a venture across the pond

One last trip to the beach

2012-02-15T16:02:00.000Z

I actually can't remember if this was really, really our last trip to the beach.. But I'm thinking there's a good chance it was. It was certainly our last trip to the beach for playing purposes. It was a beautifully sunny day. Chilly, of course, but gorgeous. I couldn't resist snapping a picture of our garden (jungle?) as we walked out.

I love this view. The anticipation of what you are about to see is awesome every time.

What we did not expect to see was a crane lifting an excavator way up into the air! We thought this was crazy and very exciting and were oohing and aahing as I snapped pictures. Somehow, though, no one else thought anything of it! I still can't fathom how this is not an impressive sight, even to people who do not have small boys, but everyone else was just strolling along like they saw excavators hanging from cranes every day. Not us! We watched it until we couldn't see it anymore, and thoroughly enjoyed it :)

When we arrived at the beach, there were some horses that had just finished a walk/run in the sand. We watched them for a while and then Daddy took Aed over to say hi. Of course, I was too busy watching to think to take a picture, but it was so sweet. Aed really enjoyed seeing the horses and meeting the girls that were working with them. In the picture above, one of the horses is rolling around in the sand.. which in my opinion would be itchier than however it feels to have a saddle taken off.. but what do I know about that, really?

As I mentioned, it was a gorgeous day. I have a million pictures of this skyline and it never gets old. How could it?

Well, I suppose one of our number wasn't all that impressed, but who could blame him. Forced out into the cold during what should have been a nap? Shameful!

We pulled out the beach toys and went for it! I successfully managed a turtle and a crab, but the darn whale would just not cooperate. The best part, the spout of water, refused to make a debut, so I just gave up and watched my boy instead.

He had SO MUCH FUN. He threw a huge fit when it was time to go. I mean flailing all the way into the buggy and then some kind of fit. And, much to my delight, (before the fit) an elderly man stopped to watch him play for several minutes. He didn't say a thing, just watched with a smile on his face. I'm pretty sure he would have enjoyed getting down there and playing with our little guy. That's pretty much how I felt as well.. until the cold convinced me my child's internal temperature was probably getting too low. That sand is always wet!

While we miss this beach dearly, I know what Indiana in the summer holds. Weather warm enough to expose arms and legs.. sweet watermelon, berries, and corn on the cob.. long evenings with lightening bugs and soft grass (and mosquitos.. but these are pleasant thoughts we're going for).. swimming pools and trips in the wagon.. Even without a beach, I think we have much to look forward to.

The Haar

2012-02-15T15:31:00.000Z

I have always loved Haar. The sea fog. I think it's beautiful and love watching it roll in and whisp itself around the landscape. A nice blanket settled itself behind our house one day, so naturally I documented it :)

It’s the small things.

2012-02-06T02:21:00.000Z

Our adjustment hasn’t been a breeze exactly, but in the scheme of things there is so much to be thankful for.

I was thinking recently how many small victories I have seen in our daily lives.

Things like noticing that all the hair I lost after I had Asher is finally growing back, leaving me with little wispy bangs to remind me of the blessing of our second son.

Like dropping Aed off in the nursery (creche) three times in a row with no tears (read: screaming his head off). I am hesitant to say we’re out of the woods, but after weeks of wondering if he’d ever be able to go to nursery, preschool, stay with a babysitter, etc. I am certainly thankful for this turn.

Finally finding my camera! I had very naturally put it away and forgotten where I had put it. Hopefully we can get back on track with picture-taking.

Getting our room to a livable state. I am happy to say we’ve been sleeping in our own bed for a week! We had so many things to find places for and organize and it just took me forever to work up the courage to tackle it.

A successful trip to the grocery store with both of my boys by myself. Carseats, car rides, shopping carts, huge stores, and general confusion as I shop makes this a completely different experience. I have actually really enjoyed taking the boys with me, though. It’s quite a fun little outing at our grocery store. The people that work there are so NICE! It’s like they want my shopping experience to be a JOY, and my kids! They love my kids! It’s kind of amazing. I think we could be friends.

We officially have an appointment with the doctor for both boys after much waiting and paperwork.

Asher is crawling! It’s wiggly, gimpy, adorable, and involves lots of pivoting on his belly, but the boy can move.

Aed is happier more than not. One of the hardest things about moving was watching him try to cope. As of about a week and a half ago, our little man is finally showing his true colors again. He is precious and I am so thankful.

I have officially registered myself for a mini-marathon. I am very excited, and very nervous. As I progress in my training I am realizing this is going to be quite the time commitment! :) But, I am thankful for the opportunity and a clear goal to give me some motivation.

Ian has an interview! This isn’t so much a small thing, but it is a victory. This week! We would love for you to pray for him.

There are many things I could add to this list. God has been so good to us. I am learning so much (which has caught me by surprise more than once) in this transition and the Lord has given me very clear memories of ‘ebenezers’ during the past several years that have really taken away any anxiety I have about the future (most of the time, anyway :). I am so thankful for His faithfulness. For the depth of His love, and the meaning that it brings to life.

The next few posts will be pictures of some outings we took before we left Scotland. I’ve been meaning to put them together since long before we left, but after we moved I couldn’t bring myself to go through the pictures. It probably sounds dramatic, but it is hard to know that is no longer our home. But it’s the truth, so on we go.

Thanksgiving Tree

2012-01-12T20:23:00.000Z

I know everyone has gone ahead and moved on to Christmas.. Thanksgiving was so last month.. But I am living in the past, so here I am with a Thanksgiving post.

This is the part where everyone is like, 'What? What is she talking about? Christmas was last month, not Thanksgiving!' Well that's just how long ago it was when I started writing this post.. We've had a lot going on, you know? But I wanted to share it anyway because I love the idea and it will be a permanent tradition for us.. So here it is!

I thought it would be fun this year to do a Thanksgiving tree. Some friends of ours (Hi Tallons!) had a fun idea of writing down things they were thankful for every day up until Thanksgiving. In keeping with the season, they did this on autumn-colored leaf shapes and hung them in their house.

The fact that they did them on leaves inspired me to make a tree out of the whole thing, so this year we had a thankful tree hanging on our window.

Aed helped me make him (the tree, that is) and requested that he have a smiley face, so a smiley face he had! :)

Then I just cut easy leaf shapes out of construction paper and put them in a bowl with a marker and some tape so we could write down what we were each thankful for at dinner time.

Aed is still a bit young for this kind of activity, but he gradually caught on and came up with some really fun things to put on the tree. I had hoped to be able to let him stick the leaves on and have some at the bottom of the tree as if they had fallen to the ground, but with them being so low he couldn't resist pulling them off all day long. So, I moved his leaves and from then on he was picked up to put his leaves up high on the tree :).

After about three weeks of Thankfuls every night, we ended up with a pretty full tree and wonderful reminders of the many ways the Lord has blessed us.

I think for future years this tradition will need some work in the closure arena. With our move looming and Ian needing to get his thesis turned in, we didn't do a whole lot of enjoying or contemplating the finished tree. Next year, hopefully, we can spend some time as a family soaking in God's goodness through seeing the many things we are thankful for.

We also had a really fun Thanksgiving with the Sonjus and the Bawulskis that was very reminiscent of our second Thanksgiving here.. aside from the fact that now six children were involved :) Holidays don't come as naturally when you're far from family, especially when no one else is celebrating, but it is great to have such good friends to celebrate with!

Then comes Christmas which was good and crazy and weird and different. I can't find our camera so I have pretty much no Christmas pictures, but we had a blast watching our little man (well, men, but one was far more involved than the other :) be showered with gifts. We were showered as well, which we are beyond thankful for, but having a kiddo that is old enough to love things and know what's going on makes Christmas a whole new level of fun. There wasn't enough Jesus in this Christmas for me (though I did love having church on Christmas morning), nor were there enough traditions beginning, BUT I am cutting us slack because this Christmas could not have been more unusually timed coming right on the heels of our move.

These last few weeks have been a bit surreal. We are just welcoming a time where it seems we might be able to settle in and find some kind of routine. Each day brings joy, confusion, struggle, and fun, so we are just taking them as they come. :)

One thought that keeps resurfacing in my mind is that when you are really in a place of need, the generosity of others is that much more astounding. I have been brought to tears more than once when thinking about the slew of people that have risen to the occasion of reaching out to us as we have need. Be it through Christmas gifts (especially for our wee ones), heartfelt, understanding conversations, a roof over our heads, or cleaning up after our frenzied exit from our home, the list just goes on and on. This thought naturally leads me to think of Christ and how if I am really aware of my need in my sin, his willing generosity is far more astounding than any example set by the people around us right now. I am so thankful to walk this road with the Savior. Life is crazy and takes you all over the place and through all kinds of things. I am so grateful that no matter what is put on my plate, I am held up through it all by an unshakeable Jesus.

Yesterday

2011-12-27T16:26:00.003Z

Yesterday was, without a doubt, the most encouraging day I have experienced since we’ve been back in the States. The Lord filled it with many good things, and I was amazed at how uplifted my spirit was by the end of the day.

As I lay down to sleep, as usual my thoughts were wandering here and there, and before I knew it I was taking a walk in my mind’s eye.

I loaded the kids up into the buggy, grabbed a few shopping bags, and headed out the door. As I pulled the big, black door closed behind me, I felt the cool wind on my face and wished, once again, that my coat would zip up.

I felt my feet pad down the Lade Braes, around the familiar curves, the weight of my two Scottish-born babies pushing against me. Out through the car park, across the road, and a quick turn to head down South Street.

On my way to the grocery store. I did it almost every day. Sometimes I timed it wrong and all the secondary school kids were out and clogging every sidewalk and aisle. This day all I noticed were the Christmas lights on the trees. I love Christmas lights.

I didn’t give a second thought to the old stone buildings standing shoulder to shoulder along the pavements, the uniqueness of that place. I was just living life, doing what I did all the time. Said a quick hello to the Big Issue lady who always tells me what beautiful babies I have. Up and down the aisles in the grocery store, I knew them by heart.

I could have walked all over that town. I know it like the back of my hand. I have four and a half years’ worth of memories to replay in my mind. But somehow, that little walk to Tesco, one I’ve done a million times, brought me to tears as I tried to fall asleep. I continued remembering, the sounds of a football match in the field on a Sunday afternoon, intentionally walking the long way home so I could feast my eyes on the big Sea. It lead to thoughts of friends who I truly may not see again in this life, whose eyes I may never look into again as we share our hearts with each other. That is the first time I can remember crying about this whole thing. Sure, I cried the night before we left, but that was at 2am and out of utter hopelessness that we would ever be packed and ready to go. This was the first time I opened my heart to the reality that St Andrews is no longer my home.

It seems like it shouldn’t be so easy to leave a place you are so invested in. A place that you have given your heart, a place that has given you your family. How is it possible that all it takes is the closing of a door? A day’s worth of traveling, and suddenly your home is somewhere else? A place where expectations are that you know what you’re doing, that you should slot right back into the space that you left. I guess I’m not the right shape anymore. Sure things are familiar and good, but if home is where the heart is, this isn’t quite home yet.

Part of me wishes that we had spent those years somewhere closer, somewhere that we could feasibly go back and visit when we wanted to. Somewhere that when we left, it didn’t feel so final.

Part of me wishes we had connected less, enjoyed less, been more ready to go.

But that part of me is the coward, the easy way out. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. The good, the hard, the beautiful, the ugly. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I know who I am in St Andrews, with the friends that gave me the confidence to find that person. And it took years to get to that point. Just like it will take time to get there again. To learn a new way of life for our family back on this side of the pond.

Life is not always a means to an end. In the academic world it is easy to think that this time is just the wait for the next exam, graduation, the job. It’s just the in between. But I have realized that if I view each stage as just the wait for the next thing, I’m going to miss all kinds of life in the in between. I’ve realized this before, and it’s a hard thing to allow to mold your perspective. But, there it is.

I’m sure there will be plenty more tears shed. Transition is hard, especially when you’re leaving a place that has meant so much. But, each day is a gift. The Lord is always working and there is always something to be grateful for. This in between? It’s going to be good. I can feel it.

Silly Boys

2011-12-11T16:32:00.000Z

Trying on Mama’s glasses

Sometimes if I need to put Asher to bed while I’m home alone with both boys, I set Aed up with a Bob the Builder episode so he doesn’t have a fit because he can’t come with us. One day I came down to find this..

Perhaps he feels he can really take in the drama from there as opposed to sitting on the couch?

And the other one.. That six-monther.. well.. he may be six months old, but he can still fit longways on the couch. So.

I don’t know why but this picture totally cracks me up..

This was Asher’s contribution a while back to helping carry the groceries home. Such a helpful wee soul! :)

Throw it in a pan!

2011-12-08T15:54:00.001Z

A spring-form pan! I got on a baking kick a month or two ago and used my springform pan for some delectable treats that I thought I’d share.. because that is what I do.

Remember how much I love baking? Mmhmm.

We had a neighbor come for dinner and she is of the classy sort, so I wanted to make something extra special for dessert for her. I came up with a fudge truffle cheesecake with homemade whipped cream and strawberries.

An unassuming chocolate wedge, but it was so, so much better than it looks. I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed a cheesecake more than that one.

Then, it was Thanksgiving and fittingly, I was in charge of coming up with a dessert. I knew without hesitation I would be making a layered pumpkin cheesecake. I don’t like pumpkin pie, but I really like pumpkin cheesecake! I’ve been making variations of this since Ian and I got married. This time I made it with a shortbread cookie crust which, with a few tweaks, will suit it nicely next time around.

Again with the homemade whipped cream. I’ve been doing that since we moved here and I may never go back, it’s so good! That will be something I’ll have to figure out America-style after we’ve moved.

THEN, we had a few brunches with friends and I was in charge of making a quiche for one of them. While I enjoyed making the quichey-quiche (with my sous-chef, Ian), I did not enjoy eating it, though everyone else did (or at least said they did..). I think I’m not a quiche person. Though I'm quite happy to say it over and over again, as you have seen. (Quiche?)

Not what you’re supposed to do, but I spring-form-panned it. I thought it would look nice that way, and I think it did. So.

And here are two of our mini-brunchers.. Aren’t they so cute!!?

I also made some delicious chocolate chip scones (which is what Aed's mouth is full of) that will be given a call-back at some point. No photo of them. I bet you could make those in a spring-form pan, too, though! Scone cake? Maybe!

So here’s where we break the trend and go back to the 9x13 dish. Boring, but yummy!

These are raspberry almond bars I made for a church potluck. I was going to make a cookie version of this that I was introduced to by the famous Holly Tallon, but couldn’t bear the thought of all that opening and closing of the oven. Not to mention all the getting up and sitting back down. We’re tired 'round these parts. So I found a bar version! Perfect! And really good. I got only rave reviews for this recipe.

::slightly different topic::

Now, I know I have mentioned this before, a long time ago, but Ian and I LOVE Master Chef. It is just a fabulous show, and oh-so-inspiring. Ian made one of our ‘easy’ dinners a week or two ago, and this is what I was served :)

I had to take a picture. That is carrot mash (it was supposed to be puree, but we don’t have a food processor anymore..) spiced with cinnamon! It was a very nice addition. He tells me this was not the presentation he had in mind, but it definitely spiced up my life :)

Now before you get your panties in a twist because I posted a million delicious things and no recipes.. here are the recipes:

Fudge Truffle Cheesecake

Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake

Quiche (recipe via Joy Sonju)

Spinach and Bacon Quiche (Paula Deen)

6 large eggs

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Salt and Pepper to taste

2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach, packed

1 lb bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

1 9-inch refrigerated pie crust

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Combine eggs, cream, salt and pepper in food processor or blender. Wilt the spinach and drain well. Layer spinach, bacon and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust and pour egg mixture on top. Bake 35-45 minutes until egg mixture is set.

Chocolate chip scones (I just added chunks of dark chocolate to this recipe)

Raspberry Almond Bars

As for the whipped cream.. I am sorry to say I have no recipe. I just dump some whipping cream or double cream into a bowl with some icing (powdered) sugar and some vanilla and whisk until it thickens. You can pretty much just do it to your taste.

Now, go dust off that spring-form pan and have at it! :)

So much to say.. so little time..

2011-11-28T15:09:00.000Z

I started writing this post two weeks ago.. and then I stopped! Things got crazy and I've been slow on the pick up. It pains me to not finish a post, but some of it sort of timed out during the last two weeks. Undeterred, I'm sharing it anyway! :)

Here’s how it began…

I have SO many things to write about! We are busy, busy, unfortunately, not with packing. While packing is ever looming on the to-do list, it very rarely gets priority status. One of these days that is going to have to change, I’m afraid. But hey, until the clock strikes midnight, we are still over a month away.. so who needs packing?

UPDATE: This is now false. We have started packing and we even have an official pick up day from the moving company! Scaaaaaaaarryyyyyy. As of this very moment, four boxes are packed. That feels good, but we still have a long way to go before next Friday. The good thing is, I find a well-packed box insanely satisfying so that keeps me going. You should see the first four :) Not a lick of breathing room for anything.

So then I continued..

I got my haircut this morning and the walk over is probably 15-20 minutes depending on how tired I am. I forgot, when I was deciding on what route I would take, that I would walk right passed the Boys Brigade Hall. The BBH is the building our church used to meet in when we first moved here. I came up to that building and took a peek at it, and I felt a catch in my throat as I remembered our early days here. That first Sunday when we were so kindly invited to lunch by three very special undergrads. I just remember laughing and laughing through my jet lag/culture shock haze. Those first weeks that were so unsettled and uncomfortable, and yet so exciting. Exploring our new little town, meeting people, discovering how if you were confused about something there was almost always someone at the ready to take you under their wing (perhaps all the while shaking their heads at the incredulous thought that you might be confused about such a thing).

I am trying so hard to just let myself be in denial. To ignore the fact that we are leaving. I keep thinking, ‘Why does this feel like such a big deal? I’m just going back to where I came from..’ And yet, it does feel like a big deal. If I ponder things for too long, I quickly spiral into despair over all the things I will be missing.. friends’ babies growing up, sunny days in the sand, lamenting the darkness together in mid-January at Bible study. It is exactly like when we moved here, but opposite. When we came, every little thing I missed back home broke my heart into a million pieces. Now, as we leave and I am accustomed to missing those things, my heart breaks to consider missing this place and these people, knowing it will never be this way again. It is fluid here, a university setting. People are always coming and going, and even if we stayed, all of our friends would eventually go.

I am treasuring, though. All of these last things and the goodbyes that are just beginning. I am storing up these special treasures and memories. I know they will be sweet and they will ache when I revisit them in the years to come, but I am thankful for them.

The rest of the post is not so time-sensitive. I think we are starting to move into the ‘please can we just get this over with’ phase. I am still finding myself caught off guard by the feelings that come with transition, but the need for finishing tasks and figuring out logistics is doing a good job at squeezing the life out of most of my thoughts. I predict it will take some time to sink in that life is really changing :) Especially since it may change again in about 8 months if the Lord blesses Ian with a job this year.

I am so thankful that I have three sweet guys to enjoy through all these changes! There is a baby that lives in this house who is threatening to turn 6 months old. He keeps us on our toes and is always at the ready with a dimpled smile. I have honestly never known such a smiley baby. He whole body smiles. It's awesome.

Note the playdough next to his head :)

This is old news, but he has joined us in the upright world! It began with an easy reconfiguration of the buggy..

And has expanded tremendously!

He loves being in the exersaucer, which has had to be raised since this picture was taken for our ever-lengthening child.

And big brother often plays with his toys right on the edge of that contraption, which is pure entertainment for little brother (and welcomed free moments for the parents!).

Since Aed tends to be an avid little reader, Asher often gets thrown into the mix regardless of what ‘level’ book is being read. I caught Daddy reading a Bob the Builder (or BtB as we covertly refer to him now so as not to excite a certain someone) book to them, and snapped a priceless picture.

I love love love those furrowed brows! :) It just cracks me up to imagine the various scenarios that could lead to such faces, but the reality is, big brother DOES NOT like it when little brother touches him! He gets very territorial when reading with a parent and gets ever so slightly bent out of shape if baby brother joins the fun. Most of the time Aed is really quite happy and affectionate towards Asher, but touching without Aed’s permission is a no no! :) Try telling that to a child just figuring out that he can swat and pat and grab and hold.

We are also well on our way into the world of solid foods. Asher has a pretty good handle on eating and seems to be following in mama’s footsteps in his preference of fruit over everything else :).

First time in the bumbo!

It did take a few tries to get him to warm up to the idea, but he will straight up yell at you if you’re too slow with the shoveling these days.

Aed is being a super-fun two year old and learning all kinds of things. He’s a great counter and managed to learn the alphabet song without us knowing it :) He’s starting to learn letters and loves pointing them out on our shirts and the cereal boxes. He is doing pretty well so far in dealing with our upheaval, but we haven’t really gotten to the hard part yet. We would so appreciate your prayers for our sensitive little guy. I wrote him a story to get him used to the idea of what is happening, but I think we will still have some hills to climb with him. I love his sensitive heart, but it is, like most things, a blessing and a curse.

Anyway. He loves being creative! Aed gets so excited when I get out the paints, but a few weeks ago I handed him a sheet of stickers and let him have at it..

And he was so sweet to let baby brother join the fun.

He kept showing him the stickers, telling him what animal it was, and saying ‘baby bruva’s havin’ it!’ So cute.

Aed continues to be obsessed with all things wheel-laden and for a few weeks loved having us build structures for his cars to go in.

And, continuing with his creative streak, he took some self-portraits! :) Here’s a fine one..

This kid cracks me up.

I will be back with more about some of the fun outings we’ve had recently. There is lots to share before we go, so here’s to hoping my writing fingers are up to it!

Oh, and by the way.. documentation that I push a buggy in a cold place

This is the ultimate farmer’s tan (if you can even really put it into the 'tan' category).. all the way down to my wrists! :)

A Brush with Paint

2011-10-22T10:23:00.001+01:00

A loooooooong time ago.. before Aed was two.. before the haircut.. when Asher was still pretty fresh.. I thought it might be a fun activity for Aed to try his hand at painting. He’s not a huge fan of crayons, though he will play with them for a short time (and I mean play.. they usually end up on the floor being pushed or dumped or tossed rather than used for coloring). He sort of likes pens, pencils, and the magnadoodle. But, we just really haven’t found his artistic niche. Though with his current obsession with playdough, I’m beginning to think he’s just more of a 3-D guy. :)

We don’t have a great set up for painting (for children or adults, boohoo.. note the wicker furniture. Bumpy surface, impossible to clean), but I decided to go for it anyway and just hope I could clean up whatever mess was made. Sounds like a good plan, yes? :)

Turns out, painting is very exciting! I had cut bits of colored paper and shown him how to glue as well, so he could make a mixed media painting if he so desired.

(And really, before any of you self-proclaimed ‘non-artistic’ mothers out there begin to lament your lack of creativity-inspired activities.. I did NOT think it through this much when I gave him the paint, brush, and paper.. I pretty much just thought, ‘Well that could be fun’ and gave him stuff :) Blogging can make lots of things look much more sparkly than they really are.. Also, my child is no artistic genius. He glued way more paper to his fingers than he did to his painting :) Just keeping it real here.)

So we got down to work. He was really excited to have his picture taken..

But in the end let me get a sort of good one to show off his lovely painting.

We have some work to do on the quality of our art documentation :)

He didn’t do a lot of painting on the paper itself, but REALLY enjoyed smudging the paint around on the palate. (I see finger paints in our future!) The best part of the whole thing turned out to be watching the water change colors when we rinsed the brush. He asked me over and over again to ‘make watah boo gen.’ (Or in big people terms, make the water blue again.)

One thing I hadn’t considered would be the potential difficulty in doing this while I was holding Asher. I’m a pretty good juggler, but at some point Aed managed to get his hands on his brother when I wasn’t ready for it and Asher got to join in the adventure.

We delved back in to painting again this week on a rainy, grey day and it was loved even more this time around. Fortunately, Asher was sleeping, so avoided painting peril. We got to use lots of colors and Mama helped, so we ended up with a fun, collaborative painting to adorn our refrigerator. (I let him choose the paper.. he chose a scrap piece of yellow which is why part of it is cut off :)

It was so fun to watch his delight as we turned a red(ish) triangle into a smiley face, then gave him a hat, then gave him feet so he could walk, then gave him ground to walk on! I delight in his delight :)

Aed was SO proud of this painting. At various times every day he decides it’s time to ‘see smiles’ and runs over to look at it. He has taken the time to show it to many of his toys and has asked numerous times to take a picture of it. He gets such a kick out of seeing it and counting the smiles. It’s great motivation to see what we can come up with next!

The Beach

2011-10-20T14:46:00.000+01:00

We still go!

Even though it is getting frigid and windy and, did I mention really cold?

A few weeks ago we had about a week of really nice sunny, warm weather. Unfortunately, during this wonderful weather, I was juggling two napping babies which meant it was more difficult than ever to take advantage!

After one particularly sunny day that included lots of nap refusals, I decided we just needed to get the heck outside. So we did. We tried and tried and tried to convince Daddy to come with us to the beach because it was SO nice outside. He was relentless in his claims of ‘needing to work’. I was skeptical of this need, but I suppose that very resolve is what has gotten us to this point of completion in his work.. so who can complain, really?

Off we went, Daddy-less, ready for some fun. By the time we arrived one of us was sound asleep..

One of us was feeling rather timid..

And, one of us couldn’t believe what a gorgeous day it was..

Before long the timid one had moved from Mama’s lap..

to full-fledged filling and dumping.

Which is a good thing, because about three seconds after we arrived at the beach the sleeping one woke up to kick his cute little feet in gentle gusts of sandy wind..

Aed loved playing with his bucket and was very focused with each scoop of sand..

I hear sticking out the tongue enhances concentration :)

And we had a wonderful time stripping off the jeans and boots (Aed’s, not mine.. I stayed fully clothed) and playing in the waves. After he warmed up to the idea, I could not get Aed out of the water. He threw the fit I knew was coming when it was time to go, but it was so fun watching him run through puddles and tide pools, flirt with college girls foolishly hoping for a suntan, and refuse to surrender his toes to those lapping waves.

We may not get any more warm visits to the beach, but this was certainly a sweet one.

Here’s the scoop..

2011-10-16T17:24:00.000+01:00

I wrote the last post in the midst of contemplation. We are processing, attempting to figure out how to transport our belongings, wondering how we will say goodbye and what life and these relationships will look like when we do. I completely overlooked the fact that I didn’t leave you with the slightest inkling (unless you already knew, of course) of where we were going or why we were going.

(Let me interject.. THANK YOU for your wonderful comments and emails of support and common understanding after my last post. We appreciated it so much, and I was far more emotional in reading and being reminded of all the wonderful friends and loved ones that we have than I was when I actually wrote that post! Thank you, thank you.)

So, here are those details.

First of all, it’s no big secret that overseas tuition is kind of absurd. Add to that a wonderfully horrible (though better than it was) exchange rate, and you get very poor graduate students. This was a pricey endeavor, and we knew that it would be. Coming into this year, some things changed for us financially that we hadn’t anticipated, so we started considering the possibility of moving back to the States sooner than we had originally planned.

Then, after three years of labor pains, Ian gave birth to this..

Taken on the evening after the first compete draft was printed. You can bet a celebration ensued.

A completed thesis! Woohoo! When Ian took stock of his work for the coming year over this last summer, it started to look like he’d be submitting much earlier than we had anticipated. So we started considering the possibility of moving back to the States sooner than we had originally planned. (Seeing a trend?)

The next hurdle was (is) finding a job. It seemed a bit defeating to move back to the States with nothing to show for these last 4+ years of education (aside from the new title of Dr.! Hello! But, try telling that to the one who earned it..), but arguments were still strong that moving would be the wisest option for our family and our afflicted bank account.

In the end, we decided to cut 6-7 months off of our stay in St Andrews regardless of Ian’s employment status because the numbers just had a really good argument. They can be very persuasive. So despite the loss of physical presence at his school, Ian will still be applying for jobs and preparing for his defense in the spring. He will be back here at least twice - to defend and then graduate (if all goes as planned :) next summer.

We had such a hard time committing to this change. We had planned on finishing this school year and enjoying another summer before we moved on. It was a really difficult shift in thinking to start to consider our time here ending so soon.

So we will be taking up residence in a comfy little number in rural Indiana with wide open spaces and lots of bedrooms. We will be living with my parents through the spring and probably a good chunk of summer, until hopefully, we move on to a job for Dr. Church.

We are really looking forward to sharing our boys with their family who have missed them so. We are looking forward to a time of rest (well.. at least a little bit) after some very stretching and busy years. We are looking forward to sweet corn and watermelon (ok, maybe that’s mostly me :). We are heading back to where we came from. One step at a time.

Since we have lived here, I have…

2011-10-12T22:00:00.002+01:00

learned to look right first when crossing the road.

discovered that I get very motion sick when being transported on the left side of the road rather than the right.

grown, birthed, and loved two beautiful boys.

adjusted to ‘Mexican’ equaling barbeque flavored.

worked in an office, worked in our home.

learned to cook from scratch, including ridiculous substitutes for American recipes.

come to understand what it means to be displaced.

watched the beauty of the immediate bond that can develop when you’re both far from home.

lived in a flat which I loved, and a house which I love more.

grown so accustomed to a tiny grocery store that I am unable to shop without help when visiting the States.

learned to love public transportation.

learned to hate public transportation.

traveled to 12 countries.

baked and loved baking so, so much. I’m thinking about changing my middle name to Sugar.

benefited and suffered from free health care.

enjoyed using my feet to get myself from here to there rather than a vehicle.

become claustrophobic when I’m not in walking distance of water.

been a supporter and been supported.

grown closer to my husband than I realized.

come to love a wide assortment of foods I never gave the time of day before.

walked hundreds of miles through a slow-paced life that lets me live one day at a time.

served, learned, and grown in a little church that was just what we needed.

watched both my babies baptized in a community of believers that love them.

forgotten what it feels like to be completely comfortable in the States.

stopped worrying about if my furniture matches and started being just plain thankful.

learned that it is going to be so much harder than I ever imagined to say goodbye.

When we moved here over four years ago, all I wanted to do was go back. It didn’t feel right. It was hard and uncomfortable. I felt out of place and overwhelmed. Everything felt so different from home. And somehow now, that feels like a different person. This is home. This is where I belong.

We are moving. It has been such a hard process deciding what will be best for our family, but we have decided. As of mid-December, our feet will trek across the customs line and we will be residents of the US once again. I am excited. I’m nervous. I’m a little scared. I’ve done a lot of growing up in this country rather than that one, and I am afraid of the learning and growing I’m going to have to do all over again. I’m afraid of losing what I’ve gained and the treading of water that will have to take place until I can figure out my strongest stroke in a new place.

Our decision became official this morning with the purchase of plane tickets. I talked to Aed a bit about flying on a plane, going to a new house with a new room to stay in for a while. His response was, ‘Go on plane, wanna stay dis house.’

Me too, Buddy.

But it will be good. It will be hard and good and a new adventure. Change doesn’t give in. It forces its way in to every nook and cranny we try to hide and protect. There’s no use in running away. So, here we go. The next step.

Praise the Lord.

Power Outage Conversations

2011-10-05T11:25:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago we were sitting around the table eating our dinner of leftovers, when suddenly, all the lights went out. I was immediately confused.

‘Did the power just go out? Or wait, is this a fuse thing? Do we need to check the fuses?’

After looking around and taking in all of the blank screens where digital clocks formerly were, as well as finding all the little power lights to be out on our various electronics, it was determined that, indeed, the power was out.

Oooooh.. exciting! My first thought was, ‘Oh man, I’m glad we already heated up dinner!’ I don’t think our landlords would have appreciated a kitchen fire to heat up those leftovers :).

As we realized what a power outage at this time of day would mean and began to discuss how we were going to handle it, it became very apparent that we are entirely unaccustomed to thinking non-electrically.

For example. Because it was dinnertime, that meant bedtime was looming. Since both our boys sleep upstairs, we use monitors so we can hear if they wake up while we’re downstairs. Ok, so we’ll leave the living room door open so we can hear a little better. Should be fine.

Next issue. The noisemakers. We are white noise people. Both the boys have white noise playing in their rooms and can’t sleep well without it. As we discussed this I came up with this excellent solution.. ‘Well, we can just use your iPod in Asher’s room, and use our white noise on the computer in Aed’s room.’

Easy, right?

Ian follows with, ‘And what are we going to do when the computer dies?’

Me: ‘Plug it into the.. oh.’

Once I manage to stop laughing, a thought suddenly hits me.

‘Wait, does this mean we can’t flush the toilets?? I seem to remember whenever the power went out growing up we couldn’t flush the toilets?’

Ian: ‘I don’t know.. I think the toilets will be fine.’

Me: ‘Yeah, I remember Dad refilling them with buckets.’

Ian: ‘That’s probably because you guys lived in the middle of nowhere and so had a well, which probably used electricity to pump water to the house.’

Me: ‘Oh.’

Then Ian realizes that if the power is out, that means we won’t be able to heat up the leftover dessert we were saving until the kiddos were in bed.

So, I come up with another zinger..

‘We can still heat it up! We’ll just use the stove instead of the microwave! Oh, wait..’

Ian: ‘Yup. There it is.’

Me: ‘Why am I so bad at this??’

So we focus once again on solving the white noise problem. I took a flashlight up to investigate our situation.. Both noise makers could also be operated by batteries! Yes! I rounded up some batteries for Aed’s, took them up, and viola! You’d never know the power was out (aside from the flashlight usage, of course).

Asher’s, however, took a 9V battery. Turns out we didn’t have one. But, all the fire alarms have them, so I suggested Ian just take one out of the a fire alarm and use it for the night in the noisemaker. He didn’t like this idea. Ian hates messing with the fire alarms. It always ends up with all kinds of unnecessary beeping, climbing on chairs, struggling to get the caps off, etc. It’s not pleasant. So he was already fussy before attempting to remove the battery. As he stood on the chair trying to remove the heat detector from the ceiling, apparently the reality of an evening without electricity began to sink in. All of a sudden he explodes with, ‘What are we even going to do tonight, PLAY SKIPBO?!?! I HATE camping!!’

I proceeded to crack up laughing at his desperation to get the battery out of the detector while dealing with these revelations.

About this time, I hear Asher poop. Shoot. It’s dark. Ian and I both managed to pass yet another test of parenting: changing poopy diapers by flashlight. I guess power outages inspire bowel movements because both kids went for it. Ian tells me that though he was slightly confused, Aed thoroughly enjoyed bedtime by flashlight.

I had a meeting that night, and quickly learned that it was only a small segment of houses right around us that lost power. It was kind of funny being in an electrically lit pub with a few friends, imagining Ian sitting alone doing something (SkipBo?) by candlelight back at our house.

Fortunately, by the time I got home the power was back on and all was well. Aside from the fact that Asher had hardly slept since I left, but that’s another issue altogether..

The Haircut

2011-10-04T15:50:00.000+01:00

We’ve been talking for a while about maybe possibly probably needing to cut Aed’s hair.

I’ll admit.. I kind of didn’t want to. We got little kid conditioner to see if we could keep those curls under control.. We tried wetting his hair down to keep those curls under control.. I even took the small amount of my spray gel that was left and mixed it with water to use on Aed’s hair to keep those curls under control..

But, alas, all it took was one nap or nighttime to create a mess of frizzy, semi-curly dread locks on the back of my baby’s head. There was no keeping it under control. I had to give in.

But once I did, I was drooling to take scissors to those curls :) I was daydreaming of a little boy with cute curls sans weird dread locks. So.. we talked about cutting his hair a few times with him, and he got the idea enough that he would pull his hair out as far is it would go (almost as if he wanted to confirm that it was indeed, too long :) when we mentioned it.

He climbed up into his big boy chair, ‘all nakey!’ as he described it (he loves being nakey).

And we set him up with a Bob the Builder marathon so he wouldn’t focus on the fact that I was wielding scissors around his head.

(all nakey.. aside from his stripey socks :)

Worked like a charm.

I snipped and chopped and cut of lots of little curls.

And I’m so glad I did!

His hair is so cute now that it’s shorter! Unfortunately, he is really not okay with having pictures taken these days. The ironic thing is he still wants to ‘see Aed’ in the back of the camera, but won’t let me take the picture to begin with. Figure that one out.

Maybe if Daddy holds him he'll let me take a picture?

Nope. Not even then.

We spent the next several days ooohing and aaahing about how cute he is. And, other than the occasional ‘Shoot, now I have to do this on a regular basis’ feelings, I am loving the shorter curls :)

I love this picture!

2011-10-03T15:56:00.000+01:00

It's from one of our baby/mama teas earlier this spring and I think it might be my favorite photo that we've captured of the kiddos :) Too cute!

Let's Just Go Ahead..

2011-09-30T11:12:00.000+01:00

And make a week of it!

I mean why not? 6 straight days of blog posts? OK! But that means I have a good excuse if I skip a few days now :)

This one is going to be fun if you like pictures of cute boys..

*****

Say CHEESE!!!

*****

'Aedster, watcha doin'?'

'Pinnin' wheel, Mama!'

*****

EMERGENCY!

*****

'Hey Aed, I'll give you a snack if you go lay down on the couch next to your brother!'

'No, LAY on the couch.. like on your tummy..'

'Couldn't you guys at least LOOK at the camera??'

'That's better, but why don't you lay next to him.. it will be cute!'

'Nack, Mama?'

'No, the snack was a bribe and you didn't do what I wanted you to do.'

Surprisingly, he was perfectly ok with that answer :)

*****

So.. about that drooling thing.. Are we doing that already?

*****

Have a good weekend.

The Littler One

2011-09-29T10:49:00.000+01:00

I mentioned several weeks ago that Asher was a screamer and that we were hopefully on our way to figuring out why.

Well.. we have figured out why it seems, but no thanks to anyone on this side of the pond. After this medicine and that medicine, this doctor and that pediatrician, nothing really seemed to be making a difference. He still wasn’t gaining weight and was spending far more time unhappy (read: screaming) than happy.

I was at my wit’s end and was just trying really hard to be patient. I learned with Aed that a lot of things with babies just take a little time to pass, but his low weight gain was really unsettling. Aed never had that same trouble.

Enter: My Dear Old Dad. He had suggested (amongst other things that in retrospect seem like very reasonable suggestions compared to what we were told here) trying to give Asher some formula to see if maybe he was just hungry. I was doubtful that this was the problem. I knew we made hungry babies that nurse all the time, but I was able to successfully nurse Aed for 13 months with no problems. I figured that meant I’d be able to do the same each time.

I tried giving him formula twice, and the first time he played the ‘push it out of your mouth’ game with his tongue and didn’t seem interested. The second time he looked at me like I had just tried to shove a handful of dirt in his mouth. So I continued assuming this wasn’t the issue. We knew he’d take a bottle, so I figured if he was really that hungry, he would have eaten the formula.

So on we went.. Meeting with a doctor every week (a doctor whom I really love and appreciate, actually), and discussing changes and possibilities. And then a few weekends ago in a conversation with my dad on a particularly bad day, he suggested we get a different formula (sans dairy since it upsets his tummy) and make sure to warm it up before we give it to him. I quickly passed this message on to Ian before he headed home, desperate for something to work!

After some coaxing, he took to it and viola! He drank over an ounce! Over the course of that weekend the amount he drank jumped to 3-5 extra ounces per day. The next Monday he had gained 6 ounces, as opposed to his usual two or three for the week. After a full week of being supplemented with formula, not only was he happy as a clam, but he had put on almost a full pound in one week! It seems we found our problem.

It makes so much sense now and I am still baffled that no one here suggested it to me. He’s not gaining weight? Perhaps it’s related to what he’s eating! Genius!

So apparently my milk supply has not been sufficient this time around to keep him growing well. It’s hard saying why precisely, but his low weight gain started at a similar time to when I started running. It’s possible that running just put too much stress on my body.. but it’s also possible that I just don’t have a really strong supply. Who knows.

So our approach now is to nurse first to try to keep my supply up for as long as possible, and to supplement after so he gets his fill. Most likely my milk will gradually taper off, but we’re going to keep it going as long as we can so he gets the benefits of breastmilk.

This does make things way more complicated. I am doing pretty much everything you can do to feed an infant.. nursing, pumping, and bottle feeding, so keeping him fed is keeping us on our toes. But, we are all much, much, much happier and healthier this way, so a little extra hassle is no problem!

We are so enjoying our now almost 4 month old! He is just a cheery little guy and super social. He’s a great little brother and takes an obvious interest in Aed any time he’s in view.

He loves his Mama and calms right down anytime Daddy is holding him.

Who says you need necks?? We say who needs 'em!

He’s getting big fast now and is starting to reach for things and LOVES holding on as tight as he can to any piece of cloth he can find. He’s totally going to be a blankie boy :)

His brother at the same age

He’s getting adorably vocal and is just now starting to laugh, which I love.

I am not a huge fan of the newborn period.. but whoa is roly-poly-baby-dom ever fun!

My First Try..

2011-09-28T22:15:00.001+01:00

At a bunt cake! (I continually spell bunt with a 'd'.. as in bundt and I can't figure out why!)

(EDIT: Thanks to Kate's comment, Ian discovered for me that bundt IS spelled with a 'd' when referring to the cake! It seems I should trust my instincts!)

I don't think this is actually my first try. I have a vague recollection of making one several years ago, but this is the first one I made and was also really excited about!

This is just a regular old pound cake, but it was so darn good. It came out without sticking a ton and was a delectable recipe. It will definitely be a repeat in this house :) Also very dangerous though.. Since there's no chocolate, my brain tells me it's not really a dessert. So I treat it as a snack instead of a cake :)

I totally forgot!

2011-09-27T10:06:00.001+01:00

In mid-August, we took a trip to Edinburgh to get Asher’s passport and some other documents all squared away. While we were in the Big E, I thought it would be a good idea to look for some running shoes.

We all know what a wonderfully inexpensive and practical town St Andrews is, so naturally, it was necessary for me to look elsewhere for these shoes.

I found a couple shoe stores that would work, so we tried to figure out how to minimize our walking (only because it took longer walking and we were counting on being home in time for a nap!) to get to one of them from the Consulate. We ended up using one of our train tickets twice and riding part of our journey home to a train station that was closer to the store we wanted.

Now, if you’ve ever ridden the trains here, you’ll know that if you are at a station that is just a stop along the way, the trains don’t actually stay put for very long. It’s not like they’re going to take off with your leg still hanging out of the door, but there is a definite rush to get on and off the train.

I normally push the buggy and had been doing so for the ons and offs during this day so Ian could lift from the front. This time though, Ian was pushing and didn’t realize I had put the brake on so that the buggy wouldn’t go anywhere while the train was moving. Feeling the rush and being himself (gorilla logic.. as he calls it.. and also a real hatred for inanimate objects), when the buggy wouldn’t move he just shoved it harder.

Well.. that led to the front wheel being jerked and pushed and eventually pulled right off of the buggy!

It landed down in the tracks..

I didn’t realize what had happened until Ian pointed it out after we were off the train, and when I saw the lonely wheel down there I laughed so hard. And then I saw Aed sitting there all leaned forward and weird, but also not really caring, and I laughed even harder. Asher was pretty indifferent too, though he was sleeping so he didn’t actually know what was going on.. (he's in the back under Aed.. in case you were wondering :)

We both held our breath as another train came and left, but all was fine and the wheel was far enough off the tracks that it didn’t get squished. Fortunately, things fall into the tracks enough that they are prepared to deal with it and were able to get our wheel back for us.

We made it home all in one piece :)

This was Aed’s first time on a bus or a train and he loved them both! The bus took some getting used to, but he had so much fun on the train. This is a ‘I’m ready for a nap’ picture, but cute nonetheless.

A Party for Two

2011-09-26T17:37:00.002+01:00

I thought it would be fun if, in addition to our family birthday party, we also had a bigger birthday party with friends. For some reason, Ian had a hard time understanding why we would do this, but it all seems very logical to me :). He came around in the end, and we decided to do a joint birthday party again this year with Aed’s due date buddy, Ellie. Because they get a kick out of very different things, we had a combined ‘trucks’ and ‘cute jungle animals’ theme :). It worked out really well!

(Although now that I think about it.. zebras aren't really all that jungley are they?)

I wanted to do a banner for them instead of buying one, so I painted some letters and a little truck and monkey based on the decorations to hang above the food table.

Food was pretty simple this year. Joy had just given birth to her new little Ian not quite two weeks before the party, so I took care of the eats on my own. On my own meaning.. me and the people that live with me :)

The part I most enjoyed, of course, was the cake!

It was SO HARD for Aed not to touch the cake. He hovered right next to it talking about the trucks
from the moment he saw it :)

I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like with the two themes. It didn’t quite hit the mark, but as usual, I was experimenting with things I have never tried before, so I think it came out pretty well in the end.

The animals and trucks were made by doing Royal Icing Transfers. Basically, you pipe royal icing onto waxed (baking) paper, let it harden, then peel them off and use them to decorate the cake. I thought this would be much easier than trying to decorate directly on the cake. And it was.. until it came to the putting them on the cake part.

My royal icing never quite dried, so I ended up having to get my x-acto knife out and cut around each shape and put them on the cake with the baking paper still stuck to the back :) Ian and I decided that if they had just had one more day to sit they would have dried all the way and been fine. So now I know for next time. I also know that it is very important to make extras, and keep them far, far away from the toddler’s reach!

We had a great turn out and had way too many people in our little living room :)

But it was really fun, especially because so many of these little kiddos were at Aed and Ellie’s party last year too. And four of them, including Aed and Ellie, have new siblings or ones on the way this year! I love that even though this is a fluid community, we are growing together.

Little cutie patoots!

So we lit candles, and sang to our little two-year-olds. They held onto their toys and stared while I laughed at that intimidated look on their faces.

I think this is fun.. but I'm not totally sure..

Aed talked about singing Happy Birthday to You for DAYS after the party. I even sang it to him a few extra times just for fun :)

Our Bigger Boy

2011-09-25T21:14:00.000+01:00

Talk about overwhelming.. This is the fifth time I have sat down to write this post and I just can’t do it! (Not to mention the fact that I am frequently interrupted :) Aed has just grown so much and there is so much to tell.. How to sum it all up in text form??.. Here goes nothing..

Well, it’s official. We have a two year old. It is also official that I love him to pieces, but that’s to be expected.

We are having so much fun with our little guy, and I have to say, turning two is WAY more fun than turning one :) I can only imagine how much fun three will be.

As of this very day, Aed is full of toddler energy. He loves to ‘Wun, wun, wun!’ be it inside or outside, and likes to dictate who is running ('Daddy wun') and who is walking ('Aed just walk') whenever we are walking home (including the buggy :). He LOVES being outside still and has a total meltdown if he doesn’t get to go on a walk each day. He goes ‘Up, up up!’ and ‘Down, down, down!’ the hills in the field. He never just says ‘up’ or ‘down’ once.. always three times.. which I'm pretty sure is my fault, but I'm cool with that.

He is absolutely obsessed with all things vehicular, which you will see below from his birthday party, but he is deeply, madly, paralyzingly in love with Bob the Builder. We got him a set of 20 little books for his birthday and that is all we read all day long. Over and over and over. He knows every book pretty much by heart and can give you the main lines on each page. He is a dedicated little child.

At the end of every day, I can always count on finding a line of cars right about there on the counter.

He has finally turned a corner at mealtimes and is using utensils on his own! Woohoo! He is super messy, but it’s awesome to not have to sit and help him the whole time. It was totally like you hear things happening too.. one day he just up and did it. I’m hoping potty training will go like that too :).

I love love love the way he talks. His cute little high-pitched voice commenting on everything all day long with his little two-year-old pronunciations. He’s getting better though, which is fun and sad, as things like ‘thank you’ and 'yellow' and 'car' really sound like that now instead of ‘dee doo’ and 'yahyee' and 'dog' (we still don't know why he pronounced car 'dog'). And he is also finally figuring out how to sing. This comes naturally to some (most?) kids, and given that I sing all the time you’d think it wouldn’t have taken him so long, but it’s been really fun in the last few weeks to watch him figure out how he can move his voice in song.

These few paragraphs totally don’t do him justice, but how could they? To avoid the risk of stopping again, I’m going to give up trying to tell you about all of his cuteness (and try harder to write things down as they happen!) and move on to his birthday fun from a few weeks ago.

On his actual birthday, we had a little family celebration with gifts and cupcakes. When he woke up in the morning, we had a big surprise ready for him – his new tricycle from Nena and Papaw!

He is hilarious with this thing. I think most of the time he thinks it should do more than it does, so he gets really mad at it, but can’t tell anybody what he wants it to do :). But he does enjoy attempting to push the pedals and getting pushed on it.

It was so much fun getting him gifts this year, because we knew what he would really like. I made the mistake once again of making him cupcakes though.. the kid just cannot handle cupcakes very well. He did actually like them though, which was an improvement over last year :).

We got him to sort of blow out the candles, but then he reached for them and we all freaked out, so he decided he didn’t want anything to do with them. Now, though, when he sees any kind of candle (even my big decorative ones) he says, ‘Turn on happy birthday?’ ‘Sing happy birthday?’ ‘Blow out candles?’

I love this picture. It totally looks like he is praying over that cupcake, but he just couldn’t figure out how to eat it! He doesn’t like getting sticky stuff on his hands (also a repeat problem from last year) and kept trying to pick it up without touching the icing. He wanted to eat it so badly, but he finally gave up and sat there like this for a while until I showed him how to eat it with a fork.

Once he figured out what was up with the gifts, he was all over it..

It was so cool to watch him get excited.

This little set of cars had the beloved double decker bus in it and is still currently one of his favorite things to play with. And you can see the Bob the Builder books there in the background.

It was a very fun day. It’s hard to believe he’s two, and yet it feels like enough has certainly happened to amount to two years!

Up next, the BIG birthday bash!

A Photo Dump

2011-09-05T09:21:00.000+01:00

We use Ian’s iPod a lot to take photos, but rarely put them onto our computers for one reason or another. I finally got them all off the iPod the other night and decided to just dump some favorites here. Some are really old, but all are enjoyable!

Biggest. Mouth. Ever.

Flexing his muscles for us

First photo after birth

So I know it’s been a while..

2011-09-04T16:24:00.000+01:00

I have had many things to say, and many things I’ve been thinking about. Things like how crazy it is that my TWO year old is talking up a storm. Like how amazing it is to see how much having one child has prepared me for having another. Like how much I am not looking forward to winter in this country. Like how important it is to have good friends, and what a gift it is when you do. Like how thankful I am that the Lord loves me even when I am unlovable and holds my heart even when it’s breaking.

Unfortunately, I just haven’t had the energy to write about those things. Depending on your view of how leisure time should be spent, you could say I have had the time.. Oh yes. I could have easily written a blog post rather than reading this or that, or looking at Facebook, or eating a peach. But I just don’t have it in me most days. Turns out, we have another screamer.

Now, don’t get me wrong. For those of you who are familiar with our Aed Saga, we have not reached that level. But Asher is on his way to his own saga, for sure. Around 6 weeks he started giving us some trouble, but that’s to be expected around that age. Then rather than getting better, things just kept getting worse. We have been back and forth to several doctors and gotten some different opinions and prescriptions, but so far nothing has changed. We have found many things to be thankful for (most notably, the fact that he has a much sunnier disposition than Aed did, so when he’s feeling ok he’s very, very happy) and many things to be frustrated with, but mostly we’re just hoping we find a solution or that these next few months go by very quickly.

Perhaps on a more energetic day I will go into details about what is happening and our approach to handling it. And hopefully, we will have some more definitive answers in the next few days. But, today is not that day because there are more exciting things to say..

First of all, a certain someone in this house is closer than ever to becoming a doctor! We have submission date that for one of us is too close for comfort, and for the other is a thing to be celebrated even before the deed is done :). We have a lot of thinking and decision-making to do in the next few months about where we will go and what we will do if no job shows itself, and we welcome your prayers for that.

On the kid front, we are having barrels of fun! Somehow Aed grew into a little boy over night. He is sitting at the table in his ‘big boy chair’ with all of the rest of us now..

This was one of the first days.. sometime in mid-July.

We had a very exciting few weeks as lots of trucks and workers were camping outside our house. They were putting in a new little playground, and our truck-lover was beside himself with all the trucks to see through the window.

We finally caught that mouse..

Edited for your viewing pleasure

These two are still cute as ever..

And after a haircut, it turns out the biggest one has a mini-me..

I will post several more updates this week about each kiddo and all of our birthday fun to get us back on track. Until next time..

Glamour Shots!

2011-08-01T14:43:00.000+01:00

I'm pretty sure there is nothing better than infant passport photos :)

And then there were four…

2011-07-25T16:34:00.000+01:00

The day Asher was born, my mom arrived for a nice long visit to help us adjust to the presence of her newest grandson. We were so excited for Nena to get here, and so, so thankful for all of her wonderful help.

My recovery felt really slow to me this time around, but I’m not entirely sure why (maybe the ever-present need to care for a toddler?). I think overall it has actually been much faster, we just had a few bumps right at the beginning. On this day..

Featuring Asher trying out the new wrap!

…the day of our first venture out with all of us (Asher was 5 days old.. and at one point I was totally carrying Aed while carrying Asher in that wrap), I came down with a really high fever. It was pretty miserable. I got shrugged off by a couple of doctors and taken seriously by one midwife for whom I will always be grateful. She managed to talk one of said doctors into prescribing me an antibiotic, as she was pretty certain I had a uterine infection. A few days in and I was good as new!

I was very thankful for that, because I had a birthday cake to make :) We had decided to just do a little partay for Ian on his birthday, and save the cake and one of his gifts for after my mom got here so we’d have help eating the cake. Let me introduce you to The Cookie Monster Cake, Version 28.

Cookie Monster is venturing out and eating chocolate bars now!
(Which might be because the baker forgot the cookies..)

We had thoroughly enjoyed eating the deliciousness over the next few days, but it turns out my gifts for Ian amounted to a bunch of FAIL. I thought I was being all sneaky and getting him practical things that he needed, but things that would still be fun and exciting because he wasn’t expecting to get them.

Enter: the underwear. I got Ian underwear for his birthday.. not fun, you say? Well this was nicer underwear than what he has. No holes, working elastic, soft material, I’m sure you know the kind.

Too small! Too small! Curse these UK sizes. And thus, I failed. He wears them anyway, though. What a guy!

Ok, on to fail #2.

Enter: the pillow. Ian has had the same pillow pretty much since we got married. It was super flat and kind of a weird color, so we decided it was probably time to replace it. I searched high and low for a nice, affordable pillow that met all of his specifications (since he has allergies to the high heavens) and found what I thought was perfect. And the pack even came with TWO. Two pillows! Even more exciting!

The morning after his first night with the pillow, I was excited to find out how he had liked it. The verdict: too fluffy. TOO FLUFFY! He said he felt like he was drowning in pillow.

So I have two nice, fluffy new pillows and the assignment to flatten them as soon as possible. :) FAIL.

The one thing at which I didn’t fail (grammar points right there!) was my choice of book for his 28^th. I chose a book he’s wanted to read for a few years, and that, finally, was a success. The downside is he’s too busy to read it. So I also have a new book to read! :)

Aside from Ian’s birthday we did all kinds of fun things while my family was here..

We looked at a cute, sleeping baby..

We got the cute, sleeping baby baptized..

We worked on making sure the cute baby stayed a sleeping baby..

Aed has his first taste of popsicle after an unfortunate run-in with a peanut butter jar..

Fat lips always feel better after a popsicle!

And he decided it was not so nice after Daddy mentioned he could bite it. He took a huge bite a couple of times (it was like he couldn’t stop himself!) until he was inwardly frozen and very done with that popsicle.

We celebrated the 4^th of July with patriotic fruit, burgers, fries, and a peanut butter pie that stopped our hearts for an instant after the first bite with it’s phlegm-inducing richness. (Am I the only one that gets phlegm when I eat rich things? Maybe.)..

A certain hungry someone couldn't keep his hands off the burgers :)

We took car rides..

He wasn't as worried as he looks..

And made a failed attempt at miniature golf.

It mostly involved chasing a crazy toddler and trying to keep him from not only running through other people's games, but also stealing their golf balls. After much screaming and flailing the toddler was removed from the premises by his father while the rest of us goofed off for 14 more holes.

Aed's feet hit the ground.. Let the chaos begin!

Chase and Return #37

Chase and Return #126

Showing Mitchell his goal..

Mitch thought doing 'the shuffle' right in front of the hole would help mom focus..
Meanwhile, the clouds piled up and brought us a rain storm. We entertained ourselves
in a shelter at the beach while Aed and Ian got hypothermia playing in the rain.

Then came my birthday. My first birthday in three years that I got to celebrate with (some of) my family!

There is always lots of WoW playing when Ian and Mitchell are together..

This cake was so good.. So, so good.. I wanted to eat it over and over again..

This is what happens when your camera takes 5 minutes to snap a picture. The candles have been blown out,
the subject is laughing, and the subject's brother has gotten bored and decided to contribute to the moment..

Two days later my family was gone..

And my oldest kiddo was sick..

It was a sad time. But we all recovered and couldn’t believe after all that fun, that Asher was already four weeks old!

We are so thankful to have had Mom’s, Dad’s, and Mitch’s help and company during that first month. We needed some practice before we were ready to take our juggling act on the road!

So now we’re on our own. Just the four of us. Things have been up and down, crazy and perfect during the last 2+ weeks. We’re figuring things out inch by inch. And just WAIT til you see what we’ve been up to! (Are you so excited?? You should be because it mostly involves ridiculously cute things like this..)

6 Years

2011-07-16T08:00:00.007+01:00

12 years ago on a warm, Wednesday night, I shook your hand and looked into your blue eyes for the first time. That same summer you met Jesus and gave him your life.

The guys' senior prom, 2002

11 years ago we secretly hoped the other one felt the same. You worried I was out of your league, I worried you would think I was too immature.

Chillin' on the couch, 2004

10 years ago you took me to Taco Bell and, with sweaty palms, asked me to be your girlfriend. As I toyed with that straw wrapper, it was all I could do to not shout, “FINALLY!”

Mexican Restaurant (YUM!), 2007

9 years ago I almost called it quits in the Marsh parking lot. That was a bad night. I was overwhelmed. Fortunately, you were irresistible.

Geneva, Switzerland, 2008

7 years ago you asked if I’d go for a walk with you. Under the bell tower and in the rain, you knelt and asked me to be your wife. I was so surprised I asked if you were joking. Turned out, you weren’t.

Panama City Beach, 2009

6 years ago today, on another July Saturday, we donned our black and our white and committed ourselves to one another before God and hundreds of loved ones. You sweated profusely, I tried not to laugh.

Durham Cathedral, 2010

5 years and 364 days ago, I realized that I had no idea how funny you really were. And that was awesome. I also realized that we had forgotten to do the twisty arm drinking thing at our reception. That was less awesome but you didn’t care and I got over it.

Since then you have given me day after day of faithful patience, love, and grace. I wash your underwear and you do the dishes. I remind you to drink your tea before it gets cold and you push me up hills when I’m pregnant. I laugh when I realize that you still know me better than I know myself. You tell me I’m beautiful and I say I think you’re crazy. My heart sings a song I never knew before when I watch you love our boys. I have never met another soul I’d rather walk through life with.

Yesterday, while Ian was trying to focus.

Good days and bad days, it’s your socks that I want to find bunched up on the floor.

Happy Anniversary to us, Ian. Soli Deo gloria.

Once upon a time, when I was still pregnant..

2011-07-13T22:02:00.000+01:00

We did something fun!

But first, I need to show you something. Aed got this little rash on his torso, and instead of getting him checked by the doctor like normal people, we decided it would be easier to take a picture of it and send it to my dad and let him decide if we should take Aed to the doctor. I was looking through my pictures and came across that little set of images and saw this cute one of Aed trying to grab the camera. And then I noticed the boots. THE BOOTS!

Be still my beating heart.

How he loves his boots.

How I love him in only a diaper and boots.

Now on to something fun. The Edinburgh Zoo!

Remember how our Tesco points got us a little vacay out West? (I love pretending like this is a huge country) Well our Tesco points also got us a free day at the zoo! I’m telling you, our lives would be so boring without our Tesco points! They are not even paying me to say this!

I was so excited to go to the zoo because I love zoos dearly, but we were really not sure when the best time to go was since I was getting more pregnant by the second.

So, naturally, we decided to go when I was a puffy, rotund, beautiful 39 weeks pregnant. To a zoo that is entirely built upon the steepest hill in all the land. All of it. The whole thing is uphill until you decide to leave, but by then you need someone to just roll you down because seriously.

Anyway.

We got to go with some friends from the philosophy department who also have an adorable wee lad with curly blond(er than Aed’s) locks. The downside is they are both crazy toddlers, so when I saw their little curly heads together as they were looking at some animals, I didn’t move fast enough for the camera and the moment was forever recorded only in my brain! Sad.

So we wandered (and some of us had to push others of us up the never-ending hill) and enjoyed animals like this one:

Which kicks off our theme for the day: Most of the animals hate us and hide when we come to see them! Maybe we make too much eye contact? I don’t know.

So then there was a monkey show. I’m sure it was fabulous, but it was hard to tell because I was a little distracted..

A certain relative of monkeys was adamant that he get to play with (read: trampled by) the big kids on the big kid playground. At this point, he hated the zoo and had still never seen a monkey in real life because there were obviously more important things to worry over.

But then we found other monkeys.

And he thought the zoo might be ok after all. And then I started to question the goodness of the zoo when a couple of monkeys got frisky right in front of my precious babe’s virgin eyes! And he watched them.. yes he did. I pretended it was no big deal (yes I had to pretend, because I do not have the level of maturity (or desensitizedness?) it takes to think that’s no big deal) and considered how I am not looking forward to those conversations in the coming years..

We also saw pinguinos! Which are so very much my favorite! Though I have to say, it was very evident that they are birds because their poop was everywhere, which was kind of gross. But then they made up for it when they all marched around the zoo and were super cute during their special afternoon penguin march.

We ate a delightful lunch and then someone started getting sleepy. We came prepared, but alas, there was no sleeping to be had in the buggy OR in the car on the way home. He’s made of steel, this child. He will make sure he doesn’t sleep at any cost! He is determined.. And also so cute..

I LOVE to see him snuggle his ‘boo bankie’. Oh it melts my ever-lovin’ heart.

Then we saw these ginormous things.. sea lions? Maybe?

And these red river hogs..

And this is where I said, ‘Aed, can you make a pig face?’

And he said, ‘Sure, mama!’

And thus concludes our trip to the zoo.. But I do feel I should say, the Edinburgh Zoo has many large and interesting animals that we either 1) could not see because they hate us and were hiding, or 2) could not see because Ian couldn’t heave my girth any further up the never-ending hill. Why did they have to put the cool ones all the way at the top? And how did we not know that there was a tram we could have taken to the top and then walked down at a leisurely pace? Maybe next time..

Just an aside, pygmie hippos.. not that small. Also not that cute, and very smelly.

Brotherly love coming up next!

We are not dead..

2011-07-10T21:13:00.001+01:00

In fact we are doing quite well!

I have many things to share from the last month and am going to work on that during the next week.. Turns out free time is not as easy to find with a newborn and a toddler! :)

Until then, my current fave of the noob..

Great is Thy Faithfulness

2011-06-11T21:41:00.000+01:00

We have a new baby!

Asher Knox Church was born yesterday at 8:11am after a whirlwind labor. He weighed in at 8lbs 12oz and 20in long. So far he is a very, very content baby, so any of you that followed us through our experience with Aed can praise the Lord with us for that! He does resemble his brother, but has his own sweet face with dimples that make me ache every time he shows them off. Aed is doing great so far with the transition and is very interested in ‘baby’ and what baby is doing at any given moment.

Some of you will want the birth story :), so I’ll start with that, and then a few pictures of our new little guy.

After about a week and a half of contractions coming on and off, I had given up. I had gotten to the point where I didn’t really care when he came, and was actually really grateful for the extra time we’d been given to get a few more things done before his arrival. My only hope was that those contractions were somehow being productive and not just annoying :)

I woke up at about 3:30am to go to the bathroom on Friday morning and felt a little gush. I thought it might be my water breaking, but it was such a small amount I figured it was nothing to worry about and went back to bed. I was awoken two other times within the next two hours by a couple of contractions, but went right back to sleep figuring if I could sleep through it, it was nothing to worry about.

I woke up again a little after 5:30am to more little gushes and thought I should probably pay attention to what was going on. I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed I was having pretty regular contractions that seemed to be about 3-4 minutes apart. I woke Ian up and told him we were likely going to have to find someone else to pick mom up from the airport later that day. We both took showers, got Aed’s caretakers informed and ready, called the hospital to get their advice on when to come in, and left the house at about 10 after 7am.

We were chatting on the way about how we should be preparing ourselves to be sent back home because even though my contractions were regular, I was dealing with them just fine. As we crossed the bridge into Dundee, we both realized it was highly unlikely that we would be sent home, and far more likely that we were going to have a baby very soon! My contractions intensified like fire in dry grass, and before I knew it I was just hoping against hope that I wouldn’t feel the urge to push while we were still in the car.

We were really close to the hospital when I suddenly got the urge to vomit. I had no choice but to let it go, but apparently (I am told) did an awesome job at keeping it just on myself and not the (borrowed) car. So now I am having ridiculous contractions and am covered in puke trying not to have a baby in a car. The midwives had no idea what to do with me when we showed up, but got me stripped down and semi-cleaned before trying to coax me into the shower. I was willing to oblige, but really wanted to get into the birthing pool and was getting the urge to push, so I was very focused on the pool and not the shower. I proceeded to push through each contraction while they tried to get the pool filled as fast as they could. I felt the sweet relief of warm water for about two contractions before our little chubbster came shooting out into the shocked hands of the midwives.

They didn’t have the chance to read my medical notes, confirm much of anything with us about our wishes for the birth, or even check to ever see how dilated I was. One of them just kept saying, ‘My, you’re a quick worker!’ as she scurried around trying to get things taken care of.

Somewhere in the range of 20 to 25 minutes after we arrived, we met our son. And we were so thankful that we had made it! :) I apparently had given the midwives something to talk about that morning, and when I came back from being stitched I got a big, ‘Corrie’s back! And she’s walking already!’ from the midwives in the unit.

We wanted to get home as quickly as possible to see Aed and my mom, so left the hospital as soon as we were allowed. We were home by about 5:30 yesterday evening, enjoying our sons and trying to keep our eyelids up. Asher has been amazing and is doing everything he’s supposed to be doing. I am feeling great, with no complaints aside from those stitches :)

Today has been a day of thanksgiving as we reflect on the Lord’s perfect timing in all of this. We are amazed at the community of friends that helped us during labor and our absence yesterday, and have celebrated with us since. There have been so many things that we had worried about that have worked out wonderfully, it is yet another reminder of the truth in the needlessness of worry.

So we our enjoying our boy, being patient in recovery, and looking forward to the visiting of family and friends over the coming weeks. Here he is..

DIMPLES!!!!

May I introduce you to Asher's elf ears? Aren't they cute! :)

Asher (left) and Aed about the same age.. brothers, but different.

I should mention too why we chose the name we did. Asher means ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ and was one of the 12 sons of Jacob. We really wanted to give this baby a name that would lift him up throughout his life, and so far we can say he is living up to it well! Knox is for John Knox, the Reformer that attended St Andrews University and was an active preacher in this area of Scotland. Being the Calvinists that we are, that Reformed faith is important to us, and we like the extra link to St Andrews and Scotland that the name provides as well.

We are just overflowing with gratitude and love for our family and God’s goodness to us. Praise the Lord!

A Weekend Away

2011-06-05T12:42:00.000+01:00

For Mother’s Day, a friend’s husband had the bright idea that his wife might like a weekend away sans baby. His idea got brighter when he decided to include two of her friends in the weekend, and make it an excursion to see another friend that moved to a different area of Scotland a few years ago.

Turns out, I was one of those lucky friends!

Joy, Sara, and myself set out on a lovely weekend in May (the weekend of the Royal Wedding Extravagaanza!) for the little village of Kiltarlity to visit our friend Anna. Her husband is pastoring a church there while he earns his PhD from St Andrews, and I haven’t seen them since they moved away, so it was great to catch up!

Did I mention none of us had our babies in tow?

Did I mention it was the first time this had happened for all of us?

Did I mention how much we all missed them? :)

We kept commenting on how weird it was that we were getting up whenever we wanted, eating lunch whenever, not working around naptimes, staying up too late, eating chocolate without hiding it, not wiping tushies or faces.. it was so weird! And such a nice break from the routine!

We talked and talked, and I was amazed (though not surprised) at how often and how easily childbirth and child rearing came up in conversation :). Three of the four of us are pregnant, and we all have beloved kiddos, so it was a very natural topic.

We wandered through Inverness on a little shopping/dinner excursion. We visited another little town and saw some ruins. We attended the Barnard’s church and thoroughly enjoyed hearing Joe’s preaching again.

Joy, Sara, Corrie, Anna. I totally win the ‘Most Pregnant’ award :)

It was such a nice weekend to enjoy friends and time away. It made me realize just how much I love my roles as wife and Mama, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything!

The banks really are pretty bonnie…

2011-06-03T16:48:00.000+01:00

Four score and seven years ago, I decided that we needed to take a little vacation. Not the kind of ‘vacation’ we usually take to some unknown land where we are seeing things 23 of the 24 hours in a day, and walking across entire cities so we don’t miss anything. No, I wanted to take a slow, leisurely, pressure-free vacation with my family. I was envisioning a sunny beach, some lounging, some playing, and lots of relaxing.

I realized that we had a TON of Tesco points. You get points every time you shop, and we had acquired a lot that we just weren’t using. So I started perusing the ‘rewards’ section of their website and discovered there were all kinds of hotels that would accept our points toward the price of a stay.. And the best part was, our points were tripled! We had about £85 worth of vouchers, which meant we had £255 to use for a stay somewhere. Perfect!

This lead to me searching through ALL the hotel and hostel options to find the very best one in the very warmest place with the very best beach. And lo and behold I found all kinds of very bests! The problem was, we still had to get to these fabulous locations, and it turns out flying isn’t free.. go figure. So after lots of hemming and hawing and changing our minds and changing our plans and going back to the drawing board, we made a decision. It was a painful process that ended with no sunny beach and no flight.

BUT, we were still going somewhere, and it ended up being just right.

We paid a grand total of £30 (we even got free breakfast – I know!) to stay from Monday to Friday in a REAL hotel a few miles away from the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. The hotel even had a POOL, I kid you not. It was an easy two-hour drive into some beautiful scenery. We had no itinerary, no plans, just hopeful to swim and relax together as a last hurrah before traveling becomes that much more complicated (insert baby #2).

And we had a great week! We were reminded that our first child is terrible at sleeping away from home, but it totally didn’t matter because we had no schedule to keep! It was perfect.

We had a nice room, hot though it was..

We spent time at the loch..

And we played..

And we woke up sweaty and extra curly from hot afternoon naps..

(this is the face he makes when he knows the flash is coming :)

We ventured out and played with rocks at the water’s edge..

We peddle-boated in a little cove and discovered Aed does not love life jackets..

and we laughed.

We did lots of walking and took a ride on a big boat to see more of the pretty area..

And we spent lots of time in the pool! We went swimming every day and Aed loved it. He is a water bug for sure and even thoroughly enjoying ‘jumping’ into the water and going completely under.

As always, we were ready to come home again, but were so thankful for the opportunity to go away (even on a budget!) for a little while and enjoy some leisurely days.

Click on the slideshow in the sidebar if you want to see more pictures of our trip!

Stick a Fork in Me…

2011-06-01T16:45:00.000+01:00

So I haven’t blogged in a while, I know. I had big plans and then realized that I was going to have a baby and had a lot of work to do. So I’ve been working during most all of my free time in the last couple weeks and just over the weekend got to a point where I had done all I could do (though in my line of work, that point never lasts very long :).

Just in time to start noticing some contractions that were becoming somewhat regular and more intense..

I have been convinced for a while that I would not make it to my June 12th due date with this baby. It’s just been a different pregnancy, a seemingly bigger baby, far more Braxton Hicks contractions than I ever had with Aed. I didn’t think it was possible that I’d even be close to late.

So, when I noticed over the weekend, I wasn’t all that surprised. Then when they were still coming on Monday I started to get nervous. Then when they kept happening all night and then all day Tuesday, I started to get just plain ready. With Aed, once the contractions started they led right into active labor and his birth.

Seems this pregnancy is still different. I was exhausted going to bed last night and was hopeful that even if Baby was ready to come I’d get some sleep first. With the usual tossing and turning, the night concluded uneventfully.

Then this morning I noticed that while my contractions hadn’t changed in intensity, they were becoming far less regular. Cue disgruntled spirit. We went for a long walk. I vacuumed. I showered. Any attempt to keep moving in hopes that it would give my body the final push into labor that seemed more productive. Not so much. So I decided to take a nap.

I knew as I was laying down that my heart was not in the right place. I knew when these contractions started that they might not amount to anything and that I still might get to or go passed my due date. But now, after having the hope held right under my nose, I was not ok with that.

I slept, and when I woke decided to look at my little ‘blessings’ book for women that someone gave me when I graduated from high school. It has a thought and a verse for each day, and I knew with certainty the Lord had planted something in there that would be relevant for me today. Let me show you what it said.

June 1

When we have Jesus, we indeed have everything. All that God demands of us is met in Jesus. He is the supremely all-sufficient One, the first and the last, the living One. Our greatest need, and God’s greatest gift to us, is to awaken us to the sufficiency, supremacy, and destiny of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are called to an undistracted and lifelong preoccupation with Him.

- Fawn Parish, It’s All About You, Jesus

Verse for today:

No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
- Psalm 84: 11

I was distracted. I was preoccupied. There was no way I was going to be content in my situation until I was able to take my eyes off of my situation and put them back where they belong.

I know all of you have a reason to be patient right now. It seems those opportunities are never lacking. Let me encourage you, and myself, to fix our eyes on Jesus as we wait, and not waste the time we have been given in wait. I don’t think the Lord intended for the time we spend waiting to be used to pine for the thing we are waiting for. He intended for us to live every moment knowing that it is valuable and important. Each task we’ve been given in the waiting serves a purpose.

I still have an afternoon of mothering, a dinner to cook, a house to tidy up, and work to do before I lay my head down tonight. And I might have to do those things again and again before I see this baby’s face. And that is perfect. There is much to be thankful for in all of it.

In the end, we will have a baby. We will embark on a new chapter of life with new challenges, experiences, expectations, blessings. In the end, we won’t give a second thought to these days in between. Which is why I want them to be good. Not tainted with impatience and annoyance, but full of noticing the many ways the Lord has blessed our family. Noticing how big my first son has gotten, how incredible he is. Noticing how big my second son has gotten and enjoying our last moments as we are. Basking in the love of my husband and marveling at the ways he is always ready to do what needs to be done. And, most of all, working toward an undistracted and lifelong preoccupation with Jesus. Because in the end, that’s where the meaning is found. That’s where the worth is in each day. That’s where peace and contentment lie. That is what will bring me through the waiting.

Things heard in our house…

2011-05-18T11:59:00.001+01:00

Ian: Good news!

Me: What?

Ian: There’s a job opening in New Zealand!

Me: Well, that IS good news… For someone else.

Aed playing by himself while we are in the kitchen…

Makes his infamous ‘bite’ noise like he’s taking a big bite of something (which he also uses in the produce section of the grocery store) and then says:

'Bite. Doggy.'

Going upstairs to change a poopy diaper…

Me: Whew! You Stink!

Aed: Takes a deep sniff and then says, ‘Mmmmm MMMMMM!’

6 Things…

2011-05-15T18:06:00.001+01:00

Six things that have happened in the last month or so.. Six things that have been neglected by yours truly.. They are not earth shattering, nor will they change your life, but they might make you crack a smile which is really what we’re going for here, am I right? So, here goes..

The babies gathered again! And have actually subsequently gathered once more since this picture was taken. I hear the most recent picture is exceedingly cute, especially when compared to this one, given that it was apparently a very serious April morning. May brings smiles much more easily. Also noteworthy: April was the one-year mark from our first tea!

This was the view out my laundry room window a few weeks ago. Cherry blossoms! I am so grateful for trees that are once again full of life!

There is a yearly parade here called the Kate Kennedy procession. It’s put on by uni students that are in the Kate Kennedy Club. Turns out this historical parade would be Aed’s first! He wasn’t as thrilled as we had hoped, but I couldn’t blame him since no one threw candy.. He did neigh really loudly when the first horses went by though :)

My UK mother’s day present bloomed in glorious purple beauty! Unfortunately, we missed most of the blooming since we were on a little getaway (next post!), but they were beautiful and oh-so-fragrant.

Easter! This is Aed’s plumped up Easter basket. It was going to be less than exciting, but then we got an awesome package in the mail that added lots of fun toys and candy for our little Easter Egg.

I know these are blurry, and I apologize.. blurry seems to be my thing these days. As you can see he is his mother’s son. He went STRAIGHT for the Reese cups and proceeded to eat two of them in quick succession. My heart melted. And he was wearing the cutest sweater for the special day! Also noteworthy: That sweater is now lovely shade of light blue thanks to a pair of jeans.

We had a small group of people over for an Easter breakfast and did a little egg hunt with the kiddos, which was so fun! I made the long-awaited braided Easter bread, and it turned out pretty tasty.

It was much cuter before it went into the oven, though..

We had an awesome spread of food (table spruced with flowers from our very own ~~jungle~~ garden) and I was SO uncomfortable sitting through church with such a full tummy! Totally worth it :)

This is how my child eats. He takes a bite out of everything he is given before he goes back to finish anything.

Love this kid.

(What, Mama?)

34+ weeks

2011-05-03T14:29:00.000+01:00

We have made it to 34 weeks! It is crazy to think about how much change just right around the corner. I am tired but feeling good, and am soaking up these last few weeks as a family of three.

This morning we had some fun getting our pictures taken by a very dear friend here. I have wanted and wished and hoped for really nice family photos since Aed was born, but things just haven't worked out - until now! She sent me a few favorites today, so I thought I'd use them to show off my voluminous 34 week belly, and my two beloveds.

Aren't they beautiful?? Our friend is just so talented! I am so, so thankful! :)

I have so much to post about.. we have been busy, busy! Hopefully this week or weekend I'll have a minute to sit down and sort through everything because there is lots to share.

In other news, another friend has shed some light on the mystery of my last post. If you're interested in a little more information on the probable cause for the 'probably' in the cafe's street sign, check out the comments. It pays to have friends in the know! Thanks Julie! :)

Wait, what?

2011-04-13T13:23:00.000+01:00

I have been wanting to share this with you guys for forever! Last week the stars finally aligned in such a way that we were walking passed the sign and remembered to snap a photo.

We had a little sandwich shop called Munch move into town on South street way back when. Maybe last summer? Maybe two summers ago? I can't remember. After a while, they got some little sidewalk signs advertising their business. I have always been intrigued by the way businesses advertise themselves here versus in the States because it is very different. But this.. this I could really not make any sense of. Maybe it's just a good sense of humor? Maybe it's to avoid any legal battles? I just don't know.

We haven't taken a poll or anything, but let me tell you, these are probably the best bacon rolls in the world! I can testify that the sign has not convinced me.. I've never tried one :)

So what about that blog thing?

2011-04-11T13:21:00.001+01:00

I decided in September to do a 40-day fast from all the blogs that I normally read. I left it at that.

September was a long time ago, and it was towards the end of November that I started to write this response to that fast and then left it by the wayside. I was hoping that I had written more back in November, to see what I thought about the outcome of that decision a little bit closer to the time it had actually taken place, but alas, I wrote only a few sentences before I was distracted by something.

The fast itself was a struggle for me. Not because it was hard for me to resist clicking on the blogs I normally read.. I got over that after the first day or two.. but because I just wasn’t sure if it was really worthwhile. What was I accomplishing? Was I learning anything? Was I regaining the focus I had hoped to? I debated a lot after it was all said and done and couldn’t decide if it had been fruitful or not. The longer I thought about it though, the more I realized that it had been fruitful and it had been worthwhile, but not exactly in the ways I had hoped or expected.

One of the things I learned from doing this fast is that laziness seems to be deeply rooted within myself. Even though I wasn’t reading blogs, I was still finding ways to waste time while making a nice butt-print in the sofa. You could argue that I have a young child and so coveted naptime should be ‘my time’ to do with what I please. Maybe so, but I have no doubt that the choices I was making, even during the fast, were not the best choices. They were still the easy, lazy choices.. they just looked a bit different than what I had been doing previously.

Another thing I learned is that at this stage of my life, change comes slowly. For whatever reason, I can see clearly that as I came out of the fog of new-motherhood, any progress I made toward the person I wanted to be was tiny step by tiny step. An often-interrupted path moving in the direction of something better. At first I found this new characteristic really frustrating. Then I realized that it’s just reality. Really young children require a ton of attention, so I don’t have as much attention to give to my own well being. The pace of my own goals is much slower than it once was, but I am finding there is much to learn in this situation. Namely, patience!

I also came away from the fast with a healthy frustration. It made me very thankful that I could look back on the experience and be dissatisfied. The fast itself had not achieved all the things I had hoped that it would, but rather than giving up, I felt prodded to keep working as I learned. Because I had learned new things, I was more ready to combat the temptation of wasting my time in fruitless ways.

It’s a little over five months now since my commitment to that fast concluded. I still read blogs, but I have significantly focused them so that the blogs I indulge in outside of friends and family are useful to me, and not just serving the purpose of entertainment or amusement. I am still daily fighting the urge to just sit and putter the afternoon away (especially as the third-trimester fatigue sets in! :), and that’s ok, because I am aware that it’s a fight. Some days I win and some days I lose, and thankfully the days I lose are concluded with a feeling of discontent.

One practical way that I have always helped myself stay focused is by making lists. Lately I have been making myself a list each week. It helps immensely to keep me focused when I sit down and realize I have a few hours to myself. It is not prioritized (aside from an awareness within my own mind), and that little bit of freedom to choose what I want to do in an afternoon helps a lot. If I don’t feel like working on a project with a deadline a few days away, I can work on a photo album instead. Then, anything not finished on the list is carried over into the next week. And when I finish something, I get the joy of whacking it right of the list! :)

It’s a small thing, but as Tesco says, every little helps!

So I guess that’s what I came away with. Ultimately, a better understanding of my true area of weakness (it wasn’t so much the blogs themselves as it was the laziness), and some realizations to help me combat it. So it was worthwhile. It is something I will probably do again eventually (a 40-day fast, that is, not necessarily from blogs) when I am so moved, because anything you can learn from is worth pursuing!

It was only three weeks ago!

2011-04-09T15:26:00.000+01:00

So that means I can still post pictures of it, right? :) Pictures which are not mine, by the way, but were sent to me by more responsible friends who remember to have their cameras handy!

We are talking St Patty's day today. It was forever ago and we have all moved on with our lives, but I made a cake for it, so here we are.

Some of our friends decided to have a little shin-dig for the Big Green, which made me very happy. I am always glad when there is reason to celebrate something.. even if we have no idea why exactly we are celebrating (though there were some discussions on this that evening). So I offered to bring a dessert, naturally, and then had fun coming up with something appropriate for the holiday.

I hemmed and hawed and finally just decided to do a basic white cake. Nothing fancy.. but then I went crazy and made a surprise inside :)

Here is our spread of green and orange and Irish food.. It was very, very tasty. Aed was an especially big fan of the potato soup (not pictured) and the bread.. are we surprised? Nope!

There's my poor attempt at an Irish exterior on my cake. Little green 'shamrocks', though they weren't all very convincing in their role.

But the INSIDE of the cake was green!

My decision to do three shades of green was completely random, but made slightly easier by the fact that we only own one 'cake' pan (I'm not even sure it's technically a cake pan). Thus I went from lighter to darker, and it took forever to get all the layers baked. In fact you can see the layers get progressively more dense as they go.. that's because I'm a novice and was afraid that the batter might dry out a bit as it sat waiting for it's turn in the oven. So, each time I did another layer, I added a splash of milk. I think it would have been perfectly fine to just leave the batter as it was.. but I had myself convinced and once that happens, there's no arguing.

Then there was the whole 'Tesco wouldn't quit being out of powdered sugar' thing. That made the icing sort of difficult.. so it was a little grainy, but I am told it was still good (though not as good as it could have been!).

I really like making cakes. Aed really likes eating them.. along with everyone else, so I guess it's a win-win! The little guy was very upset when the cake was gone :)

Mothering Sunday

2011-04-03T21:44:00.000+01:00

Happy Mothering Sunday!

It's just like Mother's Day, but the UK celebrates on a different day. I have declared that I get to celebrate both since I am from the States, but my babies began/will begin their lives in the UK :) I might be taking advantage of the situation a bit.

Ian gifted me with a pot of 6 or so not-quite-blooming hyacinths and I am so excited! Once they flower I'm going to pot them and enjoy their blooms for weeks! I'm sure you'll be seeing them in the near future. I also got one of my favorite dinners and lots of special words from my hubbykins.

Being a mama is such a gift! I am so amazed at the things I have learned and the ways I have changed since Aed made me a mama. He has the unfortunate role of the guinea pig - being the first of our children - but the very fortunate role of being my first baby who will always hold a special place in my heart. We've been through a lot together :)

And as his mother, I have the added bonus of looking at his stinking cute face all day.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the one who is making me a mother twice-over. Our sweet little bun in the oven.

30 weeks!

Sometimes when you are 19 months old..

2011-04-01T15:28:00.000+01:00

A recent encounter with cornstarch and water.. and yes, blue food coloring that left us blue for the rest of the day :)

I have been meaning to do this since Aed was 18 months old, but just hadn’t gotten around to it. I get all antsy when I think about how quickly my baby boy is getting bigger, and how afraid I am of forgetting all the wonderful things he is doing. Given that we just officially passed the 19 month mark, last night I sat down and wrote everything I could think of about my boy and his quirks, and thought I’d share some of them with you :)

As of Monday the Aedster was on the 91% curve for weight, and the 98% curve for height. Seems like Daddy’s genes are working their magic there :) He has a full head of hair (finally!) that spends most of its time curling into adorable little ringlets.. though sometimes transforms into a frizzy rat’s nest.. and occasionally seems to be ever-so-slightly strawberry blond.

He is a great sleeper, typically giving us 12-hour nights and (though I thought it would never happen) a 3-4 hour nap in the afternoon – depending on how tiring our morning was!

During the day, he spends the majority of his time 1) spinning anything he can get his hands on.. balls, weebles, tupperware, etc., and 2) reading as many books as our voices will allow.. and as many times over as we are willing!

Though he is by NO means a snuggler, Aed gets super sweet and cuddly at bedtime. He often snuggles his blankies and says, ‘awww’ as he pats them, and still loves his paci. He also says, ‘a-MUN!’ when we’re done praying :) And he will give hugs and kisses on request, but is a bit stingy with the hugs.

We really want to teach our kids some of the catechism questions, so we started with, ‘What is the Bible about?’ Aed knows the answer and responds with an enthusiastic, ‘Jeesah!’ when asked.

Somehow he learned how to ‘jump’, which involves bending his knees and then springing up without his feet ever leaving the floor. He gets very excited when asked to jump. He’s also an excellent dancer :)

Aed loves being outside and loooooooves water.. bathtime (or shower time now that he has overcome his fear of the shower!), the ocean, puddles, rain, the sink, bubbles, etc. (he also thinks it’s hilarious when I blow bubbles with my gum..)

He seems to learn new words all the time and I LOVE his little one-year-old pronunciations of them. My current favorite is still any word that ends in a ‘k’. He also makes tons of animal noises now and knows hand motions and/or sounds for cars/trucks, planes, and boats.

Mealtime has become very exciting and often involves Aed giving everyone sitting with him endless bumps, high fives, and ‘touches’ (think ‘ET phone home’). He loves eating most anything dairy and any form of bread (probably making up for all that time when he couldn’t eat those things), not to mention whatever anyone else is eating. If he wants what you have he comes over, reaches for it and says, ‘Om?’ or ‘Diiiiiiis?’ (this). So far he’s not much of a picky eater, which I am very thankful for!

Aed is also obsessed with shoes. Anytime there is a shoe in his sight, he either wants to play with it or wants it on his foot. This has lead to some awesome outfits.. like the pajamas and boots, and more recently, highwaters (turns out that outfit was too small!), white socks, and sporty sandals. :)

Just this week he has started doing two new things. One is singing! He has a few books that have lullabies in them, and one of them plays music. He will open the book, press the button and start singing away! He is particularly good at/fond of Twinkle Twinkle (he knows the first few words to each line) and Hush Little Baby.. He gets very offended if he thinks you should be singing and you aren’t! The other thing is he has started recognizing colors. He doesn’t say them consistently, though he does like to say, ‘Yeya’ (yellow), but has gotten fairly consistent in identifying them correctly. Makes his mama proud :)

If you’re still reading, I’m sure you can imagine how I could go on and on about all of his cute and amazing developments, but I’ll stop there :) We are so in love with our little guy and it is so fun to watch him grow and change with each passing day. Sometimes I wish I could freeze time and keep him just the way he is, but I know I’d be missing out on the fun that is to come!

Baby/Mama Tea!

2011-03-25T13:52:00.001Z

After a hiatus over the holidays, the Baby/Mama teas have begun again!

We had one here at our house at the beginning of this month and it was crazy to see how much these kiddos have grown!

We were a few short, but four of us managed to get together to enjoy some delectables along with the toddler games.

Look at them all!

We are looking forward to next month when hopefully, all six of them will be together again :)

Boots!

2011-03-23T13:45:00.000Z

After our morning at the beach, I realized that we need to get our kiddo some boots.

Turns out that is not an easy task when there are no wal-marts or targets. I finally found some that were fairly reasonably priced and brought them home for my little puddle-jumper.

He LOVES them. He is ready to put them on as soon as he sees them (boots? boots? boots?) regardless of what we are doing. I couldn't resist a little photo from the other morning when he wanted them on over his pj's. Unfortunately for you, the camera was not at the ready when he decided he wanted to have his boots AND his sunglasses on with his pajamas :)

I love this kid.

a-a-A-DEEEEE!

2011-03-22T16:14:00.003Z

Usually when Aed wakes up he babbles. This is always entertaining. But yesterday.. it was hilarious.

A few days ago Aed learned how to sneeze. We have several books where the characters sneeze at some point, and he started mimicking the sound we make when we read the books.

As I walked passed his door before getting him up I heard, 'a-a-A-DEEEEEEEE!' over and over again.

It took me a minute to realize what I was hearing since it's a relatively new development, but once I did I had a good laugh at my boy.

I egged him on outside the door, much to his delight :)

love it.

A Morning at the Beach

2011-03-21T21:29:00.004Z

I will never tire of living in a beach town. I love that it is always an option to traipse down to the water’s edge and just relish in the deep sky and huge expanse of sand. A big open space to do with what you like. The perfect place to take a toddler who just wants to run FREE! :)

We have had some sunny days around here, so Aed and I took our first adventure of the season a few weeks ago (pre-sickness). We have been to the beach over the winter of course, but now was time for adventure. Climbing out of the buggy and exploring the beach for as long as his little legs could handle it (or maybe it was mama’s bladder that made the final call?).

When I looked back at these pictures, I knew we were just escaping the dregs of winter because I had thought this day was gloriously sunny :) The sun was there, yes, but it certainly had some competition.

Aed was raring to go as soon as he got down from the buggy.

The in-between seasons here tend to be really windy. It’s often windy since we’re on the water, but some days the wind will literally knock you over. This was one of those days (and I began regretting the trip to the beach pushing my toddler up, up, up all the hills against the wind on the way home). We got out the soccer ball (which has since been stolen by some of our lovely community members) and it didn’t take long for the wind to sweep it away. Knowing it wouldn’t get far, instead of chasing after it we just meandered towards it as Aed found things he was interested in.

Fortunately for me, there were some uneven areas that had become little pools of water as the tide had gone out. These little pools stopped the ball before it hit the ocean, so there was no wading involved. Fortunately for Aed, the ball was stopped at the edge of some very inviting pools of water.

Dude didn’t even hesitate. He was IN. I knew this was a possibility, so I did have a ‘my kid is soaking wet and it’s freezing outside’ plan. I soon learned had things gone differently, my plan would have been very inadequate. But, God was good and instead of bringing home a popsicle I brought home a half-naked-wrapped-in-a-blanket toddler with a better game plan for next time. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Aed splashed around for a bit, and within a few minutes had fallen on his backside.

After a few falls, he was soaked from toes to rump.

This was a wet as I got:

And I was glad for that! I don’t know how he handled that water because it was frigid. I suppose that’s what being a Scot will do to you :)

He continued playing and after a few forward-facing falls (this was the point where I realized I had no plan if his top half got wet) his pants were completely soaked.

I couldn’t believe how willing he was to continue playing! He must have been freezing but couldn’t have cared less. I got his attention and saw that his face was showing obvious signs of being cold, so I got mommy guilt and put his bear hat on to make myself feel better :)

I had to coax him away from the water by trying to avert his attention to the soccer ball again. He was NOT happy when he realized what was going on and immediately turned and ran back. I went after him, stripped him down and wrapped him up, then tucked him away inside his buggy. We’ve always known we had a bit of a water bug, but now I have no doubt! We will be spending many a (hopefully warmer) morning at the beach this summer. Big brother with little brother in tow. And I can’t wait.

You’re Fired!

2011-03-16T22:41:00.001Z

This is what I was tempted to tell my immune system only a few short days ago. Pack your bags, we are through! Useless is what you are!

Fortunately for my well being, I relented and cut the ol’ gal some slack. I figure I am sort of pregnant, so maybe my immune system isn’t entirely focused on me right now.

It all started about three weeks ago.. We were sitting in the living room when someone says, ‘My throat kind of hurts..’ (It was either Ian or Sheree, but I can’t remember who started the conversation.) The other agreed. I just looked at both of them and told them to stay away. After the cold I had at Christmas I was not interested in getting another while pregnant.

A few days later.. Sore throat. Runny nose. Hacking cough. Stuffy ears. It seemed every day I woke up with a new symptom. It was awesome.

Fast forward about a week and a half, and I am still sick and now have absolutely no sense of taste or smell. This makes life interesting. Also, Aed now has the runny nose and hacking cough. He quickly develops the nickname ‘snot vampire’ as snot was constantly dripping down his face. Also awesome.

Then last Thursday night I went to bed with a really bad headache right through my forehead. I woke around 2am with a splitting headache and really intense pain in my ears. I began to freak out as I felt pressure continue to build in my head, so Ian decided to call NHS 24. While I sat feeling like someone was piling burning coals into my ears, Ian talked to a very nice man on the phone who said to take paracetamol (tylenol) at regular intervals and call the GP for an appointment in the morning. I personally was ready to call an ambulance right there and then. I am telling you, my head was going to explode.

I wasn’t able to sleep well at all, even with the paracetamol. In the morning, Ian called the GP and informed me that my appointment was at 12:15 that afternoon. I immediately had a break down because I knew I couldn’t wait that long for some kind of relief from the intense pain. He called back after seeing my desperation and they were able to move my appointment to 11:30. Bravo. (I wasn’t feeling very gracious towards the GP at that moment :)

So I spent the morning in tears waiting and waiting for the minutes to tick by. Finally we headed out and the doctor concluded that nothing was wrong with my ears (at which point I was rendered speechless by the impossibility of that) and that I had a sinus infection. I went home with an antibiotic, the instructions to not take any paracetamol unless I really needed it, and the feeling that there was no way she had adequately understood how much pain I was experiencing.

After a few hours and more tears, my left ear started leaking. While this wasn’t a great sign for the state of my eardrum, it did provide some relief from the pressure, and I felt much more justified in my suspicion that my ear pain was unrelated to the state of my sinuses (the doctor thought my ear pain was actually being caused by a sinus infection). So a sinus infection and a ruptured eardrum. That’s an awesome combo right there.

I was tortured with it all day Saturday to the point that Ian called NHS 24 again just to make sure things were ok since the doctor had not seen whatever was wrong with my ear initially, and that’s where all my pain was focused (I have such a good hubby!).

Fortunately, Sunday brought with it some relief and things have been improving since. Two and a half weeks later and I still sound sick, can’t hear very well out of my left ear, and have a daily headache, but I can taste and I can smell! And I’m not feeling the need to seclude myself from all noise by staying in the bedroom all day!

I’m not sure I have ever been more thankful for the returning of some senses I had dearly missed, and the absence of some pain I will be glad to forget. Needless to say, I am quarantining myself next time I hear someone thinking aloud that they may be getting sick! I am in no hurry to repeat this experience :)

Nobody know the trouble I've seen..

2011-03-10T13:30:00.000Z

Aed loves loves loves to be outside. Any time we go somewhere or run errands, as soon as we get to the path that runs along the way to our house, I get him out of the stroller so he can walk. He usually starts requesting this long before we get to the 'safe zone' for his meanderings. He starts saying 'Walk? Walk? Walk?' Words with 'k' sounds are absolutely hilarious when he says them. He kind of lateral-lisps the 'k' at the end so it drags out into Walkkkkk with a bunch of gurgley sounds. I love it.

So anyway, he hops out and goes to all the 'dates' (gates) that lead to peoples' front doors. He touches each one and then when he runs out of gates he touches the 'nones' (stones) that make up the stone wall along the path. He occasionally stops to stomp on the storm drains as well :) Recently we discovered moss (which sounds like moss when he says it..) growing on a lower part of the wall, and it turns out Aed thinks moss is delicious. Before I knew it, he had a little hunk in his mouth and was saying 'Mmmmmmmm!' very enthusiastically.

He is enthralled with pointing out birds, dogs, and cars. He knows the words and the sound each thing makes and gets so excited when he sees one.

Going on walks with a one year old is fabulous. Unless you're in a hurry, that is.

Well sometimes in all the excitement, his lack of coordination gets the better of him. He gets going too fast, loses his balance, and..

Gets lovely injuries. Fortunately he gets over them quickly (moss!) and they certainly don't dissuade his enthusiasm.

Tired legs and rosy cheeks are signs of a few well-spent minutes discovering the wonders of outside.

Because it just seemed right..

2011-03-08T21:21:00.000Z

I took pictures of Aed's lunch a while ago..

I mean look at it:

So color coordinated! So diverse! The food groups!

Just kidding :) It was just because of the colors.. And look how much he enjoyed eating it..

umm.. this is just a gratuitous photo of my baby's eyes because I like them.

And because this is a random post with a random picture of lunch.. Here's picture of a lemon no-bake cheesecake (with lemon curd on top!) I made last weekend.

I'm told it was delicious, but I have no idea what it tasted like because I have lost all ability to taste! I haven't tasted anything in days!! It is torturous when there are good things to eat.. but I know this too shall pass and eventually (right??) I won't have a cold anymore. Until then, I am learning more ways to appreciate the world of textures and temperatures when it comes to eating. And that you can still feel saltiness and spiciness without tasting! Who knew?

26 Weeks!

2011-03-07T21:18:00.002Z

There it is!

There's my 26-weeker!

Please don't mind the double-butt.. it's the shirt I promise :)

You guys!

2011-03-05T20:56:00.002Z

I have just discovered the best ab workout..

A few easy steps..

1. Be pregnant.

2. Get a cold that is much worse and lasts much longer than it should because of said 'pregnant' status.

3. Proceed to cough, sneeze, and blow your nose until your abs and ribs are aching.

4. Enjoy the results!

There's always a bright side :)

One for the road..

2011-03-04T15:33:00.003Z

Looking out over the cliffs next to West Sands yesterday.. Part of a late afternoon adventure while we were walking Daddy home from work.

18 Months and 25 Weeks

2011-02-28T20:24:00.003Z

These little piggies are 18 months old.. Well, they're at least as close to 18 months old as they'll ever be since my poor, deprived toddler has no real 18 month birthday thanks to February's utter lack of a 30th.

At 18 months he runs, he jumps, he sits to read, he spins any ball he can find, he kicks, he throws, he climbs, he snuggles, he kisses and hugs, he 'helps', he splashes, he (sort of) listens, and so much more. He has a wonderful repertoire of words he uses that seems to be ever-growing. Things like 'nown' for 'down', ball, apple, mouse, hot, all done, water, juice, milk, banana, and on and on. I haven't kept count of his words or anything, but he babbles all day long and is quite the little mimic :) He also does a mean car sound, and his sandwiches often turn into cars during lunchtime.

18 Months has brought with it new challenges for Mama and Daddy, as we work to guide him to understand things like consequences.. Turns out it's hard to discipline someone who has a very limited vocabulary to communicate with, and it's equally frustrating for him as a lot of his acting out comes from that hindrance.

But mostly, I am loving this age. It is amazing to watch as he enthusiastically explores and discovers, to see the joy in his face when he is entertained or being silly. I love his toothy grin. The curls that still adorn his head make my heart sing, and I'll never get enough of his chubby legs. He is passionate for his books and loves being outside. He is fascinated by water and will never miss an opportunity to splash in a puddle, wherever it may be.

These are good days. Some days I have to remind myself of that frequently, but no one ever said kids were predictable.

Aed's little brother is growing away as well! Yesterday marked 25 weeks, and I had every intention of giving you a picture of my lovely huge belly. But.. you know. Things happen, and the picture never did. We'll get one eventually, but until then you can just imagine me with a ball under my shirt and that will be pretty accurate. :) I am still 'keeping well' and can really only claim to be tired most of the time. Baby #2 is a squirmy little worm and is starting to make it hard to put my shoes on.. Fortunately they just velcro, so I only have to hold my breath for a few seconds :)

I have some fun pictures of a beach visit coming up! We can't WAIT for the warmer weather around these parts! Turns out I'm not the only one that loves visiting the beach :)

Valentine's Day and then some

2011-02-15T10:05:00.004Z

We'll start with the 'and then some'.

Last Saturday I attended a baby shower for a friend here who has the cutest 7 week old you ever did see. The lovely host asked if I would make some cookies for the shower. Naturally, I said yes and started thinking about what I could do. For whatever reason, I decided that would be a good time to make my first attempt at icing sugar cookies in a fancy-ish way by trying out royal icing on my cookies. Fortunately, I got my icing recipe from a baking blog that I love and it was delicious.. I have heard some not-so-hot things about the real royal icing, but this recipe was perfect.

So away I went! I baked the cookies, drew out some ideas, and made my first attempt!

While my piping skills are not stellar (I seem to have shaky hand syndrome), I think they came out pretty cute! :)

(The baby's name begins with 'P')

This experience made me excited for future sugar cookies! You basically get to draw on the cookie, which gives you all kinds of fun and freedom to come up with new ideas!

I also found a really good recipe for a fruit salad. It was so pretty all layered up.. Unfortunately the bowl was too reflective to really appreciate it.. BUT it was still delicious. I love me some berries.

So in other news, yesterday was Valentine's Day! I spent a lot of the day grocery shopping, cooking, and writing poems for the various members of our household :) We exchanged our homemade cards and then the real fun came with the dinner time spread..

We had heart-shaped pizzas with my favorite salad, and I found strawberry beer for Sheree and Ian. Ian tells me it was actually pretty good :) You can see the lovely flowers I got from my favorite valentine (the ones on the left.. the other ones were a gift from last weekend from someone else) that helped spruce up our table, too!

Then for dessert I made brownies, cut them into hearts and slathered them with cream cheese and strawberries. I had high hopes to cut the strawberries into hearts too, but alas, they were squishy so we just got strawberry chunks.

Still good enough for me!

I know V-day is overrated, and a lot of people don't enjoy it, but we had a special day and I hope you did too! If not, you can come to our house next year :)

A Little Bit of Valentine's Day

2011-02-11T15:12:00.000Z

So I know it's not really Valentine's Day yet.. And, to be honest, the old V-day has never been a favorite of mine. I mean, I like getting flowers as much as the next girl, but it always seemed a little too unspontaneous to have the commercial world at large hand us a holiday on a red and white platter so we don't forget to tell people we love them. Not to mention the pressure - THE PRESSURE! The silly pressure.. The undue alone-ness of people who aren't in a relationship. Whatever. There are some downsides to the pink holiday.

But. BUT. This year, something got into me. I needed hearts! I needed special things! I needed to acknowledge Valentine's Day more than ever!

Confusing. Yes.

Maybe because I have a toddler? Maybe because it gives me an excuse to bake and do out-of-the-ordinary crafts? I just don't know where this urge has come from.

So anyway, I up and did some V-day stuff.

And Aed helped. :)

(73 points to anyone who can find a snowflake! It was randomly snowing when I took this picture :)

Aed and I worked together coloring on some paper, which mostly turned into making lots of tiny dots and putting the crayons into and then taking them out of the container. Which was very fun, I must say, and most heartbreaking when it had to end. Seriously, there was a melt down of the cutest variety when the crayons were put away.

Then I took our colored papers and cut hearts out of them. Then I cut the heart silhouettes out of the paper as well and hung them in our windows. So we have colorful hearts in all our downstairs windows. And I like it. It's so weird!

I had to make snacks earlier this week for an activity, and what did I do? I sought out a Valentine's Day recipe. More hearts!

Shortbread cookies dipped in and drizzled with chocolate. Hearts and circles, because really, I don't have a cookie cutter and it took a long time to cut out hearts.

Turns out if you want everyone to ooh and ahh, you just have to drizzle! If only they had seen the ridiculous mess I made making them :) Maybe not so impressive.

So I have my hearts, with more to come! We are having a Valentine's Day family dinner on Monday! When will it end? I don't know what I am going to do with myself in March. St Patrick's Day? I think I am turning into an elementary school teacher. What's a girl to do?

A Snotty Nose

2011-02-09T15:06:00.003Z

I don't even know why I took this picture..

To document the snotty nose?

To capture the amazing eyes of my almost 1.5 year old?

To entertain him when we were bored?

What he wouldn't give to have mama say, 'your turn!' when the camera comes out :)

I don't know. But I found it on my camera and it made my heart melt a little.

Happy Wednesday to you.

Caught red-handed!

2011-02-03T10:37:00.002Z

Though it is not always necessary, I tend to get nervous when I realize that I haven't heard Aed making any noise in a while. Usually I find him quietly perusing his books or playing with puzzle pieces. However, sometimes I find him being quiet for sneaky reasons. Sneaky reasons like this:

I have to admit, unless he's doing a 'no no' I usually laugh when I find him. How can you not laugh at his sheepish little smile. He knows he was caught :) He loves the cabinet with the fish food (which also contains various party supplies), and after a few days of straws all over the floor, mama found a new container that the Aedster doesn't know how to open yet. Mama can be sneaky too :)

Two Blue Fish

2011-01-27T21:12:00.002Z

I had not intended on keeping the fact that I am pregnant a secret from anyone. But somehow, that is exactly what I wound up doing! In the midst of planning and traveling, I just never got around to writing a post about the tiny detail that we were adding to our number. We spread the news quite willingly by word of mouth, but that was pretty much it.

So I am here to tell you today, I am a pregnant woman of the 20+ week variety, and we are having another boy! I was really convinced this one was a girl, so I have decided that I am just done guessing the gender of our children. I am obviously bad at it.

This pregnancy has been easy-peasy compared to Aed. I have hardly felt sick at all, and aside from being unbelievably tired (and a slightly picky eater) for a few weeks early on, I feel great! I am praying that doesn’t change :) While I’m at it, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to start praying against extreme puffiness too..

Anyway, last Sunday we took the first belly picture to commemorate the 20-week mark. We were joined by big brother who wanted to know what was going on :)

Neither of us can believe we are already over half way through! I am well aware, however, that the last half goes on much longer than the first half.. but I am also well aware that June will be here before we know it.

Unfortunately for us, our housing is almost entirely up in the air at this point, so we aren’t exactly planning how we are going to fit two kids into our living space just yet. That will come.. Hopefully with some time to spare :)

In the meantime we are forgetting logistics and spaces and enjoying imagining life with two little boys instead of just one. Praise the Lord!

The Churches Go On a Very Long Holiday: Part 2

2011-01-25T12:34:00.003Z

Between extensions of my family and Ian’s family, we celebrated Christmas at least six times! Which is fine by me – the Church family will never turn down a holiday extravaganza. We ate, we sang, we peeked, we opened, we gave, and we were tired! There was a lot of traveling crammed into our last several weeks in the States. Aed was an excellent trooper and loved all the attention wherever we went.

It was my goal to get a good picture of our family for Christmas. We don’t have any great ones, and with time just marching onward, I really wanted a good picture to keep of us. The Sunday before Christmas, we were all gussied up in Christmas gear (ok, so it was mostly Aed..) so we took advantage of the nice background that our church provided and went for it!

And we got one!

I was so excited I gave a copy to everyone for Christmas :) My brother-in-law also managed to catch my very favorite, heart-melting, face of Aed’s..

Poochy lips!! Oh they were poochy and wonderful!

While we were at it, we tried to get a good shot of the three kiddos together. We were very successful – just look!

Maybe not.. But, Wes did capture Ben and Bella in all of their cuteness on a different day at home.

So we celebrated a few great Christmases and then said our goodbyes to Hope and Wes (tear) and took off for California to see what winter is like in places that aren’t snowy and freezing!

Little did we know what that eventful trip would hold..

We started off with all kinds of delays. Technical difficulties, weather, etc. There were plenty of reasons. We had a layover somewhere (Texas maybe?) and were very delayed for that flight. After being taken back and forth to and from the runway, we finally got on our way, so I decided to put Aed’s pj’s on him in hopes that he might take a nap before we got there (it was very late). No sooner had we sat down, all fresh and ready for a nap, then Aed up and puked all over us. All over us, the seat, the wall of the plane.. It was more than I would have ever imagined was possible of coming out of a tyke his size. Not to mention the fact that he gave no clues prior that he was feeling off in any way.

After we got over the initial shock of what had just happened, we kindly asked the man next to us if we could get out to go to the lavatory and explained what had happened (trying to hint that we would not be offended in any way if he wanted to change seats). Ian heroically carried our pukey, screaming child back to the tiny lavoratorial box (yes, I’m pretty sure that’s not a word) where we calmed Aed down, changed his clothes, and attempted to wipe ourselves off as best we could. Then we stood there for about 25 minutes while the kind and thoughtful flight attendants continued to serve drinks and food instead of letting us back to our seats.

When we finally got back to sit down, we found that the man we were sitting next to had been unable to change seats because the woman in front of us did not want to give up one of her three (!) seats. We apologized and proceeded to try to wipe the puke off the seat and side of the plane. And, we did the only thing we could.. We sat in puke for the next three hours.

It was ghetto fabulous.

We finally arrived very, very late at night, got to our abode, got Aed really cleaned up and in bed, and proceeded to collapse. But, when you can eat breakfast outside with a view like this at the end of December..

who can really complain?

I got sick on Monday evening, followed by Ian, and pretty much everyone else we came in contact with, but it was wonderful to be back in California after over three years since the last time we had been there – especially at Christmastime!

One day we were there, Ian, GG (great-grandma Marge), and Aed ventured over to a garden on Pepperdine’s campus. Aed loved the little streams running through it. Needless to say, he came back home not wearing any pants :)

After we got back from California, we spent our last two weeks driving hither and thither to see all kinds of people and do all kinds of things (not to mention stuff our faces with as much Mexican and Thai food as possible)! It was a very busy few weeks and the last thing we wanted to do at the end of it was fly back across the ocean. Aed enjoyed some one-on-one time with Nena and Papaw when we were at my parents’, as well as other aspects of their house.. Like the bathtub.

Ian and I were down at one end of the hallway working on packing or something, and when Ian went hunting for our quiet child, that is what he found! Aed had crawled into the tub by himself to play with the toys :)

Aed and Daddy had lots of special play time since Daddy took a break from working over the holidays!

And, Aed’s adorable monster towel! It matches his cousin Ben’s and is the cutest thing ever!

Lastly, I leave you with an airport picture..

We saw these in the airports everywhere we went, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing probably the only place our son’s name will ever be on a commercially made item.

So we are home and we are doing great. Getting back into the swing of working and considering what this year will hold for us. We are so thankful for everyone who was so very, very generous and hospitable to us while we were in the States. We love love love being with our families and friends over yonder, and are so grateful that we had some extra time to enjoy them this year. If we missed you, I guarantee we are sorry! Despite the length of time we were there, we had a lot going on and hope to catch you next time we are back.. Or you know, you could come see us :)

Right now we are in limbo waiting to see what kind of opportunities for jobs may arise in the next few months, and Aed and I are working hard to be Daddy’s cheerleaders (we make an awesome pyramid) as he works to finish his PhD. We are so proud of him! We appreciate your prayers and thoughts for us as we walk the seemingly never-ending road of ‘what’s next?’ Thank you! (and of course, we will keep you updated :)

The Churches Go On a Very Long Holiday: Part 1

2011-01-21T15:59:00.003Z

Let me just start by saying that I am not a committed photographer. I would love to be one, but more often than not I just can’t convince myself that it’s worth it to haul another bag full of my camera with me wherever I am going. Thus, there is a weird array of pictures from our trip back to the States. I didn’t have a camera for the first 5 weeks while Ian was at Rutgers (Oh! But I don’t even think I have told you about that yet..), so I used various cameras available, which means I will probably never see some of the pictures I took. Then there was a little stint where I took some pictures using my own camera, but also lots of pictures were taken by other people, so I will probably never see those either (unless a certain brother-in-law comes through for me! :). THEN, Ian got an iPod Touch for Christmas, and so that became our camera for a while (handy, that thing!), but the pictures are really low quality.

So. That’s the only way I can explain myself.

Now, we were in the States for a long time. Two months, actually. And it was not without purpose! Ian had the opportunity to go to Rutgers University in lovely New Jersey to study with a great epistemologist for 5 weeks. We couldn’t believe how perfect the timing was for his thesis, as he was working on a chapter about the work of this particular guy, and the timing in the semester – right before the holidays during a semester when Ian did not have teaching commitments. So, we decided to go for it, and then just had to iron out a few details.

Like, for instance, what was I going to do for those 5 weeks? I was a little uncertain about going back to the States because that is a long time, and I do do things here that I wasn’t sure I wanted to just leave behind in the middle of the semester. But in the end I decided to just go for it and enjoy some time with some of my long lost family. We were very glad we had decided on this after we got a bit of news that changed the course of our futures forever (!), but also being on this side of it, I am forever grateful for that special time with my parents and my sister’s family because now that they (my sister’s family) have taken up residence in america del sur, we will be seeing them even less frequently.

So off we went. Ian being studious, me being helped by my family :). Then we decided to just go ahead and stay right through the holidays and make a big to-do out of it.

Before we left, Aed had a stint of injuring himself. After we got there, he kept at it! His best injury, in my humble opinion, was the goose egg on his forehead. He somehow managed to stand up just right underneath my parents’ dining room table and really knocked his head. Thus, this was his appearance for a while..

He also had a great time playing with his cute cuzzies! He was a good in between for them.. Ben is approaching 3 and enjoyed that Aed could run around the house with him. Bella is two months younger than Aed, so they were interested in and excited by very similar things. And they all loved sharing toys and attention whenever they could! Not so much.. :)

But, they are all adorable and for the most part really enjoyed playing together. I know I enjoyed watching them :)

One of the many firsts Aed experienced while Stateside was playing in the snow! We went out a few times and he seemed to gradually warm up to the idea, but the first experience he was not convinced it was such a good idea.

It started out pretty well, but didn’t take long to become this..

He was much happier being held because it was hard to walk in the boots, even harder in the snow! But we are looking forward to many a snowy winter to enjoy in the years to come :)

I managed to pull out a little culinary creativity while we were there as well. I didn’t do as much cooking as I do at home (and though I’m glad to be at it again, a break is always nice!), but I did some, including a birthday cake for my dear old dad.

The theme is: golf. I know, shocking.

And, as you know if you decided to risk stopping by this quiet blog during the month of November, Ian came to my parents’ at Thanksgiving and we got to see some family members we haven’t seen for several years! That is something to be thankful for :).

Up next, Christmas and California!

We're back!!

2011-01-14T20:46:00.003Z

To our little home sweet home in dear Scotland the brave.

We had a two month (TWO MONTH) hiatus from St Andrews that was filled with many interesting and fun things, not the least of which was celebrating Christmas 47 times and trying to fit a plethora of new toys into our suitcases to be enjoyed for years to come. :) Have I mentioned how much I love Christmas? Because I do. And not just because people shower my baby with toys and books and clothes to get us through another year (though despite all the new toys, he is very committed to tupperware right now).

We are working on unpacking and re-organizing to accommodate our holiday blessings that came in many colors, plush, and plastic (not to mention my apparent NEED (NEED I tell you!) to make my home a cozy little place where everything is where it is supposed to be.. but who knows where that is, exactly? (I am a little bit OCD sometimes.. but only in the privacy of my own home (also.. are you still following this?))). So there will be some purging and atticking and giving away in the next few weeks.. if you're in the area, I have lots of clothes and shoes with your name on them!

Once we get ourselves into working order, I have some fun updates to share about the goings on of our last two months, not to mention some pictures of our ginormous child. He also has a really huge mouth it turns out. I'll try to get a good picture of that for you. He also really likes to shove way too much food into his really huge mouth, but I'm going to spare you that one. Your welcome.

My large-mouthed child is currently snoozing the night away, and I am considering how nice it would be to join him. I also think I might give our blog a make over. I'm taking suggestions! And offers to do it for me! :)

Bye for now!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T19:39:00.004Z

I don't know if you can tell, but I am camera-less right now :) So.. updates will be perhaps less than exciting, my apologies.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. For the last three years we have celebrated the holiday amongst friends in a country that doesn't share it. They were special and sweet, and we have very precious memories from those Thanksgiving meals in Scotland. But.. I am so thankful that this year we got to be in the United States, with some family members, eating a traditional meal and enjoying that afternoon lethargy that follows the consumption of much good food.

We have so many things to be thankful for, and as always, are trying to live each day in testimony to that. I am often overwhelmed by the way the Lord is taking care of us, ways we never expected. Just the other day I was praying with Aed before bed and thanked the Lord that life is not as plush as it has been in the past, because it is absolutely amazing to watch what He does to make much from little. Somehow, things just keep working out. And for that, I am beyond thankful.

We have great expectations for the year ahead. A lot will change, that much we know. And I, for one, am thankful that it is Jesus that will be leading us along the way. One day at a time.

Now I know I haven't been posting very frequently, and I know I haven't posted enough pictures of my darling babe, and I do apologize. Life is life and I always let it win over the blog. :) And even though I don't have a camera at the moment, I do have some pictures from September/Octoberish that I would love to share..

Isn't he cute?!? Just kidding! This, though, is Aed's first personal pizza :) We like to make homemade pizza, and do it about once a week. So last time we made them, I made the Aedster his own little pizza with quinoa, spinach, chicken, pesto, and cheese.. He LOVED it!

I often try to do some dishes while Aed is eating lunch. One day I heard some strange noises coming from the highchair, but didn't bother to turn around to see what he was doing. When I finished what I was doing, I turned around to find this:

My little orange-juice soaked stinker, who figured out that if he shook his sippy cup really hard, it would spray him with juice :) And he was loving it.

Isn't he cute? :)

Curls. I was so surprised when I looked at this picture, because he has so much more hair now then he did when it was taken. I am thankful for a baby with curls! I hope they last! :)

This is just a beautiful view of the clouds from our window in St Andrews. I love those clouds.

And THIS is a special hairdo that Daddy did in the tub one night. Aed was a fan.. but he didn't let on :)

I have some cute pics of the three cousins in the tub, and the biggest goose egg known to mankind on my not-so-big Aedykin's head, but they are on other people's cameras, so you'll just have to wait :) Enjoy your weekend!

Something is better than nothing

2010-11-23T01:10:00.001Z

So I am the kind of person that likes to do things completely. When I clean up the dishes, I clean the kitchen too. Wipe down the counters, clean the stove, etc. When I put away the toys, they all go away to their little homes on the shelves. When I commit to something, I feel the need to see it through. Sometimes Ian and I refer to it as ‘go mode’. I get started and can’t do anything else until I finish.

I am finding that this is good and bad. It’s bad in that if I don’t think I’m going to be able to finish something, or to succeed at it, I just don’t do it. As one example, there have been times when I have given up altogether on attempting to read my Bible or have a ‘quiet time’ with the Lord because I knew that each day was too unpredictable and I wouldn’t be able to be consistent in it. Another example would be my lack of personal artwork. I know that chances are if I sit down to start something, I will be interrupted and most likely it won’t turn out the way I want it to, so I just don’t do it.

This started to frustrate me because I was doing this with things that were really important to me. Things that I felt an urgency to pursue.

One day I was doing something (probably making the bed.. that tends to be when things suddenly hit me :), and I realized that something is better than nothing. You know, maybe I won’t be able to carve out a time to read all that I want to read in the Bible each day, but it’s important for me to seize the moments I do have, even if it’s only 15 minutes, and use them well. Maybe one day I’ll only be able to get ready to paint and not even actually touch a brush to paper, but I’ll be that much more ready when an opportunity might arise the next day.

The pace of life and my opportunities to do things I used to do have changed. And they’ll keep changing. My making-the-bed-epiphanies are helping me adapt. Like realizing that oh-so-often, something is better than nothing.

This is what happens when..

2010-10-20T09:26:00.002+01:00

You roll over and walk away mid-diaper change.

Little stinker.

p.s. Sorry for the long break between posts! Everything's fine, we've just been really busy.. Hopefully I'll get back on track with updating!

The fruits of my (our) labor

2010-10-09T08:26:00.000+01:00

In this picture:

Apples from our apple tree that were combined with berries picked from our garden and various locations around town (all growing wildly, thus entirely free) to make a delicious crisp.

Chicken stock made in my very own crock-pot from a nasty ol’ carcass, used to make gravy for a warming, filling, comforting chicken pot pie.

And, the fruit of my labor that I am most proud of scrounging around on the floor.. :)

Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Two Lost Photographs

2010-10-08T22:29:00.002+01:00

These photographs were intended to go in another post. But, I forgot to include them. So I decided to give them their own post.

This is an apple pie I made a while ago when we had some friends over for dinner. Apples from the back yard - seriously, everyone should have their own apple tree.. It was delicious and as you can see, it was my first time doing a lattice top crust. Hopefully practice will lead to improvement :)

Pictured here is a still life including the evidence of a spaghetti sauce that I improved one night for dinner. It was also delicious.. I could tell by Ian's exclamation of joy after he put it in his mouth. I just liked the stuff on the counter.. that's all there is to it.

Tada! Two random pictures for your Friday night consumption.. you can thank me later :)

Sometimes you just need a walking stick..

2010-10-07T20:19:00.003+01:00

Ok, well, we’re pretty sure that was some dog’s fetching stick, but it easily became Aed’s walking stick!

He walked all over with that thing. We went out with the intention of going to the swings, but once the stick was in his hand, we didn’t make 10 yards from the house :)

By the way.. he’s wearing my absolute favorite pants in these pics. Sadly, they are no longer in rotation. This was their final debut. It might be hard to believe, but they had to be peeled off of him, so I decided it was time. Sigh.

Well, Mama decided that while we were out we should pick some berries. We have a little blackberry bush growing over our garden wall, and there are lots of bushes all along the path we live on. We started in the backyard and that’s where the love story begins..

I didn’t think he’d find his true love so soon, nor did I think he’d choose one so immodest. But she is just his size I suppose..

Thankfully, she doesn’t stray far, so we can go out and visit her as often as we like :)

Hopes and Dreams

2010-10-04T12:32:00.001+01:00

I wanted to have a baby not long after we got married. I might be so bold as to say that Ian did too, but I can’t really remember.

Of course, we didn’t, because I hadn’t finished my college degree yet.

Some people might say that we shouldn’t have gotten married at all if we weren’t ready to have children, but I would respond that we were doing what we felt the Lord was leading us to do. We knew we wanted a family, we just didn’t know when.

Throughout my life I have pursued a lot of areas of interest. I love learning, and I loved school. I would just keep going to school indefinitely if life didn’t ask other things of me. But I’m glad it does, because I value learning, but there’s more than one way to learn.

I took every science I could throughout high school. I ate it up. I thought I would pursue the sciences in college as well.

God had other plans, and right towards the end of it all I decided to study art instead. Initially headed in the direction of art education, after one semester I dropped the education and dove in head first to a realm that I was immature in and unacquainted with, but I knew I wanted it.

I fought to learn and succeed, and God was gracious and allowed art to consume my thinking. I was fully immersed, I was gaining respect, I was an artist through and through.

During my time at college, I used to say that when I was done doing whatever I did with my life, I was going to open a bakery. Then, when I was done with that, a flower shop. I thought it would be fun to write and illustrate children’s literature. I wanted to keep in touch with the child psychology and education that I had dabbled in. I began to find scientific illustration fascinating. And on it went.

When I graduated from college, we were trading roles. Ian was going to study, I was going to support. I had some graphic design clients and found things to do here and there after we moved until I found a job in graphic design.

I always struggled with the idea that if I left school and just stayed home to have babies, I would be wasting my education. I had a hard time reconciling this idea with knowing that I wanted to have a family. My dad always said that education was never a waste. But still, I wanted it to be worth it. I wanted to use it.

I was also afraid that I wouldn’t be able to pursue the things I wanted to.. like my bakery and flower shop somewhere in the distance, let alone art and everything else I was interested in.

It dawned on me some time ago, that having a baby has not taken me away from these things, but immersed me in them.. maybe just not in the tidy box I’d thought they’d come in.

I bake all the time. I am involved in several evening activities and often bake for them, and I love (usually!) making meals and desserts for my family as well. I love being in the kitchen.

I have a garden. Admittedly, I don’t have the slightest idea what I am doing out there, but I love look at it and pretend I had something to do with the lovely flowers that grow, the berry bushes that ripen, the apples that fall to the ground.

I am bringing up a boy. A boy who will likely love to explore nature and all the creepy crawlies in it.. biology at it’s finest. Not to mention the opportunity to educate and watch the development of a child firsthand.

Life comes in seasons. I think different aspects of a person’s nature also have different seasons. Right now, my season as an artist has taken a winter break, but many other areas are flourishing in the sunshine of summer. Winter is turning into spring, and I can feel the creative juices beginning to flow again. I have plans in my mind for new artwork and a little book for children. I am anticipating a certain child’s imagination blooming in the next few years, and working together to explore and create in the realm of fine art.

What I am ultimately saying is, staying at home with my child has not closed the doors I thought it would in my life. It has opened doors that I didn’t know I wanted open, and allowed me to pursue all kinds of things I never would have been able to chase after if I had been in a ‘usual’ job, or grad school, or so many other paths that wouldn’t have been just right.

As our family grows and life continues to change, I know some things will take a back seat, corners will be cut, seasons will change again. But, as I think about the way life has changed and journeyed along already, I know there will be goodness. I know that I walk with Jesus and my family, and that means there will be fulfillment. I pray that God will always open my eyes to the good things he is putting in my life, no matter how buried or disguised they may be.

Baby Legs

2010-09-30T10:52:00.002+01:00

The other day I put Aed down for his afternoon nap with no pants on.

Sometimes I do that as a surprise for when Daddy gets him up in the early evening.. I’m sneaky like that.

Well this particular day, he made it all the way downstairs with no pants on, so we got to feast our eyes on his scrumptious baby legs.

See what I mean?

Makes me want to plant kisses all over those delectable toddling stripes.

I’m thinking maybe we should move to a warmer country so these legs aren’t hidden all the time.. Then again.. maybe it’s better for everyone that they are :)

Now You See Him..

2010-09-27T14:02:00.002+01:00

Now you don’t!

When he’s not doing this..

(video coming soon..)

Aed loves to sit and read with anyone that’s able.

He will occasionally try to flip through on his own, but usually that leads to great amounts of frustration and lots of whining until someone either helps him turn the pages or cuddles him up for a good read. We go through all the books on his shelf most every day!

I am thankful that he loves to read, because it’s the only time he’ll sit still long enough for me to nuzzle his fuzzy head and breathe in his tasty goodness :)

40 Days to Reconsider

2010-09-26T15:30:00.000+01:00

I have decided to do something slightly drastic with my life.

I think blogs are a wonderful thing. I have loved keeping up ours, and I have loved discovering so many wonderful people and ideas through all the blogs out here in these crazy interwebs. Not to mention keeping up with many dear ones, near and far.

I was lying in bed wishing I was asleep last Thursday night, when I suddenly had the idea that I should do a blog fast. I’ve tried this before, but only for a very brief period of time, so there wasn’t much of an outcome. I thought this time around I’d be a little more drastic and do a 40 day blog fast.

I considered trying to make it coincide with the holidays or maybe doing it in the spring for Lent. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I need to do it right now. There’s just no point in putting it off.

It has been a long time in coming. Early on in Aed’s life I would often peruse the internet during those long feedings, and I found so many amazing blogs. Blogs of crafty people, blogs of moms, blogs of Christians that spoke so poignantly. I always felt encouraged and challenged to think about my life, my family structure, my parenting. It seemed a great gift, and I believe it is, but I need to step back for a while.

I have come to realize that I am spending more of my time reading about other people’s lives than I am living my own life. It is just too comfortable to put Aed down for a nap, come downstairs, cozy up on the couch, and catch up on everyone that has something to say that day. I could be using those nap times so much more effectively, but I am too weak-willed to say no to the easy route!

My hope is that by cutting out this time-suck cold turkey, I will have some time to reconsider what I am doing with my days as the clock ticks on.

I want to pursue my relationship with the Lord. My art. My husband, my child, my family, my friends. I want to be ready to meet needs and to be thoughtful about my life and the people around me. I want to learn and explore and engage. I want so many things that I simply do not think I will ever accomplish unless I take some time to examine my priorities.

I have always desired these things, and now I am making way for them to really happen.

Starting tomorrow, I will kiss the blogging world goodbye. I will still keep up with ours, but from September 27th to November 6th (hopefully I counted right!), ours will be the only one I see.

I am declaring this to all of you to give myself even more accountability than my husband provides :) Maybe there is something you’ve been considering giving up as well? There is no time like the present and there is strength in solidarity! Go for it!

I Am Entitled to My Anger.. Right?

2010-09-24T14:54:00.001+01:00

During those long, long, long first months of Aed’s life, there was a lot of struggle. He was struggling, we were struggling, and there didn’t seem to be a lot we could do about it.

Every day wasn’t bad, but so many were so difficult. I would reach my limit some days and ask Ian to come home to attempt to quiet our screaming babe while I ran away or did something else for a while.

My frustration would peak and I would lose all sense of sympathy for my child and just get angry. Why does he always cry? Why won’t he just sleep? Why, why, why? I often felt like a failure and as time passed and we found there were some reasons for his crying, I turned to struggling with guilt.

In a situation like that – one which repeats itself again and again – a natural response is to find coping mechanisms. I knew that I struggled with anger during some of those times, and so I would try to redirect myself. I found that if I was fuming and frustrated, so was the rest of my home. So I read about screaming babies online, causes, ways to deal with it. I found some very helpful things.. In fact one little blurb completely changed my outlook on the crying, but it didn’t stop the crying, so it was still a daily struggle. I began doing My Daily Thankful posts in hopes that focusing myself each day on all of the amazing things the Lord was doing in our home and lives would help me to deal more gracefully with the difficult things.

I am disappointed to say that I rarely went to Jesus during those times, except in anger. It seemed so unfair to us and to Aed. I would just ask over and over, why?

A lot of my sinning happens inwardly. I have rarely been one to lash out or break the rules. I am a people pleaser and I like for everyone to get along. But all the sins that so easily snuggle into the dark places within? Those are the sins that know me best. They fit just so, and I often welcome them in and harbor them without realizing it until it’s too late. I did this so often during that time of struggle. I would ‘cut myself some slack’ and let myself do things I never would have done previously, because my life was so hard, you see. (please read that with the sarcasm it was written with :)

One way that I learned to cope was to lash out in anger.. but only in my head. Occasionally I would have a good cry into a pillow or something, but for the most part I just went crazy in my head.

I am not now, nor have I ever been one to use curse words. I find them unnecessary and uncreative. Sure, some believe they have their place, but in my own life, they don’t. I have no clear recollection of when it started, but I remember it was slippery slope. I let myself swear in a place only I knew it was happening, and it felt good. I remember the progression of letting myself only consider it, then letting myself do it, then letting it getting out of control.

I got to the point where when I hit any frustration, cursing within was my immediate response. It escalated so that when I was really frustrated (typically a bad day of screaming) I would actually lash out straight in Jesus’ face and give all my curse words to him and his injustice. I think I may have even said a few out loud towards the end of this indulgence.

For some of you, this will seem like a silly thing to even consider. But, for me it is an issue of self-control versus indulging my sinful nature.

It came to me one morning while I was making our bed. I began to think about the way cursing affected my thinking. Every time I let myself push the limits a little further, I would feel that I was that much more entitled to my anger and that much more entitled to the indulgence. It felt so good, and was so easy to justify, and it was mine and mine alone. As soon as I would lash out inwardly, I felt the perceived trueness of my plight and became that much more angry.

I’m not one to focus much on what Satan thinks about things because I find those lines to all be a bit fuzzy, but if he was paying attention, I think he was reveling in those moments. Moments when a child turned on her parent and played an angry blame game. Moments that pulled me further away and isolated me from the Lord’s sustaining hand. I gradually lost hold of so many things that are important to me, which made it easy for me to feel as though I was shriveling away from any goodness Jesus brought to my soul.

I thought that satisfying my desire to be angry and to be justified in that anger would help me cope. Instead it pulled me away from the one thing that might have allowed me to cope in the graceful way I longed for – my relationship with Jesus.

Ever since that morning when I began to realize all of this, I have honestly felt a burden lifted. I am so grateful that the Holy Spirit found a way to catch my attention in that moment. In the past months, I have felt that I am becoming myself again. I am in a good place and I am thankful. Will I do better next time? I hope so. I hope that I will remember how dismal it is to struggle alone, and remember what peace can come when I instead struggle with Jesus by my side.

A Line of Little People

2010-09-22T14:41:00.002+01:00

We did it again.. We lined ‘em up!

I don’t think we will ever get tired of seeing them all together. :)

Look how much they have grown since our first tea!

Leave it to Beaver to refuse to sit down :)

Of The Swollen Sort

2010-09-21T11:38:00.002+01:00

Turns out I have a toddler. Turns out he’s a boy. Turns out I have learned to count my blessings if we make it a day without adding another scratch, bruise, or bloody injury to my baby’s body.

To this point, it has mostly been the occasional bruise from a face plant here and there. But somehow, in the last week or two the injuries have begun to escalate. I’m hoping we will level off at some point because even though he makes quick recoveries, it is oh-so-hard to watch him deal with the consequences of not quite being able to control his body.. but really thinking he can. Practice makes perfect, I suppose.

Aed has many characteristics that also belong to his father. One of these is what Ian calls Gorilla Logic. Let’s say there is a bottle (chasing bottles awaiting recycling around the kitchen is one of his favorite past times) that he has managed to knock under the table. Let’s say there is also a chair blocking his way under the table. If he attempts to climb over the under-structure of that chair, but gets himself stuck, BUT can still see the bottle he wants, he will just keep squirming and pushing and wriggling until we either rescue him, or he gets where he wants to be. Basically Gorilla Logic entails that if pushing isn’t working, you push harder. If there’s stuff in your way, you plow through it to get it out of the way, etc.

Turns out my baby’s brain didn’t come with an abort mechanism.

This has lead to all kinds of precarious situations, and he is learning gradually that he can actually back up, or reconsider and try something from a different direction. Needless to say, this has lead to many injuries (though I have to say, the injuries obtained from these situations often go unacknowledged by the child who has triumphed).

Last week, Aed sustained an injury of epic proportions (are you guys familiar with hyperbole?). We were hanging out in the bedroom upstairs and he lost his balance and fell, hitting his face on the edge of the bed on the way down. He started crying, Ian picked him up, and I went into his room to get a paci as that is the most effective way to calm him down. I gave him the paci and we thought all was well. I took it out to check his mouth and found his face underneath covered with blood.

He had busted his lip.

It swelled up, but didn’t seem to bother him much after the initial damage had been done. It was actually pretty entertaining to watch him suck at it and try to figure out why his lip was a funny shape.

(You can see a bruise by his eye from a run-in with the drying rack a few days prior..)

We moved on with our lives.. until yesterday.

Aed has a new love for carrying things around while he walks back and forth between the living room and the kitchen. Any old paper or toy will work.

He was doing just this and was making a stop at the coffee table to get into some mischief there, but misjudged how far it still was from him. He reached out to lean on it, but instead fell and hit his face right on the edge.

He bled a lot. I worried that he had knocked his teeth, but it turns out he just tore his frenulum on his upper lip (perhaps all these injuries will just open the door for me to become very educated about obscure body parts!). Sadly, his little lip still swelled, and it broke my heart just a little bit when I was cleaning him up and saw that his previous mouth injury was still not even entirely healed.

We teased him about his collagen lips and he took it like a champ :)

I suppose this is the life of one who is parent to an adventurous, gung-ho child..

I am Married to an Author

2010-09-17T09:24:00.002+01:00

Not just any author.. One who has actually been published!

Ian got an article accepted to the European Journal of Philosophy over the summer. It’s called Getting ‘Lucky’ with Gettier and was officially published on the 26th of August.

He took this Screenshot the day it was released online :)

I am so proud of Ian and all his hard work, and thought you might want to join me in congratulating him on his accomplishment!

While I would love to take all the credit for being his faithful supporter and encouragement, we know it is the Lord who gives and takes away. In this instance, he has given us great joy in Ian’s success and anticipation of the doors this kind of thing will open for Ian’s future in Philosophy.

As a further update, Ian’s thesis is going well and he made great progress in the last year (despite a certain fiery distraction! :). We are looking forward to an even more productive year with some exciting opportunities that lie ahead.

Ian is keeping up with his blog ReformedPhilosophy and has expanded it to include other authors in the Philosophical and Theological realms. Take a peek if you’re interested.. you might be surprised at how much you understand! :)

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo

2010-09-14T22:40:00.007+01:00

It was a dark and stormy night..

Just kidding! It was dark and a little chilly, but there wasn’t a drop of rain during our time out of doors.

Waaaaaaay back in May when my parents were here visiting, they offered to send us to see the Tattoo for our upcoming birthdays. It was something we had wanted to do, but had not yet crossed off the list. We took them up on their offer and bought our tickets for the very last night of the series, and the late show, no less, so we would get to see the fireworks.

This meant we had to get ourselves to the castle by 9:45pm and then get ourselves home again from a show that wouldn’t end until after midnight. These were logistics that we did not think of clearly while we were purchasing the tickets, but it all worked out in the end.

We ended up borrowing a car from some friends (goooooo, Buchanans!) because if we were using public transportation we’d leave the city around 3 and not get home until after 7am, which we really weren’t interested in.

So, since you probably don’t really care how we got to Edinburgh and back, let’s move on to the more interesting part where I tell you of the fun we had, shall we?

This was the first time we had left the Aedster for so many hours after bedtime! We were a little nervous since he had been having some issues, but we were committed. We put him to bed and snuck away, praying that the good Lord would make those little eyelids extra heavy.

We had a great time chatting on the way down, and were amazed at how easy it was to travel with just the two of us! (We had very recently returned from our trip to Europe, so the lugging of bags, strollers, and snacks was very fresh in our minds.)

The city was alive and plugging away, and we inched our way up to the castle through the mobs of people.

I was immediately struck by two things.

1. I am very unfamiliar with Edinburgh at night. I was continually disoriented by my surroundings even though I am very familiar with the area we were in.

And 2. There were huge bleachers set up in front of the castle!

A lot of my disorientation was actually caused by the way the streets were set up for the Tattoo and the Fringe Festival, which was on at the same time.

We were astounded at the number of people lined up to get in for the show. By our estimations, there must be something around 10,000 people that come to see the show each day that it’s on.

I have to admit, I was being a little boisterous with all the excitement. Out with my hubby to myself, going to see an awesome show, not getting home til 3am.. an exciting evening, am I right? I’m sure all the Brits around chalked me up as a tourist, but hey, whaddayagonnado? :)

We got up to the stands and I discovered this lovely view

And this less lovely view..

That’s where we sat! Section D!

To say we were tight as sardines is an understatement. I had to lean forward the whole night so that Ian and the woman next to me could sit up with their shoulders back. Ian had to stand up for me to put my seat down because half his body blocked it. I have never been in such a confined space with so many people! But the stands were packed out nonetheless..

(A little pre-show entertainement.. somebody being awarded for something.. I don’t know, I was busy being boisterous)

The happy, excited, thankful couple.. Our show didn’t start until 10:30pm.. I think you can see it in our eyes :)

But, start it did, and with great gusto!

The scene was set when the pipers walked in, surrounded by fire and mist. What began as a few quickly grew to a hoard of pipers crossing the pavement.

It was amazing to watch them, not to mention to listen to them!

The bands were from all over, though most were from the UK, as you might expect. There was a band from Poland – their first year performing in the Tattoo – and it was great fun to watch them wield their traditional instruments.

After a few bands had passed, we were delighted by a miniature motorcycle brigade! This is a group of children (the oldest is 16.. and he would probably be really annoyed that I lumped him in with the ‘children’ :) who are extremely skilled on their bikes, and they start riding at the age of 5! These were the little tykes, performing stunts that made me squint my eyes shut and lament the fact that my child has a Y chromosome that could potentially lead him down such paths.

And the older ones, riding backwards with fire shooting out of their bikes..

The final trick was the oldest guy jumping over a car off of a ramp held up by other guys! Other guys! Not like, bars or something, people were holding up his ramp! It was a little bit ridiculous.

But, no one was hurt, and I was able to relax for a little while.

This was the fast moving band. I can’t remember their official name, but they are known for moving quickly.. it was a little bit comical to watch them.. but I’m not sure it was actually appropriate to laugh at them.. but I might have (tourist, you know).

Then we had the lovely highland dancers..

I am telling you, if I had been able to dislodge myself from my seat, I would have gotten up and starting dancing with them! They were so bouncy!

Then there was the band from Jordan. These are the gun guys (they were a separate group from the band). They did formations with big guns. It was a little bit scary. I don’t really like guns. And I have a wild imagination.

Moving on.

These guys were fun!

And created more moments wherein I feared for the safety of their spinal cords. They did all kinds of athletic tricks.. seems a very entertaining way to stay in shape!

The band from New Zealand.. by far the most entertaining. They boogied and they didn’t care who was watching :)

The big finish was all (or at least most, but I think all) of the bands out on the pavement together.

It was a breathtaking sensation to see such order and precision and hear such a volume of instruments.

The show was rounded off with fire works

and the lone piper.

And we bid the bands a good night.

The Tattoo was such a fun experience. It has been so long since we (I) have been a part of something so big and so musical and it was wonderful. I highly recommend partaking if the opportunity arises, it will not disappoint!

Tis the Season

2010-09-12T22:14:00.002+01:00

For all things Autumnal!

I have always loved Fall and everything that comes with it.. everything except the promise of winter. But that is not what we are focusing on here. We are focusing on the many wonderful and positive things lest we sink into the Winter Darkness of Despair too early!

Wonderful things like peaches and berries..

And things like turning a bowl full of peaches and berries into a delicious crisp (or, as I have learned, a crumble for my British Beloveds).

Wonderful things like a baby that somehow can jovially endure that puckering sourness of a late summer blackberry..

Wonderful things like learning to use a spoon.. and smearing that sticky, sour juice in just the right places..

Perhaps discovering your heart-melting reflection in the backside of a spoon isn’t particularly Autumnal..

But it is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?