The Hot New Show Off Broadway

It's this awesome version of the old classic "Cinderella", but with a modern twist!

In the second scene, Prince Charming goes rogue and starts karate chopping Cinderella ("peschaw, peschaw, peschaw!!!"), while the producer/director/fairy godmother hisses horrified remonstrations from the wings. Cinderella screams for help for about fifteen seconds and then body-slams the Prince into the mattress formerly representing the ballroom floor. A general free-for-all ensues ending with the producer/director/fairy godmother stomping off the stage pronouncing "I GIVE UP!" and Prince Charming crying for Daddy, while Cinderella prevails due to sheer body weight advantage.


Best reproduction EVER!


Congrats to Sofi on her producing/directing/fairy godmother debut :)

More Quick Takes to keep y'all in the loop

1) We found out the coolest thing ever! Check out Jude 1:1. Isn't that awesome? Totally didn't know about that before naming Jamie. I tend to skip past those introductory verses just a wee bit, but we've been reading Jude together out loud this week, so it just jumped out at me for the first time :)

2) Moving day is Sunday, starting at three. Anyone within a thirty-minute radius is hereby begged to come and help!

3) Does anyone have a co-sleeper (either the in-the-bed kind, or the bolt-to-the-bedside kind) they'd want to lend/give/sell real cheap? I'd willing to mail it back from Orlando if you want to just lend it short-term.

4) Judah and Sofi have been spending tons of time each day in the wading pool outside. They wear sunscreen, re-apply frequently and are inside between... say, noon-ish and four. However, they are both brown as nuts! Those of you used to hot climates, am I going to have to get more careful about sun exposure, or is this "tan" a safe and healthy one? Our apartment has a pool right out the back door and I foresee manymany more hours outside every day this summer... And neither of them will wear a hat.

5) Anyone want to come pick up a free:

growler from Cally's
desk
sandbox (the green plastic turtle kind)
lawnmower (reel, not motorized)

?

6) I trimmed my rose bushes for the last time last night. It made me very sad.

7)

Baby by Stevie Guest Giveaway

Baby by Stevie Guest Giveaway

Look! Bow ties!! aaack!! Can you just see Judah and Jamie in matching ones???? If I don't win the giveaway, I may just have to buy some anyway. Unless some grandmas beat me to it! *hint, hint*

The Big Move: Plan A (there is no plan b, so pay attention!)

Jenny asked yesterday on FB what our plan is for the move. Of course, plans around here are in a constant state of flux and did not originally include a) the clutch dying on our car on Tuesday, or b) me coming down with some kind of insane sinus condition on Sunday, or c) weather hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.

Nevertheless! We press onward with tentative planning because we are homo sapiens and planning is what separates us from the apes. So here's the plan:

We will pick up the U-Haul truck on Sunday, early afternoon. Packing starts at 3 (with lotsalotsa help from friends and church family, right guys????). Rumor has it that a good friend is planning to feed everyone afterwards and give us a chance to say our last goodbyes. We'll camp out in the house Sunday night, tying up all the loose ends early Monday in time for the final walk-through. Closing is Monday at four, after which we'll head South! First stop off in Lynchburg to say our goodbyes to J's parents. Then to Danville to spend the night with my parents. Tuesday, on to South Carolina and J's grandparents. Wednesday, we spend the night in a hotel in Lake Mary, a short distance from our final destination of Winter Park.

We'll arrive at our new, but temporary home at Sorrento Apartments in Winter Park early-ish on Thursday morning, unload the truck (with help from our new Florida Friends) and take a nice long SWIM!!!

Long-term plans include frantic house-hunting in an attempt to be in a permanent place before Jamie makes his debut, but that's in the Lord's hands and we really have NO idea of the timing on all that.

So there you have it, in a nutshell, our tentative plans for The Big Move. Stay tuned to hear all the last- minute revisions and scrambling...

About the name

I feel the need to elaborate on our choice of a name for our new son. Especially since everyone who hears it says "Oh, Jamie Oliver, like the Food Network Star?" I had no idea there was a Food Network Star named Jamie Oliver. *sigh* Luck of the draw, I guess.

Those of you who've read my blog for a while will possible remember the posts about Sofi's name and Judah's name, and if you've known me IRL for any length of time, I'm sure to have bent your ear about how Judah's name came to me in a dream and that J and I decided on our honeymoon to name our first daughter "Sofia". All this to say, our kids names are really important to us and we agonize over meanings and cadence and nicknames and character traits for MONTHS before we finalize a name. Here's the story of how James Oliver Forshey got his name:

From the very beginning of this pregnancy our family has been surrounded by a swirl of sorrow, uncertainty and distress. Two weeks after the unexpected discovery of those two pink lines, we found out that J's job was ending in a few short months. Our dear friends were on their way to Philly with an uncertain future for their family ahead. It's been a roller-coaster ride, these last few months.

And yet, we felt the Lord speaking Peace to us. And in particular, I felt the Lord telling me that this baby's name would be Peace, just as He had told me that Judah's name would be Praise. So I began the search for a name meaning Peace. Oliver means peace. I loved it! Unfortunately, J reacted very strongly against it when I first brought it up. I let it go, hoping the Lord would bring another name to mind.

On the way to our gender ultrasound (our first ever!) we tossed around a few ideas, ultimately settling on a girl's name and the possibility of "James" for a boy. BUT. Once we knew "boy", I had to go and ruin everything by discovering the meaning of the name James. Bleh. I told J there was no way I could stand to name our second son "supplanter" (basically that means "one who takes over the position of another"). I'm sure you can see my point. So did he, but still loving the name, he brought it up every time I tried to re-introduce "Oliver" into the discussion.

After a couple weeks of "discussions" back and forth over these two names, it suddenly occurred to one of us (me, I think) hey, why not put them together! James Oliver. And lookee there, what a cool meaning we come up with! What an interesting picture of a man who walks in, takes control of a situation or a place and establishes peace.

So that's my prayer for our Jamie, that he would be a strong man who rules his kingdom (whatever that may look like-- home, work, whatever) with peace.

A few Quick Takes for Tuesday

(this is what you do when you have six FB statuses rolling around in your head and you can't decide which one to post!)

1) What did I ever do to deserve kids who like neither grits, nor fried apples with scrambled egg? It's like Southern Breakfasts are anathema to them...

2) Dear Over-Zealous Mayorial Campaign Worker,
who drove her bike, complete with flashing red strobe light, up to our house, clumped up onto our porch, shone her head lamp into our bedroom window, opened and then slammed shut our screen door (I assume leaving literature about our dear mayor) and then clumped back down the steps to her strobe-lighted bike AT FOUR OCLOCK THIS MORNING.....

never mind. it's not printable.

3) If we don't get some rain real soon, this whole property is just going to blow right off the map and then where will all our plans to move to Fl be?

4) Everyone in this county who knows me is hereby invited to come visit ANY TIME in the next two weeks. I want LOTS of company :) We have no a/c, but we have a kiddie pool! And I will make you some iced mint tea and let you pick as many flowers as you like and dig up bits and pieces of whatever plants you want. Just give me about ten minutes warning so I can clear a path from the door to the kitchen table...

5) Birth Circle is a pregnant-women-and-new-moms support group, with an emphasis on the experience of natural birth and breastfeeding. Kinda like MOPS for hippies. (since you asked)

6) They are actually going to jack our house up off the foundation to repair some beams today. Apparently jacking a house up off it's foundation is not really that big a deal. I would rather have remained more ignorant about the permanence of my house's position on it's foundation. I now have visions of it just randomly sliding off one day to go visit another house down the street, or something.

My house looks sad now

It's been nearly a month since I last posted. A month full of the most unbelievable heights and depths of human experience. In the last month we have...

mourned the too, too early passing of sweet Gwenyth and her Aunt Marie

greeted the LATE arrival of Lilah Grace

said hello and then goodbye again to a brother/uncle/friend

named our son; James Oliver Forshey ("Jamie")

sold our house

found an apartment

met new friends, here and in Orlando-- both

packed our house

begun to say goodbye to all our friends, family and dear ones here in Virginia

As I look around me at the detritus of the last nine years of my life, I am often overwhelmed with sadness. In so many way, the timing of this move seems to be so horribly bad that it cannot possibly be the will of God for us. Leaving Hburg right now, practically on the eve of the birth of our third child, at a time when my sister needs my help and comfort, when our dear friends are floundering in such depths of grief, when our church is growing and blooming and our family has set down such deep roots of friendships here...

And yet, at every step of the way, we have laid the decisions on the altar and let the Lord choose for us. And He has led us inexorably toward this moment. Time after time, we've come to a crossroad and haven't known whether to go left or right, and at the crucial moment the Lord has simply and beyond our control, eliminated one or the other road, leaving us only one way to travel forward.

But as I look at the last nine years of my life, now half-packed into boxes (how is it possible that nine years can fit so neatly into cardboard boxes?), I cannot help being overwhelmed with sadness, regret and a strong desire to run away from all this change, to go back to What Life Was. To return to the Familiar and the Comfortable.

I have all these worries and fears that my head knows are not of Faith, but my heart cannot find peace over...

what if I cannot find a midwife in time and we have to give birth in the hospital?

what if I can't find any friends who love to drink tea?

do they even drink tea in Florida?

where in the world will we find a ballet teacher as good as Miss Cindy?

who will I oooo and aaah over wedding flower magazines with?

who will be friends with my kids?

what if all the women are much more mature than I, and my Sex in the City references fall completely flat?

who will I go bargain shopping with?

do I really need to worry about alligators?

will I ever find another house like this one?

Can I make it without all my friends from Harrisonburg???

I don't know the answers to these questions. But all I can do is continue to lay it all on the altar and keep putting one foot in front of the other as God provides one more step's worth of light.

When all around my soul gives way
He then is all my hope and stay
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand