Special Daughter

There is just something special about my only daughter....

Certainly not that I love her any more than my boys - in many respects, I think she is the way she is because her siblings are boys. I was downloading these pictures and just couldn't help but write a few words about her.



As I was looking at these pictures of her with our friends from Indiana this past weekend, I was smiling at the fact that she is such a good friend to other girls.


And at the same time, so has no problem playing with the boys.


But this really is the clincher - She LOVES to fish! Now that does a mama proud - at least this mama!! Actually there is very little that she is afraid to do. The Lord has blessed her with a very confident spirit and I pray she is able to use this character quality for good...for His glory.


How blessed I am to have you, Cosette. You are a treasure - what a privilege and joy to be able to watch you grow in stature and in the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Reason to celebrate

"The world is filled with reason to be downcast. But deeper than sorrow thrums the unbroken pulse of God's joy, a joy that will yet have its eternal day. To set our hearts on this joy reminds us that we can choose how we respond to any particular moment. We can search for God in in all circumstances, or not. We can seek the pulse of hope and celebration because it is God's reality. Heaven is celebrating. Right now the cherubim, seraphim, angels, archangels, prophets, apostles, martyrs and all the company of saints overflow with joy in the presence of their Creator. Every small experience of Jesus with us is a taste of the joy that is to come. We are not alone - and that in itself is reason to celebrate."

Spiritual Disciplines Handbook

by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Motherhood as a mission field

Another article for you moms and moms-to-be....

Motherhood as a Mission field

An Excellent Wife

Jeff sent me the link to this short article. and I found it a blessing. See what you think dear wives (and wives to be :))


An excellent wife is forged, not found

Chicago Food Tour with a New Zealand Flair

Jeff and I had the wonderful privilage of hosting our dear friend, Maree from New Zealand for a week.

One of the things we did was stay overnight in Chicago and show her some of the big city (For some reason the corn fields of Central IL just didn't hold our attention for that long...). We took a three hour food tour through the neighborhoods of Wicker Park and Bucktown.

The tour started us off at an establishment famous for its Chicago dogs.

Do you know the 7 ingredients in a true Chicago dog?

1. mustard
2. dill pickle spear
3. sport pepper
4. tomato slices
5. onions
6. sweet relish
7. celery salt

NO KETCHUP!

Then on to a pastry shop called "Hot Chocolate". We were given this amazing "sipping chocolate" on ice. 80% milk chocolate and 20% dark chocolate with a homemade marshmallow on top.

One word: DIVINE


Wicker Park is best known for its artisan flair. The artists have seemed to congregate in this neighborhood as well as high end boutiques and a fine arts fair is held on its streets in the fall.

Next was a deli/catering shop. It was chocked full of pastas and pastries as well as goodies on the shelves, such as chocolate bars with bacon bits.




We feasted on a salad bursting with asparagus, arugula and feta cheese. (or as our NZ friend would say, "fee-tah" cheese)

This cleverly named pizza joint was voted the best pizza in the....I believe it was the city, but may have encompassed even a broader range than that.

As much as I gush over Chicago style pizza, this New Hampshire-style, thin crust garlic and cheese pizza caused me to keep stuffing my gut which by now was getting extremely full.


After a nice long walk viewing the local architecture and hearing the history of the neighborhood, we landed at a middle eastern restaurant to try their Falafal pita sandwich. Little fried patties of blended chickpeas with cucumbers and lettuce and yummy spices. This could be my new favorite sandwich of all time!

This ice-cream shop was the most interesting of all the places. You decide your own ice cream ingredients and then it is made on the spot using liquid nitrogen. It has won all sorts of awards for ingenuity and the ice cream itself is pretty good.

I found this shop a little bit of a turn-off only because of all the choices you had to make. Decision-making is not my forte.


Note the steam? smoke? (not sure which) from the liquid nitrogen. Seemed pretty sci-fi to me!


And, so ends our food tour...if you want info in doing one of these tours, I can give it to you. It really is a great thing to do in Chicago!

The Warrior Dash

For those of you who have questioned, what in the world is this warrior dash that you are talking about??

Well, here it is in a nutshell.

Jeff heard about this particular race from one of his residents at work. It is held all over the the country and traveled to the Midwest last Saturday and Sunday.

It is a 5K race that is run through fields, up and down ravines and through creeks. There were several hundred runners going every half hour so over the coarse of two days, thousands went through this race.


Notice how clean we are at the start...We were actually pretty boring as people were dressed up like cows, ninja turtles, wonder woman, men in skirts....well you get the picture.

The other thing about this was that there were obstacles throughout - mud walls to climb with ropes, cargo nets, beat up cars to climb over, 12 foot scaling walls, moving wood platforms, tire runs...can't remember how many there were.

In the end you come up out of a mud ravine that has been scaled by thousands before you so the mud is as smooth as glass and then it is up and over this structure.


Oh yes, did I mention jumping over fire ?

And the grand finale was crawling under barbed wire through a pit of mud, or rather sludge. We were told later that there had been people throwing up in this mud as they came through.





Ah, the but end was sweet as we stumbled and slipped toward the finish line.


After being showered with a fire hose in a mass crowd, we were awarded with yes, our very own Warrior hat which I have no doubt, we will wear with great pride to all of our social outings from now on.


And I laid my shoes to rest along with the thousands of other shoes that had died such a noble death.


So why did we do this? Are we in the midst of a mid-life crisis (I did just turn 40...)

There is a part of Jeff and I were we are realizing that we need to take those moments in life to be crazy, out of our comfort box and just fun. It was also a good motivation for us to work to stay in shape.

Would we do it again?? Well don't ask me today...

But...perhaps we will be emailing you about this time next year asking if you would like to join us!

Give me your eyes...

Our family went to the Turkey Festival in Tremont last weekend and I found myself in the midst of these carnival crowds feeling great disdain, mistrust and almost a repulsiveness to the festive "fun". All I could think about was the germs on the over-rated, over-priced rides, the outrageous cost of the food that wasn't very good, and the mass of humanity pressing in on my little world.



It then occurred to me that in the midst of my disgust, the kids where have a terrific time. They loved looking at all the booths and fingering all the merchandise that was to me cheesy and meaningless, but to them unique treasures. They were in awe of the big rides, the lights and the noise and even the loud mouth man trying to get them to play a game where they could win a stuffed, orange dolphin.



They devoured the greasy funnel cake and had no concern that their dad had just paid a great deal of money for a little drizzle of pancake batter fried in oil.

And I realized that I was just the same at their age...



So why did I feel such disgust for the mass of crowds that were invading my space, my world? Do I love my neighbor like I have been called to do? Do I see them with eyes of compassion? Did I look up and see that the fields are white for harvest? Did I show any concern or love or longing that they may know our Lord? Sadly I just wanted to get home - away from them, away from the noise and the inconveniences that they were causing me - their noise, bad language, their taste in clothing, hair style and make-up.

Lord, help me to see people as you see them. And even if it is just a brush against their shoulder, help me to show them your love. And teach me to pray for them...

"Give your eyes for just a minute, give your eyes so I can see - everything that I have been missing; give me a love for humanity..."

Picture perfect!

I just had to post this drawing that Cosette drew as she just perfectly captured the expressions that I see on these two on almost a daily basis.

Conner has taken seriously the responsibility of being the family annoyance. He finds great pleasure in doing just the thing that irritates his siblings the most. AND Cosette has perfected the "no tolerance" response.

As a mom, this just drives me crazy and my patience grows very thin. We talk about how it really is a sin to find pleasure in irritating others and not give grace, etc....I really do think it is a serious issue as it shows a real selfishness of the heart.

But I did have to just laugh at this picture...I actually laughed and laughed and laughed and will keep this picture forever.

Back Once Again

I have been encouraged (or perhaps informed) by my husband that I should keep up my writing just as a way to help people keep up with our family.

So for all of my undying fans (I know the number is probably too high to even begin to count...) I am back to share my little life lessons, stories and family happenings, whatever they are worth.

:).