The Pink Elephant

Will and I had a date last Saturday night. We dropped the kids off with my mom in Newton and headed up to Des Moines for a night of pain and agony. Okay, not really agony, but there was some pain involved. We have been talking about getting tattoos for quite a while. When we first got married, we were going to tattoo on our rings but just never got around to it. We will leave that for an anniversary down the road perhaps. We each knew what we wanted for months before the big night, and Friday night I called Will at work and told him that we were going. We went down Friday night and got a consult and scheduled an appointment for the next evening.

Our appointment was for 7:30 and like lame-os, we showed up a few minutes early. Some eighty pound eighteen year old was getting seven butterflies tattooed in a line going up her side from her thigh to her shoulder blade. It really was quite beautiful, but the girl was in some serious pain. Her friends were stroking her hair and consoling her as best they could, but she was struggling. We ended up starting our appointment with someone else about 45 minutes after we got there because the girl was taking so many smoke/uncontrollable sobbing breaks. It was really comforting to me, a first timer.

I got in the chair and began my ordeal.

I took Hebrew in college and really enjoyed learning the language. I had decided a while back that I wanted to get something in Hebrew, but I had never come across anything that meant anything to me. A while back I was introduced to a Hebrew word used in the Bible to describe God's relentless pursuit of his children. This phrase really stuck with me...especially the word relentless. No matter what I'm doing with my life, God is relentlessly pursuing a relationship with me. I love knowing that I have this reminder that my God wants me everywhere I am and in everything I am doing. The word 'relentless' holds so much passion for me. I am very pleased with my decision.
I don't have a good picture of it, but you can see what it looks like on Will's photos.

Will was up after the girl finished. He had been waiting long enough that he was a little amped with anticipation by the time he got in the chair. Our artist, Butchie Von Dreaux, began outlining the art, and Will began looking a little peaked. I was busy texting people and not giving my dear husband the attention he needed (according to Will). After the outlining was finished, Butchie began mixing the color for Mayah's symbol, and Will asked if he could stand up. Butchie told him no and the next thing Will remembers is waking up from a beautiful dream. Butchie had grabbed Will's arm and kept him on the chair while Will floated in and out of consciousness for about five minutes. I didn't know what to do because Will's facial expressions were kind of creeping me out. Watching someone pass out is straight up weird. Butchie Von Dreaux told me to go down the street and get him a Coke to get his blood sugar back up. When I got back, Will and Butchie were having a good laugh. It was all very bizarre. Will drank his Coke and walked around and was back in the chair within about ten mintues. According to Dr Butchie, it is quite common for someone to pass out once he relaxes in the chair. Will says that after the outlining was finished and he realized how little the rest of the tattooing was going to hurt, his whole body relaxed and he was in dreamland.
Now for the meaning behind Will's ink. On top is a cross, symbolizing his faith and his call to care and love for those God has given him. Under the cross are symbols for the people in his family.

Directly under the cross is the Hebrew word I got on my wrist. God has given Will an amazing woman :) Under that is the face of a lion. Judah's name means "praise the Lord", which is why we liked it so much when we picked it. Jesus is a descendant from the line of Judah and is referred to as the "lion of Judah" in scripture. Will surrounded the face of the lion with the color red, because red is Judah's favorite color. The one below that is a symbol for Mayah. Mayah means "God's creative power". This was a little more difficult to come up with a symbol for. Will settled on our church's symbol because we have seen God's power in lots of creative ways at this church. It is in purple because right now Mayah gravitates toward the color purple. The final symbol is for Liam. Liam's name means "protector", thus the shield. Will will have it colored in once Liam chooses a favorite color.

Overall, it was a great experience. We are both thankful that we waited until we were in our thirties to get a tatoo. We were also VERY pleased with the people and atmosphere of The Pink Elephant. These people were more kind to one another than in any other business I have ever been in. I will leave you with a photo of our artist pretending to be cross-eyed. Good times.

Judahisms

Judah usually drags me out of bed in the morning. This morning, he decided to be a little sneaky. I could hear him come into my room, but I decided to pretend to be sleeping because I wanted to see how he was going to bring me into the world of wakefulness this time. It was classic.

Judah tiptoed to the foot of the bed where Will and I were "sound asleep". I could feel him pulling the blankets off of my feet and crawling onto the bed. He then found his way under the covers and not so stealthily made his way directly on top of me, laying belly to belly and face to face. I opened my eyes, and the words out of this four year old's mouth were:

"Well, isn't this a bit of a coincidence?"

Thirteen hours later, and I am still laughing.

The Princess and the Frog

I went to Redbox today and rented my kids a movie because the rain was pouring down outside. Judah does not have a good history with movies. Whenever I broach the subject of watching a movie that he has not seen, he begins shaking and chanting, "no no no no no no nooooo!". It isn't a pretty sight. I don't force him to watch anything. but he always enjoys the movie once it has started. Granted, he shakes through anything even slightly scary (think scary toys from Toy Story or Wall-E or the sea lion thing from Happy Feet), but the laughter usually outweighs the shakes.

So today's movie started off the same as it always does. Judah asked if he could watch Bambi, and I told him that I had rented a movie for him and his sister. After much protest, he sat down and began to enjoy himself. It didn't end well.

Judah wet his pants. He stood up off the couch, and I noticed that he was wet and asked if he had peed his pants. I made him go upstairs and change his clothes, and when he returned, we picked up where we had left off. About twenty minutes later, he had peed his pants again. I guess the voodoo doctor was a bit much for him. I had even asked a ton of people if this movie was scary or appropriate for a four year old, and everyone said Judah would like it. WRONG.

The movie ended with Judah crying. Spoiler Alert: The firefly, Ray, gets squashed by the voodoo doctor. Judah began to weep. "Now he can't fly anymore, Mama." It took a while for the boy to compose himself and see that Ray got to be with Evangeline, his true love. Yeesh. Forget ever taking the kid to the theater without a change of clothes and a box of tissues. The kid has a tender heart. Poor guy.

Townhome Anyone?

We are moving in August (or sooner if someone wants this place!!). The Owens Family is upgrading to a house and a real third bedroom. We are very excited about this move! The townhome where we have lived for almost three years is now up for rent or for sale. My landlord lives in New Mexico, so the renters need to be very trustworthy. Here are some photos. Let me know if you or someone you know might be interested.The master bedroom is upstairs and has two closets. The main one is MASSIVE and amazing. The second one is smaller, and we used it for sweatshirts.

The door in the photo is the smaller of the two closets.

The washer and dryer are upstairs in the bathroom. I loved not having to drag all of our clothes downstairs or to a basement.

The upstairs bathroom has a bathtub and shower. I am standing in the laundry area.

This is the other bedroom that is upstairs.

This is the kitchen area.

This is the kitchen and dining room area.

This is the living room area taken from the kitchen.

There is a bathroom downstairs with a toilet also...I couldn't get the photo to upload :) There is a one car garage and a driveway. Come and get it!

Mommy & Me

My church has a ministry during the school year for moms of preschoolers and their children called Mommy & Me Music. We get together at 10 am every other Tuesday at our church and sing songs and dance with our kids. The community is invited, so we get to hang out with moms that we might not normally meet. We had our last Mommy & Me of the year a few weeks ago, and I took some pictures of the adorable moms with their kids to commemorate the occasion.

For our last day, we had the kids make tambourines with paper plates and rice to use during our singing time. It was a MESS, but they had a good time decorating them with stickers.

After all of the tambourines were made, the kids got to sing and dance. They are all pretty darn cute.

Mommy & Me will start up again in the fall. Good times.

Will

Will was annoyed with me the other night. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my mom's camera and kept taking pictures of him. Well, there was nothing wrong with my mom's camera...and this is what Will gets for giving me attitude :) Oh how I love this man.