So Long Ordinary

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." -- Romans 12:1-2 from The Message (contemporary rendering of the Bible) I encourage you to read this in a traditional version as well. This is one of my favorite Scripture passages, but I like the way The Message words these verses. For some of us, this is a pretty familiar passage - seeing it from a dif...

It was a rough night for me last night (both girls were waking me up every hour or so for something) so Sean let me sleep in while he took care of the girls before church. I found this picture in our picture file on the computer and discovered what he and Brooklyn did while Mommy blissfully slept.... This is Brooklyn's favorite dress - her Easter dress this year. It's pretty fancy and I don't like her to play outside in it or wear it for anything other than church or nice occasions. Every day she wants to wear the "pink dress with the pink bones ." **There are two little pink bows on the dress and, try as I might, I cannot get Brooklyn to say bows instead of bones !** Anyway, she knew it was finally a church day and I think she had this dress on before she even got her morning cup of juice. She also put her pink bone in her hair to match. The girl loves pink. All girl. And yet...she couldn't resist the kittens. She sneaks out to our bodega (our laun...

If you read Sean's blog, he mentioned our trip about 30 minutes up the mountain to visit a group of young men having a retreat. We took a few pictures and took a "tour" of the facility that is actually owned by a missionary that lives here in Shell. It was a good time. Here a few pictures that Sean didn't post on his blog about the adventure. The kitchen. Notice Madison in the arms of one of the young girls that came up with us - I hardly had to worry about Madison with all these ladies anxious to hold her! The woman in white is Marcela, our pastor's wife. The other woman spent the weekend up at the "cabin" to cook for the group of teenage boys. Here they are discussing the need to buy and bring up more food because they underestimated how much young men eat! This is the meeting room. The night before they had a very special program and lit up the cross you see in the background while playing a beautiful song about the significance of the cross....

I went to a garage sale this morning here in Shell. Several missionary families are moving, going on summer furloughs, or just trying to clean out some of their stuff. I left the girls with Sean and went to see what treasures I might discover. I found a few baskets, a plastic container, and some ponchos - nothing too special but little things that come in handy around here...we haven't quite collected those kind of little things for the house yet. (Although, I doubt it will take long.) I would have bought some VHS videos but our VCR is on the fritz and I knew it would be too hard on Brooklyn to see the cases for fun movies and not be able to watch them until we figure out the problem with the VCR. The best buy I made was a Barbie and a Barbie kitchen for Brooklyn. She hasn't been so entertained for so long .....ever! It was well worth the six dollars!

You'll notice the new look on the blog. I was never very happy with the look of my blog from the beginning but didn't have any profound ideas until I was inspired by my cousin Jared's blog . Thanks, Jared! I love the idea of a picture in the header that tells the story of the blog. I took the picture for the new header from Sean's Bible and played around with coloring and focus, etc. to give it the look it has now. Of course, I had to change everything else to match my new snazzy header! Don't ask me how I did it but boy did I have fun!

Once again, I came to the rescue of some poor, defenseless creature being tortured by our dog, Maya. This afternoon I noticed a terrible racket outside. There were birds chirping like crazy and I finally realized that that is not a normal sound around here. (I'm getting good at tuning things out.) I went outside to find Maya carrying around a small bird. The parents were the ones making all the noise as they hopped from branch to branch in our citrus fruit trees. Once again, Maya knew she was in trouble and instantly dropped the bird and went to sit in shame on her bench. I found an old sock of Sean's (I don't want any weird bird diseases), put it on my hand, and hunkered down underneath the bench on our porch where Maya had dropped the bird. As I was getting up from the ground underneath the bench and gingerly carrying the little bird in a socked hand, I noticed that some people had been walking by our house at the same moment. They just stood there in awe, stari...

Sorry the pics aren't the clearest. We just took what we could while the faces were good. The green beans went over like a lead balloon but we got a good chuckle out of the many faces Maddie made anyway!

I got to bed very late last night - or this morning, however you want to put it. Only two hours after I finally laid down to sleep, I was awakened by Maddie's cries inside and a strange, desperate mewing outside. I was feeling very foggy and it took a while to put two and two together. Finally I snapped awake, realizing that Maddie needed me and that there was a terrible thing happening to one of our kittens outside. I scooped Maddie up and then hurried to peek out the front door. I found a dirty, terrified kitten and a very sheepish dog. Maya had been "playing" with one of the kittens who accidentally stepped out a little too far from protection. The poor little fella was so frightened it wouldn't even move. There was no bleeding and from what I can tell - unless it has some internal damage, the kitten will actually survive - but only because I woke up in time to save it. I mean, the poor thing was dragged all the way from the back of the house up to the fron...

Every month or so, we try to make a trip to Ambato, which is two hours away, to do some grocery shopping. That is the nearest supermarket - what we have here in Shell is the produce market, butcher, bakery, and small corner stores. Generally, we can find what we need here in Shell or Puyo but some things are in the bigger stores that aren't down here in the jungle and we can also get better deals on more "specialized" (i.e. pre-packaged and preservative-laden) items. It usually makes for a fun outing and is a beautiful drive up from the jungle into the Andes mountains. Usually. Yesterday was not so fun. Our trip up was fine, although I was battling a runny nose and the beginnings of a sinus headache (been fighting this for some time). Anyway, we did our shopping - picking up things like fresh mushrooms and romaine lettuce, a couple of cases of boxed milk, paper towels, ziplock bags, packaged meat, cheese, whole wheat flour, Jif peanut butter, diapers, and a couple o...

First, the disclaimer. It's late. Okay, so I saw this really funny "meme" (don't ask me what it means, but I've been seeing these "memes" on a lot on blogs and sometimes they look pretty derned fun) and decided to give it a whirl. Just do a Google search with your name plus the word "needs." My list of the Top Ten Things Rebecca Needs (yes, these are all real): 10. Rebecca needs to accept that no one is self-sufficient all the time. ( Preach it !) 9. Rebecca needs to get used to being criticized. ( Ouch. ) 8. Rebecca needs enlightenment. ( See numbers 9 and 10 ) 7. Rebecca needs to choose a database. ( So that's the problem! ) 6. Rebecca needs a starring role in a blockbuster movie. ( That would really boost my career. ) 5. Rebecca needs your help. ( Obviously, look what I'm doing at almost 1 o'clock in the morning .) 4. Rebecca needs just one good, meaty, dramatic role. ( It's called motherhood, people .) 3. Re...

Just for the heck of it I did this little celebrity look alike thingy. At first it was a little flattering but then when I saw the man I supposedly look like it just got funny. Who is Gary Barlow anyway? And what's up with the Asian man and woman??? The crazy thing is, I actually do see a "resemblance" with most of these celebrities. I always knew Jessica Alba and I were twins. Ha! You could probably pick any celebrity's face and convince somebody that they look like that person. For what it's worth I did this with a couple of different pictures of me and the only one that came up every time was Bryce Howard (coincidentally, I don't know who that is). I don't see it.... But Matsumoto and I - I get mistaken for him all the time! Hey, if you needed a little pick-me-up - or at least something to make you laugh - this is the thing to do on a Wednesday afternoon. Can you tell both my babies are napping?!

I haven't posted many pictures lately. Before I start getting hate mail from the grandparents, I figured I'd better post a couple from recent weeks... Here is Maddie taking a bath in our kitchen sink. This is a week or two ago and the last bath she had in the sink. She's getting too big to fit into the small, Ecuadorian-sized sink. The past few nights she's actually been getting in the big bath "tub" with Brooklyn. We don't actually have a real bath tub but we can cover the drain in the shower and fill it with a few inches of water. Maddie loves playing in the water! Brooklyn and Maddie are becoming better and better friends. In this picture, Brooklyn had found hats for both to wear. Brooklyn is a typical big sister and loves to dress up her baby sister. Every morning I have two arguments right away with Brooklyn - 1) what will Brooklyn wear that day and 2) what will Madison wear. Playtime is pretty entertaining with these two! This afternoon I...

Some moms may say that Mother's Day is like any other day and is no big deal. But who are we kidding?! It's a very good day. Most moms don't really need the breakfast in bed, handmade crafts, cards, foot-rubs, chocolate, a break from housework or sweet words from our brood - but don't you dare assume we don't really want all that, even if we say we don't....we just want it all year long and not once a year. What I appreciate most, and what I think most moms appreciate most about this day is simple acknowledgement that we do indeed have a special job that nobody else could fill. We just need to be reminded that we are awesome . **To my mom - YOU ARE AWESOME and I love you very, very much!** I got this story in an email the other day. Couldn't resist sharing it. This is why moms are awesome... Chapstick - A Mother's Day Story So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack. We have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old,...

I mentioned previously that I painted the dining room. It wasn't planned but yesterday I got real antsy and annoyed with the wall color of the dining room and decided I just couldn't wait any longer to paint (we have lived here almost 6 months and I've been meaning to do it all along). The color was a bit too orange-y for my taste and there was a large section where mold had grown through the dampness of the walls and something had to be done. We had some leftover paint from the previous family that lived here that they had used in the living room. So, I used it up! I like the color a lot and it looks so fresh and bright now in that dining room. I still have to get some curtains made and I have some paintings by an Ecuadorian artist that we need to get framed to put on the wall - that will take a trip to Quito and some time to get done - but at least it feels cleaner and it doesn't grate on my nerves to see that orange-y, moldy wall every time I walk through the d...

Oh my. I am beginning to have a serious addiction here. It is now 11:34 p.m. on a Friday night. I spent the entire afternoon painting our dining room and I'm exhausted. Yet I continue to sit here, bug-eyed, reading random blog after random blog after random blog. They are just too fun! I just joined the Christian Women Online Blogroll - you'll see it on my sidebar. I've found so many cool sites and a heap of encouragement and inspiration from other Christian women who are creative, funny, Godly, normal, and interesting. My favorites are by the ones done by mothers of young children. At this stage in the game, I need some serious encouragement! I don't get out as often as I'd like and these blogs have really given me some hope...at the same time, I realize I need to reel in my enthusiasm and remember to live my own life .... possibly get out more and spend time with real people.... Still, these blogs are fun to peruse. I have several blogs of friends and family ...

Brooklyn, after carrying something for me into the kitchen. Practicing plurals, I believe: "Whew, that heavy stuffes!"

I've been enjoying the Beth Moore Bible Study on the book of Daniel. I promised to share what I've been learning a while ago. Sorry it has taken me so long to share but it is taking me a while to really process all that I'm learning. This week marks the halfway point through the 12-week study. I have learned something new each week. I'd love to share a bit of what each week has taught me so far...and what I learn in the weeks to come. If I did that all in one blog, it would be too long so I'm going to cut this up into manageable chunks. More will come later. When Daniel and his buddies were dragged from their homeland, Judah, to the great city of Babylon, they came to a sparkling, powerful, amazing city. They were chosen to serve in the king's court because they were of royal blood - they were also young (probably about 15 when they first arrived), handsome, smart and quick-witted. You know, we tend to think of the Babylonians as an ancient empire far re...

Yesterday I had an intense, inexplicable craving for Indian cuisine. The craving was as strong as it was random. I've had real Indian food maybe once in my life. When we lived in Canada, Sean and I went to a Sikh wedding. The banquet afterwards was a true cultural experience and the food was quite tasty, even if eaten without silverware! Anyway, for whatever reason, I thought it would be fun to put my lentils in the pantry to good use. I made curried lentils and rice, sauteed zucchini and onion, and Roti , a type of Indian flat bread. Very ethnic. Very healthy. Very tasty. Brooklyn wasn't a fan but Sean liked it...even though he thought it needed some meat. (A very predictable reaction, that one, Sean.) I get wild hairs quite often when it comes to cooking ( note that the wild hairs are not actually IN the cooking....I hope) . Since I have to make so many of our meals at home (Maddie makes eating out too stressful) I get bored with the old standbys pretty quickly. I...

Finally....for the first time since our maid stopped working, I actually completely finished ironing that huge, wrinkled heap of clothes that haunted me every time I walked by it. I'm not counting the shirt and skirt that were at the very bottom of the pile.... I decided to wash those again before even attempting anything. I only know they were a shirt and skirt because I recognized the colors and patterns. Wow. It feels good to have that done - but the first time Sean wears one of those shirts and wrinkles it, I'll probably have an aneurysm. I worked too hard to see it all go to waste so quickly. By the way, almost every one of Sean's work shirts that I ironed had some kind of stain or hole in it. You'd think he worked hard or something. Be more careful, Sean! Those shirts have to last another year and a half until we can get more on our furlough!** **Please note, the previous comment does not, in any way, shape or form, mean that I want people sending Sean mor...

Madison has been eating solid foods for a little over a month now and is doing pretty well with it. Baby food in a jar is rather expensive here and there isn't much available, so I've been making and freezing food for her. Our blender has become a permanent fixture on the kitchen counter (alongside my trusty Kitchen Aid stand mixer and bread machine, which get a lot of use as well). Maddie will barely eat the stuff in a jar now that she has experienced fresh applesauce and pears. That makes it somewhat difficult when we eat out because, as handy as they are at home, frozen cubes of food aren't especially convenient in a restaurant setting. Actually, Maddie is extremely picky. I didn't realize quite how much until tonight when we tried sweet potatoes. The child went - and I am not exaggerating here - ballistic. She was bright red with anger and squalling and screaming so loud that the vulcanologists probably thought Tungarahua Volcano was finally blowing its top....

Brooklyn can't seem to resist writing on the walls. I finally decided to put an end to the battle.... Now she has her own special place in her bedroom to be as creative as she wants (within reason). This can be painted over and it gives her some boundaries while still allowing her to be "creative." I'm not sure she'll have any interest in writing on the wall now that it isn't against the rules but I sure had fun painting on the wall. I'm tempted to paint myself a square to doodle and scribble on.

Today while I was waiting in the waiting room at the hospital for Maddie's appointment, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and found a couple of girls giggling as they aimed their camera phone at us to take a picture. This happens all the time here. Our pictures and especially pictures of the girls are on camera phones all over the country of Ecuador. To most Ecuadorians, especially those that live in the jungle, it is no big deal at all to sit and stare at someone. Being white and having two very cute little girls means we get twice the staring. We kinda stick out... I remember when we first arrived and Sean was working at a desk at the hangar that had a window above it. When I came to visit him I noticed a large crowd gathered in front of the window. My first assumption was that Sean was really busy but when I got to Sean, he wasn't even looking up from his work at the faces pressed against the glass. "Don't they need help?"...

I took Maddie in today for her regular well baby appointment. As expected the news was all good. Maddie is a perfectly healthy, happy 7-month-old. I can't believe how quickly she is growing. She is really at a fun age right now and I feel myself starting to try to hit "pause" for a while. I really love the 6-8 months and I'm in no hurry to move on. Brooklyn came along for the appointment and got to listen to Madison's heartbeat which she thought was pretty cool. That little girl is so inquisitive she wears me out! She also had fun later today at swimming lessons. She was so tired when I went to go pick her up that she couldn't even walk straight. She's having a great nap right now, which I love because those naps are becoming less and less regular. I praise God for two very healthy and lively little girls. People ask if we are going to have more and my response is usually "Why?" Our family feels complete and I feel no need to add to w...