not too bad...

we're here. although today is the first day that i feel like i can really think. the past 2 days have been trying to survive. where i am i? what time is it? i'm tired.

the kids did marvelously. really, really stepped up. but a 3 and half hour layover in an airport, the last leg...well, why do they not make airports just a LITTLE more kid friendly? they were being kids, but it had been 13 hours of travel by then so mommy was a bit at the end. they weren't being terrible, but it was just everything coming to a head.

we flew a little tiny plane on our last leg. alaythia was done and she was kicking and screaming and flailing. we hadn't even taken off and people were already pissed at me. (please be kind to people flying with children). i broke and started to cry. isaiah, he's very sensitive, and he wasn't screaming, but normal tone for a 3 year old is pretty loud on a plane.

'mommy! why are you crying! what's wrong?!' i quickly got it together because the embarrassement quickly over took the feeling of being at my end.

it was an adventure, and we did have fun together...but i'm glad daddy will be with us on the way home!

5-4-3-2-1

tomorrow i will:

be in 5 different states.

in 4 different airports.

on 3 different planes.

with 2 children.

all by myself - 1!

words fall short

sundays are typically hard days. i miss imago dei, i miss being with people i know. we try to adjust to a new church and most sundays i feel like we go and pretend we fit in. pretend we belong there.

but today i'm afraid, we might have turned a corner. we might have crossed the threshold from attending, to belonging... a couple things happened today. alaythia got moved to a new class that she loves (no tears), and we served the body.

as a group of believers, sojourn takes communion every sunday. we have come to love and crave this and it was one of the things that attracted us to sojourn initially. they do it differently than we have been used to. they have people standing at different spots throughout the auditorium, one holding bread and the other holding juice and wine. you file past the people and take.

we were asked to help serve communion this morning. and it will be a morning i will never forget and will try to put words to it.

it was my privilege to hold the bread, matt stood beside me with the juice and wine. as each person approached and ripped a piece of bread off the loaf i looked into their eyes and said, 'this is the body of Christ, broken for you.' i'll admit when i first started attending it caught me off guard, but over the weeks i have come to appreciate this. the proclamation, the reminder, as i partake.

but this morning, as i looked people in the eye, proclaimed the truth of what was being offered, felt them rip and tug...again and again and again... the reality of it, the enormity of it. the people of God, Christ followers, looking in their eyes, understanding their joy, feeling the weight...

i held back a well of tears. i praised Jesus, the Savior of the world for his mighty work. i spoke louder, i proclaimed the gospel to my brothers and sisters. yes, take... it cost so much, it's all we have. this is the body of Christ, broken for you.

and when they were all served, i turned and took for myself. went back to my seat and disintegrated.

what a mighty, loving, faithful, powerful God i serve. i pray that you also understand what a mighty deed he did for us on the cross.

yes, yes she did

'whoa dog' has been a part of my vocabulary since college i think. as i was putting alaythia to bed a couple days ago, her baby doll fell out of her hands. 'whoa dog!' she exclaimed... did my one and half year old daughter just say 'whoa dog?' yes, yes she did.

when there is a captive audience, a lot like how i was when i was little, alaythia will perform. sing, dance...put on shows. she's started already. singing and dancing with the microphone in hand, twisting and twirling for all who will watch. did my one and a half year old daughter just sing and dance and then ask to watch the movie of it when she was done? yes, yes she did.

matt has been trying to get up early in the morning to study. i think alaythia can sense when he wakes up early. she rises early with him too. isaiah got up an hour or so later and while he was eating breakfast and matt was on the couch, alaythia quitely went around the corner. isaiah called for her several times, she didn't answer, no toys were clinking. matt started calling for her...nothing. finally matt decided that he needed to find her. so he got up and just as he turned around the corner out she ran from the dark bathroom 'RRRROOOAAARR!' did my one and a half year old daughter just wait silently in a dark bathroom only to run out and scare someone? yes, yes she did.

i'll admit, for a long time i didn't want a girl, cause i didn't want a little me...but come to find out, it's pretty fun having another female in the house who loves what i love. don't get me wrong, i don't want her to be ALL like me...but so far, it's been fun!

things we've learned...

...weejsh means starfish. one of alaythia's mystery words has been discovered through much determination from her auntie laura. now to find out what shook means.
...boys will be boys. running, slamming their bodies onto the couch, bed or floor. chasing each other, or having paper towel wars with every roll in the house. alaythia in the mean time, wants to put on make-up or play with her baby doll.
...living life with other mother's of young kids is sharpening. it's good because you get ideas, you see into someone elses world and take the good things that you see. it's bad because as mother's (laura and i both confessed to this at one point) we compare. my kid doesn't do this, i should do that, she's doing it better than me.
...laura is a great friend. it's not something i've 'learned' during this trip, just been reminded of...again.
...it only takes a second to send us flying back to college years. one late night laura and i found ourselves hysterically laughing in the dark...just like in college...except there was 3 babies around us that we were trying to be quiet for. not my strong suit - as college roommates will give testimony to.

cousins

ooohhh auntie laura and caleb are here!

brother and sister reading with their kids...GG aren't you proud?

when you can't be on the real drum set...improvise!


after dinner we didn't know where caleb and alaythia were.
isaiah informed us that there was 'something' in the blinds.
we found them both behind the blinds and at that moment caleb popped his head out and said, 'kisses!'

we're having fun!

no chains required

i got a call from my sister-in-law on tuesday. she was out of breath and the first words out of her mouth were...'now don't get your hopes up.' not a good way to start out, i do just the opposite.

her husband is a wizard. he can find anything, cheaper, faster and more efficiently than anyone i have ever come in contact with. she is off work for a week...unexpectedly...and he found a good deal to get her out to kentucky.

a few hours later she called and barely squeaked out, 'I'M COMING TO SEE YOU!'

my kids watched with wide eyes as i screamed, jumped and squealed back, 'ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!'

laura and caleb arrive today. it wasn't even enough time to make a chain. and they'll stay for a week.

i'll admit, i've been down. i'm trying to stay afloat. it's a battle. moment by moment. God is good in his timing, in his abundance...allowing laura and caleb to come and be with us.

and thanks wizard, for working your magic. giving of your money, time and them. we are oh so very grateful.

electric election day

matt woke up musing about the day. before i was even coherent he was talking about how to get to our voting place and how the day would crawl just waiting for the results. i tried to roll my eyes, but honestly was to tired.

we made voting a family affair. once i did rouse myself (by having 2 cups of coffee) we all piled in the van.

i couldn't help but think of where i was 4 years ago - the last time i was voting for the president. i was in southern california, working full time as a real estate broker. i was pregnant with isaiah and matt didn't even have his first master's degree. wow...so much has changed in 4 years. two moves, two kids and two master degrees later...i vote again.

i loved that we were going as a family, i felt so patriotic. even though some of the people that were walking in and out of the building, i'm sure, believe very different than me, i felt connected with them. together, with these people who took time out of their day to vote...together, we are deciding, and together we'll face the results of what we said we wanted.

i love that isaiah got to see the culmination of all the talking and reading. he had lots of questions for us as we walked to the building. he wanted to sign his name to the book, he wanted to go in the booth with us.

as we have talked and wrestled through out this political season, so has isaiah. sometimes he has wanted the candidate we want, sometimes he hasn't. as strongly as matt feels about it, i was so proud of matt for letting isaiah take a different view than us. for showing isaiah that he can think for himself and think different than his mom and dad, maybe even teachig us a thing or two.

today, not that unusually, we got schooled by our three year old.

as i was taking my turn in the voting booth isaiah continued on with his questions, at one point asking matt what 'voting' is. matt answered that voting is picking who we want to be our leaders. isaiah took it in, paused for a while and then said, 'dad, why do we need to pick more leaders when Jesus already is our leader?'

yes isaiah, today maybe more than yesterday, it's good to be reminded what really matters...who really is in charge.

hookah, shook, weejsh and 'stu'

nothing like having someone else around to point out the weirdness of 'every day' life. here's some favorite events of our time with grandma:

-grandma came bearing gifts. as we're in the van driving home she pulled out something for both isaiah and alaythia. for alaythia it was a little key chain that said, 'special sister'. because we all know we'll NEVER find anything with her name on it. for the next 10 minutes, i kid you not, she looked at it, then looked at grandma and said, 'shit! ... shit!' grandma stared with wide eyes and matt and i laughed hysterically and shrugged our shoulders. who knows what she was really trying to say. but every time she looks at the key chain she says it.

-it was such great weather that we went to a bunch of different parks. at one park there was another boy slightly older than isaiah that quickly became his friend. they ran and chased and laughed all over the park. to our surprise when we got close enough to hear what they were talking about, we found that the boy was calling isaiah 'stu'. come to find out, when the boy asked isaiah what his name was he told him 'stu'. who the heck knows where he heard that name, and why in the world he wanted to be called it. but for about an hour and a half, isaiah was 'stu'.

-we have yet to figure out what it means, but out of the blue alaythia will pop off with (in this order), 'shook!' pause, wait for someone to repeat it. then 'weejsh'. we have NO IDEA what it means or what the heck she's referring to.

-we were trying to be adventurous and try a new restaurant to eat at because to be honest, we're chain people...so in an effort to break free we went to a street that is filled with smaller places. grandma, the kids and i walked up and down the street checking out each place we came to. we even walked into one, got seated at a table and decided to leave because it was just too nice for kids. so after walking for quite a while, and becoming hungrier by the second, we thought we found one that looked promising. we walked up, turned the handle to walk in but quickly turned back around to leave when we saw people smoking from large pipes at the center of the tables... come to find out, we were trying to take the kids to a hookah lounge for lunch!

when she's around

it's like a sugar high...but now we're crashing. all of us. except it wasn't food, it was grandma.

it was a fantastic trip. and for the record...i cried.

the only thing lacking was grandpa. the kids ran to grandma in the airport and alaythia, after hugging for a while said, 'ga-pa?' holding her hands out in question. she walked over, bent over and looked through the gate where grandma had just come from. 'ga-pa go?' we all stood, not really sure what to say. grandpa is in vietnam right now. and if you feel so inclined you could pray for him. he is in hanoi, the city that is completely flooded. their plans have been changed, they spent a day moving orphans out of an orphanage whose first floor was completely flooded. he's safe, as near as we can tell.

after days in the 40's, the sun warmed us to low 70's. we went to parks, we swam, we ate, we watched movies. each day didn't have a plan, but it worked out perfectly in the end. snuggling in the morning, kisses at night. i wish we could say we got 'our fill'. i don't think it's possible.

but i'm not sure if i like it. is it better to just stay away and forget what it's like? or be together, remember how you are when she's around. grounded, loved, taken care of. and then feel the ripping when she leaves again.

i like who i am when she's around.

for now, another chain. counting the days 'til we can be together again.