My Mom Day

Yesterday I was on baby-duty. I was able to get in a run before Darius woke up at around 9am. (please note previous entry "Hilarious" for pictures). He is 11 months, teething and fighting an ear infection which means he needed lots of love. I tried to do homework for a bit while he was playing on the floor, but he would grab my book from me and insist on sitting on my lap. I can only complain so much... :) Then I went upstairs to make some breakfast and I was able to sit him down for a few precious moments before he came crawling over tugging on my leg to hold him. It was around this point when I thought..."I feel like a mom". It was my goal to keep him up till noon before laying him down for his nap. I had an hour and a half to go. There was nothing much to do other than play with him. It was good - I got nothing else done - but I enjoyed pouring into this creation of God. It felt very purposeful and eternal. So kudos to all you moms! I only had a day of it (Darius slept from noon till 4pm...I wiped him out!) but it was wonderful, exhausting, and fulfilling day!

Oh yes, and I got a small nap in too! :)

Past, Present & Future

Completely unrelated things...

• The other day Takota (Brad's son that lives at our house sometimes) who is 12 was so completely enjoying his Christmas present from Josephine - a woopi cushion! Ah the joys of woopi-cushioning throughout the house! It reminds me of home!
• Today was my first day back babysitting. It was a good sitting day.
• Tomorrow I begin a new semester. I'm starting strong with a class that shows my dediction to the program - the class is Statistics! For a non-math person, that is a lot of deciation.

Christmas in Montana

Exactly a week ago today after 24 hours of traveling I finally landed safely in the Bozeman airport! I was greeted with family, flowers, and a "You're #1!" helium balloon bouquet! The rest is what has happened since the airport:

I came home to a littlest sister who is officially taller than me.
(Quick story:In the airport on the way to Bozeman I ran into Kelsey, Andrew's girlfriend. I complimented her on the cute vest she was wearing and she gave it to me right there! Here I am wearing it for the 1st time. She is such a sweet, special girl!)

Mom & Emily beautifully decorated the door to the room I share with Em.
They also hung pink streamers on the ceiling in the room!

We decorated cookies!
(Thanks to Mark & Michelle, a couple in dad's church, for bringing the supplies!)

We had pizza downtown on Bozeman's Main Street.
(Thank you Cru for the certificate!)

Beautiful family picture at the Christmas Eve service at church.
(Thank you to the Lockies for taking the picture!)


Emily loved her Chacos!
(Thank you REI for the sale...)

And lastly my cute new slippers...
I kept stealing other people's slippers so they bought me my own!

My favorite moment so far was sitting with my family in church. There is something familiar, and special about sitting in church with family. The church here is taking wonderful care of the family, which is so good to see! It has been a wonderful, heart warming, restful time at my home in Montana!

Hilarious

The family I live with will sometimes take care of kids whose parents are in a hard spot. The program is called Safe Families through Lydia Home in Chicago. This little guy is the most recent to join our funny, sharing family. I like to call him my "man of the moment".

God Knows

Sometimes I doubt that God knows what I need...and then he proves himself again and again.

Sundays are kind of hard, just for the fact that I use to go to my family's apartment and now I end up running errands, or wandering until I'm ready to do homework. Today was one of those wandering days, and then I came home to Brad & Susan putting up Christmas lights outside. I finally sat down to do homework when they walked in and Susan said "Oh, look at her...our little college girl is growing up so fast!" Brad commented " Before you know it she'll be all grown up!" There was something about the goofy comments that made me warm all the way to my toes. I am loved. When my family moved I knew one of the hardest things would be not having their love filling me up every week. Yet God has provided another family to love on me when I need love. God just knows. They are by no means a replacement for my amazing family, just God providing for His child exactly what I need. God is so good. Why do I doubt?!

So just know, God knows. He will provide exactly what you need.

Sometimes it's in a bag of groceries on the front door, or a $5 bill in the mail. Sometimes it's in the sunset or the Vivaldi piece on the radio. And other times it's a hug or a wink that communicates "you are loved". Don't miss these little provisions...He knows.

Happy (un)Birthday

Before talking about my (un)Birthday I first want to let you know that I had a wonderful, wonderful weekend with my Indiana family and Danae&Doug celebrating Thanksgiving early. It is so fun being one of the oldest counsins and getting to see everyone grow up. The best part is that everyone gets older, so now I have so much fun learning to play Othello (Levi), talking about the joy of riding fast bikes (Matthew), being taught the different kinds of horses (Alexandera), sharing secret smiles across the table (Adriana) and it is nice being barely taller than at least one person (Christian). Does that sentence even make sense?

You know what I mean. I had a great time.

After the fun weekend, I was out late Monday night at a thing for work. When I came home I went down to my bedroom and I found a boquet of helium balloons waiting for me. They were just sitting there. The big one in the middle said "Happy Birthday!" I smiled and went upstairs to investigate. I asked Brad...he said it wasn't him...I asked Susan...she said it wasn't her...finally I found my nine year old sister-friend snuggled into bed not yet asleep...it was her!

She wished me a happy unBirthday as she drifted off to sleep!

Happy unBirthday to me!

facebook frustration & a distraction from homework

I've never been completely sold on this whole facebook thing. This weekend I was reminded yet again as to why. I've had two long lost friends find me on facebook and all I really want to do is sit down with them over a cup of coffee & catch up with everything that's happened. But alas, all I've done is "Accept Friend Request" and ponder all weekend what I can ask/say etc. to these long lost friends. A "What's goin on?" just doesn't seem to say enough. Ok, that's all. Seriously. I realize it's my own personal deal.

In other less whiney news - I found a jump drive with some pictures on it so in attempt to have a techno-savy blog like my insipirations Seven Standing & the Stomp Pad I'm going to try to post some pics from the past couple years. Here we go...

go cardinals!

katie's wedding 6/2005

he's getting so old!

just a cute pic.

ok - that seriously took way too long. i'm going to have to practice. but it was a pleasant distraction from homework for a bit.

back to the lovely hum of classical music & homework! yeah for school!