Hike to Haystack

Had a great family time this morning hiking up Haystack Hill, which is very close to home, quite steep and gave a great view of the Valley. Elias slept in the jogging stroller all the way up while Isaiah climbed with Seth and I. We had snacks at the top and I worried about Isaiah falling off the cliff while Seth pointed out all the sights from the lookout point. Best of all, we had the chance to just be together, enjoy the sunshine and grow closer as a family!Can you guess where Isaiah learns to make faces like that?

It's been a long time in coming

A brief update on the last couple of months:

December 2008 was a super busy month for our family. We packed up the house and moved in with my parents the week before Christmas. It just so happened that the week before Christmas it snowed and snowed and snowed...and yes, we moved.

Taking a break from packing, cleaning and unpacking, we enjoyed a quiet, snowy Christmas day with my parents. All three of my siblings were gathered in Viet Nam for Christmas and while we missed having them here, it was great that they were able to have so many adventures together!

The day after Christmas Seth and I headed to the Canadian border to get his Visa for studying at Regent College in Vancouver. Orientation was the first week of January and classes started the following week! He absolutely loves school, is challenged every day by what he is learning and is amazed at the opportunity and responsibility that he has to sit at the feet of great teachers for a couple years...great teachers who point him to The Great Teacher in every conversation. It's a huge blessing for me to see Seth work hard, study, read, and absolutely LOVE what he is doing.

Elias finally learned to crawl in January and when he did, it was an overnight realization for him that he was now very mobile. In just a week he has become unstoppable and is cruising around the furniture, mentally ready to walk, waiting for his body to get the last bit of balance he needs to take off running! He'll be 1 in a month, something I can't believe is true.

Isaiah continues to excel as the smartest kid in his preschool class. Of course he is the only kid in his preschool class since we do "school" at home during Elias' naps. Isaiah loves to learn: writing, drawing, coloring, matching, cutting out shapes, he does it all! With the warmer weather lately, he's enjoyed going for walks and playing at the park. He's anxious to get his new bike outside soon, although his track in the basement serves as a great way to get some extra energy out when it's rainy!

We just got wireless internet at my parents house, so my hope is to update the blog more regularily. As Isaiah would say...We'll see!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Last week we cut down our Christmas tree and decorated the house. We weren't initially going to do this because we are planning to move before Christmas, but I eventually decided that if we didn't do our best to fill our home with the Christ of Christmas, we'd all miss out on this special time of the year. Not that the tree and the decorations and the cookies bring Christ into our home, but they do help us focus on the season and the reason we celebrate. Perhaps the biggest element that we have been enjoying is the nightly tradition of Advent reading. Each year we go through the book The Advent Jesse Tree, which Isaiah understands more and more each year. We talk about an element of preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of the Christ child and then put an ornament on a little fir tree that we have. The ornament is a symbol of what we talked about during the devotion and helps to emphasize the ideas.
We still plan to move before Christmas and it is still a very busy few weeks ahead, but I trust that the peace of Christ will richly rule over us as we seek to honor him with the days. Blessings on your Advent as you prepare your hearts and minds as well.

Thankfulness

How many times over the last month have I written a whole blog entry in my mind, where it has stayed because it's just been too busy to actually get it on the computer! Sometimes that frustrates me because the amazing tools that we now have to connect with people all over the world are still tools that we need to make time to use. So, while the boys are napping and the house is quiet, I come to the Dombach blog and find that one theme comes to mind. Thankfulness.
Yes, it's a season of Thanksgiving with a wonderful turkey, pumpkin pie and sweet potato meal just around the corner, but besides that it is just a time of thanksgiving for our family. Here are some of the reasons why.

• Seth is officially starting seminary on January 6th. We spent a day up at Regent on Nov 12th and talked through classes, which degree he will be pursuing (now a Master of Christian Studies rather than a Master of Divinity), and of course finances. I think it's safe to say that there is some fear and trepidation happening as Seth reads through syllabi, orders 800 page text books and prepares to study again. But overall there is a feeling of readiness and an eagerness that I enjoy seeing in my husband.
  
• Isaiah is taking preschool by storm. He loves to do school and is currently mastering writing the alphabet and numbers 1-10. He turns everything into a learning situation with questions and connections to concepts we have talked about and it really makes it easy to feel like we are giving him a good start to his education! He has an amazing memory and often recalls events and details from things that happened many months ago. And he is very handsome as well.
  
• Elias finally popped his first tooth through! He is a very energetic 8 month old with a smile to light up a room and hair that does exactly what it wants to do-most of the time that means it sticks straight up. Isaiah calls him spikey head. He has strong legs and loves to stand holding on to something. Each day he gets more brave in letting go with one or both hands. And he is very cute.
• My job transition has been amazing and I'm so thankful to be working in the Marriage and Family Ministry at our church. It suits me well and I think I suit it well too. As for everyday life, in the midst of piles of laundry, dishes, and cleaning it's wonderful to pause, remember the big picture of WHO we serve and why we do it and to be thankful for the gift of abundant life that we've been given so freely. So, let us always be full of THANKSGIVING.
  

Pumpkin Patch!

Ahhh the joys of Autumn! We spent a chilly but sunny Saturday morning at Stoney Ridge Farm with my parents, sister Bethany and brother Will. It was fun to pick out a pumpkin of course, but other highlights included losing mom and Bethany in the corn maze, the goat with 4 horns, Will whacking everyone with corn stalks, apple cider doughnuts, trying to keep Elias' hat on his head, and of course the age old challenge of trying to get four Dombach's to smile at the same time for a family picture. Okay, so it's not age old since Elias has only been around for 7 months, but it's certainly a challenge. It was a great morning followed by a wonderful turkey lunch in celebration of Canadian Thanksgiving.

Cowboys, Cheerios and Crawling Lessons

What do these three things have in common you say? Well, nothing really except that they are all part of the common household activities for the Dombach's these days. September has FLOWN by and here we are staring at the October calendar with awe. Here are a few of the highlights from the last month, in a blur, just like the month went!

• Elias turned 6 months old! At his check up he weighed almost 17 lbs, which is in the 40%, and was almost 29 inches long, which is off the charts for height. No wonder he's wearing 12 month size clothes!
  
• One day I wore my tall boots to work which prompted Isaiah wanting to wear his cowboy boots. Well, you can't wear just your cowboy boots and hence we have the stick-em-up cowboy dress up day. It also happened to be library day, so the cowboy showed up for story time all decked out-hat included.
• Speaking of library days... the local library has a great preschool story/song time that we usually go to. Isaiah loves to sit and listen to new books as well as do the interactive songs. Elias loves the songs too! I've incorporated it into our weekly preschool schedule.
  
• Speaking of preschool...it's pretty expensive around here, so we are doing our best to learn our ABC's and 123's at home. Isaiah is a fast learner and we have a couple of books that we are working through. It's been a lot of fun to see him so eager to learn and to have that one on one time with him-we usually try to do it while Elias is napping. Of course the whole world is our classroom, so we practice our letters by reading the Cheerios box, learn colors by playing "I spy with my little eye" while driving and work on writing when we make pictures to send to Joelle and Steven in Vietnam!
• Speaking of Cheerios...Elias is a good eater and Cheerios are one of his very favorite things right now. He is still working on his hand to mouth coordination and when he gets fed up with trying to get the Cheerios actually in his mouth from his hand, he reverts to the good old mouth-to-highchair tray method. Sometimes this is very hilarious for the rest of us as the Cheerios end up stuck to his nose rather than in his mouth. He had no clue why we were laughing!
  
• Speaking of laughing...we do a lot of it lately. Especially when Isaiah and Elias interact. As mentioned above, Elias makes us all laugh as he learns new things and is just his normal, goofy self. Isaiah is the best one to make Elias laugh and it's clear that Elias adores his big brother! Here is Isaiah trying to teach Elias how to crawl.
• Speaking of teaching...Seth just started teaching a class at our church on Sunday mornings called From God to Us that goes into detail about how we got our modern day Bible. He loves to teach and has taught this material before when we were at Timberline Lodge. The feedback from the people in the class (ranging in age from 20-60) was great and they stayed around after the class for an extra 1/2 hour to ask questions.
• Speaking of class...that's what we call our Wednesday night activities for Isaiah and myself. Isaiah goes to Adventure Club at a local church, learning verses, singing songs, playing group games and of course having a good snack! While he is there, I have a book club with a couple friends at the local coffee shop. It's a great time to talk about what we are learning and share in the journey of mothering young kids. What a precious time for me and one of the main times during the week where I get an hour to have great adult interaction that greatly encourages my soul. Elias gets to have daddy's attention all to himself and so far that has gone well too!
  
• And last but not least speaking of encouragement...I got to spend a weekend with three of my dearest friends from college. We are spread out over many miles now, but these are the kind of friendships that can pick up right where we left off. I feel very privileged to have such good friends that have stuck around over the years. Friends who can laugh together, talk about nothing and everything together. Friends who can agree on the basics of life and yet disagree about how that plays out in the day to day. Thanks Kim, Annie and Kristin for being those people in my life. I love you all!

That's all for now! I'm sure that October will bring many more adventures, joys (pumpkin carving), and tears (my two siblings that are left in the US are both leaving for foreign countries this month). Press on toward the goal of a life lived well for Jesus!

Telling the tale

Near the end of August Seth took a week off of work just so we could have some time together as a family. He has been working two jobs for a couple months and some weeks it has really been tough to feel like we are connected as a family. He took Isaiah camping for two nights in the rain during this week and they had so much fun! Isaiah loved the whole adventure, rain or not. They threw about a million rocks into the river, made smores, went hiking all over and of course told lots and lots of stories in the tent.

Isaiah has a vivid imagination and could tell made up stories all day long. He especially likes to tell of his adventures with JaJa and Lisa, his made up friends who live in his tree house near New Zealand. The three of them have had many journeys throughout the States, Vietnam, Egypt and New Zealand, not to mention the plethera of occupations they have held, most of which have to do with operating heavy machinery like excavators, dump trucks, steam rollers or driving trains, fast cars or motorcycles. He does have real life friends too and I find that many of them have great story telling capabilities as well, so for now, JaJa and Lisa remain part of our daily reality. Wouldn't it be funny if some day Isaiah really did make friends with someone named JaJa or got married to a great girl named Lisa.