Hug Situation

Rebecca just got here for the weekend...the project being painting the kitchen.
She has been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a hug from Jacob. Every time she asks him for one, she gets the same response..."Nope. All gone."

They just had the following conversation:
R: Jacob, can I have a big hug now?
J: Nope, all gone still.
R: Can you try to get one for me sometime today?
J: It will take a hundred of hours.
R: Well, it's a good thing I'll be here all weekend.
J: Well a hundred of hours will be to dark, and I'll have to go to bed.
R: Well can you try to give me one tomorrow?
J: You'll be here tomorrow?
R: Yeah...I'll be here all weekend.
J: Well, probly tomowah then.

Later...
R: Can I have a hug now?
J: No...I don't know what they're doing.

And even later...
All the hugs are down in the basement, and they don't know how to get upstairs. He can't go get them because they don't want to be up here.

Awe

It's late. Very late. I confess I was grumbling a bit about doing chores at 1 a.m. But, I had gotten home late from a seminar, & Mark had been working all evening on putting up new light fixtures in the kitchen. So, it was out to feed the goats and dog before turning in.

As I headed into the barn, I noticed that there was a glow behind the mountain ridge. After traipsing back and forth with water buckets, I could see that the glow had risen higher in the sky...and that's when the show began.


I joined Mark up behind the house, and from there you are literally standing in a mountain bowl. You know that feeling of being in a planetarium, where there's nothing obstructing your view of the sky from any angle? That's what it's like here...crane your neck and turn three-hundred and sixty degrees, and there's nothing to see but snow-covered mountain peaks reaching up into the deep black sky scattered with a brilliant array of stars, like diamonds strewn extravagantly over black velvet.


From behind the ridge of mountains to the north, the green gauze lifted and swayed, growing brighter and rippling faster by the moment. And suddenly, a shimmering carpet runner of reds, pinks, green, and white shook across the sky, prancing to the east and then skipping back to the west, like a banner waving back and forth across the sky. The reds grew in intensity as they glimmered back and forth, faded to pinks, and then began again. And as suddenly as the dance began, it was over. The pale green gauze settled over the sky once again, like a curtain being drawn after the final act.


Typically around here, the northern lights are greens, whites, and yellows. Only once before have I witnessed a show of red northern lights, though it wasn't nearly as dramatic as this display tonight. The last time we saw red northern lights was while in Alakanuk, and it caused quite a stir...the Yup'ik elders say that red northern lights mean war is coming. It seems like a long time ago, but I remember it clearly. It was September, 2001.

BIG NEWS!!!

Well, we would like to announce that we are...

...pregnant!

Not like you think, though-we're actually Paper-Pregnant!

Quite odd to us to term it like that, but it really does explain it the best.

We're embarking on the process of adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia.
While the process will last at least twice as long as a physical pregnancy, we literally did just find out that we're going to have a baby, we have many responsibilities to ensure a safe delivery (think filling out paperwork instead of eating right, paying agency fees instead of an OB, traveling to Ethiopia and then home with a new baby instead of labor and delivery), and will end up with the same result-a darling baby.

Please keep this long, complicated pregnancy in your prayers! It's going to be more to keep track of than just our day-to-day stuff, so you can keep posted on our progress, etc, here:
www.familywovenbyfaith.blogspot.com
I'll keep a link on the sidebar here so you can just hop on over whenever you like! :)

Some pretty on the way

Hugs

Jacob is known for both wanting and giving "big hugs." But he doesn't just give them out to anyone, and sometimes they're just "out of stock."

One night he informed me that I could only have a kiss...he was all out of hugs.
Me: Where do you get hugs?
J: From the big hug store.
Me: Can you get some from the big hug store right now?
J: No, the big hug store is in Pennsylvania.

Friends at church will ask him for a hug, I think just because they find this too entertaining. One day after church, he was giving me the "hug rundown."
"...and I gave a big hug to Jordan and to Miss Mel, of course to Mrs. Leaders, to Neveah..."
The "of course" in there just cracked me up! For those who don't get big hugs, for whatever reason, they receive the consolation prize of a high five.

Well lately he's been packaging a high five, a kiss, and a big hug together for me (the privilege that comes from being mom, I guess)! But tonight at bedtime, I was informed that he had a high five and a kiss, but that he was all out of big hugs. I said told him that I was glad that I could have the high five and a kiss, but I sure was sad to not get a big hug.

Me: Do you think you can find just one hug for me?
J: I think one will come back while I'm sleeping.
Me: Oh, well I was hoping to have a bedtime hug.
J (looking back over his shoulder): Hug, you come back here. I found one mommy! But it's only a small one.
Me (as he's hugging me): Thanks for the hug...and it's a pretty big hug for being only a small one.
J: I didn't know it, but it is a big hug.

Heeeere's Sophie!

December

January

February

Faith

This morning Jacob mentioned to me that on his next birthday (he's planning way ahead, apparently), Gramps and Grandma were probably going to give him a rocket ship man outfit, cuz when he's a dadult (that's how he pronounces adult), he's going to be a rocket ship flyer man.

I tried to break it to him that he might not get that, as I have never seen a rocket ship man outfit before.

"Well, you'll see it when they give it to me for my birthday."

It was both hilarious to me and sobering at the same time. Do I have that kind of faith in the actual promises of God? My parents have said nothing, I'm sure, abut a rocket ship man outfit to Jacob. Yet God has said a great deal to me, to all of us, about his care and provision for us. Am I just as convinced that God will keep His promises to me as Jacob is convinced that my parents will get him a rocket ship man outfit even though he's never seen one and they've never offered? Are you?

Great Quote

Everybody respects Laura Ingalls Wilder, right?

"I believe it would be much better for everyone if children were given their start in education at home. No one understands a child as well as his mother, and children are so different that they need individual training and study. A teacher with a room full of pupils cannot do this. At home, too, they are in their mother's care. She can keep them from learning immoral things from other children." ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

Friday Funnies

Three anecdotes for you on this fine Friday:

1. An oldie-but-goodie from Jacob, which I found in cleaning out my inbox!
The boys love to watch movies. Rarely do they get to, simply b/c then they get in the habit of asking for one everyday instead of applying themselves to something more constructive.
Andrew had just gotten over a bit of a bug, and Jacob and I had the following conversation:

J: I'm sick.
Me: Well maybe we should go to bed early then.
J: No! When your're sick you get to watch movies!

2. Do you let your dog lick the dishes? We didn't used to, but I think we fell for the reasoning that "if it's good enough for us to eat it's good enough for the dog; besides, it saves money on dog food, and we just use the sanitize cycle on the dishwasher." Abby certainly appreciates it, and she does a good job. Sometimes too good of a job.
I was taking care of leftovers after dinner, and couldn't for the life of me find the lid to the container I was using. After scouring the kitchen, I finally looked through the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and lo and behold, there was the lid. For about 20 seconds I was completely baffled, trying to figure out why the lid was dirty but the container was clean in the cupboard. And then it dawned on me that the container I had put the leftovers in was in actuality the very same dish I had given to Abby to lick out just a while ago. It was so clean that one of us actually put it back in the cupboard, assuming that Anna had just been playing in that cupboard as usual and left that container on the floor. Hungry, anyone?

3. With our permission, the previous owner of this house had left tons of household stuff that they no longer wanted, and left it piled in the basement. (We regularly do rummage sales at the church for fundraisers, and we knew we could use it for that). Among stuff left were countless bottles of cleaning supplies. I use natural cleaners, so had simply been carting the cleaning supplies down to the basement pile. Andrew was the only one of the kids here on moving day, and I stressed with him that while I could trust him not to touch them, once Jacob got home, the boys were only allowed on the other side of the basement until I got all the bottles boxed up...explaining that all the cleaning supplies were like poison.
You never know how what you say is being interpreted until you hear it explained back. A while later, Andrew was giving my dad a tour of the house.
"Gramps, you don't want to go in this part of the basement, because there's thousands of diseases in there."
Dad needed an interpreter for that one!

Have you met Jacob?

Jacob has the most vivid imagination of anyone I've ever known. And he doesn't get bogged down in details...it doesn't bother him that the protective plastic is missing from his goggles.

















Jacob also loves the Word of God more than almost anyone. He spends hours, literally hours, reading his Bible. He pores over the pictures of his Bible, even the kids Bible dictionary. How many dads out there have had the privilege of their child asking, "Daddy, can we read my Bible for a bedtime story tonight?" Don't get me wrong, he reads other books and plays aplenty. But he loves his Bible, particularly stories of David and Goliath and also Joseph-they're higher-ranking than the stories of Jacob.
Our Bible curriculum is from Grapevine Press, "Stick Figuring Through the Bible." The boys love it! Here is Jacob with his embellished stick figure of Joseph in his coat of many colors...he was so proud of it, he asked me to take a picture of it!

I guess he's stick-figuring through everything...here's his rendition of daddy with his beard and mustache.
















And this? This, my friends, is Jacob flossing his toes. Why? I have no idea. He just disappeared right after the whole flossing and brushing routine, and I found him calmly sitting on the couch, doing this. And when I asked him what he was doing, his nonchalant reply distinctly impressed upon me that this is a perfectly normal, routine activity that he'd been at for years now.









And do you know about perler beads? You know, those tiny plastic round pegs that are placed on a mini pegboard shapes, and then you iron the beads to fuse them? Those tiny plastic beads that aggravate mothers to no end, because they will scatter to all corners of the house in no time, but are tolerated because there has yet to be a child born that won't sit for hours working on a project? Yes...those beads.
Jacob was panic-stricken while working on a project the other day, and I'm glad he was panicked...because a perler bead fell up his nose. While we haven't covered the rules of gravity, I clearly established with him that beads don't just fall up ones' nose. Good thing, too-aren't you relieved? Thankfully a good hard nose-blowing was all that was needed to remove the weightless, self-willed yellow bead from his nostril.

Have you ever wondered what your kids think about during that time between being put to bed and actually falling asleep? The other night Jacob had the flu, and was really nauseated. After hopping out of my bed 6 times in a half hour when he would start to cry like he does right before throwing up, I finally just crawled into bed with him for the night. His stomach did finally calm down, and we were both drifting off to sleep. In the sweetest whisper-voice, I hear him count to twenty...and then start over and count to twenty again. Then I hear him spelling his name to himself a few times..."j-a-c-o-b, j-a-c-o-b," and then reciting the alphabet song, twice. I don't know which of us fell asleep first, but it was so neat to get to "eavesdrop" on his own little world.

One last anecdote of Jacob that is too funny to risk forgetting. (Stop reading here if bodily functions gross you out). Jacob loves identifying letters everywhere, especially letters in his name. And, well, I hope that you don't think we're crude...but everytime he poops, he generally can identify a letter formed there in the toilet; and because of the spelling of his name, he's especially delighted that it's often a "c" or a "J." Well, with all the illnesses springing back and forth between all of us, Jacob had diarrhea the other day. He finishes, hops up, and peers into the toilet. Trust me, I was there...no identifiable letters to be found. No identifiable anything. Did I mention Jacob has a vivid imagination? "Mommy! My poop looks like an angel reaching up to heaven!"

(PS: Aren't you glad I didn't have a picture to go along with that one? And I did warn you)!

New leaf

If you spend any bit of time on blogs or books aimed at helping you be more organized or efficient, you've heard it before...Empty your email inbox every day. It's the equivalent of handling just once each piece of paper that comes into your house. Either file it in the place you will look for it, act on it, refer it to whomever is really responsible for it, or trash it. Sound familiar? Otherwise you just end up endlessly shuffling paper. Or shuffling through your inbox, as the case may be. I have far more organizing tips and strategies tucked in my brain than I have time to execute. This "emptying of the inbox" was one of them.

Was. No more past tense. After today, it's a reality. That's right...I am operating from an empty inbox. Granted, I had to create of file of "REPLY TO" emails, and it contains about 20 messages that I need to reply to/act on the info in them. The rest of the messages are either forwarded then deleted, filed appropriately, or deleted. I would have preferred to act on those 20 messages as I worked, rather than filing them and having to go back to them to act on them. But desperate times call for modified measures. That's right...this was an act of desperation.

Maybe I'm hoping that other people actually have twice as many emails in their inbox as I had, or that this will inspire someone else to purge their email to help make room for mental clarity, or maybe I think announcing this turn of a new leaf will help me stick to it. Regardless, this is why this is a big deal to me: I had 233 emails in my inbox as of this morning. That's right...233. Or maybe that's not so bad. Either way, I'm feeling like I actually accomplished something today. My goal is to spend just a 15-30 minute block a day handling emails, and then be done with it for the day. I'm working on a similar goal for blogging, once I work through my backlog of pics. There's just too much to do to not be organized about it.

So I'm curious...how many emails are in your inbox?

Operation Christmas Child

Every year, our church works together to fill as many shoeboxes as we can. A couple in our church , Bill and Mona, do a terrific job of watching all year long for sales on crayons and soaps, etc, and organizing rummage sales and such to raise money for buying the presents. Mark can get the plastic shoe boxes pretty cheap with his employee discount, and we pick a Saturday in November to do the filling of and the praying over the boxes! I take the kids shopping to fill a shoebox for a child their age, and they love picking out presents to give!
Last year we put together 71 boxes, with the goal being 100. This year, we filled a total of 103!!! It's pretty exciting to see how God manages that kind of work when that's about 4 times as many people as come to our church! :)

Job

This is Job. He is a blessed man, as you can see by his numerous children and livestock. He loves and serves God wholeheartedly.


This is Job. He is a sad, wretched man. His children have all died, his livestock and servants are all gone, and now he has been stricken with boils. Even still, he blesses the name of the Lord, and will not blame God for his misfortune. Job 1:22..."The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

God visits Job, (in all his kingly regalia), and reminds him that no one else was there when God formed the earth, and that no one gives counsel to the Lord in all His wisdom. We are simply to trust and obey.

Because of his faith, God heals Job and restores to Job double all that he has lost!


(In case you can't understand the sweet, still voice of "God" talking, he says "Job, thank you for trusting me" as he removes from Job the boils)!