The Happy Family

It's been a while since I've posted a picture of all of us. Because you are my friends, I know you enjoy pictures of Hannah; however, I promised Christi White that I wouldn't be one of those moms who disappear from pictures after I start having kids. So here we are, Easter morning, 2006.

That being said, what entry is complete without a cute picture of my little punkin?

Just Standin' Here, mom!

Hannah started pulling herself up three weeks ago. Of course, now the only thing she wants to do is standing. Stand by my chair at the dinner table. Stand by the couch. Standing on my legs. Stand, stand, stand. She has a round little belly, so she hasn't been able to balance without holding something so far. That makes my heart happy. Life with a walking child will be so much different than my life right now! Although, she hasn't caused nearly the craziness by crawling that I was anticipating. And our new house has NO STAIRS!! No more climbing 50 stairs to my front door. More more climbing stairs to the bedrooms. God knows the level of patience that I have, and I don't know how well I would handle having a little independent Hannah who wants to climb all 50 stairs herself everytime we came home from an outing. Praise God for such wonderful, simple gifts!!

Return of the Mosquitos

Yep, they are back. They aren't as bad as the first time they came to the house, but Hannah's face looks like she has the chicken pox again. Good thing we get to move soon!! Yep, we are moving again. Only this time we are "Movin' on up!" as Weezy would say. They are opening a new apartment building on base so we get to trade our 800 sq foot three bedroom apartment in for an 1150 sq foot two bedroom apartment. We've never lived in a house so big! I'm so excited! We SHOULD be moved in before Jeremy's parents come in June. It's weird that in 24 hours we will be out of this apartment and in a different one. I'll keep you posted (no pun intended) on the details! I can't wait to show pictures!!

A new look

Sometimes I just need a change. Rather than buying a new piece of clothing or a pair of shoes, rather than rearranging my furniture, rather than picking a new hair color, I decided to change the template on my blog. Whatcha think? Now, I have to redo all of my links on the sides, so I probably won't opt for this kind of change very often, but it is fun for today! :)

Sincere Appreciation

A couple of months ago Pastor Mike told the core leadership team that he wanted to have a Volunteer Appreciation luncheon. Orginially it was going to be a potluck, but then he decided that the church should provide all of the food (For all 350 people in the church). His menu was lasagna, salad, bread, and two huge bakery sheet cakes. Little did I know what else he had up his sleeve...

Yesterday was the Volunteer Appreciation Sunday. There were coffee mugs made that said "I love to volunteer at MBC." There was a huge banner made and hung outside of the church that said "We love our volunteers." The names of all of the volunteers were printed on the back of the bulletin. During the service he called all of the kids up front for a special "mini sermon" and had them all pass out roses to their Sunday School & Kid's Church teachers. Mind you, it wasn't a rose per person--I came home with six of them! Then he had plaques made with special individual words of thanks to each of them members of the core leadership team. And THEN there was lunch. It was amazing. I have never felt so appreciated by a pastor in my life. He is such an example of servant-leadership. I am so blessed to be under his pastoral care--because he cares a lot!

Now...off to finish painting my Sunday School class. I'll have before and after pictures to publish soon! It looks so neat in there!!

It's a Party!

For various reasons, some good and some not-as-good, my place has ceased to be the center of activity for ANY of the "social circles" I am a part of. In some ways, it has been hard for me to give up hostessing in the way that I was accustomed to hostessing. Tomorrow I am having a Stampin' Up! party at my house. Actually, my house is so small that I have to have two parties so that there is enough room in my house for people to actually stamp! I'm so excited! I found a banana-whole-wheat-raisin bread recipe that I'm made, I made scones and no bake cookies and now I'm making some chex mix. Tomorrow morning, women will stream into my house, pour themselves a cup of coffee, chat about girl-stuff, eat, and have a good time while sitting on my couches. This is my idea of Heaven.

Transparency

Yesterday was the monthly MOPS meeting. I had a GREAT time--it was low stress in set and tear down, the meeting ran smoothly, the craft was a lot of fun, the speaker was great--I couldn't have asked for a better morning. The speaker talked about needing mentors, something that believe strongly in. During her talk she spoke on the need to be transparent with our struggles and our lives. Wouldn't you know that today I've been having those "motherhood is hard and I want off this ride" kind of days? I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just a case of hormones. Hannah has been a good kid today (apart from a rather short morning nap, but at least she woke up pleasant!). My husband sent me a random "I think you are swell" email. My house is pretty clean, I don't have any huge project deadlines looming over my head, and my health (apart from being fatigued) is good. Maybe it's the fatigue. I want to curl up in bed and not get out, but knowing that I would HAVE to get out of bed to take care of Hannah makes me want to not get into bed at all. I know, I have a warped way of looking at sleep.

And so, rather than picking up the phone (something I don't like to do) and telling a girlfriend that I'm having "one of those days" I'm logging into Blogger and telling my cyber-girlfriends all about my blahs.

I love you, girls, but I'm 26 years old. I really need to get over my phone phobia.

Cheerios

Being the on-top-of-things mom that I am, I was reading "What to Expect the First Year" last week and found out that Hannah could have been (should have been) eating crackers and Cheerios at 6 1/2 months. I'm so on top of things that I was reading about six month old development two months after the fact...Hannah is 8 months old. About five minutes of mother guilt followed this reading, and I did what every first time mom does--talked to a girlfriend. Yep, she had started giving her daughter small, soft fingerfoods at seven months. Hannah was behind the curve. So the next day we went to the grocery store and got Cheerios. She ate over a cup of them that same day. She loves them. She waves her hands in the air when she sees them on her tray.

No one told me how messy Cheerios are.

Pears, yes. Sweet potatoes, I can understand. But Cheerios? No way! Yes way...Cheerios have found there way into every room of my house. Everywhere I step, there is a stray Cheerio. When I glance down from the couch, there is a Cheerio. Just when I think I have them all cleaned up, I find another one. They're everywhere! They're everywhere!

Celebrating Passover

Tis the season for PCSing. While some of our dear friends will be leaving soon, many new friends are arriving. Laurie and John Bremer moved to Korea about six weeks ago. Laurie is Jewish and received Christ as Savior about 6 or 7 years ago. Her family was very liberal in their practice of their Jewish faith, but she did celebrate Passover every year (along with Hannakuh and a few other "main" fesivals). After becoming a Christian, she has done a lot of reading about her Jewish heritage and faithfully shares with her brothers and sisters much knowledge about OUR Jewish heritage. This is something I've always been interested in but haven't spent the time and effort to really research it (beyond reading Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy!)

Wednesday night the Bremers had me, Jeremy, and another couple friend of ours over to their house to celebrate Passover. The Jews have an instruction book for the Passover Seder (meal) called the Haggadah. The Bremers have taken the Haggadah that Laurie's family uses and have expanded it to include how Jesus fulfilled the Passover traditions. We had many different courses to the meal (all as Kosher as Laurie could make them with the few ingredients she could find at the Commissary here!). It was an AWESOME experience and really got me thinking...

It is quickly becoming my opinion that Easter should be celebrated so much more than Christmas. Yes, the birth of Christ was a foundation of our faith--Christ couldn't die without first being born. But Christ's birth, in and of itself, is only a miracle. His birth has no saving power. Christ's death, burial, and resurrection is the reason there is Christianity. It is the reason we have hope for eternal life in heaven. It is the only reason we have to live on earth. Why, then, do I spend so much time and energy thinking about Christmas rather than Easter? What traditions do I want to pass on to Hannah about this monumental holiday? Where is my focus in life and in parenting?

Needless to say, there will be much prayer and consideration given to next year's Easter celebrations. I don't want Easter to "sneak up" on me again, without a proper preparation in my heart, life, and home for this time when we celebrate the Life that is truly Life!

Attack of the Mosquitos

The current housing on base is owned by a Korean company who leases the buildings to the Air Force. With this kind of arrangement, I have Korean landlords. Those landlords hired a contractor last October to reseal the tile on our little porch. When they resealed the porches, they didn't clean the porches first nor did they take off anything that was on the porch. The work looked TERRIBLE, so the landlord made the contractors jackhammer all of the tile up. The contractor got upset and decided that they would wait until this spring to retile the porch. They put down this blanket-type thing and some plastic to cover the bottom of the porches and called it good. (This type of situation is not uncommon in Korea...)

Flashforward to March 2006. Spring has spring, rain has been falling, temperatures are rising. The Korean blankets on the porches have become a breeding ground for mosquitos. There are so many of them that they wake us up buzzing around our heads. Hannah was bitten sixteen times on her face in one night. We've sprayed outside the house, and the AF is suppose to be fumigating the house soon. I'm itching all over and really ready to live a normal life. I can't imagine living in India...

Dishes

I always knew a dishwasher was a wonderful invention. I used to think it was a luxury item. After living at Osan, I now believe it is a necessity. I recently had so many dishes that I had to wash a "load" of them, put those away, then wash the second "load" and put those away. There is nothing better than to have an empty sink!

Pardon the interruption

Let it be known that on Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again.

You may now return to your normal life.

Petty

People who know me even FAIRLY well know that it is not uncommon for me to have a week so full of activity that it even makes me exhausted to think about it on a Monday morning. Sometimes it seems that everything happens all at one time, and this week is one of those weeks. I woke up this morning fighting a bad attitude. I fought with the Word and Truth of God and battled sucessfully. Feeling fresh, encouraged and full of energy I came downstairs to tackled the Monday to-do list. I turned on the news while working at my computer and there was a story about people in Sierra Leone who had a leg chopped off with an ax by rebels. One lady said it took them twenty swings to take her leg off. Another lady crawled through the woods for three days without one of her legs before someone found and helped her.

My to-do list is petty.