Santa Came Early

Well tonight at the Gilbert household we had an extra early Christmas celebration. The Gilberts will be going out to Tejas on Thurs and so they decided to celebrate with people here tonight...Ginger decided it'd be easier to have the kids open all their presents here cuz it's easier than taking all of them on the trip...I'm so glad! It was one of the most enjoyable times of my life, watching the little babies open their presents. At first they didn't really get it, but they caught on reeeeeeeal quick. The first big box sat in front of them for the two of them to devour...Aspen didn't even look at it, Annalise started whacking it like it was a drum...It was a great gift...Oh, but then someone pulled the paper back and the girls caught a glimpse of what was inside! It was a box full of Disney Princess shoes! Aspen got so excited, she was waving her arms and responding like those people you see on Extreme Home Makeover when they finally get to see the finished product...It was wonderful! Later on they got a box of Princess/ballet clothes and they were so excited to start putting them on! Chubby little Aspen in a metallic magenta leotard and tutu while wearing red Jasmine high heels...priceless...I gave all three girls each a box of crayons and coloring book...Annalise spent the rest of the night opening and closing her box, pulling the crayons out and putting them back in....especially after the bottom of the box got opened and all the crayons would just slide right through. She also spent a short time coloring a page of her new Strawberry Shortcake coloring book all black...Strawberry has never looked lovelier! Watching the little girls enjoy those gifts was so much fun, my heart almost hurt taking in the cuteness! I am falling more and more in love with those babies every day, tonight was magical. This was another time that I saw it is truly better to give than to receive!

Creepy Roads, Great Thoughts

Well first off, let me just apologize to my audience, my following, my groupies who read my blog. Yes, Amanda and Megan, I'm sorry that I have not been a faithful blogger. Well I guess "faithful" is all relative. Where do you draw the line between faithful and unfaithful? Are we creating a blogging law in our hearts? Anyway....so I thought I'd get on real quick and partially redeem myself, though I don't know if what I'm about to type will really redeem anything but anyway (Megan, are you "dinging" me already in this long intro?)...
So I was driving home tonight from my sister's house and it was really dark due to the lack of street lights in that long stretch of road, and so I'll be honest, from the time I got to my car I was a little creeped out and my vivid imagination started going through all the ways I could possibly end up being captured or tortured or captured and tortured by all the unseen freaky people in the darkness...(because everyone knows that creepy freaky people love to hang out on the side of dark empty roads...it's like how nerdy people love to play computer games)...So I decided it'd be a pretty good time to turn up the music in the car and start thinking about something else. Right away the songs that came on were speaking to the conversation that Megan and I had JUST had. We talked about how we just can question our beliefs, or feel that God is not so personal as He really is, or seehow we're just so stinking dependent on Him but we're in denial about it and yet also partially upset about it...So anyway, in response to all this, the lyrics to the song starts off, "Our God is the God of gods, Our Lord is the Lord of Kings" and goes on to say, "His sovereign rule will last forever
His kingdom won't decline or fall
He does as He pleases both in Heaven and Earth
Who am I that I should question Him at all?
He lifts up kings and brings them low again
He shows us what is right from wrong
God of all time we give You thanks and praise
For You have made us wise and You have made us strong
Everything He does is right and all His ways are just..."
Holy cow did I need to hear that right then. It was like Aaron Shust had climbed into my head and listened to my thoughts and then written the exact words I needed to be reminded of. Maybe he did...he's kinda a small guy...creepy...I wonder if he was on the side of the road..(okay, sorry Aaron that I would accuse you of being a side of the road guy). Anyway, the point was that then the next song was talking about how we just need God to hold onto us and how we want to hear His voice, again what I was just saying to Meg....I had this realization how Aaron Shust was such a blessing to me right then. I was thinking about how perhaps God had purposed for me to put that particular cd in at that particular time and had that particular song come on at just the right moment...The songs I was listening to are the songs on the cd I usually skip over...sorry Aaron, it's just that I was so enamored with these two other songs that I kept wanting to just listen to them! But this time I didn't skip and God really blessed me, which only fed my faith...
So again, I was thinking how God had used those songs, and had used Aaron Shust's talent to glorify Himself because that talent led me to think more highly of God. I realized that many times I've wondered about how people decide to stay here in the states and travel around and put on shows and sell cds and how "spiritual" that is when people are dying for lack of food physically and dying spiritually for lack of hearing and believing...but this just kicked my dumb, unbiblical thoughts (f0r are we not a body with different gifts and services?) in the gut and shoved my face into reality that God uses people in so many different ways to bring about His honor...So anyway. I saw that the Christian music industry really can be a huge ministry (I know I know, so stupid that sometimes I start questioning that. I am sorry I'm retarded!) and I saw that God really is sovereign over the details of life, and who knows, perhaps He let me get all creeped out in the dark just so that I would turn up the volume...Care to comment? (Amanda, that was for you)...

Little Gifts

Well here it is now, weeks since my last post. I had planned to blog this deep essay on the details of my birthday celebration, and then another on my thoughts on something profound I learned in a Bible study, of course I can't now even remember what it was on, and then I started actually writing this whole other blog on some of the lessons I'm learning from the kids, which I think maybe I will someday actually re-write, but who knows, a lot of goals are set and never reached by me in terms of blogging...Anyway, so today I'm just thankful for little gifts. Today was kinda a hard day in some aspects. I was trying to make a big decision and just feeling overwhelmed by it, and afraid of failing of course. This, as usual, led me to despair at my lack of faith in the Lord and in His control over my mistakes and decisions...I got in the shower this afternoon, after returning from the gym and honestly thought to myself, "oh good, I can get in the shower and just cry and no one will hear me and it will feel so good." Well when I got out of the shower I honestly thought, "oh shoot! I forgot to cry!" So apparently my mind wandered onto some other topic that was less upsetting while I was showering! So that was one little gift I think. Then I came over to the computer )after I was all dried and changed of course) and a few minutes later I hear little footsteps and I look over and little Aspen toddled up, with neon pink swimming goggles on...then she went and pulled up a little chair next to me and stood on it so she'd be tall enough to comb my hair...I just thought, "thanks God for these little moments!"
Of course, just now she was trying to hide from me while holding a bottle of children's tylenol and then threw a fit when I took it away and then her sister started throwing a fit because she wanted me to hold her at exactly that moment and I wouldn't...but again, I just have to trust...I opened my email just a few minutes ago and this verse was in an email from my mom:
Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD and whose trust is the LORD,
for he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends it roots by the stream,
and will not fear when the heat comes, but its leaves will be green,
and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield its fruit.
Jeremiah 17:7-8
Amen to that! I pray that He would help me to be such a (wo)man!

My Birthday

Well here it is, September 27th, 2007. I am now 24 years old. It's so weird how time can crawl by or fly by even though the clock is always ticking at the same rate...or at least we think it is. Dun dun duuuuuuh....(that was my climactic theme music, I hope my try at phonetic spelling made that clear...) ...Anyway, it seems like not too long ago when my birthday was the epitome of fun and glory and I couldn't wait for the party my mom would throw me where there'd be some theme running through the decor, the games, and the cake. Usually there'd be some mass gathering of small girls, which of course always makes for a good time, and most importanly, a wide variety of presents...I used to count down the days till my birthday, eagerly ancticipating the moment I'd wake up to that wondrous day much like the feeling of Christmas morning...Yet it's been years since I've had such anticipation mounting or a countdown or a party...Something happens as you grow older...Well for some of us anyway. Some people simply start to dislike the process of aging, wanting to stay eternally 17 for some reason...Others simply stop celebrating themselves...As I turn another year older I find that birthdays, like New Year's, are a good time to reflect and stop and ask yourself what you're doing with the time you have. I guess this is where I tend to get a little discouraged on my birthdays. I am like, What am I doing? There is still this prideful part of me that feels like I should be accomplishing some great thing that will give my life more substance. I realized this last night as, yet again, I couldn't fall asleep. I realized how sad that as a Christian I still measure my life in this way. I want to be faithful to the Lord and I want to serve Him in any way He asks me- which can be small or big to human eyes, but I'm pretty sure are all the same to Him. In this job I've started to understand the restlessness that some stay at home moms feel. You spend most of your time in the house speaking to small children and part of you feels like you should be out participating in the world...Yet I know God has put me in this place and I know that He is teaching me a lot about Him and about myself. So really, there is nothing better to accomplish than exactly what's being accomplished right now- and not by me, but by my God....I know that I will never find fulfillment in anything but being His child and my disatisfaction only comes from immaturity spiritually...
So anyway, my birthday now brings about a lot more reflection than it does giddyness, or however that should be spelled, (I'm pretty sure Paul will help me out with that) but I am thankful to the Lord for another year on this earth that I grew in knowing Him and I pray that if I am to live to another birthday that I will only see more growth in faith, more humility, and a continual pursuit of Him.

"Racquet Ball"

okay, so my sister and i have recently taken up racquet ball...we're such amateurs that, I'll admit, just now when typing the name of it, I was unsure if I was spelling it correctly and had to google it...shameful...
I put the title with the quotations like that because we use the term "racquet ball" very very loosely...We actually spend very little time "racquetting" the ball, so to speak. There are a few minor inhibitors to that happening more frequently:

• Our ridiculous fear of the ball hitting us instead of us hitting the ball(she did in fact get hit by the ball today and it was quite humorous and also, unfortunately, quite painful. Needless to say this did little to deter further fear of the ball).
• Our inability to master hand-eye coordination (it's like suddenly I'm the most unathletic person who ever existed...no one watching would ever think I'd competed at anything in the collegiate level).
• Our recurring habit of stopping mid-game to have deep philosophical and theological conversations that drive us to question the purpose of our lives and asking ourselves whether we are fulfilling that purpose and analyzing our sin and failures...of course this somehow often begins while one of us is mid-hit and thus we lose any ability to hear the other person- have you ever tried to talk in a racquetball court? Nearly impossible! And to make it much worse, imagine yourself lunging for the ball while asking, what do you think are the deep hidden intentions of my heart when I'm sitting on the couch with a gallon of Ben & Jerry's and I'm crying because my child was mean to me? Now imagine trying to return a hit while also trying to answer that question!

Anyway, despite these factors, there has been some improvement! Tonight we were able to remove our "two bounces allowed" rule and also agree to remove the rule that the same person can hit the ball as many times in a row as they want to...

More importantly than this, we were able to really think about where we're at in life right now. I think each year we get surprised that another year has passed...that we're that much further out of our high school and college days- that much further from our childhood days and deeper into our "grown up" days...it's a strange transition. For me it's a whole lot weirder than the transfer into the teenage years. Those weren't so tumultuous for me as novelists and sitcom writers would have you believe they are for everyone conscious from age 12-18....I didn't question myself in life, what am I doing? where am I going? During those times it was obvious...But Megs and I were able to realize that we both want to take ownership of our lives- to lay hold of the time God gives us and the abilities He's given us and to use them vigorously, passionately, and unashamedly for Him. We don't want to hold back under the guise of "practicality" or get caught up in the social 'norm.' We don't want the goal of our lives to be paying the bills till we retire, or even to just enjoy the time we have. We want to use this time to discover and practice the meaning of loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and we want to draw others into this great discovery as well...We started thinking more concretely about what our gifts are and how we can really use them in new ways to fulfill the aforementioned purpose...

One other great idea we had came from a somewhat humorous yet painful thought...We somehow started talking about how many people in our world are overweight, yet at the same time there is an alarming number of people who are starving to death...While I'm overeating, someone else is undereating...I jokingly said that next time I walk into the pantry and pull something out that I am not hungry for, instead of eating it I wish I could wrap it up and mail it to some hungry person across the ocean...Well this in reality may not happen, but in essence we could try to make this happen...The idea is that we will look at the budget we have for groceries for a month, take one-fourth of that and set it aside, and then force ourselves to ration our food to last longer than it does, giving that one-fourth towards feeding hungry people...This may sound ridiculous or it may sound sacrificial, I'm not sure yet...I just hope that in the end, it's not something that just sounds one way or another, I hope it's a reality that really is one way or another...

Anyway...yes, all of these thoughts came from our new beloved hobby, "Racquet ball"...I'm still trying to think of something else to call it...right now "racquet ball" is code for standing in a plexi-glass room and talking while wearing ridiculous goggles and holding racquets...I think it'd be so great to have some fun play on words or conglomeration of words that we could rename this time...

Blogging Day One

Well here is my first official blog. We'll see if there will ever be a second...It's a Friday night, I'm waiting for the big kids to get home so I can help put them to bed (yes, the 9,7, and 4 year olds are out while I, the vibrant 23 year old single remain in the house). The babies are already in bed after a rollicking evening of smashing ice cream sandwiches all over their faces, taking baths in the kitchen sink, and then using me like a jungle gym/trampoline...My life has changed in so many ways since I've moved here from Cali...but one thing has not changed much- my horrid eating...I'd like to document what actually, by choice, entered my body tonight as "dinner":

• three mini corn dogs off the babies' plate
• 4 pieces of dark chocolate
• 2 red vines
• several gulps of soy milk that made it down my throat before I glanced down at the box and spied the "best before Jan 3, 2007" label...very disappointing...and somewhat upsetting in more ways than one...

Anyway, this blog is intended to document not only such events as the "scrumptulescent" (did I spell that right Janae?) meals that I take, but also the other ways in which my life is filled with excitement, drama, confusion, clarity, laughter and tears in my new role as nanny...This may be therapeutic for me, could be entertaining for you, or heck, maybe it will turn out to be something I just did to waste time one Friday night...