Oh the Bliss!

Crucifixion and Resurrection                      ~The Valley of Vision O LORD, I marvel that thou shouldst become incarnate,    be crucified, dead, and buried. The sepulcher calls forth my adoring wonder,     for it is empty and thou art risen;     the four-fold gospel attests it,     the living witnesses prove it,    my heart's experience knows it. Give me to die with thee that I may rise to new life,    for I wish to be as dead and buried to sin,        to selfishness, to the world;            that I might be delivered from his lusts. O Lord, there is much ill about me - crucify it,                           much flesh within me -  mortify it. Purge me from selfishness,             ...

My last little post on Tristan was a winner, thanks for all the love friends! I think it was all the super stealth-like pictures of him. (Mark noted what he learned from that post was that "not allowed to post pictures of him" really means "not allowed to post pictures of his eyes." So I took a little liberty with the no photos rule... can you blame me?) I wrote that post really, really quickly, like in 3.7 minutes. I want to go back and expound on the whole adoption thing. I think it came across as an announcement of sorts and may have surprised people whom we didn't tell in person. To me it wasn't so much of an announcement because it's something we've kind of figured for a while now. Our family has always been looking to adopt him, and the longer we've gone without bio-family contact the more we figured adoption was a go. What solidified that assumption was a conversation I had with his social worker saying she was going to ask the judge to ...

THIS BOY!!!!! Because of legal stuff with Tristan not exactly being "ours" I'm not allowed to post pictures or videos of him online. This is a challenging rule for me to follow! Especially when I see LOADS of other people posting pics of their little darlings like it's their job, and I can't one up them with my outrageously ADORABLE baby boy. It's humbling really. :) Little t (not to be confused with T, or Tman, which has rightfully belonged to Troy for 4.5 years), is growing perfectly. He is a happy, content, easy-peasy, sweet boy -almost all of the time, but nobody is perfect, right? When done correctly , he falls asleep in about 37 seconds. It's a thing of beauty. (Should I not post this picture? I'm I going to get CPS called on me due to the amount of loose blankets in his crib? Yikes!!) He is eating like a champ. He sits, rolls, grabs, rocks on his knees and is seconds away from crawling. And he laughs. Does this boy laugh! Eve...

Have I ever told the story of Unfortunate Joe? No?  Please note: the following takes place pre-Mark. Picture me, circa 2001, sitting at a coffee shop wearing black Jack Purcells , reading Jack Kerouac, listening to Jimmy Eat World, feeling super emo and super cool. I was a hipster before hipsters were hipsters. Enter, aside from my own husband of course, the most gorgeous young man ever to step foot in a Diedrich Coffee. Also wearing black Jack Purcells, the young man walks straight over to the group I'm with, sits down across from me and gives me his favorite lyric from Bleed American . ** Swoon** His name was Joe.  He was a model.  And allllll the ladies pretty much fell over themselves trying to get his attention.  (Not me, of course, I would never do such a thing. Really I wouldn't. I have never in my life been labeled "boy crazy". Not ever.)  SOMEHOW Joe ended up asking me out on a date. (Read: he had an extra ticket to a show, just ne...

It's been a month since I've written, so you know. . . that feels wrong. Here are some pics to fill in the gaps, and I hope to write, actually write, really soon.  She turned 6. SIX I TELL YOU! And she turned 3. THREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!                                       And that about sums it up. More later, I promise. :)

"I feel weighted down by the ugly of this world" my exact quote to a friend yesterday. I am tempted beyond belief to wallow in this. So today I will write about poop. Because nothing is funnier when you're feeling crappy than to talk about, well, crap. Tristan is 5 months old and poops on the toilet about 94.4% of the time. He's done this for over two months now. It's really quite nice as I hardly change a dirty diaper. When we were in Big Bear it was great because we had to keep all the trash and take it to the "designated dumpsters" in town, and stinky diapers would've really been a bummer to hang onto for a week. Just the other day his babysitter asked if he ever poops because she'd never changed a dirty diaper, pretty cool eh?  I didn't read a book or listen to a podcast or hear of some hippie clan doing this and set out to potty train my 3 month old. It just kind of happened. I wasn't even going to mention it on a blog because it...

I want to write fun things... Like about being pregnant for the fifth time and how that just might turn into the biggest bundle of blessing ever. I want to write about Big Bear and the awesome memories. About Christmas and how Mark wasn't sick. About Ben turning eight and how he's now one year closer to the age of 35 - his true age. I want to write Part 2 of Working Mom. And I want to write about life and all it's wonderful bliss and glory. But I can't. All I can think about is Tori Linda.  I know I'm not her best friend, but I'm a best friend of her big sister. I'm not the one she calls when she has a secret or a new song to share, in fact I don't think she's ever called me. But I remember the day she was born. She probably doesn't know the name of my kids, and I don't know the name of her dog, but I know the significance of her name, and the name of her favorite basketball team and what music she listens to on Spotify. And I know th...

Just last week I had the SO FUN (and kind of random) opportunity of talking with four sweet mommy friends at different times and places (and texts) and all of us pretty much said same thing; we're trying really hard to get to the heart of parenting and simplify our lives so we can give a clear representation of Jesus to our children. While that sentence makes it sound basic and pretty and tied up in a sweet little bow the reality of that desire is rather laborious, time consuming, humbling, and a lot of times exhausting. But instead of leaving those conversations burdened or disappointed I left spurred on and excited! We have been given this gift, this blessing - not the worldly view of blessing as luck, but a God spoken blessing. It is an honor to have this job. And in the squabble breaking, whine banning, and another drink of water giving we get to show Jesus's heart, character, love, grace and yes, discipline to these precious gifts. When my kid spills his cup of milk ag...

 Have I mentioned how proud I am of the creative marketing team at Fitzpatrick + Prince Real Estate?   My husband, the uber talented and ultimate entrepreneur Mark Fitzpatrick, has been blessed with some pretty incredible videographers, editors and marketing gurus over at FPRE. And when they all come together beautiful and innovative marketing videos are made. You may remember this award winning video.... Nice stuff, eh? I think a lot of real estate groups do videos, some even do good ones, but NONE of them - try as they may - meet this caliber of professionalism, artistry, and killer marketing skills. Of course, I might be a little biased. Or maybe I'm not. After seeing the above video representatives from Pretend City  wanted FPRE to create a short video that would be shown at their Fundraising Gala. Something that would capture the beauty, and necessity, of children playing and playing pretend. The creative marketing team came up with this, and I don't think,...

Late Saturday night, at the women's retreat a few weekends ago, some friends and I were sitting around a table stuffing our faces, I mean - politely nibbling on some outrageously delicious food, when a gal in our gang noticed one of our friends had left and not returned. Her bag was there, cell phone, food, everything, but she was not. No biggie, we kept eating, but the minutes passed and she didn't come back, so we kind of started looking around for her, stretching our necks this way and that, but didn't see her anywhere. Soon we started checking bathrooms, our room, any other room we thought she might be in. She's a super cute, petite, Filipino chick and I was beginning, just beginning, to think something had happened. We walked up and down, in and out of halls and doorways looking and asking about her, but she just wasn't anywhere. We were  this close to lighting torches, linking arms, and calling the National Guard when lo and behold there was our friend, just...

~ Watching the girls make their commercial debut and cracking up at Mia's "happy" and "sad" faces. I can't wait for it to be finished so I can show everyone! ~ Ben making pumpkin muffins for the family pretty much all on his own. I was blessed by him so many times this week... he is such a cool kid. :) ~ Being blessed by a dear friend who took the "room mom" reigns while I was super sick and pulled together last minute details for me. ~ Discovering ways Tristan looks or acts like members of our family. He hates to have his feet covered and always finds a way to get them to stick out of everything, just like Mark. He sneezes really loud, like my dad. He has a gigantic smile, like Troy. ~ Running into a friend in the parking lot of Trader Joe's just after a challenging phone call regarding visitations with T's mom. I am still blown away at God's sweet gifts to his children and I count that meeting as one of them because of ALL...

No shock here, foster care is difficult. It's a roller coaster of emotions. I saw the roller-coaster, I chose to get on the roller-coaster - twice, even - and now right now, in this moment, I'm not really loving the roller-coaster. I never know who to cheer for  - his mom when she has victories, or us when we do. One day I'm renaming him and the next day I'm packing his bags. Up and down, up and down I go. I was sitting across from her last week, watching her hold my, no her, (maybe our?) baby and I was kind of fuming. I really was. I felt like crossing my arms and huffing and puffing something about how easy she has it, just showing up to hold a cute baby for two hours, while I'm exhausted from being up three times a night with him, washing and refilling his bottles all day. . . I really - in my grossly sinful self - wanted to let her have it. And a truth speaking friend texted me...  " Do nothing from  selfish ambition or  conceit, but in  humilit...

We weren't supposed to make it. We were, I think she said, "a divorce waiting to happen". And the other guy sighed, it's not a big deal, I was his "starter wife". Even I was a little afraid. I'd never been one to finish things I start, and I'd never been in a relationship longer than 6 months. Our wedding day was 6 months after the day we met. We were supped to fail. BUT GOD, in his sovereignty, knew my fickle heart and gave me a man that grounded it. He knew I was immature so he gave me a man with a looooooooong fuse and a gentle answer. He knew I was afraid of failure so he gave me a man who didn't have the word divorce in his vocabulary.  When we met, that very first night, I knew right away I would know Mark for a very long time. I just knew it. So when the event that brought us together again took place I was not surprised. I wasn't surprised when he told his mom, the day after our first phone call, he'd met the girl...

There is a general consensus among myself and my friends that we are feeling tired and busy, and tired of being busy. We've swam, we've vacayed, we've reunioned* with family. We've gotten sandy and sticky and dirty and burnt. We've stayed up late and refused to sleep in. We are tired. School starts too soon. If you're a homeschooling family, or a partial one like us, then there is curriculum to purchase, lesson plans to familiarize yourself with, workspaces to organize and make functional. We have uniforms to size, totes to order, binders to fill and even some pre start-of-school memorization to tackle. And meetings! GOOD NIGHT we have meetings.  6 meetings in 10 days. Teacher meetings, parent meetings, parent-teacher meetings. AYSO for Ben, American Heritage Girls for Addie, plus Tristan meets with his mom twice a week so that's even more meetings. Last week I had a day where I was a taxi driver. I drove to Newport Beach, Carson, San Clemente and al...

 I've been thinking about foster care and how the addition of a foster child has a pretty significant ripple effect. There are so many people involved in this little baby's life. And because we say yes, a lot of other people have to say yes too, whether they choose to or not. We ask our kids to say yes to another sibling. Our parents to another grandchild. Our family to another nephew or cousin. Our friends to more chaos. Our church to another sheep to tend. Our babysitter to another charge. All over the place we are putting this baby out there for others to take in as we have, all the while not knowing how long he'll be around or how attached to get. We tell you; love him like we love him, and it's a lot to ask. Thank you . Because he could be gone tomorrow, or in a month, or in a year. He could rip your heart out, and that hurts. He's family now, but we all know he's not really family, not really , and you might not know what to do with that. Thank ...

I had some email issues recently and it was ugly. I would receive emails in bulk, or not at all. I had no record of sent emails or deleted ones. It was a hot mess of technology and something had to be done. My sweetie-pie husband, who spends large sums of money on only three things: The spreading of the gospel, really high quality food, and Apple products, deemed it time to buy me a new laptop and I was hoping it would solve the email debacle. It didn't.  He tried to stop the madness and figured almost all of it out except for one annoying problem, every email from as far back as who knows when was now in my inbox. 7, 892 emails. Seven thousand eight hundred ninety two emails IN my inbox. And I couldn't just go through and delete them all at the same time because some were recent, some I had never seen before, some had pictures from when the big kids were little and the little kids were tiny (or nonexistent) and even though I'm sure they're saved s...

After Mark and I married he got LASIK to correct his vision and this many years later he still says it's some of the best money he's ever spent. So when we attended a benefit dinner for a ministry we support and saw one of the big ticket items was laser eye surgery preformed by one of the best LASIK surgeons in the country and all pre and post-op visits with one of the best optometrists in Orange County he jumped on the chance to spoil me with better-than-perfect vision as well. Here's how it went down: ~ Met with Dr. Nota at San Clemente Optometry . He did lots of easy tests to determine if LASIK was for me. (I had been told a few years ago that I wasn't a good candidate - basically because I had been pregnant or nursing a baby for, oh, six years... thus there was never a good time for me to have the procedure.) He asked what I was looking forward to most about having better vision, I told him I was really exited to be able to look across the park and see my kids ...

He thinks he's so cool. He is. He thinks he's too awesome for pictures. He's not. He thinks I don't see him. I do. This one, my oldest, is so, so, so incredibly loved. And I am so, so, so incredibly thankful for him.