We Escaped and We're Back

We just got back from Florida where we truly had a (much needed) winter escape. For the first day, I laid in the bright sun and soaked in God's warmth. It was exactly what I needed.

Its nearly impossible to get a good family picture, where Asher is looking at the camera, but here is an attempt.

The beaches we were at had a crazy number of shark's teeth. We now have a little collection with every size and sharpness. Walter really liked looking for them and could have done that for days on end.
I was happy because I read a whole book and it was such a good one. I read lots of sections of it outloud to Walter and underlined most of the rest of it. We don't have any pictures of me reading, but at least the book (in orange) is in this picture!
Last year when we went to the beach, Asher picked every grain of sand off of his legs. This year, he at least would walk in it although he often wanted to be carried. He did like playing in the sand, with the shells, when daddy held him in the waves, and when we swam in a calm area with no waves. One of his favorite things though was getting to have peanut butter and jelly for lunch every day!

Ahh...the simple things in life; sharks teeth, a good book, and peanut butter and jelly. May we continue to celebrate life even through blessings and cursings.

Big Boy Crib

This little boy obviously thinks he rules the bed and naptime. Since we took the rail off of Asher's crib this past weekend, we have been working on helping him to realize he does NOT rule at naptime. This afternoon I decided to keep a log of what exactly happened as I attempted to get Asher to take a nap!
Here he is with everything in place for sleeping Pacifier? check! Blanket? check! Roo Roo? check!

1:07 - Laid down for a nap
1:09 Sitting up in his bed ready to jump out.
1:10 Heard me coming and jumped back in bed
1:12 Physically laid Asher back in bed and removed the Winnie the Pooh blanket he doesn't like so he would lay his head down. (His socks are off now)
1:13 & 1:14 - Laid him back down
1:18 Standing up in crib, reminded him that he could have a heart cookie after he took a nap.
1:29 Asher asked for a diaper change, but with a quick smell check it doesn't appear he needs one. He's now talking about a heart cookie
1:34 Standing up asking for a heart cookie
1:36 Sitting up asking for fan on
1:40"Done sleeping, heart cookie"
1:44 The CD he has listened to every night before bed since being home from the hospital almost 2 years ago has ended, crying starts
1:47 - 1:49 Crying for music to be on
1:50 Laying with head half way off the bed
2:02 Almost ONE HOUR! Feet banging on crib Talking to Roo Roo
2:18 Quietly sitting in corner of bed
2:21 SLEEPING AT LAST!!! (One hour and 14 minutes - not bad compared with earlier this week!)

My True Passion...

...is writing. Yes, I am also passionate about glorifying God and loving my family but I also believe I've been created with a passion to write.

While growing up, my favorite toy was an old black typewriter in a case. I inherited this treasure from a relative who had upgraded to an electric one. Many afternoons and Saturdays, I would pull out that magic box, set up my typewriter and be happy to create stories for hours on end. I set up an office in my closet and still have fond memories of my time spent in there. The typewriter, my paper, and white correction strips were lined up on a shelf and I could sit and type away in privacy.

Before moving into the house with my very own private office, I would write stories wherever I could hide with a notebook and pencil. I often pretended to be Harriet the Spy and filled notebook upon notebook with important information about my neighbors and any passerby who happened to be walking their dog down Doud Drive.

With the gift of my treasured typewriter, my stories got longer since I could type almost as fast as I could think. The family pets were my favorite characters to write about. There was the great story about how Sneaky the hamster saved the day when a burglar tried to rob our family and I continued to make up stories about our new neighbors. For awhile, I convinced my sister and friend Amber to make a daily newspaper filled with articles I wrote along with their contributions of the weather and comics.

Today, I have upgraded from a black typewriter in a box to a keyboard and flat screen computer. The subjects of my writings have evolved, but I have not lost my love for writing. By day, I write about the financial services world and the changing marketplace, and at home I get to write letters to my little boy and tales of motherhood. I would love to someday merge my daytime writings and my homelife into one.

Which leads to the reason for this post.

SheSpeaks is a Christian speaking, writing, and leadership conference that I just discovered on one of my friend's blogs (thanks Megan!). Its held in June and provides an opportunity to learn how to take these types of passions to the next level. It sounds like it would be a great time to grow as a writer and I would love to attend! This could be my chance. Lysa TerKeurst is offering a fantastic chance to earn a scholarship to this conference through her blog.

It would be great to attend and learn more about the writing and publishing world, so if I win that would be amazing, but regardless, I will continue to write and pray for the opportunity to take my passion to the next level!

Maybe we need a pet?

When my brother lived in Kenya, he liked the challenge of bringing back large wooden animals to the States to sell on Ebay or give as gifts. When he came to the U.S. after leaving Kenya for the last time, I convinced him to bring us a pair of mommy and baby giraffes for Asher's safari-themed nursery. He took the challenge and created a makeshift box which he "carried on" through Kenya, Ethiopia, Europe, New York, and Chicago! What a brother!


So we have been really happy with the giraffes and they actually are in our living room where we can see them more often than we would if they were in Asher's room. But lately, the baby giraffe has become one of Asher's favorite friends. We don't know when or how this relationship began, but many times after we eat, Asher asks for "help" in opening the cabinet to get out the syrup. Then he immediately goes to get his friend and shares the syrup with baby giraffe. Their relationship is not just limited to syrup feeding although that is definitely an important piece of it. Tonight, after baby giraffe's syrup meal, Asher gave giraffe lots of kisses and then showed off his craft project that he did at "school" today.
If Asher were like ten years older, I might think it was time to start thinking about getting him a real live pet!

Ode to Nancy

During my four years in college I had five roommates that I officially shared a room with along with a dozen others that I shared an apartment and house with (yeah Phoenix House!). It seems like I have an unusually high number of friends I call roommate - basically everyone from my college days is classified as "an old roommate," but my first semester sophomore year roommate was definitely a blast!

Nancy Houck, who is no longer Nancy "Houck," and I lived on the same floor our freshman year at Wheaton. Neither of us clicked especially well with our actual roommate and we lived across the hall from each other on Fischer 5 West so we spent a lot of time hanging out together. Late night pizzas with another friend, Sydney, and lots of meals in SAGA grew our friendship to the point that we decided to room together our sophomore year.

I've never had a friend quite like Nancy who is so, well...quirky! She was a talker and everything of her hometown and growing up years was a story. I still remember her talking about her mom growing earth recycling worms in her classroom, experiences with Girls State, times at Mosquito Lake, and I feel like I'm just getting started with my Nancy-isms. In fact I made a list of "Fun Facts about Nancy" that I hung on our wall sophomore year that grew longer every day.

So like the first night we were back in Wheaton our sophomore year, Nancy breaks the news to me that she is planning to transfer at the end of the semester to Cedarville!! What!!?? I was devastated. She had lots of reasons, a good one being she changed her major to nursing which Wheaton didn't really have a nursing program, but I was losing a great friend. We had a lot of fun that fall semester. When I am looking through the mail, I often remember the semester long mail contest that we had. We developed a point system so that packages were worth more points, mail from overseas was worth extra, and if a letter was from a MALE (non-relative) that was like 50 points! By the way, Bambootique owner Beth from down the hall (who I've mentioned several times on this blog) actually won the contest because she happens to stay in touch with every friend she has ever made in all of her travels and places that she has lived.

Anyway, this ode to Nancy is being made because although I have long ago lost touch with my dear friend, after all of these years, I have continued to use the Cedarville ice scrapper she sent to me (in hopes that it would give me points in any future mail contests since it was a package). But a few weeks ago, my dear husband hit a tough piece of ice on our windshield and the scrapper gave up its life. I feel like my last connection to Nancy is gone. Maybe somehow she'll read this blog and get in touch with me again, but if not Goodbye Nancy! I'll always remember Calve man, the Chief Chair, and watching Carnie late at night.

Fatal Flaw

Many of the characters in my favorite stories have a "fatal flaw." Curious George always gets into trouble because he is curious, Edmund sets a whole turn of bad events in place because he gives in to his temptation for Turkish Delight, Shakespeare's plays are full of people who just can't get this one thing right. Even when you look at the Bible, the pages describe men and women who are imperfect especially in a particular area.

I've been thinking about what my fatal flaw is. It's kind of hard to narrow it down actually! Would it be worry that persistently haunts me? Or maybe fear of rejection that prevents me from taking risks in relationships? Whatever one I think of, I am challenged to remember that God is way bigger than that flaw! He wants to help me overcome it to become more like Him.

In order to move past this part of my character though, it will take being ready to let go of that pet sin that can be oh so comforting.

Hmmm...something to think about.

Cleaning Day!

I realize I may get some wise advice to keep my son away from the dangerous chemicals in cleaning supplies after I post these pictures, but some of you moms may understand why I allow him near these bottles after hearing about Asher's infatuation with cleaning.

Cleaning day is probably Asher's favorite day. I won't reveal how often I actually have a cleaning day, but when it does happen, nothing could make my little boy happier. He wakes up in the morning and can peer into the bathroom from his crib. If he sees the bucket of cleaning supplies on the floor, he gets a huge grin and exclaims "clean!"

I don't know if he likes it because he gets to carry bottles and a rag around making little "squirt squirt" noises, or if he enjoys lugging the big bucket full of supplies around, or if he really thinks our house needs to be cleaned, but whatever it is he loves it.
Periodically throughout the week, Asher will ask me to clean and I really disappoint him when I say that I am not going to clean that today. When we are out and about and he sees a bottle of cleaning product, he again breaks into a big smile and exclaims "clean!" If I happen to be buying cleaning supplies at the store, that is almost equally exciting as actually cleaning. As we turn down the aisle at the store with shelves of cleaning products he again shouts, "clean clean!" The checkout lady at Target thought I was crazy because I was letting Asher hold onto the bottle of toilet bowl cleaner and he caused a small scene when I put it on the belt to pay for it.


What could be better - other than possibly vacuuming?

Please excuse his hair in the pictures, he could hardly wait to get started cleaning that we didn't get a chance to get his hair tamed down.