joy

love these boys. :)

the garden grows

In honor of the beginning of summer, our little garden has cooperated quite nicely in starting to fruit. The early fruiting strawberries have been around for quite a while...though we've only gotten a handful of ripe strawberries, so we've had to go picking on the farm to satisfy the little ones' appetite for sweet, juicy, summer goodness. But more recently, we have seen signs of edible things to come...the broccoli started flowering last week, and the yellow gooseberry tomatoes have started to fruit. It's been quite exciting in this little garden of ours. It's also been keeping us quite connected with the state of the weather - rainy day? Great, no need to water! Hot and dry? May need to water twice or three times! The last time I was this conscious of the weather was when Jason and I were dating long-distance and always flying back and forth (and always worried about how the weather would affect our flights). The garden has been a much less stressful, and much more natural, way of connecting us to nature and the cycles of rain and shine, heat and relief. God's earth is quite something.

father's day 2012

This is the third year we've celebrated Father's Day. As tradition goes, the daddy in the house got something framed and something hand-made. :) This year, we also let him sleep in on Sunday - to a glorious 9am! He awoke to hot coffee and banana muffins for breakfast. The baby cooperated and took a nice long morning nap in his crib, while the toddler and I went out to get some groceries. Daddy? He got a quiet morning to himself - the much coveted "quiet time" in the home. And then, we grilled! Our downstairs neighbors got a nice little grill for the house, and it's been sitting there brand new, just waiting for an occasion to be used. And so, in honor of the father and father-very-very-soon-to-be, we did a little BBQ lunch, Korean style - complete with kalbi, seasame leaves from the garden, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. With each passing year, I marvel anew at how my husband has grown more and more into a daddy for the boys, and how much they love and admire him. It's been fun to watch the roles and relationships grow. Happy Father's Day!

strawberry jam

Yesterday, we spent the morning in the strawberry fields, picking and eating and running around. In the afternoon, we made these with the freshly picked strawberries. :) It's been a couple years since I last did any sort of canning or jamming, but with a little mashing help from Collin (who definitely lost interest after the initial mashing), we did just fine. It helped that Owen sat in his seat sucking on strawberries (through a cloth mesh) for about an hour. :) I wanted a low sugar jam. Traditionally, jams are around 50% sweetener! Which is kinda gross. So I followed this recipe, mostly (using Pomona Universal Pectin). For the sweetner, I used half (turbinado) sugar and half (local raw) honey. Last time I made jam, I used all honey, and I didn't think it tasted all that good and was a bit runny, even with added Pectin. So this time, I used half and half. Even with the low-sugar recipe, I still only used a quarter of the sugar and honey in the recipe. So in the end, for the 6 cups of mashed strawberries, there was 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of honey. I was worried that this might make the jam not taste very good...but this morning we tried some, and it was still pretty sweet! The best part is the fresh strawberry flavor that comes through. :) So, all in all, the first jamming session of the season went pretty well, I think. We will enjoy this jam for the next month or two, and then hopefully we can try a round with blueberries come July. I do believe summer has arrived! :)

he waits

Yep, that is my little man standing there, eagerly waiting his turn - his first time in a bouncy house. I sometimes forget how small he is until I see him next to other kids. He wasn't allowed into the bouncy house because all the other kids inside were too big - so he had to wait for the next round, when they would only allow smaller children in. He knew the fun was coming, so he stood there, by himself, waiting patiently. He didn't complain, didn't look back, just stood there, trusting that those two big girls would let him in at some point. Jason and I stood a ways off, surprised by how independent he has become. OH, and yes, he had a smile on his face the whole time - before, during, and after his time in the big blow-up house. I always felt ambivalent about these big play houses for kids - do they really need something like this to have fun? Why not just let him run around in the grass? I still think that. But, man, I loved watching that big goofy grin on his face - like he just couldn't contain all the fun and excitement in his little body. It's nice to be a kid sometimes. :)

last day of daycare

With a little class party, some tiny bunt cakes, and a blow of the candle...Collin finishes up daycare today and officially enters preschool next week. The days can be long, but the years sure pass by fast! Love you, little man! :)

some encouragement

Today, I got an email from World Relief, an organization that Jason and I have been supporting for several years. Over these years, we have gotten to know some of the God-loving people in the organization, and it's been an encouragement to us to hear about their work and their hearts for God. The email I got today was about a "Ten for Congo" journey, where ten women will be heading to the Democratic Republic of Congo to learn about World Relief's work there and to advocate for the women of Congo in particular. Lynn Hybel documents the journey here. One of the most devastating things about the Congo is the prevalence of rape. Something like 9 out of 10 women have been raped in the country. Hearing the statistic is a bit mind -and heart- numbing. Over the last two months I've been working with a little four year old girl from El Salvador. She has been abandoned by her parents, and she has been raped and molested. It's been difficult to document her story (for the courts) with her aunt, who has taken her in here. The hardest part is hearing the little girl talk about things that she should know nothing about. There is something quite jarring about hearing an innocent four year old's voice talk about the details of a rape. The juxtaposition of the two is quite shocking, a heavy reminder that all is not right in the world. For some reason, getting the email from World Relief - reading about the women and their hearts for the Congolese, hearing their thoughts and concerns, knowing that they too are experiencing a juxtaposition of the general "goodness" in their lives (safe kids, beautiful flowers, a loving home) with the general "wrongness" experienced by the women in the Congo - brings some encouragement to me. That there are others who feel the tension of celebrating the joys in the world while being up close to so much pain and injustice. There is encouragement in the reminder that there is a God who sees it all. There is a quiet hope in knowing that he can heal and mend, restore and reclaim the broken.

a transition

It's official. We have enrolled Collin in a Mandarin Immersion Preschool. He will be there three days a week, and the whole thing is completely in Chinese. He will be home with me the rest of the days, and I suppose I will be speaking to him more in English, though actually, maybe not. He's been at his current daycare part-time for the last 2.5 years. I am a bit sad to see him transition out of a place that he's become so familiar and comfortable with. Since the daycare is just downstairs from my work, this transition will be the first time we are not in the same building for almost all of the time! I will miss being able to randomly stop by and see him throughout the day. Alas, they grow up so fast! I am excited about this new preschool too. I'm glad he will be immersed in another language (and culture)...and am excited for the ways he will learn and grow there. I of course have my reservations too - how will I feel when he comes home singing Chinese songs instead of English ones? How will it impact him that most of his peers and teachers are Asian now? Will he have a hard time transitioning into a completely Mandarin-speaking environment? When I look at the bigger picture, I know that it doesn't matter all that much where he goes to preschool. Likely, he will not retain too much Chinese when he gets older anyway, and in the long run, he will probably be fine having gone to either a Chinese or English speaking preschool. But, as I am learning, so much of parenting is not about the destination (will he retain any Mandarin in 10 years?)...but more about the process. What decisions do I make as a parent about how I'd like him to learn and grow in his early childhood? What kind of learning environment would I like to put him in now (regardless of whether or not he retains it 10 years later)? How does this change or shape my parenting and teaching on the days that he's at home? For me, these questions are not so much driven by a future goal, but they are more about how I would like to parent and raise my children in the present- what I might envision home life and school life to look like for our family today. As one of my former co-workers use to say - parenting keeps you in the present. The past is fleeting and easily forgotten...the future is uncertain and unknown. And so, we live in the present and remember that God is in control. Today, I look forward, with excitement and a little nervousness, to this next transition in our family life.