2014: Who's in the driver's seat?

Peter calls to me from the back seat, "Mama, this isn't the right way home. Are we getting lost?" Or "Where are we going? Why are we going here?" He does this almost every day.

It kind of drives me nuts! I don't think I've ever actually gotten lost, at least not in the last 16 years. So not in his lifetime. I'm good with directions. I understand maps and I plan ahead to make sure I know how to efficiently get where I'm going. I do enjoy taking a different route once in a while, or just because of the series of errands we have to do we end up taking different roads than normal. Occasionally I miss a turn and we have to turn around, or a detour catches me off-guard in an area of town that I don't know very well.

But, lost? Not really!

So while it's an innocent question from his limited perspective and it's fairly humorous, it also insults me just a little when he asks me if I know how to get where we are going! I feel accused and mistrusted! I understand that from his vantage point he recognizes the familiar things on the roads that we typically drive. Perhaps he gets a little nervous when we go on unfamiliar roads. But he has no reason to doubt me! I'm his Mom! I only ever plan good things for him! I know where we're going! I have a plan!

One day in the van when I was felling more annoyed than humored about having to constantly reassure him that we're doing just fine and re-explain to him why we're going the way we're going, a little voice (Holy Spirit whisper maybe?) said, "Isn't this like you and God? Aren't you wondering if God has a plan, and knows the way? Aren't you sometimes wondering or worrying about the different route, the unknown roads, that God is bringing you down?"

Ouch. Oh me of little faith.

************
Update: I wrote that portion of the post about 2 months ago - early November. That "plan" and "unknown roads" I was referring to was the unknown future that lies ahead for us in June. When Brad finishes seminary, we have no plan other than to take a call to a church. That in itself comes with many unknowns. Our only guarantee is that we have major change coming. Sometimes a scary thought. Since this reminder that God is my loving parent in the driver seat, and I'm the one in the booster seat in the back I've been washed over with a renewed peace in regards to our future.

And Peter doesn't ask as often if I know how to get where I'm going.

2014 will be a year of change, no doubt for all of us in some way. May the God of Peace comfort you, too, as you encounter the unknown and the new.

Cozy Woodsy Cabin

We were blessed with an overnight getaway (a month ago already!) to Brad's cousin's cabin, not far from where we live. It was fun to spend the night away together, away from the distractions at home and the chance to explain someplace new.

Friday night was rainy but we enjoyed the cozy cabin feel, woodsy view from the windows, and the wood-burning stove warmth. And also some lively games of Go Fish!

 Saturday morning was cool, but it wasn't raining so we got outside for awhile. The kids played in the "tree house" just outside the cabin.

 The trees' fall colors were definitely near the end of the season (this was early November), but it was still colorful and beautiful. We did a rainbow hunt and found something natural of every color of the rainbow. (Blue and purple were very hard this time of year, but the underside of some red leaves had a purplish hue, and we found a blue-tinted rock!)

 The river near the cabin. Look at those happy faces!

 Here in Michigan the kids go through almost two (cheap) pairs of rain boots a year! And we're thankful to have them when we need them, like this morning.

Something very very green, growing on a log. Looks like a miniature forest!

 The cozy, woodsy cabin.

Thank you, cousins, for sharing with us!

Things that go bump and the prayers of a child

Peter has been suffering from bad dreams for a quite few weeks now. Almost every night he wakes up screaming in terror or comes running into our room, terrified. It's very sad to see him so tormented. But is has been getting better recently, thankfully. He has started praying at his bedtime "Dear Lord, please keep the bad dreams out of me, and give me good angels."  It's touching to hear him adopt his own version of the prayers that we say with him in the middle of the night after a bad dream as his own. 

He also has been very excited about praying before our meals. He often says his prayers like this: "Dear God, thank you for our food. I really bless you for..." followed by whatever toy, friend or fun event he's thankful for and also for someone he's asking God to help, which lately is his recently injured uncle.

Cora also takes her turn praying. She starts with the memorized "God is Great" prayer and then follows it up with thanking God for her family and friends, and asking him to help the people in, (Where is the place with the really bad storm? she always asks), the Philippines.

Addie is cluing in to the prayer time, too. She folds her hands sometimes and mimics the sing-song tune of God is Great. It's very sweet. But most of the time she just wants her food-now!

May these family prayer times penetrate their spirits, so that Philippians 4:6-7 is a daily reality for them and they choose to turn to God in prayer in every situation: 

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God,which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Little Miss Addalynn- almost 1 1/2

This is a girl with a ready smile and a set mind. She is lots of fun! She loves to play with big brother and sister and she's tough. If she gets a little clobber she'll either respond with a laugh or mostly fake cry, just to show she didn't like it. But she recovers quickly and usually is back in the scramble. She is daring and determined, climbing on anything and everything, pushing chairs around the kitchen to get what she wants from up high, standing on the rocking chair and making it rock on purpose. She is also very affectionate and expressive, often wrapping her arms tightly around our necks in a hug or giving sweet kisses on cheeks. 

She sat in her high chair for 30 minutes playing with this wipes tub filled with empty plastic easter eggs I found stashed in the closet.

Showing her sign language for "eat". She also signs more, please, all-done, drink, and milk.

She verbally says da-da, ma-ma, woof, meow, ee-ah (Peter), oh-wa (Cora), ay-ah (Moriah, a neighbor friend), uh-oh, up, hot, uh-uh (as in "no"). She nods and shakes her head no. (Thankfully the high pitched scream she was doing this summer has disappeared!)

Lately she's been into wearing Cora's clothes! I didn't think this would start for 10 years! She brought this t-shirt of Cora's to me and was obviously asking me to put it on her. After I slipped it over her head she had the proudest look on her little face. It was so cute watching her run around in this t-shirt dress. Thankfully, Cora thinks it pretty cool having a little sister wearing her clothes at this point!

What else about Addie? She's 17 months old. (My semester ends on her 18 month birthday so I probably won't be thinking about making a blog post about her at that point, so we'll count this her 1 1/2 year update!) She LOVES milk. Oh my, she would drink milk and only milk all day if we let her. 

She likes playing in the bath and especially likes having the water running a little bit to play with the trickle from the faucet. 

She is fast! She is not quite running but she moves quickly.

She would play with my car keys all day long if I let her.

She loves the idea of dogs, (more than any other animal) but is terrified by the real thing. Pictures are good for now!

She only has 8 teeth still. She's working on cutting 3 molars, though. 

I gave her her first full hair cut last week! I think I did a good job, too :) I took an inch off the back, and trimmed around her ears and the hair that falls on her forehead. The easter egg pictures are before the cut; the t-shirt pic is after, but it's hard to tell.

Hard to say what her favorite food would be. She's not a great eater, like the other two kids were as toddlers. She's not picky, she just barely eats anything so I have to always remind myself to only give her a tiny bit to start out with. I can't say that there's any thing she refuses to eat, so that's good!

October 2013

I was a little surprised to see how few pictures I had taken during October, but as I was previewing them I realized that one reason for that is that the kids are just so busy! Addie is a sweet but busy little girl. A good description of this age/stage is "constant". It's always something...she's on the chair, she's on the table, she's wanting to play with my phone, my keys, my earrings (which I don't wear anymore because of that!). She's chasing Peter and trying to wrestle with him; she climbing on the toilet to reach the tooth brushes that I tried setting up high because she was constantly getting them off the counter and sucking on everyone's brushes...And all with a big smile! So, picking up a camera and getting a picture of anything isn't easy these days!

The Annual Scholarship Donors dinner was this month so we enjoyed a nice, adult meal and the opportunity to thank some of the people who are helping make Brad's seminary education possible.

Autumn means Apples! And apple dumplings, yum!

And apple cider donuts :)

We welcomed new baby cousin/nephew Lucas on Oct. 5. He's so cute!

Addie actually sat still long enough to capture a picture of her playing with out it being a blur!

Cora and her classmates performed a reader's theater for parents. Her group read a traditional spanish nursery rhyme called "Los Pollitos Dicen" (The little chicks say)

October 31st costumes - with our friends Tatyanna and Jedryk Van Voorst. From L-R: Buzz Light Year (Peter), Giraffe (Jedryk), Spider (Addie - who was very upset about the boots we put on her feet), Jack-O-Lantern Ballerina (Tatyanna), Little Dutch Girl (Cora)

The Calvin College (not seminary) apartments do "Light the Night" each year for Halloween. Each building chooses a theme and decorates accordingly and the students dress up and pass out candy as kids and their parents file through the hallways. It's convenient because it's close for us; it's safe and tastefully family friendly which we appreciate. However it is BUSY and crowded! But we've enjoyed doing it with friends each year in place of trick-or-treating.

Would I have picked you off the shelf?

I can't give credit to who said this...I was flipping through radio stations in the car a few weeks ago and listened to a short portion of a talk show. I think they were talking about family relationships on a Christian station. I don't really know.

But I can't get this phrase out of my head.

A while back I bought a shirt and took it home, cut off the tags, threw them away and hung it up in my closet. I loved the shirt in the store and couldn't wait to wear it to a special evening out in a few nights. Until I noticed the hole. There was a hole in my brand new shirt! The tags were out in the garbage dump by then, AND I couldn't find the receipt! I was stuck with this shirt. How unfair! It's brand new - I should be able to return it and get what I really want!  And there are 30 more similar but flawless shirts on the store shelf, walking out the door to other patron's homes!

We live in a consumer-driven society. We like choice. Some of us like variety. Others of us like the same-old, same-old. But the truth is that we all like having the power to choose; the freedom to discern for ourselves what we think would be best for us. We don't want to be handed our destiny and told to live with it. Or worse, to like it. Assigned groups in school? No, thank you. Arranged marriages? Ha! No way!

On top of having the power to choose the big and small details of our life, don't we also enjoy being able to return damaged goods and get a refund or a replacement? Isn't it nice knowing that we can change our minds once we get home and decide that that shirt or pair of shoes doesn't actually fit very well, or the color wasn't quite what you thought it was while in the store? Isn't it empowering to discard the undesirable item and get all your investment back, and then continue to shop and find something better? Aren't product guarantees wonderful?

But what about people...The phrase keeps going through my head. "Would I have picked you off the shelf?" What happens when we think we do "pick" the people in our lives, and how do we react when we inevitably discover flaw after flaw? Do we treat people and relationships like merchandise? How should we look at the people God has placed in our lives (even the people we think we chose)? 

I admit, I've been disappointed before. God had placed people in my life that, had he asked me, I initially would have said, "No, thanks, not them. That's not what I'm looking for, not what I want right now. They won't fit the bill."  It's a good thing God doesn't often ask us.

The change came for me when I stopped thinking about what I was going to get (or not get) out of this relationship or how that person would (fail to) meet my needs. I was looking at people like how I go shopping: does it meet my needs? does it benefit me and bring me enjoyment?

At first I just stopped thinking like that. I stopped being disappointed and just accepted that our paths crossed (a lot) and, well...Oh well. It wasn't bad, by any means, just not exactly how I would have designed it myself.

Then I started seeing that they might have actually felt the same way about me. Maybe they met me and thought, "I sure wouldn't have picked her off the shelf." But there we were, putting up with each other.

Then I opened up to the possibility that maybe God put me in their life for their benefit, for some obscure way that I might actually meet a need for them.

Or...(more likely) for this sole humbling purpose: my own growth.

In the end things were good. It turned into a friendship. Best friends? Life-long? Maybe not. But worth it.

So when I heard the woman on the radio say that we consumerists assess people like we do merchandise, I knew what she was talking about. It was a good reminder.

Let's change that question from "Would I have picked you off the shelf?" to "Maybe God has something up his sleeve when crossing our paths?"

A Happy 4 year old Birthday Boy

It was all about our birthday boy last week! We played classic preschool games with a few of his friends like "Hide-and-seek", "Duck, duck, goose" and "Freeze Tag". 

 Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting was his choice. Oh yes, and chocolate ice cream!

 Thank you to everyone who helped him feel special on his birthday! Cards, phone calls, gifts!

 He's getting so tall! Look at him stand there so seriously. :)

 Seeing as how 90% of the time Peter spends with toys is spend playing with race cars and monster trucks, we thought it'd be a fun way to celebrate by taking him for his first go-cart ride. He loved it!

 Scooping, dumping, scraping lentils.

Happy 4th Birthday to our little man! It gives us so much joy to celebrate you! We are so thankful that you're in our family, that you are healthy and growing into such a fun boy. Thank you, God, for Peter!

First Day of First Grade!

What a difference between the first day of kindergarten and the first day of first grade: for both daughter and mother! Cora waltzed on into first grade with the confidence that comes from age and experience. :) One of the advantages (in my opinion) of the SI program she's in is that her classmates remain the same from year to year. It's nice to know the other kids and some of their parents already, and to know the dynamics of the group. We're excited for another great year of school for her!

Doesn't her new hairstyle look nice? She picked it out herself. :) 

Cora's Kindergarten Art

How to celebrate a birthday and feel all filled up

It wasn't the pinterest-inspired cake that I made for my family and me that filled me up on birthday.

Or the pinterest-inspired sangria for my husband and I to enjoy later.

However, it was my kids announcing to strangers we passed at the grocery store that tomorrow was their mommy's birthday. It was the special secrets they shared in front of me about birthday presents for mama.

It was helping Brad fill and tape balloons around the house...even though I'm an adult and we weren't even having a party.

It was Peter's surprise the next morning that there were decorations and his disappointment that followed because we didn't do streamers too. ("The floaty things")

It was the multiple hugs and kisses and "Happy birthday, Mommy!!!"s all throughout the day.  

It was the phone calls (even if I missed it and only got to listen to a voice-mail) and cards and e-mails: friends and family taking a moment to let me know I'm special in some way to them. And yes, even getting some Facebook love feels nice, too.

It was, especially, spending the day with the people most important to me and enjoying a day being surprised by Creation together that left me feeling all filled up and satisfied on my birthday. (Click here to see an album of more pictures from our hike.)



And, yes, the hour of P&Q in the morning while Brad took the kids out was really nice, too! "P&Q" (peace and quiet) are gifted-moments these days!

Thank you, Lord, for this full life. For my amazing husband and wonderful kids. For my family and friends far and near, new and old. For health. For freedom. For opportunity.

As you have so blessed me, help me also to be a blessing!

Anniversary Antics

Our anniversary getaway vehicle (crooked cell-phone picture)

 Tandem bicycling is a good trust builder!

We borrowed this bike from a lady in our church and explored some bike paths on the Wabash Heritage Trail around Lafayette and West Lafayette. Very fun! I laughed longer and harder than I have in a long time. It was very good to do together.

11 years of marriage... Happy Anniversary, Brad! 

I thank God for giving me such a wonderful man for my husband! I pray we have many more decades to enjoy life together!

Family Fun on the Fourth

Is it possible to over-alliterate?

Anyway, we took advantage of the holiday to meet up with my parents at the newest state park in Indiana: Prophetstown State Park, just north of Lafayette. 

We started at "The Farm": a 1920's working farm.

Inside the house we could experience life in the 20's: a typewriter...

 beating the dust out of a rug... 

(I told Cora she could do chores and she thought it was a great idea! So we hauled the rug outside, hung it on the line and beat it till it was clean, then hauled it back inside. Don't worry: there are signs in the house inviting visitors to do this. It was gratifying work, but I'll take a vacuum cleaner. Thank you very much!) 

driving a tractor...

 and caring for farm animals.

Very fun. Very hands-on. I'm not sure I would have been a good farm-girl, or farmer's wife however! 

After a picnic lunch we tried out the new water park that opened this week in the state park. 

No pictures there: water and cameras do not mix. 

In my humble opinion they have a few kinks to work out to make things a little safer and user-friendly (there is only one place to enter and exit the lazy river and it's not wide enough for people to go both ways at the same time, causing congestion and confusion which, mixed with large tubes, moving water and children, is a bit frightening) but overall it is a great place to cool off. 

We ended the day a little further north at the Whistle Stop Restaurant and Monon Connection Museum. 

Big train stuff outside. Little train stuff inside. Good american food. Again, fun for all.

Addie has finally warmed up to Grandpa!

 

Following the historical theme for the day, we took a jaunt over the Fort Ouiatenon. (Can you pronounce that?) But it was buggy, closed and we were ready to go home. We'll save it for another day.

We finished the day with fireworks with some friends and a very, very late bedtime!