Ella

Here's my summer baby on her last night of being two. Happy birthday Bella girl.

father's day

Happy Father's Day to my dear husband. He's done his share of diapers and late night walks to lull sleepless babies. He's worried and prayed over sick kids. He's worked hard and sacrificed for them. He understands that the moment you become a parent selflessness takes on a whole new meaning. He's been delighted at their happiness and saddened by their tears. He disciplines them well and makes them laugh often. And I am just so very grateful to have this man to partner with in parenting. We have no illusions of being the perfect parents; as a matter of fact I think we tremble at how easily our baggage, and issues and sin can and will hurt our kids. But we trust that God gave us these three little people for a reason and that he will be our strength as we try to live what we teach. So we strive together in the best way we know how to help them be passionate about God, and learning and people, and nature and beauty.

I'd be amiss not to mention how immensely thankful I am for my own sweet dad for giving me life,and love and so much of what I now hold dear.
On a side note the above pictures were altered on this strange Japanese website. You download the photo, then click the blue box and voila! Your pictures look like vintage newspaper clippings. I'm just a little addicted to it at the moment.

nap time

Ella, my almost-three-year-old has been rebelling against the afternoon nap these past several months. I was dismayed at first, as that hour or so of quietness while the girls slept gave me just a little time to get done house work or have a little reading/rest time with Juden. While caring for and nurturing three little ones all day, those little breaks also just helped me keep my sanity and patience. I was even more dismayed when each night at dinnertime, Ella would set into a overtired whining that didn't cease till bedtime. In my desperate attempt to cling to that hour with one child instead of three, we have developed a new routine.
Ella now sleeps in a big girl bed which happens to be a full size bed someone gave us, and I might add she looks like a pea-sized little princess in it. I somewhat reluctantly decide to lie with her and push aside the thoughts of all the other responsibilities that are piling up. I figure that if I sing to her and rub her back, surely she'll drift off and I can get back to my housework and one-on-one time with Juden. So there we lie while she fidgets and squirms and rearranges her bears and lambs and I'm patiently hoping she'll remember how tuckered out she is and how oh-so-comfy her bed is. I glance around her bright, feminine, little girly room, and I think it's nice just to have these few moments to slow down. My eyes stop on this painting that my dad painted.
The painting is full of tranquility and simplicity. A couple in a canoe, a man reading on a park bench, a family feeding the ducks. The brush strokes are soft and muted. I look at the scene through his eyes and I wonder, is it England? Have we been there? Everything about it is so...him, and I miss him. I wonder why I'm missing him again so much lately. Was it when I was sitting behind the girl who gently leaned her head on her father's shoulder during church and I felt that ache in my heart. Was it sitting outside last night and watching the strange sky before the storm? I've always loved to watch storms- all the green-grey light, the noise and power of them. Remembering the thrill of summer thunderstorms when I was little, sitting on his lap with his big arms around me. Maybe it's the fear of the sound of his voice growing fainter. Maybe it's Father's Day coming up, or maybe it's marveling at these little grandchildren of his that I wish he could see.


My eyes close as the thoughts pass and I feel a restless Ella's soft little fingertips tracing my lips and brushing across my eyelashes, and I think to myself, at least one of us is being lulled to sleep. My thoughts turn to how ridiculously much I love this little bug. I love the dimple on just her right cheek, how funny she looks with her crocs always inevitably on the wrong feet, how she talks out of a side ways mouth. Heaven help me the day someone makes her cry, or teases her. Maybe some day she'll question where her worth is. Maybe she'll wonder if she's skinny enough or smart enough, or if the guys she's dating is right for her. Maybe she'll fall prey to messages of false securities. Maybe she'll doubt what she believes. Lord, give me grace for those times but for now I bathe this little one in prayers of strength, purity, wisdom, and love for this precious daughter. May she always be held by your grace. While my sleepy prayers give way I realize the desired result has come to pass... at least for a few minutes.

summer

It seems like summer has taken it's cue from the arrival of June because all of the sudden it is hot. Time for sundresses, sprinkler's, popsicle's and pool days.



We recently got a membership to the nature center. I like this kind of outing with the kids where we can wander around, have a picnic, and look at animals. Here they are in a little "whoo, whoo..." chorus with the owl. And here is Ella striking a pose.


The kids are in vacation Bible school this week so we took Naya out for a breakfast date. I am enjoying the lovely quiet mornings with Naya all to myself.

9 years

Anniversaries are good times to reminisce about how we met and what a surprise it was to end up with someone so different from me but how it made so much sense too. I like to go back to how we got engaged and the day we got married. To our honeymoon of white sand beaches in Jamaica, and a garden that seeped with unfamiliar scents of tropical trees and hibiscus where our little cottage was. A little missionary woman owned the gardens and would bring us lemon cocktails on her porch. She would tell us stories in a part British , part Jamaican accent like we where her kids. Her porch was shrouded with flowering vines and suspended colorful glass balls that used to be the floats from fishing boats. She'd have fresh breadfruit and flowers put in our cottage daily. I love to remember the rustic castle in Negril we stayed in for 35 dollars a night with no hot water and huge arched glassless windows to where all you heard at night was the crashing waves on the rocks below. Everything about the place seemed enchanted magnified I'm sure by the afterglow of new love. The word honeymoon has long been one of my favorite words and ours surpassed all my sweet expectations.

I was also pensive about the reality of how hard marriage is. How it can come under attack and how difficult it is to let go and learn selflessness. I could reflect on times of disunity when there was a loneliness deeper than I ever knew when I was single. As I think about these last nine years of marriage I am so thankful to have grown so much with Josh, to be past some the tumultuous drama that came with marrying young. It truly has gotten better with each passing year. There is a quieter solid contentedness that has grown. Marriage has been both the most intensely difficult and intensely beautiful of human relationships. We are humbled by our flesh but overwhelmed with gratitude that a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

We talked about some of these things over a very nice anniversary dinner and then he handed me my card. I have shared lots of things I love about Josh but thus far, I've not mentioned his adorable habit of giving me the most creative cards. When we were dating and he studied abroad I filled a box with his creations, everything from his face on David Hasslehoff's body to letter's written entirely in a spiral so you'd have to keep spinning the paper. Some would make me laugh out loud and others would melt me with thoughtfulness. As we talked into the evening I really felt overwhelmed with thankfulness for this man that I want to grow old with. He is a blessing to me every day.

I suppose I've been a little scarce on the blog front lately. I use this space kind of like a kid with her pockets full of all her flowers and rocks and treasures. I store up everyday moments, thoughts, conversations and little faces I don't want to forget. It's my pocket of delights of sorts, that I lay out for anyone who happens by. You would not have to have spent much time here to see that I'm an idealist, a hopeless romantic; I see the good in people and rosy tinted glasses are usually firmly affixed to my face. It's not that those pleasures are trite but I've had other things floating around my head lately.
Images of moms and dads that sent their kids off to school in the morning and later in the day recovered their bodies from the rubble of schools destroyed in the earthquakes in parts of Asia. I can not imagine. I'm thinking of someone in my family who is sitting in a hospital somewhere in Philadelphia praying for his mom to wake up. I'm thinking of the homeless woman I watched in my rear view mirror while I looked at myself and my girls all clean and pretty in Sunday dress and everything in me felt a pull to skip church and listen to her story, to offer some help. And I was torn as I watched her fade from view and then went and listened to a sermon on justice.
It's funny sometimes how I study people. I watched the woman on break from the DUI school. I did a mental photo documentary of her, the lines near her eyes as she squinted in the sun, her bony fingers curled around her cigarette. I watch the man in the park who's always alone and I wonder where his family is or if has one anymore. Sometimes it's hard not to feel the weight of people's suffering. It makes us human. There 's no point in comparing pain. Everyone has their story and has or will have losses. But maybe it's all part of why the words in this book are so beautiful they make me cry, and why I feel a connection to this song...


So as I left the dirty dishes and the yelling kids to head out for an evening walk, because I was craving silence, these are the things I pondered. When my spirit's heavy it's good to be alone. I stare out at the twilight clouds and my soul is hushed and I breath deep the last magnolia blooms and honeysuckle. I watch the sparrows play I think it's all part of the whole. The losses, the sadness make these things more precious. I can choose to make choices that cause stress. I can choose to stay at odds with my husband because we've been too busy to connect. I could distract myself from feeling the heaviness and the suffering of others but I don't want to. I want to be bold in love, in prayers, and in action. The sun will rise in the morning and a day will start afresh to make of it what I will. My pockets are full.

mothers

Our mothers... what a thing to celebrate. They were there when we took our first breath, our first day of school, our first heart-break, they were biting their lips when we first started driving, they feel our disappointments with us and our smile makes their heart sing. They are those women who, for many of us are pillars of strength and the ones we have to thank for some the good we see in ourselves. Today I also send prayers up for all those women who have lost their moms or had miscarriages or who desperately want to be a mother. I say this remembering my first mothers day after losing our first child. Peace be with you on days like today.

I thought I'd share some photos, the first of which is by Elliot Erwitt who is one of my favorite photographers. I love how it captures the indescribable bond of a mother and baby. The second is by Leon Levinstein and the third by Wayne Miller.

But these are the moms that mean the most to me. The first raised the man I love and blows any negative mother-in-law stereo type out of the water. She exudes nurturing and from the first time I met her she took me under her wings like she has so many over the years.

Lastly, is my very own beautiful mother who has given more than I could express. Since I have become a mom I realize more fully just how amazing she is.

Sometimes there are days when being a mom is not all things rosy. There are days when no matter what you do, your kids just aren't happy. There are days when they fight and they go to time out for the same thing three times in a row. There are days when you are trying to teach your child to be patient and kind but you feel like being neither. Some days you're busy all day long but you can't find one thing to show for it, and you wonder why your mind can't stay in one direction for longer than ten seconds. There are days where your heart is heavy about things that you don't have time to let surface. There are days you realize that no matter how much you pour yourself out, you'll never be enough. There are days when you fantasize about having a few minutes to yourself to exercise, or go to the library, or go shopping. There are days when you vaguely remember what naps felt like. There are days when you realize you must be getting old because the stuff you used to blast from the cd player is being replaced with calming voices like Hem and Rosie Thomas because you can't handle the volume after the demands of kids all day long. On those days when the only time you're forced to be still is to nurse the one who doesn't talk or fight yet, you use those moments to cry cause you're worn out and dissappointed in yourself, but oh so thankful for grace and that you're not alone in this parenting thing.



Even on the those harder more exhausting days of parenting I'm reminded that there's no where in the world I'd rather be than with my sweet ones. In the midst of little hands always pawing at me and little voices always needing me, I rest in the joy and the blessing that they are and pray for grace to shepherd their hearts. And when her tiny hands reach up for mine I think on how rich these little people have made me and how thankful I am that one wiser and stronger than I, holds them.

for the love of the earth

...for the beauty of our home, we are thankful.

there is ease and comfort in his presence, he loves children and is a favorite friend to lots of nieces and nephews, he is really good at anticipating needs, he's a hard worker, he's analytical and challenging, he lives his faith in quiet acts of servanthood to those around him, he has deep conviction but is also gentle, he's got a big heart and a big smile, and the boy can whistle like nobody's business.




The unique thing about siblings, of which I have been blessed four times over, is that they share your history, they carry the same sorrows and memories and laugh at the same things and are moved by the same things. There is just nothing like having best friends that you've loved since day one. Happy birthday baby brother.

bleeding heart

That is the name of these stunning flowers I couldn't resist, very fitting for these little beauties. While researching how to extend their life in the garden, I discovered that they are entirely poisonous. So we will be keeping Naya far from them since she has been known to suck on a stray dandelion now and again. We've been spending lots of time outside enjoying the longer hours of sunlight and the yard that Josh has been working on. He built a wall with the help of some very kind friends) added a stone ramp and brick patio. After I just happened to mention how lovely I thought it would be to lay outside at night watching stars with an arbor full of dangling lights and flowers, he drew up a sketch and built me one.



Some things I love lately:
the smell of wet soil, perfect breezes and full blossomed trees, garden lights, and bare feet, reading books out loud with Josh,listening to Naya mimic words and animal noises and...

of course strawberries and whipped cream,(apparently enough to make ya go cross-eyed.)