Advent

So many blessings come from being raised in a Christian home. I thank God that I have parents that taught me to fear the Lord from an early age.

One of the down sides, though, is that amazing things sometimes seem familiar. Like God coming in the form of a baby. And not in a palace--in a stable to parents that weren't married.

Sometimes, though, God gives us a glimpse of what it must have been like. What it would have been like for Mary and Joseph to wait for a child. For a nation to wait for a deliverer. For God to come as a child.

I did some waiting this year. The last few weeks of my pregnancy were painful. I was so impatient for her to come. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Mary to wait for the child in her womb, who was the promised Redeemer of Israel? Can you imagine what it must have been like for Israel to endure oppression and silence from God for hundreds of years? To wait for God to fulfill the promise he made to Abraham? I wonder if their faith ever wavered. I wonder if the promises ever seemed familiar, like a story they told themselves year after year.

I watch my little girl crawl and explore and fuss and I wonder what it must have been like for God to take the form of a child. For the Word, who spoke everything into being, not to be able to tell his mother what he wanted. How amazing that God was once like Ava--small, dependent, cute. How low he stooped to redeem what was broken! Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2: 6-11)

In this season, as we wait, I pray that God gives me a new sense of how outrageous this story is. We sinned, and turned away from God. But God, who is rich in mercy, promised us deliverance, sending it in the most unlikely way--his Son, born as a baby, executed as a criminal, raised from the dead.

Face Smush

Ava continually makes us laugh. Her latest means of doing so we affectionately call "the face smush." Every night, after reading and singing to her, the three of us cuddle in bed. Ava, though, has a very hard time staying still. She is driven to crawl by some mysterious force. So instead of laying still and being held, she climbs toward either one of our faces and smushes her cheeks and/or lips against various parts of our faces. Sometimes she sucks on our noses, sometimes she tries to give us French kisses. Last night, she gave Daniel a raspberry on his cheek. It's always awkward and always hilarious. It's her little way of showing us love. Rolling over us awkwardly, and slobbering all over our faces.

Here's the best face smush picture I have:

Words

This pretty much sums up my week thus far:

Elevator Fail

"Let's go grab food first," Annie said. I agreed, and we began to traverse Ala Moana Shopping Center with our two girls. I pushed Ava in the stroller; Annie carried Ellie in the sling. We made our way to the elevator.

When we arrived, we found the elevator already jam-packed with other Moms with strollers and toddlers. We decided to wait for the next ride. We stood around for a minute or two, until a couple of families came up and stood next to us. It was then that we realized that we had not pushed the down button. I reached over and pushed it. Unfortunately, the people behind us needed to go up. Since the button had already been pushed, we got on, the doors closed, and prepared for our ride down. I fiddled with the stroller wheel because it didn't seem to be rolling well; Annie waited. Neither of us thought to push the button. The door opened again. We saw confused looks on the people's faces. "Going up?" they asked. "Down," we replied. "Sorry."

The doors closed again, and I pushed the button to head down to the food court. Unfortunately, I didn't do this before someone on the floor above us summoned the elevator. Up we went. As the new rider entered the elevator, I prayed that she was also going to the food court. No such luck. We went right back down to where we had been. Annie and I hid our faces in shame. When I looked up, we saw the same families, exasperated. "It accidentally went up," Annie said quietly.

If you're counting, that's three times we denied these poor parents access to the elevator. They were not amused. They looked at us like teeny bopper mall rats who were playing some cruel joke on them. We just hung our heads in shame and wondered at the effect our babies have had on our mental capacities.

Family Portraits

Daniel, Ava and I had some portraits done a couple weeks ago down at Lanikai Beach. I thought you might enjoy seeing a few. You can find the rest, as well as a few new albums from this fall, on our Kodak site. Remember that the password is "Po." Enjoy!

My Worst Fear Realized

One of the great things about being a junior high leader is that you regularly get to act completely undignified. You get to shove marshmallows in your mouth and pose for the camera, jump up in the air and scream, use face paint to identify what team you're on, and generally make a fool of yourself.

All this and more I have done. It's really a blast. But tonight, our leader, JD was singing a song about dancing and shouting. He decided that we should dance and shout. And he said, "And to show you how to dance, here's Annie... [not me, not me] and Jill."

Now, I don't really don't mind doing scripted signs to "Waves of Mercy." And I move around a lot during worship. But what he wanted was unscripted, wild, somewhat coordinated dancing.

I'm a Baptist girl. I don't do unscripted dancing. Or, I should say, when I do, people laugh. In fact, I would say that dancing in front of people is just about the scariest thing to me ever. But I tried. Annie and twirled, and laughed, and did the do-si-do. And by the end of the worship set, everyone was doing the do-si-do. We were silly.

And you know what? It was fun. The kids had fun, and no one laughed. At least not in a mean way. We were completely undignified, and hopefully, the kids and I both learned to care a little bit less about what people think. And in an odd way, I think being wild and crazy lets them know that we love them. That we aren't above them, stuffy and untouchable. That we care enough to look like complete fools. To be a part of their youthful, energetic world.

So I'll become even more undignified than this.

Surf's Up

The surf was pumping this weekend, with wave faces upwards of twenty feet. We (along with seemingly every other visitor and resident of O'ahu) headed up to the North Shore. Ava especially had a blast. Though it was much cooler than we expected--in the sixties and drizzly, to say nothing of the sea spray--she was so excited to be out and about. Here's a pic of her and Dad together:

Day Late, Dollar Short

There's nothing quite like the feeling of finding out today that two of your favorite artists were in town for a concert yesterday. Oh well. I'm sure they come to O'ahu often...

Quite Possibly My Favorite Thing Ever

Yesterday night, I was in the kitchen doing my thing, and Ava was playing across the room. When I looked over at her, she smiled me and sighed happily. She then proceeded to crawl across the room toward me, and beg to be picked up.

There are times when I feel like the worst mom ever, but in that moment, I felt like a queen. Oh, to be loved by Ava.

Pastels!