When we moved into the new house, we saw that we would probably need to put up some railing or fencing around the concrete stairwell that led to the basement door. Initially, one of the ledges was completely covered by an overgrown bush, so we pushed that to-do item down the list. A few weeks ago, John cut back the overgrown bush and we just didn’t think about the exposed (and dangerous) ledge above the stairwell. The girls hadn’t even noticed it up to this point.

Wednesday afternoon, I was making the girls play outside since it was nice out. They are often all out there playing by themselves while I am doing other stuff inside. While in the kitchen, I heard a loud scream from Nadia.

Then nothing.

I thought that was strange and thought that if she was hurt, she would be screaming over and over again. I then thought, “She must have screamed at one of her sisters about something….” and brushed it off. (note: this has become a recent norm for her… screaming at her sisters when they annoy her or smother her) Even so, my stomach was tensed up and Adelaide walked in and I asked her to run outside and just make sure Nadia was ok. Adelaide didn’t come running back in right away, so I walked outside and when I didn’t see Nadia in the yard, I immediately thought “THE STAIRS!!!” and ran to the stairwell.

Oh…. I will never forget that moment that I saw her crumpled at the bottom of the stairwell with a little pool of blood by her head. Never.

I screamed and ran down the stairs, crying out “Jesus help her!!”  and grabbed her, not thinking she could have broken her neck or bones… Her face was covered in blood and she was gurgling with the profuse amount of blood going down her throat. Her nose was bleeding profusely as well. She was completely disoriented and started screaming and I saw that her left pupil was constricted to the size of a pin point while her right eye was normal. Neither of the girls saw it happen so we didn’t know if she fell from the highest point of the ledge to the floor below or if she fell and hit some stairs along the way. Either way, it was bad.

I ran inside and laid her on the kitchen floor, checked to see if anything was broken,  and tried to call 911. When I finally got through, they asked me if that was her crying in the background. When I said yes, they assured me that was a good sign and that I should calm down. They sent an ambulance right away.

I was terrified. Completely. With her disorientation and eyes not matching, I feared a major brain injury.

I got off the phone with them and called my mom who lives about 15 minutes away and asked her to come right away to be with Adelaide and Sydney. Sydy was screaming and crying and scared. I called the two neighbors whose phone numbers I had and neither were home. I finally sent Adelaide over to the next door neighbor to see if he was home. She knocked on the door and when he answered she ran back home without saying anything. He thought that was strange and then saw the ambulance and came right away. I frantically asked him to stay with the girls until my mom got there and then I jumped into the ambulance with Nadia. He was gracious enough to stay with them.

The lead EMT decided to take her straight to the National Children’s hospital in DC rather than the closer hospitals because we didn’t know what the extent of her trauma was. I am thankful he made that call. Most likely had we stopped at a closer ER they would have taken one look at her and sent us back out to Children’s, which would have just taken longer overall.

My phone was dying and I had time to make one Facebook status update ” Please pray! heading to the ER with Nadia… bad fall down concrete steps.” I have never been so thankful for Facebook. We all joke about how it can be shallow and petty and suck the life out of us at times. But in that moment, there was no way to get the info to people to ask them to pray. Instantly, hundreds of people were praying for her/us all over the world, really. I am profoundly grateful for the far reach of Facebook and also for the concerned and caring network of friends we have all over the place! I did get through to John and was able to tell him to head to Children’s and meet me there.

By the time we arrived to the ER, Nadia’s eyes had stabilized and she was responding to me pretty well. I started singing her our nightly bedtime song, “Jesus Loves Me,” and she chimed in on her favorite points.. saying “know, so, strong, and bible tells me so…” She was remarkably calm and only wanted me to hold her hands, which were strapped down on the gurney.

The ER doc looked her over and initially did not see anything critical. Her eyes were normal, she was responding and no bones were broken. She had definitely had a concussion and kept wanting to go to sleep, so we had to keep her awake alot. She just wanted to lay on me and suck her thumb and hold her blanket (that I remembered to bring with us somehow). Her nose kept bleeding off and on. The doc scheduled her for a CT scan of her face and head and a more detailed one of all the fine facial bones around her left cheek and eye. Again, she was so calm and was probably so tired she couldn’t protest if she wanted to. She fell asleep during the scans.

Thankfully, the ER doc told us that because she has been swallowing so much blood, that we shouldn’t be alarmed if she vomited up alot of blood. Sure enough, as she was snuggling on my chest she sat up and vomited an unbelievable amount of blood and other stuff. I looked at John and said, “Had we not been told this was normal, I would have passed out or completely gone ballistic in fear.” I was covered in the vomit/blood and so was Nadia’s blanket. Thankfully, John had on an extra shirt and shared it with me.

The doc came back to say that her face and head looked fine in the scans but that after a second look and opinion on the fine bone scans, there was definitely two fractures deep in the eye socket bone. He wanted her to see the resident pediatric ophthalmologist who was still at the hospital. So we went upstairs and waited for him, he put terrible drops in her eyes to dilate them and then we waited another hour and 15 minutes to have him examine her eyes. She vomited again, but started to act a bit more normal at this time… it was about 9:30pm. The eye doc said that he thought her eye was fine but that we need to come back and see his attending next week to make sure her eye muscle isn’t getting caught on the fractures (which would involve a major procedure to “unsnag” it…).

He sent us back down to the ER to get discharged and we waited till about 11pm before we got some medication for her, some antibiotics and discharge papers. We were all beyond wiped.

Nadia started acting her normal self in the car ride home… asking were her sisters, all her friends and Grammy were. This was a good sign.

I slept on the floor in her room for two nights just monitoring her. I didn’t know if there would be pain or more vomiting or whatever. She slept great. Me, not so much.

During all of this, my mom took special care of the older girls… taking them out to eat at IHOP (one of their favorites), talking about and praying for Nadia, and just being with them when we couldn’t. So very thankful for her proximity during this time!!

Since then, Nadia hasn’t complained or acted like she is in pain hardly at all! AMAZING! She was pretty swollen the next two days and her pediatrician said she would probably turn black and blue before she got better.

Five days later, she looks like she lightly scratched her face on a tree trunk or something… no swelling and not even bruising. Her recovery has been incredible! Truly mind blowing considering what actually happened.

None of us knows what really happened, but judging from the scrapes all the way down her left side (scalp, shoulder, ribs, ankle), she fell somewhere along the ridge and hit the stairs before hitting the floor on her face. I am guessing her first scream is when she hit the stairs and then she went unconscious at the bottom for a couple of minutes. And then I got to her. It all feels like a blur and although it seemed like forever, it was probably just a couple of minutes from when she screamed and when I found her. Still feels like 2-3 minutes too long. Every time I look at the stairs I am reminded how bad this fall could have been. Easily. And here she is, walking and talking and whining and screaming at her sisters as if nothing happened.

Divine intervention and Divine care. No doubt about it. I know there have been so many prayers over her these last 5 days. Even my neighbor’s grandson asked for prayer at his preschool. So thankful and blessed by those stories!

Here are some images:

where she fell (guessing 6-8 + feet)

at the ER

trying to cheer her up

the day after

the second day after

today (5 days) – isn’t this wild??!

Just like that. Gone in the blink of an eye.

We weren’t in AZ too long… maybe 2.5 years. But Connie and her husband, Greg, impacted John and I greatly. And I know for a fact that literally HUNDREDS of others can say the exact same thing. In fact, this blog post is froom a person who, in reality, spent next to a nano second with Connie, when all is said and done. There are many others who could speak to her life much more eloquently and deeply.

This is a woman who would hold all of our new babies in Sunday School so us new/young moms could have a break and just be and enjoy some time with friends/peers (and an uninterrupted cup of coffee).

This is a woman who faithfully and passionately loved her kids and husband. We all saw it. We all wanted what they had.

This is a woman who would pray for our marriages, our babies and our lives, consistently. 

This is a woman who taught and loved on and prayed for all her 5th graders, consistently. 

This post from Connie’s middle son on his facebook page embodies all that we know and love about Connie:

“So thankful to have a Mother that loves me and raised me to love Jesus like she does. Only fitting her birthday falls on Easter. Love you Mom!”

The part I highlighted has just arrested me in the depths of my soul. We can all raise religious kids. We can teach them how to read the Bible and tell them they should really love Jesus. But the key to raising kids who actually, really learn to love Jesus is what they see in us. Do I really love Him? Does my relationship with Him actually make a difference in my life? My kids will learn more from that than if we never went to church and I never “told” them how they should think, feel, or believe about God.

Thank you, Connie, for being such a tangible example of a life WELL lived. Not a perfect life (I am sure you are shouting that from heaven to make sure I get it right), I know, but a life WELL lived on this earth. That is a treasure to be sought after, one that many go to the grave without. Thank you for loving on our babies. For praying for them, and us. Thank you for loving Jesus passionately and sharing that with us. Thank you for loving your sons and husband faithfully and devotedly. We NEEDED to see that. Thank you for serving, for loving, for giving so much to so many. Thank you for the marriage and child raising advice through the years. I wish I had talked to you more. Or listened more.

My first memory of you is in Fresh Grounds and you pulled out this book that was just rocking your world. It was Francis Chan’s Crazy Love. So fitting that would be my first glimpse into who you were. You were crazy about His crazy love for you. And you were bursting at the seams to share His crazy love with us.

And now you are with Him and enveloped in His crazy, amazing loving arms and that is beautiful. But I have to say, we all will miss you terribly. I can’t imagine Greg’s and your sons’ pain and sense of deep loss right now. May they be comforted, somehow, in knowing how very much you were loved by SO MANY PEOPLE, and how fruitful a life you have lived on this earth.

(photo credit: connie williams)

(ha! even my preggo pics have a travel theme photo credit: http://www.kiddosphotos.xanga.com)

as far back as i remember i loved adventuring… whether it was in the back 40 acres as a 5 year old, riding my horse (bareback) around my neighborhood (at age 7) to my friends’ houses (i would even tie up the horse to a hitching post), or asking my parents to stop the car while driving so i could “climb that mountain over there…” when i was old enough to go to summer camp and spend the night, i begged for 2 weeks (or 3 or 4). when i was 9 or 10, my best friend at the time moved to australia. we wrote back and forth religiously for 3 years. i studied everything i could about australia. that is what began my still-going-strong obsession with all things aussie. at age 11, i went on my first out-of-state adventure… a 5 week RV trip with my friend, heather, and her parents all around the western USA and canada. we stopped at most of the national parks. it was a dream (except when it was a nightmare for two only child daughters to share living quarters for 5 weeks).:)

i guess it only made sense when i approached my parents about spending an entire summer with a group of 30 teenagers and a few adults (all but 1 of whom i didn’t know)… in africa when i was 16. it made sense to them, but not really to many others. i still to this day thank God my parents KNEW me and TRUSTED GOD with my goings and comings and let me go. they were chastised by many, many other adults in our legalistic community for not “protecting” me as any good father and mother would have their daughter.

“how could you let her go with complete strangers?”

“how can you make sure she is safe?”

” how can you trust the other teens since you don’t know what kind of influence they will be?”

to all of these and more questions, they responded the way i want to respond to my own kids someday….

“we let her go because she is GOD’s CHILD first and foremost. we let her go because we feel she is safer in HIS hands and if HE is leading her overseas, that is where she needs to be.” being a parent myself, i KNOW this wasn’t easy for them, even though they believed it wholeheartedly. and so i thank and applaud them all the more for their faith and strength in the face of disapproval and rebuke. (note: there were others who DID support me and them in this endeavor… they prayed and gave financially to this trip that truly changed my life forever. i am ever so thankful for them.)

that summer was , cliché and all, LIFE CHANGING. its like i started living and breathing a completely new life that was so fulfilling and invigorating – the life i was created to live. (as an aside, my perspective on short-term mission trips has evolved and changed over the nearly 2 decades since this initial overseas trip… but i still hold that this experience for me was worth every penny, every tear, every moment, every mistake.)

after this trip in 1995, i found myself going overseas nearly every year until 2008. i have wrestled, again, for nearly two decades, on how to handle being home, being settled in “real” life and trying to be content there. i know there is some balance to this equation. but every time i was able to hop on a plane for another trip, service opportunity, educational opportunity, or adventure, i found myself breathing a sigh of relief. i felt myself actually BREATHING again. it is that life-giving to me. its not just the adventure rush, although i love that. its how my world opens and grows and evolves as i meet new people and see new places, experience other cultures and see the absolute beauty and creativity of such a creative Creator in the variety of colors, faces, foods, and lands. God becomes so much more real and understandable when i experience and see Him outside my own cultural/racial/economic box. i love that. i love seeing Him look ever so different over there. i love seeing how others see Him.

and to be honest, i have been stuffing this part of me down deep inside for about 5 years now. trying to be content and make suburban american life work for me. i have been trying to re-envision life indefinitely state-side. pta’s and carpools. book clubs and home-cooked meals.*

and i have been literally dying inside.

that’s ok, you can think i am a ridiculous drama queen/adventure junkie if you want. i am ok with that. all i know is what i know. and i know myself pretty well by now. we’ve been going steady for 34 years. some things have changed and evolved. some things are deeply, hard-wired in me.

my epiphany about all of this happened early this morning. john left for work at an ungodly hour as usual. i couldn’t get back to sleep, so i started thinking about life. sydney came bounding in at about 6:15am giddy with joy because “Mommy! Today is the first day of SPRING!!!!!!” this child has been talking about this everyday for weeks. i couldn’t help but smile and be excited for this new season as well. we snuggled in and i looked up the national geographic kids website. somehow we discovered the “Are We There Yet: World Adventure” videos. If you haven’t seen them, look them up! They are 7 minute videos of sibling duos on adventures around the world. We LOVED them. one of the videos we watched was about going on an elephant ride in Corbett National Park in India. i asked sydney if she remembered when she rode the elephant in thailand. her eyes were as big as saucers and she said, “what??! i did?!” no recollection. and so i pulled up our thailand pictures from facebook and i watched in awe as she relived the adventures through my pictures. she wasn’t even 2 when we last went to thailand. she didn’t remember anything, but went crazy over everything we looked at. she giggled at the elephants painting and playing harmonicas, at the pics of her playing in the jungle in north thailand.

and i thought, “hey, this is my dream. this has been my dream forever really. i want to do this with the girls… now. why not? what is stopping us?” the short answer – me. my own short-sightedness. my own second guessing. my own doubts and maybe some fears. so i tend to be an all or nothing person… ok, so i am a 110% all or nothing person. this whole doubting season i have been hung up on the fact that i don’t foresee us going overseas long-term anytime soon. and i have lamented that. and then accepted it. and then resented it. and tried pretty hard to fit the mold of staying stateside and doing life how i am “supposed to.” that is pretty difficult for someone hardwired (dare i say by God Himself) for something different.**

and then the epiphany came . it doesn’t have to be all or nothing! WOW. seriously… my mind was BLOWN by this thought. blown, i tell you. we can live here in suburban america, do the pta, have playdates and do homework AND go on adventures together on breaks and summers for a season. IF the time comes to do something more long-term, i will welcome it with open arms. but until or if that happens, i am so down with this new idea i can hardly keep my feet on the ground. my mind is on overdrive dreaming, planning, and pondering.

and just like that…. spring  sprung in my soul. and i felt myself feel more alive just at the thought of this than i have in a long, long time. 

or maybe, like most of us around here on the east coast, i am just so done with winter and cold that i am delusional.

nah….. not a chance.

* not saying anything against this kind of life. i know and respect so many who live and thrive in this kind of life. i am just saying i am not wired for it.

** not better. just different.

sigh.

i really do want to keep up this blog. i long to journal life with the kids and life in general. so how is it that LIFE is what prevents me from blogging, journaling and memorializing life?!

a conundrum really.

so, here it is, beginning of march, and i am making a new resolution. to keep up with life and not let life keep me from doing the things i love. sure, i am living life, but memorializing it via images and written memories is very important to me as well.

are you ready for it? the big, bad, mother of all recaps? here we go… in bullet point form.

NOVEMBER 2012

- planned and hosted the first Shop2Free holiday shopping event in Silver Spring. it was a wonderful, wonderful experience and the perfect way to start off the holiday shopping… with purpose, intention and ethical choices.

- my baby turned TWO. she is so full of personality and life and FUN, i can hardly stand it. oh, and a healthy dose of attitude too.

- celebrated thanksgiving in Texas with friends and family. lovely to see extended family members for the first time in years. and wonderful to spend quality time in the Texas hill country with friends.

DECEMBER 2012

- sandy hook….. shook me to my core for weeks. cried just looking at my girls in the rear view mirror. still can’t really wrap my mind and heart around it and still pause to grieve for the grieving families and friends.

- adelaide turned 7. SEVEN. how is that possible? she got bangs. and she wears them well. we had a fun, simple birthday party for her with friends from school and the neighborhood. my favorite part: asking the girls to shout out their favorite thing about adelaide. ALL of them said something about her kindness, caring heart and fairness. made my heart burst with love and i really couldn’t agree more.

- celebrated christmas a bit on the simple side, which was lovely and oh-so-needed. knitted my first hat, made new stockings out of old sweaters… the girls got guinea pigs for christmas. meet Dave and Patches.

JANUARY 2013

- spent the month looking for a house to buy and trying to get my life organized and planned.

- went on lots of walks.

- discovered the Baltimore Aquarium.

- drove to the mountains just to look at the view one day.

FEBRUARY 2013

- planned a last minute Valentines Mini Session event called LOVE GIVES to raise money and awareness for LOVE146.org. it was a blast and the kids were just adorable. fundraising and activism can really be FUN too!

- attended The Justice Conference in Philadelphia with some of the best speakers, and most wonderful people. i found my tribe. i love my tribe of justice seekers. i loved wondering the streets of Philly on my own, as well. i love me some country, but need the city fix every now and then.

- celebrated Sydney turning FIVE! she is so full, full, full of life at five. we talked her into holding off for a summer birthday party in what we hope is our new home (under contract – crossing fingers)! she was very agreeable to the idea until the day of her birthday and there wasn’t anyone here for the party. mothering fail. thanks to our most wonderful neighbor-friends… we were able to invite two of her besties over for last minute ice cream and cookies to celebrate SYDNEY! whew!

And there you go…. all caught up.

How the Leaves Came Down

by Susan Coolidge

“I’ll tell you how the leaves came down,”
The great tree to his children said,
“You’re getting sleepy, Yellow and Brown,
Yes, very sleepy, little Red.
It is quite time to go to bed.”

“Ah!” begged each silly, pouting leaf,
“Let us a little longer stay;
Dear Father Tree, behold our grief;
Tis such a very pleasant day
We do not want to go away.”

So, for just one more merry day
To the great tree the leaflets clung,
Frolicked and danced, and had their way,
Upon the autumn breezes swung,
Whispering all their sports among,–

“Perhaps the great tree will forget,
And let us stay until the spring,
If we all beg, and coax, and fret.”
But the great tree did no such thing;
He smiled to hear their whispering.

“Come, children, all to bed,” he cried;
And ere the leaves could urge their prayer,
He shook his head, and far and wide,
Fluttering and rustling everywhere,
Down sped the leaflets through the air.

I saw them; on the ground they lay,
Golden and red, a huddled swarm,
Waiting till one from far away,
White bedclothes heaped upon her arm,
Should come to wrap them safe and warm.

The great bare tree looked down and smiled,
“Good-night, dear little leaves,” he said.
And from below each sleepy child
Replied, “Good-night,” and murmured,
“It is so nice to go to bed!”

went to a sweet new park today with the girls… gotta soak up EVERY SINGLE COLORFUL MINUTE of the fall! this park has an “adventure play land ” playground. amazing. LOVE seeing the girls be just that… kids. swinging, running, climbing, crawling. i love them so.

Like thousands or millions, perhaps, of others, I just finished watching the 2 part PBS documentary, Half the Sky. I lost count of how many times I cried. I am still fired up in the depths of my soul with inspiration and zeal.

And I can’t help thinking about you. God gave me three girls. Why? Its simple. To change the world. 

I don’t say that arrogantly. I don’t say that with a sense of entitlement. I say it with urgency. I say it with fervor and conviction.

Dealing with gender based violence and exploitation and slavery IS the unfinished business of our century. And you and I are here, in this century, for such a time as this. 

Sex slavery is gender based violence.

Female circumcision (genital mutilation) is gender based violence.

Exorbitant female maternity mortality is gender based violence (when its the mutilation and lack of freedom to seek medical attention or help that contributes to the death rates).

Child sexual exploitation is gender based violence.

AND IT HAS TO STOP. This isn’t a “cultural sensitivity” issue. This is a fundamental human rights issue. There is no cultural norm that must simply be accepted out of “respect for the culture” if it leads to widespread exploitation and enslavement of an entire gender population.

If I was a mother in Cambodia, I would have been congratulated when you were a girl, because that meant I would have financial security in the ability to sell her body to foreign sex tourists. When I would have had THREE daughters, I would have been considered the luckiest mom in the village… this is a cultural norm that must be aggressively and tirelessly resisted and reversed.  (*find out more about parental complicity in child sexual exploitation in Cambodia in the film NEFARIOUS)

If I was a was a prostitute in India, and gave birth to you, I would believe I now have a companion in my “old” age once I couldn’t sell myself anymore. I would not want you to go to school, because even I knew that if you were educated you would leave me and look down on me… this is a cultural norm that must be challenged and reversed. 

If I was a wife and mother in Somalia, not only would I arrange for the brutal mutilation of your genitals, which I knew would lead to a lifetime of pain, complications and quite possibly death, but if I had a son, I would not allow him to marry a girl unless she was “cut” as well… this cultural norm must be exposed for what it is, VIOLENT OPPRESSION, and courageously fought against. 

You know me, you know my love of all things cultural. You know I would be the first to step up and try to educate others about cultural sensitivity. But this is where I draw the line. This is where I say that its not cultural ITS EVIL. 

You have said you want to be a missionary. At six years old. This is your dream. I pray to God it is your reality as well. You are wired and created uniquely to care for others… to bind up, heal, and comfort those in pain and distress. I pray you will be a champion of women and girls in your lifetime and beyond. I hope I can model that for you in my lifetime. Victims of gender based violence are voiceless. You and I are not. Victims of gender based violence are marginalized and hidden in the darkest recesses of our globe. We can go to them with the Light of the love of Jesus… the only Light that can and will defeat and dispel the darkness. I painfully but excitedly release you,  you whose middle name means SHINING AND LUMINOUS, into those dark recesses. You have the Light within you, and with that, my daughter… you can change the world. 

My dear Adelaide Zahara, its not by “luck” that you were born as a girl into the West. Its by design. With great privilege and wealth and opportunity come great responsibility. I don’t even have to tell you this, though, because you were born to give, to love, to comfort, to heal. And you know this already, even at the ripe young age of six years old. I see it in you. Others see it in you. This world will be blessed, will be better for you being born in such a time as this. We have sisters and daughters and mothers in the world that need us to be their voice. Need us to cry for their freedom, their empowerment, and their opportunity. I hope we can and will use our voices for GOOD together. I hope your voice goes further and louder than my own. I hope you will always “let your light so shine before men [and women] that they will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” This was the verse God gave me for you… I am starting to understand that is was to prepare me to to let you GO and shine in the darkness, where His Light is needed most. I love you so much. I am so proud of who you are. I am already learning so much from you… May you always know you were born for a purpose, you have a magnificent destiny, and you are loved immeasurably. May your arms, your life,  be full of those who need your love, your light, your comfort and your voice. Open them wide. Give freely. Love fully. Shine brightly. Speak loudly.

Love,

Your Mama

of course the rest of the drive was a total nightmare… complete with someone peeing in their carseat while we were stuck in yet another long line at yet another toll booth. then a freakish storm that made all the other drivers on the road C R A Z Y ridiculously slow. i practically begged my sister in law, rebecca, to have a tall glass of wine ready for me when we arrived. and she did. and all was well in the end.

i had been hearing about my niece and nephew’s grandparents’ place for years now…. basically 13 acres of paradice for kids (and adults).

and it was SO true. Casa Pelegro was all of that and more. the pool was an instant hit, of course. but then there was the pond, the rolling “hills”, tire swings spread throughout the place, the “hazzard county jail: for time out sentences” which was a log cabin playhouse (on steroids) complete with climbing wall, gardens of fresh produce, fruit trees, fire pit patio complete with charades stage, golf carts to ride around on….. need i say more?! sue and walt have spend years perfecting this space… and their grandkids have made some lifelong memories there. each summer, walt and sue’s three daughters and their families and kids come out and “play” for anywhere from 2-4 weeks at a time. it really is like a summer camp of sorts. they make “camp” t-shirts each year, and a summer yearbook. i love it!

the girls and i had such a lovely time with my sister in law and her parents, sisters and their families. we celebrated my nephew’s 10th birthday by attending the Paw Socks baseball game (an annual tradition now).

speaking of baseball… the following story illustrates how NOT into sports the hudson girls are… when i told adelaide we were going to see the paw socks baseball game, she looked at me, kinda sighed, and put her hand on her hip and said, “well, i am not playing in it.” i then realized they have never really been exposed to sports… especially professional sports. right. so i tried to explain what a professional baseball team was. she nodded thoughtfully and then asked if Gordon (her 10 year old cousin) would be playing in it. right. i am pretty sure she still doesn’t really “get” it even after attending the game. she does know you get lots of junk food at baseball games, though.

Liberty State Park

welcome to case pelegro!

serious fort and playland fun!

the campfire and charades stage

aunt rebecca and cousin greer!

happy birthday Gordon!

uncle Vic and nadia~

beach time!

picking blueberries!

such a FUN place!!!!

for now, check out my friend Devi’s blog. she asked me to be a guest blogger today, and i feel very honored to be able to share my thoughts and heart on her blog about motherhood and justice issues.

and because i just love this picture, here is a taste from one of the many stops on our way to rhode island….

adelaide and i made a special trip to phoenix together. i was hired to shoot a wedding in phoenix, and brought adelaide along (as a surprise to her) to visit and stay with our dear friends the bertolinis. adelaide and lidia were both born in Berlin. adelaide’s first friend was Scout, robin and alex’s first “baby” before lidi came along. we had some awesome times together in Germany and were very fortunate to move to phoenix together as well. the girls hadn’t seen each other since we moved, almost 2 years ago.

but they picked up right where they left off…. but with more sass and more independence. and a lot of dancing. i just love these girls. it was a super short visit, but we so enjoyed reconnecting and reminiscing. i hope we all live in the same town again sometime… somewhere in the world.

early morning flight. i don’t do mornings. she does, somehow.

so this is a DREAM piece of wall art for me… saw it in starbucks in the airport. classy. i want this image on my wall… except i want the people in the photo to be my kids… on our around the world trip i dream about taking with them. someday. its going to happen. and when it does, it is going on my wall.

and the posing is after just watching “barbie fashion show”…. good times.

i L O V E this shot of Lidi dancing… can’t decide between black and white and color….

sad to leave….

and just for fun…. pic of them 2.5 years ago.

yeah, i was a bit sentimental. on another note, when did they start the cap and gown and pomp and circumstance for kindergarten graduations??!

she looked so grown up. this is the picture of her i am going to see in my mind when she is 18 and looks over at me from her high school grad crowd. it will be a steve martin moment (a la Father of the Bride)… “dad, i met a man in rome, and he’s wonderful and he’s brilliant and we’re getting maaaarrriiieeed.”

adelaide did great this semester at Forcey Christian School. her teacher, ms. powell, was a perfect fit for her. her love and care of adelaide meant the world to me. oh, and her teaching was awesome too.

my favorite part of the night? each child was pulled aside in the previous weeks and asked, privately, what they wanted to be when they grew up. during the graduation, each of them came to the mic and said, “when i grow up, i want to be_______________.”

Adelaide: When i grow up, I want to be a missionary!”

LOVE!!

i am going to water that seed and cultivate a little world changer in this family. she has a heart of gold. so full of love and care for others. i anticipate seeing all God has uniquely created her to be in the years to come.

“when i grow up i want to be a missionary!”