We survived the first week!

School started this past week. It was a welcome event for me since Vince has been gone the last two weeks for his training in OKC. He comes home on the weekends, but a whole week with just me and Ziva gets a little boring for her, poor thing. There are two weeks left of the training, but now we have school to keep us busy, so it's good. He just heard today that he will probably have the midnight shift when he gets back, which is what he wanted, so we're happy with that.

So far school is going well. Ziva is doing great.....no one can get over how much she's changed and how much she TALKS! She cracks us all up every single day. I ahve to try really hard not to laugh sometimes when she needs discipline. I'm still a work in progress.

I will work on getting some pictures up soon. I haven't even begun to recover from the 6 months (and counting) where we were without a laptop and HOW FAR BEHIND I am when it comes to taking, uploading, printing, and organizing pictures. It has to happen, I'm just scared. But I'll make myself sometime soon. Keep checking back!

She IS listening!

Just have to share some of the funny things we've heard come out of Ziva's mouth lately....proof that she hears everything!!

Last week at small group, she had Vince's Bible and was "reading" to herself. When I realized what she was saying, I cracked right up, interrupting a serious moment in group. She was saying "'Never!' Triton shouted. (this part over and over) 'He's a human! A fish eater!'" (we've been reading "The Little Mermaid" a lot lately)

The other day we had on a Veggie Tales video about being patient. Ziva wasn't really watching it and was busy playing. Vince said, "Hey Ziva, come here." She replied, "I'm doing something. Just be patient!"

And just now, as I was getting ready to write these and we're sitting in the business center at the apartments, she said, "I need to check my email!"

Maybe we're better parents than we think we are...

Lately the biggest parenting struggle we've faced (at least in my opinion) is getting Ziva to eat good food. The foods she eats aren't bad, they just don't add up to a very balanced diet. There only a few things she will always eat: string cheese, applesauce, and muffins (or any other member of the bread family). I try to make healthy muffins using pumpkin, zucchini, applesauce instead of oil, and whole wheat flour, but still. Only muffins isn't much of a diet. Then there are the things she will usually eat, but sometimes flat out refuses: corn, green beans, oatmeal, peanut butter sandwiches, yogurt, chicken nuggets, ham, cereal. And there are the every once in a blue moon (but don't count on it) foods: blueberries, bananas, carrots. Pretty much any other fruit or vegetable is a never, although I keep trying (I sure hate throwing it away when she licks it and then wants nothing to do with it!). And of course, she is my daughter and a part of the Calvert clan, so she will ALWAYS eat sweets if we let her.

Now here's where I get to the part about maybe we're doing better than I think. I look at that list (and that is truly all that she eats...on occasion I'll give her some of the "grown ups' dinner" if I think she'll eat it, but other than that, what you see is it!), and I think, oh my. But last night we went to dinner with some good friends who were visiting, and Ziva mainly at the french fries from her kids meal, with lots of ketchup (she LOVES ketchup). Now, you can see from our sorry little list of foods that, pitiful though it may be, there's no grease. So she ate a meal of french fries, and then we went to the park for a little bit where she swang for about an hour (probably didn't help....), and then on the way home, she PUKED all over herself and the car seat. And as gross as it was, and as much as I hate cleaning vomit from the carseat, I was encouraged. Obviously she's not used to greasy foods, so at least that's one positive in our parenting. Am I weird?

God is a Provider

Today we brought home a new car, for FREE. It's not brand new, only new to us, but it is one of the biggest blessings of late in a long string of blessings. Now that God has provided Vince with a wonderful job, he's driving about 50 miles one way to work each day, so he needs some reliable wheels. Until today, we'd just had one car; my little Prizm was on its last legs and we weren't needing it, so we gave it to a friend from church for him to fix up and give to his brother. At the time, we both felt that was what God wanted us to do with it. But with the Explorer draining the gas at 100 miles a day, it was clear we needed a 2nd car for Vince. Our original plan was to find something on Craigslist for $1000 or less that we could pay cash for, even though that would have been a stretch on the budget. Then we started thinking since we want something we KNOW is really dependable, maybe it would be better to take out a small loan and get something a little newer, that we know for sure will be reliable. So I put in an application at the bank for pre-approval on a loan, and when I called to check on it, they said I'd been denied. What?! I still don't know why or how that could have happened, although after today I think the hand of God had A LOT to do with it.

Last night before I went to bed (discouraged and doubting, I must admit), I read from Streams in the Desert, and the concluding thought said something about faith meaning you remain confident in God, even in the apparent denial of your request. We were facing an apparent denial of our request, of our actual need, for a car, but I prayed as I fell asleep, telling God that I know He knows our need, and I know He is able to and will provide what we need.

This morning as we were eating breakfast, Vince got a call from a man at our church that we had not yet met. He had a car and wondered if we wanted to come look at it. We got ready, drove into Tulsa, and were GIVEN a car by this sweet couple who just didn't need it anymore. Vince was able to drive it a little, and it runs like a new car, even though it's a 1990 Oldsmobile (it reminds me of a smaller version of my old Stupid, for those of you who remember it!). It has fairly low miles, great AC, and even cruise control....blessing, blessing, blessing. I didn't get a picture before we dropped it off for an oil change, but I'll try to put one up soon so everyone can see our "new" car.

We are amazed at God's goodness and power to provide in such remarkable ways. This journey we've been on the last few months has been so good in how we've seen His glory at work in our lives. Thank you Jesus!

Bedtime instructions

Me: Okay, Ziva, it's time to close your eyes now and go to sleep.

Ziva (to her baby doll): Close your eyes. Close your nose. Close your mouth. Right now! Okay? Okay.

In all her glory...

Here's the promised post about Ziva, with pictures. :) The biggest things in her life lately have been the end of the school year, which she almost missed because she had strep throat AND the flu at the same time. She is one tough kid, because the first day she was sick, the only complaining she did was to say "My tongue hurts" a couple times. Never did I dream it was strep! But she pushed through a 103-104 temperature and would still play until it wiped her out. When the temp we thought was going down spiked again, we took her into Urgent Care and heard the double diagnosis. We're one day away from finishing antibiotics and she is a happy camper.

Since we're out of school and Vince still has one week until he starts work, we're filling our days with as much fun as possible. We've been to the park several times, and tomorrow we're meeting one of her school friends and Miss Angie at the park, then going to a baseball game with the youth group tomorrow night. Thursday is Vince's and my three-year anniversary, so we're planning a zoo day with Ziva and then we'll go out Friday night. We may try to squeeze some swimming in there, too. We went to the splash park yesterday, but Ziva HATES water on her head, so that was pretty much a bust. We have to get her used to water some other way, it seems.

Other than events, she is still her bossy old self, and talking more and more all the time. Yesterday my dad went out to the back porch while Ziva was eating breakfast, and she threw her hands up in the air and declared, "Papa has no shoes on!" She narrates just about everything that goes on around her, and has most recently started saying "Hey!" when she wants our attention. She loves to sing, all the time, and her funniest song right now is the Veggie Tales theme song. I don't know how she settled on these as the words, and maybe I'm not hearing it right, but when she sings it, she sings, "Veggie Ta-a-ales, margarita"....?? We have neither been drinking margaritas or talking about them, so who knows. :)

What can I say? She is just too awesome. :)

Baking muffins....

...and eating them.

Dance party!

Here she is having her first corn on the cob the other night. It was a success!

Summer!

Yes, we're still here. I don't know how I let two months go by without posting, but it happened. I'll try harder now that it's SUMMER. (Yay! Yay! Yay!)

So the biggest, most important thing to update the blog world on is that Vince got a job! It has been a long and sometimes tough 5 months, but he has had the best attitude in the world and has shown so much faith in waiting on God's timing......which is a big part of the story of his job. Right after we left the Greens (I'm talking early January) Vince heard about an opening at a nearby prison for a corrections officer. He applied and went through a crazy long process of paperwork, then waiting, then a test, then waiting, then an interview, then waiting, and at the end of March he heard that he did not get hired. We were pretty deflated after that; I had been putting all my hopes in this particular job because it was just that good (benefits, insurance, growth potential, ministry potential...) rather than putting my hope in GOD. So I was convicted and tried to truly let go and just trust the process to God. We thought that job was a goner, but oh no! God's ways are so much bigger than ours, remember? Only a few weeks after the "no," Vince heard the same place was hiring AGAIN. So he began the process a second time, which wasn't quite such a headache since he'd been through it once before. After his (second) first interview, he heard back within a day that they were scheduling a second interview. We were pretty excited because that was further than he'd made it the first time through. After the 2nd interview, things were looking very promising; it sounded like they just wanted to check his references and then as long as they were fine he could get hired. The references took a veeeeerrrrrry long time, and I was getting nervous (I confess.....that whole trust thing again!) but we figured no news was good news. And we were right! A couple weeks ago they called him with a conditional job offer; he just had to pass a physical and drug test. Piece of cake. Tuesday he got the call that everything was great, and he starts June 7!!! We are really excited and so thankful for God's provision, and even for His timing that is so different than ours. I got a good faith workout in having to wait until the last minute (of school ending and along with it my paychecks), and Vince has been able to do so much ministry with the youth in our church during these last few months. We still don't know the WHY, of course; but we believe 100% that God had some big reasons for moving us out of the Greens and into a season of "hardship" (ahem, wouldn't really call it that, but relatively speaking) and waiting. Can't wait to see some of those little strands come together and make sense over the next weeks, months, or even years. So. Summer begins here with some mighty celebrating!

Sorry for yet another novela of a blog post. I'll end it here and save a Ziva post for next time. Don't worry, I won't keep you waiting too long. And there will be pictures!