Closure

This Christmas was good!

It goes without saying!

But the main focus for us was the 27th December at 9.30am. We had a ceremony for my hubbies Dad and buried his ashes. We chose a spot that my Da loved. On the top of the hill at the back of the bach (holiday house). He loved it up there and would climb through the bush and trees and sit up there.

So this June his sons cleared an area and we planted a kauri tree. The little tree has taken root and we as a family felt ready to say our final goodbyes. The whole family gathered, along with his close friends, and we all climbed up the hill to say farewell. People spoke and we all cried and then it was time. We buried his ashes along with the ashes of his dog and each put a sprig of a native tree into the ground. The grandchildren were all given a little white shell to put on the top. And then we all descended and had family time together. Reminisced and laughed with love.

It feels good. Final. It felt incomplete up to this point somehow.

And now we are home. Sunburned and rash faced (well, those of us who reacted to the new sun screen are!) Ready to move forward and take on a new year. A scary huge new year. A God new year!!!

Happy New Year everyone! May 2010 be filled with God!

The good, the excellent and the miracle

The good: My Dad is doing ok with radiation. His crazy humour is intact and all he feels is a tingling where they are doing it. He says it's because the tumour is p****d off and angry (his words- crazy man!) He says he feels for the tumour because despite it's anger it has no idea it's going to zapped every day for the next month and die...... that's my Dad!

The excellent: We are having a GIRL! A girl, a girl la la la la! A little princess! We are so thrilled. We kind of knew at the 13 week scan when the scannie lady said it's likely a girl but wanted to wait until we were sure. Lets just say that yesterday we saw the girlie bits clear as day and the scannie man said he was 100% sure.

I am not used to being blessed in the area of children and this blows my mind. Not that we wanted a girl per se (we ARE just so thankful to be pregnant) , but wanted a girl for what we think Rupi needs. It will be so good for his confidence, security and identity in our family unit to be the only son. While God (of course)would have made it ok for him if we had another baby boy, this is just perfect. PERFECT!

Plus I get to do something first. We are having the first baby grand daughter on my side of the family (after 5 grandsons) That little gift from God just heals something inside. As the eldest I mourned not having the first grandchild, silly as that may be. This means that I am first with something. Wow. Amazing blessing. God cares about the details and the little heart aches that sometimes we don't even say out loud.

The miracle: on the way out of the scan I was dialling my Mom's number and tripped. Body slam onto the concrete floor of the car park. I wasn't able to protect myself at all. My hubbie nearly had a heart attack.
Miracle #1: I landed on my side and not my tummy.
Miracle #2: I am almost completely unhurt. A bit stiff but that's it!
And most importantly Miracle #3: after being sent to the emergency department and dying a million deaths while being examined..... the baby is ok. Heartbeat still going, still moving, no bleeding, no placenta rupture and no amniotic fluid spill. And nothing happened overnight or today.
And yes, I realise that using my phone and walking is not good. On the bright side, it's times like these when I realise how much my hubbie loves me. he was beside himself. Literally.

So a drama filled day or two, nothing less in my life. But God moved and all is well.

Shallow waters

I don't do shallow a lot. Not shallow in a bad sense, shallow in terms of life. It's just how God made me, I am a deeeeeep thinker and feel things deeply too. And I can't do light and fluffy blog posts when stuff is going on. I cannot gloss over stuff and just have nothing to say. I write so many drafts and then just think "nah". Why bother....?

So.

My Dad has cancer- a very aggressive melanoma on his eyebrow that they have not been able to cut out. It's all been very sudden and is a tad scary.

And I have been in denial. Fingers in ears, singing loudly and pretending in the rush of things to do before Christmas that its not happening. But a couple of times I have found myself in floods of tears and so it's not good. I am not ok with this.

The prognosis is ok-ish. He starts radiation today and does it until the end of January. And melanoma is not as bad (apparently) as internal organ cancer. But I have no ability to reason this one out. The prognosis for this incredible man was also good and he was supposed to survive and conquer. And I realise that we are not over losing my beloved father-in-law even 18 months on. The thought of losing my Dad at this point is just too much.

Reason says to believe that this is not terminal (but neither was my Da's). Reason says to believe my Dad when he says it's going to be ok (but this is what my Da said too) Reason says that this cancer is minor (but so was my Da's) My heart is struggling to get in line with my head.

So I guess I go back to what I do know. What has sustained me in the past . And that He will do the same now. Because He is God and he is good. He is victorious over all situations. He sustained us before and will do it again. He is God and He is good.

Yup.

Jealous and the Rocky Road

I am so bummed I missed out on the bloggers day up in Warkworth. Read Paisley Jade's, and Gail's blogs for details. AIEEE!! Woe is me for missing out!!!! Ok, less of the drama, I had work to do.....


Mrs L, my business partner, and I were making client gifts yesterday and today handed them out to am ecstatic response (people LOVE chocolate!) We made gourmet rocky road and packaged it up in gorgeous Kikki K bags and tags. Mrs L and I both adore chocolate and good packaging....hence the choice of gift!


Our recipe:


No exact weights of ingredients, but buy plenty of each as you want the rocky road to be a thick chunky bar. Plus how bad can it be to eat the left over ingredients???

• Good quality dark chocolate. We used Whitakers 72% Ghana bars.



• 2 tbsp of Kremelta (or other vegetable shortening) per 270g bar of chocolate



• Sliced roasted almonds



• Dried craisins



• Soft jelly strawberry and cream sweets. This could varied to be anything!

Put all the ingredients in a roasting pan lined with cooking paper and pour the melted chocolate/ kremelta mixture over the top.

*warning* you will not be able to stop at one piece. The only way we got through was to not sample the finished product. Although there was plenty of sampling of the individual ingredients!


This may be an annual things judging from the response we are getting. Hopefully next year we can brand our packaging thinking little white boxes with gorgeous red ribbon.... And maybe a white chocolate rocky road too, with coconut, toasted almonds and chopped up white marshmallows? YUM!



For another great recipe read Simoney's latest post. How crazy that we have both posted on Rocky road!

A little tradition

I love traditions. I grew up with lots and birthdays and Christmas' were such amazing times. I also grew up in an Anglican church and just loved the traditions around Easter and Christmas. Say what you like about Anglicans (fair to say I cannot agree with the liberal stance the church has here and in South Africa) but they have an awe and reverence for God through tradition that I just love.

One of the Christmas traditions we started is to get a new beautiful and special ornament for the tree each year. Off we go (and no looking at the price!) and choose one. So how much fun has it been to include Rupi in that tradition! We plan to buy him his own ornament each year and one day he and the little bean will have their own tree. Then when they leave home they take their own special stash of ornaments with them for their own home. I can picture Rupi's wife just loving seeing the ornaments her wonderful husband has had since he was a baby (happy sigh!)

Last year I got a little stuffed reindeer for him from Starbucks (where else? Oh happy place of mine! BTW NOT impressed with how they have run out of gingerbread and toffee nut syrup across the board!!!!! I wait all year, people! ALL YEAR! They need to estimate the demand better... seriously.)

Anyway. Where was I?

Oh yes, here is last years ornament. Cuteness personified!

This year we made an outing of it and went for an early morning coffee and muffin at Jones the Grocer in Newmarket. YUM! Go and have their coffee and food if you are in Auckland! What a treat. Across the road is Christmas paradise at the Christmas shop. They have a huge room with the lights off and lit by millions of fairy lights. It has tons and tons of Christmas trees all done up with different colours and themes. Every kind of ornament and decoration you can imagine. I just LOVE it there.

While I chose our Christmas ornament my hubbie "helped" Rupi pick his. Very masculine and a teeny bit scary... those teeth! But that's what Daddies are for, to help sons choose stuff that Mommies would not. So good.

I love the traditions we have. For another great post on traditions, have a look at Tea's blog! I heard Ian Grant from Parenting Inc say once that family traditions help keep kids out of gangs. Families with strong traditions make gangs less attractive as a primary draw card for gangs are their strong traditions and rules. Interesting!

Sweetpea

Today I had coffee with Sweetpea (umm... not her real name) who is Rupi's birth mum.

It was good.

There is a wholesomeness about her relationship with us and with Rupi. It's simple and pure. There seems to be very little clutter about it and I love it and her. As we get to know each other more and more she is opening up like a flower and asking for things. In a way that is really non-threatening to me. Things that she needs, like texts from me when Rupi does something for the first time. Simple. Do-able and wholesome. And I have longed for her to say what she needs because we would do anything for her.

I have struggled with adoption, I think you have to be made of stone not to. But mostly it's with the extended birth families and what I sense from them. Nothing bad at all, I just sense their desperation in a way. A perfectly natural and understandable desperation and grief. It has made me very uncomfortable and I have struggled with my "right" to be Rupi's mom around them. They are such wonderful people and would die if they knew this was how I had felt... but I have. I wish I wasn't so sensitive to others emotions but I am and God made me that way. It's almost always a good thing, but not so much in this case.

There is nothing in that desperation in our relationship with Sweetpea. There's grief for sure but because she chose this way and chose life for Rupi and chose us, the desperation is not there. I guess for the rest of the family, this was chosen for them and that's why it's so hard.

She is such an amazing young girl and is all of 16 years old. The choice she made was the hard one, only a handful make that choice each year while 17,000 choose to abort. Hers was the path filled with criticism and pointing of fingers. Her friends deserted her. She was a 14 year old alone socially. Hers was the hard path.

I thank God for her. She gave Rupi life and in doing, gave us new life (and hope and joy and laughter) As a person who's love language is gifts, I am overwhelmed at the gift Sweetpea gave us.

She is pretty special and it's all good.

Endless Gratitude

We have been hearing about gratitude at church lately which has been fabulous. It's really inspiring as I am so grateful for what God has done I could (and do) cry at times.

This is our second Christmas as parents and it just keeps getting better. I remember sitting with a sleepy little 8 week old baby boy late on Christmas Eve last year, just gazing at the Christmas tree. It was such a beautiful moment and I could not believe what God had done for us. 12 months on and God has done even bigger things. A business and a miraculous pregnancy- more than I could have hoped for or imagined. He has restored the years the locusts ate and blessed us beyond our wildest dreams. What a Christmas season we are having!

But here and now this is my focus. This blessing. This little man who fills my days with such joy. Strong and sweet, determined and tender. When I dared to dream about our children, this is what I longed for. A little man, boisterous and full of life. Someone who is bold and takes life on unafraid. People tell me I can't tell his personality yet, I don't believe that. He is already marking his journey through life and I adore what I see!

Thank you God! Thank you for lending us this precious gift. For allowing us to be his parents. We are eternally grateful.

16 weeks and 3 days

I am seriously popped now! And it may be because the little bean is now the size of an avocado! Yikes! And (apparently) is going to double in size over the next 3 weeks.... ouch.

Had a lot of stretching and aching as all the scar tissue starts to expand. But it seems to be normal and hurts less than I thought. I have only had to use Panadol once- woohoo!

I finally went for my bloods this morning and visited my friend B at Labtest in Milford who is nice and gentle. It was lovely to see how glad she was to see me and that it's all going well so far. I thought I had better go as I see the midwife next Monday and she gave me the blood forms a month ago!

Trying to slow down and appreciate this amazing time. Just so grateful.