family night

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Cold rockin' it on a Friday night. Israel was getting bored with just walking.

Israel's first birthday

Israel's birthday has been...SWEET! I had not intended for Israel to be overwhelmed with the typical sugary-sweetness of the typical birthday all of a sudden just because he turned one, but things don't always go according to a mom's theory about things. Israel didn't seem to mind one bit. So here is the low-down on the people, the food, and the new things Israel has enjoyed for his first birthday.

We wanted to stick with things and activities for his birthday that Israel would actually enjoy, but that can be a little tricky when he is pretty happy just greeting his dog in the mornings. On his actual birthday, we spent the afternoon with Judah and his mom, who you may have met in previous posts. We all ate lunch, played in the living room, and went on a bike ride together. That evening, our families went to Puerto Vallarta, a local Mexican restaurant that Israel has enjoyed in the past. He likes Mexican food (shares our fajitas and salsa and gets his own guacamole) and the music that plays in the background. We also thought he would like the employees singing to him and clapping. You can see the results of our experiment here:

His unhappiness didn't last very long, so don't worry. He had the sympathy (the "aw...'s" at the end of the video make that apparent) of the whole restaurant, and besides that, when the "noise" was over, he was left with a tortilla covered in honey, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream in the shape of a number 1. I had not expected a restaurant to present a birthday dessert to a baby (though I should've known better by the number of people in the general population who ask if they can give him lollipops...). He dug right in (with a little help from his dad).

We also had fun opening a few presents for him. He got several cards and a book on his birthday. He liked pulling the cards out of their envelopes and being allowed to play with them.

He has since received several more presents and has liked them all. His favorite thing, though, has been the mylar balloon we bought him. I've decided it might be "the" gift for a one-year-old. I hope he stays this easy to please. He has a great "I find this interesting" sort of face he puts on when exploring the new things and will often point at them and say, "daaa....." in a tone that lets you know he's patiently explaining the thing to you. He got his first puzzles and likes taking the pieces out of their spaces, if not putting them back in. He also got new clothes that we will all appreciate in future pictures when the weather gets cooler.

On Sunday, we went out to lunch with the grandparents (minus Grandma Terri and Grandpa Jim, who couldn't make a drive from Arizona in time for lunch...) and came home to enjoy carrot cake. Our dog, Sophie, seemed to have enjoyed ten of the twelve cupcakes, but we had a couple still left when we returned in addition to a small cake. (How nice of her to share!) Israel liked the small gathering and REALLY enjoyed the cake his dad had made. He ate nearly the whole cupcake in ONE BITE! (His dad was able to take a little of it away from him.) You can see some of the action in the video clip at the end...it took him too long to chew up what he had bit off for me to record it all. Suffice it to say it was more of the same for at least a minute or two. Watching it reminded me of one of those nature videos where a snake swallows some poor creature three times the size of its mouth.

While not officially part of his birthday celebrating, Israel has been honing his walking skills and wanted to show them off to you. He goes all kinds of places using only his feet now and can walk the length of living rooms that aren't as long as ours. Tune in again for more of Israel's sweet adventures!

Big Stuff!

It has been an incredibly long time since my last post! There are three reasons: 1. I've not been feeling well until recently, 2.I wanted to wait to make a really cool post after our trip to Seattle, and 3. we had lost our camera for several weeks. But now we have found our camera (what a crazy story that is) and we just returned from Seattle last night after sharing our great news with them in person, and I'm feeling better now that I'm through my first trimester of our second pregnancy!

That's right. You'd better read my writing closely.

So...surprise! We could not have been more surprised by the news ourselves. Israel seems like he couldn't care less and I'm glad he will just grow up thinking his sibling has always been around. They'll be about 18 months apart, with the youngest being expected to arrive mid-March 2009. So that's pretty big stuff.

Israel is also pretty big stuff these days, and is taking his first steps. He took two in Zack and Gala's house in Seattle and four in the Las Vegas airport on the way home. Israel will turn a year old this month and that is craziness to me! Wow. There just went a year...!

We had a good time in Seattle. The weather was unseasonably cold (hence the sweaters we bought while there...) but that did not stop us from enjoying being outdoors.

This first group of pictures is from Golden Gardens -- a nice park not too far from Zack and Gala's. We parked at the top of the VERY LARGE hill and hiked down and back up. The stairs pictured are not nearly all the ones we had to climb. I consider it my initiation back into active life after a first trimester of laying in the recliner. What an initiation that was! (Regardless of the way it seems from the last picture, it really was quite cool...I had just been working that hard!)



Our other and more major trek outdoors was with Drew and Sara, who took us to the Soqualmie Pass to hike up part of a mountain to Annette Lake. The scenery and the conversation were beautiful, though the weather was not. The hike took five hours and we all worked together to make it carrying Israel, a diaper bag, and a backpack. (I mostly just carried "Peanut.") It was probably our favorite day in the Northwest. Maybe we'll go back when we don't share part of the trail with cold rain. We all (including Israel) felt like "more than conquerors" after making it back to the car -- a good feeling!


We enjoyed all kinds of food while we were there. With Israel napping between breakfast, lunch, and dinner, going out to eat was our main outing each afternoon and evening. Our favorite place was probably a really small Mediterranean restaurant called Gorgeous George's. George was a great host/cook who is from Nazareth and loved Israel's name. We had falafel and a gyro and they were both amazing, both in taste and size! It will likely take our taste buds awhile to adjust to Indiana fare as we enjoyed Cuban sandwiches (that made your lips hot from eating them), pizza approved by the government of Naples, and Thai food that was nothing short of amazing in its own rite. There was one little spot that deserved a second trip called Molly Moon's -- an ice cream place that makes its own ice cream and waffle cones in-shop. They have the traditional flavors, which are surely really good, too...but Pat loved the salted caramel ice cream and I can't even conceive of a better taste than the balsamic strawberry I had. I would use pregnancy as an excuse to eat a pint of it a day! I wish I had good pictures from that place....

Israel was a trooper and loved the different foods as well. He ate some of everything we did (except the ice cream), but he especially liked my Thai dish, which I thought was too hot for him (even though we do give him spicy food pretty regularly). We offered him more tame things during the meal, but he kept reaching for the tofu and bamboo shoots from my "summer heat" dish. Ah, I love my son! We both agree to claim him, if only for his taste in food! This is Pat in the Thai restaurant, me eating a Scandinavian pastry, and Molly Moon's.





We loved taking in the colors and fun foods at the Pike Place Market. The booths were beautiful!

Pat really liked the fresh figs we bought at this stand. Once again, beauty abounds.

Our favorite taste from the market: fig balsamic vinegar. I liked it even better than the blackberry kind they had here. If you know about my love for blackberries, you know how much that means. This place was great! This guy would shout at all females (regardless of age) going by: "Excuse me, young lady. Would you like to try some chocolate pasta?" We did. It was good!

As great as the restaurants were, the coolest meals were those shared with friends. We shared a meal with Josh and Amanda Sandoz at their house (which we don't have pictures of, since our camera was stolen on the bus onthe way to their house. Long story....)
Our last night in Seattle, Jeff and Chris Ramsdale (pictured immediately below with not-their-son Miles) graciously hosted a slew of former Indiana folk at their house for dinner and tea. I wasn't able to get pictures of everyone who came, but this will give you an idea of what it was like. Believe it or not, there were several of our old Muncie friends who weren't able to make it!

Amanda Sandoz with a great face. (That's Sue Weinraub in the black hoodie.)

Romeo Martinez.

This last picture brings back so many fond memories. We stayed in Zack and Gala's house, but they had just left to come to Indiana the day we left for Seattle. So we stayed in their empty house, which was SUCH a blessing! We took advantage of the nice space by hosting a dinner of fish tacos made by Pat and Drew (a duo in the kitchen from years and years back). This is one for the books. Around the table, here are: me, Pat, Sara, Drew, Lori, Susan, Matt, Miles, and Israel.

Block Party

This is a short post, but I wanted to give anyone interested the link to the newspaper story about the block party our church throws each year. Leslie Draper came up with the idea and this is our third year putting it on. Pat is in charge of a 3-on-3 basketball tournament and I run the cake walk. The article isn't bad for our local paper...though...why the talk about mowing lawns? What does that have to do with...?

Schaivon and CC, who are quoted, are two of "our kids" from a previous post with Israel. We're proud of them. There are also pictures of the party if you follow the link on the right side of the article page under the main picture. Maybe I'll get a couple of my own on here in the next few days. We'll see.

What I love most about the article is finding out what our neighbors think about the party. For some reason, it's amazing to me that it seems to be serving its intended purpose: to bring out the assets of our community and bring people of all backgrounds together to have an evening of good, clean fun. It honestly made me tear up to see that people are proud of our community. I don't know the other people in the article, but they have noticed our church's work and that goes a long way for me.

go read the news article

unlikely ceremony

Today Israel and I went to Jacob's funeral. I sat there, watching this beautiful couple go through such a hard time and dwelt on the fact that nothing is certain in life. We serve a God who offers us no guarantees as to our life's circumstances. I have one friend who is having a particularly tough time with this, as she knows both families who lost infants this summer as well.

I have been thinking about a response to this time. When my friend told me what a hard time this brought on between her and God, I didn't really know what to say. I feel like I thought a lot about the problem of evil in college and went through my time of disbelief then. I told her I tend to just trust that I've already been through the questions. It takes a lot of emotional and intellectual energy to wrestle through such an issue, and I don't have the energy to do that again in life. I know the end result of my time of questioning was that I decided to trust God. But that answer just doesn't quite satisfy even me. After all, isn't that like putting faith in my own past questioning? That surely must be shaky ground.

I decided to think it through a little bit and reminded myself that there are three options: Good God, Bad God, or No God. Either God exists or He doesn't and if He does, He is either good or He is not. The problem(s) of evil notwithstanding, the world makes a ton more sense with God in it than not. And if there is a God, what is there to do besides trust him? We are helpless against him and totally at His mercy. Not yielding to an all-powerful Creator is, at best, not smart. There. I knew I had already thought this through.

But that's not a good response to someone in the middle of questioning. Perhaps it's correct, but it comes off a bit cold and calculated.

At the funeral, I stood beside my friend as we sang songs of worship to God -- songs about how God is good, no matter what, and how we are willing to go through tough times if only to know Him better. And I remembered that this relationship I have with God is just that: a relationship. At some point, I made a decision that I was going to trust God, no matter what. It was a bit like my wedding day: promising to do and be certain big things in the face of an unknowable future. On some level, you have no idea what you're really getting into, but you promise to believe the best about the other person and to fight for your relationship above all other human relationships. And a relationship with God is like a marriage, but the believing-the-best part is made more complicated by the fact that God has ultimate authority and is not ever wrong. If you find yourself disagreeing with Him, then, well...you have some tough decisions to make. Either you can wrestle it through with Him, leave Him, or just trust Him despite your own judgment of the situation. This time, I think I'll take that final option. It's scary, since I know full well that there is nothing about me preventing some similar tragedy from coming my way. But I see how God loves people in the midst of this and that helps. It still doesn't make sense to me that these things happen when God is in control, especially as I found myself saying in the conversation with my friend that continues in my head, "When God takes charge of everything, He has said he will take away all of this sort of thing." But God IS in control now. And why doesn't that piece of heaven push its way into this crummy world? There is no good answer for that. But I look at Jesus, who, having all power, submitted himself to the pain and sorrows of this place and I know that I am to submit myself to whatever comes my way as well. I am to follow Jesus and trust that God knows what He's doing, no matter what happens in my life.

In that way, the funeral was a sort of renewal of my vows.

We all (including the animals) went to Kentucky for the fourth of July. It was a crazy long weekend, so here's an appropriately crazy long post!

There are no pictures of the fireworks, because we watched them from inside our car in the rain. Israel was able to sleep in the back seat through the whole thing, so we were actually able to enjoy the show, which was a pleasant surprise. Our favorite firework: the kind that shoots up in a thick line, bursts into a rather sparse globe, and then each flame shoots into several smaller ones. We also like the ones that shoot out from the center in straight lines and then veer off in random directions.

We had intended to go on our first real camping trip with Israel the next day, but it was SO humid, and all the wood for fire-making was wet from a downpour earlier in the day and there were attacking bugs that ate us, even though we were wearing bug spray.... So after setting up our tent, we went on a nice hike in Red River Gorge and then took down the tent and drove back to my parents' house. But we got a few good pictures out of it anyway.

Our hike started out at the top of a ridge and went down, down, down. This is the "magical fern place" along the way. (Mange, this is the hike we went on together.)

At the bottom of the descent, we all got our toes wet to cool off.

Israel LOVED the water.

Brandon (my brother) and Corey (his friend) loved the water, too.

Conclusion: Israel LOVES nature! We are so glad our little guy can enjoy the great outdoors with us.

Israel was on top of the world after an evening full of adventure.

The next day, Israel suddenly got sick with a fever. It was sad, because his great-aunt and uncle and his great-grandma (Nana) were up to visit. He let them comfort him for awhile and, if he felt a little better, I'm sure he would have said it was good to see them, but he wasn't much for talking that day.

Israel with Nana

Nana, Uncle Doug, Israel, Mom ("Granna" to Israel) and Aunt Shirley.

In other news, Israel is growing like crazy! He communicates quite a bit now. He can wave and say, "Bye, bye" and "dog," and he points and babbles at everything. (Still waiting for "mom" and "dad.") He claps when you cheer and also when he wants everyone in a room to pay attention to him. His laugh is infectious and he will laugh at all kinds of things. He's such a fun little guy to be around!

beyond understanding

Yet another tragedy happened yesterday: another friend gave birth to a baby who died. His name was Jacob and he lived for a day. His parents go to Muncie Alliance and I taught a Bible study at a youth center with his mom for a couple years around the time Pat and I were married. Kira (the mom) is about my age and she and Scott already have a 15 month old son named Brody. How does this happen to two different people I know in one summer? I don't know. From what it seems on their blog, God is giving this couple peace and is bringing good from this tragedy as Jacob's heart is being used to save other babies' lives. The Bible talks about "peace that passes understanding." It surely does, because none of us understand.

If you're interested, their blog is: scottandkira.blogspot.com

June bugs

(This post is basically a glorified picture-fest, so hang on for the ride!)

June has been a month of outdoor fun for the whole McCrory family. (Even Katya has taken to frequenting the front porch with us.) Pat has enjoyed grilling out (I think...) and Israel is cleaning our front porch with his knees several times a week (and we don't even have to pay him!). One of the most beautiful outdoor times have been the meals we've eaten on Thursday evenings in the best backyard in Muncie (not ours...). We've had that time to hang out with some of the Muncie Alliance interns, which is great, since we don't get to do that as often as we used to. Pictured here is Beka, who has been one of Israel's babysitters. I think he likes her. Adam (with the dreds) and Pat enjoyed some good conversation about all kinds of creative ideas about life. Lisa (in the black and white) has been a wonderful host and provided us with an assortment of quiches and fresh fruits and veggies. These evenings have been laid back and wonderful. The dog plays, Israel explores (sometimes more than we want him to) and we get to enjoy some good company and take in all kinds of beauty. Who could ask for more?














Our garden is in full swing as well. We have had a time with the peas, which the rabbits seem to love, but most of the other things are growing well, including the weeds. We don't get out there as often as we'd like sometimes, but when we do, Pat and Israel and Sophie run around a whole lot. Israel thinks being chased by the dog while in his dad's arms is hilarious. While he doesn't seem to like pulling weeds very much, you can tell he likes being outside by the amount of dirt he brings home with him from these ventures. More often then not, an evening in the garden also means a bed-time bath. And more often than not, a bedtime bath means a funny hairdo to sleep on. This was one of the best.


Israel had another first this month: camping. It wasn't our usual out in the woods, five hours from home camping, but it was nice. We paid a visit to Josh and Michelle and baby Heron. They graciously provided us with all the materials we forgot at home and we slept in the yard where they live on the Lett property in Eaton. (If you were at our wedding, we camped out right about where the tent was for our reception.) I was admittedly apprehensive about the idea, but really wanted to give it a shot to see if we could handle something a little more adventurous later in the year. It went REALLY well! Israel could not have enjoyed himself more and was quite fascinated by the tent. All four of us (that's Pat, me, Israel, and Sophie) slept all night in the tent with no problems other than forgetting our pillows! We cooked over a fire, roasted marsh- mallows after Israel went to bed, and had an indoor pancake breakfast the next morning with Michelle and Heron. It felt like an overnight vacation! Thanks, guys!



In case you can't tell, Israel is growing and growing. We will have his nine month doctor's visit tomorrow to find out just how much! He seems to have temporarily lost interest in walking, as he can crawl and pull himself up in order to get just about anywhere he wants to go. He can wave bye-bye (and say it, too...) when he feels like it, which is most often during meal-time. I don't know why. He likes crawling all over the dog and anyone else lying on the floor. He likes to feed himself now (which makes things both easier and more difficult at the same time). The video below is of when he first started to do it; he's nearly a pro now. His favorite food is currently tofu and he seems to like Pat's lentil-burger recipe quite a bit, even if his mom doesn't like the "end result." He seems to be getting between two and four new teeth. He tries to imitate consonant sounds a lot and gives zerberts when you least expect it. He laughs at strangers as long as they don't try to hold him and is a pretty fun guy to be around if you have the energy to keep up! Here are some peeks at Israel doing the things he does the best.

After the rain

Last night, at about 9:00, we were getting ready to put Israel to bed. The weather had been calm all day, but then, as has happened a couple other times recently, a storm came up. Without warning. The wind started blowing fiercely. Pat and I put Israel in his playpen and rushed around outside in what had become a crazy dust storm to bring in hanging and potted plants and to take down the basketball goal so the rim doesn't get bent further by another fall into the street. While we were running about, another limb fell out of our tree. A little girl's trike blew down the street. The lattice holding back our neighbor's raspberry bushes snapped in two. The rain started and we were safe inside. We put Israel to bed and turned on the TV to see what was going on with the weather. These days, I feel like a tornado could descend on my house at any moment. No tornado this night, though. And the storm passed in a matter of minutes.

We would not have even noticed it, except that the storm was replaced by a bright, orange glow. Pat led the way outside again. It was still raining and you could hear thunder in the distance, but the sky was the most beautiful and strange I have ever seen. On the west, the entire sky was bright orange -- not your traditional sunset. The whole thing was orange. And it was after 9:00 pm. The light penetrated everything. Neighbors came outside to see the light show. We turned and looked east to see a double rainbow that took up that entire half of the sky. I can't recall ever seeing a rainbow like that. We called neighbors and friends to spread the word that something amazing was taking place. A couple of the people we called let us know that they felt very loved by us because we would call them to make sure they didn't miss out on such a thing.

We stood and watched the sky for a long time. I took all kinds of pictures (none of which really did it any justice) and jumped in puddles and decided to let the rain make my hair look funny. We climbed upstairs and bent over to look out our little windows at it. We pushed our way onto the little overhang on our roof to try to get a clearer look. The rainbow evaporated in the time it took for me to dial one more phone number. The sky remained beautiful. Clouds became visible where the orange glow had been and were lit pink and purple by a strip of still-orange glow beneath. It was purely magical. I leaned over the railing to get a couple more shots to remember the evening by. Such pure joy after such a terrible storm. We were still talking about it as we went to sleep. Pat said he thought that sort of a sky spoke about the beauty that takes place when God's light shines into the stormy places.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been able to visit Trever and Lauren's house. If you don't know them, you may remember from our previous post that they just gave birth to their daughter who died the same day. While I have not yet spoken with them at length, I have interacted with them enough to know that some miracle is being worked on their behalf. They say that they have been given so much peace that, at times, they feel like they should be more sad. Within a week of being home, Lauren was already talking about ideas for how to console and encourage those of us looking to have more children (some sooner than others) so that we would know we need not fear this sort of a thing. Regardless of what happens, she wants us to know God grants peace beyond comprehension. They have been so concerned for everyone else in this process that it is humbling just to know them. I am sometimes afraid to go near them because they are in the middle of something so profound I feel like all I can do is trample it, but they welcome my blundering company. (Just a couple days ago, I all but barged into their house seeking refuge from a mangy old stray dog who wanted to befriend Sophie on our walk. They could not have been more gracious and understanding.) In the middle of this mess, I have been witness to peace and faith and joy and love and perseverance and community and hope that are nothing short of miraculous and that are absolutely beautiful.

The Lord is faithful, beautiful, and strange. He brings beauty from the ugliest of things. Such pure joy after such a terrible storm.

Papa Pia!

Okay, maybe it's not good Italian, but that's how the saying used to go around my house. At risk of being merely a copy cat, I thought I'd put a post up here about my son's father and my husband, Pat. I think letting everyone know what a great dad Pat is is at least as good as a card and maybe better than me just saying so.

I was asked to speak in church today for Father's Day. I was stumped for a bit, because all I could think about was what makes Pat a good dad, which isn't the sort of thing you get up and say as a tribute to all the dads in the room. Besides that, I realized that not everyone in the room would be a good dad in the ways Pat is (not that they are not praiseworthy in their own ways in some cases or beyond redemption in others...). So, while it left me at a quandry as to what to say for father's day to everyone, I became quite thankful that Pat is my husband and the father of my child.

As many of you know, Pat came to Christ out of addiction. And God filled the selfish place that had been in his heart with the gift of service. That is the first thing I thought about Pat being a great dad: he is such a servant. Pat serves Israel and me as well as a host of others and he does not consider himself above doing so in the most mundane of ways. He is the one who changes the majority of poopy diapers around here. (Or at least he does the preliminary cleaning of most of them, since we use cloth. Yuck!) Pat is not one of those dads who wants to come home and be fed and only engage his child when it's convenient. Even now, Pat is in the living room loving Israel and me by taking care of him while he is sick -- rubbing Israel's back as Israel sleeps on his chest. Last night, Pat was right there, consoling and caring for Israel when he woke up screaming with a fever. I suppose one of us alone could've done the trick in getting Israel into a bath at 1:30am, but we all were there together. In the evenings, it's not uncommon for me to find Pat covered in Israel drool and Israel covered in dirt. Pat is not put-off by Israel's spitting-up and will enter into just about any mess with Israel. He's kind of like Jesus like that.

Pat also is a wonderful husband. And that in no means can be separated from his being a wonderful dad. He is kind and helpful to me and respectful of me and he cares about my needs. I know there are many, many families where this could not be said, but if Israel grows up to be someone's husband in the way his father is, we all will be proud.

And that's what I talked about in church. I talked about imitating. Israel already tries to imitate the noises his dad makes; he likes to try to beat-box with him. And fathers are there to be imitated. Boys should be able to grow up to be like their dads and that should be a wonderful thing. Jesus was always doing "only what he saw his Father doing." Earthling fathers are to do no less. And then, if things go according to plan, when their children imitate them, they will find themselves looking to their heavenly Father as well.

This morning, I read the section in Philippians about how we are to imitate Christ's humility, which Pat does this in so many small ways. In the passage, it talks about how Jesus took on human-ness and, more than that, he took on a humble human situation and died a humiliating death. At the end, it says that because of Jesus stooping to the lowest of lows, he is given the highest praise. Both the stooping down and the being lifted up are to the glory of God. So I know it is to God's glory that Pat stoops to things like poopy diapers and dirty dishes now. I know there will be many more trying things ahead, but I look forward to the day when Pat will be praised from the mouth of his child for the father he is, to the glory of God.