9:05 am

Carson's new favorite toy

When I got the stomach bug (cute pics)

Thanksgiving evening Carson woke up in bed and threw up. It wasn't pretty but David and I got it cleaned up quickly. I nursed him again. Bad idea, he threw up again. The poor tired guy slept the rest of the night just fine. 

Bad idea 2: feeding him a full breakfast with eggs the next morning, which ended up on the carpet. I took him to the pediatrician and turns out he has an ear infection, which probably developed from the cold he'd been fighting the last few days. The nurse practitioner didn't think he had the stomach bug, but was gagging on phelgm, but my suspicians were different. 

Well that night I woke up with it, though it was only as bad as Carson's, it still left me pretty weak and tired. So the next day, saturday, David and Judy and Glenn took care of Carson all day and I stayed in bed. If you get nauseous and dizzy every time you stood up you would too :(

Carson was of course hard on David that day, and there were both pooped. So when the fussing and noise and jingling of Carson playing with keys (the only thing that would pacify him) in the living room stopped, I wondered what was happening. So I hobbled out there to find this :

My boys fell asleep :)

Always sucking on those same two fingers!

It looks as if Carson fell asleep while he was playing with the keys. So cute!

This is the only time Carson has ever slept on the floor, but the pictures I've seen of friends' toddlers falling asleep while playing have always been so cute! He woke up as soon as David's parents got back from shopping.

Oh but it gets better! That night Judy, David's mom started up on the stomach bug too. That's 3 out of 5 so far! They ended up leaving today (sunday) a day earlier than planned. Nothing like the stomach bug to make Thanksgiving memorable, or to ruin the taste of good food as it comes back up... hahaha. 

Snapshots of Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was memorable to us in many ways! First of all, as always we can't travel because of David's supervisory role at UPS during 'peak season'. I missed my parents and bro, but luckily his parents came, and we invited a few orphaned family friends Thanksgiving day as well. 

Second, I went out of my cooking comfort zone! I made things from scratch that I haven't before, and the result was okay. 

I made this pie and crust from scratch

Stuffing getting ready to be dried in the oven 

veggies for stuffing

getting the table ready

My turkey with honey-herb glaze... had to get that shiny skin picture in somewhere!

No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a begging animal, preferably a dog. He came with David's parents!

I almost went to the extra trouble of making some amazing sign from Pinterest, but then 8-year-old Maddie came with her own! Problem solved :)

Here are some of our honored guests!

Tessa being silly

The Jenkins', minus Josiah who is sleeping in the other room

Some of the Preston kids

hahaha... After I took this picture, Allison kindly asked if I warn her before I do that! Glenn is feeding Skipper, Logan is talking to Judy,  Maddie is telling it like it is

Lest you think our Thanksgiving was all peachy, stay tuned... the stomach bug made it's appearance that night! 

This week's highlights

Sunday was a blast, as always. We loved getting together the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Carson, however, did a lot of screaming in the nursery the whole day. He is teething pretty bad, and also has separation anxiety. It's kind of hard on me, but luckily the nursery workers were willing to put up with some screaming... all of them veterans and moms :) That's one of the things I love about our church: all the other moms there who have been through all those crazy stages. They are always so reassuring and for that I'm so thankful!

Monday I did crazy catch-up housework, grocery shopping and cleaning. This was also to get ready to have some friends over for lunch Tuesday, all the way from Romania!!! 

On tuesday Kristie and Boing came, and as they arrived we had half a dozen cop cars on a nearby corner. Turns out they arrested a guy for a murder that happened in the ghetto apartment complex that is nearby. It may be close, but our neighborhood doesn't see much of the crime they have, and usually their crime is among themselves. Anyhoo, our time with the delightful couple was wonderful, as I wrote about in my other post. 

Wednesday was teaching piano like normal to Josh and Brianna. I love seeing Angela when I can!

Our fruit trees were delivered, which came bare and without dirt in one very long cardboard box. I wasn't sure what to do with it, and was busy so I left it on the porch for when David got home. 

Well, when he got home the box was gone! I knew I hadn't moved it so we immediately realized we had been robbed! (so we thought) I called the police to make a report and David walked around the outside of our house. Then we went knocking on our neighbor's doors to see if they saw anything. When we came to one neighbor's door who is particularly watchful and heads up the neighborhood watch, we found that they had taken the box inside for fear it would be stolen, lol. Phew!

I have dubbed this week, "CRIME WEEK". Murderers and thieves!

On thursday I woke up thinking about things that need to get done around the house, as in repairs and renovations. Some of them are small and easy, so I decided to take them on as Carson allows. At the same time I had to go hunting for a printer cartridge so print labels for our Operation Christmas Child boxes.

our church did 12 Operation Christmas Child boxes!

Then alas, our upstairs toilet broke, and the closet door.

~~~~

Answered prayer! We have prayed for a while that God would use our house and it's space for His glory and to serve others, especially in our church! We he answered that prayer this week by having some of our friends bring their kids over. I love having them over. 

Before going to bed thursday night I was shocked to see my friend Sara calling. Carl needed to go to the hospital so their kids slept at our place for the night. 

here we are, watching Sean the Sheep the next morning.

The next day we also had Caleb over for a little bit.

"No Carson, don't break my tower!"

Safe from the Carson monster

On Saturday I got to help the Jenkins' with their new condo, which is a pretty nice place! I can't wait for them to have us over :) haha

Carson's 11 month summary photo

A lot happens in a month! It's so fun to try and capture his silly personality in a few words. 

once again, this idea is taken from 52home, part of the girltalk blog

8:12 am

And the toilet paper bandit strikes again!

Missionary friends and Christian friends

Today we were so blessed to be visited by our friends Kristie and Boing (Cristian Boingeanu) who are in the States for a time. They do camp ministry in Romania. Boing is Romanian and Kristie is American! I knew Kristie as a close friend from my Moody days. 

When they pulled into our driveway I was pumped, and gave our baby in desperate need of a diaper change to my loving husband so that I could run toward Kristie and get a HUGE hug. We were so happy to see each other! 

Awesome mug and prayer card from them

Being with Kristie again instantly transported me back to the times I had at Moody - times of honesty, love and tears with close girlfriends who loved the Lord. We prayed for each other, spent life together, served others together, worshiped Christ together in chapel. I spent many hours in Kristie and Anne's room just hanging out and sometimes praying. 

I miss those days. Never have I lived in a community with such openness where I felt so safe to be myself. Granted, it took courage to participate in other's lives and share my heart. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to be vulnerable outside of environments like this. Or it takes a particularly painful trial to shock you out of selfishness. 

One or the other, vulnerability is hard to come by and seems to be rarely received with compassion out in the not-so-real "real world" that I apparently live in. I mean, it has been months since I have seem most of my neighbors. Months! I actually wonder if some of them have been away all that time. I even knocked on their doors for help with the aforementioned weed whacker (as some of my neighbors are pretty in to their weed whackers and their yards look amazing) and no one came to the door though their cars were there. It took guts for me to knock, and no one came. That doesn't make me want to try it again, but as Jesus would have it, I probably will. :)

Anyway, seeing Kristie again was bittersweet - I won't see her and Boing again for another year, I will miss their Romania wedding, and it opened up wounds I have now of missing seeking the Lord with those girls. It was sweet to laugh again with her, and see her glowing face with her fiance! 

Why is it that, even (or especially) in the seminary/church community, people's talk (especially busy moms like myself) is limited to small talk, to the same few subjects: work, kids, groceries, whatever...? Why is it so hard to say "God is teaching me this" or to say "Let's pray about this now"? Why don't we ever ask "How are you really doing?" Or "How is your marriage going?" Or to even confess our sins to one another as it says in James 5? I'm telling you, when we did this at Moody God's Spirit was free to move in our hearts and convict and change. But here I feel stagnant and like I'm becoming more like a Pharisee every day. It makes me discontent, but may that discontent be from the Lord and not from my own deceitful heart. May it cause change instead of cynicism. 

Will you join me in praying for revival?