knitting our hearts together

our cross-country move has pulled and tugged at the fibers that hold our family together. there has been fraying at points. and unraveling at others. but i am starting to believe, like deep down believe, that the overall result is a strengthening. i am finding out that we are more tightly woven than i once thought.

christmas was helpful in this regard. we spent a significant amount of energy grieving the loss of not celebrating with our "big family", and rightly so. but that almost caused me to forget this one simple thing: we like each other. we have fun together. we, ourselves, are a big family. sure, it's more fun with my sisters, and the cousins, and mafia and signs games, and the men doing all the dishes. but this here six pack, is a pretty sweet combo...

add a little grandma to the mix and it makes it even sweeter...

so our christmas was different, but still sweet. family. neighbors. friends. the time was filled with rich memories and new traditions. but christmas isn't really about what you do or who you are with. it's about what God did and who He sent. still, i liked what we did and who i was with...

now it's back to school, which i never like. but i like these signs of the strength of our interwovenness in every day life...

i'm not much of a crafts kind of girl. but i really like seeing this kind of knitting come to life.

melkam genna

happy ethiopian christmas!

i don't seem to have the inspiration to blog about christmas or new year's right now.

but ethiopia always is a source of inspiration to me.

we joined other adoptive families for a celebration of the ethiopian christmas.

the food was delicious, the conversation was delightful and the scenery was breathtaking...

merry christmas, indeed.

down, but not out

oh blog, what has become of you? i haven't posted in so long, the only comments i get are anonymous spammy ones. oh well, who needs an identity anyway?

but i am attempting a comeback. despite the fact that i am not in comeback ready physical shape...

that's my broken ankle making a cameo appearance on tree decorating night. the ankle i broke "dismounting" an inflatable slide at lulu's gymnastics class. people tell me to make up a good story when they see my boot and crutches. but i don't need to. the real one is bizarre enough. they now have banished parents from going on the slides, thanks to me.

the inability to put weight on my left foot has cramped my holiday style. shopping is severely limited. i can get in and out of walgreens, but even that is challenging. i can shop at my grocery store in the snazzy scooters. and thankfully old people love them some kohl's, so they keep wheelchairs in the front. other than that, i stay home. but thanks to my buddy the internet, that doesn't mean that i have had to stop shopping. this fact strikes fear into the heart of my financially responsible husband. he is good for me in so many ways. this may be my least favorite, though most needed, one.

so what i do a lot of is sitting with my foot up. there's a lot of "farm boy, fetch me that..." going on around here as the crutches make it impossible for me to carry much of anything from one spot to another. i did however score an early christmas gift to help me carry things around in style...

strange as it may sound, i know all of this is my real gift this christmas. a gift that has been the theme of our 6 months...REST. i can't tell you how much i have had to keep coming back to "cease striving and know that i am god" from psalm 46 since our move. i have been flailing. desperately trying to settle in. to make everything "okay" for my kids. trying to figure life out. trying to get to know people and determine who my friends will be. TRYING. TRYING. TRYING. when i need to remember that faith IS rest. i can't make it all okay. i can't figure it all out. and definitely not in just 6 months. i need to rest in god. rest in our current circumstances. and now, with my foot up and my mobility limited, that is exactly what i am having to do. and maybe with this external example, i will be learning the lesson internally...rest for my soul.

this experience is not what i wanted for our first christmas without my family. i had envisioned lots of hustle and bustle to keep us busy and distracted from our sadness. but distraction is a curse, not a blessing. the blessing is to be wholly present. alive and engaged. and maybe i am better able to do that this christmas than i ever have been before. all thanks to an inflatable slide...and my own clumsiness.

this may almost be sacrilege, but i have always found the old carol "silent night" to be kind of boring. beautiful, yes but not real interesting or exciting. but i am learning that life can be like that. just because my life is not particularly exciting or interesting from an activity stand point right now, does not mean it's not beautiful. and if rest is boring, then maybe boring isn't so bad as i have always thought it was. because right now my heart is longing to experience the peace and rest that was birthed that silent, holy night long ago.

this little guy is 15...

dang, he was cute then! he's still cute now...

not just from the front, but even from the side...

and, dare i say, the back...

but none of those are his best side. 

his best "side" is his heart. 

this teenager is thoughtful, respectful, 

responsible, and kind. 

not perfect, but perfectly delightful.

then and now. outside and inside, i love this kid. 

he holds my heart in his hands...

the hands that he uses to shave. 

the hands that can now turn a steering wheel. 

his 15 year old "man hands". 

and man, do i feel old.

happy birthday, tatertot.

and on this day, we remember my mommy too
since she and tate were birthday buddies...

we miss you, gunga.

you're not THAT old

not just on his birthday, but everyday, i love this man...

 and they love him...

we also respect him...

and enjoy him...

we appreciate his tenderness, his strength, his patience, his passion, his steadfastness, his contentedness, 

his work ethic, his brains, his H-O-T and his "little bit of weird"...

happy birthday, baby.

just when i think i couldn't love you anymore,

i do.

florida is messin' with my head

it's not really florida's fault. i'm plenty messed up in the head all by my lonesome. but this climate thing is just so weird to me. it's like i don't understand the passage of time because i no longer have the crisp fall weather. now by florida standards, it is definitely cooling down. and i am NOT complaining. it's beautiful here. like, every day. and i kind of dig it.

but i still have no concept that thanksgiving is just around the corner. i just can't wrap my head around it. and we are in the thick of birthday season (we have three in november) and i have no plans and no presents. that is NOT like me. when it comes to celebrating, that's the only kind of planning i know how to do! i am just now feeling like it is fall, but "fall" is actually on the outs and "winter" in on the way.

though it just now finally feels like fall, fall has been in full swing for quite some time. fall sports have come and gone...

fall decorations are almost ready to be replaced by christmas ones...

(my pinteresty attempt at painting a pumpkin to match my decor. slightly weird.)

fall festivals are all the rage down here...

though there was something strange about wearing shorts and seeing these guys wandering through the parking lot...

i may be a bit messed up in the head by experiencing fall in a totally new place, but i am feeling a peace that i haven't since we moved here. and that feels even better than the beautiful weather!

spooky.

halloween was "cold" this year. at least that's what the thin-blooded folks were saying around here. but this nebraska girl has been waiting for fall. i have been whining that it doesn't feel like fall in florida for 2 months. and i think it is beautiful weather now. sunny days with a slight breeze. crisp chilly nights. it's all relative. what was a "cold" halloween here (63 degrees), would have been a perfectly warm and delightful halloween in nebraska.

i was glad it was cooler to help it feel normal. though it still wasn't quite normal to go trick or treating on a landscape with palm trees and this guy sunning himself in my neighborhood on halloween afternoon...

how's that for a fright? it was actually my first gator sighting in the time we've lived here and i was kind of excited. apparently, as the weather gets "cold" they come up out of the water to warm up. this is something i need to get used to, even though it's not quite as delightful to me as the weather change.

also delightful to me is this crazy holiday, halloween. i don't like the evil parts. and i don't like the nasty candy that my children should not be eating (dots, anything sour, pretty much all of it except almond joys). BUT i love that this one night most of the neighborhood is out. here is the neighborhood gang...

i love these kids. especially my very own "gang members"...

Rapunzel...

(we had some wig issues)

Harry Potter...

Woopy Cushion...

 And Big Baby...

(making good use of his christmas footies)

i love these guys and it warms my heart to know they love each other too...

this is lulu telling tate "you're my mr. flynn"...

it was a good halloween. we were missing our traditions, especially the ones with our family. but we still have each other. and there are new traditions waiting to be made.

like rapunzel throwing up in the night. that's definitely not a treat.