9 months

it wasn't my intention to let so much time slip by between posts. it never is. ah, well.

i always feel like i have to have a picture to start with in order to get my thoughts going. it's quite intimidating to me to sit at the computer and just...blog. i don't know where to start. and do you really want to hear random thoughts? or should i always have a "subject" to be writing about?

i've been trying to be really good about documenting isaac's milestones. problem is - i'm about 8 months late. better late than never, i suppose. we're well into month nine, one that i am discovering is full of independence, personality, and fun things like teething and first ear infections.

unfortunately, this is one of the very few good shots we got, since isaac was dealing with said ear infection at the time and was not happy that i kept removing the rocks from his mouth every ten seconds. too bad, kiddo. i'm not changing those diapers.

jeremiah 17:8

my sister, ashley, recently finished up a nice little project that i had intended on doing myself one day but she got done much faster (and probably much better!) than i could have. she's currently in limbo with teaching jobs with the rest of america, so when she popped over for a visit one saturday, i "suggested" her doing these for me. i was so impressed with the result! she did it all free hand, and i love that it's one of a kind!

i've always loved that saying and the meaning it has for our family. we've both fallen in love with the symbolism of a tree in many ways. his latest tattoo (below) fits him perfectly.

jeremiah 17:8 is disguised in the roots of the tree on his arm and reads,
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.

i love praying for and dreaming about how tim has the great opportunity to be an example of a true man of God with his little boy. the men of the Church at large have a big calling and responsibility to stand up and be steadfast, anchored in the Word of God & rooted in love. the symmetry just jumps out all over the place when we start comparing trees & spirituality.

i pray that isaac will grow straight and tall as he gets older. that he will be rooted in faithfulness, love, and Truth. i pray that he will be able to be an example of a real man and produce fruit that gives all the glory to God. i know i have a big part in this as his mother as well, and i'm not going to pretend it's not intimidating!

for now, tim and i are going to try our hardest to tend to the little "acorn" God has given us, and remember that we have been chose to help raise one of God's disciples.

in which i can't quiet my brain

first of all, let me give credit where credit is due. i'm at starbucks right now, enjoying my first pumpkin spice latte of the season. by myself. on a saturday night at 10pm. ahhh. my husband is awesome and letting me have time to just be myself and enjoy time reading, blogging, and indulging in highly over-priced caffeinated beverages. i mean, that's why i married him.

i have a lot on my mind and heart lately. most of it has to do with "dreams" of what i can do to get involved even more in our youth ministry, get involved in my own ministries (at home, with friends, etc.), and how to encourage those around me. it's been amazing at the time and energy i've been blessed with now that i'm not working full time. i feel like i can minister full time. whether that comes from not taking advantage of my working years and seeing them as ministry, or just not being in my "niche" is irrelevant. at least right now.

in this season of my life, i have found God putting many new opportunities in front of me to dream and plan, write, read, study and just learn about the ways i can minister and be ministered to right here in Anderson, Indiana.

a couple of things i've been brewing up lately:

-planning a fall girls' retreat for our students and challenging them to be the women they are growing up to be
-getting to (really)know the women that help us out at Bethany & finding ways to encourage them
-start a late Bible study with a few girls & inviting some we don't
-being accountable to 9 other women (some in South Korea!) about reading the Scriptures every day
-praying about & seeking opportunities to earn a small income while doing something i LOVE (like writing?)

this may seem like a small list to some, but i have to start small. i'm amazed at what mental energy was somehow buried underneath the burden of working full time and the frustration of not having the time to dive into what i wanted.

i am embracing this new season in my life as my new full time ministry. little did i know what there really is a lot to it!


disclaimer: by all means, i am not saying that working full time is a burden or am looking down upon it. i live a life of seasons, and right now for me, this is not what's best for my life. i often miss the pride and respect of being able to say i'm using my graduate degree and making a respectable income similar to my husband!

also, i know this picture doesn't have much to do with the post, but it's by far my favorite recent family pictures, taken today when we visited our first apple orchard of the fall season:) ok, it's really just because i like to brag about how stinkin' blessed i am with my two boys.

a family adventure

tim finally cashed in his father's day gift IOU and found a child's carrier pack. we headed to Mounds State Park in Anderson to try it out. it was a gorgeous day and isaac didn't even notice that he didn't have lunch until 2:00 because he was so busy just looking around and giggling when either of us would "run" with the pack on our backs. his favorite thing to do was either lean as far as he could to one side so he could watch Marley walk the trails...or pull our ponytails out.

what goes around..

my grandmother sent me this picture a few months ago when i was complaining about not getting sleep with a new baby. she wanted me to "note the tired eyes" that my mother had when she was so enthusiastically feeding me.if you didn't already know how much i resemble my mom, this picture is a great example. i'm about six months old here...it was Christmas in 1984.

what were YOU doing for Christmas in 1984??

fighting for morning

i've never been very good at carving out dedicated time each day to read my Bible. i just don't sit down and read, period. i know it's a weak link in my day and my journey in faith, but i'd just accepted the fact. tim, on the other hand, is very good at this. he is a reader, and is usually very consistent with finding time to be alone with God. this is one of the many reasons i know the Lord made us for each other. in some instances, you couldn't find two more people as opposites but complements of the other.

recently, i've actually wanted to get up early and start my day with reading & having time to myself. maybe it's because if i let isaac be my alarm, i'm not ready for the day & don't feel prepared to meet him every morning with a joyful attitude. i stumble around, trying to get him changed, get him breakfast, and wake up myself all at the same time. it's still taking tim and i some adjusting to get used to the fact that 8am is really sleeping in!

i feel like i need to be up and prepared to meet the day before my family so that i can almost pave the way for how the day starts for them. if i'm grumpy and tired, then that will definitely rub off. if i've spent time with God, praying for my family, and ready for the day...it's amazing how much more productive and prepared i feel. i usually get more excited when isaac finally wakes up and i'm ready to start a good day.

with any new endeavor to become closer to Christ, i've learned to expect the enemy to throw a fit. he will now try to throw kinks in my plans and make me feel frustrated and stupid about what i'm trying to do. ever since i've tried to get up before isaac and get my morning started with prayer and reading, i've noticed a few things:

isaac has successfully slept through the night since 8 weeks old. occasionally, you'd have to go put a pacifier back in or cover him up, but that's about it. just this last week and a half, he's been waking several times and may have to be rocked or nursed back to sleep.

our chocolate lab, marley, has had a weird issue with getting sick at night ever since she was a puppy. it's usually not very often, but if we wake up to her getting sick, we just know it's another day. it involves taking her out, cleaning up, getting her water, getting back to bed, etc. in the last week or so, she's gotten sick three times, sometimes several times a night.

needless to say, tim and i have not been getting good sleep lately. call me crazy, but i'm not looking forward to 6:30 am when i've been up with a crying child and sick dog that night. i haven't slept well and i don't feel like getting up any earlier than i have to. i know this is the enemy trying to tell me i don't have the energy to get up and spend that time with my God.

i'm telling you all of this because maybe somehow that keeps me accountable. whether i'm up to spend time in Scripture or i'm just praying for my family and friends or i'm writing and thinking about something i read somewhere, i need to prepare my day. i've never ever been an "up earlier than i have to be" person at any point in my life so this is a new season for me. i'm excited to see how God will use it and i hope you're encouraged to start your days off with something besides that last minute cup of coffee on the way out the door.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Marcus Aurelius

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
William Blake

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35

one day...

building a home

God's been working on my heart lately about really taking my roles as mother and wife seriously. not that i thought he was kidding before, but i've realized the peace and satisfaction that i get from fulfilling these two roles and i want to make sure i'm being the best i can be at both of them. at this point in my life, i know that my main priorities should be at home, making it a place of refuge and encouragement for T and of learning, love, and safety for I.

i never realized how accountable i would be to God for the way i handle these two roles. just like teaching at school, i feel like i am solely responsible for the atmosphere i create & the attitudes and characters that are built as a result. i'm trying not to be too 'old-fashioned' or sound as if i'm against any working mom (i was one for a short time) or wife who wants to earn her place as a financial contributor. sometimes, i don't like depending on T to be the breadwinner. i have earned two college degrees, a full time job position in the public schools, and a paycheck that is quite comparable to my husband's. i'm learning to let him provide in financial ways so that i can provide in other ways that i couldn't quite as well as if i were still working full time.

i want to briefly share the journey that God is putting me on as new mother and a wife of a minister. i'll go up against anyone who says those roles aren't challenging and sometimes frustrating. i'd also argue that they can be the most rewarding. they are roles blessed by God and to be taken very seriously.

i've found another blog (surprise, surprise) that i love dearly. it's called passionate homemaking and she writes about Titus 2:4-5 where he instructs women to be the main keepers of the home, and what a Biblical thing that is. check out her blog...it's pretty incredible. stocked with all sorts of great recipes, diy natural cleaning products, articles that make you think, and best of all...how God is tied into all of it.

ok, back to my point. in one of her posts entitled, "homemaking is about people" she used this statement. i feel like i need to post it somewhere and remind myself every day of why i'm choosing to stay home, a choice that is sometimes looked down upon or questioned in an economy such as the one we face today. This statement explains exactly what my goals should be:

The point of being a keeper at home is to provide a haven for a godly family to thrive, to offer hospitality to fellow Christians and non-Christians alike, and to provide a place for the church to meet.

-taken from Caroyln McCulley’s Radical Womanhood

wow. so much packed into one statement! more on that later... thoughts?

f-f-finally

i can breathe now. we have internet at our house. like, the legit kind you don't steal from your neighbors and hope the signal's strong enough when you turn on your machine. i finally realize how much i need the internet. yes, i need it. i do.

here's why, in case any of you out there are wondering, "but court, don't you usually talk about how we need to spend time outside and having real conversations and not watching cable and all that?" yes, i do. i believe all of that too much tv stuff rots the brain and makes us think of mush. however, i have discovered a new appreciation fore the blogging community, the coupons to practically ANYTHING you could think of, and the recipes and immense amount of information to anything that wonders into my muddled brain during the course of a day.

just yesterday, i thought, "hmm. i wonder if i need to be doing anything to treat the seal around the door of my new he washer. i bet i could look it up."

this last weekend when tim was out of town (again), "ok, i'm going to hit up some community garage sales. i'll have tim look up the addresses online at work and tell me where they are. *insert stifled independent woman syndrome* oh nevermind, i'll just drive all the way down there and find out they're really tomorrow. convenient. i guess i'll just drive aimlessly around and hope to bump into some." (btw, i actually did.)

or, "i think isaac has an unusual diaper rash. i wonder if i need to change the overnight diaper covers i'm using or if there's another way to treat it besides Desitin?"

or even, "i need to pay my bills online so i don't have to use stamps and checks."

well what about, "i have a ton of watermelon. what can i do with it besides eat it cut up? or make watermelon juice? (barf.)"

but especially, "i feel like writing."

see?

new every morning

it's funny how having a small child forces you to become a morning person. i say "forces" on purpose. i am not usually a morning person, except for Christmas mornings and such. little man usually rises in a pretty happy mood about 7am every day, usually singing to us or making bubbles through the monitor. tim and i usually wake up and giggle at him before we "rock, paper, scissors" to see who has to get him. usually, i lose. something about tim having trouble nursing...
it's scary how punctual the little booger can be about getting up in the morning. i really can't complain, since he's a very good sleeper and has been sleeping through the night successfully since about 8 weeks old. since i'm awakened by my tiny alarm clock and have to rise to the occasion of diaper duty, breakfast, and playtime all before 8am i try my best to do it joyfully and enjoy the mornings before i have to shove him out the door to catch a bus or argue over what i packed for lunch.

while we were in North Carolina on vacation with my family after my sister's wedding, i took advantage of those mornings. this particular morning, isaac rose before anyone else in the house had gotten up, including my dad who is usually an early riser himself. i claimed my 'wife of the year' award once again and let tim sleep in while i decided what to do to keep isaac occupied after his breakfast bowl was scraped clean.

um, hello. we are at the beach. i'm a big fan of the beach, but i love it mostly early in the morning and in the evenings. it's not as hot, the scenery is at its finest, and the only people out are the ones who respect the quiet time of the beach at that hour. i grabbed a beach towel and a burp rag (a regular accessory of mine at this point) and isaac and i headed to the beach by ourselves. in our pajamas. i can't even remember if i had shoes on.


it was probably my favorite memory of that vacation. i am reminded (by others and my own perspective) that all too soon i will wish i had these days back. the time isaac and i had out on the beach was priceless. i told him about the way the tide comes in and out in the mornings and evening. i showed him a fiddler crab who was brave enough to come out even in our presence. i let him feel the sand. we sat and watched the dogs play in the water down the beach and giggled about how they just plowed through the waves. we felt how warm the water was and stomped on the bubbles that it left on the sand.



i hope isaac realizes how much God was in that moment. out on the beach in the morning. just he and i. to watch him as he just took it all in. the familiar hush of the waves, the new sensations of the sand and waves. the time he and i praised God together, without saying a single thing. even though he didn't show excitement, he was peaceful in enjoying the beach God created for him to play on. what a special morning. i hope you can find peace, hope, and new beginnings in the mornings of your life. this specific morning in the outer banks with my son will be forever etched in my mind as the morning time stood still and i just enjoyed God.

home again, home again

i promised pictures, and pictures i shall share. since i've last blogged, we've been to the east coast and back. my sister got married, isaac has now experienced the beach and the virginia heat, and we even managed to survive a flight home at 1am. whew. here are a few highlights of what we've been up to.





i wanted to share this last picture so you could see what a goofy little man isaac is becoming. he is starting to pick up on when mommy or daddy (or whoever else within eyeshot) thinks he's being funny. i love it.

hello? are you there?

yes, i know it's been awhile. yes, i know i have probably a dozen posts that begin this way. well, tough. it will have to keep waiting. we've just moved, tim's gone to camp and back, insert small crises when he's away, now we're packing up and leaving at 5am to fly to virginia for my little sister's wedding and a beach trip with the fam. whew. so at least you have good pictures when i get back?

a few random pictures

isaac's learning how to reach for everything in sight...with his hands and feet. he is a little monkey when he's on the floor and gets so excited when something is close enough to kick the heck out of.

this is my new sugar tin. behind it are the two remaining flour and tea canisters that survived my clumsy hands and didn't shatter all over the floor in a million, precious porcelain pieces. this set was from my bff a few Christmases back and they're from Williams Sonoma. they might be my favorite kitchen items, but only because i don't have a kitchenaid mixer. yet. :)if only the tea canister had been the victim, i might have a somewhat "small, but still makes sense" set of canisters.

these are the socks i tye-dyed for my class for field day. this year, each class had colors and we were decked out on field day in our green & yellow. i took pictures of tim helping me dye them in the sink, but failed to take pictures of the finished product. they were pretty cute, and the girls especially loved wearing them super tall like softball socks. we had one of the mothers make REALLY cute hair ties to match. yes, of course, i wore one.

this is a picture of isaac. just because. :)

homemade oreos

so don't be impressed just yet. this recipe is from Smitten Kitchen(duh) and is really fun to make. mostly because i had a small sense of self-righteousness when i said, "well i made my own homemade oreos" as if anyone ever asked me...but also because i love piping icing onto anything and making tim wander into the kitchen in a hungry, curious stupor.

despite the things i would change about this recipe for next time, we still ate the entire batch in about 3 days. i kept them in the fridge since our house is quite warm without central air and the frosting stayed together the best that way.

a couple things i'm going to change for next time (oh yes, next time):
-tim expected the cookies to be soft or chewy, but much like a "real" Oreo the cookie was crunchy with an icing filling. if it was a soft cookie, it would really be called a whoopie pie. seriously, how fun is that? i have this book waiting in my cart on amazon.com.
-the icing wasn't sweet enough for my taste. remember, i'm someone who craves things so rich & sweet that you MUST have an entire glass of cold milk to wash it down. Deb from SK isn't a huge sweets person, even though she makes plenty of desserts. i think myyyyyy filling will need to ante up on the sugar next time.

honey funnies

this is one of the snacks that i make that doesn't last even twenty four hours in our house. with just tim and i. not even kidding. i made them last night and tonight, i think we may have one left (and i have plans for it in a few). we both love them and they're super easy to make. i got the recipe from my mom, who used to make them a lot for us as kids (probably one of the reasons my sister developed a fatal peanut allergy later in life - only kidding). they're great for kids (after 2 years, of course)because they can be molded and shaped, like an edible playdough. i just roll (or scoop) them into balls and eat a few with a glass of milk.

ingredients:
1 jar creamy peanut butter
1 bear of honey (or agave nectar)*
powdered milk
wheat bran (optional)


mix all ingredients well. the measurements are really just estimates. i usually end up using almost an entire jar of peanut butter, depending on how big of a batch i make. add powdered milk and honey as you need to make a sticky but still pretty doughy consistency. you need mostly peanut butter & powdered milk, then honey & wheat germ are added for taste and to adjust texture. i add the wheat bran for nutritional value. i've seen these made several different ways and i'm sure there's a hundred things you could add like i did the wheat bran. it's just what happened to be staring at me when i opened the cabinet door.





if you want to roll them into balls by hand, go for it. i have a handy dandy cookie dough scoop from Pampered Chef *dreamy sigh* and it goes much faster. store in the refrigerator.

i might have to try them dipped in chocolate....

*note: i only used half agave and half honey. the light agave nectar that i bought isn't sticky enough to bind everything together, so it's really important to have honey. the agave adds sweetness without so much sugar. i haven't heard anyone say they notice a difference in taste yet!

sk.

so i've found a new food website that i'm borderline obsessed with. i mean, do you ever watch a tv series so much that you feel like you actually KNOW the characters? as if you could just call them up and talk about their situations they're going through on that week's episode or the feeling that you might just run into them somewhere? this is how i feel about Deb from Smitten Kitchen. she lives in new york city in a teensy but very cute apartment where she takes care of her a.DOR.able baby boy and cooks up with some very interesting and delicious looking recipes, all the while "chatting" with you about her life. i'm a fan.

i've already made her bitter orange ice cream recipe (with adjustments) and am planning on the garlic & zucchini chicken meatloaf for tomorrow night. oh, and the chewy toffee blondies for dessert when we have friends over that evening. hopefully, the ice cream will freeze up nicely (i don't have an ice cream maker) and the meatloaf will be a hit. i'll take pictures later if they both work out.

newly discovered today, she is starting to make baby food for her little man and just started a side blog about that. yay!

that's all, really. i just had to share. although, from what i hear, she's already pretty well known. she was on the top 50 mommy blogs....a goal of mine one day. pffyeah, ok.

terrible (ok, not too bad) tuesday

(i heard a rule that you're not supposed to start out a blog with apologies, so i'm not apologizing. i'm just saying i haven't updated in awhile and i'm fully aware. so there. i'm not apologizing.)

yesterday wasn't the best of days. it wasn't the worst of days either. i just felt like i could take it or leave it as far as days of my life go. i got up that morning and heard the rain, inside and out. our roof was leaking. again. this time, in FOUR different places. i was sitting on the couch enjoying the news and my breakfast when i heard another trickle of water coming from God knows where. we have a front sunroom on our house that had been closed up for the winter and is now home to my sewing machine and extra couch. the ceiling out there had been guilty of dripping water before, but our landlord brushed it off as gutters that were backed up. temporarily fixed, it now leaks pretty badly in two places...ceiling is sagging a little and mold is showing up. awesome. seriously, though, in times like this i LOVE just picking up the phone and saying, "hey, you need to come fix your house. thanks." most of the time, it's so nice to be renters. yeah, i'm sure we're paying way over what a monthly mortgage would be, but we're not in debt up to our noses (which are now stuffy from the mold in the air) and it's like paying a full time, personal handy-man who will pay to get things fixed. and it's in his best interest. call me John Blum, but i love having that kind of control. :)

predicting what kind of day it may turn out to be, i used the rest of my Starbucks gift card from Tim (or Isaac) for mother's day and got my usual grande non-fat extra hot vanilla latte and very berry coffee cake. yes, that's right. it was a fat $20 gift card and i've already used it all. but i did buy tim coffee once. please.

upon arriving to work, i realized i'd forgotten my lunch AGAIN that week and had to pay for a Subway lunch. i know it's nice to have a dual income household, but literally all the money i make now until the end of the year is paying for childcare for 3-4 days a week, gas to drive 25 minutes one way, insurance that i need to cover the times when Mr. Blue Jaguar decides to rear end me on the way to work at 7am, and the times i have to spend both gas AND cash on buying lunch when i forget mine. argh.

tim and i went grocery shopping (which i actually like to do) and on our way back, as i'm mid-sentence, tim whips the jeep off the road, onto the grass, and across our church parking lot. what the? he saw tyler. of course. our friends tyler & carly were out flying some of their very expensive, very cool trick kites. we spent some time watching them do swirls and turns, flips and dives. tyler even let me try. i actually got the hang of it for a few minutes. it was peaceful to be out there that evening, watching how our friends enjoy the little things in life - beautifully engineered pieces of fabric sewn together & a good wind.


it ended up being a good day, or at least one that ended with God's peace erasing everything that i thought was stupid or that bummed me out that day. and that's how it should be.




*photos were taking by yours truly & edited by my better half. personally, i think we're a good team. in my opinion, we make pretty pictures and daggum pretty babies.

playing hookie.

lindsay's cake.

this is lindsay's birthday cake. i had a box cake mix in the pantry just tempting me last night, so i did something with it. i've been craving a cake with jam and light icing, so this is my own version. i even used the mint from our herb collection in the windowsill as the garnish.

i decided this cake reminded me of lindsay after i got started making it. it's something i think i would find in a southern dessert cookbook. i baked up a box cake (the one that uses real butter) and added a little cinnamon and nutmeg for some kick. linds and i learned that secret to making pancakes in port hope this last summer. i mixed blackberry jam and real raspberries for the filling in between the two layers. then i made a buttercream frosting, but used buttermilk instead of regular milk (i don't know why i NEEDED to make something with buttermilk). i ended up straying far from the original frosting recipe, but it was delicious. i wanted the frosting a little more gooey than the recipe makes, so i added more buttermilk. and more. it makes the cake look a little sloppy, though. not sloppy, homemade.

so there you have it. a lindsay cake. classy & sweet. raspberry gooey, fluffy, creamy buttermilk frosting-y and all around delicious. i'm enjoying it right now with my coffee. happy birthday, linds. i'll send ya a piece:)

a few short notes

i'm planning a few meals this week to make at home, other than trying to eat as much salad as possible to keep up with our CSA stock of spring greens. most of these recipes are compliments of my foodie friend Katrina. she has much more time to cook these days, so i take her word for it when it comes to veggie-loving, healthy, slightly different meals.

monday - pasta & pesto, salad
tuesday - barley casserole (finally hunted down barley & tahini so i WILL make this, gosh darn it!)
wednesday - something quick since tim has church...more salad?
thursday - tofu manicotti
friday - who knows.

that's as far as i've gotten. now, if i stick to it is another story. we do have full time jobs, church activities, and a teething baby.