For all of you out there now very confused, I decided to change this Xanga Site to “My Sweet Peas”. This will continue to be my personal blogging site.  My old xanga site, “SweetPea Accessories” is now for my business and is where I will post pictures and updates on what I am doing. Sorry for all the confusion!!

Click here to claim your blog on Blogged.com

Four years ago, in the wee hours of the morning, Joshua Daniel made his grand entrance into this world. Exactly on my due date. My pregnancy had been hard. I got pregnant just a few months after a miscarriage while we were living in Grenada. As with all my pregnancies, by 8 weeks I was pretty much flat on my back except for the 100 (or so it seemed) trips to the bathroom to throw-up. Living in a third world country in this condition is not a good thing. We didn’t have a washer or dryer and I was using cloth diapers on Michael. So every few days I needed to go to the laundry mat. And food was another issue. No Papa John’s or McDonalds or anything for that matter really to save the meal situation. And the pre-made frozen stuff you can buy was so outrageously expensive that it wasn’t even considered. So that meant making everything from scratch.  So there I was, 3 little children already and totally out of commission in a place with no family or friends that could help bear the burden. So by God’s grace, a few other things had come up around that time that allowed us to come back to the U.S… 

I decided to go with a midwife for the first time. She had hospital rights so I would be able to deliver at the hospital, but with her instead of the Dr. I was pretty exicted about this. So was Eric. He really enjoys being able to be a part of the delivery (so much so that sometimes he forgets that it is his wife having his baby) and the midwife was very exicted to let him do the whole delivery if he was comfortable with it. I really looked forward to all my appts with her, and she loved having the older children there as well. I have to be honest though, I was not really exicted to be pregnant. OK, more like really upset that I was pregnant. To this day it pains me to have to know that my heart was so bitter over this child that God was giving to us. I was physically and emotional exhausted and blamed this little child for my misery. I vowed to never have another baby. refused to buy ANY maternity clothes (and for those of you who know me, this is quite a statement) and was generally very upset about the whole situation…

Joshua in Grandpa Luke’s shoes! Big shoes to fill little Joshua.

By around 5 months I started feeling better physically, but emotionally I was still a mess. There was little that I did to prepare or make this little child have a “special” welcoming. I did do a pretty good job of hiding all this from my friends and family though. To this day you could probly ask just about anybody and they would tell you they did not have had a clue. Except Eric. He got it all. My complaining, my crying, my complete discontentment with the siuation…

So then January 27, 2004 came. I had never really gone to bed. My back was hurting so bad (already been through two back labors). I just lay there tossing and turning. Finally Eric suggested I take a hot bath.  Sometimes that helped. So I did. and the pains completely stopped. By then it was well after midnight. I was frustrated. Instead of rejoicing that I was not in pain I was upset that I had lost so much sleep. As I was drying off, I felt the oddest sensation, one I have never experienced since, and I knew at that very instance that my water had broke. And sure enough gushing all over the bathroom was my amniotic fluids. I hollered to Eric who figured we probly had ”at least a few hours” until delivery. He calmly called his parents asking them to meet us at L&D to take the older children. He called the midwife who said she would shower and meet us there. And minuet by minuet I was became desperate with Eric to “Hurry!!” and get me to the hospital. He was still very calm, waking the children and putting them in the car. By the time we were on our way I was practiacally screaming at him to drive faster.  By the time we got to the hospital, he had realized the siuation at hand . Wife was about to have baby any minute. So he dropped me off at the ER entrance. In which I barely made it to the closest wheelchair where I fell into while (I think) screaming that I needed to get to L&D. The night clerk who had been sleeping at the check-in desk instantly awoke and started pushing me towards the elevator. As soon as he saw a female nurse, he quickly handed me over and asked that she get me to L&D. I think he was not wanting to be the one stuck in the elevator with a woman that was going to give birth any second! And who could blame him? So we made it to the third floor, I was transferred to a bed.  My midwife never made it. Nor did Eric’s parents. In fact, Eric and the children barely made it from the parking lot to the room. Just the nurse who was setting me up for the delivery. There wasn’t much to do at that point but just catch!! And then, we had a little Joshua…

Joshua holding his new little brother Gabriel

A day out on the lake.

Joshua LOVES straws!

And it was love at first sight for me. All those months of being so sick. Being so tired and wishing that I wasn’t pregnant, vanished! As I stared at this little child who was now happily nursing I could only be in awe of the God of our universe. That he created life and had handed it to me in this precious little package.

(for those of you wondering why in the world we now have had 2 more children since Joshua, and happily smile if asked if we would want more children, God did some AMAZING things to my heart, but thats another blog for another day…)

(and this is also the reason we decided it would be alot easier to just stay home and have babies rather than risk delievering in the car!)

And so as little Joshua has grown, he has become such an amazing little boy.  He cares so much for his younger sister and brother. Doing little things just for them that make my heart skip a beat. He loves Jesus with all his heart. He works so hard to make his Mommy happy. He brings me flowers just about every day that he is outside playing. I am always delighted. I think of how he was busy in play, then saw a flower and stopped just to pick it for me. And the smile of joy on his face when he brings it from behind his back to show me. He runs hard to keep up with Ben and Michael. Doing whatever they command him to do, just to win their acceptance as a “big boy”.  He will share his last cookie just because he loves you. I am so proud of Joshua. And I am so glad that God knew that even though I rejected what He was blessing me with, He wouldn’t let me go. Thank you God for Joshua!!!

Things Joshua will do when he grows up…(as of his 4th bday)

When he grows up he wants to be a cowboy. (this means catching cows!)

He’s going to live in Oregon.

On the weekends, he’s going to build tree forts and catch bad guys.

He’s going to drive a yellow monster truck. It will have a ladder so he can get in and out.

He also wants a dump truck.

He’s going to marry a police girl and play games with her like putting her in jail and then taking her out. (I’m still laughing over this one!!)

And he’s going to come to Mommies house when it’s lunchtime.

Happy Birthday Joshua!!!

I love you!!

love, Mommy

If you haven’t read my post on “Gifts and Giving” posted on Dec 13, 2008 you should do that before reading this one. If you have, this is an update to that post…..

So I was making dinner yesterday and Ben came running in asking if the man picking pecans could borrow a ladder. I replied “no”, as I didn’t think this was a good idea to start providing a ladder to those wanting pecans. A few minutes later, Laura came running in saying that the man was climbing the tree. Sure enough, he had managed to climb up into this tree and was jumping on the branches to shake off the pecans still attached. I thought,”I have to have a picture of this”, but next thought was “how am I going to do that without him seeing me take his picture” to which the next thought was “If he wants to climb this tree and jump on branches in my front yard, even if it is God’s Pecan tree, then I can take his picture!” So I grabbed my camera, went out into the front yard and in my broken spanish told him I was going to take his picture. I think at this point he felt a little silly, but I just snapped away. The children all hung over the fence watching it all. Later after he got down he offered to do my yard work for a good price. I told him how we didn’t do it, the University does everybody’s lawn on this whole street. Then he asked about the back yard, which I said Eric just does it himself. That we don’t have any money to pay someone else to do it. He then said, “because you are so nice and let me have all these pecans, I’ll do it for no price”. I was kinda in shock. It often seems like this pecan tree attracts people who think they should collect every pecan and never ask or say thanks, which is ok. It’s God tree, not mine. But to have him show such gratitude by offering to do yard work in exchange almost made me speechless. I thanked him again but said that there really was not anything to do (since we turned the water off to save on the water bill since they keep raising the rates, the grass does not grow, and hence no need to do much back there anymore).  Later after he left I thought I should have asked him to help me work on my spanish.

Some friends of our recently got married over Christmas in Canada. They held a special California Reception for those of us that could not make it to the wedding. The reception was beautiful. It was hosted at the groom’s Great Aunt’s house which was absolutely fabulous. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful time. Here are some pics from the afternoon.

The home where the reception was held.

I loved these candle holders that lined the driveway.

The Bride and Maryann (Maryann was delighted to find another “Princess”!)

This was a little Breakfast room that I thought was delightful!

Maryann and me

This weekend has been fun, educational, VERY BUSY, nerve wracking, depressing, and did I mention busy??

We started out on Friday afternoon looking forward to the next few days. I had just exchanged Joshua’s Beta fish (Mr.Camoflauge-Army-Guy the third) at Wal Mart. Just love their return policy. But then again, who could tell a 3 year old that he couldn’t exchange his dead, slimy, disintegrating fish for a new one?  This was his Christmas present from big sister Laura and we are not doing so well keeping his fish alive. I’m thinking it’s just too cold at nights since we have not been heating the house anymore.  The days are mid 80′s now so I’m enjoying keeping that heater off to save some money. Anyway, fish number 3 died, we exchanged it and now I think he has had so much fun taking his dead fish back to the store, picking out a new fish, and bringing it back home that he is hoping this one will die. Makes me smile!

So new fish on the counter, Eric home early from school, we load up and head over to Anaheim for Michael and Debbie Pearls Seminar. Not sure how bad traffic would be, we left extra early. It was nice to not be stressed about being late. We got their amazing quickly and were about 2 hours early. So we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the church and staked out some seats. We bought Michaels “Good and Evil” book in color and the boys have really enjoyed reading it.  The evening went well, it was good to hear Michael speak again. There is always something that we had missed the last time. The church was packed out. Over a thousand people. It’s fun to see so many families all working so hard to train up their children and to see the families that are desperately searching for a new way and have finally found it and are so hungry to hear good teaching. 

We headed home around 10:00. It took a lot longer getting home. There was a horrible accident on the other side of the freeway and as all good  California drivers will do, we each have to come to an almost complete stop to look and see what is going on. So even though there is nothing actually going on on our side, traffic is backed up for 10 miles.  So we slowly crept home.

Next morning we were up early (5:30am) and on the road back to Anaheim. The morning session was good. At lunch we decided that we would head over to the beach. The children had sat through both night and morning sessions and had done great. With the afternoon session on issues with teens and us having no teens, we decided we were off to play. I love being at the beach and the children can never get enough playing in the water, so the afternoon was suddenly highly anticipated.

We were about half of a mile from Newport Beach when Eric mentioned that the car seemed to be acting strange. Within minutes,(just about the time we saw the ocean) there was definitely something going on that was not so good with the car. We turned around in the beach parking lot and headed back into town. At this point Eric has figured out that the car is not shifting. So we pulled into a highschool parking lot and call Roadside Assistance.  They help us find a mechanic within a few miles. So we slowly creep over there. It then took then 3 hours to tell us that the transmission needed to be rebuilt and it would cost about $5,000. YIKES!! And oh-by-the-way, Chevy knows this is a problem with these transmissions but won’t do a recall. We are about 60 miles from our house, with a car that now needs a new transmission, it is dark, and the children are really just done for the day.  Three hours in a waiting room when we thought we would be at the beach made for a long afternoon!

Eric decided after some prayer that we would try to make it back home and see how far we could get. Amazingly, the car did ok. Not great, but we got home and that was enough to make me very thankful. So now no more driving until Eric can rebuild the transmission. The thought of paying $5,000 to get it fixed was just to much for him. So he will be doing his first rebuild! This should bring our cost down to between $500-$1000. He absoutley amazes me. I was pretty much ready to just drive it to the junk yard (its only 4 years old) but he is going to fix it.  And I know that he will and he will do a great job and save us thousands. And he will do it on top of all his school and Boards and work.

Sunday morning Eric decided that we would stay home for church and worship and study together. We had a fun time singing all our favorite songs. We worked with the children on acting out some scripture that they have already memorized. We had seen this done Friday night at the seminar. So they were exicted to try it out for themselves. We did Mark 15:1-15.  It was nice to just be home and enjoying each other!

Last night, we had another earthquake. This one was a 5.0 and the epic center was only about 5 miles from my house. In the realm of earthquakes, it wasn’t very long or damaging. Only about 5 seconds and a few things fell off the shelves.  But as far as I’m concerned, any earthquake is to long. This was the biggest shake we have felt yet. It feels like your house has been smashed into by a semi-truck. You are sitting there, and then you feel the ground beneath you trembling and then you hear everything rattling and there is this loud roar that comes with it sometimes.  Just about the time your brain registers “Oh-no, we are having another earthquake”, it is almost over. And then you are left just sitting or standing, processing everything that just happened. For me, it’s my childrens safety.  Last night I was at a meeting when the earthquake happened. So I tried calling Eric to check on them. But of course the phone lines are all tied up and busy.  Your call won’t go through. And you realize that you have just been cut off with communication from your family. 

Living here, there is lots of talk about earthquakes.  We are all waiting for the “Big One”. This earthquake is what the geologists say is capable of causing widespread destruction and is 99 percent certain of hitting California within the next 30 years. That’s in my lifetime. Earthquake experts have long said San Bernardino(this city is about a mile from our house) is particularly vulnerable to a massive temblor. San Bernardino lies between two of the state’s most active earthquake faults, the San Andreas and the San Jacinto. And to complicate things, most of the city was built above a huge underground water basin. Experts say this loose soil could liquefy in the event of a massive quake, causing buildings to topple.

We are all told to always have an “Earthquake Kit” on hand. Consisting of water, flashlights, food, batteries, radio, blankets, and first-aid.  There are classes that the fire department offer on how to be better prepared and what to do when the Big One comes. Eric and I have both taken this class. We learned things like how to shut off our main gas and water lines. How to search for victims after the quake. How to triage and set up first-aid stations. Of course for Eric this is just a review. After serving in the Army as his team’s medic on their deployments, he knows all this stuff firsthand. But for me it was really overwhelming. I learned how to enter a building, decide who is still alive and then decided who is capable of being moved outside.  And how to mark buildings with a spray paint can to let others know if the building/house has already been searched and how many are dead inside. 

When I think of the widespread destruction this earthquake will deliver, I get scared sometimes. But the worst for me is the not knowing. When will it come? How long will it last? A minute, 10 minutes, 20 minutes???  How violent will the earth shake as the these two faults shift and move and relieve all the pressure that has been building over the years? Where will I be?

So one day as I was talking with the children about earthquakes, I realized how much an earthquake is like Jesus coming back.  1 Thessalonians 5:2 “For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night”  We know that Jesus will come back one day. But we do not know when He is coming. Just like the earthquakes.  So just like always being prepared for the Big One, we must also always be prepared for Jesus coming back. Our hearts must be ready and waiting. Because, just like the earthquake, there will be no time to get ready. If I don’t have water and food ready,then I will have NO water or food. And if my heart does not belong to Jesus and I am not living for Him, then there will be no time to change once He has come.

So each earthquake is a nice reminder to me now, am I ready? Because today we could have a massive earthquake or….Jesus could come back.

Gabe and I taking in all the sights and smells! 

Luke, Laura, Eric and Maryann

US Marine Corps West Coast Composite Band. This was my favorite out of all 23 bands.

All American Cowgirl Chicks (Standing while riding!)

This picture is for Ken. Float done by Rain Bird Corporation.

This float had a pool in the center.  There was an Olympic Gold Meadalist diving into the pool!

And of course, the Macys Queen’s Float

Rose Bowl, here comes USC!!!

AirForce B-2 Spirit Bomber - This roared over our heads. Absoultley amazing. I have never seen one before.

Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament.  We’re still hoping to make it over there before we move.

Royal British Legion Youth Band Brentwood ~ All the way from England!!!

And my favorite float, “Salute to the USO”

The Martinez Family ~ their 29th time riding in this parade!

“Bollywood Dreams” A salute to the cinema in India.

City of Hope “Healthy living is Child’s Play”

And drum roll please…The Grand Marshall, Cloris Leachman.

Eric and I after the parade.

Beth and Luke ~ a rare picture of them without the grandchildren in it with them.

Joshua, Michael, and Ben blowing their horns. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The jump shot!  We voted and Michael had the best jump.

The trash that everybody left behind. The streets were cleared out so fast. It was hard to believe that just an hour ago, there had been over a million people here.

more trash……

and still more trash…….

Me taking pictures of myself in the side mirror as we sat in traffic.

Did I mention TRAFICC???   All 5 lanes slowed down to a crawl.

+

The long and very slow drive home.

Upon deciding that since this is our last year hear in So Cal, what better way to bring in a new year than to head to Pasadena, CA for the 120th Rose Parade? (Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for taking us!!)  We started planning early…like last January. The day the box office opened to sell the Grandstand seating tickets, which was Feb 15, we were on the phone making reservations. Results- reserved parking and seating to the most beautiful parade in the world!!

We started our day out early, 4:30 to be exact. Waking up 6 sleeping little children and reminding them that we were on our way to “The most beautiful and amazing parade ever” was a little of a challenge. Since we have never even watched this parade on TV before and the only exposure to a parade they have ever had was our little 20,000 population city’s annual parade, they were not really sure what to expect. They had figured out though, that as they announced to people that they would be going to be right there in the Grandstands, there was quite a lot of exictement from the one whom they were talking to.

Traffic was our biggest concern. It was estimated that there would be well over 1,000,000 people there and that can cause alot of traffic problems. And after living here for 3 years, we have learned to adjust our whole lives somedays around traffic. But much to our surprise we never even slowed down until….. we turned on to Colorado Blvd. And there was about 1,000,000 people camped out along the sides of the road. It looked as if there had been some disaster and the Red Cross should be around somewhere handing out food and blankets. People had been camping there for days!! There were tents and sleeping bags and fire pits and cookstoves. The list went on and on. The streets were covered with trash. And the Mexico flag was flying everywhere I seemed to look.

We found our parking lot, beautifully positioned about 100 feet from the bleachers we sat in.  It was block parking, so you were “blocked” in once you parked by the car that followed you in.  We were about an hour early and then we had another 30 minutes from the time the parade started until it reached us.  We roamed the streets taking in all the sights and sounds for awhile and then settled in to see the parade.

Grandma Beth and the children behind the Grandstand.

The Multitudes.

Buying Hot Cider from a shopping cart vendor.

Keeping warm by the firepit.

I hope that when I am this old, my great-grand sons will take me for a ride like this!! Right down Colorado Blvd!

The biggest sleepover I have ever seen.

This Bell Tower stood tall over us all.                             Eric and Maryann

Selling Mexican flags. Sadly, there was not an American flag to be seen waving.

Grandpa Luke and the boys trying out their new horns!

The Tow Trucks just waiting for you to park somewhere you should not.

These bleachers held some 20,000 people

And since Xanga is doing Maintaince on their system, the rest of this story will come another day!!