Firetrucks and Elections...

So, Thayen has a new word. We live near a a little fire station and so we get to hear the firetrucks as they head out. Every time this happens it is a special event in our house. Everything comes to a standstill and my little boy's eyes light up and a look of sheer joy and amazement spreads across his face. And he'll look at me and as he points out toward the noise he says in an amazed and excited little voice, "fwuck."

As the weather gets colder and more dreary, we've been forced to hole up inside the house. Aside from learning new and exciting words, Thayen has been spending quite some time during these days on daddy's drums. He could spend all day banging on these things and now he's finally starting to actually play on beat counting 1-2-3-4. Here he's "playing with" the Rolling Stones on the electric set... (so cute!!)

Can you believe elections are today? By the time I go to bed, our country will pretty much know who the next president will be. Crazy. I've been praying off and on throughout the day. I'm a little anxious about it. We sent our votes in yesterday. As usual, Tim and I voted for the person we felt would do the best job as far as seeking God's direction and wisdom for our country. This year we voted for Chuck Baldwin, who, I know won't win, but in good conscience I just could not vote for either of the frontrunners. However, between the two of them I'd like to see McCain as our next pres. I just cannot put my hope or trust in someone who claims "faith", supports Islam, and cannot define a human life. That is not exactly the God-centered leader this country needs. On the other hand, I do fully trust God and I know that He can do anything through whomever He chooses, regardless. Perhaps God has bigger plans. Yes, he ALWAYS has bigger plans. We shall see...

Read about our trip to Italy!

Soooo...slight change of plans. I created a webpage through Shutterfly for our Italy trip. You can read all about it and see all of our pictures on that site. It was way easier to use than blogspot. I'm considering changing over permanently. We shall see... The url is:

http://aweitalia.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

Summer round-up

Today is officially the first day of autumn! I love the fall. I have better clothes for the fall. And autumn means soup season. Yesterday was a hearty 13 bean chili and today shall be a beef stew. This also marks the beginning of hot cocoa and peppermint tea in front of a cozy fire. Oh, I love this time of year....EXCEPT the part where I get to rake bags upon bags of leaves. But it's worth it, I suppose.

Just to catch everyone up on the summer's news... My belly has been growing--that's right--I'm pregnant and baby is due mid-February. We're planning on a home birth. I have a wonderful midwife and am very excited about this decision. We also are not finding out the gender until birth! What an exciting surprise it will be.

Thayen has also been growing. He's jumping and playing with "swords" and "guns" and this is not something we taught him. His carrot is a gun...the markers can be put together to make a sword...His bunny can be used as whip or a club. I guess boys just figure this stuff out on there own somehow. And he is all boy! His vocabulary has expanded and will repeat anything you say these days. His first sentences were, "Where did it go?" and "I don't know." Kind of interesting...

Lots of days were spent on trips to the park, hiking, and days at home playing in the whale pool. Tim and I celebrated our birthdays in July. I turned 26 and he is now 27. So young still! To top off our summer (where weekends were spent on house projects) we took a two week vacation to Italy! My next several blogs will be about the trip and it might take me a while to get it all up, so be patient with me.

Here are some pics from the summer:

Birthday date at the Melting Pot (overpriced fondue joint, but extremely good food and kind of a fun place to eat)

A hike above Spokane Valley

The hit of the summer--the whale pool

A morning at the park

That is my brave little boy in the front with dad! He marched right up to the front of the line to ride this elephant and was so excited.

My hometown trip

Hi! I'm realizing more and more how much I stink at this! Okay, now I'm posting just about once a month. How do people find the time?


Well, the latest and greatest... I just got back from visiting my folks for a week. While over in Kelso, Thayen caught the flu which put him out for a couple days, but we still managed a trip to the Portland Zoo, a one night stay at Cannon beach, and some quality time with Grams and Gramps. I also went to a dear friend's wedding and I made it to her bachelorette party as well. It's always fun catching up with those girls!

Petting goats--I was not going in there!

He liked the sea otters

Thayen LOVED the beach!

Especially the sand...

This is right before we went Salsa dancing. It was a blast!

Meals now-a-days

As you can see, Thayen eats at the table with us now. He loves it--now he can eat directly off of our plates... Oh joy!

Yard Update

Here is our yard. It's in progress, but Tim finished putting in all the sprinklers. Now we just have to test 'em out, fill in the holes, Round-up our weedy backyard, thatch the front yard, seed and grow. Woop!

Front yard

Back yard

And the handsome man in action...

Grieved.

HAS ANYONE SEEN MY CAMERA???? 'Cause I haven't!!! Ah, well, now you just get to hear my thoughts and no pics yet!

What about this devastation lately? The cyclone, earthquake, tornadoes... My spirit is grieved for those people. I think of those homeless & starving children, lost loved ones, those who are scrambling to provide for there families... Trying to find clean water just to survive. And here I sit on my computer, only able to read about it and pray. I suppose the earth was meant to moan and groan and this is a sign of the ages... Lord, reach them.

I really don't have much to share right now, except my grieving heart. My problems are so small. I have been thinking a lot about the darkness and evil in the world. It's hard to comprehend the hold the devil has--he ravages the earth. I know that the dark will always get darker, and yet it can not remain even with the smallest ray of light. That's the beauty of God. I yearn for God to be known.

I watched this today; I'm praying.

http://mediastorm.org/0022.htm

Poo and such

I am the worst! Well, it's difficult for me to find time to blog among other things; I have a million excuses. It's been over a month since the last one. Here's what we've been up to this past month:

The sun is finally out in Spokane! Yay! Thayen and I have been enjoying walks/jogs around the neighborhood and to the park about a mile away. Most of the playground toys are "big boy toys", but there are a couple swings and a slide he can go on. He's insistant that we go down the slide together, which exhausted me after about 30 minutes of following him up the steps and down the slide nonstop. The rest of the time he likes to follow other kids around and play in the rocks. On Monday Thayen "helped" me pick up dog doo (two buckets full!). He wasn't catching on to exactly what I was shovelling (thank-goodness), but he did pick up lots of rocks and throw them in the bucket. What a helper! I think the bucket weighed an extra 5 pounds thanks to his help.

Speaking of dog dookie--isn't that the WORST job in the world?! Why exactly did I have 2 bucketfuls of poop to pick up??? Because I kept putting it off praying it would just disappear (I'm waiting for VaPOOrize to really be invented--see the movie, Envy). But since we are putting in a sprinkler system we now have Butchie fenced in his own section so he can't destroy anything in the yard. I was so happy to pick up poop ONCE and FOR ALL. It was liberating, knowing his poop will be contained to one section now--YAY!

Last week Thayen and I got back from visiting grandfolks on the other side of the state. Thayen did GREAT on the plane and was complimented for being such a good boy by a nice old man sitting next to us. It could have been the nonstop screaming child in the back of the plane that made him look like such an angel. Everytime the plane went up or down--you know when you get those butterflies in your stomach--he said "WEE!" We had a nice visit with my parents and Tim's folks, and I went to a friend's babyshower and had so much fun seeing some of the gals from highschool.

Like I mentioned, Tim is putting in a sprinkler system. It has been quite a process. I can't wait to have GRASS in the backyard! We have the BEST FRIENDS in the WHOLE WORLD. A group of our friends from church came over after worship practice on Sunday and helped dig out some ditches and lay the rest of the pipe. My friend, Gail and I BBQ'd for everyone and it ended up being a great time. What would have taken Tim an entire day, took the guys 2 hours to do! We are so blessed!!

We are playing softball in a coed church league. Have I mentioned that before? It's so much fun! Our team is so smokin' that we got moved up to the top league--should be a good thing! I am having to play centerfield because of a couple no-shows and am definitely realizing why I like the infield so much. I have the worst depth-perception! Tim is doing great though--it's just such a blast; especially playing with him.

Well, that catches ya'll up on the latest! I will post pictures as soon as I remember to get the camera out of the trunk of the car!

God bless!

Catch up!

Lots to catch up on. I skipped a couple weeks!

First of all, the big drama was great! Thayen was super cute in his costume. For those of you who weren't aware, our church puts on a big drama, "Behold the King," every year around Easter time. It was at the Spokane Operahouse and is free to the community. We were Joseph, Mary, and toddler Jesus. It was fun and even though for the past 3 months I was looking forward to being done with the practices and rehearsals, I was a little bummed when it was all over. We were so blessed to have my mom, Keely & Jarrod come to the drama and stay with us over Easter weekend.

Speaking of Easter, even though the weather was dreary, we managed Thayen's first egg hunt. I put Goldfish, pretzels, animal cookies, and Gushers (yes, those were his favorite, and no, I won't be giving them to him again--BLUE POOP!) in plastic eggs and laid them in the lawn. Once he figured out there were goodies in the eggs, he wouldn't slow down until he had eaten them all... Other than that, we had a pretty mellow day. It's nice to have those days.

By the way, notice Thayen's hand? He literally sucked the skin off of his thumb, so we've been putting a sock on it to give it a break and let it heal. After a week, it's looking much better. He doesn't mind it at all--maybe we'll break him of the habit? I think it'll have to stay on for several more weeks before that happens, but who knows?!

Next up is softball! I haven't played since college and I'm sooooo excited! Our first game is this Saturday--I'll have to remember to bring my camera. I hope the weather isn't gross. It's been windy, wet and cold--miserable! This morning we woke up to a couple inches of snow! What the heck? My tulips are coming up and it's still snowing! I sure hope they survive.

Oh, and I should be faithful to update: My dear friend who I spoke of in the last blog who I prayed over was migraine free for a couple days, which hasn't happened for her in a long time. I'm bummed they are back, but not discouraged. We battle on. "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.."

I am currently reading "When Heaven Invades Earth" by Bill Johnson. It is EXCELLENT. That's why I haven't blogged in a while--my spare time has been used devouring that book. If you haven't heard of Bethel church in Redding or Pastor Bill Johnson, you gotta get with it! Get your hands on any of his books or go see him speak when you get a chance. His entire church has the healing annointing. I am more than inspired when reading his material; every part of me is intensely affected. My spirit is leaping inside of me... I want to display more of Jesus in every way. I want to move in the miraculous and see the restoration, deliverance, and healing that the church so desperately needs today. It's the beginning of a revival, I tell ya! The bride is being perfected. I'm just so darn pumped!

I'm so high right now...

Where, oh where do I begin? Have you ever been so excited you just can't shut up or sit still? That's me. I'm so spiritually high right now, I might pass out. I'm going to try to only write the really big things and not all the little details so this blog isn't ginormous. Please stick with me and read through the end--it's really cool.

First of all, you need to know that Tim and I have been in this place for a couple months where we are waiting on the Lord for....something. We don't even know what! The Holy Spirit has made it evident to us that we are being called to do....something....bigger than just the ordinary, which is where we are at now. Even my dreams have revolved around this big unknown event: like I'm driving somewhere specific, but I don't know where and I can only see 4 feet in front of the car. Or I'm hiking a windy trail and I can't see what's beyond the next bend. But I'm excited about it, because I'm headed somewhere great! So lately we have been pursuing clarity, direction, and vision in prayer.

Now, the crazy cool part. There was a guest speaker at our church this last Sunday. (Her name is Sherry Simpson, although I don't know if I spelled it right) Her and her husband minister in the gifts of prophecy and healing. Her message was about not fearing and just doing what God has called us to do; bringing life to dry bones (Ezekiel 37). Now, it's a message most of us have heard, but part of it spoke to me about healing the sick, and giving life to the desolate. The Spirit inside me was screaming, "Preach on, sister!". As usual, I forgot to write down exactly what was spoken that impacted me so much, but it did stir something in me to get prayer from this couple after the service.

So it was our turn to get prayer, and boy, was it cool!! The first thing out of Sherry's husband's mouth to Tim was confirmation from the Spirit: "God is telling me that you are very analytical." Ha! So true! He went on speaking directly to Tim and his responsibilities as the spiritual head. I won't delve into that because it was more personal and pretty intense. Then he said that God wants us to start a couple's group in our home. Whether only one couple comes or ten, we need to lead that. That has been Tim's desire for a while now--so now we have the "go-ahead" from the Big Man. Next he said, "You are on a spiritual fast track. The Holy Spirit is pouring so much knowledge and wisdom into you both. You are going to learn and grow so much so fast right now, because God has something for you to do. He is going to have you do something so unusual and out-of-the-ordinary, you won't believe it. He will send someone to tell you what it is, and it will be so extraordinary that you won't believe it. So He will send someone else you don't even know to confirm it. You will literally walk by people and the Holy Spirit will come upon them and you will see lives changed." HOW COOL IS THAT?! And that's not all! Sherry spoke to us, and said, "Whoa! You are a special couple. You have a very strong annointing!" Then she spoke directly to me and said, "Don't be afraid. Do not have fear. Lay hands on people and declare healing. It may not happen the first or second time you do it, but soon it will happen. Jesus will heal them through you." HOW IN THE WORLD CAN I BE CALM AFTER THAT? Is it no wonder I have been seeking this gift from God that He affirmed it?

So guess who has been looking for sick people? The Holy Spirit is so bubbly inside of me I am leaking it all over! Just this morning I laid my hands on a friend who has had horrible migraines for a while now. God told me to lay my hands on her a while ago, and I was afraid she would think I was weird so I didn't. Shame on me! Anyhow, this morning I did and I prayed over her and declared health and wholeness and freedom of pain. Words were coming out of my mouth that were obviously not from me, but the Spirit. I spoke into her life things I didn't even really know about her that were true! When I was done, she turned and said, "Wow, I felt something! It was like a shock down the entire left side of my back, where the pain is." Then I had a chance to share about healing and prophecy with her, things she didn't even know. God is opening up an entire realm of Himself to her, that she didn't even know existed. NOW THAT'S THE COOLEST PART--THE SPIRITUAL GROWTH. I have faith that God took the migraines from her. I will update you later when I get a chance to talk to her. Sometimes we have an initial healing from the Lord, but that doesn't necessarily mean the enemy won't try to attack us there again and steal that healing. It's a battle, you know? As soon as the pain starts we literally need to declare victory in Christ and tell the enemy to take his pain and sickness and run.

There is no formula, no equation to how, why, who God heals. It can be different every time. Sometimes people with no faith at all are healed miraculously, and sometimes our faith in His healing heals us. And what about the blind guy who Jesus healed with mud & spit? Ever thought what that was about? Some people are healed just by listening to someone else's testimony of healing! Sometimes it happens in an instant, and other times it is gradual. What about the people that don't get healed? Oh, I wish I knew. All I do know for sure, is that his healing is real, and touches more than the physical but reaches to our very core. Our spirit is strengthened, He shows us more of Himself. And HE IS GOD! He can do anything; we just need to take Him out of the box.

MOW!

...So I missed a week. That's okay though, right? I feel like things have been so busy lately but when I reflect back on the month or week or day I can't even remember what I did! Everything is about the same here--still doing life. Just want to share the latest and greatest "THAYEN EVENTS" with ya'll.

One of Thayen's first audibly understandable words: "NO!" Well, actually it sounds more like "Mow," with the "ow" making the sound like in "ouch", but he definitely means no. Great. He says this whenever we tell him no; more often in response to Tim's firm tone. It goes something like this:

Baby sticks hand in VCR.

Mommy calmly says, "Thayen, no no."

Baby looks at her, pulls hand out of VCR, smiles at her, and puts hand back in VCR.

Daddy gets down on floor next to Baby, takes his hand, holds it firmly and says, "Thayen, NO."

Baby struggles to get hand free, scrunches face and snorts several times through nose.

Daddy releases Baby's hand.

Baby shouts at Daddy, "MOW!" and takes a swing at him.

Repeat.

Fun, fun! We need to catch it on video now because it's cute (I am sure, however that this will quickly become "not so cute" before too long).

Yesterday Thayen had fun with his lunch. I put olives on his fingers and he thought that was just the coolest thing. When I tried to take them off he quickly pulled his hand away and shoved as many olives as he could in his mouth. Before he gagged and spit them all out, I had to snap a few pictures.

Then I had to take this picture of the boys "vegging". Must have been something good on TV.

Finally, I'll sign off leaving you with a special one of Your's Truly. I'd like to say it is a rare occasion to catch me in such an atrocity of an outfit but, sadly, this is typical for a day of housework & baby raising. Wuddya think? Tim is one lucky man.

Lil' Mr. T doin' his thing

I love watching Thayen interact with Butchie. That dog takes some abuse--he is such a good dog. I even caught Thayen cuddling Butchie's tail first thing in the morning...

Thayen also loooooooves reading. Well, flipping through books anyhow....even RIGHT after bathtime!

Where, oh where, does Thayen get those piercing blues? Not quite from me. My little buddy.

Finally, thanks Grammy & Granpy A for the Valentine's box. Thayen enjoys his new cup!

My latest revelation

Every 4 years I am reminded of just how much I dislike the political beast. I am not a hugely politcal person, but I do care who our elected officials are, especially the big P. There is so much crooked nonsense that goes on--let's begin with the fact that the big bipartisanship is unconstitutional in the first place. Actually, let's not begin anywhere, because it's all so miserable to talk about anyhoo. I just wish people would vote for the person that would do the best job, not just because they are popular, because they belong to this or that party, or because the media says so... Ugh.

Moving on...

I have somehow managed to forget every single person's birthday so far this year who are closest to me. I never do that! Actually I miss about 1 a year or so, but usually only by a day. So far I have missed my sister's and I even talked to her on the day of her birthday!!! Then my dad's birthday was after that--I think I called him a couple days later. Now my mother's birthday I missed by a week!!! I can't believe it! Where is my mind??? I feel awful! So, my deepest apologies to those I love so dearly! Please forgive me, and don't forget my birthday (...ha...kidding).

My revelation, which is all over the place, but bear with me:

Have you noticed the verse, "Blessed are you who are not offended by me."--Mat 11:6? It's a verse that came up after the miscarriage. How interesting that Jesus pointed out that there would be times where He would do something we could find offensive. The NIV version is, "Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." I also read a book that a dear friend lent to me called, "Prisoner in the Third Cell" by Gene Edwards. It's a quick and easy read specifically about this verse, and really makes you think. So if I'm not offended by God (which honestly, is hard not to be in grievous and difficult circumstances) and I don't lose my faith, I get to experience that perseverence part. And then perseverence produces perfection (James 1:2-4)--so that I am not lacking in anything. For some reason, God set it up so that we must experience trials to grow. --And not just grow, but be complete. And He does this at the risk of some of us actually losing our faith! Is it just me, or is this something you haven't really thought about before?

Then, what does completeness & perfection look like....JESUS! What did Jesus do? He came to give each of us abundant life--in every way. "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them." So, in perfection as Jesus was and is perfect, we get to literally do those things; not only do we get abundant life, but we are instumental in His giving it also!!! I believe it with all my heart. But we can't get there without these darn trials. I have a lot more thoughts on this--too many to write, but I'll sign off with this short story. John G. Lake was perhaps one of the greatest healers (aside from Jesus of course). He was saved at 16 and his healing ministry exploded after every single one of his family members died from various diseases. These huge trials caused him to press in to believe in God's healing power--commit his life to it; even though in the physical all he saw was death. And the power that God gave him to heal was so great that he could hold a long branch on one end and touch someone at the other end and they would be instantly healed. Cool, huh? If you ever have a chance to read about John G. Lake, you should. He started the Healing Rooms Ministries right here in Spokane and across the country.

Okay, that's all for now. I'll try to post some more pictures of the little cutie soon, since that's who everyone wants to see anyway.

More snowy days

It's snowing...AGAIN! I do like the snow, but I am ready for spring! I can't wait until these dormant days are over and Thayen & I can play outside. The snow is still a bit much for Thayen to handle. He won't keep his gloves on and can't stay on his feet, which results in tears. At least I have Butchie to build snowmen with (he destroyed the poor snowman within a matter of minutes when I turned my back).



A few days ago the weight of the snow caused Tim's carport to collapse! It was one of those ones from Costco. I spent two hours on a ladder (and in a tree) shoveling the snow and ice off of it. Somehow Tim got the thing back up, but we think we'll need to replace the metal poles because the current ones got bent all out of wack. Yay--another project...



Thayen has a potty seat! He has sat on the thing a handful of times to start getting used to it, but no potty yet. He still prefers to use it as a drum instead. He adds quite a bit of amusement to my days. He likes to bring hats to me so I will put them on his head. Sometimes he does this with towels too. Lately his favorites have been a blue wool beanie and a blue bandana, which he will wear all day and he thinks it is just the funniest thing. I caught him "drumming" with his prized beanie on a couple days ago. Cute.


Keep us in your prayers because we're still fighting sickness over here. Thayen gave me his cold & cough. Yucky.

Simple things get me too darn excited.

I loooooove discovering nature's cures and remedies for health problems. My latest discovery: CALENDULA! It's a marigold. Its petals are used for medicinal purposes like for burns, cuts, bruises, eczema, hemerroids, and just about any skin condition you can think of. I just bought a 2 oz. jar of calendula cream for Thayen's eczema. He has had a rough, itchy patch of eczema on the back of his leg, about the size of a quarter since he was about 4 months old. NOTHING has worked to get rid of it. Silly doctor kept saying "Hydrocortisone cream". That steroid cream stuff is just bad and doesn't take care of the problem anyhow. I've been putting this calendula cream on his eczema spots for just three days now and they're completely gone! Not only that, but I've been using the stuff on myself too. Dry, rough skin? Calendula! Weird spot on arm? Calendula! Zit on face? Calendula! Exciting, isn't it? God really did not leave anything out when He put this earth together, ya know? And it's even a fun word to say.

I know I said I'd only be posting about once a week, but with all the excitement I just couldn't control myself... ha.

Hey it's us!

Here is my first blog! Yay! Hopefully I will be able to keep up (like once a week, maybe?)

This year we started off a little shaky. We all got sick. Then I had a miscarriage. Then we all got sick again. Miserable. But God has still been good through it all. One greeeeeaaaaaaaaat thing: Tim has a new job! Designing something with solar panel whatnots (maybe I'll have him write a little ditty on exactly what he's doing for those of you that don't know). He's with a new company based in San Francisco called Greenvolts. Their manufacturing is all done up here in Spokane though. The hours are great and Tim LOOOOOVES it, as he has said to me many times. A perfect answer to prayer!

The weather has been, well, very white! We got dumped on this weekend. Almost a foot in just a day and more snow to come. Thayen and I are a little snowbound with the ol' Mazda here at home. Speaking of Thayen--he's still as cute as EVER! At 13 months, he's still speaking his own language, but has lots to say! He's into everything now, so we broke down and FINALLY babyproofed. He's a little stuffy right now, so we're enjoying taking it easy (yeah, right) and doctoring that cold away. It seems his latest favorite activity is rearranging mommy's bookshelf!



Looking forward to throwing our first Superbowl party this Sunday. Should be fun! If you're around, stop on by!