Friday, March 20, 2009

A beautiful spring day!


We had a great time playing outside yesterday. We spent over an hour just hanging out in the back yard. Harrison wasn't feel well but it didn't keep him from jumping on the trampoline and blowing lots and lots of bubbles. My children ADORE bubbles. You can't blame them - bubbles make me smile too. Kadie's loves balls and she says "ball" over and over as she is patting it and holding it. So cute! I am so thankful I am able to enjoy these special memories with my children!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Are we nuts?

OK, so today, Chris and I are on our way to mom and dad's house. My sister and her family are visiting through Wednesday and staying with my parents. Today was also the launch of my etsy store and my store on the hyena cart congo. They HC congo was a wise move business wise. I am a member of a huge cloth diapering group on cafemom (where the congo originated) so there were lots of hits on the HC store. I didn't put a ton of money investment wise into this venture so if it flops it isn't a huge deal and I had fun doing it. We will see.

Anyway, back to my point. So on the way to mom and dad's the four of us are in our car. Harrison was chillin' and being well behaved and Kadie was chewing on her sock monkey. Chris and I have some of our best conversations in the car. I looked back at H man and he gave me that precious little smile so I was thinking to myself how good he was being. (He had been a terror all morning due to lack of sleep and not feeling well). I told Chris sort of jokingly but not really - we should just get rid of all of our stuff, pack up and live in a RV and travel the country. We have our best moments on the road...really and truly. He chuckled and agreed. I am being serious Chris. So we sort of toss around the idea. At first I'm like...I can tie dye and we can travel to hippie festivals and set up vendor stands, etc. And you (Chris) can figure out something to do with all of your production/videography/photography experience. We could do it. Think about how easy and simplistic our life would be. We would have to become minimalists simply due to lack of space -which appeals to us but we really struggle with it. We would have so much more time to worship God, enjoy each other and our kids. We are very nature oriented people...some might say tree huggers....whatever. I feel at peace and feel God's presence when I'm outside in His wonderous creations. Chris does too. Both of our kids do actually.

So we've been hashing this out all day and night long into the wee hours of the morning. At first it seemed sort of far fetched and crazy but as we continued talking about it we found ourselves feeling mission bound. Here is the deal. I have always (well at least since I was 16) felt called to the mission field but I never can see how it fits in my life. Chris really was not/has not been on the same page until recently. I'd pick up and move to Africa in a heartbeat..he isn't quite there yet. Maybe Africa is not in our future. However we could totally see ourselves being traveling missionaries in the USA.

So where do we go from here? I think both of us feel a strong urge from God that this just isn't a whim. I mean first of all we are in a sense giving up (at least temporarily) on the American dream of having the house with the picket fence and 2.5 kids, nice cars, boat, etc. Some days I care about that but most days I don't. It is just stuff. You can't take stuff with you when you die. How can I possibly sit at home wasting my time with all of this stuff when there are people in this world that don't know about the love of Christ. I mean when I look at it that way, I wonder why we aren't doing something now. We bought a home because we have so much stuff we needed a bigger place to put all of it. Our plans involve saving money so that we can update stuff and change stuff around and eventually sell this house to get a bigger house to put more stuff inside...see where I'm going with this. Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the American dream and the stuff. But we aren't those people. At least at this point in our lives we are not those people.

Ok so reality check. What in the world would we do? I mean we'd have to get rid of most of our stuff and store the stuff we can't part with. That would be no easy task but we could do it. We'd need to boost up our savings a bit. We'd have to figure out how to support ourselves and figure out our target mission field. Would we actually be missionaries? If so, I don't even know where to start. Is there a such thing as a traveling missionary/gypsy family in a RV? Well sure there is. With God the possibilities are endless. How would we pay the bills each month (food, insurance, gasoline, cell phones, RV hook up, etc)? We can't afford a RV right now. We looked online and you can actually get a used one for a pretty good price, we are a four household family on a modest income..there is no room for a RV and we don't use debt anymore for the type of thing. Then we would need a different vehicle that would tow a travel trailer. I guess we could sell both vehicles we have now and find something that would work.

So if we worked out all of the logistics above you have to think of our kids and family. First of all even if we were somehow blessed to have a travel trailer it would have to be big enough for all of us to live comfortably. Preferably with the master bed and the bunk beds. Where would our kids keep their toys? Would we kill each other? We figured we'd try to travel so that we were very seldom in inclimate weather and could spend as much time as possible outdoors. We'd obviously have to homeschool and that is fine with me. But as a travler, do your kids make friends? Who do they play with? Do they resent you forever for robbing them of a normal childhood? But then again are we a "normal" family? If we are following God's will, then does all of this sort of pan out? I mean I have faith but I've never taken a leap quite this big. And back to the stuff thing. I mean we'd have to keep our personal belongings down to a minimum in order to live comfortably. No more trips to Target just to browse and buy stuff we think is cool. No more collecting, Oh yeah, and we could not have a garden. That would suck.

My mind could go all night and probably will. I honestly haven't felt this excited and passionate about anything in awhile. I'm also scared. Scared of the unknown. But I'm also peaceful...does that even make sense? I'm peaceful that God will provide no matter what.

So for those of you that are reading this...some of you that know us well may not really be surprised. But seriously keep us in your prayers. We can't let this be a fleeting thought. I feel it was Dinvinely inspired. We constantly feel like we aren't doing what we should be doing for God. We need prayers for direction and lots of open doors. Prayers that we can find a RV and a vehicle to tow it. Prayers that we can target our mission field and prayers that we can make a modest living that will provide for basic needs. Prayers that we stay focused on truly following the will of God. Prayers that if this is meant to be that we will take advantage of the open doors that God gives us and that things will basically fall into place. Prayers that if we do this, we can get rid of the stuff, sell our house and the logistics of everything fall into place.

I can't get rid of the passion inside of me. There are people out in the world right now that feel hopeless and alone. There are hurting men, women, boys and girls. They don't know how powerful the embrace of a loving, fearful, sovereign God can be. They don't know that you don't have to be scared at night. They don't know that you don't have to worry about tomorrow because God will provide. They don't know that we have been given an awesome gift of salvation and exactly what Jesus did for us. I have to tell them!

Monday, March 09, 2009

General Updates

Kadie has been doing so many new and exciting things lately. She started crawling in January and cut tooth #3 and #4. Also since January she has lost the ability to go to sleep on her own and rarely sleeps in her crib at all anymore. In fact, she rarely sleeps anymore. In February she started pulling up on everything and signing milk. Just over the past few days she has mastered signing hi, bye, more and eat and said ball. We also figured out that she calls Harrison "Ha". She will usually crawl around yelling "Ha" when she can't find him. Super cute! She is quite loud..we thought she might be our quiet one but so far 2 for 2 on the loud factor. She is feisty, temperamental and a sweet pea. She is still nursing A LOT. I actually lose count..I just know she does it a lot. She also likes to nurse in really bizarre positions (like while trying to do a headstand). This is particularly uncomfortable for me. She is working on 4 more teeth right now and I'm really hoping they will be through soon. She LOVES to eat. She is such a tiny little peanut but this child eats non-stop. She eats more than her brother which on some days is not saying much.

Harrison has returned to his obsession of Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear especially. He goes through phases where he eats, sleeps and breathes Buzz. Quite frankly, I'm ready to toss Buzz out the window when he isn't looking. And he really likes for you to act out scenes from the movie..especially the fight scene with Buzz and Zurg (Toy Story 2). And if you don't recite it word for word he makes you start from scratch. It has really lost its appeal. His behavior (well up until this week) has drastically improved. I think we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel of this third year that no one warned me about. Potty training...most days the pee thing still goes relatively well but he still refuses to poop in the potty. *sigh* He is still super smart and amazes me with his linguistic abilities. He is also at this really fun story telling age. I love to listen to his day through his 3 year old view point. I'm really looking forward to this next year.

I am taking a small venture and I'm going to try to sell some of my tie dye creations. One of my cafe mom groups (cuties with cloth booties) is starting up a congo on hyena cart for all of the creative talent in the group. I'm going to put up a store in the congo and open up an etsy store. I'll probably put some of my hair clips and legwarmers as well. Wish me luck! I'm nervous and excited. If it doesn't turn out well, expect lots of tie dyed things for gifts this year.

a hotdog...oh my!

So I'm laying in bed nursing Kadie down for a nap. Harrison is in the shower and Chris is in the kitchen on the computer. Suddenly I hear, "Hey, my pee pee looks like a hot dog!" Chris checks on him before I do and finds out exactly what he is talking about. Yep, you guessed it, he is in the shower checking his "hotdog" out. Oh dear...