an amish paradise

Have I ever mentioned that we live NEAR an amish paradise?

I had almost forgotten, because we moved into an urban area a few months ago. In someplaces nearby, you can buy canned things, bread, quilts, furniture from amish folks. There are signs on the sides of the road, indicating that you should watch for carts and buggies. You come upon these beautifully kept up farms, usually white houses, with hitching posts outside, and no sign of any electric or phone line.
And you will most likely see hitching posts at the grocery stores too. And beautiful children, with handmade bonnets, little boys with black pants, blue shirts and suspenders. Men with long facial hair, and a tape measure always fastend at the side.
And you may even hear a little German.

I was reminded yesterday, because we went on a long drive yesterday on roads which cut through the frozen cornfields of iowa. A LONG drive, got lost once. All to find our PEARL of great price. Our puppy. Yes we have a puppy now, and We named her Pearl. and We bought her from a Mennonite family. It was fun. And She is fun. Serenity is in heaven. Pearl a very little white Bichon Frisse, kind of like a poodle i guess, but we vow not to shame her with the poodle hair cut, or the bichon frisse haircut for that matter. Yup.

Our family is growing.

tie tie

We have a way, around this house, of shortening or rhyming all our words. If you were in our home, you may think we have our own language- and we do.
let me translate for you:

tie tie = tired
ga ga= i am feeling kind of mushy, and i love you right now
nayb= neighbor

A typical conversation (or convo) might sound something like

ME: "Who wants a little juicy juice juice with thier cake pakes? "
Daughter 2: "Mmmm gaga."
ME: "i love you too, sweet pete"
Daughter 1: "oh look, the nayb is out with his snowblower!"
the Dad: "sweetness"
small boy: ahh (pointing at cake pakes, because he wants one)

Now i must sleep, because i am TIE TIE.
goodnight

CRAZY MINNESOTANS!

people are weird here, and really nice too.
look at this
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ8PrELc4-A
(sorry i don't know how to do the clever link thing)

my only son

I love having a son. After having two girls. I am in love with my son.
I love his breath, even after having a whopping 6 teeth, his breath still smells like a baby. Perfect.
I love how he comunicates. If body language really is like 90% of communication, he has got all 90% down pat. Its that pesky 10% of speech he has yet to conquer.
I love his drunken laughing, when he is so happy that he's beyond happy. like when he is in the bathtub late at night with bubbles. he just laughs and laughs and laughs.
I love that fact that, when eating at the table, he holds his utensil with his right hand, patting the food with it and atemping to pick it up, all the while knowing that it is just practice and he will eventually pick the food up with his left hand to eat.
I love that he loves to stand on his stool in the kitchen and watch everything i do.
I love that if you offer him two choices of food, he will choose the bigger one.
I love the little grunting man noises he makes, and has made since ever since i can remember.
I love that he is sensitive, though it would be hard not to be in this house. his sensitive dad is always kissing him, and taking off his shirt so that thier bare skin can touch, like when he was a newborn. he also has two older sisters to nurture him, and teach him how to swaddle baby dolls.
I love those big brown eyes, and wispy baby curls.
and how his smile seems to disable gravity, and i am suddenly in a much better place.

I love my son.

All my cool skills

I learn alot here at home
these are some sweet skills i've picked up

*conflict resolution skills
*time management skills
*people management skills
* teaching skills
* cooking skills
* laundry skills
* resource$ mangagemnt skills
* cleaning skills
*hospitality skills
*gardening skills (come spring)
* home maitenence skills
*administrative skills

Not to mention the "oldies but goodies" that are more like plants that are constantly growing in our home, than a mere skill.
like
love love and more sacrificial love
patience
self control
joy
rest
ecstatic joy
thankfullness
faithfulness

Oh the benefits of family life!!!!!!!

My lovely weekend

i had a LOVELY weekend. we went to a retreat center thing with a bunch of folks from our church and just hung out and played games, and music, went sledding and played broom ball (which is like hockey, except no skates-just shoes on ice, and brooms and a ball). no agenda. i loved it! it felt like living in community again, for a second.

and we just got to know people so much better. It was real. mmmmmmm. woohoo. i'm happy.

and i love our church! i love our pastor! i love him love him. he is so unashamedly smitten in love with God. and he can take the most offensive thing in the old testament, and bring it to life. to life i tell you! we are in a good place.

and .....some people in our church want to live in intentional community, which made me a bit EXCITED! So we'll see. anyhow, i love my church!

Resolutions anyone?

i guess it is 2008. i haven't really grasped that yet.
we were out of town for the new year and probably sleeping when the ball dropped. and then we all got sick, which always makes me glad (in a way) because i remember that we barely ever get sick, and i get thankful for the grace of health.

I think we are all better now. and all the ickies cleaned up.
How bout some new years resolutions? sure ok.

THIS NEW YEAR I RESOLVE TO...

...make efforts to love people more, especially my family.
...invite friends over more for meals
...write more letters
...take more pictures
...get better at cleaning my house (that will be hard, but inviting others over is a good motivation.)
...kiss my husband more
...go for more walks with my kids
...fast and pray until i see the face of God

i think that is pretty good.

OK i'm on a roll! This is my darling son.

This is my Granny Lampert. Isn't she sweet?

pictures!

ok Lord knows i try.
computers are so expensive, and seem to take up alot of time. This is one of the reasons that we seem to go through alot of VERY OLD and VERY SLOW computers, which end up being very troublesome, and take up more even more time.

I have been trying to save photos on this computer so i can upload them gracefully onto this blog. It is suppose to happen like ballet. Beautiful. Effortless. and in a tutu.

We'll see.

(i wrote this while waiting ten minutes for a photo to upload, after taking an hour to figure out how to do it!
But, IT WORKED!!!!!!!! Yippie!)

the favor of God and the lameness of me

We went out to this restaurant nearby last night, because, hey, kids eat free on wednesday nights. After we were in there a while and my kids were being......, well, kids, there was a lady near us kind of staring, i noticed with my peripheral vision. And i thought she was probably thinking about how misbehaved my kids were and i was offended. my heart was like "Whatever lady."
So i turned to her and to my surprize she had a huge smile on her face and she said "you have such a beautiful little boy" and through tears told me how he looked like her grandson. As she got up to leave she told us to have a "very blessed holiday" and while she walked on, i couldn't help but smile. Derek said, "wow that was pretty cool" I thought so too.

Then there was another lady a couple of tables away. and I noticed her in a not very nice way either. because she was very overweight and had to be pushed in a wheelchair, and was eating ALOT and at some point was on the phone discussing medical things with someone that involved her internal organs, and i was trying to eat dutch food.
So as we were getting up to leave, i happened to walk by her and when my eyes met hers, she was all aglow. She said " i saw that you have such a nice family, and i would like to give you this gift certificate. Have a merry christmas."

I was made aware again last night that i am not at all as patient or loving as i would like people to believe, and also
just a LITTLE humbled , and blessed, as things like this happen all the time and i know it is just the favor of God, because we love him and he loves us.
And thank goodness, he shows us our faults, so we have the blessed opportunity to surrender over and over again, while his love washes us and changes us.

my cousin just sent me an email entitled "i have learned". she makes lots of little squiggly marks and a lesson after each one. which i thought was a good idea. then i started thinking about what i have learned in the last year.
so, i have learned
One main thing

-to rest. We came here a year and a half ago from california, kind of beat up and worn out feeling. looking for refuge from the storm we'd been in (spiritually speaking). We spent alot of time a bit stressed, feeling like "what a we doing here?" "how are we making a difference?"
like we want our lives to count for something, we don't want to have regrets in the end. If i died tommorrow (which i could) what do i have to show for my life? Our lives are so short, and there is only one thing that matters.
our souls long for God, and we will not just hang our and be lawn ornaments, or whatever. We are determined to seek his face and long for our souls to be satisfied in Him alone.
So the resting thing.
well God has changed my heart in a way that all my passion has been pouring into prayer. and now i sit. like a seed waiting to be blown by Him. "with my wings spread out I wait" I know i will not bear any fruit unless we are planted by God.

Now we are learning (kind of relearning) to be faithful- to the max, with what he gives us each day, and trust him.

hello!!!!!
i have a working computer!!!! this is exciting, i hope. we have it hidden downstairs in a dark cold office type of room, which , i hope, will discourage me from wasting all my time on it.
and TA DA......! We have a house! i feel so grown up. my own ground outside to dig in, my own walls to paint.
man i am tired and have absolutley NO creative flow WHATsoever right now. this must be so boring to read. I feel bad for you right now.
i am going to go, but will be updating often.
bye

today was sooooo relaxing.
we went down to the nearby state park, and "day camped " at our favorite spot. near by the swimming hole, and right next to the creek. its this tucked away ,private spot, near where alot of folks pass to swim. so we get the best of both worlds (all though i don't know if it would really be considered two different WORLDS) i mean either way you're in the woods.
in the woods. ahh. i love to be in the woods, with a river nearby. i brought my little "wildflowers of minnesota" field guide and i was identifying up a storm. i identified wild parsnip, white clover, false Solomons seal, and heal all. i would love to be a naturalist, well maybe i am already. i read somewhere that teaching science to kids should start with making them naturalists before scientists, because they have such a curiosity for nature already.
isaac and i took a nap outside, (i love sleeping outside)
and we rode bikes a bit.
we also met some folks who were Hutterite, which is similar to amish or mennonite. they have the same roots, but Hutterites live communally, as in on the same farm, and all their belongings including money is pooled together. they also speak a dialect of german. anyhow it was interesting, except for the fact that i think the man was hitting on me. i mean, are they allowed to even do that? I was pretty sure that he saw i was married.
so thats my day , in a nutshell.
love. mooah!

a few BRIGHT ORANGE FLOWERS that i love:
butterfly weed (native to minnesota)
california poppy (native to california of course)
and calendula (native to somewhere , i'm sure)


besides that, there are a few other things i could right about like:
-all the wild black raspberry's we have been picking, and how we came upon the mother lode black raspberry patch while on a family bike ride
-how bike riding together has revolutionized our lives
-or about how i have been wondering why some people just feel like home
-our trip to kansas city
-dereks lone adventure to nashville
-jesus coming back in the clouds
-horton hears a who
-thrush, and icky gentian violet
- benjamin west and his cat grimalkin (a book i am reading with winter and she loves so much she wrote her "tag" in it , which is her name in graffiti, and then she realized it was a library book, and trying to fix the problem, gobbed on the last bit of white out we had in the bottle, which just didn't work, so then we both took turns scraping it off. i hope the library doesn't mind)
-finally starting to speak my kids love languages, though i think isaacs is pretty limited to nursing right now. he is definitely way more into that than anything.
-secret snuggles
-fasting
-or the recent family reunion.
yes i have lots of topics i'd like to write about.
maybe i'll pick one tomorrow.

i am not sure what to write now. i love writing and am so glad to have a cute little apple to write on.
today i heard someone say something along the lines of, "if you don't have a relationship with God, it will show up in your relationships with others." like if you have problems developing relationships with people, then, perhaps, your relationship with the Lord isn't , i don't know, up to par, maybe. like you don't have one? i don't know.
i mean, we all have some kind of relationship with God, good or bad. it can be deep and beautiful , or rebellious and sad. maybe we just like to pretend he isn't there.
anyhow, all choose to pursue or not pursue that relationship. just like any relationship. it is up to you, how close you are. God is in constant pursuit of us, that is not the question. so it is up to us. but it takes humility. i suppose for any relationship to be authentic, and real, worth living and dying for, you must be humble, and vulnerable. you must be willing to expose your self in all your best and worst.
my thoughts are i guess that i have been at a wall, so to speak, for a while, with people. i loved when we lived in community. it was heavenly, but even then i had a problem, where i felt like i couldn't connect with people the way i wanted to, and especially now, being at home with my children. after a while at the land, i just withdrew. and i do that still.
i guess i just want to know how to break that withdrawl cycle. and how to be unashamedly real with God and others. but need to start with Him.
But how do i do that? i like to feel like i have come to a place where i can say i really know something, like look how far i have come. a + b= c . its easy. but it is not, and i find myself having to reveal myself again, to be humble again, and to lay everything down again. to be vulnerable again. i guess i just want to live in the place of constant unashamedness, and vulnerability. where i can feel free to grow in healthy relationship with others, and HIM of course.
hmmmm.
well posting this would be rather vulnerable, so i suppose i could start there.
post aWAY!!!!!!!!

we had an interesting conversation with our 8 year old the other day.

we were all sitting around the table eating dinner and she said "you know what happens sometimes?" and of course we were all like "what?" and she said "well sometimes when i am playing with all my friends, i start to not want to play, so i just stand back a little and watch everyone. and then i hear this music in my head" so i was like "huh, that's cool, what did it sound like?" and of course my comical husband starts singing the possibilities. he started off with a tune and sang words like "i really don't feel like playing right now so I'm just going to sit here and watch because i don't feel like playing right now." and she was like " um no it wasn't like that" so he tries the same words with more of a reggae beat. well i guess that wasn't it either. so i think maybe its like something deep so i say "was it like worship music?" because she must be thinking of God or something eternal right, i mean that is what i do when i people watch. and she was like " no, is sounds like this" and she goes into a little tune that sounds alot like the very first level of the very first mario bros game. ya know before you go down the tube, where the music gets weird? this is the peppy music before that.
then she said "yeah and it makes me get into a mood to play, so then i stop watching and play more."

isn't that silly?

i really like this poem and have come across it alot in my kids poetry books.
enjoy.


Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the leaves bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

~Christina G. Rossetti

another day gone bye, never to be retrieved again. what did i plant today, that i will harvest later? hope something good. so often at the end of the day i feel like, "what the heck just happened?" like a whole day just whizzed bye, and all i remember is messes, diapers, being frustrated, and hoping kids would take a nap and give me a little rest. honestly. Like i just spent a day uselessly trying to hide from my kids and living on the edge of meltdown. so often i feel like a failure.
But then i have to remind myself of the good points. like today when i drug myself out on a bike ride with the kids, and while serenity sat in the chair behind me and said "you have a skirt on and i have a dress on" connecting the two in her mind , and then hugging me from the back while we were riding and saying " i LOVE you momma" at least two times.
and i did get to read to winter today (which is what she loves and always asks for). and she did spend hours this morning enveloped in the BIBLE on tape, while she painted, colored, and sculpted.
and i did get to kiss isaac ALOT today and he laughed quite a bit.
oh and the girls did the dishes, together! hoorah!

ok life is not so bad, and my kids are wonderful. sometimes a woman just needs a break, be it ever so small, to get her mind refreshed. maybe i'll try that tomorrow.

so i think we are buying a house. (fingers crossed) It is weird because i have never aspired to home owning, give me a tent or a box i'm fine. simplicity, and love right. and well i see things differently now. i still don't think home owning is like some kind of mountain peak or anything, but definitely full of character building lessons, like stewardship, etc. not to mention that if i lived in a box with my husband and three kids, someone would probably call social services. and if i want to adopt kids or do some kind of foster care thing, and a social worker came to see my house, well, lets just say that i might not get the job.

and being "tied down" has always been a little scary for me. and that is something you may imagine coming with home owning. well, i am thinking different about that too. I am starting to see that to grow strong, or build solid, you have to let your roots grow. being uprooted all the time is hard for a plant, and equally hard for a human. and the power of covenant, and sacrificial love. that's what you can build on. I am sure that we will be traveling at some point in time. it is just in us. but i know this way that it won't be without foundation and purpose.


so here we go.........wheeeeeeeeeeee.