My Love and Hate of Handmade Gifts

I love handmade gifts. I cherish the time the giver takes to conceive the idea and then craft it with love. I love to be the giver of a handmade gift--committing a part of myself to someone else and anticipating the love with which it will be received.

I also hate handmade gifts :). I've already shared my grinch-y-ness with y'all over the Christmas season. I thought Jeremiah was going burn all the nightgowns up before I could finish embroidering them and demand his wife back. I still have two to finish, and we're eeking up on the middle of January (don't tell Jeremiah--he thinks I've abandoned the projects).

I've admitted something else this Christmas season--I love store-bought gifts too. Especially when they come from clothing stores ;). If you've been around long you know that shopping doesn't fit into our residency/fellowship budget. This year, I acknowledged the anticipation I hold for Christmas to bring a MUCH needed spark to my wardrobe. Having a handful of new items to mix in with the old faithfuls makes a WORLD of difference. For Pace and Mary Aplin, who outgrow their clothes between seasons, it's more a state of necessity than desire for a few new items. When a once long-sleeve shirt goes past three-quarter length and begins inching close to the elbow, it's time for a new shirt.

While I'm extremely excited about handmade and non-handmade gifts from this year, I've taken pictures of the handmade ones to share with you:

My Mom's friend, Kendall Boggs, is an artist and I won this in a giveaway on her blog--sort of. Somebody else was actually drawn to win, but she gave me one too. I love it, and I'm counting it as a homemade Christmas present. You should check out some of her other artwork--here.

Alex, Jeremiah's baby sister, made this collage of pictures for us. Jeremiah's Grandmother Maddox made GI-normous picture collages of their family throughout the years. When Jeremiah and I were dating, I used to stand in front of them and love seeing the changes grow across the wall--from three little boys and a young preacher with his wife, to teenage boys with their girlfriends and, later, wives. Grandchildren playing baseball and riding horses--you could see the whole family grow up before your eyes. It was a big day for me when I finally made a debut in one of those collages! One small picture of Jeremiah and me at the first concert we ever went to together. And now, Allie, I feel like I have been truly inaugurated! Our very own family collage. Grandmother would be so proud :)

Taylor took that favorite picture of Mom that I shared in the last blog and did an "acetate transfer" (don't tell Taylor, but I have no idea what that means). I think the vintage and whimsical look that created is fascinating,

especially when paired with a "love you" written in Mom's own hand-writing...

From one tear-jerker to the next! It was sort of a weepy Christmas around here :)

Caroline was going through Mom's sewing kit, and she found a poem written on this needlepoint canvas.

It says:

Abby Catherine, bundle of joy,

Tiny and helpless, beautiful to see.

How did you come to belong to me?

Little hands that hold on tight,

Sweet small mouth to kiss goodnight.

Growing, growing every day,

If only you could stay this way.

In need of me for everything,

Hold you close and softly sing.

Jesus loves you this I know,

Designed you, formed you, and watched you grow.

Dimpled grins are all in fun,

When up your back the angles run.

Chinkypen eyes sent to me from above,

Abby, you'll always have my love.

May, 14 1982

Still crying every time I read it.

Nice to know she really loved that honeymoon accident...

I vaguely remember her reading me this poem that she wrote for me as a baby. I remember asking her why she thought it kind to call my small eyes "chinkypen." (I hope nobody is offended by what seems like a racial slur to me as an adult :) Apparently, she thought it was a compliment fit for her newborn!) I also have a very vague recollection of her telling me she loved to run her fingers up the angles of my back, and watch the way I wriggled and grinned under her touch.

Caroline learned to needlepoint, so that she could finish this project for me, that Mom started so many years ago.

And finally, those embroidered nightgowns. Pretty sure I promised Caroline I was photographing the nightgown and not her face. Pretty sure I assured her I wouldn't post any of her face...I lied :)

The quote says: "Is solace anywhere more comforting than in the arms of a sister." I felt like that quote captured perfectly the last three years for the four of us.

The back. That deep fold is the zipper running down the middle of the back of the dress.

Caroline and her sweet mother-in-law, Mrs. Melinda, sewed all these nightgowns for me. I adore them and am so thankful for smart people who can turn ideas into substance with a sewing machine. I am a pitiful seamstress, but I do love to embroider.

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of all the nightgowns (four down, two to go), and they're all a little different. However, here is a close-up of Taylor's.

The non-handmade gifts will be appearing on the blog as well...as we wear them out :)

Come Away With Me

I haven't figured out how to only post once a week and not give you extremely long posts with a smattering of unlinked topics and pictures :). I may have to rethink this once-a-week thing, but for now---

One of Jeremiah's attendings mentioned that he had a log cabin built on 1200 acres (!!!!!) in eastern Washington, where he had just finished building (as in, with his own hands) a two-story cedar barn. Don't you wish you'd been there to see Jeremiah try to not squeal with excitement? He told me he played it really cool and didn't invite himself, but we managed to end up there two days later. :) You can't start talking about vast amounts of land and cabins and expect us not to show up.

Jeremiah asked me early in the trip, if I was ready to call it "The Most Beautiful Drive" we'd ever taken, and I told him to hold his horses. We've taken a lot of beautiful drives lately. However, after driving by this aqua colored river for about 15 miles, rushing over boulders, through evergreens and scattered deciduous trees--I told him to pull over for some pictures, because he was right.

Even in cloud cover, without being able to see the tallest mountains, it was still the most beautiful drive I've ever experienced.

Now don't think we weren't feeling a little anxious about the potential awkwardness of staying overnight with Jeremiah's boss, who he just met. What if the girls were unruly? What if we didn't have anything to talk about? What if Dr. Wagner didn't think we would actually take him up on his offer and now he was dreading us coming? How much food do you show up with so as not to be a mooch but also not look like you're making yourself too at home? I was a little short of breath when we arrived.... ...

All for nought. Dr. Wagner immediately engaged the girls and crawled up into the loft to show them their special beds in the air. He's one of those people who has done a little bit of everything--riding a motorcycle across the Middle East, a fellowship in China, a honeymoon on his '67 BMW motorcycle... And then he's a dreamer and an idealist--always thinking of ways to improve spines and third world countries and energy consumption...

What I'm saying is, it was sort of my ideal evening :)

We drove a different way home, to see what lay on the other side of the mountains. And we found lots of apple orchards.



We stopped for some hot apple cider and pumpkin doughnuts, and the girls found their friend Mater

Random insert--Mary Aplin turned three on the 13th!!!

And she hated every minute of it. I made pink and green cupcakes for her class (at her request). When we walked into school and all her friends cried, "Happy Birthday Mary Aplin!!!" she lifted her dress above her head and hid between my legs. The rest of the day she refused to talk to all the well-wishers on the phone and just grunted at everyone who wished her a happy day. She is a funny little bean, but we still can't get enough her. She adds a lot of spice to our life :)

This weekend we went with some friends to a pumpkin farm a little south of Olympia.

The pumpkins were a bit picked over, but the apple fritters, OHHHHH the apple fritters!! We stood in an hour-long line to get them, wondering what all the fuss could possibly be about. Boy, did we find out! This is as close as I could get for a picture without someone eating my camera.

There was also a petting zoo.

Pace's gentle nature and tender heart was right at home.

Tenderness does not come quite as naturally to the Dapples...

"Why is this horse attached to a stick? This is not nearly as fun as Popon's farm. I can make those horses run wild. Get me down. I need more action."

I'm always glad to act as her interpreter.

Happy week! Sorry for the randomness. My Dad is coming in town today, and we have quite the little double birthday party planned this weekend. See you next week!

Discovering Discovery

I think Seattle must have the best park system in the world. There are over 400!!! of them, and I feel the need to see each one. This past week, Jeremiah went to try out Discovery Park. We had heard it was a good one, but we did not know it was 534 acres, over 11 miles of trails, and a slice of true wilderness right down the road from us. He came home like a kid on crack-rock, saying no matter what I was going there the next day to take a run. My husband can tend towards the superlative, and I sort of smiled and told him I'd be sure and try it out sometime. (Thinking in my mind that I had way too much to do on Sunday to take a long run, and surely he was just over-zealous, seeing as how he had not experienced all the parks the girls and I had.) The next afternoon, when he offered to watch the girls AND cook dinner if I would just GO, I finally left the mile-long list of things I was trying to accomplish and went. Wondering what kind of wonderful notion had possessed my husband :).

It was the. most. beautiful. run I have ever taken. Deep green forests, glorious seclusion, to rocky beaches, to a lighthouse, a jaunt on the sand, white sailboats over the deep blue water, craggy daisies and fall's bright berries, back to fern forests, and then the sad return to my car. I actually laughed out loud throughout the run over how shockingly beautiful each new turn became.

I arrived at home to my husband grilling hamburgers and teared up as I thanked him for the best gift I'd been given in a long time. "Told you," he said with a big, knowing grin on his face.

I was eager to take the girls back, so that they could experience Discovery as well. I soon learned that there is a reason for the deep seclusion...you can't park anywhere near the beaches. You literally have to take a mile or so hike in order to reap the rewards of the secluded beach. But these two little chicken wings were eager for the adventure:

It was a long go, and there were some serious hills,


But that first glimpse of the beach they'd been working for, made it all worthwhile:







As a parent, I am not sure there are any joys greater than watching the wonder of your children as they delight in new experiences




And learn to love one another


With the promise of a lighthouse and more sandy shoreline, we resumed our hike.








We met a frightful, eight-legged creature along the way:


That big sister, in her apprehension, convinced baby sister to touch




And when baby sister tried instructing her elder, she was accosted instead :)


Finally, we found the lighthouse.




And we stood at the pinnacle of our journey and talked of sailors long ago who would have crashed into these very rocks if not for this sturdy beacon, shining through the darkness




I asked it they would like to move into this house and become the new light-house keepers. Sounds enchanting to me.


They thought playing sounded much more fun




It was a wonderful, wonderful experience I hope they will never forget. I know I won't.