Luca Turned 2!!
I can’t believe my littlest guy is already two! Bright blue eyes and a smile as shining as the sun. He truly is light. For his birthday he had a “We love you TWO the moon and back” theme. We had ordered him a special cake from the bakery with stars and the moon but when we went to pick it up they had no record of it. So the cake was a bust. I ran around everywhere trying to find a cake… he wanted blue. Blue was hard to find so we ended up getting a big blue-ish cupcake. He was happy and that’s all that really mattered. He loved playing with the balloons and retreating to his spaceship. At one point he had snuck in an entire tub of moon cheese and when I peeked in I saw a giant cheesy grin full of pride and not an ounce of guilt. He was thrilled at his cleverness. The entire day was such an adventure. Can he get any sweeter?
It’s beginning to look a lot like…
Christmas?
Wow… yeah Christmas is right around the corner. How has another year already gone by? December is here and it feels like last December was just yesterday. We have been busy the last month or so. We’ve had so many visitors and life has been pretty non-stop. We took the kids to the Portland Japanese Garden for a field trip. They enjoyed being outside and seeing all of the fall colors. School this year has been a lot of fun. They all seem to be enjoying themselves.
November was pretty eventful. My mother flew into town on the 17th and J’s parents drove in later that day. My dad’s birthday party was on the 19th. We left the kids at home and drove out to attend. I don’t even know the last time all of my siblings have been in one place all at once (My little brother Michael was the only one who wasn’t there). Thanksgiving rolled around and we hosted. It’s was pretty much an open invitation and we had a nice crowd. Afterwards we went over to Aunt Minnie’s and visited for a little while.
We also visited the Mike Bennet Museum and coffee house and went to Snow Day downtown and got the kids a few ornaments. We took Grams to the Tillamook creamery, visited Multnomah Falls, chopped down our Christmas Tree and saw the tree lighting downtown. It’s been very busy! I don’t think things are going to slow down anytime soon.
And now December is here…
The kids wrote their Christmas lists. Arabella’s listed asked for a Jeep and Scooter for her OG Doll and a bunch of different books that she wants. Elijah asked for a Minis Mosasaurus Mayhem Playset, Jurrasic park jeep and anything TopGun. Luca is still into sloths and basketball so he’s going to be easy to please.
Birthday Lists…
Every year since I was in high school I’ve been adding to this long list of to do’s and it’s gotten pretty long. I’m going to keep working on that list… a lot has been checked off and more will eventually be added. But this year I wanted to take a little break from updating and adding to that list. Instead this year I wanted to do something a little differently. This year I’m making a list of books I’d like to read or purchase for my own personal library. Some are just beautiful books that make my eyes jump for joy when I see the covers and others are ones that help challenge the way I think or give me a break from thinking too hard on those anxiety ridden pancake days. So here’s the start of that list ❤️📚📕📗📘📙📖
- The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Interpreting the Old Testament’s Violent Portraits of God in Light of the Cross, Volume 1 & 2
- Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence
- Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
- God Without Violence, Second Edition: A Theology of the God Revealed in Jesus
- Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy Week
- Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb
- Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization
- How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice
- If God is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk
- The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church
- A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace
- The Cross and the Lynching Tree
- Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women
- Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem
- Letters and Papers from Prison
- The Rhetoric of Certitude: C.S. Lewis’s Nonfiction Prose
- Death by Comb
- Jubilant