Happy Birthday Melaina...

Our special girl, our firstborn, Melaina Grace, was born on this day 7 years ago. Every December 19th I spend the day thinking about her and often the days before and the days after. And of course throughout the year too. But especially on her birthday. I always wonder what she'd be like today. Would she climb up on our laps and cuddle? Would she have long brown hair? What would her little personality be like? What would her beaming smile look like?

I think back to her tiny hands, her tiny perfect feet, her finger and toenails that looked exactly like Josh's. Her little body only 13 ounces strong.

For those of you who don't know the story, my water broke in the second trimester while we were down in Corvallis during Christmas time (2004), and our little girl was born at the hospital, but she was just too premature to make it. It was such a heartbreaking event... such loss. Lost dreams. Loss of our first family... this little person I loved so much and still wanted to love was out of reach and I no longer had that privilege of carrying on in life with her. But yet at the same time, when I refer to what took place in that hospital room as she was born, it was joy in the midst of grief, because even though it was so devastating to lose her, God's overwhelming peace filled us as we held her and looked at her, rejoiced over her and kissed her goodbye. I took such immense comfort in knowing she was tucked safely in the arms of Jesus and I'd one day get to know her like I longed to, and see her sweet face again.

I miss our girl. My eyes run tears as I type. But He still wraps me in peace as I think on what a sovereign God He is, full of love and compassion. Nothing is too great for Him. He holds the universe. He holds my baby. He is still a good God even when we know great loss and deep pain.

I've been reading One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, this Christmas season and one of my favorite things from her book is this:
(Chapter 1, pg 16-23)
"...the retina of my soul develops macular holes of blackness... Losses do that. One life-loss can infect the whole of a life. Like a rash that wears through our days, our sight becomes peppered with black voids. Now everywhere we look, we only see all that isn't: holes, lack, deficiency...
Then she reads 1 Corinthians 2:7, "His secret purpose framed from the very beginning is to bring us to our full glory". And she says, "He means to heal our soul holes." She then shares stories of great loss in her family and says, "I wonder too... if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see.
To see through to God.
That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave."

I just love that.

Beauty from ashes.

My mom sent us this card (photo above) that I just love. It makes me think of Melaina and what she may have been like, and Josh put it up on our mantle, and I love that the card (which acts as a thought of her) completes our family line up of photos. :)

Tomorrow is our joyful Benjamin's birthday!! I'm SO excited to celebrate that boy! And this may sound weird to others, but Benjamin's birthday being the day after Melaina's is such a special gift to me!! Almost redemptive. I feel like my first born and "last born" (Lord willing), they bookend! Pain and loss for one I love so deeply, and then new life! Together. It makes my heart rejoice and give thanks.

He sees. He knows. He is there, constant, and the Rock I can stand on.

When Melaina was born we sang along to a worship album we loved called Selah, there in the hospital room. These two songs always make me think of her and give thanks. They take me back to that special day we got to hold her and kiss her goodbye.
Wonderful, Merciful Savior:

You Raise Me Up:

Now you know where we got the name of our precious girl, Selah Grace. She and Melaina share the same middle name because we wanted our daughters to get to share something that could tie them together, even though they'll never know one another.

So Happy Birthday my sweet Melaina Grace. We love you more than you'll ever know! xo

New Favorite Smoothie

Many of you know I have a love affair with my Vitamix. :) We use it every day, sometimes twice a day. Aside from making rice cereal, oat flour, almond flour, ice cream, etc. with it, we make a lot of smoothies. Our staple smoothie around here is:
1 banana

1 1/2 cups frozen strawberries

1 handful of blueberries

A blop of honey :)

2 cups rice milk

And a little flavored cod liver oil that the kids don't know about.

Well, sadly I ran out of frozen strawberries this week. I only picked about 50lbs last June and it clearly was not enough! But at least I still have about 35 lbs of blueberries in the freezer, so tonight Josh and I created a new standby smoothie to get us through to June, when I can pick more strawberries. This is an exciting smoothie for us because it's so creamy and kind of "milkshakey" and it doesn't require any honey to be sweet! I don't have a photo of it unfortunately (I was too excited drinking our purple experiment that I forgot to snap a photo) :), but here's the recipe for you Vitamix lovers. :)

1 banana

1 cup frozen blueberries

1.5 cups almond milk

dash of chia seeds

dash of flax seeds

1/8 cup shredded unsweetened (unsulfered) coconut

blend in vitamix on high

10 - 4 Roger!

Have I told you how much I adore these sweet faces? Oh, I have? ;)

Yesterday we did our daily calendar, we counted to 100, and we made a simple little clock to just begin learning about it. We just talked about what HOUR it was, nothing more advanced than that talking about the small hand telling the hour, but it uncovered something somewhat surprising and comical!

When I asked Selah what time it was, pointing to "10 o'clock" she looked at me blank. My girl, who can write and knows her phonics, days of the weeks, knows about echolocation and nocturnal animals, doesn't know her numbers!! She can count to 100, but if you point to a #4 and say "what number is this?" she may give you a blank stare. It was pretty funny to me because it was such an oversight of mine! Sorry Selah! I obviously need to put some numbers up on the wall and review them often. I think because Selah talks so maturely and has been pacing so well with Jude in school, I can forget that the dear sweet thing is only 3 1/2! I'm so proud of her and how eager she is to learn - she loves it! But I need to make sure her preschool foundation of learning that we're building on is firm first. :) Just as the kids are learning, I'm learning too!

I made this sheet of paper (bottom photo) as soon as I realized she was struggling with knowing her numbers. I asked her to point to and read each one just to see which ones she knew. She pointed to each number counting to ten and then went to the second row and went "11, 12, 13, 14..." That cracked me up! :) So then we practiced writing 10 and 4 since they seemed to be the two she was having the most trouble remembering. She did great. I love that girl!!

It's been fascinating to watch them learn this year. Jude is very numbers focused right now and Selah is very letters/word focused. It will be interesting to see if it changes as they grow up.

Happy Wednesday!

1/3 Jude + 1/3 Selah + 1/3 Benjamin = 1 Whole Mama

Today was a full day, and a good day! The kids and I spent the morning just cleaning and playing and cooking. We didn't start school until 2pm, because Benjamin wouldn't nap until then, and it's just easier to do school when the busy boy is snoozing. :) I have to share these two pics of him from lunch time - he is just SO Mr. Personality these days! He loves to tease and laugh! He begs for his cup, that's just out of reach, and I hand it to him and he acts like he's going to drink and then shoves it away and laughs! His laugh makes me laugh.

Today in school we talked about fractions and had fun with it. We used 3 sets of straws to share fractions of our whole bunch of straws. We also used a puzzle that had 3 pieces and took turns holding 1/3 or 2/3rds, or the whole puzzle. The kids caught on pretty fast - I actually wondered if they'd get it at all. I sometimes forget that kids are much smarter than we often give them credit for.

Then we took an apple and cut it in half, then into fourths and took turns sharing fractions of the apple. Jude eventually ate 1/4th of the apple. :)

We worked on writing the letter N and number 5.

We talked about the importance of practicing writing neatly because we want people to be able to read the things we write, which led to the (kids') realization that they could actually write words with all of these letters they are writing/learning/practicing, lol, which then led to Selah writing her first sentence all by herself: No t.v. :) Pretty funny!

It all came about because I said that if you put an "O" after your "N", you'd have the word "NO" and then Jude thought it would be funny if she wrote "No t.v.", so she did. :) She wrote it twice. Once kind of slanted trying to fit it among her practice letters, and the second time neatly on a blank line, and unfortunately I photographed the first one, so see if you can find it in this photo! :) [Jude's gotten into a really bad habit of begging for t.v. all of the time, so we've been doing a bit of a "no t.v." thing lately, and it's going well, so that's where that came from.]

After school we went to the library and picked out some books about animals in their habitats and some other stories that interested the kids. We came home, read 3 books, then made dinner, ate once Josh got home, then went and picked up our Christmas tree. We've always found our way to a tree farm to get a tree and cut it down ourselves, until last year when I was on bed rest... instead we zipped down the street to Thriftway and picked up a pretty tree. It was so easy and quick that I knew Josh was forever changed and we'd likely not be going to a tree farm to cut down our own again any time soon. :) Tonight we found ourselves where? At Thriftway. With another beautiful tree. Josh bribed me with a Starbucks and a warm car with Christmas music... I have to be honest, it's quite nice and hassle-free, especially with 3 little kids during this busy season of our lives! I told Josh on the drive home tonight, though, that once the kids are older I'd love to make our way out to a tree farm again a few times. He said okay. :) He loves me! And I love him! And my Thriftway tree. :) And these precious children who decorated it with joy!