beyond small talk

Recently, I got to see one of my really good friends whom I hadn't seen in a while. We sat down to talk at a coffee shop in Tacoma, and she asked me, "What has God been teaching you lately?" That is the most refreshing question EVER to me. Nothing kills a phone conversation with a friend faster than "What have you been doing lately?" or "So what's new?"

I hate it when conversations start like that, because first of all, I usually have no idea what I've been DOING--I almost always have to stop and think for 30 seconds to think of what we did the past weekend! Also, a lot of times, what I've been DOING is not that interesting--nor does it necessarily help the other person RELATE to me. Honestly, an answer to a question like that would go like, "well, the weather's started getting nicer, so Brody and I have been going to the park a lot lately." Or even, to get INTERESTING, "Ellis and I just bought a canoe." I'm very thankful for our canoe, and I know that friends love to hear about that stuff, but sometimes it's hard for the conversation to GO from there, cause there's nothing to say "ME TOO" about. I totally recognize that there is a place for those sorts of conversations, and not every discussion has to be at the level of "what's God been teaching you lately?" I'm just saying that I think a lot us would have a lot more significant and challenging relationships if we asked each other these sorts of questions more often. 

I love C.S. Lewis' description of the birth of his lifelong friendship with Arthur Greaves. I don't remember if this was in the Four Loves, or in some of his letters, but the gist is he walked into Arthur's house and saw a collection of Norse mythology, and he said they made eye contact, and it was like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one!" One of the girls in my Bible study recently made the observation that in addition to being connected by shared interests, when we share our struggles, temptations, challenges, goals, and triumphs with each other can create that same sort of reaction.

It's scary to share the temptations that we deal with, because honestly, sometimes I'm scared that I am the only one that ever has the temptations I have, and that if I mention it, people will KNOW I am the worst sinner out there! I'll think, "I'm sure no one else struggles with jealousy over such a petty thing, and then if they know, they'll know my weakness and judge me." But often when we make ourselves vulnerable and out of humility are willing to share things to help others, we discover others that relate to the very things we thought no one else dealt with. And suddenly, there are others to help and share what helped them. 

I mean, I know ultimately the answer to what to do with sin boils down to "Confess and repent." But SOMETIMES that is easier said than done, or we confess with our minds, but it takes a LONG TIME to internalize something in our hearts. Sometimes we just need to hear something in a different way than we've thought of it, or hear an example in a different context, like when the Prophet Nathan confronted David about Bathsheba. Often hearing someone else share a Bible verse, or a quote, or a story can be what we need to just change our perspective a tiny bit and make something STICK. Also, it's incredible how often if you say something to someone, they'll have been thinking about the SAME THING and you both can add to each other's thoughts! God gave us one another to bear each other's burdens, and so a lot of times, when we do the scary thing and let someone see that we're not perfect (or ADMIT it, cause they prolly already know!), we can receive the nourishment that we don't even know how badly we need. 

what we look like now

Man oh man! Looking over my pitiful number of photos from the last month, I'm realizing one of the biggest benefits of actually blogging is that it keeps me snapping pics! It's kinda like with Facebook statuses. During the times in my life where I've actually put up FB statuses, it makes me keenly aware in my everyday life of what would be a good status. "Ooh I gotta go post on

Facebook that I just saw 2 squirrels collide!" Definitely kinda retarded, BUT the cool thing is that it keeps me NOTICING!!!

Likewise, when I am blogging regularly(ish), thinking "oh, I could blog about this" makes me get out the camera, and stop to APPRECIATE what has been done around the house, or what our family's gotten the opportunity to do. It's so easy to get caught up in "cool, this is done, now what's next" and not stop to appreciate and rest in work or reflect on the blessings God

's brought. After God created the world, He stopped and took a Sabbath. So here's to real and metaphorical Sabbaths!

NOW, on to a bit of catch-up.

Here is Brody the Boy. It's so fun to see what a total BOY he is now. He burps and farts--and then LAUGHS at himself. We are 100% POSITIVE he does it on purpose sometimes!!! His idea of fun with toys is seeing how hard he can throw them--at the gym kidcare, I always know Brody's at the toy bucket when I see legos and MyLittlePonys flying through the air. He is completely OBSESSED with balls. They are his all-time favorite toy, and whenever we walk by anything that remotely looks like a ball, he starts yelling, "BALL! BALL! BALL!"

Interestingly, despite what the above photo seems to indicate, he is terrified of messes. Anytime he spills a couple drops of milk on the floor, he points to the puddle and makes distraught noises. Or if there is a wrinkle in a rug, he obsessively tries to fix it. He also loves to clean things up. I like this trait!!

Another fun thing is his (limited) repertoire of animal noises. Basically it seems to be domestic furry animal say "woofwoof!" and wild furry animals say "RAAAWR!" He's also working on "hooohooo" and "meow."

My friend Kathryn took some pics of us for Christmas cards (just ordered them last night!), so here are a couple updated family pics! I didn't put in the one we are using, so that way it can be a little bit of a surprise or something. :P

I was also going to include our wonderful Thanksgiving in Eugene, Oregon, but I think I will save that for another time--Ellis needs to take the computer to work!

Brody at 15 Months

When I was pregnant with Brody, I was (sort of) keeping a journal and thinking if he turned out to be a girl, he would read and reread my thoughts about him and treasure his baby journal, yada yada yada. Good thing God gave me a BOY who will NOT care, because I think a girl would be very disappointed in me. So hopefully by the time I have a girl, I will have upped my game.

In an attempt to work on it, here is a 15.5 month update on what is going on with the Bear, which is what he probably thinks his name is.

(the only recentish pic on the computer right now)

Biggest milestone recently: WALKING, woohoo! As seen in the previous post, Brody was inspired to work hard over Labor Day weekend, and now walks everywhere! He also loves to walk backward--and he totally thinks he's cool when he does it.

Also, he loves to feed himself, which means he NEVER re-wears the same outfits two days in a row anymore, or even PJs. And his favorite food just happens to be yogurt, so it's REALLY messy! This morning I gave him oatmeal, thinking it was a better choice since it was more substantial and wouldn't slide right off the spoon onto him. BUT he decided it was substantial enough to be a finger food. He also really cracked me up with his toast this morning: he broke it in pieces, sucked all the jam off, and then stacked his toast pieces in his empty oatmeal bowl and stuck the spoon straight up in it like a flag. That MUST be the Eifert in him cause there's no way a Littlejohn baby would clean up after himself!

He loves to read books and sing to himself--we love listening to him in his carseat! And I think the ball has now replaced the play piano as his favorite toy. He still loves music and especially rap though!

This is SUCH a fun stage, cause he is becoming an interactive little KID now. It's so fun to see him COMMUNICATE!!! Here are his words that I can think of:

Mama and Dada--do those even count? :)

Yogurt

Uh oh

Hi

Thank you

Up--his favorite!

All done

Juice

Bottle

and then Light--it's not perfectly consistent, but it's a Littlejohn tradition, so it's exciting!

He's turning out to be super social--he LOVES going to the gym KidCare with me and playing with all the kids! And nothing beats Logos volleyball games, where he gets to bask in the attention of junior high girls!

Lastly, here is a breakdown of his top 3 favorite people at 15 months:

1) Aunt Emily--no contest

2) Dad

3) Mom

At least I'm in the top 3! :)

Brodster on the Move

The Pudster has a reputation of not performing for the camera, but Labor Day weekend, he decided to show off his brand new skills to the fam! We had to bribe him with footballs and soccer balls, but here's Brody walking!

Dirty Dash

A couple weeks ago, some friends and I did the funnest race ever!! (and Ami, if you read this, don't worry, I do know that I shouldn't say "funnest") It was called the Dirty Dash, a 10k in Spokane. The 10k is already my FAVORITE distance (with all my vast experience of a 10k and a 5k, haha) because I love that it's long enough to feel like an accomplishment, but short enough to just run and get on with your day.

But anyway, not only was this a 10k, it was a "mud run," so our run was filled with mud pits and obstacles like haybales and walls that we either had to scale or army crawl underneath through mud. They also had a beer chug event during the race!

Here is out team at the beginning: Dan, Doug, Rach, Christa, and me

A couple of the mud pits. Our feet got SO heavy from all the mud in our shoes--we got to wash our shoes out in a river and my feet felt so light and fancy free.

The best mud pit of ALL was right at the finish line. We dove in and got completely covered!

Too bad the "showers" were just a trickle!

Mom and Brody came and picked me up after the race to shop in Spokane (Ellis and Dad were backpacking), so the Arby's bathroom became my shower until I got a real one that night. Even after washing my hair 6 times I STILL had mud in it--it was awesome!

Here we are after our mudbath--cannot WAIT to do it next year!

Brody hits Fort Wayne

I totally need to put up pics, too, I know. But for some reason posting videos takes it out of me--cause they take SOOOO long to load. There's actually one more video from the Chicago/Fort Wayne trip, in Chicago, but it REALLY takes forever to load. So I'll just include it in the next Brody post, which should be soon, cause he's been doing so much fun stuff lately!

What a boy.

This next one was at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo, which was the BEST zoo I have ever been to. Too bad there aren't ducks here in Moscow, cause Brode LOVES them. He also was way into the fish--we were in the aquarium for like half an hour. My fav part of this video is Brody's sound effects, haha.

Living room thoughts

I'm so excited to have scored some nice neutral furniture finally! In VA Beach, it was kinda tough to work around the blue plaid couch, the brown and blue zigzag loveseat, and the ashy carpet.

But HERE we have wood laminate, a beige leather couch we bought from my sis for $40 and a cream chair and ottoman, which were $5 for the pair. We also have a big maroon leather chair of my parents, which I am hoping to replace with something smaller and lighter, as it blocks a bigger chunk of the window than I would like.

The other day, on Pinterest (the site that's been keeping me away from blogging!), my friend Lish pinned the most amazing cheap rug from Urban Outfitters:



Right away it went on my birthday list! I was thinking it'd be awesome to have this rug and then some throw pillows with a fun ikat like this:

Obviously, that's not exactly the right one, but I'm kinda on an Ikat kick, so I'm searching high and low for the perfect fabric!

SADLY my birthday is still a month away, and Urban Outfitters is down to only the Black and White zigzag! :(

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the blue (or the gray, either one!) will reappear! And if not, maybe I'll just make one myself using this Ikea rug painting tutorial!

(Pinterest images: rug and fabric)