All things family-related. My husband and me, the children we made, the grandbebes that thrill us now. Our whole great big, loud, messy family. Love! *sigh…
A sweet, really sweet wedding, so joyous, so full of love.
A wedding I will always recall with great joy. I shared a little about it last week, but my favorite part was when the bride and groom served communion to all their guests. I had never seen that done before or since. The song was, “I Pour My Love on You.” It was amazing.
Like oil upon your feet ~ Like wine for you to drink
Like water from my heart ~ I pour my love on you
If praise is like perfume ~ I’ll lavish mine on you
Till every drop is gone ~ I’ll pour my love on you
I think the fact that you not only speak on dating at youth conferences, but also still {actually date} is a really good thing.
And now your love is displayed in and through your sons.
And oh, how I love those boys, a double scoop of wonder and delight, with kisses sprinkled freely! You’re not only good friends and lovers, but amazing parents, too.
Hunter’s first day of 3rd grade
It’s beautiful~your love and marriage. Many more happy years to come! Love you, my sweets!
Love grows more tremendously full, swift, poignant, as the years multiply. ~Zane Grey
…and you not only haven’t aged in the 12+ years we’ve known you, you may actually be getting younger. :)
But throughout the course of these years and the love that abides and the joy we have that you swept Stephanie off her feet so many years ago (and keep wooing her even now) and how that love has grown rather than diminished even in these days of love so easily let-go and then to see you father so beautifully and carefully the three, well, these things show us that while you look as young as an early summer day, you are indeed growing in wisdom and becoming a man of influence to be admired and emulated.
Weren’t we the lucky ones that God sent you our way? What a blessing you have been, time and again. What a whole new slant you brought with you that has challenged us and grown us and taught us all some new things along the way. How perfect that you were born in Indiana and Stephanie was born there, too, not far away and so you had some common roots, some like values and God was snickering in heaven that no matter which direction you went, and which direction she would go, you’d run right into each other and be a young man destined to be one of us, and us, part of you!!! So fortuitous, so divine.
We thank God for this.
I was pondering the preposterous story of Noah the other day, how one quiet guy (I assume he was quiet, for he quickly got to work on the project God had given him rather than spending time in organizational meetings or trying to gather a crowd to help) caught God’s eye.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6).
And could anyone look at the life you are leading, see the adoration in the eyes of your children for their beloved daddy and the passion with which Stephanie loves you and has become even more dazzlingly beautiful because of and by your love for her, and not know you have found favor? Could anyone doubt that favor when Stephanie’s brothers and sisters look to you for guidance on all things technical, or musically related or raising children, or graphics and web design and on and on (and we won’t even delve in to what the in-law-parents need from you!), and you are seen as a trustworthy and fair and true and honest and faithful man?
Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
So, yes. I see the favor of God on you, His smile on your life. Mine, too. Which doesn’t mean nearly so much, but to have your mother-in-law feel as much love and gratitude as I do, well, not everyone in the world can say they have that! :)
He was a righteous man.
Here are 5 things I like about you
You like interesting food and are not afraid to try new things. And you are teaching your children to like new things – that is an incredible feat in this day and age!
You don’t mind being the occasional male model for Stephanie’s website and even though you aren’t one of those guys who seems to think a lot about his hair products or the latest trends, you do pull off looking like the guys they hire and pay lots of $$ to during fashion week in New York. You might wanna look in to that. Side job.
You are teaching my grandchildren to play music. They always surprise me when they display their talents. Then I’m like, “Oh, yea – they are Stephanie and Tristan’s kids.” Of course!
That you keep developing your craft. I love that you wanted a drum lesson from another amazing drummer when we know you are the most amazing drummer we already know.
You have asked me for landscaping and gardening advice. Aaaaaaawwww….thank-you. I can never imagine that I have much to offer, but thank-you for asking.
He was blameless among the people of his time.
So, I wanted to say I bless you, on the occasion of your 33rd birthday (a few days ago, now). I bless you with continued favor and the smile of God on your life. I pray for increased wisdom and insight into your life as a father and husband. I pray your insight into parenting grows as quickly as the kids are growing. I pray for your business to be increased and for you to be presented with wide, open spaces of time to pursue music and creativity and for unbelievable opportunities (things you didn’t even know possible) to present themselves to you in short order! I am asking God to answer your prayers and send you help when you call and to establish the work of your hands and for all you have sown to become abundance, fruitfulness and plenty right away! I pray this year will be like no other and a surprise and a blessing and a reward for all your steady steps and hard work through the years. Because He does reward those who diligently seek Him!
He walked faithfully with God.
It seems a little crazy and maybe flood-related to be talking about Noah while all of Colorado is battling flash-flooding and an over-abundance of rain, but I had been pondering this and making notes about it last week – while it was still sizzling hot and wearisome. But that is how it is – one foot in front of the other, preparedness, faithful in the little things, day in and day out: these are the things that make you the very cool, trustworthy man you are. Noah built when others weren’t. He built when it seemed futile. He built before it seemed needed…would it ever be needed?
Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
You’re the blessed kind of person that people will always look to when the flood waters rise because they’ll know you have God’s favor and they’ll know you were looking ahead and making ready. I admire you for it.
I thank God for you. I celebrate your life and all the good things to come. You have my love and deep respect. {mom}
We just don’t get much rain in Colorado. So when we do, we celebrate. But I am not sure if I have ever seen this much in just such a short few days.
There is flooding all over the city. Everything is soaked beyond soaked. And it just keeps coming. Businesses and school are closing all over the Front Range. Three of my kids and their families live in Frederick where they’ve lost power and sadly, Rocky and Jovan’s home flooded quickly and they had to leave in the night by “rescue” (brother-in-law with a big truck). His guitars and all his equipment – gone.
I used to tell my kids about “rain days” off of school when I lived in Louisiana and that sounded mythical to them. I’d tell them it was so bad, people would die in their own yards and they couldn’t comprehend it.
Now they can see, I think. It’s like we know, we understand the power of “natural” things like lightening-ignited, raging forest fires or rains so hard dams break and whole cities are destroyed, but we are almost usually just a little ways away, just safe enough…
“Burn scars in the foothills will be particularly susceptible to flash flooding.”
This morning, there is more. More rain. I am safe, dry, good. Water-logged in the garden, yes, but very grateful, so grateful. Heavy-hearted for my kiddos, but soon, we’ll roll up our sleeves…
There will be much loss of material possessions for so many people, when all is said and done. Our true treasure is laid up in heaven, where moth and rust cannot destroy, but still…help us, Father.
Remnants of grandbebes…some one didn’t put the sidewalk chalk away. :)
*Sunday School song I sang thousands of times growing up. Did you, too?
This actually has nothing to do with Labor Day, except that these were my labor-days. I was just trying to remember, and…
Tara
My first official labor contraction with Tara was 5:55 am. I got to the hospital at 6:45 pm (after a day of hanging out with my mom), was wheeled upstairs and Tara was born at 7:16 pm. So 13 hours and 21 minutes total labor, but only 31 minutes of it at the hospital.
Stephanie
With Stephanie, I think I was sort of in labor while I was sleeping, but since I was sleeping and she wasn’t due for another 5 1/2 or 6 weeks, I wasn’t even noticing. There were other circumstances, but suffice it say the doctor told us to come to the hospital because I wasn’t really in active labor, but maybe I was…and I think we got there around 11 am. She was born at 2:10 in the afternoon. So, I guess I was in labor for at least 10 hours (but not really) and only about 3 hours and 10 minutes at the hospital.
Tredessa
Tredessa was so late. They decided to induce. I arrived at the hospital around 4 pm to get ready for it, but I had gone into very mild labor around noon, while eating nachos at the Target snack bar. So, while they decided what to do, Dave and I played Scrabble waiting for the doctor to arrive. I was winning, but our game got interrupted when she suddenly decided to arrive…and the doctor almost didn’t! She was born at 7:40 pm. So about 7 hours and 40 minutes of labor, 3 hours and 40 minutes of it in the hospital. Dang, I wanted to finish that game!
David II
Rocky. Oh boy, for real! We were suppose to be leaving town, but I knew the doctor wouldn’t be happy. But we were in the car on the way, at around 11 am, I was like, Oh-I’m in labor. We stopped for lunch and it seemed to stop. We started to go again and it started again. We turned around and went home. We took a nap and there was no active labor at all. I thought I was just freaking myself out. So we said to each other, “Let’s throw caution to the wind.” Famous last words.
We were 2 hours into our journey at around 5:30 pm when I realized I was having steady 10-minutes-apart labor contractions. Ay-yi-yi. But I tried to tell myself I was just doing it to myself again. We arrived in Gary, IN to see my parents. I grabbed a clock and got into a quiet place to figure it out. They were solid, true contractions. Soooooooo…..I decided to get back in the car and drive the three hours home quickly so the doctor wouldn’t know I’d left town (am I a people-pleaser, or what?). My parents graciously offered to keep the three girls and we left their house around 7 pm – planning to make it to Kokomo. Just before we actually left the metro-area, just about to hit the interstate towards Kokomo, I was feeling freaked out and there was a hospital. I decided – Hey, let’s just run in there and if they tell me I am not even in labor, I can just calm the heck down and get on with life. Let’s just check for the sake of argument. They checked. I was dilated to 6 at 7:30 when we got there and when I told them I needed to leave immediately to get back to Kokomo, pretty sure they were signaling security in case I actually tried to leave. Rocky was born at 9:28 pm. We’d have had him on the side of the road if we’d tried to make it home.
So, a total of very sporadic labor of around 11 1/2 hours, but only about 2 hours at the hospital.
Stormie
Finally. I got this thing, people. She was also (like Dessa) verrrrrry late. But I woke up, boom! 6 am – in labor! The neighbors took the other 4 kids and actually lived across the street from the hospital, so I was there in just a few minutes. She was born at 10 am straight up. So 4 hours of labor, maybe 3 1/2 of it at the hospital.
Two lucky things for me:
I never had to do a birth in the middle of the night after a long day. I always got my sleep. Was I lucky, or what? maybe God was sparing everyone around me? I don’t know.
And – I obviously preferred laboring anywhere but at the hospital, if at all possible. At least 75% of my laboring was done on my own terms: not in the hospital, which I highly recommend to you current baby-bearers! Really!
But make no mistake – it was L A B O R !!! Hard labor. Oh, I love good, hard work! I do!
We are. We have been for sometime now. Yet, I can’t get my husband to avoid buying things in huge quantities. It’s fine with a 50-lb bag of jasmine rice or a moving-sized box full of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. They have a long shelf life and eventually they’ll be used. And he always does it, he tells me with love, because “you like this.”
Dave, why did you buy a 25-pound bag of dried black beans?
Because you like them, honey. This way you won’t run out.
Honey, all 17 of these avocados are ripe this very second – did you have something in mind when you bought them?
Because you love guacamole. I thought maybe you could make us some?
What is this Beth-Moore-Sunday-School-Class-sized party-platter of cinnamon rolls doing here?
I know you love cinnamon rolls.
Yesterday this:
4.26 pounds of fresh corn tortillas. I do love corn tortillas, yet…We are blessed to live near the Mexican Market with a giant tortilla factory in full view through a large window (take your kids to see them made fresh and have lunch on one of the big southwestern wooden tables with delish food from the Cantina). We LOVE getting them warm from the little conveyor belt we can actually see.
But here is the prob: I HATE wasting anything. I don’t want 4 loaves of assorted breads because there are only 2 of us. We’ll have to throw too much away! Boo. But if I like something, my sweet, thoughtful husband wants to buy it for me and if he happens to be in the bread aisle and sees four different loaves of bread he knows I like – well, then…
You can see the dilemma. It isn’t that Dave is wasteful, because he isn’t. He is just much more generous than I am.
But see the sell by date? In order for me to not agonize over wasting them, I have to eat 4 pounds of them {{FOUR pounds!!!}} within the next 4 days! And there is only one possible menu on the fridge list within which to actually utilize them.
Reminder to husband: we are empty nesters. There are only 2 of us now. I think we can cut back to a 3 pounder…maybe even less? Think about it.
The sweet, little Averi-kins came by the other night. She was delighted at all the colorful peppers, so we snapped this shot.
What a wild kingdom! If you look closely you can see at least 4 varieties of peppers, maybe 5. There are tomatillas and beefsteak tomatoes in the background and even a bunch of those blasted garlic chives. A few young green beans leaves are waving in the bottom left corner. Hello, world, say the bean leaves.
Then we meandered over by the sunflower hill, where Averi-J watered for me.
A quick jump on the trampoline as the golden sun was settling over the Rocky Mountains and then inside to eat juicy peaches.
Her mommy said, when Averi and I were cuddling, “There you two are with your cute matching feet.”
“Aw, we have matching feet, Averi,” I told her as we both stretched our feet out in front of us side-by-side to compare.
“Yes,” she affirmed, “but mine don’t have any wrinkles.”
How astute. :)
Averi starts Kindergarten tomorrow.
But I still remember when she was this little ball of love.
She’s always been my little spicy chile pepper. LOVE her!
Finally – it is going to live and grow to be and do that for which it was created.
Poor little plant. I almost yanked it out and threw it away last week. But it has apparently finally established. It got its’ first flower yesterday, already dropped. Soon it will give me a beautiful baby-zucchini.
In the nick of time, too, for last Tuesday, I went ahead and started 2 new zuch-plants and they already sprouted and got their first real leaves. They are raring and ready to be planted wherever, and though it is a bit late for warm-weather plants to be just getting started, they grow so fast in current conditions. If we have a mild fall, I could be eating fresh zucchini for months.
The 2 seeds tale, though…
This plant:
And this plant:
were started at the same time. And this is how they look today. The top one is still so little, finally just getting nice, healthy-looking leaves. The other has already been giving me beautiful fruit and thriving and growing and making happy, even though, quite by accident, it ended up in the sunflower patch, a place really too shady for it to have grown up so full and free.
What has made the difference?
They were planted the same day. They are from the same seed package. They germinated within hours of one another. But one is healthy and strong and happy and fruitful. It got planted in some rich soil, mounded up behind some shrubbery where I was placing the sunflower seedlings. It established itself early, got strong and took root and reached high to find the sun. It apparently made friends with the flowers and created a nice little ground cover for various perennials round about. All the plants there are quite relationally content and mutually encouraging, all growing well.
But the little one – a different path.
First, I left it in the egg carton in which I started it too long. It was “born” healthy. It germinated quickly and grew well and had lovely leaves and all the potential. But I ran out of space and needed to wait until some of the cold-weather crops were finished so I could plop it into the 9 square feet of space it would need to become everything it was meant to be.
So, while it grew as much as possible, the roots ran out of room. The soil couldn’t support them and it dried out quickly between the daily waterings. The leaves reached out for sunshine, but became leggy and long, un-planted in a deep-rich-soil place. It tried to get what it needed, but became scraggly and “anemic,” yellowing leaves betraying a gardener’s neglect.
Realizing I needed to do something until the garden square had space, I got some good potting soil and planted it in terra-cotta container. Some color returned – it started to look a little stronger. It was there for a few weeks, still very small compared to the deeply rooted plant across the yard. But alive, if you could call it that – in temporary quarters, unable to fulfill its’ purpose…
When finally I had begun to remove the cold-weather crops from the garden square, I pulled the squash-plant from its’ pot and placed it into the side of the garden where, as it grew, more plants would be leaving to create space, but it just sat there. It did nothing, but look deathly ill. It was yellow and stringy and lifeless. The leaves sprawled onto the ground. I surrounded it with soft straw to blanket and give warmth. I brewed compost tea and watered it carefully. I watched and waited and waited and watched.
And it seemed hopeless. So, I decided to plant new seedlings for replacement.
But in the same week, the conditions have changed and in the hot sunbeams of the day and the afternoon rains from the skies, the roots have finally trusted the space and plunged deep into the rich soil and have tasted the healing tea and established. And being firmly established, this zucchini plant will now be everything it was created to be and do all it was created to do.
The lesson from this tale:
Rootlessness will stunt all growth. Being uprooted and moved and moved and moved will keep a plant {{or a person}}, from thriving. They’ll be anemic and taxed beyond their ability for having tried so hard to stay alive in spite of poor soil and growing conditions. So then, even when they are planted safely, they may not respond for a while. Their roots may not recognize the safe place yet, the true home. It will take some time. Hot sun will be needed, and pure rain. Extra nutrients would be good and space and ~ time. It will absolutely take time – this cannot be rushed.
So even though I didn’t do right by this plant and almost killed it in the uprooting, it is now establishing, planted by the waters of good care, and when the other zucchinis have finished producing and run their course, this one will still be going – because it will be fulfilling its’ destiny, everything it was created to be and to do. Just a little later than “normal.”
The great hope: If you have been moved around, neglected and uprooted repeatedly, if you are weak from lack of nutrients and care, it is not too late to be everything God imagined when He created you and here is my prayer:
In other news…
I wrote this in my journal in February (when he was just one month old):
Malakai is thriving. Growing. Getting healthy and robust. Love is causing life.
He hasn’t started crawling yet (though he does creep about) but that is because, at barely 7 months, he wishes to begin running. He loves being up on his feet, high-stepping it whenever anyone will help him go. He is happy and healthy and whole. His roots are planted deep into the good soil of a loving family and home. And being rooted and established in a safe place will always cause him to thrive.
Of all the letters I have sent to the mammala and pappala and the “pet names” with which I have addressed them, this remains my mommiekin’s favorite. She said it still makes her laugh at least half a day.
This is my mamala’s version of Facebook duck lips selfies.
A wedding I will always recall with great joy. I shared a little about it last week, but my favorite part was when the bride and groom served communion to all their guests. I had never seen that done before or since. The song was, “I Pour My Love on You.” It was amazing.
