One week can hold lots of changes.  This past one definitely has for us.  Many good things... a few more challenging things.

The best thing is that Jean got back last Wednesday evening!  We were very excited to pick him up at the airport.  Eva saw him headed towards us and started to jump and jump and didn't stop until he held her.  Ian just stared at him for about a day.  I don't think that he had forgotten Papai, but he may have gotten used to being without him and was in shock to see him again.  He's over that, however; when Jean got home from work today, Ian crawled as fast as he could to the door to greet him.  It is soooo good to have Jean back with us.  His trip went well and he had lots of stories and video what happened while he was gone.  I wouldn't say that we are any closer to knowing what our next step is, though.  That is kind of disappointing.  Perhaps that will come as we process all that happened and keep waiting.

The kids and I managed okay while he was gone.  Painting did get done, but it took much longer than I anticipated.  If my parents and Grandma Paula hadn't watched Eva and Ian for hours-long stretches, I wouldn't have gotten it done.  I was up until 2 almost every evening the way it was.  My brother, John Paul, and sister-in-law, Marlene, came over one night to help me do the main part.  The most time consuming thing was patching, sanding and taping.  If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't do three different shades.  I love how it looks, but it was way too much taping!  I'll post pictures of the progress soon.

Progress was also made in Ian's sleeping schedule.  I decided that Jean's absence was the perfect opportunity to let Ian "cry it out" during the night, since he really doesn't need to eat every 1-2 hours around the clock.  After a few nights of 80% crying and 20% sleep, he got into a good routine of 8:30-5:30 sleeping with a feeding and then a couple more hours of sleep.  I cannot tell you how good it felt the first night that I got 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep!  He does occasionally have a bad night, but I kiss him, tell him it is nigh-night time and lay in the next room waiting for him to fall asleep.  I feel bad if Jean misses sleep, but he understands.  I can't say the same for Janie.  Oh, yeah.  Another change...

On Sunday evening, Jean's brother moved in with us again.  We found out a few days before Jean left that he would need to do this so that Janie could return from Brazil to attend Taylor Ft Wayne.  The coach and administration had been able to arrange the visa, but they had been unable to find a sponsoring host family or funds for on-campus housing for him.  He has lived with us a couple of times in the past, but this is the first time that we don't have a bedroom for him.  If you have been to our house, you know that it is not large by most people's standards.  We have two bedrooms which we fill already.  We made a makeshift room (out of bed sheets and safety pins!) in our unfinished basement for him. 

I am glad that we can help and kind of "pay forward" all of the generosity Jean received when he was in a similar situation.  However, I do have to watch my attitude about it all... it is hard to explain without going into way too much history, but I have been praying and praying that God would fill me with grace towards Janie and help me to love him as I should love a brother.  The whole situation is just kind of awkward.  I mean, right now he is sleeping about 20 feet away from me and I can hear him snoring.   I alternate between feeling bad for him and sympathetic to his own inconvenient living situation to being bitter about the added cooking, cleaning and schedule coordination that I have to do since he is here.  He isn't often here, between leaving early in the morning for class to returning late after soccer practice or a game, but when he is, I don't feel like this is my house.  I feel weird about watching TV, nursing my baby, talking on the phone... Perhaps the weirdness will pass as we get into a routine and work through some of the issues.  I'm praying for that, anyway.

Jean went back to work at UPS on Monday evening to find that they have rearranged the UPS plane's flight schedule, so the driving position that he has been doing for a year is no longer needed.  He is back to sorting packages and getting off "early" (midnight rather than 2 AM).  We've come to depend on the higher driver pay and increased hours, but we're trying to focus on God's promise to provide for our needs as his pay drops significantly.  I can tell that he is fighting discouragement, especially as both of our cars are having strange issues and one visited the mechanic yesterday.  He works so hard that is difficult for him to see that we have just been getting by, and now he wonders how we'll even do that.  But, God is in control and we'll see how He works this one out. 

I should stop the clicking on the keyboard and head upstairs quietly.  I do plan to post the painting pictures, camping pictures and other cute kids pictures in the next couple of days.  Until then... bless the Lord at all times.

 Whew... where do I begin?  It feels like forever since I wrote anything here.  I guess it has been a month and a half.  A combination of travel, kid craziness, and lack of motivation have made it hard to sit down and write anything interesting to read.  We also lost our camera somewhere.  I used it one morning and then couldn't find it the next.  Not sure where it went, but Eva claims not to know where it is hiding.  Since I haven't found it in nearly a month, I am inclined to beleive her.  It has been frustrating not to have a camera to catch some of the memories that happen around here, but I am thankful that we have a good video camera.  We're shopping/saving for a digital SLR, so I hope that I'll soon be able to post more (& better!) pictures.

I had been planning a day of outdoor work, but rain and a fever for Ian changed my to do list.  Now we're taking it easy on the couch and giving Ian all of the cuddles that he needs. I don't know what is wrong because he has no other symptoms besides crankiness, but Tylenol seems to be taking care of it for now.  His first two teeth FINALLY broke through last weekend!  He has been working on them for a looong time.   He is getting so big!  He has been crawling for about a month and a half now, and he can pull himself up to reach everything.  Right now he is headed for the stairs -- yikes!  He is definitely a boy; he tackles anything he can get his hands on.  Eva isn't much of a wrestler, but she tolerates his play. 

More exciting news: Eva is showing more an interest in potty training again!  We're on our third day of getting most pee in the potty.   After months of strongly resisting any suggestion of trying the potty chair, she suddenly was open to it and very excited when he could "do it all by meself."  I think that the key with her is dressing her in dresses with nothing underneath.  Even Pull-Ups make her think "diaper" and she forgets what her body is telling her.  As long as we are at home, the nudist idea works! She stayed dry during a walk to the park yesterday, but I am nervous about other outings. 

I think that my little ones suddenly seem so grown up because I recently started watching a two-month-old three days a week.  She is so little and helpless in comparison to even Ian that I notice the many ways that they have changed.  Ian isn't so sure thay he likes the baby, especially when he happens to be hungry while I am feeding her.  Her cry scared him for the first few days.  It was kind of funny!

We're preparing ourselves for Jean's trip to Brazil at the end of this month.  He will be in Brasilia for 10 days to help run a program for children in his old neighborhood.  He will be doing soccer clinics and helping out with whatever else they need.  Jean is excited to work with his home church again, and we're both hoping that this will help us see if/when God is leading us back to Brasilia.  We've always wondered what we would do there, especially Jean.  I have been told that I could teach English pretty easily, but Jean isn't sure what he would do for work.  He'd like to work with his church, but they aren't large enough to support him in addition to the head pastor.  We're praying that God would speak clearly through his experience this month.  I am not looking forward to him being gone without us, but I know that we'll be okay.  Even though we don't get to spend much time together during the week, we do talk on the phone a lot.  Jean has been going into his day job a little later recently, so we get to see him during that time.  He still needs a nap in the afternoon before dinner, but at least he is around for a while before being gone until after we're all fast asleep (he has been getting home around 2-2:30 AM).  He is good about playing with the kids for a while before he takes his nap and they really look forward to seeing him.  He will be missed!

I do have a few pictures of our trip to the beach in Maryland to share.  My parents and seven youngest siblings were going out to visit our family there and they invited me and the kids to go along.  It was nice to get out and have a few days of vacation.  They kindly shared the pictures they took on the trip, so here you go...

Is this cheating?  I just sent this email to our house church and decided that it would make an easy addition to my blog.    A little background, since my story connects with a previous discussion that we had.  A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies in our church said that she and her daughters had been reviewing the Ten Commandments.  They were surprised to find that they didn't know the list by memory.  Many of us struggled to recall them all, too.  This showed us how little consciousness we may have of God's laws on a daily basis, so we decided to put a little effort into noticing how many commandments we did (or did not) break over the next week. Anyway, this story is one that I intended to share with the group when we met on Sunday, but my little ones were so active that I never got a chance.  (You moms out there can relate!)

I found myself struggling with one of the Ten Commandments this week, and it was not one of the ones that I usually find difficult.  It all happened as I was doing some grocery shopping at Aldi on Saturday morning.  If you've shopped there, you know that you deposit a quarter to take a cart into the store.  As the clerk rings up the purchases, she usually puts the groceries into another cart at the end of the conveyor belt, and you leave your cart behind for the next shopper's food.   Well, since I had Eva strapped into the front seat and Ian sitting in his car safety seat in the main part of the cart, I asked her if she would just load the food back into my own cart.  We paid and I realized that I had left my shopping bags (I try to reuse whenever possible!) in the car.  I took the cart filled with kids and food out to the car and stood next to the car as I bagged everything and put the groceries in the trunk.  Next, I strapped Eva into her seat.  Finally, I lifted Ian's seat to put him in the car.  Oops... two boxes of instant pudding were hiding under him. 
 
My first thought was, "I don't think that I paid for those!  I can't remember putting them on the conveyor belt. They must have been stuck under Ian the whole time!"  Followed by,"I really should go back into the store and pay for the pudding."  Followed by, "But I just put the kids in the car and the lines are SO LONG on Saturdays!"  Followed by, "I would feel so dumb going in there and handing them 78 cents!  This really isn't a big deal."  My decision was made: I'd just go on home and forget about it.  Besides, they had probably double-scanned something that I didn't catch in the past so this would even the score. 
 
Jean laughed at me when I told him about my dilemma last night because it was all over 78 cents!  But, I still couldn't get it out of my head all day.  I've had experiences in the past when it felt so good to be able to say that I was completely innocent of stealing anything.  I don't know if any of you remember when I was accused of stealing a large sum of money when I worked at the bank.  It was a few months before Jean and I got married, so I guess that when another teller had a lot of money go missing, I "needed" the money more than the other girls and became suspect #1.  I was able to truthfully tell the detective that I had never even stolen a penny. 
 
Saturday was a busy day with lots of yard work and cleaning, but the pudding was in the back -- or front -- of my mind the whole time.  I knew that I wouldn't be able to enjoy eating the pudding and even considered just throwing it away.  That evening, as we were at the worship & prayer meeting, I knew that I would have to go back to Aldi and make it right, no matter how stupid and trivial I may feel.  I should not steal.  Not even 78-cents-worth of pudding that no one else knew about.  It may seem silly, but I was so convicted.  I started to think of the ways that I had "slightly" broken some of the other commandments this week.  Little things, yes, but still offenses.  They should all have bothered my conscience as much as this pudding was.
 
Well, this story has a happy ending.  When I got home that evening, I did something that I hadn't thought of doing before: check my receipt.  Wouldn't you know it, the pudding was there.  It was paid for.  I could eat it without guilt (at least for stealing -- the calories are another issue!).   I think that God used it to bring my other "little" offenses to light.  Sin is sin, no matter the size.  I am thankful for God's grace and forgiveness when we confess.

  I can't believe that it has been 5 years already...

Jean and I are celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary today.  While I often feel like we have always shared our lives, I am amazed that five years have passed since our wedding day.  So many things have happened... so many things have changed... but I am so thankful that God gave me this husband who has committed to stay with me through it all.  I love him so much! 

I love our story.  We met on Valentine's Day 1999, and I knew that he was interested in me shortly thereafter.  He admitted it to me in early May 1999, but we didn't begin dating because, as YES participants, we were "forbidden" from having exclusive relationships.  He wrote letters to me from France, and I secretly read and replied to them from Thailand.  No one in Thailand with me knew what was going on until some of the missionaries started realize that I was really interested in the mail and began to tease me.  

Soon after we met in 1999... can you find us in the group?

Jean finished his assignment 6 months before me and actually drove from Pennsylvania to meet my family in Indiana without me.  He shocked them by saying that he was going to marry their daughter.  His promise came true, but not as quickly as he thought it may...

Our year apart "ended" in June 2000 and we began visits between Baltimore (his new home) and Warsaw (where I was in college) whenever we could.  We passed another year of physical distance by spending TONS of time on the phone.  In August 2001, he started studying at Grace and we were engaged a little over a year later. 

The evening that we got engaged at the Warren Dunes!

2004

A new family in 2005

2006

Adding another De Souza in 2007

2008

We are blessed.  I am blessed.  God has given me a wonderful, committed, godly man -- even if he is a little on the crazy side. 

I love you, Jean!

Ahhh!!!!  We leave the house for Brazil in 7 1/2 hours!!!!  I promised to write something, but I don't have much time as I still have more to prepare.  I am sure that I'll have lots to say when we get back from Brazil, but these are the random thoughts on my mind now...

...We are going to Brazil for two weeks.  We are going to Brazil for two weeks in the morning.  We are going to Brazil for two weeks in the morning and I still have a to do list longer than I have for most days.  We are going to Brazil for two weeks in the morning and I still have a to do list longer than I have for most days and it is nearly midnight. Ahhhhh!!!!  I really didn't procrastinate.  I've been working and planning for a long time.  I just always end up with a lot to do right at the end.  Packing, shopping, bill paying, cleaning... Why does the house have to be clean before we go?  I guess I just worry that something will happen to us while we're gone and I don't want to leave a mess for people to clean up behind us.   Or, maybe I just hate coming home to a messy house.

... I don't think that I shared about planning our trip.  We have been wanting to visit Jean's family and friends for a long time.  It has been almost exactly three years since we were there last and they have never met Eva or Ian (of course).  We just decided that it was time, found pretty good tickets, and here we are: the night before we leave.  Last time it was an emergency trip as Jean's mother had just passed away (March 12, 2005).  I am looking forward to this one because I've actually been able to PREPARE this time around.  It will be fun to introduce the little ones to their family and to watch Eva, especially, absorb her papai's world.  I'm excited.

... The plane trip --- make that trips.  We went for the cheapest flights possible, which means that we have four flights (and a bus across Sao Paulo!) down and four flights back.   I am nervous about the kids, but I am more nervous about how others will react to them.  I'm praying for understanding, kid-loving (but not creepy!)people seated around us. 

... Ian has been fighting off a cold for a couple of weeks and I am worried that it will become something bigger while we are gone.  There hasn't been any fever or major fussiness, so it may just pass once we get into warmer weather.

Wow.  I just read what I have written and I realized how nervous and worried I am about so many things.  Deep breath.  I am looking forward to this trip.  I know that it is a blessing from God.   I will have fun with my family.  I will trust God to take care of the details.

I'm off to help Jean with his packing.  He waited until about 9 o'clock to start, but he said he was done.  Nope.  I just asked if he remembered underwear and I got a blank stare.   Yeah, I better inspect those bags!