Won't you be my neighbor?

Last night I had to take my neighbor to the emergency room. She's okay, but they are still trying to figure out what exactly the problem is. For a young, healthy mom, her chest pains and nausea were quite concerning. When I pulled up in front of her house to take her to the hospital, our next door neighbors were coming out of the house, helping with the baby and assisting as needed. They, too had gotten a call and knew that M wasn't feeling well so they went over in person to check on her.

That is why I love my little dead end street. I love that there are people right next door and across the street that will be by my side in an instant if I need them. They care about our family and our daily happenings. They loan us a ladder or give me a cup of sugar when I run out. After living in apartments where no one makes eye contact with anyone else, living in our little neighborhood is everything I ever hoped it would be.

It's taken time, but it's so worth it. Two days a week M and D and our three babies walk on the bike trail together. Our families gather together for dinner and to hang out with one another on a regular basis. This weekend we are having a yard sale together as part of our neighborhood's annual sale and picnic. We are a part of each other's daily lives.

It feels good to belong.

Slow down

It has been a slow week around here. Wiping lots of runny noses, trying my hand at quilting with mixed results, and getting a great haircut have been the highlights. We finally ordered our new windows and a month from now we will be living large with new, clean, bigger, nicer windows. I can't wait to have that project off our to-do list. A slow week, but a good one.

For the last several days I have been trying to put into words what my heart is saying when I read about baby Copeland and her family. God has brought them to mind literally hundreds of times in the last week to pray. I am broken for them and can't begin to comprehend how they are feeling. Through them and a heart-wrenching tragedy of another family close to home, God is teaching Cale and I to be more thankful for our sweet, healthy girl. Bedtime hugs are a little longer, kisses more frequent, and holding the weight of her body against mine has never felt so good.

I take so much for granted in my daily life. Yes, I am thankful for a nice house to live in and a car that runs and money for food. But what I am most thankful for are not things; they are my sweet, kind, loving husband and my sassy, busy, delightful little girl. I am thankful for reminders to love them better and appreciate their presence in my life more.

And I will take a slow week with the two of them by my side any time.

Falling Into Reading

The Fall Into Reading 2007 challenge is here and I have a short list this time around. I haven't had a lot of time to read of late so I am hoping that this list will help me to get motivated when I do have time. This is probably not a complete list as I usually get inspired on visits to the bookstore or library and will add to this as the months progress. Am I the only one who goes to the bookstore and picks out books I want to read, writes down the names and authors and then goes home and requests them from the library? I love to read, but my thriftiness compels me to heavily utilize the library. Or the clearance shelf at Half-Price Books! And now the list:

A Widow for One Year by John Irving

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

The Case for the Real Jesus by Lee Strobel

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

All My Road Before Me: the diary of C.S. Lewis by C.S. Lewis

The Christian Home School by Gregg Harris

Happy reading to everyone!

Breaking the news

For the last several months there has been some exciting news in our lives that I haven't really been able to write about. I'm not sure what exactly changed today, but something did. We spent the morning at a seminar for America World Adoption Association because we are going to adopt from Ethiopia!

Adoption is something that was always in our minds as a someday thing. But early this summer through a series of events we are confident that the Lord is leading us to making that someday NOW. We have spent the last few months praying and researching and talking and praying some more, seeking the Lord's guidance and wisdom as we pursued this God-sized dream He has placed in our hearts.

Something about going to the seminar today made it even more of a reality that this is our future. If there were any part of us that was doubting this decision, we both walked out of there with a clear sense of purpose and a resounding "YES" in our hearts. We are excited to really, officially begin the process. It is our hope that we will submit our application in the next few weeks and then the fun begins. We have lots of paperwork in our immediate future and untold joy at the end of it all.

We can not wait to see who God will add to our family!

Growing up is hard to do

We have entered into a new phase at our house...Haven is now the proud new owner of a potty seat. And proud she is. She is very excited about this new idea and keeps asking to go into the bathroom. I'm not sure how much she really understands at this point, but the fact that she's interested is all I need to encourage her. No pressure, but plenty of opportunity.



Part of me is not so sure I'm ready for this. She's my baby. We can't possibly be ready for this stage already, can we? Nineteen months have flown by that have completely and forever changed my life and my heart. How did it happen so fast?



The other part of me knows that I'll never be ready for all the changes that come our way, but that resistance does me no good. It's potty training this week, but preschool and slumber parties and college are a blink away. A bit dramatic in my progression, yes, but there is truth in that. Each day that can seem so long as I walk in the midst of it, is part of a chain of days and weeks and months and years that will take us places I can't even imagine at a rate I'm not too comfortable with.

Thankfully there is grace for each day. Not to be stored up and tucked away for the months and years to come, but grace for today. And that's all I need.

Cuteness

Week- end Hodgepodge (a.k.a. a list)

I'm not sure why it has felt like such a long week, but I am ever so thankful it is Friday. Lots of good things to look forward to this weekend with a high temp of 64 degrees tomorrow ranking close to the top. And now random thoughts, from me to you.

1. Tonight I get to take Amber out to celebrate her birthday. Our plans are still a bit up in the air, but I can assure that the evening will revolve around good food, good deals, good conversation and hopefully a good movie. I am so excited that I get to start off Amber's birthday weekend extravaganza with her!

2. We are in the process of getting new windows and it is no fun. I can see why people call up a window company and they magically have new windows all in place a few weeks later. We aren't going on such a clear cut route. In order to cut costs, we are ordering them from a building supply company and then hiring someone else to install them. It will save us mucho dinero, but it is causing us (and by us, I mean Cale) a great deal of stress. It doesn't help that our current widows are probably original to the house which was built in 1915 so they are crazy big and crazy sizes. I made Cale promise me that it would all be over by Thanksgiving. He did so, but rather nervously.

3. I saw these at Target yesterday and I am going to have to get Haven a pair. They are seriously adorable and just what she needs now that it's sock season again. Poor little thing has done a few splits on the kitchen floor and the socks have also severely limited her climbing power (which is not a bad thing!). They aren't puffy and don't have some animated character head bobbling on the front which are big pluses in my book. (Not that bobbling heads are bad, just not the look I'm going for.)

4. This post by Sarah got my mind racing ahead to Christmas and to all the wonderful traditions that we have started with our family. One of my many projects for fall is acquiring all the elements for us to have a Jesse Tree. I am so excited to be able to start a new tradition with Haven this Christmas and believe it is something we will all look forward to each year to help us celebrate Jesus' birth.

5. I'm compiling a list of all my projects that are in various states of undone this fall; it is long and seems somewhat intimidating to me, but we're gonna press on and see what happens. A few items include: learning to quilt with my neighbors, sew a pair of pants for Haven, embroider a set of napkins to give as a gift, paint her hand-me-down wagon a lovely shade of apple green, remove excess items from my house in time for our neighborhood garage sale, and reorganize every closet in the house. It's going to be a busy fall. And is it not impressive that I just managed to create a list inside a list? My writing skills have no bounds.

And now I need to get to work around here!