A Special Day for Dada

I love Father's Day. It is an incredibly worthy celebration and a needed one. Our Dad's need to know how important they are to us. As Isaiah grows, I am more grateful than ever for what it means that Ramin Razavi is his Dad. Isaiah will grow up understanding LOVE-unconditional and authentic, SECURITY- that he is safe in his Daddy's love, CHARACTER-who we are becoming on the inside is of paramount importance, and VULNERABILITY-when we are honest about our weakness, then we are strong. My hubby is crucial and irreplaceable to our Sonny and I am overjoyed at the gift that is to him.

To celebrate, we took him to Pizzeria Locale (one of our favorites), ate delicious food and presented him with Isaiah's "best gift (look below for the reveal!)." 

 Enjoying an Italian soda.

 Dada, taking a look at his gift.

 The anticipation for this 5 year old was too great to sit down.

 Aha! Not a tie, not a polo shirt, not a bottle of cologne...

...a LEGO Star Wars set, of course! The X-Wing Fighter.

Ramin and Isaiah had a blast building it together that afternoon. It now sits lovingly on our bedroom dresser (we've been able to maintain the boundary that it IS actually Daddy's). 

Isaiah Graduates!

It's been a WHILE since I've posted anything on our family blog. I have to say that the social media world and the instant-ness of Instagram have made it easy to forget about this space. I don't want to forsake it, though. This blog and I have been friends for a long time. 

To get things rolling again, here some pictures from our Isaiah's preschool graduation. He received his diploma from Mapleton Montessori School on June 1st and has been a proud little man since with his eyes set on kindergarten. It is hard for me to believe that I have an almost 6 year old. When it comes to our babies, time is not very friendly-it flies by way too quickly. 

 Isaiah and his class getting ready to sing "Peace Train."

 The victorious moment.

 Our sweet boy and his good buddy, Sam.

 What a big boy!

 Our Family :)

 A little Mama Love.

 Isaiah and his wonderful teacher, Terri.

 So sweet.

Isaiah and the school's fantastic director, Dede.

Happy Birthday Sissy!

When I was nearly 7 years old, the MUCH anticipated call came from the hospital that my baby sister was born. Like any overjoyed new sister would do, I ran to my closet to find the perfect outfit for the occasion (I had to teach her right out of the box how to be fashion forward, right?). Well, I put on my very favorite sweater vest and headed to the hospital with my brother and Dad to meet her. She was beautiful, and tiny, and perfect...and I absolutely adored her.

Today, March 16th, my sweet "baby" sister is 27 and she is still everything that she was to me on that day and much more. She challenges me to live in honesty, inspires me to love EVERYONE well, pushes me to new places creatively, and is a true sister and companion in my journey with God.

I Love you Lauren Elizabeth Church!
Happy Birthday!

Little Cottage in the Woods

Living Room (note the train set up that was built on day one, no, minute one of being there)

((Blogger is not really my friend these days. I don't know what's changed, but it doesn't let me write where I want to and it doesn't load my pictures in order. I'll probably be changing things up soon on that front, but in the meantime, please excuse the sloppiness of my posts.))

Okay, now that I have that off my chest...
In February our dish washer decided to explode in a cunning and quiet way that we didn't notice until water had already soaked into our hardwood, sub floor, and basement insulation and drywall. It was quite the undertaking to get the problem addressed, but my hubs did an amazing job mitigating the whole thing. While valiant "worker men (as Isaiah lovingly referred to them)" took over our house, we had the enormous blessing of moving back to our old stomping grounds, Chautauqua Park, for 10 days. We stayed in an adorable, cozy 2 bedroom cottage and loved the opportunity to simplify and take a forced, yet welcomed break from the fullness of our normal life. Here are some pictures from our time there. Enjoy! We sure did.

R&N bedroom

The Sonny bedroom-he wanted his comforter and all of his stuffies so that it was just like home :)

Rapha kitty got cozy, too.

Sonny and Rapha in the snug.

Our cute little kitchen.

Sonny made himself right at home with all of his cars and trains. Cars+Trains+Mom&Dad+Rapha=HOME.

Rapha's favorite spot was right here, near the ceiling, on top of the cabinets. He's very non-athletic, so I'm not sure how he pulled this off. We never caught him in the act.

Cute little fir ball.

We were at the cottage over Valentine's Day, but that didn't stop us from having our ceremonial heart shaped pancakes with strawberries and m&m's.

Play time.

Aren't They Cute?

Congratulations to the wonderful Jordan and Abi Huskins!!!

Christmas Eve Fun

We really enjoyed our Christmas Eve together! It was 40 degrees outside and the sun was shining, so we got to play outside for quite awhile. We went over to the sledding hill at our neighborhood park and had a ball. That evening we had a nice dinner together, talked about the Christmas story, opened some presents and enjoyed hours of lego building fun.This is how every run ended...with a little person laying in the snow after a big (purposeful) crash.

We got to enjoy the hard work of someone else and start our runs on top of this "hill."

I ended up laying in the snow a lot, too :) There's nothing that takes me back to the pure joy of childhood like playing in the snow.

Here are my handsome gentlemen at our Christmas Eve dinner.

We always let Isaiah open some presents on Christmas Eve. This one was from Grammy Trudy and Papa Mehdi-a tub of legos to build with!

The sequencing of blogger is off right now, so we're back to the sledding pictures. Weird. Oh well.

This box was from Grammy Debi and Papa Jon-some fun clothes and a pair of dino PJ's.

A special gift from Daddy-Isaiah's own pair of fancy dress shoes :)

This was the scene for the rest of our evening. All 3 of us worked on building a lego train.

Ramin and Isaiah giving it a test run before bed.

Rapha kitty was snuggled in his favorite spot (under the tree) the whole evening and seemed to enjoy the action.

Merry Christmas from the Razavi's!

"The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this."
Isaiah 9:2,6-7

Buddies

Isaiah and his best buddy, John enjoyed their last day of school on Friday the 16th and celebrated by having a sleep over! This was Isaiah's first experience sleeping at a friend's house and it went great. I could barely get him to tell me goodbye when I dropped him off. He was so excited. They were quite busy as you might imagine, but Meggan was able to get a couple of really cute pictures.Isaiah and John looking cute in their snow gear.

What big boys they are!

Thanksgiving with Family

When the holiday season began in November, I think I completely forgot about our blog because I haven't posted anything since the end of October. Yikes! We've had a full and rich month and a half with a special trip to Indiana and Ohio to be with family for Thanksgiving. We hadn't spent a holiday with family in 3 years, so we definitely had reason to be thankful. Here are some of the pictures of our time together...

Day at the Indy 500 Race Museum

Isaiah loves race cars and so does his Papa Jon, so one day during our visit we went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to check out the museum and see all of the old cars. Isaiah was thrilled to see in person so many of the cars he's seen in books. It was a great day!

This is the original brick start/finish line at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Over the years as they modernized the racing surface, the original brick was preserved at the start/finish line as a memorial to the track's beginnings. Isaiah loves knowing all of the historical details, so he was really excited to see this.

Part of our visit to the speedway was a ride around the track itself. Unfortunately, for our little race car fan, we were in a bus, but the thrill was still there as we rounded the turns and imagined what it would be like to take the 2 1/2 mile loop at 220 mph.

Broad Ripple Drum Stick Dash ::

Early on Thanksgiving morning the whole family headed down to Broad Ripple to walk the Drumstick Dash 5k. We had a fun morning together and really enjoyed starting the day outside.

Isaiah James with his Grammy Debi and Papa Jon at the start line. He was actually happy, but wanted me to take a picture of his "game face." So, that's what the scowl is :)

He had little interest in waiting for the walkers (me, mom and dad), so he would surge ahead and then have to wait for us to catch up.

He took his foot off of the gas pedal for long enough for me to get this picture with Grammy.

Our lovely Thanksgiving spread.

Our dinner table, ready to go!

I'm not sure what Isaiah was thinking in this picture, but he kind of looks afraid of the gourd.

Ahhhh! The bliss of pumpkin pie!

Eagle Creek Park ::

On Black Friday we decided to hit nature instead of the mall. We loved our morning in the sunshine and enjoyed every minute of breathing in the crisp Indiana air.

A race on the trail with Daddy.

Isaiah in a snuggle with Grammy Debi and Uncle Jordan.

Doing a little balance beam with Uncle.

Since Isaiah was tiny, he's attached a memory/activity to each of his family members and this picture represents what he always asks for when he sees his Auntie Lauren and Uncle Ryan. They play a game together called "Sleepy Mountain," and when the sleeping giant, Isaiah, wakes up, he gets pummeled with pillows. It's hilarious.

Some Time in Tiffin ::

During our stay in the Midwest, we took a trip to Ohio to visit Ramin's Dad (who was holding down the fort while Trudy is in Hawaii) and his Opi. We had a quiet and relaxing couple of days there.

Papa Mehdi had some special sweet treats at his house just for Isaiah. This was one of the creations-brownie bite with whipped cream and sprinkles. Can you ask for anything more as a kid?

Papa had a nice treat for me, too-a little decaf latte, mmmmmm.

I somehow didn't get pictures of this, but we also had a big family gathering/co-ed bridal shower the weekend after Thanksgiving for my brother and his fiance, Abi who will be married on New Year's Eve!

We had a wonderful time with everyone and were so thankful to be together over the holiday.