i woke up the following morning, a sunday, with the most intense sense of God’s presence i have ever experienced. despite all the emotion, i knew without a doubt that morning that God would take care of me. with or without michael, i would be okay.

and that moment changed my life.

true american icons: mcdonalds & walmart

2008-11-23T14:23:00.000-06:00

aw, man. y'all are going to love the next chapter or two of how i met your father. i mean, if you thought the last two chapters yanked the tears out of your eyes, wait until this next chapter or two. i'll post one tomorrow, but i'm not sure yet how long the chapter will be. either way, hang with me. it gets good.

today was a day of great firsts for luke.

since he fi-nal-ly hit the 20lbs mark, he can be promoted to a forward-facing car seat. i considered waiting another month or two, but with cool weather here, it's difficult to get him in and out of his current car seat with all his layers and whatnot. since we have to buy another seat anyway, it just seemed like a good time to get it, so that we avoid as much of the holiday madness as possible.

we designated today as the day to make the upgrade. luke doesn't yet know the joy that awaits him as he finally gets to see what everyone else sees as we drive.

our first stop was walmart. because there isn't a walmart within 20 minutes of us, we rarely get to one. michael was quite excited, for reasons i don't understand, to just be in the walmart parking lot. he hates traffic and crowds, but was excited to shop at walmart. weird. i think it takes him back to his small-city roots. or, something like that . . .

i think mostly today, he was excited for luke to get to participate in an icon of american consumerism.

and so, michael also took us to the in-store mcdonalds for lunch. another great american icon.

i wish i'd had a camera so i could share with you the joy he found in plunging two adult-size bites of mcdonalds hamburger patty into his mouth. all. at. once. followed by four french fries (one at a time). the child is in love with french fries.

but dr. pepper? not so much. maybe he's not a texan after all.

as much as michael and i poke fun at mcdonalds' grip on american society, i have fond memories of mcdonalds from childhood. we didn't go often, but occassionally, mom would take randy (my friend she babysat) and me for lunch on our way home from preschool.

we'd each get a happy meal. and sit by the huge fishtank that divided the dining area from the ordering area. i had my first sip of rootbeer at the local mcdonalds (yuk!) when my tot-sized drink was accidentally switched with randy's. we'd play with our cheap happymeal toys until it was time to go home.

it was fun because it was a treat.

do you have any memories of mcdonalds (or other fast food restaurants) you'd like to share? leave a comment!

how i met your father: our love story, part x

2008-11-22T07:00:00.000-06:00

after crying and thinking and crying that weekend, i decided i didn’t want my memories of my last two weeks at home to be filled with heartache. so, at my request, michael and i actually carried on as we would have otherwise, delaying the inevitable for two weeks. i visited him one more weekend and he came to see me off at the airport. i know people thought we were weird, and one older friend actually called to talk me out of spending time with him, but it was what i wanted. i honestly believed it would be easier that way. and, maybe it was.

i packed as best as i could to live for two years in a country i’d never visited. one of the navigator staff had sent us a packing list of ideas. still, it was hard to know what to take and what to leave behind. i had to pack my life into two suitcases. well, a suitcase and a crate.

we got to the airport with more than enough time to check my bags, take pictures, and hang out before i had to go through security. less than two months earlier, everyone would have been able to accompany me to the gate. saying goodbye before the metal detector was new to me. and difficult.

i’m sure it would have been a tearful goodbye regardless, but my heart was obviously a wreck.

when we first checked my bags, the crate was over-weight. the cost to ship the extra weight was $50 per leg. with four flights to get me to manila, the $200 was not worth it. i sat down on the floor with my crate open in front of me trying to decide what to leave behind.

everything seemed valuable and necessary. my mom, trying to help me, would hold up an item and ask what about this? can it stay?

no, i’d respond. i definitely need that. it goes with me.

a few seconds later, michael would grab the same object. you don’t need this right away. your mom can send it to you. without realizing what i was doing, i’d agree and let michael put the same object in the stay-in-indiana pile.

my mom later told me that it was at that moment she knew that he was a man i could follow for the rest of my life. she had a hard time not treating him as a prospective son-in-law once i left.

miraculously, i held my composure without going into the ugly cry for most of the morning. i’m smiling in all the photos with nary a tear streak on my cheek.

then came the actually goodbye and the walk through security. i’m sure airport personnel see lots of criers, but seriously. it was the ugly cry of all ugly cries. with my small bear orion tucked under my arm and my backpack over my shoulder, i walked away from my family and the man i thought i loved. if i hadn’t been so heartbroken, i would have realized i looked just like i did on my first day of kindergarten. except my hair wasn’t in pigtails.

after i walked through all the security and down the terminal, i turned to wave one last time.

and that’s when the huge sob, caught deep in my throat, erupted. it was like the scene from ever after when danielle’s prince is about to marry the princess of portugal and the princess sobs uncontrollably all the way up the aisle.

that was me. i was the princess. sobbing all the way down the terminal.

my apologies to my loyal readers

2008-11-21T13:54:00.000-06:00

wow. i had no idea you'd be beating down the door (heidi) to get the next installment of our lovestory. i almost feel like pioneer woman, expect she has thousands of readers. and i have, well, tens of readers. (i'd be able to get a better count on my readership if y'all would comment -- not naming any names, suzanne, rebecca or rudy.)

i do apologize for not having the next chapter up yesterday. i had planned to. just like i had planned to run 10 miles yesterday. and then, right after serving an early thanksgiving dinner on wednesday night to almost 40 of our neighbors, i got sick.

yup. the stomach bug that has been visiting our friends visited us. well, me and luke. michael seems to be fine. i'll spare you the details except to say we're on the mend now. even if i weight five pounds less.

so, i'll work on a chapter this afternoon while luke naps. look for it tomorrow or sunday!

in other news, we now have a beginning walker in our family. yup, luke is slowly learning to walk. he's not super confident yet, but he'll take five-ten uncoerced steps. i say uncoerced because encouraging him does not help the learning process. he's a little too stubborn to walk when we want him to. and, he'd still rather crawl or be carried, but he takes little steps when he's not paying attention to what he's doing.

i see an entire world opening up to us.

enjoy your friday afternoon!

how i met your father: our love story, part ix

2008-11-17T07:00:00.000-06:00

i didn’t really think about marrying michael often, because it seemed so far away – i was planning to be living out of the country for almost two years. and i certainly couldn’t plan a wedding from 8000 miles away.

but, our relationship didn’t seem to be slowing. quite the contrary. i went to purdue almost every weekend in september and early october, usually hitching a ride with michael’s best friend andy. that was the year of 9/11 which left us stunned and afraid. michael and his buddies, one of whom is a marine, talked about enlisting or being drafted. like any serious girlfriend or wife, i hated the idea, but what could i do? i breathed a sigh of relief when these conversations became less frequent.

we went camping with michael’s family in early october and i had a great time – my first introduction to his family’s concept of camping. we sat beside the fire after his parents and sister went to sleep and stared at the stars. my impending move hurled toward us and i began to realize i wasn’t ready to leave this man. but, i had made a commitment to go. besides, michael still had two years left of school. marriage wasn’t a thought.

michael, too, was beginning to realize how serious our relationship had gotten, without either of us intending it to happen. he knew that if he allowed our relationship to continue as i moved, he would be moving our relationship toward marriage, though he wouldn’t have told me that. though we were both in love, he wasn’t sure he was ready to commit to marry me.

and so, one friday night about two weeks before i was schedule to board a plane and leave everything i knew, i rode with andy to purdue for the weekend. andy was going to drop me off and michael was going to bring me home on sunday.

i knew something was bothering michael from the moment i saw him that afternoon. he kept denying that anything was wrong. we had dinner in the dorm cafeteria and then went to the navigator rally, but only stayed for a few minutes before michael grabbed my hand. let’s go, he said.

we walked out to the middle of campus, where it was dead quiet on a friday night. i don’t remember the words he said as he told me he wouldn’t write or call me when i left, but i do remember the instant grief and sadness i felt. and the aloneness. i didn’t even know where i was on campus or how to get back to our friends. i remember asking if that meant we were over. and then, through tears, i said, please take me back to the rally.

i really felt as if i’d been hit by a two-by-four. it was so out of the blue. i was stunned. and grieved. immediately back at the rally, i found one of the staffers, laura, and asked her to pray with me. i couldn’t see straight. and, i didn’t know what to do. so, i told andy not to leave without me that night.

julie took me back to her room where i’d left all my things and i gathered them up. while i waited for andy, i sat in the lobby of michael’s dorm and played the only piano song i knew from memory, be thou my vision.

i remember michael coming to see me before i left and looking at him through teary eyes. i’ll be okay, i said, more to reassure myself than him. and then, with andy waiting in the car, i turned my back on the man i thought i’d marry and i walked away.

when andy and i got back to indianapolis, i still had a thirty-minute drive to my parents’ home. i’m not sure how i made it in one piece – i could hardly see i’d been crying so much. it was late and my parents hadn’t been expecting me, so i knew i had to wake them.

mom, i said from the doorway of their room, before she was really awake. he broke up with me.

and then, like moms are supposed to do, she held me for the next hour while i cried.

how i met your father: our love story, part viii

2008-11-13T10:00:00.000-06:00

if you're just jumping in to this crazy saga, catch up here:

part i part v

part ii part vi

part iii part vii

part iv

we had a wonderful summer. we enjoyed the sunshine at the park, watched old movies, hung out a lot with our friends, attended a young adult bible study together at ken & barb’s. we drove a lot. michael volunteered to chauffer a friend who was in a wheel chair. he lived 45 minutes away with his parents. each week, i would ride with michael to take scott home and then michael and i would drive to my parents’ house, 30-minutes in the opposite direction.

as we drove along the dark highway, michael would often reach down to grab a penny from the change console of his car. penny for your thoughts? he’d ask, handing it to me. most of the time, i couldn’t articulate the things i was thinking, how i was falling in love with him as we drove around the city and sat on blankets at the park.

we had fun together, laughing and playing games. michael is a leader and his friends look to him to set the pace for what they do. and yet, he doesn’t care what others think. he’d do what he thought was right, even if no one else followed. his relationship with the Lord was foremost in his life and he lived a life of integrity and conviction.

and he was hot. i still remember when i first realized how insanely attracted i was to him. it was sometime during my senior year. i was talking to a group of girls after sunday school when out of the corner of my eye, i saw michael walk into the room. close your mouth, katherine, i distinctly remember telling myself when i’d realized my mouth was agape.

the skinny runner i’d liked two years earlier had filled out and was strikingly handsome. wow.

i also remember the first time i spoke about one day marrying the skinny runner. out loud. i was driving with my parents. while i couldn’t bring myself to actually say the words, because michael had yet to use the word love toward me, i told them our relationship was serious. the real-deal serious.

from the amount of time we spent together, i think they got the idea.

at the end of the summer, right before michael moved back to school, our family took one last family vacation before we girls started moving out. we had a fabulous time on the beach in south carolina. i sat on the beach several evenings watching storms far out at sea, wishing michael was sitting next to me.

before we left for south carolina, he took me on one last summer date. he gave me a dozen roses. i gave him a framed pencil drawing of a castle i’d worked on for weeks.

even if i couldn’t say it out loud, i was in love. madly in love.

the inconvenience of modern convenience

2008-11-11T08:09:00.000-06:00

last night, luke and i left for the airport a little after 6pm. we didn't need to be there until a few minutes after seven. but, when i factored in traffic and a run through chick-fil-a for my dinner, that was the time we left.

we didn't want to be late. we hadn't seen michael in four days. that's a long time to be a single mom when you're used to having a husband available to wipe a little nose. and change diapers.

i checked michael's flight status right before we left. on time. perfect!

even though i took the wrong exit to chick-fil-a and had to turn around, we made it to the airport with a few minutes to spare. enough time for me to eat my grilled chicken sandwich while it softly started to rain.

right before we got out of the car, i check the flight status again on my iphone. 7:35. thirty minutes late. i can easily entertain a 12-month-old for that long.

i unloaded luke, took him inside and he started to walk around the baggage carousel holding my hand.

we hadn't been there 10 minutes when a voice came over the intercom. attention those waiting for flight 1099. ugh. the flight had been rerouted and wouldn't arrive until after 9pm. i hadn't brought any toys for luke. no one can entertain a tired 12-month-old without toys for two hours when he's up past his bedtime.

by this time, it'd started to rain harder. we attempted to find a nearby mall, but with the rain falling harder and harder each mile i drove, i settled for a target parking lot. luke was unusually quiet, looking out the window, probably enjoyed the rain. i listened to talk radio. my phone battery was almost dead.

a few minutes after 8pm, michael called. we're most likely going to have to spend the night in austin. ugh again. the "storm" which just seemed like rain to me had pretty much shut down our airport. he told me to make the 30-minute drive home. he'd call me when he knew more.

i made it home through a hard rain and put lukie to bed. michael called. his flight was actually about to leave and he'd be home around 10pm. if the pilot can slip in through the storm. i could actually get back to the airport to find out that were going to be in a holding pattern until the storm cleared. my frugal husband allowed me to make a split-second decision to not wake luke up in order to save $50 to pick him up.

he took a cab.

and walked through the door at 11:06pm. after his flight circled around and landed at 10:25. considering his day of travel began at 10am, he was wiped out. he could almost have driven home in the same amount of time.

modern isn't always convenient.

how i met your father: our love story, part vii

2008-11-10T07:00:00.000-06:00

catch up with the rest of the story here:
part i part iv

part ii part v

part iii part vi

there’s no way that was michael, i thought, and went about my lazy saturday. why on earth would he be here? almost three hours from his school?

a little while later, the phone rang. it was my roommate sarah. um, katherine, she said in a hushed whisper. you’re never going to guess who i just talked to. she was wrong. at this point, i knew mandy and sarah couldn’t both be mistaken.

it turned out that michael had chauffeured his sister to a voice audition to our music school. while she was busy singing, we picnicked with subway sandwiches on the floor of our university’s auditorium. the singing took place in another building and so the auditorium was quiet.

we talked about little of importance but enjoyed being together. imagining life on the stage in front of us and talking about where life would take each of us.

the next several weeks were like that, random encounters with this man. a group of my friends, including michael, came to our school to watch another friend perform in a musical. my roommate sarah, who practically knew michael’s life-story as much as i talked about him, deserved a grammy for the “naive” performance she gave as she interacted with him that afternoon. really?! you’ve been to finland, too?

we also happened to be home at the same time a couple weeks in a row. i could no longer deny that i still really liked this man. besides, i wasn’t fooling anyone but myself.

i was preparing to graduate and trying to decide what i wanted to do with the next several years of my life. through a random series of events, i decided to take the opportunity to go to manila, philippines for two years with the navigators. our team’s plan was to leave in october.

graduation was especially emotional for me. i was honored with the opportunity to speak at our senior chapel and have lunch with our university president. several of my graduating friends and i pulled a prank on our major department’s office. i had fun attending parties for my friends. and, somehow also managed time to study for finals and pack my belongings.

all three of my roommates were about to be married and knew a little about where life would take them. i’d invested four years of my life at this school and suddenly, without someone to share it with, wondered if i’d made a difference. i cried a lot as we moved our furniture and our apartment again became four empty walls.

i moved back to my parents’ house and settled into their spare bedroom. between preparing to leave for two years, i spent a lot of time with my friends. and, as a result, michael.

the phone call came after a week when we’d seen each other almost every day. michael wanted to know if he could come over to my parents’ house later that night. when he arrived, he convinced me to drive three miles down the road to the dairy queen, which i knew was closed. we sat on a picnic bench and ate icecream michael had brought in a cooler from his house.

i don’t remember much about that night, but i remember the emotions. i was giddy. excited. nervous. what was so important to say that he’d drive 30 minutes at 10pm to say it? we sat under the stars for a long time that night, wondering what would come of our relationship.

i still like you, he said. and if you’ll give me a chance, i’d like to do things right this time.

but i was planning to move 8000 miles away in less than four months. were we really ready try again? what would my move mean to our relationship?

we didn’t have answers to those questions. but, still being young, we held hands. and jumped.

crazyness. joy.

2008-11-09T23:13:00.000-06:00

life has been unusually crazy this last month as michael worked on the first part of his thesis in addition to this regular class work.

luke agrees. we're all glad for a rest this coming month. can't you see the joy?

how i met your father: our love story, part vi

2008-11-06T20:22:00.000-06:00

i like the button, so i'm still going to use it, even though it's not october any longer. to catch up on our story, read these posts:

part i
part ii
part iii
part iv
part v

to say our interaction became tense would be an extreme understatement. we avoided each other at all costs – not difficult during the school year, but more challenging when we were both home at our small church. we were both really hurt and frustrated. i was upset because michael didn’t communicate his intentions clearly, but then expected me to be upfront and honest about how i felt about him. and, just disappointed that i’d invested so much into a relationship that was over so suddenly.

i wouldn’t have said it at the time, but i still cared a lot for michael.

i spent a lot of time that year, my junior year, uncharacteristically alone. i was an r.a. and lived in a dorm across campus from most of my friends. as an r.a., i had to be “on duty” on a weekly basis and then twice a semester for an entire weekend (suicide weekends, we called them). i had a lot of time to think and write and process. i invested in my relationship with my family and was mentored by esther, the wife of a chemistry teacher on campus.

my heart began to heal and when the summer rolled around again, i headed back to colorado.

somehow, before i left for the summer, michael and i began to inch toward a friendship again. i don’t remember hanging out, but when i heard he’d be spending the summer in colorado springs, where i often visited my childhood friend, we decided to have dinner together at some point.

when michael finally called me, he invited me to have dinner with him at the navigator’s beautiful castle where he was working for the summer. after dinner, we hiked up a ridge and watched the sunset. incredibly romantic, if we’d been dating.

but, as we talked, we just couldn’t see eye to eye. on anything, it seemed. we got along, but couldn’t seem to understand each other. he was making decisions that i didn’t understand and seemed counter-intuitive to me. i drove two hours through the mountains that night thinking, well, that was nice, but i’m sure glad we’re not dating anymore.

after i came home, though, and launched into my senior year, i realized i still liked michael. a lot, actually. i talked a lot about him to my three roommates. we slowly started emailing again. he was on my mind often. but, i still thought it would never work out.

and then one saturday morning, my roommate mandy interrupted my late-morning shower with a squeal. a guy just stopped by looking for you, she said. i think it was michael!

sevens

2008-11-05T22:21:00.000-06:00

i was tagged for this fun meme by julie: seven things you don't know about me. which is hard because many of you know me pretty well.

1) i was addicted to crossword puzzles in college. one of my roomies and i would work on the puzzle in usa today while we watched david letterman. once, we finished one. we framed it. or, at least we talked about framing it.

2) i have an iphone that my super cool boss at the super cool non-profit i work for had me buy (hi, rudy!). i've had it for a month and until today, had only added one application. now i have three: a crossword puzzler, an application that tracks my runs like a garmond and a bible. i might become addicted to crosswords again.

3) i never imagined that i'd be training for a marathon. michael wants to run a marathon before he turns 30 (in june), and i always thought he was a little crazy. kiley and i will run 18 miles on saturday. we're about a month away from the big day! never in my wildest dreams did i think i would be doing this. until about two years ago, i didn't even like running. and now, i might actually be a runner.

4) i worked for the olive garden for about ten months while we lived in indiana and it's still one of my favorite restaurants.

5) i'm not a phone talker. just ask my best girldfriend, kandice. i have grand intentions of calling her (and other friends), but don't think of it at appropriate times -- just 10:32 at night.

6) i'm an "otter," according to my husband. he listened to a radio broadcast today decribing personalities through four animals (otter, lion, beaver & golden retriever). i'm an otter because i like to have fun and i don't follow through very well. and, i procrastinate. but, i like to have fun!

7) i'm getting up tomorrow to run at 5am. i'm running 9 miles. on the treadmill. i just downloaded podcasts from alister begg to listen to because i'll probably be too tired for music at that early hour. i'm still up because my clothes are in the wash and if i intend to run, they need to be put in the dryer before we go to bed. i will be a tired girl when i wake up. and at our 9:30am staff meeting (sorry, rudy!)

i'm tagging elbie, cari, andrea, and stephanie.

that's all i've got. have a great night!

we have a winner!

2008-10-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

congratulations to angie who won my starbucks mug giveaway.

thanks to all who left comments -- i'd love to have you as regular readers -- and to bloggy giveaways for hosting the carnival!

how i met your father: our love story, part v

2008-10-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

if you're joining us for the first time, catch up with us.
part i
part ii
part iii
part iv

and, visit mary to read other love stories. mary was only writing for october, but since i got behind, i'll continue to post chapters of our story throughout november until it's finished. enjoy!

the following semester, we emailed quite a bit. in the late winter/early spring, i made my first trip to purdue, where michael went to school. as a freshman, he didn’t have a car, but invited me to come spend the weekend in west lafayette; quite a difference from my tiny school! we attended his christian fellowship. played cards with his friends. cheered in the stands at a big school football game. hung out in his tiny dorm room. played ping pong at the co-rec. almost 11 years later, i still have vivid memories of that weekend – and so does michael.

i was mesmerized by life on a big campus. and by the man i was with.

despite the distance, we spent time together when we could. michael came to visit me one weekend over his spring break. and, one snowy weekend, i even drove two hours to pick him up so we could drive back to indianapolis to hang out with our friends. we were so engaged with each other that it never occurred to us that our parents might be worried about us driving all that distance in the snow. and they were.

though he never said it, i knew he liked me. and i liked him.

as the summer approached, i decided i was going to spend the summer at noah’s ark whitewater rafting & outdoor adventure company. in colorado. over 1000 miles from indiana. the night before i left michael came over to my parents house and we sat on the front porch after everyone else had gone to bed. he had decided tonight was the night to tell me a story.

his story was an analogy of our relationship. and, looking back, it was a creative attempt to express how he felt about me. but, he never actually told me he liked me and so it fell woefully short of communicating what he intended. his story left me confused about our friendship.

in fact, when he drove away that night, i was pretty disappointed. what was that?! i remember thinking. and then, i decided if he could spend a year with me and still not tell me he liked me, i wasn’t going to hang around anymore.

i spent the entire summer around really cool christian guys – handsomely rugged men who loved the outdoors. michael was faithful to write me letters. but when i responded, my heart wasn’t in it. at one point, as i watched one of my co-workers wrestle with a golden lab, i specifically thought, michael’s not the only cool christian guy out there.

i was ready to move on and keep looking.

if only he hadn’t asked to see me when i got back from colorado.

my dad picked me up from the airport and i was devastated to see amber waves of grain and cornfields in place of purple mountains majesty. i was also dreading the pending conversation with michael.

dad dropped me off at michael’s parents’ house and we sat on the swing on the back porch. he wanted to know about my summer. but, even more important, he wanted to hear my response to his declaration of like back in may. i don’t remember much of our conversation. but, i do remember my response.

no, michael, i said curtly. you told me a story. you never told me you like me.

and that was it. the energy and investment we’d made in our friendship for a year was gone. whatever our relationship had been, it was now over.

i've got a hot date on friday!

2008-10-29T17:47:00.000-05:00

those who know our family in real life know that my husband is extremely frugal (earlier this week, i called him cheap, but i don't think he'd like the entire world wide web to think he's cheap, so we'll stick with frugal).

he just asked me to go on a date with him this friday.

to chipotle.

each year on halloween, chipotle gives away free burritos to guests who come in wearing tinfoil. our chipotle is handing out burritos from 6-8pm on friday. don't miss out!

for a free burrito, i'll wear tinfoil. maybe i'll dress as the tin man this year.

luke is going to chipotle as a burrito.

i'll provide photos later because i'm sure it will be a hoot.

my love affair with coffee

2008-10-27T21:05:00.000-05:00

i can remember the first time i stepped foot inside a starbucks coffee shop.

my college friend nicole and i were about to embark on an over-night road trip (which, incidentally, now ranks number 3 on my stupidest things i've ever done list). we weren't able to take a spring break trip together, so this was our pre-spring break trip. our plan was to drive through the night on friday night, arrive at the beach saturday morning, camp that night and then drive home sunday. see? stupid.

and the best part is that we made this 800-mile through-the-night trip without telling either of our parents. after being awake for 12 hours already. really stupid.

we'd both been up all day with classes and then a dorm event in indianapolis that night (we were both RAs). we were excited to get on the road, but definitely needed some caffiene to get started. starbucks had just opened a store downtown and so on our way out, we stopped.

it was a little taste of heaven before our big adventure.

eighteen months later, starbucks became a haven of home as i moved 8000 miles from everything familiar to me. i spent a year in manila serving with the navigators' edge corp. we served college students at two universities, one of which happened to be the harvard of the philippines, located across the street from a starbucks.

my teammates and i became regulars at this starbucks. it was a little piece of vanilla in a cappuccino world. i loved living in manila and have fabulous memories from our time there. but somehow, starbucks -- and the countless hours we spent there reading our bibles, sharing deep thoughts, writing letters home, journaling -- became a rock.

and so began my love affair with coffee. clearly, it's an emotional affair, though i do love the taste of coffee. and, it's no longer about the caffeine. in fact, normally, i prefer decaf. sometimes, if the mood is right, when i take that first sip of a hot vanilla latte, i can instantly be transported to that quezon city starbucks on katipunan avenue in manila. emotional memories, connected to your senses, are powerful things.

and so, in honor of my love for all things coffee, i'm participating in this week's bloggy giveaway carnival. i will be giving away a mug from starbucks. to enter, leave a comment telling me your favorite coffee drink. i'll leave comments open until noon on friday. i will select a winner after that.

i will contact the winner by email, so please be sure to leave your email address in the comments. the winner will have three days to respond, after which i will choose a new winner.

have fun!

how i met your father: our love story, part iv

2008-10-27T07:46:00.000-05:00

if you're just joining in on our story, check out the previous three chapters to catch up:

part i
part ii
part iii

and don't forget, you can read other love stories at owlhaven.

thanksgiving and christmas breaks were quickly approaching – the next time we would both be home and have the opportunity to see each other. over thanksgiving weekend, we attended a party at ken & barb’s house, played cards (as barb would have me interject, we cheated and still lost to our hosts), and sat outside under the stars together. we went with our friends to see the christmas lights downtown.

and, we went on our first date.

michael called me one afternoon to ask if i wanted to “hang out” with him that weekend. as it ended up, hanging out involved dinner and a movie downtown, paid for by him. after a very long wait and an awkward conversation with an older woman who assumed we’d been dating for a long time, we had dinner at the old spaghetti factory. i enjoyed dinner, but i’d always enjoyed our time together. and, i love pasta. it was perfect.

the movie on the other hand, prince of egypt, wasn’t so hot. but, we’d been able to walk around the mall and had a great time talking about school and our families and our plans for christmas break a few short weeks away.

as we prepared to leave, michael was pretty distracted. we left the mall and started walking. it was a crisp november night in the mid-west. we walked, away from our car, for awhile before it was clear we were headed into a not-so-nice area near downtown, away from the hubbub of night life. suddenly, michael looked at me sheepishly. i don’t remember where we parked, he admitted.

amused by his lack of directional sense, i told him we’d passed our street a few blocks back.

i found myself quieter than normal with michael, hesitant, at times, to say what was on my mind – something very unusual for me as the oldest born in a family of three girls. but, i wanted him to lead our relationship, whatever it was becoming, and i knew my tendency would be to take charge. and so, even when it meant having to walk a couple extra blocks, i let him lead as best as i knew how.

and as best as he knew how, he did lead. but our fledgling relationship had an interesting semester ahead.

happy birthday, sweet pea!

2008-10-24T07:24:00.000-05:00

happy birthday to my favorite little man!

My dear Sweet Pea –

Happy first birthday!

I know it sounds cliché, but it’s really hard for me to believe today is your first birthday. A year ago, I was wondering if you’d ever make it into the world. You were born after a quick, intense labor, which is indicative of how you’ve lived this first year of life: fast and intense.

I love your spiritedness. It brings such joy to my life and your daddy’s life to see you so filled with wonder and adventure. You love to explore. Earlier this week, you realized that if you climb into the one bathroom cabinet we let you pull through, you can crawl behind the doors to the cabinets we’ve locked off. And the other day, your daddy and I saw you standing on your tippy toes trying to reach the door handle for the balcony door so you could open it and go outside – you’re still about an inch too short.

For the most part, you love to be with people, which is good for us as our life will revolve around people. When we host events for our neighbors, you smile at them and let them hold you, even if you’ve never met them. You will let our friends volunteering with us take you for walks while we’re busy planning and preparing. You love your teachers at church and Mother’s Day Out, but are still so happy to see me or your daddy when we pick you up. I love seeing the look on your face when I walk into the room. You grin and laugh and crawl to me as quick as you can.

And you love to laugh, which your fun-loving mommy loves most of all. You love to be tickled and will often throw your head back so we can tickle your tummy. Over and over again. And you love to play games. When you realize I’m crawling after you, you’ll crawl under the end table where I can’t follow, and then turn and grin at me.

I remember the first time I realized you were playing a game with me. You were little and we were cuddling in the rocking chair. You put your hand in my mouth; when I pretended to bite your fingers and shook my head back and forth, you giggled loudly. And then, reached back up and put your hand in my mouth again.

You’ve ridden many hours in the jogging stroller Grandmother and Granddad gave us for Christmas as I train to run a marathon in six weeks. You love being outside. In fact, when you were a tiny baby and we couldn’t help you calm down, we’d take you out on the balcony to look out over the city; you’d instantly stop crying. When it’s not too hot, we take family walks on Sunday afternoons and count how many kitties and dogs we see. You squeal with delight each time we point out another cat.

Because of you and the joy you’ve added to our lives, the year has flown by. But in some ways, it’s been a long year, too. We’ve been to Indiana five times this year – including for your Great Uncle John’s funeral and the funeral of your eight-month-old friend Caden. Both are deeply sad moments that I will never forget, but that you will never remember except through stories we tell you.

You are so close to walking and talking. It has been a blast seeing you grow this year. You’ve grown from a little peanut of a baby who cried his first eight weeks of life to a fun-loving, adventurous toddler. You are a very obedient boy. Your daddy and I are very proud of you. Since before you were born, we’ve been praying for you that you would “bind kindness and truth to your heart” (Proverbs 3:3) and that you would have a deep and abiding relationship with God all the days of your life. I look forward to seeing how God works and moves in your life this next year to begin to teach you about Himself.

I love you!

Mommy

how i met your father: our love story, part iii

2008-10-23T07:31:00.000-05:00

i've gotten a little behind with our love story -- sometimes life just takes over and this is an incredibly busy season for us. if you're interested, check out part I and part II. i promise to finish our story, even if i'm still writing over thanksgiving!

we really didn’t hang out much that summer after i graduated, at least not that i remember. i was probably too busy gathering the possessions i deemed important enough to move 1 ½ hours away to my dorm room at school. and, later in the summer, he was probably busy conditioning for the cross country team. our paths didn’t cross outside of church, anyway.

i moved to college and had a great freshman year. i loved being at school and “on my own,” though i was hardly on my own as my parents paid for my car, my school tuition and my cell phone. i easily made good grades without studying much and spent most of my time making new friends. i even broke my nose (for the third time!) playing powder puff football. school was fun. there were a few guys who caught my eye – and i went on enough dates to realize i’d caught the eye of a few guys – but no one i was interested in going out with more than a couple times.

and then i moved back home for the summer. suddenly, my friends were hanging out with michael’s friends and i started seeing a lot of this skinny runner who’d just graduated high school. for the first time, this guy did catch my eye.

we hung out a lot, and i even helped michael throw a party at his parents’ home one weekend. unfortunately, i’d gotten in trouble with my parents and lost my car privileges. michael wanted me to be at the party and drove an hour round trip to pick me up before our friends arrived at his house.

his car wasn’t in the best of shape and he lost his muffler less than a mile from his home. he left it at a gas station, came to get me and then we swung by to get the muffler before getting back to his house. i was too caught up looking at the attractive man sitting next to me to realize how silly he must have felt. at the end of the night when he took me home, we stopped for a sandwich and coke. we talked a lot and laughed a lot. i enjoyed being with him.

at the end of the summer, after i’d moved back to school to be an r.a., we were both home for labor day weekend. michael invited me and his buddy jonathan to watch the fireworks with him. he picked me up, we met jonathan and the three of us hung out while the fireworks boomed over indianapolis. it was a fun night – and would have been romantic under different circumstances.

we both went back to college, michael to his freshman year at a school two hours from mine. we were beginning to spend a lot of time together when we were both home – and just barely beginning to get to know each other. but, i knew him enough to know i wanted to know him better. we started emailing a lot.

we were beginning to move past a friendship. and neither of us knew what the future held for our friendship.

in which my face breaks out from all the grease

2008-10-22T09:56:00.000-05:00

sidenote unrelated to this post: today marks the beginning of my favorite month of the year -- the one month that we pay a low electric bill because we don't have to heat or cool our home. fun times! gotta love texas.

last week, we took luke to the state fair to celebrate his birthday. many of our friends have thrown parties for their toddlers -- and we've enjoyed attending those parties -- but the reality is that a party for a one-year-old isn't for the child; it's for the parents. and since we don't need party-planning stress right now (we've got enough going on), we played it low-key. (we will have a "family" party with aunt suz and her boyfriend this weekend, so cake-eating pictures to come.)

we had a wonderful time doing something that was for luke. since he loves animals, i figured the state fair would be a hit. and it was. we went through the petting zoo and saw huge cows, a long horn and lots of sheep and pigs and a camel. he got to pet many animals and was in awe of all the people to watch. while he didn't get to eat anything more exotic than a saltine cracker, he definitely enjoyed the fair.

don't you just love the joy in that photo?

i, on the other hand, decided that it isn't appropriate to visit the fair without eating fair food. this year, the texas state fair had a deep-fried first: chicken fried bacon. i can't even imagine the greasiness that would result from that "delicacy." i did ask michael to split a funnel cake with me. he wasn't interested. so i ate the entire sugary, deep-fried goodness myself.

yum.

time freeze

2008-10-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

i have the privilege of being the mom of a very active almost-one-year-old. probably every mom thinks she has an active child.

but, seriously? i do.

he doesn't stop except for when he's asleep. or strapped down, and even then his feet and arms are going everywhere. he's social and so he wants to be with me. he follows me from room to room around the house getting into whatever draws and cabinets are in that room. and, he thinks he wants to be held, so he whines to be picked up, only to realize he wants down again. he's pretty good at straight-arming to communicate that point!

i love his energy. its fun and i can see that raising a boy is going to be an adventure.

because luke is so active, since he woke up to life at three months, he rarely falls asleep in our arms. rarely. but you know what? there is something oh-so-very special about those moments that he does. because they are so rare.

this afternoon was one of those days that i wanted to freeze time. luke and i met my good friend (and co-worker) for lunch at on the border. he was fantastic! he loved watching people. he couldn't get enough of watching the servers run around refilling drinks and delivering food.

and eating. he loved the eating. he ate most of my refried beans and a taste of guac. in addition to his own lunch of applesauce and cereal. being a hoosier, it's quite obvious to me that i birthed a texan. i doubt i was eating guacamole at a year old.

he smiled and talked and giggled at ginny throughout lunch, trying to touch her face and grabbing at her ring. he played with his duck and ate his cheerios and hardly fussed at all.

we came home after our busy outing and i knew he was tired. i carried him to his crib and he started to cry. when luke was a teeny baby, i started singing jesus loves me to him each night before bed. singing is one of the few things that calms him. so, we grabbed his fluppy dawg and i sat down in the rocker with my precious boy on my lap.

and i sang.

as i started to sing, he buried his head in fluppy and closed his eyes. i sang about God being my vision and wisom, about Jesus loving the little children, and about Jesus' name being like the fragrance after the rain.

and my boy fell asleep with his head against my chest as i stroked his cheek and sang about our Lord.

i wanted the moment to last a life-time.

photo fun

2008-10-07T16:05:00.000-05:00

i've gotten several fun ideas from mary. if you don't read owlhaven yet, you really should. mary has her hands full with 10 (yes, 10) kids, but still finds time to tend a small farm (she calls it a garden) and write. you'll find her thoughtful and creative. anyway, here's an idea i got from her today . . .

go to the pictures file on your computer. open the 6th folder and post the 6th picture. i'm posting two, mostly because lukie's photos are in a separate folder and i don't want to neglect him. besides, many of you would rather see pictures of him anway!

this is actually the fifth photo in the folder. the sixth one was a cloth diaper and i don't think any of you care about that. i love this photo -- it's one of the first i took with my new camera. i was trying to do a photo shoot with luke and he really wasn't cooperating. this is one of the better pictures i got. he's about seven months old, i think.

this picture is from a couple years ago when i rode in the ms150 bike ride in honor of my good friend and co-worker tina. our company rides each year to battle ms alongside tina. it was the first endurance event i'd ever participated in -- and quite an experience. i'm the one looking over my shoulder toward the center of the picture.

how i met your father: our love story, part ii

2008-10-06T11:58:00.000-05:00

the first interaction i remember having with said runner was the following weekend, after he watched me wave from my parents’ front porch as he drove away. a group of us were party-hoppin’ and it just made sense for me to ride with him to another graduation party.

daniel, jamie and i piled into michael’s white 91 ford tempo. while i didn’t know daniel or michael well, jamie was the younger brother of one of my good friends, so at least i didn’t feel too weird with these guys. we had a long drive to the next party – the house of a friend who lived a good 45 minutes away. what does a girl discuss for that long with three guys she hardly knows?

as it turns out, all things awkward.

michael was a bill cosby fan and had a tape of cosby’s stand-up comedy. we listened while we drove down winding roads and passed cornfield after cornfield. we attempted to mimic cosby’s fat albert and laughed, captivated by cosby’s story-telling humor.

fortunately, bill cosby is mostly family-friendly.

mostly.

one sketch on the tape caught me instantly. cosby divulges his discovery of midol. he talks about how great the two little pills were a killing his headache and how he quickly became a believer, rushing to the drug store after he took the last ones in his wife’s bottle. he even gushes his surprise that they had no side-effects: his voice didn’t get higher, for example.

he just gets really moody once a month. ba-dum ching.

michael and i were in the front seat laughing, when i realized the back of the car was utterly silent. don’t you guys get it? michael asked.

they didn’t. and, as the only girl in the car, michael insisted that i explain the joke. while each of these guys had a sister, i grew up without brothers. and, even as an 18-year-old, talking about feminine things with guys was just, well, weird. and awkward.

very, very awkward.

i wanted to jump out of the car and walk the 45-minute drive back to my own car.

and when i finished explaining, daniel and jamie still didn’t think the joke was funny. perhaps it had something to do with my incoherent babbling. which had nothing to do, yet, with the skinny runner sitting next to me speeding down the winding road.