What do you Want?

This is a question I have heard deep in my heart in the last week. It's amazing how one question can rock your world to the point of speechless. For years now, Seth and I have sought the will of God. We can honestly say that we believe we have heard Him many times and have obeyed even in the midst of hardship. The Lord's hand has been very heavy on us. We have given up on any planning because it seems to us that whatever road we think we are to walk on, God screeches us to a halt and sends us on a totally different path. The longer we walk His road, the more we see His goodness and His mercy in sending us His direction and not our direction. But a 5 year plan? Yeah, right! I am so amazed at how some people can, from a very young age, say they are going to be such-and-such. 20 years later and that's exactly what they are doing. They say "I want to be director of this or leader of that" and that's exactly what happens. It leaves people like Seth and me wondering what in the world we are doing wrong.
But I know we really are not doing anything wrong. We are walking our own journey, our own destiny written before the beginning of Time. Isn't that amazing to think about?
The year 2007 has been a specific time for us. The Lord gave us a specific invitation for fasting certain things this year. Giving us specific direction to Simplify and Focus. It was exciting when we heard from Him and it's actually exciting to be walking in it because we are already seeing some results.
But this one question, "What do you Want?" has resonated in me like nothing has before. It's like this year, after years of preparation, He has brought us to a place where when we come to a conclusive answer...it's going to sound a lot like what the Lord wants for us.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

I have this hunch that we have entered a "turning point" year. One where we might look back and remember when we were asked a Question that turned our lives completely inside out. Yeehaw!

I am so Outnumbered!

Elijah has been attending preschool now for 2 years. Occasionally I have asked his teachers about his behavior in class and both teachers have just gushed about how polite and well behaved he is. Until Friday. Eli's teacher, Ms. Jessica, walked him to the car and mentioned that I might want to have a talk with Eli because he had spent the day hitting and elbowing another little boy after he was told not to. I was a little embarassed for him but Elijah, upon hearing his teacher, tried to melt into my side. We had a talk and when it all came out, my conclusion was...Elijah is a boy. There was no undercurrent of emotional issues, no crazy reason for his behavior. He simply acted like a boy and disobeyed his teachers. I think Elijah learned his lesson. When I picked him up from school today, Ms. Jessica gave a glowing report on his behavior. Good boy!


"Mommy?" "Yes, Josiah". "Mommy?" "Yes, Josiah". "Mommy?" "What, Josiah?" "Bla Bla".

This, my friends, is a sample conversation I have had every day for about a month now. "Bla Bla" could mean absolutely anything. It's the all-purpose word that fills the holes in a small vocabulary. The boy's vocabulary is expanding slowly but surely. Hey, I'm just thankful there is a regular usage of the word "please", pronounced "peeeaaa". I still can't believe that in a couple of months Josiah is going to be 2 years old. Elijah scrambled out of baby-world so quickly, it's actually kind of nice to have Josiah take his time. Even when there are days where I am completely exasperated, it's a blessing to slow down and cuddle with the "Baby"!

Le Artiste

I walked into my room today and found the little J-man with a forbidden pen. I've gotta hand it to the boy- I could have an orginal work of art on my walls as I type this but Josiah went for the more "personal" approach. And for that I am truly thankful!
As I walked up to him, he just melted to the ground. He knew he was in for it. I took the pen away and told him "No". He waited the appropriate 3 seconds, looked up at me while lifting his shirt and just said, "Woh".

Weekly Update

Allrighty, well apparently nothing can be done short of deleting my whole entire blog and starting over again to get Macchiville and Sarah Does Smile to separate. What God has joined together, let no man put assunder.
Plan B- at least get a picture going of the both of us and change up the profile a bit. I have to confess, I'm a little tired of seeing Seth's big face on my blog!

In other news, I have had quite the crummy weekend. Seth came home from his D.C. trip on Friday. The boys and I were very excited to see him. I swear there is nothing cuter in this world than seeing a couple of boys see their daddy for the first time in a week. Huge smiles, big hugs, and munchkin voices saying, "Daddy!". All's right with the world...
Friday morning, I woke up feeling a bit unusual but didn't really think much of it. Until the big wham-mo pain-o hit Friday afternoon and lasted into Friday night. Where did I end up Friday night? Yep, you guessed it- our friendly neighborhood ER. We had no idea what was going on. The pain was literally nauseating. A bit much for this girl who can take a bit of pain.
So the Dr. did an exam and declared an ovarian cyst. Never had one of these before. So I ended up in bed all weekend totally drugged out. The pain still has not gone away so I will be going to see my lucky GYN doctor tomorrow.

These strange and out of the ordinary assaults have happened to me quite a bit over the last few years. I'm not quite sure why. But this time, I have had such a sense of peace. Yes, it could be the high dosage of Vicodin. But it goes beyond that with a full thought of "God is good." He's always good. And He loves me. I haven't experienced a miracle of instant healing yet but I do keep an eye out for His hand in these things. Like Friday, for example. Seth came home and was able to take care of me and the boys. If the attack had happened a day earlier, it would have been a whole 'nother story! For some reason, I have the voice of an older Jamaican man in my head saying, "God is good. When is He good? Always."
Amen and amen.

Technical Difficulties

Okay, so being married for almost 10 years to the same man DOES NOT change one's appearance this much. I thought I would be brave tonight and switch over to the new blogger which wasn't supposed to change anything about my blog. Apparently, I used the same email address and password to hook up to google accounts that Seth did so it's putting my account with his. Thus explaining why all of a sudden, you're looking at his Italian mug instead of my Filipina mutt mug =)
Hopefully we'll have this fixed soon....

T-Rex

"When I first saw the big T-rex, I was like, 'woh don't eat my family'", says the 5 year old boy, sitting in a booth with sticky fingers from the s'mores he and his whole family are enjoying together (that's right, good ol' fashioned s'mores complete with a small butane fire to roast the marshmallows with). Occasional dinosaur roars blare across the room while a little 2 year old tries to imitate it by throwing back his head and saying, "raaahhhh". "Where did these perfect little boys come from and how can I remember this moment forever?"thinks the mother as she reaches over to pull out a wet and mushy marshmallow out of her 2 year old's mouth before he begins to gag. "Okay, perfect but fleeting!"

Seth leaves tomorrow morning for Washington DC for a week so we decided to have "family night" out on the freezing town. I know I've been complaining quite a bit about the frigid weather we have been having recently but when your little one is in your arms as you are crossing the parking lot saying "Ow, ow, ow" from the biting wind tearing across his rosy little cheeks, you begin to question what the heck you're doing here in the midwest...

We began the evening by eating here. Then we suprised Elijah by taking him here. We didn't think that Josiah would be very interested but he enjoyed it just as much as his big brother. Anyway, Elijah got to Build-a-Dino. He was so cute about it. He asked very politely if he could do one and when he was given the green light, he thought long and hard about which dinosaur he should choose. He ended up choosing a T-Rex who he named Jumbo. Jumbo the TRex...pretty catchy, don't you think? It's run by the same company who does Build-a-Bear. This one is just cooler for a little boy.
After that, we all sat down in the restaurant section and had our s'mores dessert. We couldn't have asked for a better evening. The boys had fun and were in great moods and the parents were relaxed enough to enjoy themselves.
good times, good times.