yum

jason found a rack of ribs on manager's special at kroger this weekend. so he made them for dinner tonight. add some mashed sweet potatoes and homemade coleslaw and you've got yourself quite a delicious meal. a perfect end to a rather long monday.

one of the many reasons i am thankful for my husband. 

fabulous friday

sun + perfect temperature + jason's day off + heifer village + zoo = great for the soul.

matthias trying to pick up a bucket of water

the mosquito net was quite a hit

giraffes up close 

checking out the monkeys

sassy pants.

hiba hits matthias.

hiba goes to timeout.

hiba yells to me from her bed, "mom, can I get up?".

I answer something to the effect of, "no and if you yell again or talk or move you will be sitting on your bed for the rest of your life".

a few moments of silence.

then hiba yells again, "mom! mom! MOM!!!"

i reply with something like "be quiet and stop yelling and think about how mean you are to your brother and don't ask me again if you can get up or you will have to stay in timeout for a week!!!!" (or something just as helpful and age appropriate).

hiba yells back, "i love you mom".

(and i can totally hear her smirking as she yells it.)

why an iPhone makes my life better

because i can capture sweet moments like this.

kairos

a few friends of mine posted an excellent blog post on facebook the last few days and i finally read it this morning. if you are a mom, or if you have been a mom, or if you like to read good things, you need to read this.


i couldn't have said it better.


because let's all be honest. anyone who tells moms with young kids to love and cherish every minute either has never had young kids or has completely forgotten reality that comes with having young kids. it's nice to have someone else write those thoughts and see that it has been shared on facebook thousands of times, with hundreds of positive and agreeing comments. it makes me feel better about not being a fan of the whole carpe diem with your kids attitude.


but it's also a good reminder that just because i don't love every minute of my days, doesn't mean i can't (or shouldn't) find those moments that i do treasure. kairos time. a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens (thanks wikipedia). it's a good reminder that there are those moments, every day, where my kids amaze me, make me laugh,  make me smile, make me thankful, show me glimpses of how much God must love me, show me the good that is in this world, teach me, humble me. it is a good reminder to look for those kairos moments and hang on to them when all the other moments seem so overwhelming. 


today has been a kairos day. it's been filled with moments that i can treasure. homemade biscuits for breakfast. bubble bath for the kiddos this morning, given my daddy which meant an uninterrupted shower for me. family time. a trip to kroger that produced zero tears or yelling. family pillow fights. gorgeous weather. dancing in the car. playing outside. laughter from my kids as they play together. 


it's also been filled with getting up at 6:15 because my kids are incapable of telling time. hiba throwing tantrums because something wasn't just right. matthias throwing a lego at my face. hiba and matthias bickering about anything and everything. me losing my temper. once or twice. 


but instead of focusing on all those moments - the moments that seem to make up the days that are currently my life - i'll try to remember the kairos moments. i won't kid myself into thinking that it's been a perfect day or wish that i could do this for the rest of my life. because it wasn't and i don't. i am so happy to see my kids grow up and most days i can't wait for this stage of life to be over. 


but. 


instead of just wishing it away and simply making it through, maybe i can carpe those kairos moments. maybe i can try harder to notice them when they are blatantly in front of me and learn to look for them when they aren't. and at the end of the day, i can look back at them and say, yeah. it wasn't so bad after all. and i can probably make it through tomorrow. especially if i try to carpe the kairos and don't get overwhelmed by the diem. 

in the still of the night

sometimes i talk in my sleep.

let me re-phase. sometimes i have really urgent, adamant, loud conversations with jason while he was sleeping and i am somewhere between awake and asleep.

it's pretty funny to wake up the next morning and think "did i that conversation really happen?" and then to have jason confirm it as he mocks me for what i said.

i don't do it a lot, but they are usually pretty funny. there are two great ones. so for your reading enjoyment - my two best sleep-talking episodes.

as a background, you have to know that i often dream about things from the day. only they are really weird in my dreams. like if i play a game for a long time before i got to bed, i'll dream that i'm in that game somehow. or if i watch a movie or tv show, the characters show up but usually mixed with real people i know. and i remember a lot of them when i wake up. it's some pretty bizarre memories.

also i have weird dreams when i'm pregnant. (which i am NOT. N-O-T, NOT, that has to do with the second story. not the first one. i'll just clear that up right now).

story number 1: the bed

last night, jason and i stayed up way to late playing monopoly on my kindle fire. i had just been talking a few days ago about how we need to get monopoly and then it was offered free for a day, so i got it and have been a tad on the obsessive side with it. so as i was going to sleep, visions of property cards, dogs and race cars, and money disappearing danced in my head.

and somewhere in the middle of the night, jason was clearly trying to take over my property, so this conversation happened:

me: (shoving jason) jason, you're in my bed.
jason: (not really too happy about being woken up) huh? what?
me: you're in my bed. you need to get out.
jason: why do i need to get out? what are you talking about?
me: (realizing that we're both awake at this point) oh, never mind.

story number 2: the horse

so, when i was about 7 months pregnant with hiba, we were coming home from a baby shower that some friends threw me in jerusalem. we had to go through the checkpoint to get back to bethlehem and as we pulled up to it, this horse came running at us. not really at us, but towards us and then ran off. it was strange. not so sure where it came from or where it was going. then we went home and i went to bed.

in the middle of the night, this conversation happened:

me: jason, wake up!!! there is a horse in our room!
jason: huh? go to sleep.
me: no! (very frantic at this point) jason!! wake up! there is a horse!!
jason: (still not very concerned, which really annoyed me) no there is not. go to sleep.
me: WAKE UP! THERE IS A HORSE IN OUR ROOM! YOU'RE JUST NOT LOOKING!
jason: (finally sitting up, turns on the bedside lamp) no. there is not.
me: (very quietly) oh.

and then i laid back down and went to sleep. because he was right. there was no horse. 

happy 2012, friends.

it's that time of year. new years resolution time. the time of year when we look back and see all of the things we sucked at last year and swear we'll change them. the time of year when we publicly admit all of our faults and come up with elaborate plans to fix them. the time of year when we make long lists of goals and things we'll start doing.

ha.

i made a list last year. and i actually did pretty well. at least on the published list. i didn't keep up with everything i wanted to, but it wasn't a failure. now the list i found in a notebook the other day....well, let's just say it wasn't a complete failure, but i wouldn't call it anywhere close to a success either.

throughout the year, i've thought of lots of things i want to do. most have to do with doing things with hiba and matthias, or projects around the house, or starting new family traditions. but i've realized that most of the things i think i need to start are not really realistic at this point in my life. my kids are little. my patience is thin. my extra time and energy are non-existent. this is not the time of my life for grand projects. this is the time of my life for survival.

so forget about all that stuff. 2012 is about me. not about lists that i want to complete, but about ways i want to grow. i have three. i think they are simple enough, doable, and are habits that i want to establish now.


be a better friend. 

sometimes i think i am an awful friend. sometimes i know i am an awful friend. i'm just really bad about keeping in touch with people, making those little phone calls, actually doing things to reach out to people. i have a lot of nice ideas in my head - emails i should write, cards i should send, lunches i should have, dinners i should make, playdates i should arrange, care packages i should send. but i don't. partly because i think of these things when i'm driving or working or other times when i obviously can't do anything. but partly just because i have a hard time with it.

so this year i want to be intentional about being a better friend. i don't have specifics, like a number of emails or phone calls i need to make each week, but i want to be intentional about using my free time to connect with people. real people, not the cast of mad men.

exercise.

for real. and regularly. i was last year, for quite a while. pair that with eating well (which i do a relatively good job at most of the time) and i was feeling pretty good about myself. and working out really was good for my soul. but, the gym we were going to changed the childcare hours and it just wasn't working anymore. so i stopped.

but i'm back at it. i'm starting with a workout dvd at home because then i have no excuse not to. and i want to make this a part of life this year. i think jason and i have done a good job of making healthier choices a natural part of our lives and i want exercise to be like that for me as well.

figure out what i want to be when i grow up. 

last year, i had plans to go back to school. that obviously didn't happen and don't know if it will. i realized that my kids are just too little for me to be gone from them that much. and although i wouldn't put being a stay at home mom at the top of my "favorite things ever" list, i've seen this year that it is at the top of my kids' "favorite things ever" list. so what's the rush?

i love having a part-time job and i know that has been good for me. but it's still not in an area that i really want to work full-time in, which still leaves me with no idea what i want to be when i grow up. i am leaning more and more away from homeschool, which means that in a few short years, it'll be just me.

i don't want to rush into going back to school or go back just because i don't want to do something else. so i'm taking this year - and i will probably try to make myself take the whole year - to figure out what i want to be. i'm not real sure how i'm going to figure this one out - so if you have any ideas or magic books that give you all of life's answers, feel free to pass those this way.

so there you have it. my goals for this year. i'm excited to see what's ahead.