Merry Christmas Baby!

One of the BEST parts of having your own kid is that you can make your kid into your own little model/photo shoot subject. And for an amateur photographer/part time stay-at-home mom, that means fun on my off days! Well, thanks to an idea from the most awesomest invention ever (Pinterest, of course) I decided to stage a little Christmas photo shoot...

So, the first thing I needed to do was track down the little car. I put out a plea on Facebook to borrow one and Daniel came home that very afternoon with the little car in tow. The second step was to put together the lumber jack outfit. We already had the hat and the little lumber jack boots but the plaid jacket was really gonna make or break the ensemble. We had nothing even close. Well, wouldn't you know it my wonderful mother-in-law bought Isaiah a bag of second hand clothes and lo and behold this little beauty was tucked in the bottom of the bag! Step three was to wait for the perfect day. I didn't want it too warm because I knew Isaiah would not like wearing a hat and fleece jacket on a warm fall day. I also didn't want it too overcast because I'm not that good of a photographer and I need the sunlight to take the best pictures. Step four was to catch Isaiah in a good mood and head outside!

All of the steps came together perfectly today! Well, all of the steps except for #4. My plan was to take Isaiah outside after his nap, which is a prime good mood spot in his day. I laid him down for his nap at the usual time and he proceeded to roll around and play for the next hour. He never actually fell asleep. So I rescued him from his baby prison, dressed him in his 'costume' and out we went. This is what happens when Isaiah is not in a good mood and I try to make him do stuff:

Luckily, Daniel came to the rescue and got Isaiah laughing and giggling while I got the poses I needed to get the best shots. All in all it was quite the successful little photo shoot! And what did Isaiah do not 10 minutes after coming inside? He went down for a 2 hour nap of course! Here are a few more from our photo shoot:

The Church of Mary Kay

Now before you jump to any conclusions based on the title of this blog, let me be the first to say I seriously LOVE Mary Kay products. I have a special section in our family budget so that I can buy my Mary Kay cleanser & moisturizer. (My mom always said that it's worth it to pay a little extra to take of your skin and I have taken that to heart!) Also let me say that the AWESOME woman (hi April!) who sells me my Mary Kay told me (last night actually) that she reads my blog so I will not be disrespecting or dissing this fabulous company. Period. I have nothing but love and respect for April and for the MAry Kay company.

OK, now that my conscious is clear, my FABULOUS Mary Kay rep April, invited me to come to a Mary Kay event last night. She lured me in with the promise of new make up. (I am seriously a sucker for free product.) I have been to these kinds of things before. April has been my Mary Kay lady since I "won" a bridal make up consultation with her a few months before I married Daniel. Since then, about twice a year I get an invitation from April to various Mary Kay events. When I first started getting invited, April would always gently ask if I was interested in starting my own MK business and I would turn her down for a variety of reasons. So after awhile, I think she just knew not to ask. I have nothing against Mary Kay. I am always inspired by the energy and the excitement and the hope the MK women have. I appreciate the "Faith first, Family second, Work last" principle and I love that most MK women are not ashamed to declare their faith in their market place. I just don't love makeup as much as they seem to. I would probably only sell MK if I was a single woman with no children but I'm just not willing to give up my Friday and Saturday nights, being away from my family to host MK parties. The money, the cars, the prizes- it's not worth it for me.

So, that being said, I had a bit of a revelation last night. I was sitting in one of the beautiful ballrooms in the Radisson hotel in Covington. The women are all beautiful. Most are dressed impeccably, beautifully made up, all shapes and sizes and colors of women; it really is a room full of beauty. And success!  All of these successful women are parading across the stage, declaring how much money they've made selling MK, how many cars they've earned, how many carots in diamonds they've won, how many trips they've been on (on MK's dime!) and none of it with a spirit of pride or arrogance. These are the facts of their careers. It is inspiring! The room is a mix of a levels too. The guests are the ones who are not 'employed' by MK, they are the consumers of the products (this is me.) Then there are the consultants who are just starting out, then the consultants who have earned their first car, then the directors who have offspring consultants and on and on, up the chain of success. The speakers all made a big deal out of pointing out the guests, mainly because we are their targets.

Like I said earlier, the Mark Kay company makes no secret of the fact that faith in God is a huge part of the company's roots and the main speaker last night, National Sales Director Pam Shaw, freely spoke about the Lord's hand and voice in her life. She credited much of her success to her Christian roots and I felt as though I were listening to someone speaking in church. (There were even a few 'amens' from the peanut gallery.) At the close of her talk she asked the guests to stand (again! This was probably the 4th or 5th time we stood) and said something to the effect of "If you are interested in living the life of your dreams I want you to get up on this stage." Suddenly a flood of women were out of their seats and headed up front,  there were easily 30 women! After the clapping had slowed Pam said "I know there are more of you out there who have regretted not moving..." And sure enough here come a few more women! Then Pam turns to the women on stage, some are wiping away tears of excitement and all are hoping for a changed life, and asks them to mark the date, October 25, 2013, because this will be the day that they changed their futures.

Now pan the camera back to me. I have stayed rooted in my seat. The two girls in front of me and the girl who was sitting next to me are all on stage. I feel as though I have a giant spot light with an arrow pointing down on my head declaring "This one is a guest! And she's not on stage!" I felt guilty and singled out and like I was missing out on something incredible. Why would any sane person turn down the chance to be your own boss! drive a free car! work when you want to! and the myriad of other promises MK offers. The crowd mentality was really strong. In fact, the whole scenario felt like a alter call. Now, I gave my life to the Lord's leading when I was 4 years old (that moment is one of my earliest memories, I remember it very clearly.) So, I never responded to an alter call. I never had to. I have never known the guilt or pressure or urge to walk myself to the front of a church to surrender to God. I surrendered in a rocking chair on my mom's lap, before bedtime on night. So this feeling was new to me. Then I found myself wondering "I've never felt this way before when I have come to these MK things. Maybe God is prompting me to start my own business? But I don't hear Him speaking like He usually does. I haven't experienced that gut reaction disobedience followed by a sense of peace like I normally do when God asks me to do something." So I continued to sit and clap and cheer on those that are now on the road to 6 figure incomes and pretty pink cars and all the other success they'll discover.

Now for the revelation. Humans are driven by the chance to win and win big. We love prizes. We love feeling like we're getting something for nothing. (This is probably why I like clipping coupons and shopping for sales.) We love rewards. I even said it earlier, that I'm a sucker for free product. But we also know "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." How many of have been disappointed or burned by a crummy reward? It didn't take too many trips to the carnival before I realized I was spending too much on the games to win the cheap, dinky prize. 3 times in Matthew 6 Jesus says "And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." This bothers me though because Jesus never mentions what the reward is! What if my heavenly reward is a pile of a dinky carnival prizes? (Figuratively speaking of course, I sure hope dinky carnival prizes aren't allowed in heaven...) Though Jesus is clear about what we are to be doing in secret, he is never clear about what our reward will be. Though He is clear that a life surrendered to His control earns a free trip to heaven and an eternity with Him, He never really mentions if there are other bonuses involved. Eternity in heaven should be reward enough considering I don't deserve ANY of it. Yet still, I am discontent when I read Matthew 6.

(Insert whiny voice here) "What IS my reward Lord? Am I doing just enough here on earth in order to be pleased with my heavenly reward? Can you make me a sticker chart so I can my progress and know how much more I have to do to win and win big? God? Are you even listening? Sticker charts are so helpful Lord..."

Recouping at the Gorge

It's been a week since the M word. We are steadily getting back to normal. Last Sunday was awful. The worst. I would not wish losing a baby on anyone, even a person I thought shouldn't be allowed to procreate, I still would not wish loss of life on them. SO many women in my life have shared their own M stories with me. Seriously, SO. MANY. WOMEN. Too many women have endured this awful, heart rending pain. There is a sense of solidarity with those other mothers who know this pain. Women I would have described as strong, noble, faithful, passionate followers of Christ. Women who proclaim with their lives and their families and their lifestyles and their language and their humility a deep seeded love and trust for the One True God. Women whose lives have been rocked and scarred and yet still they proclaim that God is good; that He is faithful always. No matter how life on earth turns out, He is faithful. Always. He can be nothing BUT faithful. I want to be a woman like these in my life. I want my children to "rise and call my blessed" (Prov. 31:28) because of the example I set. Because of the language I speak. Because I pointed them to God. Because God's faithfulness was always on my lips. I will take what the enemy intended for evil, what the enemy thought would tear me down or break my spirit or forever break my heart and I will say "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praise." Job 1:21

This past weekend was Fall Break at CCU, where I teach. We used the extra time to get away as a family. Daniel loves camping at the Red River Gorge. He says he likes to hear the wind as it rustles through the leaves in the trees and through all of the gorge. I just wanted to get away with my boys and have a change of pace. Our plan was to head down Friday morning, hike, then set up our tent, cook some dinner, and enjoy nature. I don't know if this was a prompting from God or just Daniel being impatient, but he decided to rent a cabin, The Firefly Suite, for Thursday night. So, around 6:30pm, we loaded Isaiah into the Buick and the 3 of us headed to the Gorge. We knew it would be late and very dark when we got to our cabin. The website said the cabin is "off the grid", meaning no electricity and no running water. What it failed to mention is that driving a Buick Century up the gravely, hilly road to the cabin is not a great idea. Particularly if your husband just had eye surgery, meaning he can't see well enough to drive at night, leaving the wife to navigate GIANT Buick on the teeny tiny one lane gravely, hilly road. Add a screaming baby to the mix and you've got our arrival at the Firefly Suite.

Once we actually got into our cabin though, all the stress of our arrival was gone. This cabin. Oh my. So perfect. You can see pictures on the website (the link is above.) Thanks to the cabin being "off the grid", there was no electricity so the area we were in was pitch black, which meant the stars were so bright and clear. And to top it off, there was another cabin not far from ours and some one started to play the fiddle. It was so perfect and peaceful. Exactly what I needed.

So after a night's rest, we were off to hike the Gorge! We started out at Natural Bridge. We hiked up, up, up until we got to the top of the Bridge. We reminisced about the Geology Field Trip. We oohed and aahed over the view and God's incredible creativity. We let Isaiah crawl around in the dirt. Then we hiked down Balancing Rock Trail. Daniel found and carved a walking stick. We joked about how a man who is basically half blind should not be allowed to use a pocket knife and walk at the same time but he did it anyway. We walked down lots and lots of stairs.

Balancing Rock!

Then it was on to Miguel's for lunch! You haven't been to the Red River Gorge if you haven't eaten pizza at Miguel's. We decided that it's not necessarily because Miguel's pizza is all that good but because it's basically the ONLY food you can find in the middle of the Gorge. Isaiah helped us polish off a piece or two. That kid loves pizza.

Ale 8!
(don't worry, it was empty- no pop for this kid!)

At that point our plan was to grab a Backwoods Camping Pass, let Isaiah nap for a bit, hike to a scenic spot on the ridge, and set up camp. Except the Red River Gorge is a state park, and within the Red River Gorge is the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Which meant that the park was closed to camping because of the Government Shutdown.

Which left us with a decision. Option #1 was to ignore the Government Shutdown, pocket the $3 Backwoods Camping Pass, and continue as planned. After all, if the Park Rangers and other employees are all on furlough then there is no accountability. Camp or don't camp, no one is there to know. Option #2 was to obey the rules, bite the bullet and head home early. We kept waffling, we couldn't decide if we wanted to take our chances or have our plans ruined. We decided to hike around a bit more then make a campfire and cook our dinner (mmm... hobo packs!) Eventually we knew that the right choice was to obey the rules. So Daniel at least got to make an awesome fire, I got to practice being a backwoods chef, and Isaiah got to crawl around in the dirt some more and eat pine needles. After dinner we splashed water on our fire, hiked back to the car, and headed home. And as we passed the car of a fellow hiker, who had told us he was planning on spending the night without a pass, we chuckled at the State Trooper vehicle parked next to his.

So despite our somewhat ruined plans, we had a fantastic time. It was so healing for me to get away with my boys and have the space to be together without a to-do list, even if just for 24 hours.

The M word

I would have been 6 weeks pregnant tomorrow. Daniel & I had just found out and we were keeping quiet just in case anything went wrong. We didn't want to have to tell the world, to share the pain of losing a baby.

Yet here I am blogging about having lost our baby. Though I'm not actually blogging about having lost our baby, I'm actually blogging to publicly declare that our God is always always good. And so very faithful. Our God is personal and wants intimacy with us, wants to speak to us, wants to comfort us.While Daniel & I would so appreciate your words of encouragement and sympathy over our loss, I'd rather you walk away feeling encouraged that Jesus is so deeply in love with you and so bound to you that He aches right alongside you, as a husband or a best friend or a parent might. Whoever you turn to for comfort, Jesus is a million times better at comforting than that person might be.

Last night Jesus comforted me through a dream.

Before I tell you the dream, let me give some back story. Sunday morning I woke up with a little spotting but I spotted when I was pregnant with Isaiah so I wasn't that worried. Throughout the day though it got more and more heavy and by Sunday afternoon I found some more convincing evidence and was pretty certain the baby was gone. I went downstairs to tell Daniel (who is still recovering from a painful LASIK/PRK eye surgery. Daniel was lying on our couch with all the lights off and a pillow over his face, because he is so sensitive to light. This has not been a great weekend for the Reads.) I told him I was pretty sure I had lost the baby. He held me and I cried. He may have cried too but his eyes have been watering so much from the surgery, there's no telling. Then I got up and went about the rest of the day. I put Isaiah to bed, gave Daniel his eye drops, and then I called my parents to fill them in. There were lots more tears and my mom encouraged me to grieve the loss of this life, no matter how new it was. So I grieved some more and more tears fell. Exhausted, Daniel & I crawled up to bed.

About 4am this morning, Daniel woke up needing more pain medicine. I put his drops in and then fell back to sleep. It was then that Jesus chose to comfort me through a dream. Let me say, as a disclaimer, I am not usually a spiritual dreamer. God does not typically give me dreams that make sense, or give me dreams that have any spiritual ramifications.

In my dream I was at my parent's house (Apparently Daniel, Isaiah, & I were living in my old bedroom.) I was in my childhood bathroom and I had just miscarried but the baby came out looking like a jello mold of a tiny baby, all wobbly and see through, though I could see his bone structure through the jello-like substance. The baby was about as long as my forearm. I laid the baby on the bathroom counter and I called Daniel in so we could say goodbye. I left the bathroom to go get Isaiah and when I came back in the jello baby had transformed into a real baby. He was blinking and breathing though he was very very small. We picked him up and carried him into our room. I tried to nurse him and he drank a little. We kept saying over and over how we needed to soak up as much time as possible because we knew he wouldn't last long. We found this little blue sweater and put it on him. He kept growing too. He began to look more and more like his brother. He had the same white-blond hair as Isaiah. We called our families and they all came over to meet our little guy. Then here is where God stepped in. I asked Daniel if he wanted to name our son. Daniel said yes, he wanted to name him Reuben. My first reaction was to disagree. I wanted to say no, that people would nickname him "rube" (a slang word that means "hick") but I felt like I was just supposed to submit and keep my mouth closed. From there the dream gets hazy and the rest is inconsequential.

I woke up feeling at peace. Content knowing that there will be more babies and that this little life is with Jesus, enjoying his heavenly reward. He'll never have to go through this yucky world, he got promoted straight to Jesus' arms.

So, just by dreaming of our little son as alive and well, even if alive just long enough to love on him and hold him was such a comfort. But this morning I was still left with the name Reuben hanging on my mind. I looked it up. Initially the name Reuben (the oldest of the 12 tribes of Israel) is not that impressive. According to chabad.org, "The name is made up of two halves: "re'u" means "look" or "see" and "ben" means "son" So Reuben literally means "look, a son." But... another description from the same website says that Reuben can also refer to "a highly tuned level of Godly awareness that is so real it is as if the person actually perceives God with his own eyes. No amount of argument will convince a person that he did not see something when he did. The name Reuben expresses certainty and immediacy in our awareness of God."

WHOA.

There is no arguing with the peace and closeness I feel toward God right now. Whether He really did speak through that dream, whether that baby was a boy or not, I feel at peace and that alone is a God thing. I am very aware of God and His presence today. I am comforted and at peace. I don't understand why we weren't allowed to meet this little baby face to face or why we are now going through the experience of miscarriage. However, I do understand that my life is small in eternal significance and God has not chosen to give me eyes that understand as He understands (for that I am thankful.)

Today I am living out 1 Corinthians 13: 12, 13-

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

.

Helpful anticipators

I have always appreciated people who are "anticipators." People who see a need and respond to it before being asked. People who foresee trouble/problems/situations and do what they can to prevent or solve such issues. Helpful anticipators. My mom is a helpful anticipator. She will send a box of diapers just as the last diaper is about to be used. My mother-in-love Ellen is a helpful anticipator. She will invite us over for dinner exactly when I have run out grocery money and only had mac n cheese to make for dinner. Daniel is a helpful anticipator. He keeps the oil changed in my car so that it runs as smoothly as possible, and hopefully sparing me from any car trouble.
God, in His infiniteness, is the ultimate helpful anticipator. The examples listed above are really examples of God providing. I think He just loves when we are open to being used by Him. I think God loves it when we allow Him to work through us and uses us people to provide for each other. When we know Him and are listening to Him and we're being obedient. I think obedience might be God's favorite love language.

Sadly I, in my worldly short-sightedness, am the ultimate forgetter. WHY DO I ALWAYS FORGET THAT GOD WILL PROVIDE?! Why is that I can remember a hundred different romantic things that Daniel has done for me but I can't remember the billion amazing ways God has provided for us?  And when God does do something incredibly helpful, something extraordinary, why do I act so surprised?

Yesterday I was going through Isaiah's winter clothes to see what he will need. We have generously been given enough hand-me-downs to clothe a small village of baby boys but I'm also missing a few, pretty significant pieces in Isaiah's warm clothes wardrobe (ie. a winter coat in his current size!) Just as I was fretting over how we were going to pay for some of this stuff, I got a text from my mom saying she had just "picked up a few things for Isaiah" and could she drop them off later today? And then I get a FB message from a friend at church saying she's got 3 bags of clothes for Isaiah.

WHY. DO. I. DOUBT?!? Seriously, why? And even as I type this, even as I ask myself these questions, I know I will struggle with this my whole life. I feel like I will still be surprised the next time God provides in an extraordinary way.

And yet, maybe that's actually ok. I'd MUCH rather fall on my face in gratitude in front of the One True King every single time He provides for my family than get too cynical or jaded or spoiled to act like God providing 3 bags of clothes is no big deal. I'd much rather be surprised when God lavishes on me than expect it and get angry when He doesn't lavish the way I think I ought to be lavished on. Or worse, to think He owes me. (Ooh, God please don't ever let me fall into the trap of believing that you owe me ANYTHING!)

But more than being on the receiving end of these blessings, I also LOVE being on the giving end. I love when God calls me (and my family) to give, whether out of our abundance or out of lean times, I always walk away feeling closer to God, so in tune with His voice and His will. I hope that Isaiah will be so saturated with knowing God as his provider that he will never struggle with doubting God's provision. That he will never even think to worry about stuff because he will automatically look to God for peace. Maybe I will learn from my son's example :)

Having more babies...

Please note right off the bat that this blog post is NOT, I repeat NOT a pregnancy announcement. I am not, to my knowledge currently with child. I am however becoming more and more OK with getting pregnant again. Up until, oh... yesterday I would have told you that I am just not yet ready to add another baby to our mix. Isaiah is still my baby! I am guessing this is normal but I'm having a difficult time seeing my baby as a toddler, and with good reason. He's still nursing 3-4 times a day and he's not walking yet. He's still a baby to me! Maybe I'll always see him as my baby. Time will tell I suppose.

So up until yesterday, every time I thought about going through pregnancy again I felt uneasy. I remembered the heart burn and the difficulty sleeping, the feeling awkward in my own skin. And I had an easy pregnancy with Isaiah! It all started with a negative pregnancy test a few days ago. I had been having terrible heart burn (which I've only ever had when pregnant) so I thought maybe I was in the family way. But when the test came up negative I felt a tiny twinge of sadness, which took me by surprise! I have been vehemently telling Daniel that I'm just not ready for #2 yet.

Then I saw a newborn baby on Sunday and I got that inkling.

And I was at Once Upon a Child today looking for a winter coat for Isaiah and I saw all the newborn clothes and I got the urge.

So... maybe there will be another Read baby in 2014. Thankfully I'm not the one who decides when a life is created so I just get to enjoy the ride ;)

String Cheese Koozie

Do you know what a koozie is? It goes by a variety of spellings. Coozy. Koozie. Coosie. Coldy-Holdy. (I think that one is my favorite.) A koozie is the foam thing you slip around you can of Coca-Cola so you can comfortably hold your ice cold drink AND keep it cold.

Well. I have just recently been given something like that but for... STRING CHEESE. Oooh yes. I have a string cheese koozie. I SUPPOSE if you wanted to be picky, you could argue that it's actually more of a cooler than a koozie but koozie is more fun to say.

Here's the story. Since I get to stay home part time with Isaiah, I like to look for other ways to bring in money for my family. I participate in diaper panels and surveys and the like. I also subscribe to a variety of websites where you have to answers a bunch of questions and surveys and over time you build up enough credit and they start to send you goodies like coupons and free samples and... cheese koozies!! This particular "cheese accessory" came from Influenster and Sargento cheese (proudly displayed on the top of the koozie, of course.)

Now, you may be asking yourself if a cheese koozy is really worth getting all excited about. And the answer would be no. I laughed out loud when I pulled the cheese koozie out of the box and it took me a minute to realize what the thing actually was. But underneath the koozie was a coupon for a free package of Sargento cheese. NOW we're getting somewhere! Free cheese is even better than cheese you have to pay for. BOOM BABY!