Happy Birthday, dear Nate!

This year of life with you has made us thankful.  We pray these next 365 days of life offer joy, love, and much grace as you grow into a most wonderful little boy.  We love you, Nate the great!

Just celebrate love

Valentine’s Day has turned a bit upside down when you have kiddos.  Really, it’s a day to celebrate romantic love.  However, try explaining that to a 3 year old (who has been excited for Valentine’s Day for weeks, because it is a day that consists of hearts, sweets, and lots of pink, red and purple!) and you don’t have much to go on.  Plus, many of the things that are celebrated or encouraged on Valentine’s Day I find just silly.

But, a day that just celebrates love?  I can totally get on board with that.

Abi too.

We’ve had a lot of fun the past week or so just talking about love.  How much God loves us, how much we love our family, how much I love her daddy, how much I love her & Nate, how much she loves her daddy (and then remembers to add me in for good measure!), how much we love our friends, oh the list goes on and on.  And isn’t that amazing.  Just to celebrate love and the gift that it is.

So to you:

& you:

 

My heart is full.  I love you two with a beautiful intensity that I am so grateful for.  Oh goodness, and the lessons that you teach me.  The fun that is had, the grace that is practiced…love to you.

And to you:

Oh my, did God pour out extravagance on me.  I love you for the man that you are and the man that you are becoming.  I’m so grateful that we journey together and don’t ever arrive; that we get to continue the adventure hand in hand.  You are good, kind, really funny, faithful, an encourager, you love me well.   All my love to you.

‘the energy of the American small boy is astonishing’

From this article

Oh goodness, and my ‘American small boy’ is nowhere near the crazy that will continually come.  But, he does leave me pretty darn tired.  His sister too.  Quite the lovely duo.

(oops – but grab the camera quick, because it’s kind of funny, Nate was in heaven)

Through a blog that I enjoy reading (and getting general encouragement from!); they posted a link to the above article.  Some comments of the great C.S. Lewis that I’d never read before.  And we have a general credo in our house that anything that came out of the mouth of CS Lewis is like gold.

My brother and I have just had the experience of an American lady to stay with us accompanied by her two sons, aged 9 1/2 and 8. Whew! Lovely creatures — couldn’t meet nicer children — but the pace! I realize have never respected young married people enough and never dreamed of the Sabbath calm which descends on the house when the little cyclones have gone to bed and all the grown-ups fling themselves into chairs and the silence of exhaustion.

I am so tired on many days.  The house is crazy, I don’t feel like I accomplished much of real value.  Legitimate feelings, but silly lies that are fed to us women. 

Oh, do not be misled…it is not just one couch:

But, I am reminded that this is a beautiful season.  There will be times that come when the laundry gets totally in done in one day (like washed – dried – folded – AND put away!) – and I will miss “the pace.”  Thankfulness.  It so often boils down that that, doesn’t it?  I was reminded of it yesterday by a wonderful woman, and I am grateful for it.

For those of you who heart reading too…

I just love books.  (Insert plug for book clubs in general, such a great excuse to get together with great girls and have a good reason to be consistent in reading!  I might also add that I have the best book club in the world – just sayin’)

 

(Occasionally while Abi is in school, I’ll try to get some errands done when I’m just a one-kid momma.  Nate usually crashes in the car for about 30 minutes…and I feel obliged to run to the coffee shop and read in the car – a prepared lady never leaves home without her book!)

I want Abi & Nate to love books.  Currently, Abi loves anything “girly” with books.  Fairy tales especially, but I love to see how the classics are just that – classic.  Any kiddo is bound to love them because they are just plain good.  And Nate…well, he loves to throw books and take them off of shelves.  I am trusting that this will change.

(Abi loves to read by her 21st century candlelight…a bulky flashlight)

Great resources are always something that I am on the hunt for during this journey of motherhood…and I’ve found a great one.  And great resources can’t be kept a secret; because that is just plain selfish!  So, as we grow our library, I know that I will continue to check back with this list before I travel to the book store or to amazon.

Happy Reading!

Fish

(Sarah dear, this one is for you)

I once said in college (while I was taking an ichthyology class, still one of my all time favorite classes) “You know, you can learn a lot about God through fish.”  I still don’t know why so many people thought that was a strange statement.  Oh….yeah I do.

(I’m not advocating to eat sea jellies – ps that’s right, NOT jellyfish, the correct term is sea jellies – but I don’t have many pictures of fish!)

So with that…this is a total random post.  But, it’s been in my head as I haven’t closed a few web-pages as I’ve been reading quite a bit about where our fish comes from.  Nothing new – we’ve all heard to be extra careful about where our fish is sourced from / how it is grown.  Just consider this an encouragement as we all journey through loving food and loving our planet!  How very green and hippie of me.

(Our dinner from the other night…yummy tilapia in foil packets…easy clean-up, uses up veggies…win-win.) 

SO, here is a great website that is maintained through Monterey Bay Aquarium (need I say more?) – an easy place to check what you’re buying.

Happy Fishing!

This summer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium…goodness, you can really tell I was excited!

Celebrating MLK Day

It is a privilege of parenting to be reminded to review often.  Through teaching Abi, I am constantly working through my ideas at times reevaluating them.  There’s nothing like the questions of a three year old to make sure you really know what you believe!

When talking to Abi about MLK Jr. today – I was thankful.  Thankful for the different country that I live in than my parents grew up in.  Thankful that Abi’s eyes and mind couldn’t comprehend that we would ever treat someone poorly because they looked different than we did.

Yet, reminded of the great distance that we still have left as modern day abolitionists.  That there is still a whole-lotta ugly out in the world today.

--

"So, I conclude by saying again today that we have a task and let us go out with a "divine dissatisfaction." Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.

Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. [,et us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.

-- Martin Luther King Jr., Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Georgia 1967.

An excerpt from Heather’s post.  Please go read the entire post here.  Good stuff.

Working at a zoo…

There are OH so many reasons why I really love my once-a-week / occasionally-on-weekends gig.  It is a reminder and an outlet to a previous and current passion – it is amazing to have lunch out with friends once a week sans kiddos – I am thankful to keep in touch with former colleagues – and when you forget to wear make-up, it’s no big deal.

Yep – went to work yesterday in a bit of a tizzy because I knew I was running late for a meeting…and I didn’t wear make-up.  And no one cared.  And that was pretty nice.

Oh, and I love it for these reasons too…

*Cathy Burkey

*Cathy Burkey