Rose Club

I am a fan of roses. I don't have very many just 5 in the front. They were already planted when I bought the house. So I'm kinda've learned how to prune but decided to take a short class. There was a free one offered at Idlewild park hosted by the Rose Club in the park's rose garden on Saturday.

So off I went with baby in stroller and Andy followed on his bike with Morgan to go to the IdleWild Park. I was for sure the youngest one there (there was another girl maybe a bit older) and I probably owned the least amount of roses. You could sit down with any number of the rose club members who were pruning roses in various areas. It was amazing some of the devotions these people had to there gardens. When asked how much time I put into my gardening, I said just a little here and there I'm busy with my other hobby and with that I smiled at Caden. Talking about one's garden was for sure an object as some people would describe how they have an enormous garden with 1 acre of just roses!!! oh my!!!!

The term everyone's a critic came to mean something new. One person gave a demonstration and was saying how you need to cut 1/4 of an inch above the rose bud and then later the other teacher said no not 1/4 of an inch and 1/8 of an inch!! With all the seriousiness like that 1/4 inch could mean the death of the plant! I had to hide snickering on that one. I was amazed though some older gentlemen starting to cry when he was talking about how his bulbs got planted in the wrong area of the garden. Such devotion. Just a different type of nerdiness :) When the speaker person was talking how with budget cuts the park wouldn't be able to maintain the rose garden there was this gasp in the air from everyone. It was funny....

Amazing with age how one takes on hobbies to fill one's day. I could be one of those ladies in 50 years :)

Identity

I've been thinking alot about my identity. Who I am as a person but more importantly who Jesus says I am. Beautiful and wonderfully made comes to mind! I've also been thinking about the verse that says this is the day that the Lord has made.... Even when I'm having not such a great day, it amazes me to think Jesus made today and the beatuy of his nature is wondrous.

This is not related to the paragraph above, but for Andy and my wedding we had a picture that was sketched out and we had paint that the our guests could use to paint the picture as they wished. I finally just hung it up and it's not finished but I was thinking how much that is similar to Jesus' healing work in my life. In a state of being finished. I've asked my much more artistic husband to finish the painting. Maybe I'll post a picture of it when it's done. :)

soooo tired

I have been functioning on a way less normal amount of sleep. Caden has been sick so that answers the question why. It's amazing how the human body adapts. One may not be functioning at 100% but can still make it through the day. I have noticed I'm sleeping or I mean slipping ;) on little details for example

I backed my car into a green dumbster the other day. Very glad that the dumpster moved or else the damage could have been alot worse. In my defense the heigth of it was barely waist tall so I couldn't see it!

I'm dropping things almost every day. Like jars of baby food which then creates a much needed opportunity to mop the kitchen floor.

Now this one is funny. I find myself almost missing my chair quite frequently when I go to sit down...gotta laugh

Last summer I ran into one of my former co-workers at the water park. When she saw that I was great with another child she looked at me compassionately and told me to be prepared to be completely exhausted. Oh the truth of those words!

Sibling Fun

Morgan and Caden's interactions are becoming very fun to watch! Morgan knows what makes Caden laugh and she frequently surprises him with her sounds and likes to watch him react. It's making my days very enjoyable to watch them play together

Allergies again

My allergies are acting up again. I was telling Andy I don't think they have ever been this bad and then he found an old blog post of mine in March 2008 where I said the exact same thing.

Same allergies just a different year. Next year, I will plan ahead and stock up on allergy meds.

This time of year is hard to get through in my opinion. It's not quite spring but winter is still lingering on. It's still cold but warm though. Let spring come!!

Morgan cannot stop talking about Monster Truck she tells the same story over and over again. It made quite an impression :) Next year, we'll all go.

Oman 2- Abraham

This event in Oman was probably one of the most life changing to me. There are some particular details one needs to understand about the culture to grasp some details about the story

1. In Oman culture, light colored skin was a desirable quality. much like skinniness or tallness is viewed as beauty (although distorted) in our culture. There were different shades of light skin with the lightest, olive colored, skin belonging to the native Omanians and the darker skin color belonging to those of more African descent

2. Oman was a foreigner friendly country and yet there were/are root arab/islamic traditions that are seemingly unbreakable

3. Houses are clumped together and referred to as compounds. The walls surrounding the houses are usually waist high and there are no guards of any sort. The garbage dumpster is located outside the compound across a dirt road (this is a key detail in the story)

4. We lived in a compound made up with various other families. 1st family was British and they ran the British council, 2nd family was scottish and he was a pilot who worked at the British base called ( thumb/ rait), 3rd family was from Palenstine who we frequnetly referred to as the family from Jordan (the country) cause we couldn't pronouce their last name. 4th family was us from America :)

5. The sultan (king of Oman) 'allowed' westerners, people from india, philipians, asian to have a compound where they atteneded church and where all the pastors lived. There were 2 church buildings where the various denominations held their services at different times (think of the gas and time people saved on church hopping!) The pastor of our small non-denominational church was named Ken and his wife Margaret. They were from Britan and with the best last name ever for a Brit ...Crummick sounds like crumb. Ken's love for people of every culture impacted my life greatly and has gave me a healthy view of Christ's love for everyone despite cultural differences. I contribute much of who I am today as a Christ follower to him and his wife's love for our family.....




One day our palenstian neighbors knocked on our door and we opened it to see them holding a baby, a brand new baby maybe a few hours old, in their arms. They quickly explained that they had found the baby on the ground right in front of our garbage container. They quickly handed the baby over to my older sister and left to their house. We were beyond shocked. The immensity/sadness of the whole situation was overwhelming. I vividly remember my mom crying and I was trying to grasp the enormity of why someone had left their baby by the garbage!!!...... We called the police. It was obvious that it wasn't our baby as the baby was definently Arab descent (explaining why our palestinian neighbors where so quick to hand off the baby)

The police took the baby to the hospital. We quickly called our pastor Ken as alot of the Philippian nurses at the hospital went to our church and thus Ken could find out what happened to the baby.....

Ken found out that the baby was o.k. and healthy and that the baby had apparently been delivered at that same local hospital as they could tell by the device on the umbilical cord. In that culture so much is not talked about or addressed even hidious and sad crimes. Babies out of wedlock are one of the many issues ignored and swept aside. As Ken talked to the nurses more they showed him that there was a room with several babies that had been abdoned and that there was another room with toddlers/preschoolers who had grown up in the hospital. Ken clearly heard God speak to him and tell him that this baby that we had found was like Abraham in that he would be the first of many babies that our church/community could change their lives just by holding/hugging/playing/talking to. And those babies were so hungry for love and affection and thrived on what we could give them.


So we all named the baby Abraham....


I couldn't even imagine how Abraham's mother felt and that the only option (she felt) for her was to throw her baby away??? That's despair....

Ken had his own speculations about what happened. First Abraham's skin showed that one of his parents was definently Arab. One could only speculate what type of situation Abraham had been conceived into. 2nd, our compound was the only compound where Westerners lived in that section of town. He thought Abraham was purposely left where the mother knew foreigners lived. 3rd, the baby was set in front of the dumbster...hmmm 4th He thought the mom actually went to see her son at the hospital as he grew up there....

When it was discovered that there were babies and children at the hospital our church formed groups where and Ken and a group of mothers plus me and my sibling would visit these babies weekly. Bring toys and just take them out of the cribs to give them affection. Love was never so simple.


I remember hearing Omani women comment on how beautiful Abraham was because of his light skin and then they would point or gesture to a darker baby and show distaste. So not surprisingly Abraham was eventually adopted by a loving Arab family. We had considered adopting Abraham as a family but when we further began to investigate our option, there wasn't any. Abraham was obviously Arab and the goverment wouldn't allow a Western family to adopt/rasie an Arab in a Christian home.

In the pictures above, my mom is holding Abrham and my sister is holding another one of the babies from the hospital. Where the person is standing to take the picture of our compound is where Abraham was found. The older couple is Ken and his wife Margaret.

Thoughts

Today was a hard day. I have never seen the movie or read the book The Shinning but I couldn't imagine being stuck inside for that long.

Caden is such a handsome boy. His personality is developing and he is a delight.

Andy and I are getting away for our anniversary in April. Each year we try out a new bed and breakfast in the area and this year, we're finally making it up to the lake. That weekend can't come soon enough...

Morgan is enjoying preschool so much. I think I am enjoying it more then her though :)

I have tried to enforce the rule in our house that only 1 child can cry at a time....that did not work today

First Day.....

So Andy and I have seriously been contemplated putting Morgan in Little Lites (the preschool at our church) since Morgan is potty trained. So today I went in to hand in our application and the teachers suggested that today be Morgan's first day because since the snow created a smaller classroom.. What the heck! So today was Morgan's first day in preschool!!!

I'm not sad at all!!. I'm excited that Morgan will make new Sadas (friends) and will have fun activities to do. She's been pretty bored at home and I am and have been running out of energy and activities to keep her energetic self preoccupied. Plus Caden can now get some good one on one time. Did I mention it's alot easier doing errands with one kid versus two. So yes, not sad at all. Maybe I'll be more reflective and meloncholy about sending our last kid away but that's for a different season.

Pictures are soon to come! Cheers to Little Lites ...