Merry Christmas 2015!

Merry Christmas, 2015! As with every year, it hardly seems possible that Christmas is here (and now gone, because yes, I did at least start this post a few weeks ago!). Heavy on our hearts especially this year are the vulnerable people, who like Jesus himself as a young child, find themselves as refugees, fleeing those who would harm them. May we find places in our hearts this upcoming year to not only welcome Jesus, but to welcome the most vulnerable and hurting among us. 

Here are some updates on our family for you!

Brielle-

Reminds us that living with a 2-year-old is hilarious and (usually) an absolute joy. She is always making us laugh, smothering us with affectionate hugs and kisses, surprising us with new phrases and sentences and can often be heard singing. She loves her siblings, which is good since much of her day revolves around their activities. She slowly warmed up to her music class that we took together this fall. “No, Buh-lelle do it” is the most common phrase lately, and “No, Buh-lelle 2” if you mention the number two in any other context than her age.

 

 



Avdon-

Our sweet 5-year-old is excelling in his last year of preschool. He’s often coming home and teaching us new words in Spanish. While he enjoys school, he really enjoys playing with homemade light sabers, super heroes, Legos, Shiloh, and most importantly, his new nerf dart gun he got for Christmas. He was so amazed that we knew that he wanted one. We reminded him that he asked us for a dart gun every day since October. Avdon is highly motivated to earn time on the Wii and get screen time (or just sneak away with my phone and take selfies). Avdon loves helping Dad with projects around the house, climbing up the doorways so he can touch the ceiling, figuring out how things work and is the official battery-changer in the family. Avdon enjoys taking guitar lessons from Dad and volunteered to play a song for a big preschool event. He is doing really well in Hwa Rang Do (Korean for the order of flowering knights). It is a wholistic form of martial arts and he's working hard to earn his first belt. Snuggling with Avdon and seeing him grow in kindness and love for others are amazing blessings!

Shiloh-

How can we possibly have a first grader? Shiloh, now 7, much prefers speaking, reading and writing in Spanish over English. She continues to have a very spirited and creative personality, always very excited about her artwork. She’s been working very hard on violin this year and has shown much improvement. She retired from ballet and with the start of the school year began her career in Mexican Dance through a program at school. She loves Mexican Dance (and getting to wear the dresses for the performance), dressing up, and all things Elsa. Shiloh chose to join a LEGO robotics team at school and has been reported to be the most respectful student in her class. Shiloh is such a sweet big sister, allowing Brielle to have "sleepovers" in her bed almost every night lately. She is often in awe of the world around her, soaks up information faster than we can give it to her, and loves learning.

Chris-

Amazing fixer-upper, faithful at always taking out the garbage, compost and recycling (jobs no one else wants!), is a busy dad and caretaker of our home and family, helps get Shiloh out the door every morning (by 6:30!!), cares for our yard and bigger house, and manages to fit in his job as well. He continues his love for interesting beer, good coffee, recycling/composting, friends, and facial hair. Even Brielle now says "Daddy, beard!" to let him know when he needs to wipe off his beard.

Chris continues to love his work with Jacob’s Well. He is a passionate team leader and devoted team player and is surrounded by amazing co-workers and musicians. Chris also teaches guitar classes to students who get them for free at an organization called Urban Ventures, as well as lessons in our home.

And while it may seem that he has been crying wolf about an album being released soon, it actually will happen in 2016. That’s because it’s done!! Watch for a release date soon.

Erin-

My days are largely spent caring for our children, taking them back and forth to school and activities, caring for our home, and always, always preparing food. For some reason, everyone around here insists on eating every day and since I insist on them eating non-processed whole foods, I'm constantly cooking! On Mondays I also watch my cousin’s two kiddos, age 3 and 7 months. It’s a bit chaotic, but I love those days when cousins play together, I play with the kids, the food prep has been done in advance, and I’m the stay-at-home mom I imagined myself being because I’m not focused on anything except the kids. The rest of the week tends to be a bit more of a whirlwind as I’m likely over-involved with: 

+volunteering at and for both Shiloh and Avdon’s schools, 

+coordinating/attending of a small group for families, 

+attending another fabulous small group of mamas

+occasionally attending book club (thankfully I can check out audio versions of most books and listen while I work in the kitchen)

+volunteering for a variety of tasks with Jacob’s Well

+fostering community within our house and gathering weekly with housemates. 

+And in all my spare time I started a new business/career as a birth doula including education, requirements for certification, involvement in 2 agencies where I both serve the community and gain co-workers and clients, and this year helped with 9 births. The problem is that I love it all. But no wonder I never have time to update you all, sit down and breathe, or do something simple like watch tv. Does tv still even exist?!

The Mustard Seed Lodge-
The short of it is that we've done tons of remodeling, have wonderful housemates on each level, spend intentional time together on Tuesdays and are looking forward in the new year to mentoring a refugee family who has been relocated to our area. We're growing closer as people, wrestling with tough issues together, and looking forward to reaching out to others. We had a pretty good garden this summer and are the proudest on the block with the smallest trash can, one recycling and one organics compost bin.  

Merry Christmas 2014

What a year! I could write volumes, but for now I'll post a short synopsis and maybe we'll be lucky enough to enjoy your presence this year and talk face-to-face! The first part of 2014 was spent buried under a frozen mass of snow attempting to choose from 10+ public schools for Shiloh, navigate a massive city (I took drivers ed in a town with one stop light...), and doing our best to make the best of the cold. Although excited to be in our new location, it took quite awhile to not feel disoriented and overwhelmed.   

And then, oh glorious spring and summer! Suddenly lakes appeared all over and we made our way to one playground or lake after another. If it was the slightest bit warm, we tried to be outside, and didn't stop until school started in the fall. It was an absolute blast, and I was so thankful to be able to enjoy it with our kids. The winter made me doubt if staying at home was the right thing for me, but summer convinced me I wanted it no other way! We had a long streak of visitors and trips that added to the fun and exhausting summer.

    

Shiloh & Graham at a Kindergarten play date

 In all of this we began finding ourselves completely in love with our community, church, Chris' job, and the new (and renewed) relationships we began working on. It was finally time to begin our pursuit of starting an intentional community housing experience. The post prior to this one explains that process a bit, but we're all moved in and slowly, slowly getting settled. There are plenty of stories to tell about our last couple months-stories that someday we'll look back on and see how much stronger and more faithful we are as a result. Stories that will make us laugh, even though now they make us cry! And one of these days, a new blog to help us chronicle the journey where we'll share more details. For now, we're still working on getting Matt and Kate's apartment live-able (they are troopers to live in the mess that it is!). We have renters on our 2nd floor who have been living in the house for several years and who will stay until spring. Then we hope to be remodeling that apartment and by summer have the rest of our community in place. We're not exactly sure who that will be yet, maybe you??

Avdon & Isaiah at an outing

For now, though, we rest knowing we have such a faithful God who provides for us in the dead of winter doldrums as well as the life and beauty of the summer. A God who mysteriously works through a baby born 2000 years ago and that baby who works through a group of people trying to start a new life together in a big, old house. May you rest in this God no matter your circumstances this Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Matt, Chris, Kate and Erin, celebrating the purchase of our new home

We're crazy. We know it. But we think it's the right thing!

August is always a crazy (but good) month. This August we've been celebrating birthdays for Shiloh, now 6 and Avdon, almost 4. We had a special celebration and family reunion to celebrate my grandma, now 75, with a trip to Omaha. Somewhere in there we managed to say "happy 9th anniversary", I think while changing a poopy diaper. We enjoyed visits from sisters and parents and friends. We're attempting to navigate the whole school system thing and get Shiloh set up to start kindergarten at her Spanish immersion school and Avdon at his Spanish immersion preschool. Brielle is teething and cruising. And because we didn't have quite enough to keep us busy, we thought August would be a good month to buy a house. A big house. With another family. As in, we're actually moving forward with plans to set up a hippie commune.

The official purchase won't happen until September 4. We'll move in shortly before Oct 1, meaning Brielle will get to move twice in the first year of her life. What a lucky baby (and very tired mama!). Moving again is a little disheartening, but hopefully we learned from our mistakes with the last move. We will definitely not lose the hardware to the beds and table this time!

But you're still waiting to hear more about the hippie commune, right? So really what we are doing has a pretty deep meaning to us, but I'll start with the physical specifics because I know that's where your mind is :). We bought (or hopefully will, come 9/4) a 3-plex which basically is a 3-unit apartment building. It's a big house built in 1900 and each story is an individual apartment. Ours will be on the bottom and is 1600 sq feet with 3 bedrooms. The middle unit has an identical layout with 3 bedrooms and then the top unit has a spacious 2 bedroom unit. The friends we bought with want the top unit and we're in the process of finding the right people to rent the middle unit.

We'll each have our own private units but then have some shared space as well, like some hallways, a 3-season porch, the yard, and the basement which we will eventually finish to add some more space.

You're probably also worried that we co-bought the house. So was our home owners insurance rep. "Do you KNOW the people you bought with?" she asked. "Yes, we've known them for several years," I replied. "Do you TRUST them?" She asked even more incredulously. "Yes," I said again. "So what information do you need in order to give us a quote?" I had to ask.

It's different, it's strange, it's complicated and for sure, there's an element of risk. It's also amazing what can be done when resources are pooled, life is experienced together, and you have a safety net of others to share the burden of a mortgage with.

We're not sure exactly what life will look like in our intentional community (which unlike "hippie commune" is the technical term for what we're doing!). We know there will be elements of shared resources including money, time, occasional meals, garden, work, etc. We'll be looking for a way(s) we can serve our community and neighborhood together. We're excited to open up our home for the use of small groups and Bible studies to meet, people to gather and the deep/tough conversations about our messy hard lives to be had. And we are totally pumped to have game night with friends and not have to even leave our house. We're excited that our kids will get to experience a deeper element of being raised by a village even though we're in the heart of a city

So, that's the new scoop. The Trips couldn't possibly lead a boring, normal life, right?

I'm sure you still have some burning questions...fire away!!

Brielle's birth story

Happy 1/2 year birthday to Brielle! It is hard to believe she's been here for 6 months already, and in other ways, hard to imagine life without our sweet girl. I made a goal for myself to post her birth story before she was 6 months old. Apparently I work better with shorter deadlines. I'm typing the story as I wrote in my journal nearly 6 months ago. Read on if you're interested in the details :)

A few days before Brielle was born

While it started in a similar fashion, everything else about this labor was a unique experience for me. With Shiloh and Avdon, labor started very shortly after I felt decent leaving my home visitation work for someone else to do. This time leaving was particularly stressful with deadlines, extra things like Gold and MIECHV that I didn't have before, and the 45-day deadline of Oct. 6. (Plus I wondered if just possibly Chris would get that job and we'd move to MN...). It was a lot to do and prepare for and I had an especially hard time getting everything done with my Burmese families due to problems with our translators that were out of my control. I was a stressed mess. My hope all week was to get things wrapped up by Friday. So Friday at 5:00 pm I left the building feeling good (not great, but good) about what I was leaving. Fairly regular, but not at all painful, contractions started right then and there as I was leaving the building, and I had a feeling it would happen over the weekend.

After midnight, probably 12:30, they started in for sure. I did my best to sleep through them, but didn't sleep well. I woke Chris up around 3:00 to have him help put Avdon's overnight diapers into the dryer so we could pack them soon. I was anticipating that at any minute these contractions would kick into high gear. I made it through the night with a fitful sleep at best. In the morning we finished up all the packing as we waited for labor to pick up (this was 9 days before my due date). I started timing the contractions. They were 8-10 minutes apart, sometimes even 20. I had to stop and breathe through them, but mostly stood or leaned against something. Chris took Shiloh and Avdon over to his parent's, or rather, met them at dance class and then came back home with me. I finished up some deep cleaning with the vacuum and got a few more things cleaned up around the house. We ate a fairly big lunch of leftovers and then in hopes of stopping or speeding up labor, I took a bath. It did neither. I took my time and pampered myself in the bath and painted my toenails. The contractions remained 8-10 minutes apart and 30-45 seconds long. I remember one distinctly. I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen and could feel the baby's head and so much pressure. It was so amazingly uncomfortable!

We eventually went on a walk. I was getting discouraged that labor was not going anywhere, thinking maybe it was all a false call, doubting myself, and wondering if we should go pick up the kids and have them home with us. The walk was the last thing I was going to try before getting the kids. The day was absolutely gorgeous. Other than the strange uncertainty of what was going on with my labor, the day was relaxed and spending time with Chris was wonderful. The walk was really nice and sped up contractions somewhat. They were about 5-6 minutes apart and lasted a little bit longer. I definitely couldn't walk through them, so we paused whenever I had one. We would have walked much longer, but I really had to pee and barely made it home in time. I sat down to rest and was planning on going back out to continue walking and hoping to go up to 4 Queens. Before long I didn't feel like going that far for ice cream and made my way downstairs to get ice cream here. I wound up on the couch and soon was feeling overwhelmed by my contractions. They were still spaced out, but definitely more intense and lasting longer. We tried calling the midwives and were unsuccessful at getting through. After several tries I decided we should just go. I was starting to doubt I could do this and felt nauseous. At the same time I felt mostly in control and the drive to Allen (about 4:50 pm) wasn't horrible. Unlike the other two, I did not find lying on my side to be the most relaxing, so sitting and reclining on my back was ok. They let me go straight into room 371, where I started to cry. Jessica met us in the room and I explained to her I didn't know why I was crying, but I wasn't sad. I didn't want her to think I was sad she was the midwife on call :). We got settled in and she checked me to find I was 6-7 cm, 90% effaced and at a station 0, "at least." She was surprised at how low the baby was. I wasn't too bothered by the monitors and remained reclined on my back, one leg stretched out and my right leg kind of bent. I remember thinking how weird it was that this position was the most comfortable. The contractions were spaced out, but often long and fairly difficult to get through. Jessica got the monitors off, lights down and

we finished up questioning with the nurse, Nancy, who was very sweet. I like it best when Jessica and Tess (our nursing student) left the room and it was just Chris and me. I mostly needed to hold Chris' hand to make it through contractions. I also used visualization again, really picturing what my uterus was doing. At several points in between contractions I was having conversations with Jessica and Tess and Chris, and thinking about how glad I was to have not gone to Aoife's birthday party and how strange it was that exactly a year before, I was joining Gina in her labor and now I was in labor myself!

Chris was encouraging me to get up, move around, anything but lie still, and I didn't really want to because I was so comfortable. Finally, though, I had to get up and go to the bathroom. I had a contraction in the bathroom and held onto Chris while I stood through it. I must have gone back to bed and everyone was gone out of the room again. It went quickly after that. I had a different sort of contraction, maybe 2, Chris asked if I needed to push, because at this point I was grunting and making some noise! He called the nurses and that was the beginning of the end. It went so fast and those contractions were so hard and never stopped once they started. Unlike the previous 2 babies, I felt completely out of control during stage 2. I was on my side and could hardly turn over. I barely was able to tuck my chin and pull my legs up and out. Jessica was asking me to relax my bottom or giving other suggestions, and I remember saying "I can't do anything!" I was hoping to use a squat bar and planning on "doing a better job pushing" with this baby, but there was none of that! And just as fast as it started, I was pushing out a baby. It hurts so bad, but yet the feeling of a baby's head and shoulders and torso coming out is something incredible. I didn't really get breaks between those crazy contractions, it just all happened so fast, and I am tearing up just thinking about how precious and wonderful it was. It's a girl! Of course it was, we knew deep down, but now we really knew, and she was here. She had a short cord, so she didn't reach very far up, but I held that warm, vernixy body on my belly, hearing her cry and being amazed and in shock that it was all over.

I was pretty uncomfortable, but got that placenta out, got a 2nd degree tear stitched up, Chris got the cord cut and held her closer. I think while I was getting stitched they weighed her and soon she was back and nursing. She was born at 6:49, not quite 2 hours after arriving at the hospital. She wouldn't have a name until 4:00 am, but when she got one, it was perfect. We stayed only 24 hours after she was born. The nurses Leah and Robi were incredible, taking such good care of us. And so she came. She was our little secret until 10:00 pm when we called our parents. Then late the next morning we alerted the world. We had a quiet, mostly restful stay. Third babies are great for that! What a gift, and how thankful to God we are! Brielle Ronen-God is my strength and song-the perfect addition to our family!

Normal life happenings

I thought I would start with our biggest news first: for the first time in years, rather than helping Shiloh take her hands out of her mouth, I encouraged her to keep them in and wiggle away. Only 24 hours after discovering her loose tooth, she let Daddy take a final tug this morning. She's thrilled to have reached this milestone, and is anxiously waiting to go to bed tonight. While not an overly sappy or sentimental person, I was the one crying when her tooth came out! For me, this milestone truly signifies that she's a kid now. It really does go too fast.

While Shiloh is losing teeth, Brielle is enjoying her gummy mouth and all the sensory input she gets from putting everything in it. No sign of teething yet, but this girl is a master at grabbing something and getting it to her mouth in record time.

Avdon is working diligently at learning how to write his name and spending time with Mommy playing. He wanted me to share this picture of his 4 snowmen. 2 of them have really big boots, bigger than the snowmen themselves. 

The dust is settling

Exactly 2 months ago we came here. It is hard enough to understand time when you're not caught in a whirlwind, but I can hardly grasp time at all right now. It feels like we have been here for a lifetime, but yet not at all.

Somedays I've cried about how amazingly perfect we are for this place and this place is for us. Other days I cry because this is so hard. I've shed tears over missed loved ones. And random, unexplained tears when the downtown skyline comes into view... we seriously live here?! Is this a good thing?! I've remained completely calm and had complete meltdowns. I've driven most places without getting lost or stressed (but a fair amount getting lost and stressed, usually with a non-car seat loving baby screaming). When the dust settles, or even when it is still swirling around us, I am in awe of God's faithfulness, goodness, and provision to us.

By grace and with lots of help and support from family and friends from all over, this is a synopsis of the last 2 months:

Thanks Steph for the fun gift of a s'mores kit 

• Moving a huge 4-bedroom house into a small (to us) 2-bedroom duplex. I love small. I can vacuum the whole place without unplugging the cord once! Chris says he wants to live in a one-room house with dirt floors someday. I think we have a ways to go before we can manage that, but this is a good start. We have both felt a strong urge to simplify our lives by simplifying earthly belongings, and the easiest way we have found so far is try and fit it all in here. We are nowhere near our goals and have been graciously granted some extra storage space in the basement by our amazing landlords while we sort through things some more.  BUT, the boxes are out of our living space, which has cut down on my stress levels. The kitchen and I tolerate each other. Some of my most "normal"feeling moments have been doing normal things like cooking dinner, even in my tolerated space. Love that even though we lost so much counter space, a dishwasher and a microwave, we have a quirky old gas stove. It was a secret prayer of mine to at least have a gas stove :). 

• Moving 3 small children, including a 2 month old baby. Wow. The older kiddos have had some huge life changes that are really sad to them, but at the same time are showing amazing resilience and we are glad to have made the changes now while they are young. I have not been great at communications with family and loved ones (sorry!) to keep everyone updated on their growth and fun here. I'll work on it! They have really begun to adapt well. 
• Brielle has been fairly fussy and not slept well the first 4 months of her life. But our routines have been non-existent, stress levels higher than normal and her sense that I desperately want or need her to sleep has been met with strong opposition. She would rather be held and snuggled and nursed. And that's what I would rather do too. We're making it work. I've cut dairy from my diet and that seems to be helping with fussiness, although it's hard to tell for sure. She really is a joyful baby and a joy to be with. Her smile pretty much melts my heart each time. She's rolling from tummy to back, grabbing toys in front of her, drooling, and bringing everything to her mouth. We just met (and are very happy with) our new doctor, who noted how strong she is. She has passed the 12 lb mark (still a peanut) coming in at 12th percentile for weight and 63rd percentile for height. She manages to draw a crowd wherever we go with her charm and pure cuteness.
• Avdon also draws a crowd with his beard hat. He can't go anywhere without someone commenting on it. He gets some time with just Mommy and Brielle while Shiloh is at school and he loves it. He may have had the hardest transition with giving up Mommy to a new baby and then shortly after moving everything he knows to a new place. He has gone from good to horrible to almost good again with potty training, a sign that he is doing better now! He enjoys going to Splashville (our version of Sunday school) and interacting with kids and exploring wherever we go. Just in the last couple weeks we have noticed a problem that was corrected with a minor surgery last year has reappeared. We have a referral to a new urologist here, but would appreciate prayers for healing. He has had fun exploring a huge indoor park, but really wants to take Shiloh with him. We need to work on finding some friends for him! He'll start preschool back up in the fall when potty and being away from Mommy are easier things.
• Shiloh will tell you "icky Spanish" if you ask her about preschool, but it is evident she loves her new school. And she loves learning Spanish in this immersion setting. Her teacher is wonderful and our short walk to school and violin lessons makes us wonder if we really want to leave this place when our lease is up. She has some great people skills in comforting new friends at school and Splashville. She is really excited to do anything we do. Except talk about kindergarten. I suppose one more change is a little too much to handle. We are entering the crunch time to choose schools. We have three tours set up to visit elementary schools (so we've narrowed it down quite a bit already). We'll go to a school fair and have already done a fair amount of research. Then we'll turn in our top 2 choices and be entered into a lottery system. Over 90% of families get one of their top 2 choices. Prayers for our process would be lovely.

  

  A blurry but good idea of Avdon's hat. Taken while learning about public transportation on a bus

• Moving right as the holiday season kicked off. In some ways this was one of the hardest things. Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years and everything in between is enough to drive me bonkers any year. But we managed. This season included two trips back to IA, a flood of guests here at our home (we've loved each and every visit!), a beautifully quiet day on Christmas, homemade gifts to cut costs, putting up a tree for the mood of us all but quickly getting it down to make space, and a busier-than-normal season to start a new job at a church, which brings me to...

One of our many guests-my sister Laura. Note the uncontrolled mess in the background, but tasty homemade pizzas and an enthusiastic prayer of thanks to God in the foreground

• Starting new jobs. While new jobs always come with a fair amount of stress and learning curves, the way Chris' position at Jacob's Well has gone (at least in our eyes) makes the move worth it. Hopefully they feel the same! He did feel overwhelmed starting out, much due to the busy church season, but has amazing co-workers, good support, healthy challenge, and lots to work on. He's getting to the point now of working ahead rather than playing catch up, which feels really good. We love, love, love being a part of the community and both can't wait to dig in deeper, get to know others better and serve in this unique place. Moving to a job within an established community has made this move so much more manageable. It's pretty amazing to come to a new place and have built-in friends and support. Wow. I didn't have to cook for the first 2 weeks, have had play dates, attended a marriage conference, co-hosted a party for the band, had Brielle baptized, and got 200+ personal tips for living in the Cities all from Jacob's Well. 
• Chris has his first guitar student, and we're feeling ready to have a few more. They help support our hobby of eating 3 times a day :) and Chris has really discovered joy in teaching.
• My new job is starting to seem real, and I'm wishing I could have some training! I've felt fairly inadequate with my role of "homemaker" (seriously? one can hardly call this a home!!) or "stay-at-home-mom" (get me out of here before the kids kill each other!!) and slightly lost without a "skill" or "profession" (I supposedly used to have them...). But it goes to show I have plenty of room to improve. I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to do this for and with my family and can't imagine having to do it another way.

Love this face!

So let's see. Is that all we've done in the last 2 months? More or less...

2013-Our year in pictures

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A season of blessings-Merry Christmas 2013!

As we enter the advent and Christmas seasons, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the seasons of 2013, which have been amazingly full of blessing.

This year has been an interesting season of growth, change, and new life. We started our year by celebrating our 30th birthdays with a trip to Sanibel Island, FL. Chris and I spent a lot of time doing nothing but sitting on the beach, relaxing, and exploring the beautiful and somewhat exotic place (we came face to face with a panther one evening!). We spent some needed time reflecting on our lives and praying for our family. Our hearts were stirred to pray for change.

The day before we left for Sanibel was marked with the season of new life. I assisted my dear friend Nicole with the birth of her first daughter. I also discovered on that day that new life was growing in me! Once the season of extreme fatigue and nauseousness was done, we entered a season of fervent work on projects around our home, knowing now from experience that it is very difficult to do anything "extra" once a new baby arrives (this is quite ironic if you know the rest of the story and know what we did when our baby turned 2 months old!).

Amidst our hard work around the house and cleaning out our belongings, we kept sensing a season of change was upon us. We prayed about and explored quite seriously the possibility of joining our good friends, the Clarksons, in mission work in East Africa. As it eventually became clear this was not our path, we made what I call "the poster." We drew circles on a large piece of paper and in the circles made lists of our gifts, passions, values of priority, and hopes for community. In the middle of the poster was one large circle that we left empty. We began praying for God to bring all the other circles together, somehow, in the middle.

In the midst of our prayers and preparation for a new baby, a season of busyness and activities for the kids began. In August, Shiloh turned 5 and Avdon turned 3, and shortly after, both started preschool. Shiloh loved going to school 5 days a week and spending time with her new friends. Avdon was a little hesitant to go to school, but enjoyed his time there, nonetheless. Shiloh also began taking Suzuki violin lessons, using Chris' 1/4 size violin and joined a dance class. She loved both of those activities. Avdon participated in another semester of Kindermusik. I continued working part-time and the kids spent time at Robyn's when I was working. Time with Robyn, and friends Ernie and Vera, is hands-down their favorite activity of all. We all love her and have been blessed beyond measure by Robyn! 

The beginning of August also brought a season of exploring, applying for and waiting to hear about a music and worship position in Minneapolis. A friend told us about the job opening that seemed perfect for Chris. 

On September 21, our new life arrived. We were thrilled to welcome Brielle Ronen into our family. While we began thinking of names for this child while we were in Florida, it wasn’t until several hours after she was born that we finally chose her name, which means “God is my strength and song.” We fell in love with her immediately and her siblings did as well. 

Our season of adjustment to life with a newborn was wonderful, although a bit challenging as we dealt with sickness the 2nd and 3rd weeks of her life. Everyone was finally on the mend when Chris was offered and accepted the position we first found out about in August. Then the madness really set in!

We began a season of goodbyes. The time went quickly, but we were able to spend moments with most of the people we treasure so deeply. We were richly blessed with many offers of help, gatherings, gifts, love and support. We could not have felt more loved and cared for. We miss our Iowa friends and family so much and already anticipate our next return trip so we can see you again!

We officially moved to Minnesota on November 23 and are in a season of boxes and new beginnings. On the home front, we’re plagued by way too many boxes! We cut our living space alone in half, not to mention the storage! So wading through our things and taking trips to Goodwill is filling lots of time! We are renting a perfect little duplex for now while we get to know the area and wait for our Iowa house to sell. 

It seems as if our poster and the empty middle circle is quickly being revealed to us in this place. While we know all the pieces are not yet in place, we feel so convinced that this move is perfect for us. Chris loves his job and is daily growing and being challenged. If we were overwhelmed by love upon leaving Iowa, we were certainly overwhelmed by love upon our arrival to Minnesota. The community at our church is fabulous and we have been immensely blessed! By the way, the church we gather with now is called Jacob’s Well. Take a minute to check out their website at www.jacobs-well.net. 

As for me, I will be staying home with the kiddos, or rather going out with them! We were blessed by season passes to both the zoo and the Children’s museum, and we made it our goal to explore the Cities every day we can. The season is just beginning, and we are so thankful for the One who orchestrated it all and eagerly await the ways we will serve him.

I could probably keep writing forever, but imagine you have something else to do! We pray this season will be a blessing as you anticipate and welcome Immanuel, God with us!

Our Year in Pictures-Enjoy!

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Merry Christmas 2012!

Shiloh...turned 4 in August and really keeps us on our toes. She loves art and threatens to use up the world's supply of glue and tape on a regular basis. When I asked Shiloh what she would like me to say about her, I got this report: "I love green, fruit, to watch Dinosaur Train, the Christmas tree, and to go to preschool."  I will add that she really loves learning and reading, being outside, her friend Ernie ( and being at Robyn's house), Kindermusik and Kindergym and her dollhouse. And while she may not say it, she loves her brother, is a wonderful big sister, and is developing a generous heart!

Avdon... turned 2 in August and is a ball of energy. He is a joyful little boy with the excitement and curiosity that comes along with being two. His language skills blow us away, and while he remains a little guy, he is very bright! Avdon likes diggers, reading, playing outside, Kindermusik, Shiloh and doing whatever Shiloh is doing.

Chris...Still teaching music lessons and still leading worship a couple times a month on more of a contract basis. This year was spent adjusting from going from the world of full-time ministry to full-time auto parts. It has changed our family life tremendously by having him home more often and he has learned incredible amounts about life and business from all the changes at his current job, including the set-up of an entirely new business of online auto parts. See www.virota.com (they go live in January!).
He's also learning a lot about remodeling as we gutted and completely remodeled the kitchen. He spent a couple weekends in Minnesota recording his new CD, which we hope to release early- to mid-2013. He is such a blessing to our family!

Erin...I keep up with the three mentioned above while still working part-time as a home visitor for Head Start :). After enduring the kitchen remodel from October through December (and hopefully not too much beyond!), I look forward to more time in the kitchen, and have already had priceless moments with the kids doing art or eating a snack at our new countertop spaces while I work away. I have started doing some of the premarital counseling sessions at our church, and found I really enjoy that. Another highlight of my year was standing in as a doula for a dear friend who had a baby this fall. I am very excited for the opportunity to help another friend through labor and delivery in  January. If that isn't enough to keep me busy, I also greatly enjoy investing in my small group from church, and teaching Sunday School and Bible studies.

Other highlights of 2012 include a summer trip to Colorado to visit family; celebrating with Chris' sister Noelle at her wedding and welcoming Uncle Chris to the family; a trip for Erin and Shiloh to  Columbus, Ohio to visit Jacque; weekend family getaway to Dubuque; weekend trip for Erin back to Colorado for Elicia and Dustin's wedding and a girls weekend with Erin's college roommates in  Chicago; time spent with dear friends the Clarksons, back in Iowa on a break from their work in East Africa; a ride for the kids on a boat, canoe, train, and horseback; Thanksgiving with Gram in Omaha, and lots of wonderful moments right here with family and friends.
 
Wow. When I type it all out like that, I am overwhelmed by the beautiful year we have had. We give  thanks to God for this special season in our life, while praying especially this time of year for those who have had to search much harder for their blessings. May you all experience the love and presence of God with us this Christmas!

Love,
The Family Trip

Merry Christmas 2011

Just last night we started making a list of the many, many ways God has blessed us and provided for us this past year. It moved us to tears to look at the ways we are taken care of and the many friends and family we have to be thankful for. This Christmas, we give thanks to a God who humbles himself and loves us enough to be born as a baby and a God who continues to care for and love us more than we can understand. May you be blessed this Christmas, and may Christ dwell in you richly!

Now for the family updates...

Shiloh turned three in August and continues to amaze us with her liveliness and strong will! She started preschool at St. John and her teacher reports that she is always excited about whatever activity the class is doing. She has enjoyed playing with the baby dolls and the playdough, making new friends, a field trip to the dairy farm, and just learning and playing. At home she spends lots of time playing with her dollhouse and can pretend that just about any object can be anything or anyone. She loves Clifford the Big Red Dog and often assumes the character of Clifford's owner, Emily Elizabeth. She is very creative! Shiloh loves to go to parks and be outside and she wants to know every day where we will go or who will come to our house. It is such a blessing when she chooses to be so kind, sweet, and caring towards others (and luckily this usually includes her brother!). What a wonderful little girl we have and what joy we get in watching her grow and learn! 

Avdon turned one in August. It's so amazing to think that a year ago he was hardly rolling over and now he runs all over! We have had to re-baby proof the house as Avdon finds ways and things to get into that Shiloh still doesn't get in to (such as being on top of the dining room table). He loves climbing, exploring, eating, watching his sister, Kindermusik class, and collecting things and carrying them around. He is always happy if he has a spoon to carry around and usually a cup or bowl to go along with it. Avdon's biggest source of happiness, though, has been Mommy this past year (which means lots of wonderful snuggle time for Mommy!). He just adores being with her and being held by her. We have recently enjoyed watching him come out of his shell, cry less when Mom has to leave him, and wave to anyone he possibly can at church. He doesn't talk as much as Shiloh did at 15 months, but he communicates very well with the few words he does use along with his sign language. Avdon's great laugh and huge smile bring us much joy.

Erin continues part-time work as a home visitor with Head Start and still enjoys the challenge most days. The rest of this year she has spent holding Avdon. That includes through potting training Shiloh, book club, cooking for another session of the Marriage Course at church, making bread, and participating and leading other Bible studies. It's a good thing he is a tiny guy (1st percentile for weight!), and it is a very good thing that she loves to snuggle her baby and to now celebrate his moments of independence! It is also a lot easier to make bread with two available hands, an art she has been working at perfecting with the addition of her wheat mill and Bosch kitchen mixer (7 loaves in 2-3 hours!).

Chris has had a very busy year working for St. John and really expanding his duties at the Lutheran Student Center at UNI. In January he will complete seven years of employment at St. John, and we are so thankful for the opportunity to serve in that place! To switch things up a bit, though, in January he will start a new job working for OneCall, an auto parts store owned by a wonderful man from our church, where he will be providing customer service, and possibly helping to expand some non-profit aspects of the company. While he will deeply miss many aspects of working in full-time ministry, Chris is looking forward to a change in pace, spending evenings and weekends with his family on a more regular basis, and spending more time pursuing his singer/songwriter passion. He experienced an incredible trip to Nashville this September where he got to spend time with most of his musical/spiritual influences and has felt a strong call to keep nurturing his skills and desires to write and play music.


That pretty much sums our year up. We managed to see the completion of the siding on our house, work on some landscaping, live without a shower for a month, enjoy a new shower, and demolish the kitchen walls (they do have insulation for the first time and at least have some drywall up!). We enjoyed a wonderful trip to Colorado visiting family, and somehow had activities going on every weekend of the summer. Thanks for reading and be sure to enjoy the photo slide show below!

Love,
Chris, Erin, Shiloh and Avdon
 

Some snapshots from 2011-Merry Christmas!

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On June 29...

First this:

 

Then this:

All 10 months, 9 days and 16 pounds of him are walking! Way to go Avdon!

(And much less exciting news includes his first two teeth. It's been a big month for our little guy!)

At long last.....I return to the blogging world. There are no good excuses, other than the fact that my almost 9-month-old prefers for me, and only me, to hold him if we are at home between the hours of 4:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Once in awhile we all nap at the same time (as long as I have physical contact with Avdon). But I was telling Chris today, I can hardly remember the last time that both of my kids were sleeping at the same time before 8:30 p.m. and I was able to, you know, do laundry without hauling kids down to the basement or leave them screaming upstairs wondering if I will ever return from the dark abyss. Let alone clean, organize, keep up responsibly with email, take care of myself (what? exercise?), or take the time to blog. It's weird to think that most of our grandparents and certainly great-grandparents wouldn't even know what the word blog means. (By the way, here's a shout out to our very wonderful grandparents who navigate the web, check email and blogs, and enjoy digital photographs!!). But keeping you all up-to-date has been on my mind, even though I don't get around to it often!

So here I am, finally blogging, and not in the least bit complaining; just giving you a picture of what life has been like since our newest family member arrived. Avdon has been an absolute joy. I love getting to hold him and snuggle with him, even if it means nothing else gets done. And now that he's crawling, he is more willing to be on the floor by himself and I'm getting short bursts of time with two hands open to fold laundry or start meal prep. I know this time will go all too quickly, so I try my hardest to enjoy it. Sleepless nights and busy days, though they be.

Avdon turns 9 months this week, which is just so hard to believe! Our little guy has definitely been little, weighing in at the 5th percentile at every check-up. I think we've been making progress in the past 2 months or so as he's finally getting some chub on him! If you didn't catch on earlier, sleeping is not one of Avdon's strong talents. He basically naps only if he's being held and certainly doesn't make it through the night yet. He is sleeping from about 8:00 pm to 3:00 am. On good nights. Once in awhile. Sometimes....
He's off and crawling and is becoming quite the climber as well. He pulls himself to standing and cruises along furniture. Despite battling ear infection and multiple allergic reactions to antibiotics this month, he has stayed pretty healthy and is almost always happy. Especially in Mom's arms. It's so fun to see him start using his body purposefully, both in getting to where he wants to go and clapping and waving. Eating food has been a slow process, but he does enjoy feeding himself and apparently likes his food flavored as opposed to bland. Favorites so far include , peach/squash yogurt, tofu, broccoli, and homemade smoothies, guacamole & hummus. He of course adores his sister and this month especially, has become excited and noticeably attached to Robyn. I am so thankful that my children just love their babysitter!

And speaking of the babysitter, this is a quick photo of Shiloh on her way out the door to Robyn's house. Can you guess what she is? Life with Shiloh is certainly never dull, and for the last several months, an animal often has replaced our daughter. Shiloh embraces her kitty (or bunny or dog or donkey, etc.) persona with gusto. She daily informs us what kind of family we are: "We are the kitty family," "we are the seal family," "we are the puppy family." Take no offense if you greet Shiloh and she replies only with "meow." The "meow" comes out in her excitement to greet someone at the door and in her temper tantrums as the only recognizable word.This girl lives and breathes kitty.

When Shiloh is not a kitty or some other animal, she continues to play well on her own, mostly with dolls and Daddy's action figures. Every toy is named and her play is very focused on people and what they are doing. Our extroverted little girl greets us in the morning by saying "where are we going today?" or "who are we going to see?" or "who is coming?" She also sings all the time. We pretty much live in a musical. She loves making up songs and adapting songs and tunes to fit what she is doing. And she gets lots of examples from Mom and Dad doing the same thing. Kindermusik classes add greatly to Shiloh's love of singing and the songs we learn there have definitely worked their way into our everyday lives!

And that's all I have for now. It took three days to get this post to this point, so I'm going to stop where I am and have high hopes of blogging more regularly again. I have started putting all of our photos on a different, password protected sight, that is actually current up through April. If you would like to have access to that sight and don't already, send me an email or leave a comment here with your email address.

As always, thanks for reading and loving and supporting us!!!