Just Wakin' Up (A Throwback)

One of my all-time favorite photos. A tiny Sweet N trying to wake up one morning in Jordan, many lifetimes ago it feels...

The Fireball

6:24 am.

We had woken an hour and a half before. Final preparations were made. Bags were checked, double checked and zipped once and for all. Teeth were brushed. Sleepy kiddos were roused, dressed and had said goodbyes to their friends and house-mates of two months. My girlie and I sat in the back of the hired taxi. Mike, H,our friend (driving) and our seven bags had all been loaded into the car behind us.

The cars was headed for the airport and the road was growing brighter by the minute. There was conflict in my thoughts and soul over our bittersweet circumstances, confusion in the midst of the continued uncertainty of the past four months of our lives.

“When will we return to this region of the world?” I wondered to myself. “When will I again hear Arabic and speak Arabic, this language that I have become so accustomed to?”

I begged God. “Please don’t let this be the end of this season of making our life in this region of the world. Please don’t let this be the end!” And then I instantly wondered if it’s pride that doesn’t want to let us settle again in America. I know pride is not worth it. “But don’t let this be the end. I want to continue to make my life overseas, Jesus. We all do.” Tears welled up in my eyes. They had brimmed over from my heart.

The sun was rising. The fireball was growing brighter and my thoughts wandered.

I thought about how I’d changed in our last three months of wilderness-wandering in Jordan. How God stretched me. Taught me. Grew me. I have faith that He did much more inside of me than I was even aware of. Though it was one of the most challenging seasons of my life, I am confident that God allowed my roots to go deeper in the midst of it.

I was interrupted from my thoughts from the taxi driver who had apparently begun to feel chatty. “You are from America?” he asked.

“Yes” I said.

“Why are you leaving Jordan?” he wonders. “You have two baby?” “From where in America? New Jersey?” “You see Petra?” “Jordan good?”

I answered those questions and more with a huge grin inside my head, if not spread across my face as well. These broken-English questions have also become a part of my life… a fair skinned and haired lady an obvious foreigner living in a olive-skinned land with two toddlers. The goateed husband throws them off sometimes, but I don’t think we fool anybody, really. My words were returned to the taxi driver in the same broken English that they were asked in. This assures that I am understood, which I was. Our lifestyle has provided many opportunities to perfect the art of speaking with those who have English as a second language. Just one of many useless (or maybe not) skills I’ve learned in the past several years. I asked God again “Please don’t let this be the end…”

Then my daughter looked over to me with her wide blue eyes, “Kiah byebye?” she asks.

“Yes, sweetheart, we had to say goodbye to your friend Kiah. You’ll miss her, won’t you?” Even my peanut of a girlie understood that had said our goodbyes and that we were again, moving on.

“Yeah” Sweet N answered, in her soft gentle not-yet-two year old voice. She’s spent more than a quarter of her life bouncing around the world waiting on visas now. How I long to have routine and a proper home for her. She’s said many more goodbyes than her short life should have to allow for.

The sun was rising higher and it was nearly blinding by then, burning over the horizon. I felt God’s presence with me, even in the midst of the confusing swirl of emotions I was experiencing as we drew closer to the airport. Though I was feeling a bit lost and confused, I knew His closeness. I wanted to hear from Him. I needed to hear from Him.

I turned up my iPod with one earbud in one ear. It was Shane and Shane. This is what I heard…

Your mercy reigns
Your mercy comes
Your mercy falls
And rises with the sun

It’s new every morning
It’s new every morning
It’s good enough for me

I got it. I heard Him. Mercy. His mercy was rising with the sun. It was rising THEN with the fireball of a sun that was blinding me at that very moment. His mercy was pouring out of the sun whose brilliance could not be ignored. His mercy was covering me in light. His mercy has reigned, WILL reign as we continue to wait for the pathway to be shown in front of us.

I will abide in Your love. Your love.

I will abide in His love. Wherever I am in the world. Whatever I am doing. No matter how much confusion there is. No matter how long we have to wait. I want to abide in His love and live fully aware of His daily mercies as we continue to wait for our visas from the other side of the world.

That day, especially, I needed the personal assurance of His mercy as we bid our favorite region of the world goodbye, unknowing of when we might set foot on it again. And now, as we continue to wait with eyes peeled for that path in front of us to be revealed, we continue to walk in His mercy. It’s new every morning.

Big Birthday

We (I) recently celebrated a pretty big birthday. Don’t tell anyone, but I turned thirty!!

We didn’t have big plans for the day. We just did regular stuff as a family, but God just made my heart burst with love for my little family that day. It was the most fabulous ‘regular’ day ever. Despite all the challenges of the current circumstances, God allowed me to feel such an overflow of His blessing in my life, which are many!

We took a fall walk down the hill to the local Starbucks in the morning.

The air was fresh, the day was gorgeous and the leaves were crunching under our feet!

Did you know that there are many Starbucks in Jordan? It’s true!

We don’t go often, but that day was a special day!

Is this the Middle East? Starbucks is universal, for sure! We felt so at home.

Christmas tree, seasonal drinks and all! Where am I?

These are some of the culprits of my heart-bursting.

They are the best.

This man too. He’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

And that little girlie with him is starting to show more and more personality (and humor) daily. I love watching her.

Here are some of the cute faces she decided to show her Mama…

She does this one a lot. Not that she actually wants to kiss you though…

Stickin’ her tongue out at her Mama?!

Silly grin.

I love this one! I don’t know what it is, but it’s super cute!

It was a perfect way to spend my birthday morning… with the blessings God has given me (and a caramel latte, ha!). The last thirty years have been incredible. I honestly cannot imagine what the next thirty may bring…

Modes of Transportation

We are in India no longer. Kinda sad. But don’t you worry, I’m not done telling you about it. There will be several more posts about India coming your way soon, whether you like it or not! I just thought I’d inform you that we’re back in Jordan.

And that it was 15 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit) when we arrived.

And that my boy said “It’s cold here.”

And that I emphatically agreed and then proceeded to pack all his shorts away while listening to Alabama's Christmas Album.

It was a two day journey back here, with a night in the U.A.E. halfway between India and Jordan. Our modes or transportation went like this: taxi, golf cart, airplane, bus, taxi, taxi, bus, airplane, taxi. I didn’t include our ‘feet’ as a mode, cause frankly that would have been annoying to read that before and after every other mode.

Mode sounds funny now.

Aaaaanway, the kids had a couple extra modes of their own.

I learned that this is a much safer way to put your kiddos on the luggage cart. Usually we face them forward and there is nothing to hang onto. This worked great! (Don’t judge us for putting our kids on the luggage cart please… do you know how much time we spend in airports and how much kids like to ride on luggage carts?!)

Luggage trolleys in hotels are always a big hit.

Duty free shopping carts. We didn’t do any shopping, but these things spin beautifully! “Gaaaain?” Sweet N kept asking me each time I spun her down the airport hallway.

The last one is my personal favorite. She’s like a little splat on that duffel!

Unconventional

If ever you should pull one of these appliances out, you may discover that my daughter’s response is a bit unconventional.

Usually, if a child thinks that something is noisy, they’d cover their ears.

My sweet girlie, smooshes her cheeks instead.

Unconventional, to be sure.

It’s kinda like covering her ears. She’s on the right track. She’s close, but it’s definitely no cigar.

But it’s also VERY cute and I’ll be sad when she stops doing it. Just like I will be sad the day my boy stops calling cupcakes ‘pupcakes’.

Oh, and after the cheek smooshing she may do a toe touch.

:)

Angry Birds for Dinner

I try to be a cool/fun Mom, I really do.

Last night for dinner I thought I’d make my kiddos’ dinner look like a face on the plate instead of just dinner on a plate. Kids like this, I’ve heard.

So I arranged the apple ears, banana eyes, cheese nose, chicken-nugget mouth and fried potato hair all onto the plate. Then I gave myself some Mom-points cause the chicken nuggets were homemade, baby! Then I subtracted some Mom-points cause I served them something fried. Then I gave myself more Mom-points cause I had, after all, made dinner look pretty darn cool. Then I…

Oh, nevermind with the Mom-points, those things aren’t real anyway.

But then I stepped back to admire my work and wondered… does this look like an angry bird? In fact, I think it does! Maybe it’s the fried potato hair that actually looks more like plumage? I don’t know people. I’m just trying to make food look like a face so that my kids will think that I’m cool/fun. Food face or food bird… it doesn’t really matter cause both are cool/fun, right! Right.

But there is something else. Do you notice an item that is missing from this dinner-bird? A condiment perhaps?

Ketchup. Right. Five (non-existent) points for you. Chicken nuggets demand ketchup. Duh.

I knew this necessary condiment needed to be included, but the problem was that I had already used up all possible face parts. I suppose I could have given the banana eyes ketchup pupils or something but frankly that’s just disgusting.

So I just gave it a squirt.

And then my angry bird then looked like he’d suffered a blunt trauma to the head.

Maybe the kids would just think it’s a hair accessory?

Oh my.

Quote of the Day

Today, the whole family was playing a bit of Wii Golf. H hit the long shots (cause his only strategy is to frantically wave his arm all over the place, narrowly missing my husbands head everytime, much to my amusement), Mikey was doing the medium shots and I did the putts. N held the extra controller that wasn't working and was convinced she was getting her fair share of the shots also. This arrangement worked for everyone.

Anyway, you may be surprised to know that despite our long-time Wii and golfing experience (?), we did get quite a few bogeys. And double bogeys. And triple bogeys. And we might have had one +9. I just can't say exactly.

Everytime we got one kind of bogey or another, we would announce the outcome and then H would say:

"Oh yeah!! Double boogie!!"

He he. It got me every time.

Happy What-ever Day (wee bit late)

We didn’t do much (read: anything) on the 31st to celebrate Halloween/Reformation Day/Harvest Day/Whatever-you-wanna-call-it/Maybe-you’d-rather-ignore-it Day.

Did I cover all my bases?

Good.

Halloween’s not big here in Jordan (shocking, I know) and so my kiddos didn’t really even know that the day had come and gone.

I felt a little sad about it, cause frankly I like to dress my kids up and I like to eat candy, but I consoled myself by re-living the glory of last year’s Halloween when I was with the kiddos in Ohio and we had four grandparents around to spend the day with.

I did however, buy a pun’kin. Then I told my boy to go to the kitchen and hold it while I took a picture. He told me it’s too heavy. I told him it’s not. We went to the kitchen and he sat down and I handed it to him. Problem solved. So that is we got this picture of him in his ‘fuzzy’ (fleece) jammies that he loves to wear and gets upset whenever they are in the laundry basket and can’t be worn. Poor fella. Speaking of fuzzy jammies… I need me a pair of fuzzy jammies, it’s getting cold up in here if I do say so myself.

Wow, rabbit trail much?

Right. The pun’kin.

I’d like to say that we’re gonna have a fun time carving it up but that would be a big fat lie. Cause I really bought it so I could make a pumpkin pie or pumpkin cookies or maybe a pumpkin latte. After I bake and scrape and strain and puree, of course. You can’t carve the pun’kin and eat it too. Fact.

So, that’s my boring (and much longer than I had planned) non-Halloween tale. I leave you with a picture from last year so that you too, can re-live the glory of last year’s pumpkin patch, red wagon, hay ride, pumpkin carving, trick or treating and candy eating Grandparent-enriched festivities.

Snuggle Babes

Just another simple photo p0st today. These babes love each other.

And then my heart bursts. Again.

“Taxi! Taxi!”

It’s fairly easy to tell we’ve been 'passing through' Jordan for awhile now. (Much longer than we had imagined, actually.)

Anyway.

Need a taxi? Just say the word and my girlie will keep her eyes on the road, throw her little arm out there and yell “taxi!” at any passing vehicle, yellow or not.

It’s pretty much the cutest.

Good For a Laugh

Recently, I joined Pinterest. I generally avoid joining anything new online because I like to streamline and not complicate, but my internet bookmarks were driving me MAD! There were so many of them, they were so unorganized and I always had to open a page and load the whole thing to even remember what it was I bookmarked and why. I thought Pinterest might be a good solution. I was right! But it also is one more thing that I like to check online daily. It’s just so fun to see all the creative, beautiful, fun, genius, and funny things out there on the web. It’s great ideas, it’s inspiration for my dream house (in heaven, most likely), and it’s gorgeous and often meaningful art. Pure entertainment!

I’ve been pinning craft projects, kid activities and gorgeous design ideas for a little while, but my most recent discovery on Pinterest is the ‘humor’ section. The past couple evenings I have just spent awhile browsing what people are pinning on there and I end up giggling the night away. This has been great medicine for me but has also caused much confusion on my husband’s part, who is in his personal twin size bed on the opposite side of the room wondering what in the world could possibly be so funny. (Our current bedroom is the room of a very generous little two year old girl who allowed our family of four to move into her space and take over her twin beds and wardrobe. We’re so grateful!).

Aaaanyway… the conversation between Mikey and I, sitting on our respective twin beds across the room from each other, generally goes something like this:

Me: Giggling hysterically.

M: What’s so funny?

Me: Oh nothing, just this funny thing on Pinterest.

Him: What is it?

Me: Well, it’s just this photo of this texting conversation between a Mom and a daughter.

Him: What does it say?

Me: Do you really want me to tell you?… The Mom asks ‘What does IDK, ILY and TTYL mean?’ And the daughter replies ‘I don’t know, I love you and talk to you later’. Then the mom responds “Okay then, I’ll ask your sister'” Baaaahahahahahah!!

Him: Nervous chuckle.

Me: Do you get it?

Him: Silence

Me: Wanna come see?

Him: No.

Me: K, want me to explain it then?

Him: Yes.

Me: Okay, it’s really funnier if you’d just come look, but whatever… The Mom wanted to know what the acronyms IDK, ILY and TTYL meant and the daughter told her what they meant. They mean I don’t know, I love you and I’ll talk to you later. But the Mom thought that the daughter didn’t know and had just told her those things because she didn’t know and she had to go and so the Mom said she’d just go ask her sister instead, even though the daughter did actually give her the answer to her question. K?

Him: Oh, that’s funny. (spoken in a dull, unamused voice)

Me: Nevermind.

This happens again and again but we all know that nothing is nearly as funny when you try to explain it instead of just looking yourself. Aaaaanyway, wanna see some of the things that have had me busting up the past couple days?

No?

Too bad!

First of all, I’ll show you the one I was just talking about. Who knows, maybe my husband will get it this time around? (Hi Honey! Love you!)

Bahahaha! I’m still laughing about it. It gets me every time.

Here’s a mere sampling of all the chuckle-getters out there…

A lot of these are funny because they are just so true. Like this one. I have heard “Oh Susanna, oh don’t you cry for me” a lot in my lifetime. And my name isn’t even Susanna, it’s Suzanne, but everyone thinks they are being SOOO clever.

I’ve seen this saying before. I love it!

Um, true!

This one is for my nephew D. Funny! He looks so worried…

HYSTERICAL! Gotta love some cake-bakers humor. “Nailed it” Ha! I don’t know what it is with me and Cookie Monster today…

Guilty as charged. (not a fan exactly, but near equivalents, to be sure)!! Bahahaha!

Also guilty. You? Ha!

Why in the world do we do this?!! Ha!

I don't watch many (any?) scary movies. But this made me laugh!

I love it.

SUN SHADE: If only you could attach it to hat

Good chuckle.

Cause: Tony practices the piano 20 minutes every day.

Effect: he is a Big nerd

Ha!!! Kid humor!! Bahahhaha!

I plan to go back for more laughs tonight. I can hardly wait!