Samuel turns SEVEN

Our firstborn turned 7 on Thursday. I think we are still trying to wrap our minds around that fact. That seems so old to us especially considering that it feels just like yesterday that we were anticipating his arrival into this world. Samuel is our joy and delight. Always full of deep and sometimes absurd questions that keep us smiling. Full of imagination and passion. A growing understanding and love for Jesus. The preferred playmate of both siblings. Constantly growing and changing in appearance, having recently lost 2 teeth in one week. What an engaging and impressionable age he is at--so fun! We can't wait to see how God works in his life this coming year to grow him more and more into a man of God!

Birthdays are a big deal around here. However, for some reason this time around was harder for me to get motivated for. I did have a cake idea picked out three weeks in advance but that was about it. Honestly, I was torn as to who to invite for the festivities. Do we invite his whole class or just a few select classmates or do we keep it with just close friends? I finally settled on wanting to invite the whole class knowing that maybe only a handful would come. However, with the entrance of the stomach flu into our house the end of last week, this being a busy weekend with Film Night tonight, Jonathan preaching on Sunday and then getting him packed and ready to leave for a week in Lisbon, Portugal, we finally decided to keep the celebration very low key. Not knowing if I was next to come down with the flu kept me very cautious this time around.

It was a good decision as the stomach flu carried on in to this week touching everyone but me and leaving me wondering if Samuel would even want to eat cake. The kids' appetites are very low and it seems to be taking a good week to regain full recovery. It did, however, make for an easy week of cooking with eating just rice and toast for the most part. We had already invited Barbara and her boys and Catherine, so they came over Friday afternoon to celebrate with us.

For the first time, the kids were out of the house while I decorated the cake. When Samuel came home from school and saw his cake it was the strongest reaction I have received yet. He was so happy with it, which of course is my greatest joy to see. He wanted another dinosaur cake and since I already did that last year, I settled for a different take on the dinosaur theme. I would have loved to embellish it a bit more, but I was tired from a long week of caring for sick ones and several sleepless nights, so this was as far as my energies would carry me this time. Without further ado, here is Samuel's 7th birthday in pictures:

Opening gifts on the 18th

Thank you Munga & Gramma for all my fun gifts!

Thank you Papa & Nano for my Optimus Prime Transformer!

Thank you Dada & Mamma for my new game!



Samuel was feeling well enough to tolerate a half piece of cake.

My three precious blessings!

A fun coincidence that Munga & Gramma got him a book on volcanoes for his birthday.

Life @ Reset

This past weekend our family devoted a large part of our Saturday morning cleaning and rearranging the center in preparation for Sunday's Agape. Lino also joined us, but in using his trade skills as an electrician to install our emergency light and rework the wiring for that. Jonathan had been working throughout the week to put together a window display to let the community know a bit more about who we are and what we offer. Just in case they might have thought it was an unoccupied locale with the serandas being closed during the regular working hours. Now with the display up we have arranged to open up the seranda every morning and then close it after our evening activities. We have already received a call or two this week to inquire about the English classes.

Do you get that the second "e" is the reset/power button you find on your computer?

Thanks to our awesome colleague, Melissa, who worked with Jonathan's conceptual ideas to then produce our logo and other advertising materials!

Life at Reset is steadily picking up in its activity. For the first time we held our monthly Agape at the center. Everyone was in attendance...which has been a while...maybe since last May. There were 29 of us including children. We ordered chicken and roasted potatoes from a local rotisserie and then we all contributed additional dishes to complete our meal. We have to be a bit creative not having a kitchen to work with. We packed ourselves in as you can see below.

Just one big happy family!

After the meal Lino, Pierluigi and Jonathan stayed to practice some music. Coordinating around work schedules is a bit tricky to fit in practices. However, with their talents our worship team should blend together quickly.

{Unexpected} Service Launch

We have been planning towards and working on getting organized for the launch of our church services in Caselle. Little did we ever think that today would be that day--6 weeks earlier than planned! A complete last-minute decision with just hours left in our Saturday to let people know and work out a few necessary details. i.e. Was Jonathan able to handle the one-man show?

So you are now asking yourselves what would possess us to just throw something this important to us together in this unprepared fashion? Well, the answer lies in the fact that the entire city of Torino is prohibiting all traffic within the city today from 10am - 6pm. They will do this on occasion to control the air pollution in the city. This is the first time we have been affected by this restriction. For those of us living outside the city limits and unable to drive to church today we decided to have a service in Caselle.

Jonathan played and Lino led vocally and also served as music stand

So this morning we gave this our first shot. Jonathan had just met yesterday with two others to work on the music. Little did we think that this morning they would be playing and singing together to lead our small group in worship. Our only glitch this morning was when we tried to print out some song lyrics and our printer gave us a fatal error. We called someone in the group and had to email them the file to have them print and bring to church. I guess we will be printer shopping tomorrow! In total we had 15 adults and 4 children. It was a very special feeling, although odd in a way. It did however, give us a very heightened excitement to have these services regularly! Jonathan brought the message and with just a curtain dividing the kids from the rest of the group, I managed to keep our three quiet and entertained with a Bible story and activities done at a whisper level.


Jonathan preached from John 6, and was thankful the message was still fresh in his mind as he used it last weekend to speak to the youth group. It was wonderful for us to see some faces that we have not seen much of over the last year, especially including Tony who was just recently released from the hospital after months of hospitalization following a liver transplant. With a couple of missing families today and a few others who are committed to our group, it will be a packed out facility when we meet again for Sunday worship!

Also, as a side note...we had 15 at our Bible study this past Tuesday. That was a record for us and a HUGE encouragement to our hearts!!

Art by Luca

I know this is really hard to see as it is drawn with colored pencil. However, I just had to brag on Luca today. He truly surprises me sometimes when we decides to be intentional and focused in his creativity!

Saturday Snow Fun

Friday morning we woke up to falling snow and a good fresh coat lay on the ground from the night before. The kids were excited for the snow and since this morning brought with it sunshine, it was the perfect day to romp around in the yard. I dug out the snow pants from the garage, happy to know that I had a pair for each child in their appropriate size. All the kids were so excited about the snow bibs that they have been wearing them all day. Emma and Luca insisted on napping with them on. I'm sure they will soon wake up in a sweat. I just picked up a pair of snow boots for Emma yesterday because she'll need them for her school snow trip in a few weeks. She was happy to test them out this morning.

Despite our lack of a sled we tried to improvise using a storage bin lid. Unfortunately, it didn't work too well even with our sloping driveway.


I had a flashback of using a shovel as a sled for the few times we went to the snow in the mountains as a kid growing up in California. So with our wide scoop shovel we gave it a go and it worked wonderfully! Jonathan got his workout pulling the kids around and the kids were giddy with delight for the increased speed and doughnuts they were spun into by him. It was a good morning enjoyed by all!

The Tooth Fairy Forgets

Yesterday, Samuel lost his 5th tooth. It was a crazy morning having let the kids sleep in closer to 8:00 a.m. That only made getting five people out the door by 8:25 all the more frenetic. I forgot to administer their last dose of antibiotics, pushed Emma out the door with no breakfast and got Samuel to school late because we had to make sure the bleeding stopped from having just pulled out his tooth. He was brushing his teeth with just minutes to spare before departure when a bottom tooth flipped out horizontally. With my own hands still coring and cutting an apple for his school snack all I could do was hand him a napkin and tell him to tug on it. Thankfully, he gave it a good enough tug to extract it himself. Only once have I had to pull a tooth out for him and it gave me the heeby-geebies. So I am very thankful he is more than capable in that matter. Samuel is always so proud when he loses a tooth! He came home very disappointed that no one was interested in seeing his missing tooth. I asked him what he said and his translation was sort of made up, so the kids probably weren't interested because they didn't understand what he was trying to say in Italian.

About 10 minutes after tucking the kids in to bed last night I heard Samuel calling me. We had forgotten to put his tooth under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. I should have immediately written myself a note but, alas I did not. You can guess what happened when I turned in later at 11:30 p.m.

Samuel was the last one to wake up this morning and I could hear him talking to himself in his room before coming downstairs. He then came and sat at the top of the stairs in total tears saying "The Tooth Fairy didn't come!" My heart just sank! How could I forget such a thing?! I have not felt so bad since the day I was late to pick him up from school. He was so distraught and upset. I'm sure you can just picture his disappointment. After several minutes with still more tears coming down, I asked if Mamma could give him a quarter for now. He accepted my offer which took away a bit of the sting of being forgotten by the Tooth Fairy. I was scolding the Tooth Fairy and asking outloud "how could she forget?!!" Samuel thoughtfully responded "She must have been at another little boy's house." Why yes, of course! Maybe there were a lot of other kids who lost a tooth yesterday and she visited them first. She must have gotten too busy and ran out of time, but WILL FOR SURE VISIT TONIGHT!! Samuel is content to try again tonight.

I was struck to think how real the Tooth Fairy is to him. I don't remember when I figured out it was my mom who slipped in to my room during the night to leave a quarter or two for me to find in the morning along with disposing of my tooth. Maybe ones discovery of the real Tooth Fairy disqualifies you of future earnings? How long do I lead him to believe in the little-wanded fairy? What do I do with all his teeth? Just some questions to muse over and to help me keep my task for tonight on the front of my mind so I don't forget again.

[And just so you don't think I'm completely horrible for not feeding Emma breakfast. The side benefit was to treat her to breakfast at the bar before school. Emma was quite thrilled to get to school later and to eat a doughnut for breakfast on top of that.]