Hearts Full of Joy

greater joy

i found this article in meridian magazine yesterday, entitled "thou child of joy", and while i don't claim to completely understand all of the concepts it puts forth, i find it fascinating, and would like to understand it better.....inspiring food for thought.

technology free

we enjoyed the most delightful day yesterday. skies were blue, birds were singing, the temperature was perfect. but these were not the reasons we enjoyed our perfect day, they were just icing on the cake. what made the day wonderful is that our cable provider's system crashed, leaving us without phone, internet, or tv. i wish this would happen more often. it was blissful. we were relaxed, and leisurely caught up on so many things that had been put off. i made banana blueberry bread and granola and strawberry rhubarb jam (rhubarb from our garden!). i cleaned. i enjoyed gracie.

i wouldn't want this to happen too regularly, because i had to ignore the customers of our internet shops. i really enjoy our shops and our customers, and want to provide the best service possible. but there is always more to be done with the shops, ALWAYS. and not being able to access the shops, or anything/one else by phone or internet was so refreshing. maybe i should schedule one day like this a week. i believe it would bless my life. but do i have the self-control to stay off the internet and phone if they are accessible? i fear i don't. and that's a painful admission.

hand made christmas

we had a twice blessed christmas, first by traveling to utah to share christmas with extended family, and then coming home and having our own little handmade/second hand christmas, and we loved it.

 

i made the flannel jammies/night gown using a vintage pattern from etsy and then made matching one s for their dolls with another vintage pattern from etsy published in 1972, when i was younger than grace.

 

in retrospect, i should have switched the colors for the girls, because gracie and her nighty are the same color!

mia made this cape for noah (with some help from me):

 

he loves it and so do i!

 

noah made gracie the cutest coloring book ever. brock made me shelves for our closet, and a bookshelf for noah. i made pajama pants for noah and brock and a baby doll carrier for grace, and matching aprons for mia and grace.

i had some concerns about certain children being disappointed by our christmas exchange rules, but even the teenagers agreed that it was probably our best ever. it helped that we found some fun second hand games, dvd's, puzzles, legos, books, and a few other treats. we found that we put much more thought and care into every gift we gave, and more time and effort than money, whether it was hand made or second hand. and it felt more to us like christmas should.

etsy

etsy is so much more fun than i ever anticipated! we've been surprised to find ourselves shipping packages off to germany, australia, the netherlands, japan, and three to the UK. i feel back in touch with my antique quilt business in japan, which is a happy feeling. and i'm meeting the nicest, most interesting, incredibly creative and talented people.

one of them has me feeling very inspired.
she is expecting her eighth baby, has two fun etsy shops -

check out the adorable scripture bags on this one,
 
she also homeschools, and has a fabulous blog.
i feel honored that she is using my "squares & stripes forever" quilt kit

as a give-away prize on her blog.

a few more shops that i love:

drawingroom's shop

sweet nellie's shop

lexi is loving this:
DanaCastle's shop

look to right-hand column to see my featrued and most recent etsy shop listings.

vintage goodness, the joys of sewing, modest dresses, and beautiful girls

friday was "mormon prom". youth from three stakes of our church descended on columbia, missouri for an evening of fun, modest, and appropriate dancing and partying. the week before, i stumbled across an ebay auction for a vintage 1950s dress, and since tashi didn't have a dress for the event, and was planning on borrowing, i snagged it for her, hoping it would fit.
 
it did! a puffy concotion of pink flocked chiffon, "home made"  (as most dresses were then, a sadly lost art). it had the sheer wrap, but we decided it needed more. the "cumberbund" sash had incredibly long ties, enabling us to cut off the ends and cover her shoulders. add a fluffy crinoline, also from ebay, and we were done. she loved it. so much funner than buying a new dress for 5x the amount we spent on this. lexi wore the dress we got her for her junior prom, coming up in a few weeks.
nauvoo 1st & 3rd ward laurels in columbia

lexi missed the memo...only pink or black dresses lex!

ande (far left) made her beautiful dress. and sarah (pink dress in center) & her aunt made her jacket) we got lexi's for steal, on sale at kathleen's bridal.

our friend brady was at mormon prom too. when he posted photos on facebook a girl asked, "why do all the dresses have sleeves?" i can't imagine allowing a daughter to dance all night with a teenage boy in a strapless gown. what are most parents thinking?

a big shout-out to amazing young women's leaders who sacrificed so much time in driving the girls to the prom (three hours each way) and staying overnight with them!

shingo

we have been treated to a 5 day visit by one of our most favorite of people in the world, shingo.

the first time i saw shingo, he was a missionary, singing a musical number in church with a large group of young missionaries. when i saw him, i knew that our plans to move back to the u.s. after receiving mia's visa from the u.s. government needed to change. the spirit told me strongly that i had a son like shingo coming, and i needed to stay in japan and find him. it was an overwhelming experience, unlike any i had ever had, and it changed everything. shingo was serving as a missionary in the ward that shared our building, and so we had the opportunity to get to know him. he loved mia, who was 17 months old, and we discovered that his family was best friends with dr. samejima's family (the doctor who gave us mia). shingo had left medical school to serve his mission and planned to work with dr. samejima after he graduated (medical school begins right after high school in japan).

after this experience, and a few others i won't take the space to list, we called dr. samejima, and although we felt tremendously selfish and brazen in asking for another baby when so many other families were waiting, we found the courage to say that if he ever had a baby that he couldn't place for any reason (racial mix, handicaps, etc) to please let us know. he laughed and said there was another baby for us, a boy, and he would find him.

if we were to adopt again, and pass the u.s. home studies required, we needed to move out of our one bedroom home in tokyo. we felt guided to move to maihama, just outside of tokyo, and walking distance from tokyo disneyland and disney sea. and we did so about a month and a half after meeting shingo. and to our surprise, in our new japanese ward (we had spent the last 7 1/2 years in an english ward), we met shingo's family who lived just blocks away from our new home. we loved them immediately.

there is so much i could write, but to keep it simpler, 18 months after meeting shingo, i received a phone call that woke me early on a sunday morning. brock was gone, already at early church meetings. dr. smaejima's voice said "omedeto" (congratulations), "i've found your baby". it was march 7, 2004, the day of shingo's mission homecoming. we celebrated that day for two joyful reasons. and at shingo's openhouse that evening, sister samejima met with us and told us all about noah's birth mother. in april shingo went back to medical school and noah was born. these two (noah & shingo) are intricately tied together, and although i don't completely understand it, i know that it is significant. the spirit tells me so. we've seen very little of shingo since, as his medical school was in tokushima, shikoku, far away from tokyo...and nauvoo. i was thrilled to answer the phone in early december and hear shingo's voice. he would be graduating from med school in march, and would like to come and visit us then. we've been eagerly anticipating his visit, and it was even more enjoyable than hoped. he is amazing, and brought a wonderful spirit to our home. we hope that noah will be as much like him (as the spirit whispered to me) as possible....they look remarkably alike.

noah following where shingo leads....

it was a painful farewell when we put shingo on the train back to chicago. but he promises to visit before too long with his "new family" (the family he plans to have). we'll be waiting.

saturday we realized that it was the 5 year aniversary of the day of shingo's homecoming, and we were all together again.

update....shingo's dad just sent me this link.   (shingo flew to utah from chicago to visit his mission president, mission companions, and the university of utah med school)

christmas morning

we have had a beautiful christmas, and hope you have too.

i'm willing to risk being reported for child abuse in order to share this photo from christmas eve....

noah has been asking daily for weeks to go swimming in the back yard. we, very wisely of course, explained carefully why that wouldn't work. he would seem to understand, but then start asking again the next day. so brock staged this in an effort to help him understand. it didn't work. he was sure that after we got the water in the pool, it would warm him up - he just needed to go in the house to get warm clothes on until then. the hose couldn't be used to fill the pool, as everything was frozen up, so he still isn't a believer in the impossibility of the situation. but he did settle for swimming in the bathtub yesterday.

cozy christmas

we are settling in for several cozy snowy, icy days at home as a family, through christmas. my perfect dream come true - snow falling outside, and nowhere we have to go. we have a few gifts to deliver, a few to wrap, some yummy baking, and lots of enjoying each other to do. and we're looking forward to it.
i'm catching up on some christmas sewing projects. i took these pillows (supplies purchased last year & left untouched) on my trip to utah and was able to whip them up by the time i returned. wool felt is so fast and easy. now i have other visions of sugar plum sewing to do, but only if it doesn't interfere with enjoying my family & feeling the spirit of christmas.

my parents are the cutest

my parents have spent almost 18 months in southern guatemala, fulfilling their dream of serving a mission for the church and serving the people of guatemala at the same time. this is their 4th, or 5th, maybe more, i forget, trip to guatemala for service, but the first time to go as missionaries. they have been teaching english, teaching at a medical school, teaching piano & music, providing humanitarian service, procuring medical supplies for natural disaster victims, establishing the first lending library for children in the city of chiquimula, etc, etc, and having the time of their lives. it took more than breast cancer & a heart attack to prevent them from going, and they (and we) are so glad.
 
i love this photo.
here they are visiting their produce woman's family. she has 8 children, and they live in the open with only roofs for shade and shelter from rain. it took a friend's suv to get them there, as their car couldn't handle the roads, and it was unsafe to walk. my parents helped their 18 year old get into a private high school and pay her to wash their windows to help with her tuition.

they will be home in a few weeks. we are thrilled. but we have surely enjoyed the blessings that they were promised their children would receive while they were gone.

a lovely day

every once in a while a day comes along that just begs to be blogged about. this was that day. nothing spectacular. just lots of goodness.

it all started by doing something i have long wanted to do....attend an estate sale. a friend and i drove about 30 miles to a darling little town in iowa, only to discover that the sale is tomorrow. we did get a sneak peek at what was going up for auction, including some amazing grandmother's flower garden quilts from the 1940s, a hay rack filled to the brim with buttons & beads, and other goodies. we were drawn there by the promise of 52 boxes of canning jars, which turned out to be mostly pint sized. but i came home with some small treasures that were going to be thrown out....a paper doll set dating to the 30's & 40s and a box of little aprons made from darling 1930s prints that would make the sweetest quilt. they were a fund raising project. people were asked to measure their waists and give penny for each inch! (can you imagine asking people to do that now?) the money was to go in the little pocket of each apron and be sent back to the "rainbow girls club". too, too cute.

we had extra time due to the lack of an auction, so before going home, we went to the state park, just a few block down the street from my house, and picked two boxes of concord grapes for me to juice. this was a loving friend who helped me pick, because she had already picked and juiced her own. the grapes are free for anyone who wants them - free is fun!

next on to the elementary to help with noah's field trip to baxter's orchards (just up the street from our house in the opposite direction from the state park). i held his hand as we walked through rows of trees, learned about 5 different types of apples, and watched noah picked his very own apple. golden sunlight was streaming through the trees - so perfect.

later i walked back to baxter's, with lexi, tashi, & gracie, to finally visit the friday afternoon farmer's market. i've been meaning to get there every friday since we moved here. but something always comes up, or my memory fails. i was rewarded with banana peppers, red bell peppers, giant egg plants, and sweet potatoes at great prices.

brock & i finished up the day with a trip to the temple, followed by annie's frozen custard. i'm feeling very blessed!

little bits of other days to share:

the last time i went to the temple:
i walked the mile or so home. it was raining ever so slightly, but i walked slowly, savoring where i live. the antique shop i had been wanting to peek into was finally open so i browsed, completely amazed by the tiny, tiny waist size of the gibson girl skirts. next, i stopped at the mill and bakery to buy whole wheat peanut butter cookies to munch as i walked. i munched too many, but enjoyed it so.

the last time i went for a jog:
it was evening. the soy bean & corn fields were turning golden yellow. they contrasted beautifully with the green pastures and wooded hills. as i turned around to make my return home, mist was settling into the vales between the hillsides. the sky was a brilliant pink, and lit up the golden soy beans fields until they glowed, with red barns adding addition splashes of color. and i was grateful. it is so healing & relaxing to run amid such beauty.

what an amazing world god has created for us. what incredible blessings he has poured out upon me. as i touch sun-warmed grapes, or breath sweet autumn air, i feel god's love. and i am grateful.