Tag Archives: family

An October Sunset

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

Pictured, left to right: Averi, 8 months; Hunter, 4; Guini, 3; Gemma (in Gavin’s grasp), 1; Gavin, 5

O God, thank-You for these, my amazing five!  They’re the reason I was born!  They are my heritage-the gift You have given me.  The eternal things I place in them are the legacy I will leave. 

I pray Your Word will always be in their mouths.  I pray that Gavin and Guini, Hunter and Gemma and Averi will grow up hiding Your Word in their hearts and will choose, even now, to serve You and You alone.  I pray these five, my little amazings, will seek You for wisdom and will receive knowledge and understanding from Your heart for their lives.  May their worship rise to You.  May their song reach Your ears and bring You joy.

Thank-you for the gift of them, Lord.  I will tell my grandbabies of Your faithfulness.  I will declare Your great works to this generation.  I am watching for the spiritual harvest, Lord.  Because I am sowing to the Spirit – I am watching for the harvest…

I am so honored God has brought me this incredibly noisy, full and increasing heritage.  He is making all my dreams come true…Gavin, Guinivere, Hunter, Gemma and Averi’s “Nonna”

NOTE TO SELF:  I have earned the gray hair and grandma wrinkles-even if I don’t yet wish to avail myself of them.

 

“Enjoy the good life…everyday of your life.  And enjoy your grandchildren…”  Psalm 128.6 The Message

Choo! Choo! Train Cake for Hunter

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , , ,

  

Whereas last year’s firetruck cake (see here) was about 80 pounds and I toiled in fear over it, I have now realized I am not really “into” novelty cakes and was very relaxed.  It was simple and straightforward (with Dave explaining to me what a train must have) and instead of doing lots of piping and icing stuff, we “glued” Tropical Twizzlers and M & Ms and Dots, along with a couple of varieties of cookies onto this train cake for Hunter’s 4th birthday.  Dave piped windows for me and I came up with mini-Kit Kats as the idea for the railroad ties.

The board it was on was 13 inches wide by 3 feet long.  The engine was 3 2-inch layers of cake at it’s highest part and was 4″ wide by 14″ long. The other cars were 8 inches and 12 inches long, respectively.  The “coal” was a box of Junior Mints.  It was just plain white cake wih the almond-infused buttercream, which, it turns out, Hunter is not a fan of.  He wants his icing (which he prefers to cake) to be plain, old vanilla-flavored.  Next time, Magoo, next time. 

The smokestack was my favorite part: icing glued cookies, and a “Dot” base holding a cocktail pick threaded through popcorn for the smoke.  Pretty cute!

 

I had looked at a bunch of train cakes online and cracked up at them and wondered why people would even post them.  Then mine turned out like theirs.  Ha!  But there wasn’t any sweat and the grandkids loved it. It was quick, simple, easy, fun and in the end the candy was the huge hit!

There are still vats of buttercream here…takers?…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  A Candyland cake!  YES!  Using MMF and lots and lots and lots of candy!

pictured: the cake, the chalkboard in the kitchen;  and Hunter at his house about to blow out his candles!

Fall Frost

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , , , , ,

I think we had an actual, true frost today.  I know it was 58 degrees in my kitchen when I started up the coffee pot.  And no, I will not turn on the heat, yet.  I am a die-hard.  Can I make it to November?  This is the question. 

Most of the plants seem to be perking back up, even though I have done nothing to save them.  Even the zucchini, whose leaves froze and look soggy, dark and droopy, are boasting some bright new flowers in response to the returning sunlight – after 3 very overcast days.

I am studying and preparing for the Leaving a Legacy Intensive kick-off this weekend, but keep getting distracted by 3, small adorable orange moths of some sort.  Though they are probably depositing some evil larvae all over the garden as we speak, I think I will call them butterflies because they are delightful as they frolic,  alternately swooping and circling and tag-playing, with sunning themselves on the patio and garden rocks  Try as I might, and though I swear I have seen them all in the view-finder at once repeatedly, I cannot seem to get the camera to click quickly enough to capture all three, though they are dancing and prancing about just inches from me here near the glass doors.

Yes, the garden is slowly, but surely shutting down for the year, but it makes each plant that is still showing all the more ravishing, makes me more grateful.  Why, the petunias are practically haughty today, all purple and abundant, flowering with gusto, unaffected by the cold – perhaps even encouraged by it?

  

  

Today I am praising God for: the return of the sun…hot coffee (and decaf for when I have reached my limit)…the 3 fanciful orange “butterflies” performing gleefully outside my window…the grape tomatoes, packed with flavor, my morning snack…the love of a good man: my husband, my friend, my lover-the one who talks me off the ledges…my family, both the one I came from and the one I am getting to create, still…e-mails in “secret code” from grandkids…people who know how to pray…the sweet Presence of God, who joins me on the first sound of a song……First frost-warm home…the wisdom of the Word (I am in Proverbs today!).  And the temp in my kitchen has reached 63 degrees.  I am thankful!

Blessings in all things to you and yours!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  So glad I didn’t get in a hurry to uproot the sagging sunflowers (see photo here).  Yesterday they were the host to a couple of amazingly beautiful bluejays and I got to watch!  What would I have missed by stripping them away before their whole work was through?  Get back to Legacy notes…

Pictured, top, left to right: the orange “butterflies” sunning themselves on rock and concrete.  Bottom, left to right: the first two were taken through the window on the Dahlia plant that is apparently enthralling the little “flutterbies.”  Finally, the mum, quiet the summer through, has now exploded into this happy hello in its off-the-beaten-path locale.  I snapped  it chasing butterflies.

UPDATE  10.14.08 – I have been informed that my 3 little orange “moths” were actually baby Monarch Butterflies.  I didn’t know Monarchs were ever this small?  I hope they keep visiting!

Sweet Niece Elise – A Belated Happy Birthday!

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

I have 8 nephews and 2 nieces among my siblings.  For the most part, we’ve never lived in the same city, so they are just these far-off adorables you get to see growing up through Christmas card photos and the every-other-year family gatherings.  They are a pretty likeable bunch!

Until March, we have never lived closer than 13-20 hours from my sweet niece, Elise, the firstborn to my brother Joe and his wife, Robin.  But then she moved here following 2 years of leading missions trips with YWAM and what extra joy she has brought!

She turned 22 on the 22nd and it is fitting for she is at least 22 times happier and excited about life than most anyone else on the planet.  She has made us laugh at least 2200 times since she got here and she has been a happy encourager to all of us no less than 222 times.

We have a video of Elise when she was 9 years old, very happily describing the pretty outfit she has just purchased for church, just bubbling in anticipation of the moment she’ll be able to don it and model it for us all.  The very weekend she moved to Denver this year, on a Saturday afternoon, she bounded into the kitchen sharing excitedly, Look at this cute outfit I got for church today!! and  drew us all into the excitement of how cute she would be.  She never fails to pull us in by her exhuberance for living, where even small feats are opportunities to celebrate. 

Happy Birthday, sweet Elise Rachelle Moslander!  You are color and light and a world traveller with a big heart.  You have become the beautiful young woman I always knew you would be, but have surprised me by being such an amazing woman of faith and trust in God!  You are a faith woman, for sure!

May all your blessings come times 2 this year!…Aunt Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Take good care of my sweet niece, Elise! 

Happy Birthday, Tristan!

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

Read Tristan’s birthday post from last year here.   I bawled when I wrote it and he may have sniffled a bit when he read it.   We’ll keep it cool this year.

Today Tristan, my first son-in-law ever, turns 28!

Happy Birthday, Tristan, superb son-in-law and waaaaay above average husband to my daughter, Stephanie.   Happy Birthday to you as we celebrate your life represented by faithfulness and trustworthiness in all you do.   Happy Day to a Hoosier who chose rightly to live in Colorado, for it set up a chain of events that made you one of us, a blessing we regularly praise God for!   Blessed and glorious Day of Remembrance for us all as we stop to honor you and the life you lead!

Tristan is a rare find.   Unassuming and humble, you might not notice genius in the room or divine the depth of talent and creativity, nor the well of of knowledge and intelligence if you were passing through a  space with him in it.   You  could be near and yet   miss the wry twinkle of a quiet, but wicked sense of humor, or fail to see the deep thoughtfulness about the powerful issues of the day in politics, religion, worldview.

No.    One might pass Tristan and see a kind person, a quiet man gently playing with his 3 children or engaged in a conversation with family or friends.   A person might say, “Doesn’t he play the drums?”   And not even realize that he is truly one of the best around, sought after by the best musicians, not only at drums, but at all instruments.   You might just see the best of him: an incredible and loving husband and devoted father, and still not get to see the rest of him.

But we, his family, are blessed.   We are blessed to see the giant of a man he is.   Tris is the big-brother of the fam, now.   He is some one we all trust and our go-to guy about anything and everything that ails us.   He knows our secrets, our faults and our failures, and yet, can be trusted with that information.   You cannot buy that kind of character or love.   He is a gift.   We are blessed.

 

So, today, Tristan, I bless you and I thank God for you.   These are the gifts I want you to open today and throughout this next year:

Grace to you, Tristan, and peace.   Be blessed with provision through your giftings and abilities, both the technological and the artistic-musician sides.   I pray that resources make themselves available and that your resourcefulness will become an even greater and valued comodity!

May you be preserved in blamelessness your whole life long.   May your beautiful wife bring you joy and your children, great delight.   May God hear all your prayers and your secret heart’s desires and answer   you in times of trouble.  

I pray that, while should it ever fall my lot –  I would defend you to the death, may the Lord be your defender and protector and  may He keep you safe on every side.  

I pray that you, planted firmly by living waters, will begin to see the fruitfulness of your faithfulness before God and that this next year will bring blessing on every side, provision, new opportunities and new open spaces.   I pray that we’ll see the explosion of the color of you all around,  for this new time and place and new year for you and you family.  

I am so pleased with you as my daughter’s husband and as the father of my 3 beautiful grandchildren.   They are the proof of the man you are.   I am so pleased to call you son, and thankful to your parents for sharing.   I am so blessed you were born to be a part of us.   I love you wholeheartedly, Tristan!

Happy Birthday, cherished one…Your very own (and hopefully not dreaded)  m-i-l   :)

NOTE TO SELF:   Make Tris a drum cake next year.

pictured: Tristan in the Hershey store in Times Square on a recent family vacation; Guini helping Tris open his presents yesterday; Tris and my other amazing son-in-law!

The Convivial Table

2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

“The convivial table is where it all begins,” I once read  with immediate agreement  and wish I could remember where and to whom it should be attributed.   Naturally I liked the word “convivial” because it denotes lively feasting and banqueting with loved ones, being in good company with lots of good food for all.

I was perusing an old issue of Architectural Digest   recently, a lovely magazine I try to pick up from the annual library clean-up sale,  when I  saw an ad for Electrolux appliances which said,

“In my kitchen: I preheat a memory.   I fold in old friends with new.   I bake a good laugh.”  

I enjoyed the clever marrying of cooking and baking terms to the meaning of life.   There’s an ad person with a poet’s heart, methinks.  

And isn’t the kitchen truly the lifeline of home and family?   Is this not where we experience unforgettable laughter and memory, the aromas of love and home-cooking?       Isn’t it in the kitchen we hear the music of the percolating coffee, the sizzle of the bacon, the the beep of the timer signifying the wait is over, the promise has arrived?     Is this not where we see the garden’s burst of  color  and taste of life itself?  

The convivial table is life-giving.   The convivial table is a place of gratefulness and feasting.   “The convivial table is where it all begins,” and the place we keep hoping to get back to and should visit often.

I my kitchen I…what?

Eat, drink and be merry with some people you love…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Tomorrow the table will be laden with fish tacos and fruit pizza for Tristan’s birthday (hey it is his menu!), and with love for him and loud talk and laughter amongst all.

pictured: a table spread for Christmas cheer moments before the lively and much-loved guests arrived

 

 

Five Little Monkeys

2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think,

   

Gavin (5)  is in Kindergarten now.   He seems rather appalled at the lack of snacks and refreshments offered by his new teacher, as when he pre-schooled with me, each completed assignment signified it was time for a break and snack!   He also knows here, even if I put “special toys” away in the garage, he is free to find them and use them at will.   He has often reported of Kindergarten: “There’s a lot of toys there, but I can’t play with them.   It’s hard work.”

   

Guinivere (3)  came over with her siblings the other night at 8:30 pm while her parents went to see Death Cab for Cutie.   The others fell asleep at a reasonable little-kid time, while Guini danced and pranced about happily until 12:30 am.   Not only is she a nightowl – she is an exhuberant night owl, full of joyful and loud talk!

   

Gemma (1)  is such a petite and tiny thing, a person is sometimes surprised by how independent and  wry she is.   Even her orneriness is sweetened by the moments she runs up to me saying, “Hold me, hold me, hold me,” over and over as she reaches her skinny little arms around  my neck and comes in close.    And then she is off again like a flash.   She can almost finish a popsicle drip free!   At one!

   

Hunter (almost 4)  is King of the Corn.   He helped me till the ground in the little 4′ x 4′ square a few months back.   He  spread a little manure and he pushed the corn seeds in to the ground with his little finger.   Whenever he came over, he’d water his corn field and became very delighted to see the corn pop up and grow to his knees and then his shoulders and then over his head.   We have been getting corn for a couple of weeks.   I think he likes the idea of touching and watering and playing with corn more than the eating it, but he’ll learn.

     

Averi (6 1/2 months) came over one night a couple of weeks ago with her hair in little ponytail “sprouts.”   When Jovan took them out to get her in her jammies and all comfy for the night, at first her hair just stayed there – sprouted out.   Then it began to come down into these side poofs which made her look like Princess Leia.   Then for awhile she looked like Jim Carrey  as Ace Ventura, but it was finally decided she looked most like the Mayor from  Whoville.   Whatever – we love her hair!   AND she just got her first tooth a couple of days ago!

These are the 5 little monkeys who jump on my beds, my couches, off my counters, through my garden and into my heart.

Have I ever mentioned how happy I am to be a grandma?…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Get a really good camera, for crying out loud.

How Could this Happen?

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

My initial reactions are rage and disappointment.   My first responses are  deep grief and sadness, even anger. What are you thinking?   What have you done?   What happened?

Yet,  I tread carefully.   I  start to judge you, lash out and condemn you in my mind, but I must not.   Judge not that ye be not judged...It is not my place.   And truthfully, any temptation to judge causes me to see my own sin and failure so vividly,  I dare not go there.   But what is this I feel, this nauseousness, this suffocating ache?

I grieve for the One who has blessed you with every good and spiritual gift, the One who made sure there was  a way out of temptation, though you didn’t appropriate it…I grieve for the one who has walked beside you these many years and made you a better man and brought you honor in the city gates, covering you with her love and grace…I grieve for the three for whom, you having given the devil a foothold, will battle the enemy’s territorial claim on their souls and hearts.   I grieve that you have removed the covering of covenant from your family and the wife of your youth and pitched your tent in enemy territory.   I grieve for the pain of the ripped one-flesh.  

When did sin take such a hold it made sense to you?   Has there been unfinished adolescent business?   Is there a wound you are trying to salve?

How have you justified this in your mind and heart?   How have you calculated the cost, the sadness and the pain on your family, the church, your friends and sphere of influence, and reconciled it as being worth it?

What are you doing, man who has received the full grace of God for so long and in so many ways, son of a holy man, to repair the heart-wrenching, seemingly endless agony you have caused?

I grieve.

And I mourn.

I mourn for the anguish you are bearing, though it is of your own doing.   Sometimes we hurt ourselves more than we do anyone else.   I mourn for the distance you must be feeling right now from Father, though God promised to never leave us or forsake us, we find it hard to look at Him when we have taken an unholy path.   I mourn for the damage this will do to your relationships with the ‘arrows of your quiver’ – your true heritage from God.   I lament over the loss of holy love and weep over the consequences you’ll endure  for your choices, however beautifully graced this may become, there  will be a bitter fruit you must taste.    There  will be  lasting evidence that effects all goings-forward.

On that sunny day in May, so many years ago,   The Message, in Malachi, tells us:

…God was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride, and now you’ve broken those vows, broken the faith-bond with your vowed companion, your covenant wife. God, not you, made marriage. His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you…God-of-the-Angel-Armies says, “I hate the violent dismembering of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.” So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat.

God is the witness to the union, just as He is the witness on your behalf against the enemy.   He is the One who formed you and created you with His intent in mind.  He created and chose you – do you comprehend the miracle of this?

And so, because I have needed grace so desperately so much in my life, because Jesus has shown us that only he who  is without sin may cast the first stone and that is not me, I am praying for you.   I am praying that you will get wisdom and go after it with all your might!   I am praying you will flee from the enemy and run to the Hiding Place.     I am crying out to God to save you from that enemy, and from yourself (when you are own worst enemy).   I pray you will repent fully and humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.   I pray that you will experience a brokenness that knocks the wind from your body, a crushing that will release the power and presence of God into this situation.   I pray you will let the Truth set you free, no matter how much that hurts or embarrasses you.  

I pray that soon, you will be the free-est man I know, whole and restored, in spite of yourself.

I have you in my heart forever.   You’ll always be the one who refreshed and welcomed me when I needed it so much.   It is not forgotten and I want to offer you the same, with love…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:   Isn’t exposing sin and holding each other accountable to God’s grace (even if some one doesn’t want us to)  more important than letting the enemy wreak havoc?   Try to figure this out…

Grace Notes

2 Mi Familia, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

Life’s Grace Notes: Unexpected moments of perfection, the  tiniest shimmer  of  beauty  piercing your heart.   The I-was-made-for-this minute; the unscheduled, fleeting, almost-unnoticeable events that make the life you have more valuable than you can imagine or could ever have hoped or asked for.

Grace note:   Daughter, Tara, sitting in the chair in the family room, singing the new song she has just written to the Lord.   The song is breathtakingly beautiful, outshone only by the  clarity of her voice,  striking and true.  

Grace note:   Rocky & Jovan drawing us all into a game of murder and angelic rescue and accusations called “Mafia.”   We laugh and turn on each other like there is no tomorrow, in the spirit of friendly, family  competition.   Laughing our heads off, we wonder why we don’t play games more?

 

Grace note: Stormie and Tredessa coming home from Venezuela after almost two weeks.   When Steph and the kids show up to see them, an impromtu weekday afternoon pool party ensues on a sunny, summer day.  

Grace note: Tredessa deciding to hang out here at our house for a few days following the trip.   Regular life gets placed aside because of our special “house guest,” and that is sweet.

Grace note:   Stormie, frustrated that the new card trick she keeps trying on everyone isn’t really that good.   The odds, which are supposed to be in her favor, keep landing in ours.   Fun for us.

 

Grace Note:   Gavin’s hair carefully self-styled – with gel, no less, for his Back-to-School night, which is really his first-ever night at school.

Grace note:   A God-appointed few hours with Stephanie, just the two of us and me so enjoying our conversation, I don’t notice that just one side of my face is getting burnt to a crisp, just one side.

Grace note:   Dave studying for a class he’ll be teaching…in the pool.   He is getting paid for it.   *smile…

Grace note:   Hunter pondering the Home of Refuge Orphange in Venezuela.   When I tell him, “They don’t have a mommy and daddy like you do.”   He tells me wisely, “God is their daddy now.”

Nothing earth-shattering.   Nothing you’d necessarily plan for or schedule in, but sweet and harmonious, the very sound of heaven, “the music of living.”   Extra notes and embellishments make the song all the sweeter.   I hum along.

It is unmerited, I assure you.   Are you hearing yours?…Jeanie

NOTE FO SELF:   Listen for the moments.

pictured: Stormie and Tredessa with the orphans; Gavin smelling a dinnerplate Dahlia; Hunter in his jammies, making me laugh  as the sun was setting one evening;   Dave on the clock.