sewing savvy

these were great until liv figured out how fun
they were to flip in the car

we went for a little road trip for the last two weeks of summer this year to visit some very good friends of ours in both Grand Rapids & Geneva (Chicago). they had to have been very good friends, or we would have never even entertained the crazy idea. but all things said & done, it went very well. pinterest-ed an idea i had originally intended for dav's first year of kindergarten, a little napping bed for nap time but expanded it for the others to enjoy on our trip as well. however, there was one big obstacle to this project & that was my sewing savvy. my sewing projects usually end up as disasters. like when i made pj pants with one leg a full foot shorter than the other. or the dress that fell apart while i was wearing it. any sewing success i've  had is totally & completely attributed to my mother who swoops in at the last second to save the day. and she was not available for this project. i let the kids each picked out their own fabric (kai: rock&roll, eva: pink butterflies, livi: peachy owls & dav: superman) & then there was no backing out.
much better than expected. and other than the driving part, so much fun! it was a 46 hour round car trip {with only one of our kids conked out for a 10 minute nap of that entire 46 hours}. i knew i was going to have to be super-de-duper organized if there was any chance of not losing our sanity & i pinterest-ed tons of car trip ideas like road bingo, fishing box snacks, activity bins & lots of new viewing material. i had also
steve had recently taught himself to gut fish using just a youtube video (something he's always wanted to learn) & i thought, if he can do it so can i! and better yet, no innocent fish were hurt in the process. so i sewed my little heart out & voila! we roll them out now for movie nights, saturday mornings, extra beds for the kids when the fam visits, etc. and they roll up into a nice little roll with a handle too. each for transporting & storing. i got the pattern from this lovely link here.

hiding from gma & gpa

perfect for movie nights

they shared until all the nap mats were finished

 
thank you pinterest!

cheers to learning new things!

puppy love

and sadly, after finding out that steve is massively allergic to the hypo-allergic ferrets, we flipped them on kijiji & got a puppy!

i know. what were we thinking. and believe me, i have had my moments. like the one earlier when someone had emptied their poopy pull-up in the bathroom sink, the other pooped their pants & the puppy pooped & peed on the rug all nicely synchronized at the same time for my cleaning convenience.  that's not to mention the crate training (not so different from sleep training for babies so you'd think i'd be used to it). oh, how this pup cries. i think we could even classify it as a puppy scream. the breeder tried to warn us but those sweet puppy eyes got the best of us. he's just so flippin' cute! i guess that's where the phrase puppy love comes from.

meet scout (*or jettson or huckleberry finn... still deciding on a name, feel free to weigh in).
he's a border-jack (a border collie-parson jack russell terrier... you can see his cool parents at www.border-jack.com). he's three months but will likely stay pretty small, jack russell style. at least compared to jax. scout* & jax are besties, and that's not to mention the small pack of children that follow the poor gaffer around all day. needless to say he is well loved... even with the puppy screams & that insanely small bladder of his. :)

call us crazy, but we like the full life.

the mystery pets

rudyard kipling? "kip" for short?
or hemingway? or farley?

after much debate over what species our new little friends exactly are... they are not in fact pygmy albino rhinos, bears, ewoks or milking goats... but two little ferrets. :)

scarlett & hemingway/rudyard kipling/farley mowat (still can't decide one the boy's name...vote for your fav in the comments & we'll go with which ever gets the most!) have hopefully found a forever home in the wilkins' household.

we opted to take our chances on kijiji to save cost as we weren't positive if they'd fit in with our crazy kookie lifestyle. and take our chances we did... if it wasn't for contessa, i may not have come back alive from this kijiji buy. contessa kindly agreed to come along with me & we trucked along 45 minutes into the backwoods of quebec late at night to meet a very scary pair of handlers at one very scary backwoods trailer/garbage dump. the only thought running through my head as we got out of the car was 'we are going to die here'. thank goodness courageous contessa confidently asked all the questions & politely smiled as i was too distracted by the interesting man's rotted teeth. they really were such kind folk & offered us two free hamster for our trouble. i told him steve was allergic. :) we hightailed it out of sketch-city & booted it home as fast as our wheels could take us.

scarlett

and as for the ferrets, after scouring them & their cage from top to bottom, they are exactly what we had expected. they are like adding two more toddlers to our family but the thinking is that the two furry toddlers keep the other four toddlers completely entertained all day long with their whimsical antics & slapstick silliness, which has gotten a slight chuckle from even steve, the "-0%-excited-about-these-furry-things"guy.  even if the kids still seem to be quite confused as to what they are, (davith thinks they're hamsters or big "mices", kai things they're puppies, evie thinks they're kittens, liv thinks they're babies & jax thinks they're dinner), they have been well loved already. they have been dressed up & dragged by leashes, pushed in doll strollers, bathed & babied ALL day long. poor things are exhausted.
i think they've found a good home here. :)

he's so silly!

(scarlett is the white one... whom despite what i thought were pretty strange looking pink eyes, has made eva's best friend & the rascally looking bandit one is the boy who we can't seem to settle on a name... he's so silly!)

scarlett is, literally, eva's baby...
& she loves it!

scarlett has a slight soother addiction...
so she fits right in!

the good book

we have been traveling in the states for the past week & a half visiting good friends who have been so missed. it does the heart good. totally worth the 16+ hour drive with four toddlers. ;)
anyways, in one of the hotels on the way down steve was flipping through a gideon bible that had been left on the night stand & he found this written in the front...

"this book reveals the mind of God, the state of man, the way to salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.

its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable.

read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. it contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.

it is the traveller's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, & the Christian's charter. here to, heaven is opened & the gates of hell disclosed.

Christ is it's grand subject, our good its design, & the glory of God its end.

it should fill the memory, rule the heart & guide the feet. read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully. it is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory and a river of pleasure.

it is given you in life, will be opened at judgement, & be remembered forever. it involved highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labour, & condemn all who trifle with it's sacred contents.

owned, it is riches; studied it is wisdom; trusted, it is salvation; loved, it is character; and obeyed, it is power."

wow. perspective. that'll transform any old ritual reading of the Word. 

worshipers & fulfillment & lifestyles

i been feeling a strong call to worship as of late. it could be the places i have had the privilege to have been fellowshiping lately {with two very passionate worshipers, angela & fi} but really it started some time ago & just been re-ignited. i have always felt the call to worship but even more so now in a different sort of way. after everything we've gone through this year, i want to worship as the woman that i am now after deep valleys & sharp inclines. to worship in Spirit & truth. to worship as a warrior. as a son & as a worshiper. to worship to see & to be & to hold & to touch. to worship from the loud places & quiet places & long forgotten places.

"it's the story of the journey, the valleys & the mountains. you can't put it on a chart and sing it; you have to live it to sing it out like this. you can't declare what you haven't embraced & have it ring true. and that's what i love about the worship of God... it expresses the inexpressible. in the middle of this ocean, it's quite beautiful, if you have eyes to see." 
{darlene zchech}

i have been soaking in a few great places, bob sorge's exploring worship is one of them {on loan from fi... but will definitely been needing to get my own copy}. 

"prayer is to the believer as communication is to a marriage - absolutely vital. He defines prayer as communication with God & suggests that the prayerless saint will never be a worshipper...

it is easy to confuse worshipping with being a worshiper. just because someone worships, it does not necessarily follow that he or she is a worshiper. virtually anyone can worship as an occasion might demand, but relatively few seem to manifest the lifestyle of a worshiper. 

when God ask us to be worshipers every day, He is not asking us to do nothing but sung songs all week. He knows we must do other things besides vocalize our worship...[but] we will begin to realize that everything we do truly constitutes an act of worship unto the Lord, for our daily activities are but an expression of our dedication to God"

{bob sorge, exploring worship}

"we have a responsibility to be self-motivated in our praise & worship. Ben Patterson has said that God is, at the very least, unimpressed with merely spontaneous worshipers. how true! 'spontaneous worshippers' are folks who know how to praise & worship when they feel like it, when the goosebumps begin to trickle up & down their spines, or when a worship leader really hits their 'worship button'. how we all love those times of spontaneous worship when it is so easy to lift our hearts unto the Lord! but if we operate at that level only, we have not learned the discipline of being a worshiper...a worshiper worships at every given opportunity & does not demand some horizontal stimulus from the pastor or worship leader before entering into praise."

{bob sorge, exploring worship}

"when that cloud filled the temple, the people & priests could not see anyone or anything around them, because all that was visible to them was the presence of the Lord. and for us today, the goal of our worship should be that we come to the point where we do not see anyone or anything around us, but we become totally taken up with God. that is the supreme goal of worship; to see only the Lord. there is no higher fulfillment for us, nor will there ever be." 

{bob sorge, exploring worship}

mining miracles

the ultrasound pic of the pocket of fluid on
her spine

 i don't think i'll ever get tired of talking about it even if people get tired of hearing it... God is so good.
always has been, always is, & always will be. good in a way we don't quite have the capacity to break it down in our own framework. good in it's purest sense.

i found a notebook yesterday buried in the bottom of an old handbag. only one page written on, front & back in black pen. an address & directions to the genetic counselling department at CHEO. questions for the genetics councillor. questions we didn't have the answers to at the time.

... should we terminate the pregnancy? what does it mean to terminate a pregnancy? will we get to see our baby or hold it after birth, even if it's passed? did we do this? are we at fault for the baby being sick? what caused this?

a torrent of soul contracting torment written out on a page, written out in black trembling ink. i can remember not wanting anyone to see that page. awful, horrible questions written in it, that i thought.

i remember our genetics councilor. she was so kind. so calm. claire goldsmith was her name. and that is what she was, a goldsmith. someone who took meaningless, scary rubble & gave it value & meaning. she took the rugged, sharp truth & made it livable. but i also remember leaving that appointment & still not having the answer to the one question that we needed. we still didn't know what to do. and i remember crying out to God & saying please don't make me choose.

the day we got the good news, i ripped
the other test results in front of the body &
handed them out to people who needed healing

but i did find a sort of answer afterall. i found it by praising Him from the broken place, from the exhausted place, from the terrified & scared place. some answers we can only find worshipping from uncomfortable places. i have never felt such tourment suddenly stilled by such Peace before. and that is where i learned that the key to peace being spending time Peace himself.

i want to completely embrace what it means to live in the reality of a miracle. never taken for granted. to truly treasure it & mine it of all it's delicious wealth.not even with this babe's strong-willed temperament. i can remember thinking to myself that i will never complain again about those late night feedings & poopy diapers because i would do just about anything to get to hold her. that she would live & i would get to watch her sleep. and this is the privilege that i have, to watch her sleep each night all peaceful & perfect in her bed. this is God's kindness that i get to revel in.

to this day every time i see a downs syndrome child in the grocery store or out and about, my eyes well up with tears. for both happy & sad & complicated reasons. but mostly thankful reasons. inexpressible thanks that i get to mine this miracle for the rest of my life.

living Shugyo

someone once gave me a word that the physical bootcamp i was attending in the natural would mirror the spiritual bootcamp going on on the inside. that word is more true today than it ever has been. :) this quote was a great reminder of that 'training' lifestyle.

"most people just live their lives without thinking about it: just eating, working, sleeping. we're different because we train. we live our lives as Shugyo. that means every situation becomes training to us, an opportunity to forge ourselves. we take the attitude that anything which makes us uncomfortable isn't because of the  environment, or because someone made us a victim. we understand that no matter how bad things are, we can still choose how we take it."

{toyoda fomio}

learning to embrace the Shugyo life. feeling this on all sides of life. the training. the choosing. the forging.