As many of you know, Enric has not had a job for most of this year. He was laid off at the end of January from a factory in the area. Although he was able to work some as a door-to-door salesman, the areas the sales group was working in were so far away, travel expenses outweighed the income. In August the factory took him back for three weeks, then laid him off again. Since then (and throughout the previous spring and summer) Enric has applied anywhere and everywhere and nothing has opened up.

Thus it is that we now find ourselves . . . well, we’re not sure where. Fast approaching financial trouble for one, but also having to take a second look at what God has for us to be doing and where.

In light of the job and financial situation, we are seriously considering moving back to Enric’s home area in Maryland. Being a much more populated area than dear Crivitz, we would hope to find more job opportunities, and would have the support of Enric’s family.

However Maryland is very far away from Crivitz, and very very far from Timberland Bible Chapel.  If it were just Crivitz and the Piggly Wiggly that we would be leaving behind, it would be a no-brainer. But our involvement in Timberland and the church family we have there have made this decision so much harder. As part of the body there, it is very difficult to think of ourselves becoming “amputees.”

We have come to believe though, that perhaps God is using this job situation to move us on to something else He has for us. Sure, the economy is bad, but it isn’t so bad that an honest, hardworking guy can’t even get a job cashiering somewhere. God could have given Enric a wonderful job whenever He wanted to, but He has not. In fact, there has been at least one job that was an obvious fit at a company that reportedly would “hire anyone” and still it did not work out. Things like that cause us to consider that maybe there is no job here for Enric, not because of a bummer economy, but because God may not want him to have one here.

Of course we still believe that God could whip out a miracle in the final hour. We are certainly open to that! But in our minds, we are about ninety percent sure that a move to Maryland is the right thing to do. Currently we are planning on moving on November 12th. We paid our landlord a half-month’s rent and he seemed to be all right with that.

It’s an odd place to be emotionally right now: eager to get this move over with and start the next thing, but hating to leave Timberland. But even the “eager to move” feelings are evidence of God’s working. I used to HATE the idea of going to Maryland: it is way overpopulated (especially compared to the middle of nowhere that we are in right now), they drive crazy and I am going to get lost every day, they don’t get nearly enough snow, I don’t know anybody there, it’s more expensive, etc. etc. And now I do not hate it. And that is because of God. I don’t think He will change the feelings of hating to leave Timberland — I wouldn’t ask Him to.

So, we will leave and hate it, but we will go and look forward to what our God is going to do!

Monday my sweet son turned two years old!

We spent the morning playing with friends and had lots of fun (and some trouble too, involving large bottles of soap and some grease, but nothing that couldn’t be cleaned up.) Later that evening we all got to go to dinner with some borrowed grandparents, where Silas bonded with Howie the dog. Next week Poppa and Yaya Griffiths will come, and we’ll have a bit more of an actual party.

I know they say “it all goes so fast” and sometimes I feel that way, but not right now. Perhaps because so much has happened in our lives since Silas was born, it seems like a long time ago when he was a teeny newborn.

Since we brought Silas home, I took a picture of him sitting in our green rocker each month until he was a year old.

Now here he is at age two! Not a baby, not really even a toddler, but looking like a little boy!

Well even if it didn’t go by all that fast, he IS growing up fast! I always marvel at how much someone who starts out completely helpless is able to learn in just two years. Just today Silas surprised me by doing a puzzle I didn’t think he would be able to do yet, but he figured it out just fine.

Happy Birthday Silas! Keep on growing strong and healthy!

I really didn’t think I ever taught Silas this, except perhaps in a book which really doesn’t look too much like the really thing. But months ago, while traveling by car at night, I heard Silas saying “Moo! Moo!” He was pointing out the window at the moon. How did he know that? His bed time during the summer was certainly before nightfall, so I had never shown him the real moon. Even more surprising was later on when he pointed out the moon in the blue sky. Moon goes with night in all our books, but he still knew that was the moon over there even during the day.

Last night we came home from our friends house, and I had several things to carry so we let Silas walk from the car to the house without holding his hand. I didn’t think he would stay outside in the dark. But he didn’t come in. I looked out the door we had left waiting open for him and saw Silas with his little finger in the sky, yelling “tars!!!” Sure enough, the sky was clear and full of stars! How did he learn that??

Silas saw the moon again tonight as we headed in from playing. So I got inspired and dug out my glow-in-the-dark stars. (Which I can’t see at night without my glasses on anyway, so they are no good to put on my ceiling.) Silas loved them!

It took him a little while to figure out that was supposed to be a moon, but then he wanted to keep turning out the lights.

When I put Silas to bed tonight he saw them all again, and didn’t even take time hug or kiss me; he just wanted to lean back to look at the ‘tars!

A little while ago, the Lopez family journeyed down to Green Bay, for a much-needed Wal-Mart run. Since it is a bit out of the way, we decided to eat dinner while we were down there. Funny how in the middle of nowhere a trip planned by the need for paper towel and baby wipes becomes your Saturday entertainment….

We ate at Qdoba, which is our new favorite restaurant. Silas’s new favorite was getting to drink out of cup with a straw.

Much more interesting than the portion of my amazing quesadilla that I shared with him, which he ate but certainly did not appreciate as much as the joy of pulling out the straw and successfully inserting it back into the lid.

I tried to get a picture of Enric too, to show that this was really a great happy family time.

No, honey. Smile nice!

Oh, well.

Off shopping we went after our delicious meal!

Silas saw these concrete, um, decorations? I don’t know what they are supposed to be for, but lots of Targets have them now. He saw one and said “Ball!” and ran up to try to play with it.

Sorry, that one is a bit too heavy for you!

He didn’t seem to mind too much that he couldn’t actually play with this giant “ball”, but I did feel a little bad for him, because a ball that big would probably have been a lot of fun.

Well, anyway, we had fun and got cute pictures of Silas in the process!

Many of you have heard this sad tale of blue, but I share it here again to include the pictorial evidence.

Perhaps you noticed in the last post that sweet Silas was posing for me while standing in his crib:

(Isn’t he sweet?)

But it must be made clear that Silas has not just awoken from a lovely slumber. He is in there because . . .

Despite icky weather and feeling somewhat sick that weekend, I thought perhaps we would check out the new farmer’s market in town. I mentioned this to Silas, who of course got all excited about going somewhere in the truck. I was a bit tired, so I sat down (a poorly thought out plan for a mother of a toddler, to begin with), and told him to go get socks. I sat there feeling sick for a while and staring into space, and forgot all about the socks.

Silas was in his room much longer than he needed to get his socks (but remember I had forgotten about them anyway) when he came out looking down at his hands.

Which were blue.

In a split second the thoughts connected: Silas went to get socks, which are in the drawer right above the drawer with the PAINT in it!

I found this:

Blue.

The above picture was taken AFTER I had scooped many spoonfuls of the puddled paint back into the bottle. The little blue smudges around are from Silas’s foot, and they extend all the way into my living room.

After cleaning up Silas as best one can while paint is oozing into the carpet, I tried wiping up the paint. It didn’t take long to realize that paper towel was not going to cut it, so we went and borrowed Mr. Poh’s carpet cleaner. (Thanks, Mr. Poh!)

You can see the carpet cleaner in the bottom of the picture. This is about half-way through the cleaning process.

It took a LONG TIME. Which is why Silas ended up in the crib. From there he could safely watch mommy use the neat machine, yet not track about any more blue paint.

I can’t remember how long I worked on the carpet, but I eventually ended up with this:

The spot is still very blue, but when compared to how it started, it actually came a lot cleaner than I ever thought possible.

Silas did not get in trouble for any of this (other than the confinement to the crib while I cleaned), for I was indeed the one who sent him to get socks, the one who taught him how to unscrew caps, and the one who left tempera paint in a toddler accessible place.

There are heaps of lessons to be learned here, not the least of which is:  Never believe for an instant that “washable” actually means washable.

One of Silas’s toenails is actually still a little blue.

Do you really think this sweet innocent-looking child . . .

. . . could be a trouble-maker??

There’s a man a church who has always called Silas “trouble maker,” (though he also insists that Silas NEVER does ANYTHING wrong).

Perhaps it is that Silas feels the need to live up to that expectation, perhaps it is Pop-pa Griffiths’ engineering genes coming through, perhaps it was a sheer random moment in the life of the Lopez family, but for whatever reason, Silas brought to me parts of my vacuum cleaner that had up until that time NOT been detachable.

Sigh.

I yet have no idea how he accomplished such a feat, as I had to call my vacuum’s 800 number and get a pair of pliers to re-attach the little wheels he had pulled off.

Time to go outside.

Yet even there, I was not safe to take my eyes off this curious (trouble-maker!) child. As I was tending to my pumpkin plant, Silas came and handed me a small green tomato he had picked. (At least he brings me this stuff! Who knows where he might have stuck those wheels?)

Sigh. Time to go to the park. The child proof park. With a fence all the way around it. And not a removable part in sight!

Trouble maker? Me?

Earlier in August (September sneaked up on me; I almost wrote earlier this month, but it’s not even that month anymore…)

anyway

Earlier in August, the Comstocks came to visit in between deputation meetings in this area.

Alas, Craig was very sick the whole time they were here. Our living room book shelf multi-tasked as the medicine cabinet.

God was so good to us, and nobody else got sick!

The kids got to spend quality time together:

They took this (brief) moment to share something three ways. They all had fun playing  together though. Every morning when Silas would wake up (in our bedroom, so Bekah and Jared could sleep in his) he would pop awake and immediately ask “Beck? Jare?” He certainly enjoyed having other people around besides boring mom.

Washing away the day’s dirt from playing and dinner:

Silas just recently learned how to say “cheese” for pictures; Bekah and Jared have long know how to do so. However getting them to all three say “cheese” at the same time never quite worked out, but we got close.

One big hug!

Craig did get better on the last day. Come again sometime when you are healthy!

Oops.

I didn’t realize it had been a month since I had last posted anything! I have some old-ish pictures that never got up of when we took Silas camping with some friends of ours.

The three little guys:

Daddy took us out canoeing on the lake. Silas was pretty good sitting still in my lap until the very end, when he got extra wiggly.

One of the reasons for the canoe trip was to investigate the racket across the lake. A pair of eagles had a nest full of very vocal eaglets. I got a very small picture of one of the parents watching over the nest while the other brought food. We could see the eaglets’ wings flapping up in the nest, but the nest does not show up in the picture.

Silas and Bryce enjoying some genuine camp fire hot dogs.

Enric bonded with the little girls.

Silas was very good about not (intentionally) going too close to the fire. He would put out his little hand and say “hot!” You can also see our tent way in the background of this picture.

Silas was not so smart about the lake though. I saw him standing on the bank (fully clothed and shod) and told him “Silas, Stop!” so of course he walked right in. I didn’t have an extra pair of shoes for him, so we had to carry him around for ever while trying to dry his little shoes in front of the fire.

Altogether we had a lot of fun though!

We have taken Silas over to Left Foot Lake several times now this summer. (Mostly when other people pass our house on the way and invite us to come with them, which is more fun anyway.)

Except that this is about as far as he cares to go. Silas will wade in about up to his knees if one really convinces him, but any further than that and he is apt to cry. We feel this is a strange phenomenon indeed considering that last year he loved to go swimming.

He does like to splash some in the shallow parts. This day there was some kind of foam on the edge of the water (I probably don’t want to know what marine creature causes that) which intrigued the toddler mind.

Don’t you just love “speedo” written across his buns!?

More foam:

Hopefully some time this summer Silas will find that the water is fun too, but right now he likes the sand the best.

Digging in the dirt is certainly a favorite activity. Yesterday he got his shovel and bucket and headed off for the sand pit in the field near our house all by himself, whether I was coming or not!

Because while I was cleaning the bathroom, my precious well-behaved son did this to himself:

Ah, yes. A permanent black marker. This is also another reason to never trust a child when they are being very quiet out of sight. It only means they are into trouble.

Odd as it was, I am very glad he chose to write on his feet instead of something that could not be given a bath.