a life beyond running shoes.

i think this was the summer of 2006. what a handsome man! the last five days have been a long blur. at moments i forget what day it is, if i have eaten, when the last time i fed sweetpea. but in the midst of those moments of forgetfulness, i realize that he isn't on his way home.... or up asleep.... or out at a job site. he is at home in heaven. my husband got to do the call to worship for his father's funeral on saturday. it was amazing. here are some things he said: We are grateful you are here to help us mourn, to help us grieve and to help us celebrate the life of an amazing man. My brother said last night that he was a man whose heart had been gripped by Christ, and that turned him into a man who gripped each of us. But most importantly, we are grateful you are here to worship the risen Lord with us this morning. It is what DAD loved to do above all else, and there is nothing else we can do that is more important than to come into the presence of our loving heavenly ...

jesus, i am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art i am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart. today...... my husband lost his father. my children lost their grandfather. i lost a hero. i don't think i could love this man any more if he were my own father. this man that loved me generously with abandon....he loved my kids that way too. he loved his own children, his wife, his city. i feel like i said some of these same words about my husband's grandfather.... but this man i knew intimately. he built me a home, he raised his son to be my amazing husband, he loved his wife for over 35 years and showed my husband how to love a wife...... and boy did he love jesus. he loved jesus in such a way that it shaped the way he lived every part of his life....and man did he pray. tuesdays were my day... the day he prayed for our family, our church, our network, our marriage, our children.... for peanut's need for patience; for little bit's to survive to his third bir...

one thing i love about living in new york is that you really can experience things for free. for example, the brooklyn botanic gardens are free on tuesdays and saturdays (before noon). so.....we took a family adventure this morning. it was beautiful. we were also curious to see what was at their garden shop. of course the boys were more interested in the koi pond than the flowers. but we managed to keep little bit from falling in... that is a successful day.

picnic in the park on a lovely spring day. playing with sticks by the water. falling in the water and getting all wet. all in a days work for little bit.

but it was an emergency trip to the dentist to make sure we didn't need to go to the ER. and at the end of a very eventful day. it all started with a smoking car. next, my six-week-check-up. a picnic on a beautiful sunny, spring day. a borrowed a diaper from another group of mom's for one nasty poop. AND a face plant on the concrete after jumping off a two foot step. little bit just has it in for his mouth. this is the second major mouth injury in the last 8 months. of course, there have been lots of little ones but this one is the only other major one: a gum lacerations and two chipped teeth..... oh, and lots of blood. of course the car at this point has been delivered to the auto shop (thank you awesome husband), so i can't actually get to my pediatrician across town nor do i actually have his phone number. BUT my friend has our mutual dentist in her cell..... one phone call and a three block walk with a screaming two year old and we are sent home with a prescription for ...

today is my brother's 28th birthday. it makes feel old because i don't feel a day older than 25 myself and him turning 28 means i am for real not 25. he is also going to be a dad.... that amazes me. not because i think he won't be a good dad but because it means we really are adults. i realize i am saying this after having given birth to my third child but it seems more real with him having a kid than me having one (or three). i still think of him as the kid i drove around when i was in high school and was still taller than....never mind that he is almost six feet tall.... and his arm muscles are about the size of my head ( being a marine makes him buff..... so does training for a triathalon). i've realized a couple of things about him as an adult: he is super funny. his blog makes me laugh out loud (his is called "a real superman"). i realize that it might only be funny to those who know him but i found his experience at the new kids on the block conce...

i wish i could say that i liked this as much as i liked the lovely bones . i didn't. the almost moon . i started this the day before sweet pea was born. it was a quick pick up before i went to the hospital for some fetal monitoring. i knew i would be sitting there for over an hour....which was true. i recognized the author and was looking for something to pass the time. let's just say that i got through three-fourths of the book over six weeks ago. it was just stubbornness that made me finished the last part today. it was hanging over me that i had not finished this book.....and i only had about 50 pages left. i was about 30 pages into the book when i considered putting it down. while i think she is a good writer, i can't say i found her story all that gripping. she kills her mom, sleeps with her best friend's son, and considers killing herself. not where i am.... perhaps at a later time i might have found this as amazing as all the reviews did. here is a gre...

i love easter. i love season of reflectiveness that comes with lent that is concluded with the glorious celebration of the resurrection. i love that it is tied with spring, which actually means something when you live in the northeast. the dreary days of winter are gone....sort of. the cherry blossoms are in blooms. there are warmer days and people start coming out of the word work....in the parks, on the sidewalks, on our street. neighbors we have not seen since thanksgiving are out again. there is an energy to the city that starts to reverberate around here because we can all of a sudden be outside again exploring places like the park, the zoo, the sidewalk. i also love the excuse to put my children in matching outfits. i think it is the only time my husband can really tolerate that matchy-matchy thing. i think they are super cute!

i finally finished my last book club reading. they met about two weeks ago and i just couldn't get myself out the door. i was planning on going and bringing sweet pea but reality sunk in and i was in bed by 9. and two weeks later i finished the read: song of the lark. i think i love willa cather but this is only the second book i have read. i read some of her short stories in college and really loved them. this novel i was engrossed in from the beginning and was lost by the end. i found the end section to have a very different voice from the beginning sections. i did not savor her descrptions any more and simply drudged through the finals chapters. i am thoroughly glad that i read it but finishing was a chore. my sistster's keeper. jodi picoult is always good for an interesting and engaging read. i actually finished this in the hospital after giving birth. it was a far better option than the saturday tv they had available. i do like how she deals with controversial...

the transit museum. the 4-year-old check-up. 40.5 inches - 55% 30.4 pounds - 3% 2 shots 1 tb test 1 finger poke the bronx zoo. got my hair cut. and had dinner with my husband. phew. i needed my mom to leave so we could get back to normal life. not really!

sweet pea is one month as of yesterday. wow, that went fast. it makes me slightly reflective. i was watching oprah. i know you are thinking, "how does she have time to watch tv?" my mom is in town..... sweet pea was asleep, boys were playing with legos. it was interesting to hear how important it is to hear other mothers talk about the struggle of being a mom. the reality that this job is hard and so rarely does it feel like it is okay to say, "take this job and shove it." do i have the freedom to say that? can i really struggle in front of other people? i have a one month old and i am tired. frankly, i was tired before i had her. frankly, i have been tired for four years..... i have not slept through the night in almost five years. this is a hard job....and how does my blog play into that? i post pics of a garden that i am not planting. i post pics of a cake that really only took me about 10 minutes to decorate that came from a box. i post pics of adventu...

after church we went out for sushi.... had friends come over to help garden.... had a spiderman cake..... and opened presents. of course, the gift from his parents did not come in the mail. luckily my siblings rock and he had some gifts to open. mimi did buy him his first brooklyn sweatshirt to which his exclamation was, "just like daddy's." it was super cute. i did neglect to remember that this might not be totally understandable to our two year old.... so we recycled rain boots. he was super excited.

he is 4 today..... how do i have a 4 year old? that amazes me almost (almost) more than the fact that i have three kids. i marvel at how much of his own person he is: how sweet he is to his sister, how frustrated he gets with his brother, how much he loves music & learning, how my heart melts when he tells me (unprompted) how much he loves me, how he learns about who god is & how he was made in god's image, how he is such a big helper and is growing up so fast..... and how i can hardly believe what it feels like to have my heart walk around outside my body. we ventured out of the borough to staten island and visited their children's museum. it is free with our brooklyn children's museum pass. we got to take daddy with us since he has started taking fridays off. the boys had a blast. it is the right size to spend about two or three hours....and worth the drive ($10 to cross the bridge) since it was free :) tomorrow the birthday boy wants sushi for lunch after...

my brother thinks he is so funny.... check out his blog: super man . he sent these pictures out on april fools day... and then didn't answer his phone. PUNK!!!