Fairy Tale Parade

EG's school held a fairy tale parade recently. And dressing up to match her friends was the highlight of the whole thing!

Birthday Girl

The wait to eat these was long and painful...and they almost came crashing to their death at the hands of one impatient child who will remain nameless...But we all agree, actually eating them when the birthday girl arrived was worth the wait! Happy (belated) Birthday Mamma Nette!

What are they teaching my kids?

Can you guess what this is?

Andy and I have had a blast teaching Sunday School recently and I just really thought this picture should be on the record. If you have a guess to what this is, comment! If you're right, I'll send you a hard copy of this to put on your fridge!

Pancake Love

In my opinion, grandparent-love is a lot like pancakes. Obviously, you can't live off pancakes alone. You need the healthy stuff that your parents make you eat like broccoli and brown rice. But pancakes comfort and satisfy our tastes the same way that grandparent love does our souls. It's a little over the top, like pancakes, but that's what makes it so great. Don't we all just need a good helping of pancakes every once in a while? I know I do.

So glad this trip included my grandparents too! Oh, how I feel so loved by these precious people. And I know my kids will say the same about these guys! Grandparents, like pancakes, are just delightful.

Saturday Morning

From the pink room upstairs, I hear a British voice saying, "Aslan is a lion, the great lion." Andy decided Emma Grace was ready for The Chronicles of Narnia and they are equally pleased to spend their Saturday morning engrossed in the book! Andy truly has a gift with voices and language so having him read the story aloud is extra fun. He does voices for each character. I know he's enjoying the opportunity to read, one of his favorite activities and also to have a reading buddy who doesn't fall asleep three pages in. Every year he decides we should read together and every year the same things happen. I fall asleep several nights in a row and then he gives up and just finishes the book by himself. Being read to is a magic bullet for making me fall asleep!

Arts Festival

One thing I love about America is all the festivals. There's a festival for everything really-apple festivals, strawberry festivals, music festivals-and each genre has it's own of course, tractor festivals and on and on. Really, Americans just enjoy festivals. I am definitely among them.

Today we headed out to a local arts festival. We live near a pretty groovy, artsy town that is full of sidewalk cafes and art galleries and has a park that often has live music and movies. Today was their annual arts festival and the kids had a blast. There were tons of free activities for them and we had some good friends to tag along with. So thankful for friends. I was thinking about last year and how I would've come alone to something like this. So much better with friends! Brooke and her crew have been a big part of our transition and we love spending time with them. They live just a couple miles down the road and they're just a step ahead of us in their transition to Florida. So grateful for them! (She's the friend I hang out with spontaneously from my last post) Our kids love their kids as much as I love Brooke! Just really grateful for fun days like this one!!

Signs of the Times

In the past month or so I've really begun to feel settled here. I am not sure what has happened, but it feels like we've turned a corner in this process of transition. We're coming up on the two year mark of leaving China and at times I think we should have been settled a while ago. I remember my friend Tamara telling me it took her two to three years to really feel settled after making the same move. So I guess we're on track. I've been thinking about evidences in my life that show that we are, in fact, here to stay...at least for a while. People in transition don't do/have the things on this list.

I own a really nice power toothbrush that works on American voltage. Guess I'm not planning to leave for a while cause that thing would blow up in most other countries.

We don't always obey the Garmin. Yep, sometimes we take shortcuts that our Garmin doesn't even know about! Last year we depended on that thing to go to the grocery store.

We have pictures on our wall and dust behind our bookshelf.

We are talking about planting grass. Nomads aren't really into things with roots.

I have a friend that I hang out with spontaneously. Wanna go to the park? Meet you there in 15.

We own a leaf blower and I know how to use it.

My neighbor saves his coupons for me every week.

We have neighbors.

We know them.

Emma Grace was sad when a classmate switched schools. She's had enough time with this little friend to really feel sad when she left.

I have a standing coffee date every other week with two friends.

I don't cry all the time. Actually that's not true. The tears have flown freely for the past two years and they're still flowing strong. Not sure when that stops.

We have a favorite diner that we visit on lunch dates!

I have a stash of borrowed maternity clothes. People in transition don't have people to loan them clothes.

Andy helped lay brick at our church last weekend. We've been there long enough that we are starting to contribute. We've been receivers in every way over this past two years. Feels good to start to give again.

The wall under our bar is covered with stains from the kids eating there. I should clean that soon.

We named the two hawks that sit on our fence every day. Harry and Harriet Tubman.

Yep, in every area God is filling up our life here. It's still painful for me to think about my old life. Just last week I pulled out an old worn recipe for Chicken and Rice soup and felt really really sad. Seeing Xiao Li's Chinese handwriting and thinking back to all the times we cooked together was just about enough to undo me for the day. But the sting is less intense because the sadness over our loss is now coupled with thankfulness for the new things God has given us. Where there was once only sadness, now thankfulness is mingled in there too...so the sadness feels less sad.

There's actually a new sadness growing in my heart. It's the sadness over forgetting my life in China. Just the other day I was trying to remember the name of a driver who took us all over town and I couldn't. Finally Andy and I figured it out, but I felt really sad that my memories from China are beginning to fade. I guess that's another step in the transition process that I have to deal with. Writing this is making me cry-that well is deep.

I've wondered for a while now why I have not been able to write about our transition. Little anecdotes about our children is about all I've been able to muster up for our blog. Which is unlike me. Writing and processing takes emotionally energy. And all our emotional energy has been spent just living the transition. But I think that maybe I'm getting to point where I can begin to put words to what this process has been like for us. I don't desire to live in transition forever and I'm really glad that we're buying leaf blowers and doing all that comes along with settling in a place. But I will say that some of my most intense and loving encounters with the Lord have happened over the past two years, when we've been really rootless. I've wanted to write some of them down but just haven't been able to. Maybe I'll do it soon. I really want to have a record of how God has shown his tender care and faithfulness to us during this time. Maybe after we plant our grass, I'll get around to it!!

Are you endemorated??

While Jack is flipping over handle bars in his latest bike stunt, Emma Grace is busy creating and processing. That little brain of hers never turns off. From a very early age we knew Jack was physically agile. He just moves and jumps and runs with such fluidity-he's really a natural athlete. And Grapes, well, she is as verbally agile as he is physcially. She masters words the way he masters stunts. (thankfully her accomplishments are landing us in the hospital a little less often than his!!) And she's in a really fun stage where she has the vocabulary to express the amazing and complex thoughts going on in that little brain. It's so fun to interact with her these days. And if she doesn't have the right word....

Emma Grace: Mom, I had this dream where I went up to outer space and when I got there I was endemorated!

Me: You were what?

EG: Endemorated.

Me: Oh, endemorated. Well what does that mean?

EG: You know, endemorated. Like when you see something and you are shocked or surprised.

Me: Did you just make that word up?

EG: Yeah, I just made it up.

I guess when words like shocked or surprised just don't quite fit, you can just make up one that works. Funny thing is, the word sounds so real to me that for a second I thought she knew a word I didn't know! Andy and I laughed and laughed at how she just made it up and with confidence told me the definition. We've actually starting using it around our house. Feel free to use it. There's no copyright...yet!

The day it all changed

On this day back in December, when Jack wore a crown and drank a whole can of Sierra Mist to ring in his third birthday, I am pretty sure something significant happened. I didn't know it at the time but my guess is any other mom who has raised a three year old boy knew about it. Why didn't they tell me? I guess they figured some things are best left untold.

It's as if the testosterone was unleashed and what we have here is a real WILD child, emphasis on WILD. This boy is pretty much unstoppable and if we make it to his fourth birthday with no major injuries it will be a miracle. Unfortunately the common sense level doesn't match the mischievous energy level this boy now has. So we've had quite a few almost-disasters. The most recent of which involved the flooding of our upstairs bathroom. Andy informed me that not only was water streaming down through our first floor bathroom light, it was also quite soapy. Not good. There's climbing and wrestling and scars and lots of sneaking for candy going on around here. It really makes we wonder how out of control things are about to get with another boy on the way.

Thankfully for this momma of a wild child, he stole my heart long ago. I personally love the combination of a rough and tumble little man who also picks flowers and tells me I look like a princess. I've said it to him many times, and now he says it to me, "Mom, I'm going to be a good husband one day!" I agree Jack. Our biggest task now is just keeping you alive til' your wedding day!