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!!!

the boys kept working and got the second bed finished on sat. sunday they planted broccoli, tomatoes, lettuce in egg cartons to germinate inside. i think we get to plant them in the yard in just over a week or until there is no risk of frost. they marked off two by two foot plots that we are going to seeds this coming weekend. we have planned for some herbs but also beets, carrots, summer squash, zucchini, beans, and sugar snap peas. of course, i hold this all very loosely as i don't really have a green thumb. but the boys have really enjoyed playing in the dirt with dad. on our first day of the week by ourselves, the boys and i played hide and seek, trains, and toss the sock (bean-bags) while sweet pea slept the entire time while in the room with us...getting a great nap with lots of noise and no swaddle. go figure.

on our family garden..... the boys started yesterday. we started with a consultation from a friend who has spent some time working on organic farms in virginia. she helped us think through what to plant, where, how, etc. we needed help getting started....and have some friends in the neighborhood who are going to help out along the way. saturday morning they started out and visited the local nursery. they got compost, starter plants (thyme, parsley, mint, and forgot the basil). then they hit lowes for wood and seeds. we have some friends that are going to share their worms to help us get our own compost going..... it will certainly be an adventure to see if this really works or if i can manage to green up my black thumb since i can't really even keep a house plant alive. we'll keep you posted as we build the second bed and start to get seeds and starters going. fun, fun!

hubbie and i got to get away for the afternoon while his mom was here and opted to see a movie. while i stood for half of it to keep sweet pea quiet, it was nice to be out with him and have conversation over a cup of coffee. it was slightly reminiscent of when we only had one child and would tool around town and see movies and talk over coffee...... ah, the days. now, we steal away when we can. the last movie we saw was over xmas in flordia.... and before that september when kind friends took our boys for the afternoon. BUT, i can remember the three movies that we saw during the first few months of peanut's life - fever pitch, cinderella man, and star wars.... all with baby in tow. anyway, onto this movie. i'm so glad i saw it. it is not an easy movie to see though, even though it has such a delightfully good ending. it is a rough reality of the slums in india. but the boys were endearing and the story compelling. worth my time & money! and we actually made it for the ...

my mother-in-law left today. i did not cry. i got pulled over for talking on my cell phone... which in case you were wondering, talking using the speaker phone does not qualify as "hand-free" and thus warrants a ticket. i did cry..... a week's food budget given to the city of new york. yipee! the boys are very sad g'ma is gone.... but mimi comes back in a week.

it is not because i am cool, but that i know cool people.... this is my husband's cousin who has been a miami fan forever... she started blogging a long time ago and it just got picked up by nbc sports. you should check it out... it is very funny, witty, and insightful.... as far as sports stuff goes. www.nbcmiami.com you should follow her blog. she posts twice a day and i am continually impressed with how she comes up with stuff to write about. so, i tip my hat to you ms. janie!

we made it a two full weeks as a family of five. wednesday was a bit hairy, but we survived. i had a very kind friend come over yesterday morning to help me get the boys to their "tumbling/movement" class..... in my head i had thought i could do it myself and gave daddy the morning to work on his sermon.... WHAT WAS I THINKING?! if my friend had not come with us, it would have been melt down zone. i ended up nursing sweet pea for the duration of tumbling class, so my friend got "participate" (more like help direct and instruct my kids) in her first toddler "managed chaos" class. i was very thankful! AND, hubbie and i actually went to a party last night - well, we made an appearance.....i only last about an hour and a half before i was running on fumes. we did take sweet pea who slept the entire time and disappointed more than a few friends who wanted to hold her. back-up comes tomorrow for a whole five days and nights. phew!!! and thankfully, friends...