An impromptu photo shoot

I took the 3 big girls yesterday for their summer haircuts.  I realized as I typed that, that it sounded like a thought out and deliberately planned thing.  You know, like, we get winter haircuts, summer haircuts- a regularly scheduled thing.  Umm.  Not.  I am not that mom.  No, these haircuts were the result of a certain daughter realizing, with horror, that she had awful split ends which prompted me to realize that it had likely been somewhere close to a year since I'd cut any of their hair.  Go ahead and judge...  I likely deserve it.  Ooh, and I just typed something else that might have been misleading.  To clarify, I, me, myself do absolutely NOT cut their hair.  Again, I am not that mom.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that mom.  As a matter of fact, I would love for her to jet on over to my house for a week or 2 and cut hair, grow herbs and make laundry detergent from the dirt in my back yard.  I would be grateful.  But that is not me in this season.  Anyway, I don't cut hair.  I do hack at my 2 year old's bangs but I"m pretty sure that doesn't count.

ANYWAY.  Where was I?  Yes, haircuts.  Took the 3 big girls yesterday for much needed haircuts and as a result we had a little impromptu photo shoot of my beauties when we got home.  

Growing up way too fast!

The windblown look...  She loves how straight they can make her hair.  Something I tell her could be also achieved at home with the use of a little thing we call a hair dryer and brush, but we're still big fans of the air drying thing.  Not complaining..

Rocking the short locks for the summer...

Pleased as she can be...

Just a little trim, thank you very much...

She's planning to donate to Locks of Love again next time we're in the states.

And all 3 together...

And then there's little bit.  Word of explanation here.  Anabelle seems to be opposed to clothes these days.  Or at least shirts.  I can hardly blame her.  It's hot and I strip her down for naptime anyway.  For all of these reasons, the clothes battle is one I am choosing not to fight.  Yes, we dress her if we're going out and she actually seems to understand that that is required, but around the house?  Not so much...

Here she is hiding when I suggested clothes the other day...

Just hanging around...

Anyway, back to the photo shoot...  Naked Anabelle wanted in on the action too..

Anabelle has by far been my most difficult child to photograph.  She is less than interested in cooperating, and that is somewhat of an understatement.  Which means that it is rather difficult to get a shot of all 4 girls that is anywhere near normal, much less a family shot.  We have family shots scheduled for later this summer- should be interesting!

For all of those reasons, I was pretty pleased to get a somewhat normal picture of all 4 girls (even if AB is topless...)

And then, things got interesting, as they always do when I want JUST ONE normal picture!!!

Photogenic or not, they are beautiful inside and out, and I'm glad they find each other so amusing!

(well, I guess AB wasn't thinking things were too funny by this point!)

What's the lesson?

Do you ever go through a season, or even just a series of events where you think, "ok, there is probably a major life lesson hidden in here somewhere if I can just focus enough to wrap my brain around it"?  That theme pretty much defined my existence for the month of May.  If it was not one thing, it was another.  Little things mostly.  But annoying things.  Things that eat away at my stress level, not to mention my time.  But also things that when I start whining about them (inwardly of course), I realize how truly insignificant they actually are in the grand scheme of things.  Things that when I look at the struggles of others around me- big, truly heartbreaking struggles- the loss of a child, the loss of a home, war torn nations.  Well, my petty complaints truly pale in comparison.  But in the moment, in the midst of the frustration, these petty little things can really do a number on my frame of mind!  

So I have to pause and ask myself, "What is the lesson here, Lord?  What are you trying to teach me?"  And honestly, most of the time I'm thinking, "enough already, I get it!"  (whatever IT is).  

I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what defined my crazy for the first few weeks of May and maybe you can help me figure out the life lessons involved...

I was really looking forward to May, especially after the craziness of moving during April.   I was going with Jason on a mostly business trip to Morocco- my FIRST time to Africa, which is crazy in itself since I've been literally dreaming of going there since I was 6.  Anyway, even though the trip was going to be mostly business it would involve spending time with dear friends and a little bit of R&R simply because we would be staying in a resort type place, meaning I wouldn't be cleaning or cooking for a week.  So hey, even if meetings are involved that in itself is enough to make it somewhat relaxing.     I even gave myself a manicure before I left which I NEVER do since it never lasts more than half a day- one load of dishes and it's peeling off.   Anyway, all that to say, May was something I'd been lookign forward to for a while.  And added bonus, Aunt AJ (Jason's youngest sister) was flying all the way across the ocean to stay with the girls.  So leaving the girls behind was not going to be at all stressful because they were super excited about time with AJ.  

So, first thing.  In the process of beginning to pack for our trip, I realized that almost all of my earrings and several pretty precious pieces of jewelry were missing.   I had inventoried and organized all of my jewelry right before the move, but in the process of moving, I had left my jewelry in my top dresser drawer (where it stays), intending to move it myself.  On the craziness of moving day, I completely forgot and all I can figure is that when the movers (or hired guys off the street) moved that particular piece of furniture, they opened that top drawer and helped themselves.  Completely my fault for leaving it but frustrating nonetheless.  I'm particularly mourning my sapphire and diamond ring that Jason bought me for Christmas when Maddie was a baby and my grandmother's pearl ring.  Also frustrating is the fact that the jewelry was obviously scooped up in a hurry and they only got away with 1 of most of my most favorite earrings.  So the lone earrings are left behind reminding me of how much I love them and miss them!  I know.  Totally superficial and it's just stuff.  But it was my stuff.  And I happen to kind of have a thing for jewelry.   

So that was annoying and frustrating.  But, in the long run, it's just stuff, right?

So May 1 arrives.  AJ has come and gotten settled into our family routine.  I've fully stocked the fridge and freezer so they don't have to worry with meals while we travel.  I've arranged transportation to various activities and friends to check in on them,  and Jason and I head off to the airport. 

 Funny side note that you will soon see the relevance of- in the process of packing, Jason asked me if I wanted to pack together in a certain not so large suitcase.   Pretty sure I looked at him like he'd grown a second head.   Why in the world would I want to have to stress about how much I was going to be able to pack when for the first time in a long time, I am only packing for myself and not 4 other little people.  No thanks I said.  I'm likely packing everything I own :).   For one, I"m not totally sure what type of clothes I'll be wearing, plus I'm only packing for me so I don't have to worry about space.  Whoo hooo!  

Indeed. 

 So I proceeded to pack essentially my entire spring and summer wardrobe, all of the jewelry I had left, all of my shoes  (and by the way, I like shoes.  I may or not have had almost an entire bag of shoes packed when Jason came and picked up the bags I had packed for our honeymoon oh so many years ago- that should have been an introduction for him to my (ahem) somewhat challenged self when it comes to packing light....).  And yeah, I am also not so good at the whole 'put a change of clothes in your carry on' thing...   There might have been in a time when I wore Jason's clothes on a trip because a certain toddler threw up all over me mid-flight and I didn't have a change of clothes in my carry on.  I've gotten a lot better, especially when we travel with the girls.  However, this particular trip, I packed in a hurry.  I did not pre-plan.  I actually put things in my suitcase that I know better than to put in a checked bag simply because I was in a hurry and I've never actually lost a bag.  So there.  Can you see where this is going?   

So off we go to the airport.  

Jason and I actually had a slightly different itinerary because he was traveling a bit more after the Morocco trip.  I was with friends though.  Off we went to Agadir, Morocco.  By way of Istanbul, then Casablanca and finally on to Agadir almost 12 hours later.  We all arrived safe and sound.  Sadly, my bag did not.  We went through the motions of filling out the appropriate claim forms for a missing bag at the airport in Morocco and headed out to our hotel- about a 30 minute drive from the airport.   

I was grumpy.  And can I just tell you that is kind of a major understatement.  

I had no make-up (always put that in my carry on- not this time!), I had no jewelry, I had no clothes or extra clothes of ANY form, I had no contact solution, I had no glasses etc etc.  

So, with the understanding that the airline would be calling me (hopefully the next day) when my bag arrived from Casablanca (in my head, it made the most sense that it had been delayed there since we only had a 50 minute layover), we began a week of meetings.  I didn't want to go buy a bunch of stuff since I had so much in my bag which would surely be showing up soon.  Unfortunately when I contacted the airlines the airlines the next day, I was eseentially told that they had absolutely no idea where my bag was and were attempting to track it down.  Great.

In this whole process I learned more about the airline luggage "system" (and believe me I use that word, VERY loosely) than I ever wanted to know.  After learning about this system (or lack thereof), I can fully understand why there are 100s and 1000s of missing bags out there.  I should know.  I was in the lost baggage storerooms at 4 different airports over the course of the next week.   

Finally after 3 days I was told that my bag had been found in Istanbul and was due to be sent that evening- hooray!  See, it was a good thing after all that I hadn't run out and bought a bunch of stuff that I really didn't want.  Thanks to generous friends who also apparently overpacked, I had several outfits to select from each day.  One friend even had a bag full of Mary Kay samples that she let me use.  

The next 4 days were a blur of meetings, going back and forth to the airport tracking my bag that had supposedly arrived in Casablanca, and each day was due to be sent on to Agadir, numerous phone calls to various airlines who were somehow involved in the whole process.  There was Royal Air Maroc with whom the claim was filed since they were my final carrier.  They mostly spoke French and were the ones who told me "ma'am, perhaps you should check at your home in Jordan"  Dude.  I'm pretty sure I would remember if I had LEFT MY SUITCASE AT HOME YOU COMPLETE MORON (ahem) nice man who is attempting to help me.  

They there was Royal Jordanian, the original carrier that I flew on to Istanbul.  They claimed no involvement and no responsibility at all since I filed the claim with Air Maroc.  (didn't seem to matter that they were the ones who didn't get the bag on the flight in Istanbul to begin with).  They recieved a nasty email which I'm sure did worlds of good.

And finally, Turkish Air.  And no, I did not fly Turkish Air.  However somehow they got involved when the bag was left in Istanbul.  I will tell you about some of my lovely conversations with them in a minute.  

Let me just pause here and say that the bag never arrived in Agadir.  On my last day and final trip to the airport, the told me that the bag was due to arrive from Casablanca that night at midnight and I could just get it that morning when I checked in for my 6 AM flight and re-check it(I'm thinking I might actually attach it to my wrist, thank you very much).  If for some reason, it did not arrive, I could just check in as far as Casablanca, go out through customs and go to the baggage area and retrieve it there.  Lovely.  Sounds like the way I want to spend my layover.   And can I say that I had I known at the beginning of the week that my bag was NOT going to arrive, I would have settled in to my friends clothes, bought a few things and that would have been that.  It was the back and forth to the airport, the your bag is coming, Ha! just kidding, your bag is in Istanbul, oops no, your bag is in Casablanca.  Yeah, that was tiring.   

So on the day we returned from Agadir to Amman (by way of Casablanca and Istanbul), of course my bag was NOT there that morning.  I went through customs in Casablanca to pick it up, nope not there either.  They tracked it on their computer and said it had been sent from Istanbul back to Amman on May 5.  Hmmm.  I DON"T BELIEVE YOU!!!!   Interesting that on May 7 they told me it was sent to Casa and now here it is May 8 and it's back on Amman on May 5.  You confused?  I was!  And so tired!  So exhausted!  

Anyway, I did the same thing in Istanbul.  Had to buy a Turkish tourist visa, check out through passport control and go down into the baggage claim area.  (thankfully we had about a 4.5 hour layover).  That is where I encountered a lovely lady with Turkish Airlines who  confirmed that my bag had been scheduled to go from Istanbul to Amman on May 5 but it apparently did not get loaded onto the plane for whatever reason.  She then proceeded to explain to me about the "room of the chutes".   

"Ma'am,"  she says. "There is a big room with 3 giant chutes.  All of the bags go down the big chutes before they are put on the planes.  Sometimes they do not get put on the plane and they stay in the room of the chutes.  I think maybe your bag is in the room of the chutes."   

She then goes on to tell me that I can't go to the "room of the chutes" to look for the bag because I don't have an ID badge.  When I asked if she could go and look she explained that no she could not because the room is too big and it would take too much time.  

After spending another 2 hours with a guy in baggage claim trying to find the bag, he finally determined that there must have been a gliche in the system and that the bag was in fact put on the plane to Amman (on May 5) and would surely be waiting for me when I arrived later that night.  

It was not.

Fast forward 6 more days.  After numerous more frustrating conversations with airlines and baggage handlers and customer service representatives, I was oh so very close to giving up.  (however in the course of these conversations, they supposedly found the bag again in Casablanca and it was sent on to Agadir and then back on it's way to Amman.  Yeah, never happened).  However, that's why I didn't give up.  They kept giving me hope that they'd come up with the bag.  Despite the fact that it wasn't true at all, it was still hope.  So maybe the lesson is something about hope?

After another trip back out to the Amman airport to pick up the bag that had supposedly arrived and it had not, I made one last attempt at calling the Turkish Airlines baggage handlers again.  I was fairly certain that since my bag had been positively identified in Istanbul, that it was likely still there (in the room of the chutes!!).  Miraculously, I got the same little guy on the phone who had helped me for almost 2 hours the week before.  He gave me an email address, told me to email him personally with an exact description of the bag along with a thorough description of its contents and he would go himself down to the tag less luggage warehouse and see if he could identify it.   

I got an email back within 10 minutes that he found my bag and was sending it on to Amman that night.  

And miracle of miracles, he did!  AND all my jewelry, electronics, clothes etc were completely intact.  Not a thing was missing.  

Thank you Jesus!!!   (I love that there is a tag on it that says RUSH)   

In the midst of this lovely life lesson that I've decided must have something to do with my vanity and desire to have pretty clothes and jewelry and make-up (and shoes), I also got 2 mega sized mouth ulcers that made it pretty difficult to eat.  I also got a nasty infection in one of my eyes so I couldn't wear my contacts (and my only pair of glasses was in the missing bag!).   I've been wearing glasses since age 8 and can't see a foot in front of me without them so there was very little of any use I could do for the 36 hours that I was blind!  I can promise you that it was not a very pleasant week in our household.    Definitely not the relaxing, refreshing few weeks that I had planned on!  

And I confess that in all of the craziness, I kept asking , "Lord, WHAT is the lesson?  I am listening!!  And whatever it is, I've learned it so please just give me back my stuff!"  (ok maybe lesson NOT learned).  

I did learn that sometimes that streak of stubbornness that I get made fun of for, pays of every so often.  I was NOT giving up on the bag and I was NOT going to let people get away with claiming "no responsibility".  So maybe the lesson is about perseverance in the midst of hope?  Regardless, so thankful that with a little perseverance, I found a friend in the bowels of the Istanbul airport willing to go beyond his "job" and help me out- thank you Ozgur!  

(and for those of you thinking, good grief- just go buy new clothes...  remember where I live and take my word for it- not that easy!!) 

So what lesson do you see for me here?  Maybe you've read something between the lines that I missed?

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

Proverbs 13:12 

Operation Surprise Move

We ought to be experts on moving after 16 moves in 18 years of marriage, including 7 overseas moves.   Maybe that's why I convinced myself that pulling off a surprise move for Jason would be do-able.   That, and I love a good surprise, especially a challenging one.  And moving overseas?  Let's just say challenging does not exactly describe it.  

I've mentioned that this has been a pretty stressful season for our family.  Work responsibilities increasing and therefore travel increasing for Jason, school decisions being made for the kids etc etc.  Just a lot going on.  In spite of all of that, when an apartment became available on the ground level (meaning patio and yard space) across town we knew it was not something we wanted to pass up on.  Our current lease overlapped with when the apt would be coming available so we also knew that we would be able to move gradually which was a good thing considering our available time in the spring/summer months was essentailly zilch.  

Here's the thing.  Jason detests moving.  The entire process- the packing, the cleaning out, the organzing etc etc.  Not only does he detest it, but he has a herniated disc in his back and was told a few years ago that he was one false move away from needing back surgery.  Since then he has "tweaked" his back several times doing minor things resulting in being in a good bit of pain and immobile for days,sometimes weeks.  It stresses him out for me to tell him not to lift stuff and then to watch me lifting/moving things and it stresses me out to think of him hurting himself more.  Ironically, I actually enjoy the process of moving and setting up a new home.  I love to nest and make things pretty.  It's funny because I am actually very much a homebody and change is not my favorite thing.  I come from a very deep-rooted family especially in the sense of physical location.  My Memommy still lives in the same house in Memphis that she moved into in the 1950s.  My parents live in the house that they moved into when I was 5.  Despite that, I enjoy the setting up of a new home.  

All that to say, when I began looking at our spring/summer calendar, I began strategizing and planning how I could move us during Jason's 15 day trip to the states in April.  His work schedule has been crazy busy,  and my true motivation was a desire to bless him by freeing him from the stress that comes along with the moving details.  AND I wanted to get our family settled.  I didn't want the move and not knowing when it was going to happen to continue to hang over us.  We have family coming this summer and I wanted us to be settled in our new home!

So Operation Suprise Move was put into effect!  I was able to pack some boxes gradually before he left for his trip without him being suspicious.  We knew we'd be moving sometime in the next few months so it made sense to begin going through closets, gathering piles of clothes and toys to give away etc.  

The morning that he left, I gathered the girls and told them the plan.  I hadn't told them in advance because I was pretty sure that at least Naomi would not be able to keep it to herself.  I explained that it was likely to be a pretty stressful few weeks but that we were all going to work together and really surprise Daddy.  They were all about it.  I also recruited help from many dear friends in town.  These friends were amazing during these 2 weeks.  We absolutely could not have pulled this off without our overseas family gathering around us.  I am so thankful for all of you- you know who you are!   

So here are some things you need to know about moving overseas:

• we do not use a moving company- we hire guys off the street with a truck.  I don't know how else to describe it.  We have a guy who does handy- man type work for us and he knows guys who are looking for work so he recruits them and supervises them and comes up with a truck for moving day
• because we don't use moving companies- the taking apart of furniture, wrapping of furniture to be prepped to move, packing of breakables etc is all done be yours truly (and those who helped)
• it can be an adventure coming up with the needed boxes, packing materials etc.  let's leave it at that.
• "guys off the street" typically don't hold your stuff in the same high regard that you do

With Jason being gone 2 weeks, my plan was to get us moved in sometime during the second week so that we could have things somewhat set up by the time he got home.  It would kind of defeat the purpose if he came home to a ton of work needing to be done in the new place.  During the first week work was being completed at the new place- plumbing work, painting etc.  While we waited on that to get done, I worked on packing boxes at the old house.  He left on Sunday and by the next Saturday the house was move-in ready.  Many friends came over on Saturday to pack up my kitchen with me.  The girls were a great help also.  This massive role of bubble wrap was gone by the end of the day...

We packed the kitchen, books, breakables, and the guys who came to help, wrapped furniture with cardboard and old sheets for protection during the move.

(pretty much the entire house looked like this for the majority of the week)

After packing up the kitchen, we still had about 3 days in the old house so we had to get creative for meal time, but we kind of survive on popcorn and cereal when Jason travels so that was no big deal...

I realized about half-way through the packing process that it might be challenging to keep the secret especially when Jason called on Skype.  He would definitely be video skyping from the US and a house overflowing with boxes would be hard to hide.  We usually have the computer on the kitchen table when we Skype, so we left this corner of our kitchen set up so that he wouldn't get suspicious..

So by the end of Saturday, a large part of the house stuff was packed up.  At this point, the moving truck was set to come on Tuesday morning.  I spent Sunday and Monday, along with some wonderful friends, taking loads back and forth from the old place to the new place in our van.  I was able to get most of the kitchen unpacked on Sunday as well as bathroom cabinets, toiletries and bedroom closets.  The good thing about an across town move is that you can just throw stuff in laundry baskets and not even worry about fully packing up clothes etc.  We moved clothes on hangers, dresser drawers fully packed, loosely packed boxes of toiletries and food from one house to the other.  

So one of my biggest stressors in this whole process was the taking apart of furniture.   We have a pretty massive bunk bed for the girls (twin on top, double on the bottom, with a trundle underneath and stairs going up the side with cabinets under them).  I remembered how stressed Jason was the last time we moved about taking it apart and then re-assembling it.  The first time we bought it, the company came and put it together in the room for us.  Abbey also has a loft bed that was assembled in her room and had not been moved.  Some of my amazing recruited help had taken apart the beds on Saturday- no small task and were coming back Monday evening to move them to the new place and re-assemble them.  I was afraid that the pieces might get damaged by less than careful movers and wanted to be super careful with certain things.  We drove the bed parts apart town basically hanging off the back of an opened pick-up truck around 10 PM Monday night and the guys were up to well after 1 getting them re-assembled.  My task was to drive behind their truck to make sure the parts didn't fall out when they went up hills.  I'm not sure what exactly I would have done had they fallen out besides wreck, but thankfully all the pieces made it intact (and I begged a drink out of a closing Starbucks at 11 that night- I must have been pretty pitiful because they gave me a drink even though they were officially closed).

The girls were thrilled to sleep on the floor several nights....

Monday night I was more than thankful to get in bed by 2.  At some point that afternoon I hit panic mode and really thought I might be pulling an all nighter (thus the drink that I begged off of starbucks). I realized how much furniture still needed to be wrapped and padded with cardboard and of course, with any move, there are always the last minute odds and ends that really add up.  

The "movers" (and remember, in this part of the world we use that term loosely) were set to arrive around 9:30 with the truck giving me just enough time to tie up some loose ends, get the girls off to school, and take Anabelle to a friends house where she would be staying for the day.  So of course, at 7:50, when I walked out my front door to take Anabelle, the guy in charge of the movers was already standing out front looking at me like,"where are you going?"  I reminded him that he was 1.5 hours early but let him in (along with a friend who was there to help me supervise things) so that he could start the process of getting everything ready for the truck.  I went to drop off Anabelle and remembered that I had forgotten to get a cooler to unload my fridge and freezer into (I had barely remembered the night before that I needed to unplug them and let them thaw).  Took care of that too and arrived back in a tizzy (not that I hadn't already been in a tizzy for a good week at this point).

When I got home, the truck and all the movers were there.  I was greeted as I walked up the 3 flights of stairs by several of the "movers" dragging my kitchen table down the stairs.  Got that little issue corrected and soon another of my friends arrived to help supervise the loading of the truck.  The next 2 hours were a frenzy of moving, loading, and yelled requests like BE CAREFUL, DON'T DROP THAT, PLEASE DON'T DRAG THAT etc etc.  

And then it was done.  

The truck was loaded, a few things were dinked up pretty good, but all of Grandaddy's pieces (mahogany bookshelf and coffee table) came through without a scratch and they even managed to get the piano in one piece as well.  Wheew!

The unloading at the new place was not nearly as stressful as the loading.  I'm sure being on the ground level helped that!  Again, thanks to the help of dear friends, by the end of the day, we had all of our beds put together and made, and even most of the furniture somewhat in place.  

It took a day or two to get the washer and dryer hooked up, the oven hooked up and the gas replaced to heat water but all things considered everything went VERY smoothly.  

Obviously, by this point, our little skype station for talking to Jason was no longer set up, so we had to stretch the truth just a wee bit when he tried to call.  I was able to tell him that the internet just wasn't working and I couldn't figure out why.  Which was actually entirely true, I just didn't mention that it was still working just fine at our old apartment.  I did have a moment of panic (another one), when I realized that he might be less than thrilled about the move if he got home and we had no internet access, but then a friend reminded me that he would be able to use his iPhone to create a WiFi signal.  Whew!!  

So we spent our first night in the new place on Tuesday and Jason was due to arrive home on Saturday night.  We had several days to unpack boxes and get further settled.  By the time Saturday arrived we had most of the boxes unpacked and out of the house.  I got very few photos of this whole process but here are a few...

Naomi and Anabelle are now roomies...

 

I love the purple and red!

I considered (for about a millisecond) doing away with the crib at the same time as the move but she is showing absolutely no signs of wanting to be out of it, so I nixed that plan pretty quick.  It's nice to still have her confined and happy about it at naptime and bedtime.

Abbey and Maddie are roomies now but I haven't gotten a shot yet of their new room or our room.  

Here's the family room and kitchen.  I love color on the walls and went with a terracotta for this area.

 Here's grandaddy's bookshelf that made it without a scratch- PTL!

I am SO excited about our new dining room table that we bought from our friends who moved out.   I love entertaining and we often have large crowds so it will be great to have room for all of them!  If you look closely you can see the one unpacked box in the back corner.  I'm not allowing myself to start on that one until things slow down a little more.  It's all I can do not to nest, but I know me and I know I can become a bit consumed by the best placement of framed pictures and decor (which is what's in that box so I'm leaving it alone for now).  I also still have all of my breakable house decor stuff in the china cabinet and will work on arranging all of that in the next few weeks when things slow down.

Here's the living room.  AND for the first time in our overseas experience we have light fixtures instead of bulbs dangling by a wire from the ceiling!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that during the craziness of moving week, the girls and I loaded up our rugs and took them to the car wash place for a good cleaning before putting them down at the new place.  They did a fabulous job.  

By the time Jason got home on Saturday, things were pretty well settled.  His plane arrived at 12:30 AM.  The girls really wanted to have him taxi to our old place and walk in and find it empty.  I told them that would be a great idea were he arriving in the middle of the afternoon, but I didn't figure it would go over to well in the middle of the night.  I ended up going to the airport to get him and just driving straight to the new house without saying anything.  He wasn't paying a lot of attention when I turned the "wrong" way- I think he was checking soccer scores for his fantasy league, but he finally looked up and said, "WHERE are you going?"

"Home," I said.  

He was confused, then shocked then a little worried.  I think he had an idea that I planned to start moving some stuff but I think he maybe thought he was going to come home to a mess of situating furniture, figuring out how things work at the new place and unpacking boxes.  Thankfully all that was left for him to do was unpack his suitcase into his new closet.  

Yes, I'm still catching up on sleep, and yes, there are still things to figure out in the new place- house training our dog for one- she's been going on newspaper on the balcony for 4 years and it's proving to be a hard habit to break, figuring out how to stay a day ahead of the constant dust since we are right next to a construction sight and on the ground floor, figuring out what to do with ripsticks, roller blades and other outdoor paraphernalia- I bought a padlock to chain down a footlocker on the patio but of course, the chain wouldn't fit and the lock wouldn't close so I'm working on plan b for that one.  

We are super excited about actually having a yard to garden in- yay!  Maddie has big plans for that!  Speaking of yards we've had some house guests in the back that we discovered about a week after moving in- a momma cat and her 5 kittens.  It's been fun watching them, until today when I discovered that the smallest one had died.  That was major trauma and a story for another day....

Anway, all in all, Operation Surprise Move= big success!!

Looking forward to a summer of settling in!

So things have been a little busy...

And that, my friends, is a massive understatement.  I mean there are busy seasons, and there are calm seasons, then there's the in between normal that we kind of define ourselves by.  I think it's safe to say that as a family of 6 with kids ranging in age from 2-13, that our "normal" is really quite busy, and we're actually kind of used to that.  We do well with busy.  We enjoy activity.  But the last few months- holy moly.  It has been busy redefined and I could use a break!  It's been one of those seasons of life where every so often I'll stop and think, God must be trying to teach me something here with everything that is going on and if I actually had time to THINK about it, I might figure it out....   Well, I haven't really had time to think about it yet, but I'm sure there are many life lessons packed in the pages of the story of our lives over the past few months and maybe one day I'll figure out how to unpack them.  Not today.  Today is for mindlessly posting pictures and stories on the blog and sipping my grande white chocolate frappuccino and soaking in the quiet.

So WHAT exactly has made things so crazy?  Definitely not any one thing.  More a combination of all the little things (and a few biggies thrown in there).  Here's a recap.  Some of these things will probably eventually get their own post once I get my feet back under me a little bit and actually organize my time enough to schedule "computer time"...

So, a recap...  The biggest biggie is that we moved.   Just across town.  But the girls and I did it while Jason was out of town to surprise him.  Completely crazy, probably.  Am I still catching up on lost sleep?  Definitley.  Worth the surprise for him and the heartache that it saved him?  Absolutely?  

Here's a little of the "crazy" he got to miss.  This event will definitely get its own post...

Let's see, what else?  Spring in Amman means baseball season for us on Fridays.  It makes for a full weekend, but the girls love it.  Abbey and Maddie are on the same team and Naomi is on a t-ball team.  Fridays are spent at the ball park for the first 2 months of spring.  They had their last regular season game today and Abbey and Maddie's team are first place in the league.  Tournament games will be next weekend.  

2 happy little t-ball players

I will tell you that I have gotten pretty good at the single parenting thing while Jason travels.  Obviously I don't love it, but he travels a good bit and we are fairly used to it.  Watching Anabelle at the ball park while trying to watch the other girls games ranks among my least favorite activities to do while Jason is out of town!  

Here she is talking to the team in the dugout...

Abbey was Dorothy in her drama group's production of The Wizard of Oz this spring and she did an AMAZING job.  We were so proud!   The play was in a small (ish) community style theatre, kind of ampitheatre style where you are sitting in pretty close quarters.  Anabelle was very enthusiastic to see Abbey every time she came on stage.  When Dorothy throws water on the wicked witch to melt her, AB was very concerned and kept yelling, "Abbey, you o'tay, you o'tay?!.

Aunt AJ came for a visit about a week after we got moved in to our new apt so that I could go on a trip with Jason. It was an amazing treat for the girls and such a blessing to Jason and me.  Anabelle really took to AJ and I think they had a great week together.

AJ treated us to Chili's the night before she left and we even got the chocolate molten cake- a rare treat! 

Anabelle was pretty sure it was all supposed to be for her...

I mentioned going on a trip with Jason.  Unfortunately, I went on the trip, but my suitcase didn't make the trip with me.  It ended up spending about 12 days in Istanbul but did finally find it's way back to me.  That was a little unneeded stress for sure!

In the midst of all the craziness, this little mess-pot turned two.

Here she's enjoying hummus and falafel- her favorite, before her "nemo cake" party.

And here's the much anticipated "nemo cake"

So, as I'm re-capping all of this, I'm thinking, this doesn't really sound all that crazy!?  Just take my word for it!  I'm not mentioning all the boring stuff like financial reports, school hunting for next year, meetings and event planning, and did I mention we moved?  Without Jason?   Just wait for it.  If you've never moved in a foreign country you will see when I get around to posting about it how all consuming it can be!  

So anyway, we're still here.  Settling back into a calmer routine for the summer (I hope).  Jason is currently on his last trip until September- yay!  We have a few trips as a family but we're very excited about being together for the whole summer.  That's been another part of the craziness is I'm pretty sure that Jason hasn't been home for more than 10 days straight since February.  I take that back, he was home for 3 weeks in March but otherwise, it's been going, going, going.  Of course since he's gone, I'm sick.  But I'd rather it be me than the girls for sure. 

Looking forward to a summer of family visits, memory making and lots of quality time, and hopefully enough down time to record the memories we make...  

The Anatomy of a Toddler Fit

Picture the following scene with  me (if you have or have had a toddler, I promise it won't be difficult...)

I am sitting at my kitchen table working on email.  It's late afternoon.  I try not to do much email in the hours between when the big girls get home from school and dinner but it's the weekend and everyone's tired.  Abbey and Maddie are at baseball practice, Naomi is watching TV (don't judge, it's been a long week), and Anabelle comes wandering into the kitchen from the living room where, until now, she's been playing happily.  

She holds up a Veggie Tales DVD.  "Watch Bob?" she says, and bats her eyelashes..

"Not now, baby," I say (admittedly somewhat distracted).

"Watch Bob?" she says again holding out the DVD.  (she continues to stare me down)

I pay more attention.  I hold her precious little face in my hands.  "No Anabelle. We're not watching Bob now.  Naomi is watching Disney." (this is great parenting at work, people) 

"Watch Bob? Watch Bob?"  She sees a bit more frantically and quite a bit louder.

(I'll try distraction...) "Anabelle," I say, "Did you go with Daddy to get ice cream?  Did you get a balloon?"  (she and Naomi had just gotten back from a daddy date at McD's with Jason)

(distraction does not work..... this time)   "WATCH BOB!"  she yells and then proceeds to throw the DVD to the floor followed by throwing her body to the floor at which point she begins rolling around on the floor all the while screaming (or more like loud whining- EHHHHHHH) and occasionally glancing at me to see if it's working.  It's not, I assure you.  I am quite adept at ignoring loud noises and/or chatter and/or constant chatter in my house (only when necessary)

I continue to ignore.  She stops.  She climbs up beside me on the bench at the kitchen table.  

"Mommy, phone".  She picks up my phone and begins a conversation with Jason.  "Hi Daddy, How you?"  (the DVD is still sitting right in front of her on the table but long since forgotten)

"Mommy, water?" she says, reaching for my water bottle.  

I hand her my water bottle and open it for her.  She drinks some.  I put the top back on.  

"MOMMY NO TOP!" she screams and glances around her quickly.  (I know what she's doing.  She's looking for something to throw.  She begins hurling things when she gets angry.  Just yesterday she hurled a cereal bowl of milk to the floor after eating all the cheerios out of it because I told her no.  It was a lovely scene, I promise)  She spots her sippy cup and before I can react she grabs it and hurls it to the floor.   

Bad move.  

Daddy is sitting right behind her and before I can say anything she catches his eye.  He raises his eyebrows at her and points his finger.  He doesn't even say no.  He just looks at her.  She climbs into my lap and buries her head in my shoulder.   I attempt to turn so that she has to look at him.  She turns her head the other way. 

"Anabelle, look at Daddy," he says.  She peeks up.  "Do not throw your milk," he says.  She buries her head again in my shoulder but eventually goes to him for a hug and soon starts playing again.

"Mar-mallow?  Mar-mallow?"  She asks, standing in front of the pantry.  "Not now," I say.  Instead of becoming frantic, this time she moves on quickly (to the other cabinet).  "Chocolate? Chocolate?" she says (baby girl knows all my stashes and by the way, can say chocolate clear as day... again, don't judge).  I offer her a bowl of pretzels from the cabinet and she is happy.  "Yay! pretzels!"  she cheers.  Whew! Fit avoided that time.  Yesterday that might have been a full blown melt down like the DVD, today, not so much.  

Today "watching Bob" caused a major meltdown while "no" to marshmallows was (quite shockingly actually) readily accepted.  Tomorrow it could just as easily be the reverse.  Sometimes, toddlers are easily distracted by offering something possibly just as appealing, while at other times they are tunnel vision focused on the absolute one thing they simply don't see how they can live without.   Other times,  no matter how hard they try and how in tune mom is with their somewhat unique communication style, they simply cannot get across what it is they want thus causing a fit or a retreat.  

(here's Anabelle the other day when she retreated after yelling "watch Bob" and "eat muffin" (as she was watching Bob and eating a muffin, but somehow I was just not doing things quite right).  She got so frustrated that she hid behind the chair with lovey- but still where she could see Bob, of course)

I started thinking how very much like my relationship with God these toddler fits can be.  I see something that I am absolutely determined that I MUST have.  God, in His infinite wisdom knows best and somehow allows it, sometimes not.  Sometimes I can be distracted with offers of things He knows will be better, other times there is no way I will focus on anything else until this one thing is resolved.  

However, the big difference is that no matter what, no matter where, no matter how, I will never have to hide in frustration because my Creator is simply not understanding what I am trying to communicate.  He always understands, and He always knows best.  I'm hoping in any given situation I'll have the wisdom to accept and learn from His discipline.  

Is He allowing something that maybe is really not all that great because I'm being stubbornly persistent?  

Is he distracting me with a better option that I would see if I would simply listen?  

Is He holding my face in His hands and simply saying "no, my child" and waiting for me to accept?  

No is really not fun.  But sometimes necessary...

She's back at the kitchen table where she finds the big girl's deck of Set cards.  She begins counting the cards and tossing them to the floor.  She gets stuck on "eleben" (her favorite number) and then keeps counting, occasionally yelling "set!" just like when the big girls play the game.  From behind me Jason mumbles, "she's making a huge mess...."  I smile and nod and we both allow her to continue.  Yes, there are cards on the floor, but nothing is being broken and no one is getting hurt.  And she's happy.  Flinging cards, yelling numbers, thinking she's bigger than she is.  I'm choosing not to fight this battle.  The battle that would follow if I put limits (or heaven forbid!) completely prohibited the card throwing. 

And I'm thankful.  Because I know I can choose.  Choose to let her be free and happy, while praying for the wisdom to know which battles are worth fighting.    And I'm thankful to serve a God that often allows me the same freedom.  He molds and shapes and disciplines when necessary, but in His love He allows me to be me.  He knows exactly which battles are necessary to mold me into the person He wants me to be.    Here's hoping I'm learning to listen!

"My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in."

Proverbs 3:11-12