just like the rest

blogs all over the world will be filled with halloween pictures... mine will be no different.

isaiah had his authentic astronaut suit and we just couldn't pass it up. he got lots of comments on how 'real' he looked. yeah, it's from the kennedy space center.... (thanks again uncle steve!)


alaythia's auntie rosemary sewed her outfit. alaythia loves june and talks about her all the time and carries her june doll around everywhere. so i mentioned in passing that i would love to be able to sew so she could have an outfit. rosemary volunteered and yes, it was her very first attempt at an outfit...and it was fabulous! she obviously didn't have access to alaythia and yet, when grandma brought it with her, we found that it fit like a glove. a glove i tell you. it won't fit next week. but it fit today!

came with red ballet shoes up the calf and all. our happy girl and her june doll. thanks auntie rose!

we went trick or treating and the kids loved it. alaythia could not believe she was being given candy...isaiah got it and ran as fast as he could to the next house. we even got a family photo since grandma was along to snap one!

12 hours and 3 planes

she coming! she's coming today. the week has been S-L-O-W-L-Y creeping by. what else matters with grandma is coming?!?!

the chain has no more links. the house is in the throws of being cleaned. and the kids sleep...because they were told they couldn't go to the airport to pick her up if they didn't sleep a long time.

i bet i'll cry. i KNOW she'll cry. and the kids will go wild. wild i tell you. she won't see the real isaiah and alaythia for days...

just the two of us

it was date day in the godshall house. a couple weeks ago when we were at story hour at the library, we had visitors from a theater. they had a drawing of everyone that was there...and we won! i've never won anything like that. we got two tickets to see the children's play they were putting on, 'alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day'. i love how God works, just 3 days before we won the tickets we had gotten the book box from papa and gg, and that book was enclosed!

so this morning isaiah woke up ready to go, we had built it up so much and made such a big deal about he and mommy going on a 'date' together. and it lived up to our expectations. we got breakfast in the theatre, and stayed at our table to watch the play. we were in the front, dead center. isaiah sat the entire time, laughing, singing and shouting at all the appropriate times.

he is so grown up. we had so much fun just being the two of us...i think i might have to make it a tradition. unfortunately i don't have any pictures to show you, BECAUSE I FORGOT THE CAMERA AT HOME!

but that actually worked out to our benefit.

matt decided to take advantage of his 'date' time with alaythia. and i'm sorry, but what you're about to read will make you love matthew forever...if you don't already.

he dug through our unpacked boxes and found a tea set that alaythia had been given a while back. he set out a blanket on the floor, invited all alaythia's friends, (annie, june, meesh and baby doll) and put on a tea party. they had 'milk-tea' and 'water-tea', grapes and cheese. matt said that alaythia looked so amazingly cute as she rose her tea cup to her lips and drank. can you see it, matthew sitting on floor on a blanket with his daughter and all her beloved 'friends', drinking milk out of the tiniest tea cup you can imagine? i'm glad that i was where i was this morning, but there's a part of me that wished i could have witnessed it.

yep, alaythia's first tea party was given by her dad, just the two of them, his very own idea. and BY THE GRACE OF GOD the camera was at home because i had forgotten it.

imago dei community where are you?

i know where you are. happily snuggled in - in portland, oregon, 2500 miles away. revving up for advent conspiracy, for celebrating Jesus, worshiping different and loving the city. within the walls that you meet in, a home that is not your own, sit so many of the people i love. oh, i miss you.

i loved being a part. i loved living life. i was thankful. it came so easy...

i'm trying to find a church to replace you...as much as i want to believe that if listen to podcasts every week i still can be a part of you...

but it's so hard. i knew it would be.

i KNEW it would be...

and yet, it came so easy. maybe deep down i hoped it would come easy again, but it hasn't. i'm unsettle, frustrated, lonely, irritated. i want peace, instead of a constant pushing to 'make it okay'.

i've tasted real community. i can't go back. as much as i try to convince myself i'm okay and i don't really need it.

i didn't take you for granted. i knew what i had was unique, i knew the sweetness. i just miss it, and i'm beginning to think that replicating it is going to be impossible.

i shouldn't be shocked

you'd think with your second you'd be more used to the events that occur through out the day. but i am coming to realize that alaythia is oh so very different from isaiah.

she likes to take her baby doll and give it a bath, sing to it, feed it. isaiah wants to wrestle and play 'save the princess'. alaythia could care less about reading books when food is around. isaiah will give up just about anything to read. and the list goes on.

recently, i've been so surprised by alaythia's desire to write on EVERYTHING she sees. isaiah never once drew on the wall, or anything that he wasn't supposed to. i found a collection of markers as i was unpacking a box a few days ago. i mistakenly left them out, only to find alaythia scribbling on a stool, our desk and even the kitchen table. i'm shocked. i know i shouldn't be, but i am.

i never put any locks on any of kitchen cabinets with isaiah. he knew which ones were his, and he stayed out of the other ones. it was more a result of living in someone else's house than out of conviction. regardless, i haven't done it here for alaythia either. the other day, i found this:

the love of a father

daddy worked hard all weekend so he decided to spend some time with us on monday. i'm a sucker for the 'traditional' things and a pumpkin patch ranks right up there... so he indulged me and happily took the family over an hour to visit one. yes, an hour into indiana. but i think we'd all say it was worth it. tremendously overpriced, but worth it.

there was a huge barn slide. it looks like alaythia is just sitting there, but in fact, she was just getting to the end in this picture. fearless.

we rode a tractor out to feed some animals.

we ate homemade ice cream in a 50's soda shop.

we even got to pick pumpkins. and while the pictures are the majority of the reason i want to go to a pumpkin patch, we went with our camera just about out of battery. so we had to act fast, thus resulting in not a very good fall picture...but we'll keep trying.


the best part of the day for me actually had nothing to do with pumpkins. in an effort to pump as much money out of you as possible the farm had bounce houses and blow up slides. you'd think we would have had enough of these, but the frequency of them only increases our desire. they were charging a buck for each turn. adults included. ridiculous. anyway, we walked over to the bounce house and there was no attendant, so isaiah jumped in. and we worked our way on down. no one there, so we just went for it, counting the dollars we were saving as we went.

the last bouncy thing was a train obstacle course. we were a bit on edge anyway because, let's face it, matt and i are not the rebellious type. so isaiah charges up the wall and goes down the other side. all of the sudden we hear 'daddy! daddy!' in a blood curdling tone. i've never seen matt move so fast. if i wasn't half panicked i would have laughed till i cried. i do now actually recounting it. matt tore off his shoes, dove in through the netting, and as he's cascading the wall he's yelling, 'i'm coming! i'm coming isaiah!' turns out there was a reason there wasn't an attendant to take our money and an even better reason why we weren't supposed to be on those things. pools of water at the bottom, so as he came to the end isaiah fell in and got sopping wet. he freaked.

he and matt come around the corner, matt rolling his eyes and chuckling as i'm rolling by now, because i see that nothing's wrong. ahh, the love of a father for a son. matt's is like none i've ever seen before.

popeyes

there is a lot about the south that we're still getting used to. (did you know that most businesses still close or have reduced hours on sunday?) but the language continues to provide the most challenge. the other day my neighbor was trying to say boiled, and i thought she was saying bald. it took us a while to communicate. (a lot like 'harp' for the english, shout out ht!)

the kids seem to pick up on it much quicker than we do. an annual routine at our daily play-outside-time, is for one of the families to provide popsicles. popsicles, now you'd think that would be something with not much variation. but here they are called 'popeyes'. i've gotten used to this saying, matt however hasn't as he's not around doing play-outside-time. (or 'the party' as isaiah refers to it.)

one night matt was outside playing with the kids and the neighbors joined them. all of the sudden a neighbor came out and said, 'kids, would you like some popeyes?' isaiah immediately dropped what he was doing and ran to the other end of the building as fast as he could. the 3 girls behind him. matt had NO IDEA what popeyes were or why the kids would be so excited.

he snapped this picture of them enjoying their treat.**as you will see, isaiah is pointing out or explaining something. this is something he does incessantly! he spends more time talking about what he's going to do, than actually doing it. as you will also notice, his popeye is not eaten, while the girl's are just about done....

apple party

i wish i had come up with a better name...but i didn't. i'm not creative you see, i steal. like how to do birthday parties and which is the best brand and how to cook. why figure it out yourself when someone else already did? so i confess, i bluff my way through.

so gg sent a big box of books a couple weeks ago, and i mean a BOX. (thanks papa and gg for feeding our reading addiction, it would not be what it is today, with out you!) there were several fall books included. one was 'apples, apples, apples'. very cute book about bunnies who go apple picking and then it has them come home and do all these fun activites with the apples. it was supposed to thunderstorm on thursday, so we invited our neighbors over for an apple party.

we used the recipe in the book to make our very own applesauce.
we used the cores of the apples to stamp with paint.


we sang an apple song (music and lyrics included in book).
we played with fall leaves.


and we ate our applesauce.

it was a fun party and i'm thinking about making it an annual event...maybe next year step it up a notch with actual apple picking and then coming home. who knows!

adam, always leading

my little brother is always on the cutting edge. even though he's the youngest, he's always lead us as siblings somehow. and here i thought i was cool for having a blog. he's created his own website with so many cool things. he and emily have blogs, pictures, videos...

you can check out snapshots of their life here.

enjoy!

have you called your mother lately?

my internet has been shotty all week. it will be the same way next week. makes blogging not so fun. i typed this email out to someone late one night, and i'm cheating and posting it, cause i don't know how long i'll be able to be online.
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as i was just laying in bed trying to fall asleep my mind wandered to the bed time routine tonight. i'm always struck with how much i love my kids at bed time. maybe cause they're going to go to bed, and i know my day is almost done. or maybe cause they're clean and smell good. i don't know.

i had the urge to grab isaiah and hold him like a baby. looking into his face and feeling his body on me, i realized how big he was. not a hint of baby anywhere, not even toddler. boy, big boy looks were staring back at me. and i got this frantic feeling. like he was growing up to fast.

i've felt that basically since he was born, but tonight felt different. frantic, desperate, wanting time to stop. as i held him, i asked him if we would always be friends, actually i think i wanted to make him promise we'd always be friends. he replied matter of factly that we couldn't be, because he would have a wife someday. the breath was stolen out of me. when i could breath again, i quickly told him that even though he would have a wife, we could still be friends...it makes me want to bawl just recounting it.

the reality is, i'll lose him one day. he'll grow up and not need me, not want my attention at every moment. he'll love another woman, and he'll spend his life with her. and i'll be the one sitting and wishing he'd call.

when he went to brush his teeth i grabbed alaythia, sure she'd want me. but she squirmed and wiggled and i could only get a quick kiss in. and i thought of the fact that she'll probably hate me for most of her growing up years. that's how most mothers and daughters work...how sad. my heart hurts.

motherhood sucks. it really does. giving all of yourself, all of your energy. struggling to die to yourself everyday to make them prosper. if you do it right, they do prosper and then, one day, your kids will leave and you'll be left alone.

the really sucky thing is that in this moment i think about all the time i wasted today not looking in their faces, not paying attention to them, not playing and making memories. i worried about laundry and vacuuming and emails. i worried about makeup and getting there on time.

screw it. my time is so short. and i'm sad tonight, thinking about the reality of them leaving and not wanting or needing me anymore.

check it out

perspective, yet again

i just finished the book 'sacred parenting' by gary thomas. dare i say, it is a must read. it's up there on my top 5 list. it's not a how-to book, rather, 'how raising children shapes our souls'.

i borrowed it from my dad several years ago and attempted to go through it with a mom's group i was a part of. but 5 babies later, we never finished it. i picked it back up when we got to kentucky and i am not sorry that i did. i am reading highlighted parts to matt each night, as i believe he MUST hear some of these things.

as i finished the book, i did so in tears. and i can't shake what he said. it's changed my parenting drastically. he made the mundane God ordained, and made me respect my children more. in what i do for them, how i treat them. for they are God's delight.

listen --

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'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me. -Matthew 25:35-36

Who gets hungrier than a newly awakened baby, eagerly searching out her mother's breasts? Who is more naked than a recently born child? Who is more a stranger than an infant who comes into this world knowing no one? Who gets sick more often than a little one, who seems inclined toward ear infections, diaper rash, and colic?

When a mother welcomes a child into the world, feeding her and giving her drink and clothing her and holding her when she gets sick (and, at least with the first child, boiling the pacifier when it drops to the floor, and rushing her to the emergency room when her temperature reaches 99.5), she is doing exactly what Jesus tells us will be most rewarded in heaven.

"But how can caring for your own child result in a heavenly reward?" some might ask. "Surely Jesus didn't mean that, did he?"

People who ask such a question don't understand that the children we raise, ultimately speaking, are not ours. God creates each child, and he has such a deep, passionate love for every boy and girl that he never misses a single event in their life: "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40).....

Mothers and fathers, when you give your tiny infant a bath, you are washing God's baby. Pause a moment in your busy day and look up to heaven. When you minister to that youngster, can you imagine God smiling down at you? When you fix that hungry six-year-old a peanut butter sandwich, you are feeding one of God's children. Listen carefully - you may hear God laughing in pleasure. When you hug an adolescent whom others have teased mercilessly at school, you are comforting God's teenager. Are those God's tears dampening your shoulder?

In the process of caring and loving, you bring God great pleasure. At that very moment you become his provision, his comfort, his passion. Learn to swim in that joy, and you will never look at parenting the same way again.

You could have rejected this child. You could have spurned the demands on your time, your resources, and your emotional well being. But instead you accepted this child, through great pain you gave birth to this child, and with even greater pain you make daily sacrifices to love this child. Your heavenly Father doesn't miss a second of this sacrifice. He sees it all. He cries with you and he laughs with you and he takes great joy in the good work you are doing.

--

i imagine God looking down at every moment now, taking even more joy in isaiah and alaythia than i do. i want to steward the gifts he's given me well. i want to bask in the joy, and the responsibility, that he's entrusted to me -- two of his children, who he loves so passionately. and it makes me think twice as i get angry or frustrated, they are not mine, they are God's. and he doesn't miss a second....

indulge

on sunday morning, the moment isaiah woke up, he announced that it was happy feet's birthday. he talked all about it, about how happy feet was feeling, what we were going to do that day. it's not the first time it's been happy feet's birthday. but it was the first time i felt like indulging isaiah and his made up world.

our neighbor had come over a few weeks earlier and found happy feet on the couch. she picked it up, looked at him in discust and offered her child the 'cat toy'. i know, the audacity! i know it must have shown all over my face how offended i was. i quickly looked to isaiah to see if he was okay. he was. and i said, 'cat toy!? oh, that is not a cat toy, that is our beloved happy feet, who sleeps with isaiah every afternoon and night and who also serves as isaiah's alter ego.' 'yeah but look at him!' she said. 'he's the velveteen rabbit to us, he's real' i said.

i was surprised by my reaction. i was surprised at how strongly i felt for the fred meyer purchase. i'm sure that played into why i decided to throw happy feet a birthday party.

we all baked cupcakes, martin style. the kids each got a spoon and at one point, after licking her spoon clean, alaythia dipped it into the batter again, not to stir, but to get more to eat! isaiah decorated the cupcakes and we waited for all the neighbors to wake up from their naps. we invited them to come down to a birthday party for happy feet and asked them to bring their favorite stuffed animal. some asked if they could bring their camera, others asked if we were serious.

i tried not to care if they thought i was crazy for doing it. i wanted to do it - for isaiah. so pushing through my insecurity, after all they don't know me that well. they don't know if i do this every week for my kids, have pretend birthday parties.... anyway, we sang happy birthday, had cupcakes, juice boxes and played, in honor of our beloved happy feet. and i was glad we did it.


p.s. jess and polly, i have not forgotten about the honor you have bestowed on me...i will do it. and i'm grateful for it!