Jovan snapped this shot of Amelie’s breakfast this morning and said this:
Amelie picked out everything she wanted for breakfast! Waffle with honey and cinnamon, cherry tomatoes (she calls potatoes), pop corn, and cashews!
Pretty good job baby girl!
She loves her tomatoes. Could that be any sweeter???
I had left Dave a {TO-DO} list HERE
Dave had added lots of deli meats (ham!) and cheeses and condiments (spreads and dips) to his food collection.
Most of the fresh produce I left was still in the fridge…but no longer fresh.
This rather self-congratulatory piece of mail arrived in the mailbox.
Meanwhile – all Brighton residents were on a water ban for 3 or 4 days! There was e-coli in some of the testings and all chaos broke loose. All the grocery stores were out of water. Restaurants had to close. Everyone had to boil their water for anything consumable (including doing dishes!)…it was crazy. But I missed all the excitement, hallelujah!
Dave took his garden-watering instructions quite seriously and my garden…well, it’s a jungle out there, e-coli be darned!
The basil has already delighted in some fresh bruschetta and slow-simmered marinara.
The hollyhocks have taken over the universe. But since they are in full bloom, I cannot bring myself to declare war on them.
The lettuce could feed an army. The cilantro, did indeed, bolt. I told Dave it could not be trusted. But alas. I am home to whip him back into compliance (the cilantro plant, not Dave)!
The purple petunias – well, they were all crowded and fully-bloomed waiting to welcome me home and are quite lovely, thank-you very much.
Dave put in the first 1/3 of a long meandering sidewalk which shall stretch from the back patio around to the back garage door then around the garage to the front yard to meet the south area of the drive.
Plus, the K’s have been in St. Louis all week and we are babysitting Tuppy-the-Puppy. Everywhere I go I am in a sea of doggie feet (because if Tuppy is going to go with me, Sandy is too!). Picture Pigpen, the kid who moved in a cloud of dirt and dust in the Peanuts comic strip. That is me with these two doglettes!
I am home. I miss my mom and dad and the sibs. But this is my place in the universe.
My mom, my little sister, Tami, my dad and the baby of the family, Danny.
My mom and I laugh so much. She loves to be silly and torment me and it just cracks me up because she is really the kindest, most loving person in the whole world!
Danny was practicing taking pics with the iPhone and there I was, flanked by beauty and beauty.
Finally: success! We are all there. Danny-the-history-teacher, my strong and commanding dad, my selfless and generous sister, me and my sweet mamala!
She was searching for something she had written about a dream she’d had, among a million things she has written and saved, for hers is a poetic heart, easily inspired by everyone and everything around her. She opened the drawer of her desk and began to search for that certain thing she wanted me to see.
As she rifled through saved momentos, cards, letters, photographs and her most treasured keepsakes, she was lamenting how vexed my dad is for her to keep it all, but she was telling me how each thing she has touches her heart and means so much to her.
“I probably keep too many things,” she mused as I smiled at the stacks of copies of articles or funny emails, pieces of paper scribbled with her handwritings, no value on the open market, but oh-so important to her. As I waited, she explained,
“But I just want a copy of life!”
I love her. I love reading all her little writings, too. Her blog is on paper in a very special drawer.
Where did June go? I loved June. I needed two full months of June, at least. June is the most romantic and lovely of them all, isn’t it? The days are long and the nights are sweet. *sigh…Yes, June, I shall miss you.
Averi J. She is my 5-year old beauty!
Did some retro-coloring. Snapped this on their porch one evening in between Taylor Swift YouTube videos on the iPad. They love them some Taylor Swift!
Cake Batter Rice Krispie Treats 
Gemma May & Guini-Poo. And the Peonies.
Gavin & Gemma were checking out a kite in the sky.
Uncle Rocky with Malakai.
In Aunt Tara and Uncle Dave’ back yard. The older kids are getting tougher to get photos of. Always on the move. Trampoline or pool or chasing games.
This quote is funny. If I am not crying. Haha.
Here the my good-looking guy. Always hard-working. Always sweet. The world’s best dad to our kiddos and my 32-year lover!
Uncle Ryan and the nephews at the lake for Tredessa’s 30th celebration. They were all styling the backwards hats.
Kai and Poppa.
Amelie overseeing the sunset from Tara’s backyard.
And Gemma did indeed slide down the dirt pile in her pretty yellow sundress. Oh my.
Love a romantic June night. ALL June nights are romantic. You may quote me on that! :)
Title quote: “On a strawberry sundae of a day, all daisies and June sun and pastoral posing by world leaders on the Lancaster House lawn.” -John Vinocur
Oh dang – I didn’t even totally get this song when it was a top-40 hit in that 1973-74 era (soooo known for great music, click here). I do now. Must be old. :)
I love little baby ducks,
Old pick-up trucks,
Slow movin trains, and rain.
I love little country streams,
Sleep without dreams,
Sunday school in May, and hay.
And I love you too.
I love leaves in the wind,
Pictures of my friends,
Birds of the world, and squirrels.
I love coffee in a cup,
Little fuzzy pups,
Bourbon in a glass, and grass.
And I love you too.
I love honest open smiles,
Kisses from a child,
Tomatoes on a vine, and onions.
I love winners when they cry,
Losers when they try,
Music when it’s good, and life.
And I love you too.
I love Baby-Bailey stretching as she wakes up, Dave making my morning coffee, seeing the tomatoes plump up, floating in the pool, people who love you anyway-even if they could decide not to, my granbebes knowing how much I love their hugs and kisses and running to give them to me, how much Sandy-the-Dog believes the best of me, when the trees serenade me, freshly-mowed grass, bees gathering pollen from my flowers, the tiger swallowtail that was dipping and diving and fluttering over my head yesterday, a word in season, a word of encouragement without the slightest eye roll or “you-should-know-this” superiority, that Gavin knows how to buy and sell on Ebay with his hard-earned money, and that his sisters so look up to him, that Hunter believes I am the one person in his life that he can sway at any time in any way and I have no plans to make him think otherwise.
I love pre-school with Averi, chasing Amelie and her big, sweet hugs when I catch her, Malakai for all I am learning about the love of God towards us who have been adopted and grafted, Gemma’s long, red, curly hair, Guini’s sweet freckles, baby dill pickles, purple petunias, Kosher salt, the antique church pew in my kitchen, and harmonizing with my parents.
I love my grown children and the people they have married. I love my husband of almost 32 years. I love Joey, Timmy, Tami & Danny and their families.
I love the grandparents I once had and getting to be one now. I love cinnamon toast and a little ice cream with my caramel sauce. I love a Caramel Frappucino from Starbucks and chicken nuggets from Chick-Fil-A (with Bleu Cheese Dressing and Hot Sauce!) and a large iced tea with lemon, please, and the mountains and a wild-running river stream, and a sandy beach with clear waters and a good conversation without time limits that leaves you wanting more.
I love a lot more now than I once did. I could have gone on all day. What do YOU love?
Pictured: Gavin behind the Powers house in the open-space. A Friday night sunset in June.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.” Psalms 91.14-16
You are smack-dab in the middle of the same age-years Jesus was /living/walking/defeating the kingdom of darkness (on His way to a cross) one miracle at a time. He was changing water to wine, chatting it up with children and healing the sick. And that is where you are, too, changing the spiritual landscape, fathering your boys and establishing the Kingdom.
I have called you a spiritual iconoclast, by which I meant
A person who is actively breaking down the religious traditions that suck the life from people and instead, is revealing a whole new landscape of the life and love of the Father towards His people. A Kingdom man. A creative visionary. A history-maker.
I think earlier spiritual iconoclasts were guys like Elijah and Elisha. Especially, though, maybe: Jeremiah. Before the building up, there is the matter of tearing down (see Jeremiah 1, The Message subtitles it: Demolish and Then Start Over).
I see this clearly about you, but am not always able to express it openly or well. So on the occasion of your birthday [note: oops-now a few days past], your very own proverbial mother-in-law (frightening title, to be sure), shall attempt to communicate the true and deep to one son-in-love. Please receive them from my heart
On your birthday, I wanted to say {I want you to always know}…
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him…”
So, it turns out I have known you for like, 33% of your life. And you have known me for almost 19% of mine. For a girl who was raised moving from city to city and church to church and leaving behind everyone I knew and starting over sooooooooooooo many times that even a 2-year friendship felt like a lifetime, that puts you and I in the 98.987-percentile of my longest-ever-running relationships. Kind of kidding. I just made up that last statistic, but it’s pretty true. You probably couldn’t have known that you would hold a place that high in my life, my stats/personal data, or my heart for so long. I didn’t know it. But here it is.
You are sort of stuck with me.
And I know so many times it would be so much easier not to be. But I can say at least for me, God knew what He was doing and He still has a plan and His glory will be seen, right?
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name…”
I think I mention this in every single birthday post I ever write to you (and this is #7, I believe), but I just love to hear you play and sing and worship the Lord. Last month as we were re-painting the living room and had moved most everything out, save a few items in the middle covered with drop cloths, sound, once again had the ability to reverberate off the walls and ceilings and it took me back to when we first knew you, first moved into this house – before it had been “properly” appointed with lots of furniture and accessories. You would come every weekend, guitar in hand and sing in that room and worship would resound and hit the walls and ascend to the ceiling and go on to heaven and come back and change the atmosphere. Your worship in this house set a desired precedent for my heart and this place and when the acoustics are just so, I remember it. And I miss that as life has gotten louder and busier and fuller. I love being in a meeting with hundreds as you lead in worship, hearing your most amazing voice. I enjoy watching the Rez Live-Stream when you and Tara are leading. But you with your guitar and just a few of us right here: overwhelming goodness. Way better! You’re one of my all-time fav singers. And always will be.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will be with him in trouble…”
When you chose my amazing firstborn daughter to be your wife, and then the two of you blessed us with these cherished boys – oh, be still my heart. You are such a wonderful husband to Tara and an incredible daddy to Hunter and Malakai. I also love you for the sacrifices you have made to perpetuate the legacy of adoption in our family. Because dad, who was adopted knew he was born to adopt Tara. And when the two of you opened your heart to do the same with Baby-Kai, well, all of us are beginning to understand in a way we maybe hadn’t before, this whole spirit of adoption, of truly becoming sons of God, crying out to Him, ‘Abba, Father.” The spiritual treasure of this in-the-natural adoption is changing our family. Thank-you for paying the cost and being obedient to welcoming this son into your family, into ours. Our family DNA-chain is being forged unbreakable – what blessing it is going to be for so many through the generations…
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will deliver him and honor him…”
When you share your heart and the secrets of the Lord and reveal vision, it is life-giving. Many times I have stood in the back of a room and as you spoke with such crystal clarity something I had already heard many times before, I would still be left breathless with the strength, the perspicuity of the message. I always wondered, looking around, do the rest of you understand the power of what is happening here? That is a gift of God in your life. You have been given a strong gift of revealing, communicating. Your words, falling like rain, will have the ability to change people and situations and lives and nations.
So I pray that all the God-given dreams of your heart will come to pass and that the Lord will send you mighty warriors to run with you, those who are strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. And I pray that hopeless people will hear the vision and be energized to pick it up and take it to new levels you never dreamed possible (beyond all you could ask or imagine) and finally understand why they were born. And I pray He sends you the weakest ones, too, for they are indispensable to the Body of Christ. So may you be surrounded by those who will bring you all the help you need {to be all He has called you to be, and to do all He has called you to do} from the sanctuary. There is great help available from the sanctuary.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “With long life I will satisfy him…”
I deeply respect the strong call and anointing of God on your life. That God is opening doors to big rooms and your gift is bringing you before great men, that you have been set forth to shake nations and declare the Kingdom of God over regions is not in question. But I maintain that you are never stronger in your anointing than the times you are releasing the light of the joy of the Lord over people. For seriousness and heaviness need not be cultivated, as a rule. Jesus didn’t say, “I have come that your worry, care, concern and apprehension would be appropriately full,” but rather that our JOY would be full. And you have made me laugh so many times. Your humor and ability to see the silly side of life have been a perfect foil to my desolation, as the enemy himself wishes to keep us from our very strength (the joy of the Lord) by causing us consternation, super-responsible trepidation, woe and worry. So let the TV preachers work on bringing everybody down about the terrible times in which we live (as if the Word didn’t promise greater grace in these troubling times, and greater is He that is in us, for crying out loud) and you keep dispensing garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness and releasing the light and life of the love of the Father and be full of joy through the Holy Spirit (like Jesus was) and dispense it, too. You are hilarious. That is an anointing.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will…show him my salvation.”
I love you most, maybe, because you love the LORD. That fact alone brings me peace no matter what happens – for His promises towards you will be true, and somehow we’ll all figure everything out and get lined back up.
We have been to heaven and back a few times in 10 years. Being your m-i-l, believe it or not, has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. Seasons come and go. The way we interact or the actual time we’ll spend together has and will probably continue to change between us, but I will always thank God for you. I will always believe the best of you. I will never write you off or write you out of my story. I will always be proud to say you are my son-in-love and the father of my grandsons and the beautiful man of my daughter’s dreams.
And with the exception of a few horrendous meetings and the bloody attack of the enemy against our unity last year, I would do it all again, with gratefulness for your love and openness for what I had to bring {and I was honored to give anything/everything I could} – in spite of me being your “m-i-l.” *faint smile
But p.s…I am voting against a duck-dynasty beard, puleeeeeeezzzzzze…
Q: What do exotic eyes and head-full of thick, dark hair, a yellow-embroidered sun-suit with a yellow bonnet, ginger-molasses cookies from the grocery store bakery, my first “private room” at the hospital, water breaking at a church softball game while dad was in the outfield, being 11 days past my due date, a Scrabble game (which I still contend I was winning) and Howard Community Hospital in Kokomo, IN all have in common?
These are the bits and pieces of your arrival, your story, your birth, your place in the family history. Tredessa Christine Rhoades Faaland: You made us mommy and daddy and 3 adorable girlies, the Rhoades Family, 1983.
I have been re-living your beginnings so much this spring because of Bailey Sophia. So many thing about her remind me of you, her hair, her kissable cheeks, her content and laid-back disposition. June of 1983 was one of the most notable months of my life, the summer that followed memorable and lovely: your father was ordained, there were long afternoons in the backyard with your two sisters splashing in a pool, great music on the radio, and my little baby girl in a yellow carrier, right by my side in the green grass on sun-shiney days.
Dessa at 2 weeks
Dessa at 6 weeks
And now here we are, 30 years down the road – celebrating your extraordinary life, unable to fathom what we’d ever have done without the most-middle-child of them all. You are a center-point, a bridge, an equidistant intermediary. You are observant and intuitive; careful, but powerful. You’re a challenging, but honoring daughter and your trust in God is an inspiration.
Dessa at 5
I am so pleased to see the life you are leading. I am so happy God sent you love in a very good-looking, strong, humble package. I am so thrilled that you have gotten to go to the nations in Jesus’ Name and serve selflessly in high-places for the glory of God.
More than anything this year, I am so excited with you and for you that you are with child, that you carry a dream within – as you have so longed to have children. I am rejoicing with you and counting down the days. Your child will be loved and adored and watched over with great zeal – because you have sown that into the lives of so many other children while you were waiting. It will all come back to you.
He was all of 21 when I was born, my dad. He practiced being a parent on me. :) It worked because he has become truly fabulous at it. I am my father’s daughter.
My husband Dave, whose children are his most treasured possessions in this life. He thinks about them, prays for them, tends to their requests and loves them so much more deeply and passionately than they could probably ever know. You, all my sweet children, have a dad whose everything, heart and soul, is invested in you.
Tristan, DP, Rocky and soon, Ryan: These amazing young men {{my 4 sons}} are unleashing godly, Kingdom-building, generation-honoring, thoughtful, intelligent, giving, loving, world-changing, worshiping, joyous children on the earth. I call said children my grandbebes. But the 8 + 1-in-the-oven {Gavin+Guini+Gemma+Averi+Amelie+Bailey+Hunter+Malakai+baby-to-be-Faaland}? Have WONDERFUL daddies! They are so blessed!!!
Thanks, Maurice Chevalier, for this happy 1930 tune, “Sweepin’ the Clouds Away!” It seemed a nice accompaniment to the day I recently had with the girlies.
Don’t go ’round moping, hoping happiness will come,
That’s not the way; it doesn’t pay!
If you want happiness, just help yourself to some,
Why don’t you try to take life the way I do:
Guinivere (7 1/2), and her little sister Gemma (6) and their cousins, Averi (5) and little Amelie Belle (3) came over on a sunny morning and we did each other’s hair and put on make-up and everyone got to dress up in Nonna’s old clothes and shoes if they wanted to. Or not.
Then we made paper chains and stars for decoration and set the patio up for some fun-fun-fun!
Let the whole world sigh or cry,
I’ll be high in the sky,
Up on top of a rainbow,
Sweeping the clouds away!
I don’t care what’s down below,
Let it rain, let it snow,
I’ll be up on a rainbow,
Sweeping the clouds away!
Averi and her little sister, Amelie – above.
Gemma just eats the camera up (above).
Averi got her momma’s pretty eyes (above)
Guini is growing up so fast (above). She’ll be 8 in July.
And this little silly (Amelie, 3, below) keeps us laughing.
I am wishing her Happy Birthday in every possible online way today! I am shouting it from the mountaintops of Colorado: I love you, mom. Happy Birthday!
First thing this morning, just after breakfast, my yard was noisy with the sounds of summer. The sun was shining bright, the grandbebes were jumping on the squeaky trampoline, the sky was a brilliant blue, the flowers were blooming and the weed whacker was buzzing loudly while the dog tried to entice me into a game of throw and fetch and then I have to chase her to get it back (Sandy has never understood the rules of this game). And the day is perfect. Almost. Wish you were here.
8:15 am in the back yard…