evening walk

We're feeling very sentimental nowadays, getting ready to move away. We recently went on a walk in the 'hood, and I found myself noticing things I haven't noticed before. Fortunately I had my camera and took some pictures of sites I don't want to forget, but while taking pictures of these sites, Ellie decided to get over her camera shyness, and I got the chance to take a lot of pictures of her. Here are some of the results.
So, our house was on the market for 7 days, we showed it 7 times during those 7 days, and we had an offer that we accepted on the 8th day. We are scheduled to close on April 16th, and will rent back from them until May 28th. Just like when we came, some amazing Austin friends are heading to Columbia to help us load up and move back to Texas. We don't know where we'll be living yet, but we'll update as soon as we do.

I can help you mom!

A few weeks ago I wasn't feeling great, and I told the kids I wanted to lay down for a little while. My very sweet children said, "Oh, no problem Mom. We can take care of things." Well, I set them up with an activity, and went to lay down. Eliana noticed the mess in the kitchen, and thought she would help me out by doing the dishes. I wish I had thought to take the picture before I started cleaning up her "clean up." This picture is what it looked like after I had already cleaned up half of it. I love her heart! I'm trying to learn to love their process of learning how to "do life";)

Long overdue family pics

So, I'm really bad at keeping up with pictures of our family. I'm not extremely photogenic, and frankly, it takes great mental effort to avoid getting a stomachache at the thought of getting my picture taken. Nevertheless, I hated that we didn't have any up-to-date pictures of our family, so this weekend our good friend, Dorothy, did some magic with her camera and helped us out. The fall leaves are indescribable right now here on the east coast, and pictures really don't even do it justice, but I had to post some anyway. Just use your imagination, and multiply x 10, and then maybe you'll have an accurate picture.

The last two months...in words and pictures

Well, a lot has happened in the last two months...
Asher turned two in July, and he had a very specific request (for a kid that doesn't talk much yet!)...He wanted a bear on his cake. And not just any bear, but a very specific bear from his book, and the bear had to be wearing a hat. He made this very clear to me, all through mime and grunting noises (like a bear). Fortunately, I was able to deliver to his satisfaction, even though our electricity went out half way through mixing the icing. whew!
Nathan is officially now in school each day at home with me, and, depending on the day you ask him, I think overall he likes it almost as much as I do;) Seriously, I'm having way more fun than I expected. A couple weeks ago we were discussing how historians learn about the past, and in response, we staged an archeology dig in the backyard, and then dug up the "artifacts" the next week, pretending to be archaeologists in the future:) Next week we're planning on making a model of the Nile river, and "flooding" our banks to grow some grass seed. Hoping to get some good pictures with that:) I'm really liking all the curriculum we've chosen so far, and I think Nathan is, too, which is what really matters, I guess. He's learning to read better every day, he LOVES math, and even writing has not brought tears more than twice;)
We learned that Eliana needed to have her eyes checked, and found out that she did need glasses. So Grandma and Grandpa generously bought her her first pair of glasses for her birthday this year. Here's a picture of her helping her great grandmother make some cookies on our trip down to Panama City Beach, FL.
Speaking of PCB, Nathan has become quite the fish recently, and in continuing along the same vein as his great grandpa, he LOVES snorkeling and swimming in the pool. He learned to dive down to the "deep" end (about 5 feet at GG and GP's pool), and collect things that had sunk to the bottom.
Crazy story...Jon and Nathan were out swimming in the gulf (off the private beach associated with GG and GP's condo) when they heard people shouting and shewing them from the 5th story of the condo building to get out of the water. Low and behold, the guy (a resident of the condo for 7 years) came down to the beach to tell him he saw a shark fin (very distinctly NOT a dolphin fin which he was accustomed to seeing), swimming near where they were swimming. So, of course, the boys decided it best to get out, however Nathan later informed us that he didn't think it was that big a deal, as "most sharks are harmless, mom." Maybe so. Nevertheless, none of us ventured back into the gulf on that trip;}
Here are some pictures from Eliana's 4th birthday. Again, some very specific requests; it had to be a pink ballerina fairy. Wow. any suggestions, on HOW I should go about doing such an artistic endeavor?? Well, again, I had a satisfied customer, and that's what I was after, so I felt successful. However, I was glad that it was a "private" family party;}
Jon started his final year here at CIU, and that brings a mixture of emotions. We will be sad when it's over. We have learned SO much, and the dedicated study time has been amazing for Jon. However, reality calls us back, and we are praying and wondering about what the future holds. We're looking forward to all of it with great anticipation.

New Perspectives

So, Nathan has recently been keen on capturing flies. I believe my grandmother introduced him to the idea that if you catch a fly and put it into the freezer for about 5 minutes, you will be able to take him out, paralyzed for a few moments, and do with him as you please. This, of course, fascinates our 5 year old boy, and brings endless imaginative ideas, such as tying dental floss around him and "taking him for a walk," etc. Well, yesterday he captured a fly, froze him for a few moments, and then put him in a jar with a hole poked lid, and included a tiny shred of cheese (after researching on the internet about what a fly might like to eat, he decided that a bit of cheese might work for the fly to vomit on and turn it to liquid. Until the evening, it didn't seem the fly had touched the cheese, but he continued to fly around vigorously in the jar. Well, today I found the jar with a dead fly and no cheese. The following conversation ensued:

Mom: Oh, looks like your fly died.
Nathan: Yeah, but that's okay, I can always catch another one.
Mom: And look, the cheese is gone, too.
Eliana: OOHHHHH:( Maybe the fly was allergic to cheese!:(
Mom: Wow, Ellie...that's a good point. Maybe the fly WAS allergic to cheese.

And I thought it was because he ran out of food. Little do I know;}

Good Music

Okay, so I'm going to do some promoting for a friend, but not just because she's a friend, but because I really think she's got something good;) Hannah Miller's voice is unique, in a good way. I'm not going to describe it, because you can listen yourselves, click on the title of the post. mostly, i'm posting this, for anyone who might read it, to take a couple minutes and listen, and if you like it, VOTE for her to play at lollapalooza this year:)! I'm told you can vote once a day with each email address you have, but I haven't read this anywhere official yet, so I'm not too sure.
If you don't like it, no worries, but if you do, please vote:) and if you like it enough, buy some itunes or a CD so she can make some more.

Sorry for the advertising, but if you can't do it on your own blog, where else can you?

Backyard harvest

Anyone who's seen our backyard will understand the overwhelmed feeling i have when i think about trying to landscape or make some sense of it. We live on about 3/4 of an acre, and half of that is wild and overgrown forest and the other half is just wild and overgrown (we have had some help from my grandpa rudi in taming that to some degree, so i'm actually not afraid to go in the backyard anymore;) however, one side of our backyard is entirely covered with thorny bushes, so thick i don't think even the snakes will go there. we've had fleeting thoughts of digging it all up (renting large equipment to accomplish this daunting task), but that's all they've been...fleeting thoughts. Well, for the first time since moving to our house, I'm thrilled to have all those thory bushes all over the side yard. turns out they're actually functional as blackberry bushes, and man are we reaping the harvest! About every other day we spend 20 minutes or so outside picking berries, eating some along the way, and still coming in with a full bowl overflowing with 100-200 blackberries to share with neighbors, enjoy at snacktime, or, as jon and i are going to do tonight, take on an anniversary picnic at the lake:) I'm amazed at how we eat like kings so much of the time.

travel antics

So, we just spent a fabulous week in California; 3 1/2 days in solvang, and 3 days in san diego, where i was born and spent the first 6 years of my life. we saw great friends, went to Jon and Julie Reibsamen's wedding, visited my family in california, and went to the san diego zoo, and a whole lot more. the kids were amazing given the fact that they were very sleep deprived (with staying up late and the 3 hour time change). They had such a good time they didn't want to come home, even though daddy was already at home having left a few days before we did. which left me to fly home with three tired kiddos across the country. of course, we get to the airport only to find we have mechanical difficulties on our plane out of san diego, and i waited in line for an agent for TWO hours, by myself, with all three kids. anybody with children under 5 understand what this means. Amazingly, it went totally smoothly! i kept thinking to myself, "i can't believe they're just sitting here, hanging out, waiting patiently." can you believe that! only by the grace of God, that's for sure. thanks to all who were praying. anyway, our trip back was really good, and i would actually say i had a good time with the kids, minus the moment of insanity in the atlanta airport. i was standing in line waiting to get the kids some dinner, and nathan and ellie said they needed to go to the bathroom. well, for some crazy reason i let nathan convince me to let the two of them go into the mens bathroom together (which was right next to where i was getting food), thinking, "okay, they'll just go in, go to the bathroom, and come back out. yeah. it will be no big deal." right. not so much. so, i finish in my line, and i'm waiting outside the men's bathroom, and start hearing ellie scream, "MOM!!!!, MOM!!!!" i call into the bathroom, "what ellie?" "MOM, I NEED YOU TO WIPE ME!" I tried to convince nathan to help her out, but she wouldn't let him. meanwhile all the men are coming in and out of the bathroom, with this incredulous look on their faces like, "is that your kid?" "so, after about 2 minutes of back and forth coaxing, trying to convince ellie to just come out and i'll help her in the women's bathroom, i'm left with no other choice, and i walk into the men's bathroom, very awkwardly with many men looking at me like i'm crazy, wipe her, and bring her out myself. fortunately there was a nice looking man who agreed to stand outside the bathroom with all my luggage and youngest son in his stroller. yes, he could have taken my kid or stolen something, but honestly, i didn't know what else to do, and i didn't think he'd get far with anything, so i chanced it, and decided i could scream really loudly if i saw him taking off and there were enough security officers around who could help me out. we did make it out of the bathroom, albeit with a few remarks from annoyed passerby about how this is the MEN's bathroom. i decided to hold my tongue.
one good thing about the mechanical difficulties was that they let me change my final leg of the trip to bring me straight into columbia instead of charlotte north, carolina where we would have had a 1 1/2 hour car ride back home. of course the bags went to charlotte, but at least i don't have to pay the gas to get home;)

random conversations

conversation with eliana this week:

Eliana: mom, how old do you have to be to change your name?
Mom: well, i guess 18, to officially change your name, but some people decide to go by nicknames. like some people call you ellie, or marie, your middle name.
Eliana: oh. okay. i think i'll change my name to Katie when i'm 18. I like that name better.
Mom: Oh. Okay. I really like your name, Eliana, but that's okay if you want to change it then. It's up to you:) (really I'm trying to act nonchalant about the whole thing, when really I'm thinking...you're only 3!!! how can you want to change your name already??? I don't even know where you got the idea that someone would change their name!)

conversation with asher (my 18 month old):

(In background, hear the toilet flush; only Asher is missing).

Mom: (calling from playroom): Asher, did you flush the toilet (stupid question, seeing as how he's the only one missing from the room, AND the kid can't talk, so it's not like he's going to answer me anyway)?
(walk to the bathroom to see Asher standing by toilet, looking at me with the most innocent, excited look, as if to say, "that was so cool, mom, you should have seen it!"
again...
Mom: Asher, did you flush the toilet?
Asher: nods head yes.
Mom: (notice Asher is no longer wearing Eliana's beaded necklace around his neck that he was wearing only 3 minutes ago when he left the playroom) Did you flush ellie's necklace down the toilet?
Asher: an excited head nodding yes, with a very adorable smile on his face that is REALLY hard to remain serious with.
Mom: Asher, you can't flush things in the toilet....really, I pretty much said this same sentence over and over, with slightly different wording each time, for the next two minutes, while Asher looked back at me very seriously, like, "wow, mom, okay, I had no idea."
20 minutes later...
Eliana: Hey mom! I found my necklaces! They were in the bedroom! YEA!!!
Mom: oops. sorry about that Asher. I still mean everything I said about the whole flushing the toilet thing, hypothetically, in case you're ever thinking that might be a good idea sometime in the future. yeah. sorry about the lecture.

And Nathan:

(setting)Mom and Dad very seriously discussing/debating presidential candidates/legislation of christian moral ethics, etc.
Nathan: I think Martin Luther King Jr. is my favorite president.
Dad: Actually, Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't a president; he was a pastor.
Nathan: Oh. Well, I definitely think he's my favorite pastor, too.
Dad: why is that?
Nathan: because a lot of my friends are black, and if it wasn't for him, i wouldn't have many friends here.
Dad: that's a great reason, Nathan. I think he's a pretty great preacher, too.

And other random news:
Eliana cut her hair last week. Yes, I know, most children do it at least once, but I was a little sad when I noticed that she had done it. I tried hard not to let her see my disappointment in how it looked, but apparently I didn't hide it well enough, because she cried for quite a while and forbid me to talk about it with anyone for the first 2 days, which is a little difficult, because it's kind of obvious that her hair is different, so people ask. I don't think she'll ever do it again, though. And honestly, it could have been MUCH worse. In fact, she surprisingly cut it fairly evenly given a pair of preschool scissors and no mirror. I was a little sad, though, having worked so hard to never cut bangs on her hair so that it was all one length, to now having bangs, and a sort of tapered, layered look on the sides.

Nathan and Ellie have decided that dancing together is a great activity to do in the mornings. usually ellie wants to put on a very pretty dress, and they turn on music and dance around the living room. it's very cute, until they both end up on the floor crying, having tripped over one anothers feet.

exciting things in the mundanes of life

so, i've wanted to post a few times this last month, but everytime i get on and think of something i might write, i go and read www.theepic.wordpress.com and realize that brooke has way more exciting stuff going on right now, and what i would write suddenly seems rather boring. but not today. no, no. today, i am excited to say, i tried a new recipe, P.F. chang's chicken lettuce wraps, and it came out just like i imagined and hoped, and while none of the kids liked it, jon and i liked it enough for all of them;) i got the recipe from a cookbook my friend had, called top secret restaurant recipes 2. i put it on the recipes section at breadandcircuses (hope that's not illegal, and i did change a few things, so it's not exactly like the book says.)
i know it's not building a house or anything like that. but if you're like me, those lettuce wraps are something to get excited about;)

get elfed

So, our family went up to Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania to visit my uncle mike and aunt melissa, my grandparents, and melissa's family for Thanksgiving. We had a great time together, although we did determine that Eliana is officially very allergic to cats, and she pretty much lived on benadryl for the weekend;{ Nevertheless, we really enjoyed our time there, went to the National Smithsonian Zoo and various museums, and Uncle Mike took some great photos of all the events. He also elfed our children with some of the photos, and honestly I'm still laughing after having watched the video a few times, mostly because it fits our kids so well. Those of you who know Nathan, know that he absolutely would dress up in an elf suit and dance around just like this, which makes it even funnier. And Asher and Ellie could absolutely be coersed by Nathan to participate in such an activity, which makes their facial expressions all the more perfect.
The semester is coming to a close, so jon's a little busier than usual, but honestly this has been the most laid back semester so far. I honestly thought this was going to be a tougher semester, but it's been great. We are excited to travel to Minnesota and Wisconsin to visit Jon's parents and the Wahlens (friends from seminary who left us this past summer:( over christmas, Jon will take one winter course, and hopefully get in 4 weeks of full time work before the spring semester begins. Encouragingly, he will have 51 of the 90 credit hours completed on Dec. 14th!:) It's amazing how fast our time here is going.
Well, I'm going to make myself stop rambling, and go to bed.

Halloween, sick kids, lots of candy

So, I've wanted to update this blog for a while, and I just wrote a long post all about our Halloween experiences, but it deleted before I could post it, and I don't really have the time and energy to rewrite it. So, here are a couple pictures...Jon and Nathan (Jack Sparrow and his Navy Seal sidekick) went trunk or treating, while mom, ellie, and asher stayed home (sick with a cold) to hand out candy all two times the doorbell rang. We also played sequence, and ate a lot of candy from the very full candy bowl, so we had fun:)
In other news, my dad recently came to help us work on some wiring stuff for the house for the weekend. Well, after they had surveyed all the stuff they wanted to do, they made the lowe's list and were ready to go, when I aksed if my dad could just take a quick look at the window trim/wall in our room. We had been told there was some old damage when we moved in (not sure if it was water damage or termite damage), and the wall was pretty thin under the window. Well, Dad took a look, and agreed the wall was pretty thin, but thought it best to try and just replace the trim, as the wall would be a big project. So, he takes the trim off, and the wall pretty much disintegrates from the window down to the floor. Yeah. You got it. Just the brick to the outside of the house now, which could be nice and rustic, but a bit too drafty for my taste. Righto. New project of the day...rebuilding the wall in Jon and Kerin's room. Amazingly, they got the whole wall rebuilt and the first coat of mud applied to the dry wall, as well as much of the wiring done that day! Jon and I finished up the mudding/sanding over the next few days, and then I painted the wall. We still have to repaint the trim around the window and baseboards, and cut a new baseboard piece, but I'm pretty happy to have a stable wall there now:)

friendship plant

so i've always been told that if you insert half of a partially peeled avocado seed in a cup of water, with the big side down, held up by three toothpicks at the top of the glass, it will sprout, you'll watch the roots grow, and eventually leaves will grow straight out the top. what happens after this, i'm not sure, because most everyone i've ever talked to says they're avocado plants usually die shortly after planting in the ground. the internets, of course, has a wealth of information on this, but i start to feel a little overwhelmed when i'm supposed to be measuring the pH of the soil and such (probably why most of my plants end up dying.) Anyway, being a mother of young kiddos, I thought that I should probably at least attempt to grow an indoor avocado plant, so they might benefit from the observation of such a process. Well, I tried, and tried, and tried. I changed my water frequently (in order, they say, to keep it well oxygenated), I kept it in a sunny spot, I talked to it, babied it, everything. Nothing worked. It never even sprouted. Our good friends the Wahlens would come over, and each time note, very politely, of course, that nothing had happened...still. Well, it then became a little competition, in which they started their own plant. And what do you know, their plant sprouted quite rapidly, grew at what seemed a rather astonishing rate, and quickly proved that Mr. Wahlen certainly had something on us that we didn't know. We finally gave up on our little avocado seed, but the story doesn't end there. When the wahlens left to move back to Wisconsin (sad. we are very sad), they couldn't very easily transport their baby plant, so it was given to us, as a friendship plant, to love and care for, just like our friendship. how sweet, right? right. no pressure or anything! just for the record, i am yet to be successful at keeping ANY plant alive longer than 3 months. They all die. I will say that there are probably some very obvious things I could have done in some of these cases (like water them), but in some instances I have worked very hard, lovingly and painstakingly attempting to keep the things alive, yet to no avail. Well, I am happy to say, that we received the responsibility of caring for this beautiful plant on May 21st, and the sucker is alive and kicking! Here's a picture:) (try to ignore the broken leaf...not sure how that happened). So, wahlens, you can rest assured that our love for you is alive and kicking as well;)

birthday fun

Well, Eliana turned three on sunday, which is hard for me to believe. Everyone always tell me that parenting goes so fast, and they grow up too quickly; I'm actually starting to believe it! At first, it was hard to believe I'd make it through the night when they're waking up frequently, and I would forget that life actually would exist where I could get sleep and function as a normal human being. But it actually was much shorter than I imagined it to be in my mind (even Asher seems short in my mind, and he was still getting up at 4:30am at 12 months). Yet now Nathan is almost 5 and will start school next year, can help with the chores around the house, helps me keep an eye on the baby, and is really fun to hang out with and talk to on dates:) I can only imagine how quickly the next 13 years are going to go, if the last 5 have gone so quickly.

So, here are some pictures of Ellie's celebration. The first one is ellie sporting her artistic job putting on her new chapstick from the grandparents;} Jon's parents came into town to surprise her, and she was SHOCKED. Her jaw dropped open, and she just stared at them in amazement and disbelief. We had been asking her if there was anybody she wanted to come over and eat cake with us for her birthday, and she kept saying, "nana and papaw!" I don't think she ever believed they would actually come. I wish I had a picture of her face when she saw them. Anyway, we all had a great weekend together.



Jon starts school today. He's really looking forward to his classes this semester (preaching, greek 3, hebrew 1, and psalms). Should be a much quieter semester than last spring, which we're looking forward to.

Well, I better go get breakfast ready, so I'll leave with a quote from Edith Schaeffer's book, The hidden art of homemaking:

"There is no occasion when meals should become totally unimportant. Meals can be very small indeed, very inexpensive, short times taken in the midst of a big push of work, but they should be always more than just food. Relaxation, communication and a measure of beauty and pleasure should be part of even the shortest of meal breaks. Of course you celebrate special occasions - successes of various members of the family, birthdays, good news, answered prayer, happy moments - with special attention to meal preparation and serving. But we should be just as careful to make the meal interesting and appealing when the day is grey, and the news is disappointing."

What do you think? Do you agree with this idea?

new technology

so i've never been big on listening to music all day, which meant the ipod fad never appealed to me all that much. however, we had some friends come visit us last week from albuquerque, and he had a new and much improved (in my humble opinion) device over the ipod, called the sansa express MP3 player. I've been wanting an easy way to record the kids once in a while, just to have a record of little things they talk about, and what they sound like when they talk, but haven't had an easy/portable solution, until now. The sansa is really cool. It has a built in mic, so you can record, and it actually sounds good and can pick up everyones individual voice in a full minivan from the front seat;) It has FM radio recording abilities, too. Plus, it's very small (slightly bigger than a cigarette lighter), has a great display and backlight, and a necklace to hang it on (i think lanyard would be the correct term), and the USB port is part of the device, so you just plug it in wherever you want to get your tunes/download your recordings. I couple down sides...1. the lanyard is part of the cap for the USB port (instead of the player, which would be lost easily if it came apart from the cap). 2. you can't delete on the device. you can only delete through a PC. I found this a little frustrating after recording the kids talking, but decided not to keep it. 3. if you have a really old computer (like i do-got it in 1999), it might crash it when you plug it in, because it's not a high-speed USB port. all that aside, i love my new toy, and might even listen to music a little more often now;)

mass communication

Well, I have succombed to the blogsphere, and realize (and agree) it is a fabulous way to keep people up on what we're doing, albeit not as personal as a phone call or letter in the mail. Unfortunately, I keep saying I will call this person, and write that person, and days/weeks/months have gone by and it hasn't happened, so not only do you feel personally offended that I haven't called or written, but you still don't know what is keeping me so busy as to not communicate. Hopefully the blog will at least help with one of those.

I'm actually rather excited about the prospect of a blog, although I'm not sure how often I'll post. I'm hopeful the process will be edifying for myself, at least, as I take time to write out things that are happening, and possibly even encouraging to you, the reader, to read my own trials, challenges, adventures, and hopefully successes, during our time as a family of 5 here at divinity school.

So, to that end, here are some of my thoughts from the day...

1. glue and babies don't mix well.
2. if your 1 year old is splashing too much in the bath (i.e. the wall across the bathroom is dripping) after repeated warnings to cease, a large cup of water poured over their head each time they do it can be a strong deterrent. i'm really thinking pavlov was onto something...
3. make the vegetables early in the dinner prep when possible. this way when the kids come in begging for a snack because they "just can't make it to dinner," then you can let them snack on the vegetables, and don't have to worry about it at the table;)

and finally, on a more serious note...

4. spend lots of time patiently loving your kids, and be sure to apologize when you're wrong.