Woe is Me

After my freshman year in college I spent the summer on the rec-team. Basically getting an awesome tan all while leading church campers in strange unique games. Occasionally we got to do double duty when the higher-ups considered us trust-worthy enough to act as counselors after the evening worship service.

So one evening, it was double-duty time. I got to "counsel" with two girls. These girls had the polar opposite of my up-bringing.

I grew up in a town of 2,400 people. They grew up in downtown Austin.
I drove a truck to school. They took a city bus.
My classmates all knew my name. They're "parents" had trouble remembering their names amidst they're drunken outbursts and highs.
My friday nights were absorbed with sports activities year round. Their friday nights were spent trying to avoid being raped.

Get my gist?

I felt incredibly out of place "counseling" these girls.

At the end of the summer I came home with an awesome tan and a gamut of stories to tell to my family, one of which was the story of the two Austin girls.
My sister, three years younger than I, who had the same upbringing, hit the nail on the head with her response:
"My worst problem is that I've got a drawer full of mis-matched socks!"
Witty (and wise!) beyond her years, Bekah reminded me how very small our problems in life have been compared to the struggles of others!

Anyway...point of the story... I was reminded of all this the other day when I was sitting in my worn out favorite spot on the couch. Commercial time came, and this came on:


I laughed out loud at first because I thought it was a joke.

No, no. It's for real.

It's depressingly real. Sad real.

Because if someone's biggest problem is that they've got eggshell in their muffin and need the "EZ Cracker" to make it all better, they seriously need to get out, do some traveling, see some impoverished parts of the world with people that would gladly eat an egg-shelled embedded muffin so they wouldn't starve.

Spend 19.99 and get the EZ-Cracker so you can crack an egg without getting goop on your hand or buy 2 mosquito nets for people in Africa so they won't get malaria while they sleep at night.

The reality, (it seems to me) is that our problems as Americans go as deep as eggshells in our omelets while others fight starvation.

And it makes me want to vomit. Vomit up my muffins.

(which don't have eggshells because I know how to crack an egg without applying 20 lbs of force!) sheeeeesh!

ahhhh, a venting blog post is needed every now and then!

The Great "What were they thinking?!" Debacle

Once upon a time there lived a sweet and innocent baby boy. This sweet baby boy had a head full of beautiful blonde baby hair.


Now this sweet baby boy has a daddy who is quick to act and a mommy who is slow to think.
And this daddy is quick with a pair of clippers and a level 2 guard. And this mommy is slow to realize what is to come.


Slow to think mommy, having second thoughts began to question their hasty decision...but sweet baby boy's beautiful blonde baby hair was gone before you could say "army recruit!"


Though none the wiser, this baby boy, now looking many months older, went on his merry way, cooler for the summer and now requiring sunscreen for his head.


Sweet baby boy now overwhelmingly resembles his quick-to-act daddy.


Fortunately, the story does not end here. Sweet baby boy's quick-to-act daddy and slow-to-think mommy have learned their lesson. This mommy and daddy have seen how a number 2 guard has stripped away they're baby boy's innocence, along with his blonde baby hair, and vow to never do such a ghastly thing ever again!

A First Ever

And possibly last? Well probably not. Because it wasn't THAT bad!

The Mini-Sprint Triathlon. ahhhhhh, fun times. I get to say that I completed a Triathlon now. And that makes me a smidgeon cooler than I was before. :)
But I'll be honest here folks. It's one of those triathlons that if you're even slightly athletically inclined, you can do this one. It was swim 175 m, bike 5 miles, and run 1.5 miles. See? Not really that bad. But it's cool because my shirt says "Triathlon" on it, and not "Easy Peasy Triathlon That Anyone Can Do."  :)

It was a bit harder than I was expecting it to be though. Swim was pretty easy I thought. And since the local Town Club hosted it, it started at their public pool. Which means that the swim portion of the race started by sliding down the tube slide! That was kinda a shocker to start of the race with, but still fun!
But the bike part.....yeeeeeks!!


WHY OH WHY do they make bike seats SOOO uncomfortable?! Sure my thighs were burnin' and I was huffing and puffing pretty hard, but really the hardest part of the bike portion was the stupid seat. Good googly!  It reminded me of why when given the choice of ANY exercise equipment to workout on, I will ALWAYS choose anything other than a bike/cycle/spin class/etc...

moving on...


Run 1.5 miles! Easy peasy on any other given day. But after swimming and biking, it was harder than I expected. Especially in that Texas heat!  In the picture above, I promise me and Jill were running. Though it looks like we were totally taking it easy, we were working it!



Matt came back and finished the race with Jill. See? They're working hard! Matt had just completed a full Sprint Triathlon (300 m swim, 10 mile bike, 5k run) and felt it appropriate to rub it in our faces that he could still move his legs enough to run with us the rest of the way. (just joking bro, GOOD JOB!)

And as we crossed the finish line we were adorned with medals!


Fun times! Especially when you get to do it with your sister-in-law!

Boys and Girls

God made boys and girls different.
Don't get all weird on me and think that I'm talking anatomically. (is that a word? there's no squiggly line underneath it, so I'm assuming it is)

Different in other aspects.


Lets take my first born for example.
She likes dress up. Prefers clothing with ruffles. Wants to wear a "clippie" in her hair almost all the time. Wants pink donuts because those are the donuts for girls. Can't stand it when daddy takes her to a public potty because she HATES using the boy's potty. Likes to show everyone her painted fingernails. Wants to be called Cinderella at bedtime. The only form of a "gun" she cares to "shoot" is her string cheese. Isn't completely "ready" in the morning until she's put on some of my lip gloss.
To be honest though...
Her favorite color is blue. And her most recent favorite hobby is collecting baby frogs. However, her favorite thing to do with the frogs is kiss them. She's a princess in the making.


And then there's Salem...
Who makes "vrooom vrooom" noises when he sits on his miniature 4-wheeler.  Has impeccable accuracy for a 1 year old with a baseball.  Can spot any ball within a one mile radius. Will be a mountain climber as I've recently pulled him off the top of the piano a handful of times. Cheeseburgers are among his most favorite foods. He knows exactly what to do with a remote control. He thinks he's a frog and has no fear in the water.

I'm hopeful that someday Eden will be quite familiar with a basketball court and that Salem can learn some ballroom dancing (but only because his wife will ask him to :)  But for now, their "gender roles" are very apparent at their young ages.

So it wasn't a big shocker the other day when I broke out the paint stuff.
Salem thought they were for eating. Not just at first. The entire time he was convinced that it was food and nothing else, even after showing him several times what he could do with it. I have a feeling he got his artistic side from his daddy. :)




He only had paint on his paper from me showing him what to do. And after a couple minutes of not being allowed to suck all the paint out of the brushes, he was bored with "creative play time!"

But Eden was ecstatic about her new watercolor paints. With more precision than I've ever seen her do anything with, she dipped, brushed, swooooshed, rinsed, re-dipped, and painted to her heart's content. I was so proud of her for sitting still for so long and trying so hard at something. She's a little budding artist!  She said she painted a princess! (big suprise! :)





See the recurring theme in our pictures?
I know, all the packages say "WASHABLE" on them, but I take no chances. Nakie painting time is just easier than scrubbing paint out of clothes.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying painting is girly. But is sure suits my little girl. 
And my boy? He'd rather climb trees, eat bugs, and chase soccer balls.
But I wouldn't prefer it any other way!

Edenisms

Yesterday evening Eden was sitting beside me as I was messing around on the computer.
She was sitting pretty still, thinking to herself I guess, which is very rare.

"Mommy. I don't want these."
Me, in my computer daze didn't really acknowledge her, "Ok. That's fine."
"MOMMY! I don't WANT these!"
I snapped out of it. "Ok. You don't want what?!"
"I don't want THESE!!" And she was holding on to her big toes.
"Ummmm...You don't want your big toes?!"
"Yeah, I don't want my big toes."

These are the thoughts that get her to sit still these days.

Professional 'B' Teamer

After braving this post, we've had lots of people say stuff like this to us:
"You're so brave. I don't think I could live in Asia."
             or
"What you're doing is amazing."
             or
"I'm so proud of what you guys are doing."
                etc.....etc.......etc.........

So I thought I'd go ahead and clear things up for you.

In reality, I'm a professional B teamer.  I was the kid in 8th grade math class that took the opportunity to be paired with the dorky smart kid so that I wouldn't have to work as hard.  I once literally jumped the gun in a 300 meter hurdle race so that I wouldn't actually have to run the race. (between you and me though, who really wants to run that race?!)
That's me, the one that would rather get out of doing the hard stuff.  Me and the-easy-way-out are best friends.

And so when I was in 5th grade or so and my younger sister informed my family one Sunday evening that she felt "called" to move overseas, it was just like me to say, "You're nuts. ugh....Good luck with that."   That was my 'B' teamer showing right on through.

Ironically though, God has a history of calling the disobedient and selfish 'B' teamers to do some hard stuff. And hard stuff for me includes leaving my parents and siblings. Saying goodbye to a "Target" lifestyle and drive thru windows. And embracing a new language, culture, people group, and country.

I wish I could say that I felt a specific call to move overseas. I wish I could say that I saw "China" spelled out in mustard on my cheeseburger several years ago. That would have been so cool.

But for me it's never been about a certain call or a huge answer to a specific prayer. It's always just been more of a "why not?" for me. And for the first time in my life as a professional 'B' teamer, I couldn't come up with any excuses.  I mean, I can come up with excuses, just not any that are good enough to say to God who has commanded us to go to the nations, to help the oppressed, to take care of the orphans.

No, it's not me that's brave.
I'm the one afraid of being gawked at in a different culture.
of fumbling through Chinese.
of Chinese doctors not being able to adequately care for my children.
of unbearably missing my family.
of homeschooling, chinese food, and not being able to buy shoes in my size. (yes, I'm a weirdo.)

I'm the one with these fears.

Fortunately, God does not give me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. And while every ounce of my 'B' teamness wants to shine through and say, "No thanks God. I'm perfectly content sittin' on the bench for this one,"  He continues to be my strength when I'm weak and help me to say "Yes!" every step of the way.

It's not me that is brave. I'm quite the opposite.
It's not me doing something amazing.
It's not me you should be proud of.    For real.

It's God who is amazing. It's God doing something awesome. And it's God whose grace is sufficient and whose power is made perfect in my 'B' teamer weakness.

Birthday Festivities!

After feeling like I sort of low-balled things for Eden's first birthday, I decided I had to step it up a notch for Salem's first birthday. With Brandon being out of the country and time to kill in the evenings, my creative gene finally kicked in.
Project #1: Birthday Banner


 Armed with scissors and a glue gun, it was really pretty easy. I enrolled Gigi (my grandmother) because she's a Jedi Seamstress to finish it off...and wah-lah...a banner we can use for years to come. My vision is that someday when I'm dead my children will be arguing over who gets to keep it because we'll use it every year. (is that weird? hoping my children argue?) meh, anyway.

Project #2: Dino Cake
I was inspired a few months back when a friend made her daughter a pink dino, saying it was easy peasy and you-tube-tastic. Sure nuff, you can find ANYTHING on there, including a step-by-step on making a dinosaur cake.


I wanted different size dots so I melted chocolate and made my own. That was really the most difficult part. And when your husband is out of town, do you really have anything better to do that to cook with chocolate? :)
















On Salem's actual birthday we had dinner with Gigi who was insistent on presenting him his very first ice cream cone.


His cousin Audrey, who you can tell he totally adores and thinks she's the greatest thing since pureed sweet potatoes, gave him some lessons on the art of licking.


Each cousin equipped with their very own...


Then a few days later we had the actual party. Despite running a low fever all day (which later turned into a 105 degree fever and developed into the Satan-disease Roseola) he really enjoyed it all!




He showed absolutely no hesitation when presented with his very own slice of cake. He gets that from his mommy.


And even had a little cheering section while he shoveled it in.

I think Eden and Judah had the idea that they too were going to be allowed to eat their cake via their hands. Can't you see the excitement on Eden's face as she claps her hands and cheers him on?!

Next came presents. You can tell he's absolutely not spoiled at all by his grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.


Then after a water-turned-green-by-all-the-icing bath, he tuckered out on daddy while swinging on the back porch...glad to have his daddy home and a belly full of cake.

*note* as you can tell, I'm having issues with posting pictures. I'm going to have serious words about the new way blogger is posting pictures. if anyone can figure out how to manually manipulate pictures with this new template PLEASE enlighten me.