Hilton Head 2K14

So, this was our trip to Hilton Head this October.  After the wonderful trip I had with Grandma and Papa a couple years ago, taking the boys along, I told them I wanted to come back with Jeff sometime.  Last fall didn't work out, what with giving birth and what not, so this fall it was!  The boys had a GREAT time and they all 3 LOVED the ocean again.  With as much time as we spent in the river at Grandma and Papa's, in the creek behind our house growing up, at the neighborhood pool, or at the ocean on vacations growing up, it would be hard for one of my children to not inherit the water gene:)  

Thomas, Jacob...and James all RAN for the water as soon as we got to the beach.  I mean, James never looked back.  Seriously.  Older people stopped all week long to watch James run fearlessly into the water and get knocked over and under waves, and just not care at all.  The kid would have seriously drown without me or Jeff to hold his hand and hold him back from running as far and deep as his little legs would have allowed.  He would just squeal and grin and RUN.  The beach was actually SO easy compared to the pool with him.  Concrete is hard when you fall, but the sand isn't so bad, plus, as the pictures will prove, James felt like the sand even tasted great...you know, if you happened to land face first in it.  Our days at the beach were truly great.  I just brought lots of snacks for James to keep him from getting fussy too quickly, Grandma and Papa let the boys pick out some gnarly new sand toys, so there was that for entertainment if the water lost its luster.  Jacob and Jeff threw the football for hours and hours and hours in the water.  One day, Jacob found a friend out in the water, and then the 3 of them played football for hours and hours and hours:)  Thomas was in and out of the water...he definitely loved it, but as is his nature, he kind of meandered and would stick with one thing for a while and then mosey on over to where James was digging or splashing and play with him for a while.  Thomas reallllly liked building sandcastles.  

The other great thing about Hilton Head is the bike riding!  While it was busier this week than the one we went for in November a couple years back, it still wasn't bad, and so biking wasn't a super scary endeavor with all the boys.  We brought Thomas' bike, but he didn't end up riding it as much as I thought he would.  His little legs got tired of trying to keep up, so thankfully the Joslins had let us borrow their bike trailer for Thomas and James.  The two of them loved that thing!  It allowed me, Jeff and Jacob to go on longer bike rides and not worry about Thomas not being able to make it the whole way.  Jeff and I got to go on a bike date we'll call it, one afternoon.  We rode a realllllly long ways and stopped at a harbor place and explored some shops and stuff like that.  We also got to go out to eat one night by ourselves which was fun and delicious!  It was really so awesome to be there with Grandma and Papa...they got time to enjoy the boys and watch them get to do new things...and Jeff and I got a chance to get out by ourselves a few times too!  That wouldn't have happened if we had been somewhere by ourselves:)  Papa went on some bike rides with Jeff and the boys and they took the older boys to play pirate putt putt one day while Grandma and I stayed home and let James nap.  Grandma came with me to the beach one afternoon with the boys while Jeff and Papa did...something...probably napped!  There was always someone who could run/ride their bike over to the store, which is also a not often thought of convenience!!

We only had one accident while we were there, which was Jeff was helping Thomas with a shower in the bathroom grandma and papa and Jeff and I had been using, and he ran over to the other bathroom where I was helping the other two boys, to grab the baby wash.  While Jeff stepped out, Thomas picked up my razor, which I left sitting out since the kids weren't taking showers in this bathroom the rest of the week, and wanted to see if he pushed it on his thumb, would it leave little line marks?  Well, it didn't, because he evidently pushed it on his thumb and pulled down with the razor, taking off a nice hunk of skin.  It was a bloody mess (said with a British accent)!  But, after much wrapping, it was fine and healed really quickly actually!

 Ah yes, the pool was lovely, and lots of kid things to play with...just not ideal for James who insisted on running everywhere...straight into the pool even!

 Lazy Rivering

 We saw an alligator while riding bikes one day, and it was in the same little pond where we saw one two years ago!

 Dinner sin ninos

Jeff looking majestic on our bike ride

 Thomas built this epic sandcastle wall thing the last day of our trip, and this was a shot of him singing (while dancing) "CASTLE, CASTLE, CASTLE!!" (repeat)

 The boys did get to eat ice cream at the ice creamery FOUR times on this vacation!  Grandma and Papa took them once by themselves...but then we somehow always ended up back over there:)  Thomas even chose a tie dyed shirt from the ice cream shop as his souvenir!

Joy to the World?

photo credit: AP

How can it be? How can this season of Christmas, this season that most will see as a busy, fun-filled month long party, complete with gifts and new dresses and dinner and drinks; but this season that is most sacred to us as believers, how can this season continue to echo with death, and evil, and loss, and agony? Why would God allow these school killings, these bombings, these asinine US political wimps to reign supreme in our minds and on our tvs and in our newspapers? Why not another time of year? Why not let this season of celebration of Jesus' birth from eternity be it for us? Wouldn't it be easier for our hearts to be GLAD and set on our Savior who came to earth, Emmanuel, God with us, thousands of years ago in a little stable ? Wouldn't that help...and maybe help not just us as Christians, but maybe it would paint a pretty enough picture to even woo unbelievers?

photo credit: 

UGGH. I guess not. See, when I was reading a British news article about the recent school attack in Peshawar, Pakistan, and saw the faces of the Taliban men sitting, weapons in hand, prepared for their mission to slaughter babies, children...I just lost it. There is nothing beautiful about them. There is nothing heroic about them, and yet there are people out there who somehow think they are both of those things. They fund these things, they encourage these things. It is not just these smaller groups of suicide bombers and militants that are deceived, it is so much bigger than that. So much greater than that, so much so that I don't even know...couldn't even guess. But when I cry and mourn for these little people who were created in the image of God, and for their parents who will forever have these memories and an empty seat at their tables, my heart is reminded that we were not far off from this own evil ourselves.  

We were once enemies of God, children of wrath. Not apathetic towards God like I like to describe my pre-conversion self. But enemies. Full of wrath. Our hearts were deceitful and wicked above ALL things. Even our wisdom was foolishness to God. As an enemy of God, is there anything we couldn't have done? I mean really? Is there any sin too heinous? Good moralist that many of us are, it's nice and comforting to think, “of course there are sins that are too terrible, that even I, as an unrepentant, blinded-to-my-own-sin-self would never have dared to commit. Surely there was enough goodness in me somewhere to hold back from brutally killing children, from rape, from beheading someone. SURELY.” But guys, I cry now because there was not “enough” goodness in me. There was no goodness in me...I didn't inherit any from my parents from long ago, Adam and Eve. I had no chance. I was without hope. I followed the “prince of the power of the air”...that's Satan. There was enough evil in my heart to do any of those things and even more. I could have been any of those murderers. That could have been me.

But now, (thank you Jesus that it didn't end there!) we have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2: 13) By the great love of God and His always abounding, never ending grace, I am not an enemy of God. For the purpose of God's own glory, He called me out of a life of darkness that I didn't even know I was living in, and gave me eyes to see and ears to hear and He called me his daughter. He changed my wicked, deceitful heart into a heart like Jesus'. Praise be to God that I am not deceived anymore!

So, how can this season of great joy continue to echo with death and evil? Because we are not just celebrating Jesus' entrance into this world to regenerate our ugly hearts, but we are anticipating Him returning (come, Lord Jesus SOON!) to finish and to conquer and to make right all of this that is so wrong right now. If I hadn't been so engulfed in all of this heart wrenching news lately, I don't know that I would be before the throne of God so often this month. I don't know that I would be petitioning God for my own family so much. I don't know that I would be crying out for the other part of Advent...the future part, the part not yet fully realized. I don't know that I would be reminded so often of what Jesus' birth meant for me, that I am no longer an enemy, but a fellow heir with Christ because I am now part of a single,eternal Family.

So please, Jesus, please. Return. But while we're waiting, please keep our hearts and our minds filled with your Spirit and your truth, and let every hard thing be a means to mobilize us as Your hands and feet here on earth to work for Your Kingdom, and to pray for the poor and broken and utterly crushed. And please, open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears, not just here, and not just “over there”, but all over Your creation. Amen.

*Most of my paraphrase here came from Romans 5 or Ephesians 2

Tommy's CC adventures

Happy One Year...To ALL of us!

                   We did it!  We made it to a YEAR!!  Jim is 365 days old today!

I have wanted to write pieces of this VERY long post for the past year, but kept holding off for different reasons.  At one point I had written this whole blog about how poorly I felt things were going.  And then I deleted it because I thought it sounded too ugly and I didn't want James to look back in many years and think that I hated him or something, because I don't and I never have!  Even with as challenging as this has been, I have loved him through it all, that has absolutely not waivered.  Now, I can't say that I haven't wanted to give him away for a day or two and get him back as a fresh, new, happy baby, but that's another story.  Another time I wrote part of another post reflecting back on some hard weeks we had, but that we were on the other side of it and how good it was to be there.  And then I deleted that one too because I was convicted that when the Lord has brought me faithfully out of a trial...that was so fresh, it would be unwise of me to go back and dwell on the hard things again.  I know me, and know that rehashing details which were still so fresh could have very easily brought me back to where I was just before. 

At the end of this first year though, I want to have some things written down, because I want to remember parts of why it was hard so that I can come back and re-read this to grow in compassion and understanding for other moms.  My flesh is easily tempted to hop on my high horse and FORGET the things that the Lord has shown me and brought me through.  I also want to have this written down so that next year, when James is turning 2, I can look back and be amazed (because we will be...no matter what!)at the way that the Lord has worked in our lives and in his life.

I can't explain very well how challenging this year has been, trying to figure out what to do and how to comfort and console a very fussy little baby.  It was a mentally and physically exhausting 9-10 months.  Always trying to figure out if he was tired, or maybe past tired, or maybe hungry, or maybe sick, or maybe teething, or maybe something was physically wrong, or maybe he ate some food that he couldn't tolerate, or maybe I ate some food that he didn't tolerate...it makes for a brain that can never shut off and NEVER rest.  And it makes for a mother who is just convinced that she is doing something terribly wrong.  So, it just makes for a hard time.  Praise Jesus for Jacob and Thomas who are GOOD boys and fairly easy to please and play so nicely together!  I don't know what I would have done if they had been high need kids too! 

We were humbled by James.  Jacob and Thomas were relatively easy compared to James and so I anticipated my work load getting a good deal heavier with a third baby, but didn't really anticipate most of the challenges that actually did come our way.  I didn't expect to change my schedule much once James entered the picture, because, after all, once Thomas was added to the family, I was back at Bible study the week after his birth and having play dates another week later...we never really stopped from there on out.  Well my schedule has changed drastically with James.  Nothing is a definite, everything is subject to change...and when in doubt, it's safe to err on the side of...I can't do it (it being any commitment)!  :)  I used to be the one who didn't understand why some moms were so wishy washy about making plans or about following through on plans.  Yeaaaaa, not anymore.  Now, I am hoping that others will extend the grace which I would never extend to them, to me! Yikes, that has been a tough pill to swallow. 

I have been pushed outside of my comfort zone, and forced to learn (quickly) about some alternative medicine and more natural methods for caring for a baby.  We have now tried a myriad of things that we never would have dreamed to try with the other boys: chiropractic care, probiotic rich foods like keifer and sauerkraut, amber teething necklaces, no more vaccines, no grains, grass fed-anything I can find, fresh eggs, bone broths...the list goes on.  There was quite a learning curve, even getting to this point, and what with not having much spare time to speak of anyway, reading and researching wasn't to top my list of things to do when I did have a spare moment:) But I did occasionally, and at the end of this year I can say that I'm actually really glad I gave this stuff a try!   I have learned a TON about the foods that we eat, and I even think that I may have found two main food groups that cause the boys issues!  Score!  But even this good gave with some bad.  I have allowed myself to feel like I have a HUGE amount of control over EVERYTHING.  Particularly our health.  It has been a very recent revelation that my desire to learn more and try to help James turned into a sort of all consuming control freak type journey for me, and that meant one main thing: I had attempted to exclude Jesus, my ONLY help.

Truly though, since Jimmy came into our lives, I have never needed help so much.  Jenny has come to my rescue during the day more times than I can count this past year.  She would try to force me to lay down while she watched all the kids.  She would send me home with or bring me food for the first...many months.  She would e-mail to make sure things were going OK.  She went back through her own extensive baby books to compare notes and give me hints when James seemed to have some new ailment.  She kept telling me it would get better soon...which eventually I started to joke with her about (we don't typically joke)...that it was always, "just wait til he's ____ months, it will be so great!"  And then we'd get there, and it would turn into, "just wait til he's ____ months, it will be so great!". I remember when James was only a month or so old, when my neighbor Heather called and said she was going to come and get all THREE boys after I nursed the baby and take them to her house until the baby needed to eat again...and I should take a shower and go to sleep.  And I did, and I cried because I couldn't believe God had put people around me who knew what to do and how to help.

Jeffrey has done more nights with the baby then I could have ever hoped for!  There were nights when he would get up with the baby AND with Thomas if he woke up.  He has encouraged me to stop trying to make fancy dinners because they don't need it...and I can relax more!  He has told me they would eat tacos and breakfast and hamburgers on rotation!  (Now I obviously haven't gone 100% for that, but I have greatlyyyy appreciated the sentiment!)  He has prayed for our family and for me and reminded me of God's never failing, never changing, always and forever faithfulness to us, His children, even in the midst of trials.  And he has done all of this while his own mom has been dealing with surgeries and chemo treatments for breast cancer.  And it has all been humbling.  

So, as we close the first year and begin the second, I want to remember that it was hard, if only so I will have greater compassion for other moms who are just hanging on with a difficult baby, but I also want to remember that there were moments of joy...towards the end of that first year, there were even MANY moments of joy.  

There were times that I would pause in mid bite at the dinner table, and look up to see one...two...three...four (we're counting Jeff) boys all happy and healthy, enjoying some meal that by the grace of God, I had managed to cook, and those times were and are beautiful snapshots for me to remember.  

There were times when James would get so excited to see Thomas that he would inhale so much air that it sounded like he was going to pass out, and then he would try to jump right out of my arms to get to him, only to tackle him, pull his hair, slobber on his face...and have laid back Tom not flinch, not fuss, just hang out like he's had babies crawling all over him all his life.   What big love a little baby can have for his brothers...and visa versa. 

There were times when Jacob would throw himself down on the ground at the moment that it looked like James was going to take a step, and start coaxing him on, waiting to have James make it all the way into his arms, at which point he would celebrate and ooo and aaaah over his littlest brother. Or when Jacob sees pictures that have been printed out of James and he starts his squeaky baby talk voice...right to the picture!...all because he says he can't help it, that James is just so cute!  

This past month has been better...it has been good...he now has 3.5 teeth, he took his first steps the week he turned 11 months, so at this point, he is moving quickly and clumsily all over the place! He can already go up AND down the stairs...the safe way, he turns around backwards and slides down!   The other morning by the time we left the house at 9, James had already been pulled out of the toilet (his hands, I mean!), removed from the kitchen trash can he had pulled down and was going through, and had busted a piece of our fan when he knocked it over.  He is infinitely more curious than the other two boys were.  He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth! Oh, and he only has eyes for me and Jeff...like for real! He is pretty obsessed with us!  

But yea, he is a sweet little guy...and when he laughs and smiles, it is BIG and you know he means it! I carried him to bed tonight, and thought back and could soooo clearly remember what I was doing right then one year ago...part of me can't believe he has been here a year and another part thinks it's been like 12 years:) He was laying in my arms, sucking his index finger and being very still (unlike him), just looking at me.  He is big now and he was calm at this very moment and I was filled with thankfulness, and after this year, I love being filled with moments of thankfulness!  So, on September 26, 2014 I remember that this was not an easy year, but I remember that if we do not grow weary in doing good we will reap if we do not give up (Gal. 6:9)!  I am praying for reaping this next year and I am praying for more thankfulness in the hard days and in the easy and joy-filled ones ahead!