lately...

In my ears
The Oh Hellos - Through the Deep, Dark Valley

I've been listening to this album on repeat. Over and over and over again and I can't get enough of it. Usually my life and my days are so full of noise that I don't have time right away to listen to lyrics {this isn't ideal, but it's my current state of reality} but I enjoy the musical-ness of it. After listening to this album for probably the seventh time in a row, some of the lyrics stuck out and sunk in and I realized that they are likely Christians. Which is pretty cool. I like it when people who love Jesus make great art/music.

Such great music.

And how amazing is this one:

In my heart & in my house
Pizza night

We'd already done one pizza night and it ended up being on Mother's Day with me working pretty hard to make enough pizza from scratch to feed 14 adults. I had a few helpers, but it was a bit lonely and not very much fun although I do enjoy serving people and loving them by feeding them.
Last night, though, we made pizza night a team event and I had tons of cheese graters, veggie choppers, and pizza dough mixers. The music was playing and I took the opportunity to grill one of our interns on his love life. Because I can. Ha!
I looked around at our team enjoying pizza and as I continued to roll out the dough I smiled deeply and felt incredibly satisfied. This is what I want and this is what I envision when I say I love to host people. I love having people in my home and eating together. This is, I think, the ultimate goal of hospitality. Not rushing around doing it all on my own, but the loving each other, the talking and laughing with each other and the eating and preparing together.

On my Kindle
Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist {on sale for $3.99 today!}

This book is delicious and inspiring and hopeful and exciting.
I've been reading it and wanting to shout "YES!" at so many moments, but I don't because there's usually a sleeping baby within earshot.
It's a collection of essays about life and faith and celebrating the two with friends around your table with amazing food. And how we all should do it. Here are a few quotes:

"Life at the table is life at its best to me, and the spiritual significance of what and how we eat, and with whom and where, is new and profound to me every day."

"Get comfortable with people in your home, with the mess and the chaos. Focus on making people comfortable, on creating a space protected from the rush and chaos of daily life, a space full of laughter and safety and soul."

"I want my kids to learn firsthand and up close that different isn't bad, but instead that different is exciting and wonderful and worth taking the time to understand. I want them to see themselves as bit players in a huge, sweeping, beautiful play, not as the main characters in the drama of our living room. I want my kids to taste and smell and experience the biggest possible world, because every bite of it, every taste and texture and flavor is delicious."

So good, right? Ugh. So good.

Oh did I tell you I ate grasshoppers? I was influenced by my own child. We had fried grasshoppers one night but I was putting Blaise down for bed. The next afternoon there were some left over and Jude picked one up and said, "Can I eat it?" and I said, "Sure!" and he seemed hesitant so I encouraged him to try one. He said, "Can I stick my tongue on it?" and I told him that he could and when he licked it, his eyes lit up and he said they tasted salty and then promptly stuck the whole thing in his mouth and went back to eat a few more. Then he handed me one and asked if I would eat one.
People. It's a grasshopper. It's gross looking. I could see the eyes! But I couldn't say that I wasn't willing to try something to Jude when he had just shown me that he was willing to try something new. So I popped one in. It wasn't bad. Kinda like popcorn. I was expecting a spurt or something disgusting. But it was fine. Then I even ate one again so Jamie could get it on camera. Because I'm awesome like that.

God with us.

I went outside just now to check on the boys.
as I called down to them {they were on the second level of our yard} to be careful, Noah asked if I would be staying out with them. I told him no, that I was going back into the meeting in our living room and I said that they would be fine because they're in our own yard.
and then Noah said,
oh yeah! and God is with us! *then he turned to Jude* don't worry, Jude! because God is with us!

moments like these make all the hard times parenting worth it. completely.

bingo bango

it was a day of good and bad. {isn't every day like that?}
noah's elbow popped out yesterday {the third time this has happened} and by this morning he still wasn't using it and complained/cried in pain when we tried to move it.
so we looked into a couple options and decided that i would take him to the nearest "hospital" {it was really more like a clinic} with lynn, a missionary who lives just up the street from us.
it was a rough visit.
he screamed and cried when the doctor tried to touch his arm.
i tried to help the doctor understand that it wasn't because he was a "big, black man" but because he was a stranger and noah was afraid of the pain that he would feel if his arm was moved.
i had multiple "i wish i was back home" moments but that is life when you move overseas and to be expected.
i won't go into all the details except that we were sent for an x-ray and it was an extremely traumatic experience for noah and ended with both of us in tears.
when we went back to the doctor, he had left to go to another hospital.
we waited.
and waited.
and waited.
and then we decided to leave and come back tomorrow.
and i decided to try and have another "go" at fixing noah's elbow.
and sure enough, within the hour of getting back home, he was using it and playing happily with his new friend, sophia.

thank you God that you healed noah's arm. thank you for the perspective that my days and weeks and months will be filled with low points, but that you will also be there to lift me out of the miry clay. 

we made and enjoyed spaghetti with a hearty meat sauce for dinner. {high point!}

one of the sessions in chicago during our training was about adjusting to a new culture and the speaker pointed out that if there are mothers on the team, they will likely not experience the typical "honeymoon" period, but go directly to the slump {and eventually equalize and rise up again to a "normal" level}. bingo bango, mr. speaker.

our home is coming together s l o w l y but God is {as usual} teaching me and sustaining me.
i want to be adjusted and used to this city and culture and know my way around {and have a fully stocked pantry and fridge}, but that takes time. {where is that fast forward button, anyway?}
i love change, but i hate the transition part.
we're getting there.
i just have to keep going.

heat and grace

The past two nights have been deathly hot.

It was 29 degrees on the main floor last night - I don't even want to think about how hot it was upstairs!

Both boys slept in their diapers. No jammies.

Both boys had trouble sleeping. At least when Noah woke up at 11:30 (?) last night and wanted to come downstairs and play I was able to appease him with his water bottle - which he wanted to sleep with and of course I let him because why wouldn't I? (I held my breath as I shut the door to his room and walked away. Praise the Lord, he went back to sleep!)

It's been hot, but it's funny how you do adapt to it. At first I was grumpy our a/c wasn't working. I was reminded by my dear husband that if we lived in a hot, third world country we wouldn't have a/c there either. True, true, my dear. (But I was still hot.)

But after a few days of scorchers, I'm still hot, but it's just what it is now.

The a/c will be fixed eventually and we'll have the luxury of being cool inside while it is HOT outside. This is grace, I think.

For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

James 1:11