Molly Piper

Yesterday was the twins’ first Easter! It was much like any of their other days in most ways, except that they got to be held pretty much all day by visitors and friends. Pretty good gig for them.

I haven’t told you all very much about our live-in help, Miss Katie. I’m choosing to respect her privacy and our relationship by keeping most details about her out of my blog. But I will say…I love her to pieces. She’s amazing with my children. Seriously, her coming to live with us is an answer to prayers that I hadn’t even thought to pray, but God said, “Hey Molly, I think you need…” and just gave it. So great.

Well, one of the specific things I love about Katie is that she’s a photographer. And she really loves to take pictures of my kids! Double yay for us! She just got a new lens for her camera the other day, so all of us were treated to fun pictures of yesterday’s Easter festivities while she played with her new toy!

She grabbed these ones of the twins:

What I love about the second one is how it really captures who they are right now. Whit is always playing this game when he’s in his highchair, where he lays his head down just like that, and then someone (or everyone) copies him, and then he does it again. It’s so cute!

And Cadence, she pretty much always has her mouth open that wide, smiling or making these funny growling noises. And her arms are always out to the sides like that. Always.

And here’s my big boy on Easter:

And my other big boy:

A couple funny things about this one: 1. it was 60 degrees out and he needed neither the coat or the hat, but had almost no concept for a warm day. That’s the kind of spring it’s been around here. 2. He’s attempting a jail break under the front gate. And he even has a sneaky look on his face!

I hope you all had a lovely day yesterday.

This morning at church, they played a video that really inspired me. It’s gonna sound so weird when I describe it, but here goes anyway: It’s the “cast” of the original Christmas story, but followed and recorded via a social media platform like Facebook.

And when I tell you that tears streamed down my face during it, you might really think I’m crazy. But watch it and see what you think:

A few things struck me as I watched it:

• Mary’s faith and reliance on God: I think whoever made this video honored what we see of her in the Bible–her faith, her character, her resolve to do the Lord’s will. I want to be more like that.
• A love story between Joseph & Mary: When he gets the news that Mary’s pregnant and he goes to type “hurting” but then backspaces and writes “confused.” Just thinking about the humanity of their emotions in the midst of the experience of bringing the Son of God into the world made me wreck.
• Their JOY: Just like you and me, they were overjoyed and awestruck with their child. And yet there was a whole crazy dimension to their experience that you and I never will experience, knowing that they are beholding God’s Son–the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Also, I think it was especially moving to experience this video in a room with a few hundred others. There was laughter. There were tears (trust me, I looked around and I wasn’t the only one wiping my eyes). It really struck me that here were are, thousands of years later, gathered together to worship and celebrate the same thing the angels and shepherds celebrated that night…

Immanuel, God with us.

It’s still the most shocking and scandalous story ever told: God puts on human flesh and is born of a woman. (Think of how many religions would be offended by just that statement alone.)

And while some might scoff at a video like this, thinking it’s an attempt to make Jesus “relevant,” I would say that yes, Jesus is relevant. He’s the most relevant reality that’s ever been. And if people tell His story over and over in ways that’ll break into my cold, hard, media-soaked heart, then I say bring it on.

I need the Christmas message. I need Mary and her firm and child-like faith. I need Joseph, and his confusion and then his tender regard for his very pregnant wife. I need the shepherds and angels to be my examples of worship. I need Immanuel, the little baby God who turned heaven and earth upside down.

I need Christmas.

(HT: 22 Words)

For Thanksgiving we traveled Up North (in Minnesota that’s a proper name for all destinations north of the Twin Cities) for an awesome time with our dear friends, the Mathises.

Funny thing about those Mathises–we’ve known them for years and have been good friends, but last year, Megan & I were both pregnant with TWINS together! Her twin boys were born one month before ours. So on our trip, there were TONS of babies! I’m so thankful for Megan’s wonderful family, willing to have all of our craziness with them for 3 days.

I don’t have time for much more than this today, but thought I’d show you the twins on their first Thanksgiving.

Here’s Mr. Whitsun:

And Baby Cadence with her Mommy:

Finally, the double double trouble!

I know it’s late for Thanksgiving posts, but I’m on my own timetable this year! Can you believe all those babies??? Sometimes I just laugh out loud when I think about it!

Last Sunday was Orison’s 6th birthday! I decided that we’d just have one marathon day and have Orison’s birthday party on the same day as the twins’ dedication, since it was his actual birthday anyway.

We do birthdays pretty simply. I don’t kill myself over a cake. I let the kid pick what they want to eat, and so it’s usually a simple menu (this year it was mac & cheese with hot dogs in it). I don’t do favor bags. I let my mother-in-law host it at her house (!). We invite a couple families we’re close with, and that’s it. Voila! Kid birthday party!

I didn’t grow up with a birthday “party” every year. We had one every few years, and that was good! I don’t personally think that kids should get used to a huge party every year. I know it’s their special day, but making it special with family is sufficient, in my opinion.

Anyway, off that soapbox. Back to Orison.

There was the birthday plate (of course):

It’s so crazy for me to say this: “I have a SIX-year-old!” I can’t believe I’ve been a mother for six years. I can’t believe he’s so grown up.

There was the birthday song with cake and candles:

He requested chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. It was delicious (and I can say that, because my mother-in-law made it, not me)!

There were presents:

Legos from Granny & Papa (my parents in Pennsylvania)! They shipped his present in a Milk Bone dog biscuit box, and we kept teasing him that he was getting dog biscuits for his birthday. But he knew better. He kept saying, “Papa’s just trying to tease me!” He knows you well, Papa!

There were friends and cousins:

What else does a kid need? He was so happy with his birthday.

One of the most special presents came from his Grandmama, who did a special skin graft for Orison’s very well-loved “Teddy.” I think that’ll have to be a post by itself, but suffice it to say, his teddy bear has new life, thanks to the skilled hands of teddy-bear-surgeon Noel.

As I put him to bed that night, we prayed together and I got choked up as I thanked God for six years with Orison. He was laying on his top bunk and peeked his head up over the rail with tears in his eyes to give me a kiss. He told me, “I almost started crying!” and I told him, “That’s okay.”

There are some things that are good to cry about. Tears of gratitude are a welcome sight in the eyes of the Lord.

We brought in year #7 with lots and lots of joy! Happy birthday Orison! We love you more than we could ever tell you with words.

(And of course, a very special thanks to my uber-talented friend Wendy Maybury for the photos. Love you, Wendy! Thanks for loving our family well!)

I know I’m totally late to the post-Halloween internet party (you know, the one where everyone posts their pictures and talks about how cute their kids are?) But you’ll have to bear with my tardiness and stomach just one more of those posts, okay? I’m definitely on my own timetable this year!

We carved pumpkins with the boys on Saturday evening after supper. I was really surprised that Morrow was eager to reach in and grab the pumpkin guts! I was so proud of him! When Orison was his age he just screamed and cried while Abraham and I did all the scooping. But I suppose if you have an older sibling to model the task, things that are unknown aren’t quite as scary.

One of our spectators got kinda cranky during the carving, but one was hanging tough with us–Cadence!

Sunday night we took the kids trick-or-treating with some friends. You have to excuse the hat on our Superman–it’s Minnesota, and when the sun goes down at night, things get cold really quickly!

And here was our whole crew:

We had Superman, the punk rocker, a Jedi, Batgirl (her mask is in her hand), Dino, and a sweet spider.

I have sooo many memories of trick-or-treating around my neighborhood as a kid. It was so much fun! I’m glad my kids get to enjoy this weird tradition with me now!

This kid is so cute it kills me.

Just when I wonder, “Could he be any cuter?” he puts on a “dino suit” and voila!

Christmas 2007 was a dark one. I had buried my daughter 3 months before, almost to the day. We took off on a wild 6-week road trip all over the East Coast to get away, to escape.

But there was a little beam of light in the Advent season of 2007. That was the year I received an Advent basket.

What’s an Advent basket?

An Advent basket is a gift-a-day walk through the Advent season (December 1-25).

How do you do one?

1. Collect little knick-knack gifts for each day of Advent (so, 25 gifts altogether).

Now’s the time to start gathering fun little things for your basket! Start watching the dollar bins at Target, Michaels, etc. The items don’t have to be Christmas-related. When I did an Advent basket for a friend last year (pictured above), I tried to do a variety: Christmas-related stuff, snacks, bath & body stuff, a bottle of wine, a CD. The little pocket Advent chart was from Target, and I stuck a little sheet in each pocket with one of the names of God inside and a verse.

2. Wrap them up, and label them 1-25.

3. Include instructions for the person to open a gift a day, starting with Day 1. (On December 1st, open gift #1, on December 2nd, gift #2, etc.).

4. Reveal your identity somehow in gift #25 (on Christmas day).

5. Arrange for someone secret to deliver the Advent basket to the person before December 1. This was a really fun part for me! When I did mine, I found someone a few steps removed to do the delivery so it really threw my friend off! She had no idea it was from me.

6. Pray for that person especially during Advent!

Who should I give one to?

Only you can decide who your Advent basket is going to be for. The one I gave last year was for my friend Christy, who lost her mother unexpectedly a few months before. She was in the beginning stages of her grief journey, just like I was in 2007. And I remember so well how much joy that little basket brought me during Christmas of 2007. It was like each day I had a little something to wake up for. And the excitement and guess-work of wondering who it was from made it all the more exciting.

So, I won’t tell you who to give a basket to, but I’d encourage you to think of someone who’s had a particularly hard year, or someone who’s not looking forward to Christmas for any number of reasons. This is your chance to share the joy of Christmas with them this year and lift their eyes to see Jesus.

When I got my basket in 2007, it was from a family I know and love. When I opened their final gift on Christmas day, I just wept. I was so touched and humbled by their love.

Go ahead, try it!

I’m not one of those people who particularly likes to shop for Christmas stuff in October, but it’s a good idea to start looking for fun things now! And even if you don’t start the actual shopping now, you can be doing some brainstorming and praying about who you’d like to give an Advent basket to.

I’d love to know if any of you:

• have received an Advent basket in the past.
• have ever given an Advent basket to a friend.
• have never heard of this idea.

(via Karsten)

My brother-in-law Karsten posted this song on 9/11. I couldn’t help owning it for today, Felicity’s birthday, three years later.

The line that makes me cry today:

Your house is waiting…for you to walk in.

I never saw her steps. What I wouldn’t give to watch her walk into our house–watch her strut around the place without a care about mortgages, utilities, broken stuff. It would just be her home, that safe place she calls hers.

But, I’ll join her at her place someday. And somehow…somehow I won’t regret all the years we spent apart.

Today I do.

On Sunday, our little Morrow turned TWO!

We celebrated with our family of SIX(!!!) and our friend Wendy Maybury, who just happens to be a professional photographer and just happened to bring her awesome camera and her love for our kids along.

Morrow is in love with all sports that involve a ball. His favorite at this juncture is basketball. So I attempted basketball cupcakes!

Feel free to submit these to Cake Wrecks if you feel you must. I don’t have the steadiest hand, if you couldn’t tell! I went back and forth between thinking that some of them looked cute and thinking that they looked like spiderwebs. You decide.

Regardless, this was how Morrow felt about them:

And this is how Morrow looked when he was eating one:

Pure enjoyment! I’m no Martha Stewart when it comes to how my cupcakes look, but I’ll take that smile over perfect cupcakes any day!

For the occasion, Cadence wore her first dress! Morrow is in love with the twins. He loves to hold them, give them kisses, throw their dirty diapers in the garbage, and get clean diapers out of the diaper basket.

Orison and Morrow shared some sparkling grape juice for the special day. I love how this picture turned out. It looks like stock photography or something (except for the fact that it looks like our 5-year-old is drinking wine).

I can’t believe it’s been two years since Morrow came into our lives! In some ways it feels like yesterday, and in some ways it feels like we’ve always had him in our family. He brings such laughter into our lives every day.

Happy birthday, Johnner. We love you so very much!