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…
Who has gotten 8367 phone calls in 2.67 weeks and a 13-foot-high stack of political flyers and had 27.2 people per day ring the doorbell to talk election??? Us. Uh-huh.
It was strangely quiet the other day. I didn’t know why until I left the house and saw Dave had placed this out there for all to see:
No, we’re not bitter. We’re just glad the election is going to be done. And yes, we did vote. Because THAT is what good citizens do. :)
Note to the person who put the $10 off Kohl’s coupon on our door knob, anyway: Kinda glad you can’t read or didn’t bother to read this sign because I am happy to have the $10! What are they paying you for this high-quality work???
You have my son. You have my two adorable grand-girls, Averi and Amelie and another little Rhoades grandbebe on the way. You have a lovely home and family and sweet spirit and you have my heart. Now have another HAPPY BIRTHDAY, too!!!
I actually started this blog when you and Rocky were just newlyweds and so you are integral to the history, a part of every family story in recent days and a kindly receiver of the old history, which makes me happy.
There is some question: is Amelie picking? Or still asking you to keep Baby-Rhoades a secret???
You’re a good daughter, Jovan. You are attentive to family tradition and the wiles and ways of getting so many {more} sisters when you took Rocky as your husband and ended up in this bright constellation of characters almost as numerous as the stars in the sky! Thank-you, by the way, for your continuing contributions to our bunch. We love them one and all.
I, Jovan, take, thee, Rocky…and your mom and dad and Tara and her family, and Stephanie and hers. And I take Tredessa and commit to helping her find a husband, too (since you and I are jumping the birth order for marriage – it is my reasonable service). And I take Stormie and all that will someday be of her. And add you all to my big, Italian family. Amen.
So for your birthday this year, I have gone back to see what I have had to say about you for all these years. And here is some of what I say {and believe} about you, Birthday-Girl:
I made you a “card” to try to capture some words that would express how much I love you. I always run out of space, because the words come easy.
You turned 25 and here is what I said,
“On an All Hallow’d Eve’ so long ago, a day usually draped in black and night, a light was born. Twenty-five years ago today, to be exact, a reflector of the love of Jesus Christ was born and the world can never again be as dark as it once was. Shine on, sweet girl, godly woman, and gift-of-a-daughter you are.”
And I just remembered: it was the first time I ever put words on a photo. I was obviously quite timid about it in 2010, but a year later – not so much. Haha.
This is the year I sang you the song that I used to sing to Rocky and his little sisters about praying for the love of their lives even when they were just little-bitty babies in my arms. And I wrote a list of 23 things for your 23rd birthday.
Here are numbers 11 & 12, but I also still really like #3, #6 and #22, as I have seen God totally do these things in you!
My wish for you is to find your own beat and to be unapologetic about marching to it.
Jovan, I hope you will understand that you were called to us and will never be afraid to change us and impact us. That is why you’re here
Read the comments, too. Grandma Moslander left a sweet one. Lots of good ones!
And God answers prayer. The proof is in re-reading these and knowing He has been sooooooo faithful!
Fearlessness in the battle. There is an enemy, Jovan. He will fight you for your family. But to be forewarned is to be for-armed. God looked through all eternity and knew He could trust you for this job. You are gentle, yes. You are careful not to run over people’s toes. But I also see the warrior spirit in you – absolutely aware at every turn where the battle lines are drawn. I pray for God to be your shield of protection and your deliverer. I pray He will give you the needed courage at the right times and that you will have no fear – because you are not alone!
The joy of the Lord for the strength you need. I am praying for an outpouring of an abundance of clear, sparkling, life-giving rain to wash over your heart and mind. I pray you will be known as one who laughs right our loud in the face of danger! I pray that you will have everything Jesus promised in the area of joy: complete joy, and a full measure of His joy. I pray you get so much joy – it will splash on everyone else! (Ps 28.7; Ps 4.7; Jn 18.11; Jn 16.24; Jn 17.13)
From the mother-in-law’s perspective, the first year I began writing birthday tributes to my children and theirs.
She is an impressive girl, or I guess I should say “woman.” She is just so pretty and has the most exotic eyes (eyelash length: 1.769 inches long).
AND this was year you were pregnant with Averi and I made you a Barbie-doll cake because she had always wanted one. I still get emails from all over the world about that cake and people wondering how to re-create it. :)
Yep, it is official. I want you to have a happy-happy-happy birthday every single year.
Love you bunches. Grateful for your prayers and love. Love watching you be all you were born to be. Happy birthday, sweet girl! LOVE, mom! xxoo
Everett Allison, his father’s namesake and my mom’s baby brother, died yesterday, surrounded by lots of his loving family.
I recall Uncle Cab (for “Caboose“) in about 1963 with a very sharp looking wool, oxblood-colored v-neck sweater over a white dress shirt and some very smart dark gray trousers. There was a thick lock of hair that kept flopping away from the rest, which was neatly combed-back and almost certainly Brill-creamed, as I recall, being only about 4, it had a certain sheen.
Fast forward to 1997. Tara had just graduated from high school and all my babies were teenagers. We gathered in Ohio to celebrate my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary and Uncle Cab and his wife came to help us celebrate. I cannot remember one word he said when he got up to bless my parents publicly, but I do remember he cried and cried the whole time and was so choked with emotion and deep love and reverence, one couldn’t help but cry along. I felt very proud to be his niece that day.
Rest in Peace, Uncle Cab.
This photo might have been 1956? It is my mom and her siblings and nephew.
I found this from a blog post I wrote in 2008 {click here}.
I and my Third-Thursday-besties were reading and writing our thoughts from A Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge.
“Once upon a time were Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the kind of home we’ve been looking for all our life” (page 74, The Sacred Romance).
Sometimes it happens, it may be fleeting, but occasionally you get to experience it: rich moments of holy laughter with family, a good meal shared in love while kind memories flow and encouraging words of appreciation are being expressed. And when it happens, you know you are on holy ground. You know you are experiencing something of the divine. You understand the table of fellowship in heaven.
I had one such evening last night. It was the first time we had gathered the whole family from all our travels to celebrate Mother’s Day and the birthdays of my two eldest daughters, Tara and Stephanie. And time and space and life being what it is, you always hope everyone can come in and shed the stress and distractions and enjoy the company, but we are no different than other families. It does not always happen that way. But last night I could sense the joy of the Trinity, the sense of “we are complete,” and “we are one.” I breathe it in with deep appreciation, even now.
Today’s thought: Loving these people comes naturally, from a fulll heart, because they are of me, in my likeness. I absolutely have love-filled thoughts of them everyday, all day long.
And because I am the matriarch of this family, because I actually birthed these incredible human beings, the joy-seed of my love with Dave, I can understand better the heart of God toward us. Because, omygoodness, my heart toward my children and their children is so full of love and goodness and purity and mercy. I haven’t done it all right or even very well (which God of course, has), but whether they have yet realized it or not: my kids can trust my heart towards them. I will always love them. I will always think the best of them. I will always be their biggest fan. They should never have to fear me or rejection from me. So why do I with my Romancer?
“Once upon a time we lived in a garden; we lived in the place for which we were made. There were no Arrows, only beauty. Our relationships weren’t tainted with fear, guardedness, manipulation, quid pro quo. Our work was rewarding, we received more than we gave…We were made for the garden, but now there is affliction also, and that is because we live East of Eden. The Arrows seem the truest part of life, but they are not.”
And in the spring when I put my hands into the soil and help the chubby fingers of grandsons push seed into the ground, it is almost like I can hear God calling me like He once called Adam, “Jeanie, Jeanie, where are you?” He knows where I am, but He asks so that I’ll take stock at where I have gone, to make sure I know where I am…
Today I am adding: I love that time after time, year after year, disaster after disappointment, He keeps watching for the real me, keeps prompting me to look for the me I was created to be, regardless of how much I try to hide from the very One who heals…amazing Love.
Isn’t the great paradox that “we long to be known and we fear it like nothing else“? We believe things about ourselves that aren’t true (Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will really hurt me) and we run from the Pursuer thinking He believes those things are true, too. Yet, His own Word calls us: “…the Holy…the Redeemed…the Sought-after…”
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us…” (1 John 4.10).
I am my Beloved’s and He is mine. Here I am, Lord…
Just like with the family God has given me. I watch over them with complete rapture and admiration, so unique and treasured they are to me, as does Father-God with me. Still figuring it all out, that depth of amazing Love towards me. Me. ???
I awoke to 3, cold little girls who came to snuggle with me in bed. All of us with frizzy hair and smiles on a Friday morning. Gav and Hunter were already somewhere playing video games or something.
It was an impomptu sleepover after a family birthday celebration last night. Not quite prepared for guests, what was for breakfast? Eggs and cheese, corn muffins and sweet butter, popcorn, chocolate-toffee candy from IKEA, lollipops and peach-white grape juice. Naturally.
I called them all “little monkeys” and was besieged as five grandbebes jumped all over me making loud oo-oo-ah-ah monkey noises and tickling me – which is absolutely not allowed. They make me laugh.
Averi has been learning about the 10 commandments in Sunday School.
So studious, so attentive is she.
The other night little sister Amelie wasn’t quite behaving as she should so Averi came to report to her parents. A few minutes later, another report followed. By the third or fourth time, her mommy and daddy, a bit exasperated, told her, “Averi – quit coming and tattling on your little sister.”
“I am just trying to honor you guys,” she told them.
Hahahaha. Oh, the joys and burden of being the firstborn. How well I know, my little Averikins. Nonna gets you!! *kiss*kiss
This is Averi in front of a picture of her as a newborn that hangs in the maternity ward of Platte Valley Hospital. There are several large framed prints there of baby-Averi because she was soooooo cute when she was born!
Poor Rocky. At the age of 12, made to dress like the cowboys (Roy Rogers) my mom always idolized. She would rummage and thrift “outfits” for my kids when they came to visit. Then, she’d set up a “photo studio.” This was in 1997. I totally forgot to scan Tredessa’s photo shoot, for which she may now thank me monetarily. Hahahaha. HE WAS SOOOOOO CUTE!! *kiss*kiss
This was me at one. My mom was pregnant with little Joey-to-be. She somehow thought that frizzing my hair up with tiny pin-curls would make for a festive shot. I was quite obviously trying to flee. Tami was never pin-curled like me. My whole life: bobbypins and frizz. Geez.
I can live with this picture. Timmy (who seems hungry here) was maybe 3 weeks old, meaning I was 3 1/2. You will note that already, at that young age, I was the replica of my dad with the eyebrows and lower eye lids (aka: bags). What 3 1/2 year old has those? Me! Fifty years later, is it any wonder?
So, my mom’s use of questionable outfits and props started early – on me! My Grandma Allison had given me this dress. I was 11 and the darts did not have anything to hold them in place. And then my mom made me put on my grandma’s floppy hat. Like me, you may ask yourself what my parents were thinking letting me out of the house with that stringy hair??? Holiness girls could not cut their hair, you see. Boo. Note my extremely authentic smile. Good times in Ames, Iowa at the grandparent’s house.
Once finally eschewing those tight pin-curls, my parents moved the family to Robert, LA where the humidity caused my adolescent hair to kink and wave and get frizzy. I actually had to get my hair chemically straightened there, and then use an 8000-degree curling iron to keep it “smooth”. In this picture, I am a junior in high school who is not allowed to wear make-up, with long, stringy (fuzzy?) hair, and finally, the dark brows and lashes work for me. Secret? A little dab of Vaseline applied ever-so-slightly. My terrible eyesight now may be attributed to a petroleum-based beauty regimen.
I went neutral. Or something. This is a dress my mom made for me for some occasion or another at church (the building in the shot). Yes, I had a brown silk flower in my hair (hair combs were the late-70s rage). Which I had sort of {brazenly} cut. And curled a little. What goes around, comes around.
Tim called this my “Kathryn Kuhlman” look. Brothers!
Oh, and I would like to lay claim to this little treasure:
Perry Como. Album in pristine condition. If I don’t find my own copy soon, I hereby request this as part of my inheritance.
My mom has boxes of treasures…and items suitable for blackmail. She is the greatest treasure of them all, though. :)
Hot coffee and letting my wet hair dry (freeze) on my mom and dad’s deck on a *crispy-cool* Indiana morning.
The leaves are literally changing color as I watch them.
We have walked the paths and are enjoying the sun and chill in the air. And blue, blue skies. Did you know I love blue, blue skies? I do. I love blue, blue skies. :)
Two Blue Herons off Lake Michigan came to visit and bid us a happy morning.
What they found to munch on, we haven’t a clue.
But I walked towards them and mamala came at them from behind the house, and we made them fly away so I could get a picture. But drat. It was on video and my cheap little cam is not focusing anymore on video. But alas, we watched the heron, big as Florida flamingos, fly away. Back to Lake Michigan.
I like to be exact because you are so exact and you will not stand for generalities that do not in full and quite detail-edly describe the occasion. For you are nothing, my little Hunter-fella, if not a man of details, accuracy and veracity to the nth degree. Witness the fact that I once named you ‘The Little Prince’ and you informed me that you were neither little, nor an actual prince…and that you literally hated that nickname due to its’ utter-invention by an over-gooey-maternal-forebear (me).
The day you were born:
A HUGE surprise and delight! I was in a meeting headed for another meeting when life was interrupted with “Tara and Dave have been trying to reach you to tell you that the baby was born.” I did not even believe it. THREE WEEKS EARLY? Yes, 3 weeks early. My whole day changed forever. My whole life changed forever! Hunter was born! The sun was shining and the angels were singing and Gavin got a cousin and I got the cutest little guy to love and enjoy the rest of my days. How sweet it is, Hunter-Magoo!
You are such a good cousin.
I love all the talks we have had, and all the songs you have sung, and all the pictures and crafts you have made for me. I love the days we have shared and the prayers we have prayed (I have always loved praying for you and now I mostly love getting prayed for by you – pray down the fire, boy!) and how attentive you are to feelings and your unabashed joy at Gilligan and Barney Fife and letting your Poppa share his boyhood joys with you. I love your laughter, for that does not come cheap and I love your love of the Word (getting to have you read to me recently, I cherish!).
Last week, a tough week for your family by anyone’s standards, when you were hanging at my house for a few days, on the evening of the 3rd day, I know you were missing your parents and life had been a little topsy-turvy. You and I were at the kitchen counter in the house alone, coloring – with old-fashioned crayons. And I was thinking how sweet it was for my heart to be able to sit there and color with you and talk, just chat about anything and everything that comes into the mind of an almost-8-year-old-boy.
Your parents called to say that your buddies Sam and Moses were coming to get you and you were so excited! It was very cute. But my heart melted when you jumped up and down (never stop doing that, OK??? Never stop expressing the whole of your heart in vivid color and joy!), and you said,
“This has been the best day ever, the BEST day ever! I got to go with Poppa to the church and shoot guns with him and Uncle Ryan! I got to go play at Chick-Fil-A, I got to color with my Nonna and now I get to go with Sam and Mose! It is the best day of my life!”
And yes, I teared up, because coloring with the Nonna made the list! Seriously? So sweet! I love you, Hunter. I wanted to give you some words from the Word to bless your birthday + 2 days and to bless you your whole life through.
1 Corinthians 2, for my sweet, Hunter-Magoo:
Hunter Powers – when God sends you out, don’t go with fancy, inspirational words or with cutesy human ways of declaring the testimony of God. Make up your mind not to know anything among the crowds you are growing up among except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. In your young life, you have seen it all and your strength (Jesus) is made big in your weaknesses. So let your speech and your preaching not be with persuasive words like typical commentators, but always walk in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power, showing the world that your faith is not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. You reveal Him, Hunter, ok?!
Because you were born to speak wisdom among those who are mature, not the wisdom of this age, and you are not moved by the of the rulers of this age, who are most assuredly coming to nothing (ay-yi-yi – every election reminds us we are aliens passing through!). But you, my grandbebe, speak the wisdom of God – speak out the mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory.
This is true, kiddo:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, our hearts have not even understood. The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” Is that cool or what???
But God has revealed these things to you through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, for sure, the deep things of God. You will know what you need to know because the Spirit of God will speak to your spirit. The Spirit of God knows everything you need to know. And since He knows, He will freely give you everything you need to now, right when you need to know it. So cool, huh?
So speak and act and live not like the rest of world, but live by the Holy Spirit, Hunter! He will never lead you astray! Other people or our carnal selves won’t receive the things of the Spirit of God, for it seems foolish and we just cannot understand spiritual stuff because it has to be learned and understood with the Holy Spirit’s help. But YOU are a spiritual kid who can judge all things. For you, holy grandson, have the mind of Christ.
So, Hunter Douglas, Powers: Happy Birthday + 2 days. Love Jesus, honor your parents and be who you were created to be.
I love you, bunches, forever and always! You are a good kid and one of my favorite people ever! EVER! xxoo Nonna
