Hear the latest antics of Ophelia, Lavinia, or Helena and enjoy a good laugh as we enjoy life together. Find out who's doing what and how things are going. More than weather and classifieds, but lots of news... our news.
Refuse to accept the status quo. I challenge everything. It is important to me that I understand why I do what I do and I'll challenge everyone else too because that is how I learn. Christ-follower, student, teacher, artist, musician, mother, wife, daughter, friend, home-schooler, doula, home-birther, knitter, abuse survivor, advocate of women, children, families and peace, I value relationships more than anything in this life. There is room for my life for my passions for birth, music, lit., nature, art, dance, knitting, cooking, Scripture, film, theology, philosophy, writing, and loving my family. I know I don't have all the answers and I'm willing to listen, I don't argue for the sake of arguing or to win but I am passionate and opinionated while being open to change. Wrap all that up and then some and serve it with a cup of coffee, a glass of wine and some chocolate and that's a little bit of who I am. Just an ordinary woman in my every day rebellious ways.
Helena walked into the kitchen this morning while I was getting some milk for her saying loudly "COFFEE, COFFEE, COFFEE!" Should I be disturbed that this ranks up there as one of her first words? It comes out more clearly than "milk." I promise though (for the grandmas reading this) we don't actually give the girls coffee to drink. I promise. But our two year old says "COFFEE, COFFEE, COFFEE!"
posted by Jessica @ 8:34 AM
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My love is mine, and I am his. "This ring is meant to be a reminder of my unending love for you." -Jessica and Jeremy to one another on December 28, 1998 when we exchanged rings 4 months after we eloped in Chicago.
My dear lover glows with health- red-blooded, radiant!
He's one in a million.
There's no one quite like him!
His words are kisses, his kisses are words.
Everything about him delights me,
thrills me through and through!
That's my lover, that's my man.
Song of Songs 2:16a, 5:10 & 16-17
Tomorrow, Saturday, August 27th, 2005 is 9 years. His gift to me? Replacing the lost diamond from my wedding ring (no engagement ring) and having all of the gold prongs replaced on all three settings so I don't loose another diamond again. I love my ring. I've been without it for nearly 5 years because of loosing the diamonds. It has a story and we only know 9 years of it's story. Unique and unlike any other we've seen, we bought it in a pawn shop on Chicago Avenue and it's most likely a man's ring from around 1910- the gold is very soft (18K- thus loosing the diamonds, the prongs are now 14K) but very thick with intricate detailing. The Beautiful Ring. Jeremy's ring is also an unusual antique and our rings suit us well.
I love you Jeremy. I am the best version of myself when I am with you. You've given me strength, hope and courage beyond my wildest dreams. Thank you for being a Godly man. I've loved worshiping the One True Lord with you for the past 9 years. Even though I know I could live without you and that God's strength is exactly what I need, I would never choose to be without you. Though we were very young when we got married, I don't regret it for a moment and I'd do it all over again. Thank you for your love, I look forward to many more years to come. Happy Anniversary.
Everyone else- sorry. Please excuse me while I celebrate my husband and our marriage. I won't be so mushy next time. But gosh, I do love him.
posted by Jessica @ 2:41 PM
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I sprained my ankle dancing with the girls today. I was dancing with Helena and making her laugh (a big deal since she's been so sick) and when I did a little jump, I came down on a baby doll bottle. Laugh with me please just don't make me move my left foot.
posted by Jessica @ 10:14 AM
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"Hip-Hop is the BEST!" Lavinia announced last night during "So You Think You Can Dance." Our girls love to dance, love it. They dance all the time and would dance more if we didn't require them to sit at the table to eat or try some other activities. Back in college I did a research paper on music therapy and learned a lot about how movement is an important way for children to learn as well as utilizing as many of the other senses as possible. I've seen this in my own childhood (my mother understood this principle) and much of the Scripture we learned growing up we learned with Sign Language or ASL (a practice we now use with our girls) and/or set to music. We don't watch much TV or movies (usually Ophelia gets, at most, 15 min. a day except on certain days for special reasons) these days but dancing, that's a whole other story. We do dance and often. I don't know if I could say that Hip-hop is the best (it's stinkin' HARD! I've taken two classes of it and... Wow... What a work out! Makes for some great abs, let me tell you), Ophelia would say that Ballet is and Helena is into modern-interpretive-lyrical-Helena dance right now. I would have to say that dancing with the girls is the BEST!
Helena and Lavinia are sick. Helena had a fever of 102.4 with no other symptoms and Lavinia has a terrible cough. Ophelia, the only one that goes to school, is fine. Go figure. It's been very sad though, Helena just lays around and wants to be held often. Poor thing. No dancing for her right now. Maybe soon.
posted by Jessica @ 7:19 AM
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How cool is this: Jeremy and I were out of town this past weekend and the girls stayed with some friends (shout out to the Glaser family- Daniel, Kendra, Ryan, and Adam; and Mark and Rhonda Vargas- thanks guys!) When we got to the Glaser's to pick up the girls one of the first things we heard from our three beauties was "where's our new Bible verse? We're supposed to have a new Bible verse today, where is it?!" Thinking I could kind of trip them up (and defend why we didn't have a new verse) I asked them what their verse was from last week and they said Genesis 1:1 perfectly in unison full of gusto. Needless to say I printed off a new verse for them this morning and they've already started learning it. Our kids can't wait to learn Bible verses, is that cool or what?! A new expression I learned this weekend may just apply here- it rocks my socks off!
Bill and Shannon Streger picked us up from the airport (thanks guys!) The ride home consisted of filling them in on our weekend and groaning about the cover of the Texas Monthly I saw in the airport- Joel Osteen holding a Bible and smiling that smile of his with a cover title of: "And on the eighth day God created Joel Osteen." I don't typically like to speak too critically of other ministries even if I really don't agree with them (or even when they spend 95 million dollars on a BUILDING!) because who am I to say God isn't using them? My normal approach is simply to try and challenge all of us without pointing fingers. But I must admit to not being a huge Lakewood fan or at least not a Joel Osteen fan and with that magazine cover... I think I'm going to be sick...
Anyway... our girls want to learn the Bible and that ROCKS MY SOCKS OFF!
posted by Jessica @ 6:57 AM
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We LOVE the Dr. Suess books, even the ones written by others. The girls eat them up and by now I have them memorized (mom and dad, I'm sooo sorry if I made you read the same books over and over again... I now know your pain). I let Ophelia pick and easy book today so she just finished reading "Put me in the Zoo" and then she and I took turns reading "Junie B., First Grader" and later this evening we'll read "The Little Princess" together with Lavinia and Helena. Ophelia is reading- a lot. She must have two hundred vocabulary words for the first 9 weeks and some of them seem really hard. Words like: attribute, characteristic, communicating, congruent, consequence, contribution, geologist, government, hypothesis, inferring, inventiveness, location, manipulatives, mutual respect, particle, participate, predicting, representation, rhombus, scientific process, solution, tradition, venn diagram and a host of others. Maybe she does actually know what her air quotes mean... Hey, anyone know why she has "individualism" as a vocab word in Social Studies in first grade? I've decided that first grade is hard and I'm glad I don't have to do it over again but having a child in first grade makes me feel rather... lacking. I'm afraid that by the time she's in 5th grade I'm going to have no idea what she's talking about. I actually had to check a few deffinitions from her vocab. list to be sure I didn't tell her the wrong thing. It's just crazy. She's doing great though and loving it. Today she was on "superstar" level- the highest behavior rateing in a school day. She's flying through her piano book too and is very dilligent in practicing both piano and tae kwon do. Our house can feel like a zoo sometimes.
Helena and Lavinia are doing school at home with Jeremy and I around my work schedule. Lavinia is learning her letters and their sounds, patterns and shapes and how to write her name. We're talking about families and working together and basic money concepts (you can't get something at the store without money- that would be stealing.) Helena is busy exploring the world around her and "reads" often. She has adopted yet another baby that requires her constant attention and she is a loving mother indeed. Life is very busy there are times when I really do think our house just may be a zoo!
Visit our other website for a discussion about the role/place of children and parents within the church http://www.onourfaceworship.blogspot.com/.
posted by Jessica @ 1:36 PM
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Ophelia uses air quotes. "Seriously." "I'm not kidding." And she has NO idea what she's doing. But it is really funny.
posted by Jessica @ 8:35 AM
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Mommy, Ophelia (and Mr. Nate in the background from Tae Kwon Do) just outside of school on 08.11.05
posted by Jessica @ 6:52 PM
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Today Ophelia started first grade!!! She said she had a great day and is looking forward to going back tomorrow. I'm still in shock, it just doesn't seem possible that we're already into first grade but there's no doubt in Ophelia being a very grown up little girl! The pictures above are from today and include a picture of her with new teacher, Mrs. Yarbrough who we like immensely. Hope all of you have a great start to your school year too!
posted by Jessica @ 6:31 PM
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Ophelia took and passed her first belt test on Thursday, August 4, 2005 (also happened to be Jeremy's 29th birthday!) and became a yellow belt. She is already a very busy little girl involved in Tae Kwon Do, piano lessons, ballet (from which we're taking a break from due to finances but it's her dream to be a ballet teacher when she grows up so we keep practicing), and art not to mention household chores (when she sweeps a floor it's just AMAZING!), school and the very busy busyness of being a big sister. She's reading very well and doing great in her addition and subtraction tables, has a thorough mastering of the first grade list of sight words, and very excited about learning French by increasing the amount we speak at home. Yesterday Ophelia and I went shopping (did you know that six year olds can already argue about what they can wear!?! I thought that wouldn't happen until she was MUCH older!) and she talked about the things she'd like to be involved in someday and they included playing the harp (I have no idea where she got that), more dance, and becoming a black belt. I have no doubt that she will do very well at all of these with her strengths continuing to emerge over time. She's thrilled to be starting school this Thursday and is looking forward to the challenges facing her in this next year.
Lavinia is a little disappointed to not be returning to St. Mark this fall and is hoping to be going to school at Valley Oaks along with her big sister. We've applied for a scholarship in the pre-k program for Lavinia as one of her greatest strengths is her social skills and she looks forward to the time she gets to spend learning with friends. She is also hoping to begin Tae Kwon Do soon but we only have a scholarship for Ophelia so it may be a while. Her interests continue in dance and music and right now we just enjoy the natural musical ability she has and look forward to seeing that develop in the years to come. We hope to see her in dance very soon as well as God provides.
Helena's doing great with the potty and we've even tried a few naps without diapers! She doesn't seem to miss school at all but enjoys the time home with mommy and daddy. As a result, I'm learning how to get by with less sleep in order to get everything done in a day. She's talking up a storm with new words coming out every day. Her coordination is very advanced for her age and she enjoys learning dance and Tae Kwon Do moves from her big sisters- to a lot of giggles from all of us. Helena is a fantastic helper around the house always willing to lend a hand and to simply take off with an "I DO IT!"
Jeremy turned 29 (for the first time ;-)) last Thursday and we celebrated with a party on Friday evening. He received some fantastic bottles of wine as gifts not to mention some very generous gift cards and a few very thoughtful gifts. Thank you to everyone that thought of him and/or came on Friday. Tonight he and I defrosted some steaks we'd been saving in the freezer and had a lovely meal of grilled steaks, asparagus, and baked potatoes along with a to-die-for Bordeaux that Kathy Ridley gave him for his birthday. It was SUPERB! We're looking forward to trying out the other bottles he was given!
I'm neck deep in consulting and having a wonderful time. Turns out that I love it and I can't wait for our next meeting. I'm surprised to learn that math makes sense to me in two settings: music and statistics. Whish I'd known that in college. But I'm having a wonderful time beyond the stats and math, it's simply wonderful to have the opportunity to work with others in building the Kingdom of God. Even though I know I won't be there very long, it's great to have these relationships and to explore the passions, gifts, and burdens God has set before others. Frustrated though we may be at times with the local church, we have no doubt that God has called the church to serve Him and build His kingdom. We are honored to be a part of that calling as all who call Jesus Christ Lord should be. We have the opportunity to lead worship with St. Timothy again on August 31st and we're really looking forward to it. A time of training and a time of celebration as we explore together what God has for this ministry we are in a time of quiet meditation before Him. If you can make it on the 31st we'd love to see you there. For everyone else, PEACE!
In Christ,
Jessica
posted by Jessica @ 9:00 PM
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Why do children insist on growing up so fast? And why isn't it on our time-line? Today I went to Ophelia's school to pick up her supply list and I seemed convinced that she was starting kindgergarten but no, I have a first grader! I just don't get it, it seems like just the other day I was thinking she wouldn't grow out of diapers fast enough and I was praying for the day she would be potty trained and here we are now, in first grade. This afternoon she came sauntering out in a rather grown up looking little girl's skirt and a pair of dress-up high heeled little girl shoes and asked me if she looked like an adult. Ophelia did look rather grown up- yikes! Not only is she now in first grade starting August 11th but at the end of this week she's testing for her yellow belt in Ta'e Kwon Do. She is just all grown up!
By the way, Helena's potty trained! We're done with diapers (except at night) for the first time in six years! No more babies, just little girls growing up very fast.
posted by Jessica @ 4:27 PM
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