Chismville

Have you ever heard of a couple calling their kid “Aria?” I’ve never heard anyone tell me they have heard of Aria, except in an Opera. Well, this morning, my dad emailed me the following photo with Aria’s name in a billboard! View Photo

The website is: Aria-San Diego too!

Here is a small sampling of some of the amusing things I’ve heard recently:

Joel: What color are your stripes, Mommy?

Me: White and red.

Joel: White and red? Wow! I love white and red! They my favowites!

……..

to Kirstie:

Joel: Do you want to hold my precious Aria?

…….

Chalice always says, “Are you cold, Mommy?” when I change her diaper with cold hands. She never complains that my hands are cold for her.

….

Joel is an optimist. I tell him he can’t do something and he invariably asks, “Can I do it Later?” “Later” is his magic word. I told him not to play with the fireplace tools. He said, “Can I use them later?” I told him when he’s older, I’d let him use the fireplace tools. A few days later he announced, “Mommy, I’m older now. Can I use these?”

….

Our kids love to help us. Whenever David’s working on a challenging project, Joel will place his little hand on David’s shoulder and say kindly, “I’m helping you, Daddy.”

….

If I stub my toe or burn myself (which happens often, I guess I’m a clutz) Chalice says with great sympathy, “I so sowwy, it’s okay!” She usually says it two or three times.

….

My dad took Joel by his house when most of my siblings were gone. Joel asked, “Where are all your friends?”

……

A couple days ago we had some new friends over. We were making preliminary introductions and Joel stood in the doorway hugging Chalice and said, “This is my cute Chalice.”

…..

Joel loves looking at pictures of people on facebook or various blogs. We clicked on a picture of Emily Howard and me and Joel said, “Look at Aunt Emily’s beautiful eyes!” “Oh Mommy has beautiful eyes too!” The picture had horrible red-eye. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

The Chism Family has now officially seen a number of snow days but nothing like the one we had today! The most snow we’ve gotten all season long was probably not much more than 2-3 inches. This morning, I woke up to 18 degree weather and very bright landscaping. There was about 2-3 inches at around 6:30 and by 8:00 about 6 inches. So I was snowed in from work till about 11:30. Our neighbor was kind enough to snow plow our 1/2 mile driveway.

As I was leaving for a few appointments, I got to see a black cat attack a rabbit in our front yard. It was quite cool. There was so much snow, both animals had a hard time, but eventually, the cat one the battle and slow dragged off its lunch. It was actually quite funny watching the attack and the cat pounce through the snow with the rabbit in its jaws. A little adventure for a city boy!

When I left for work, the rest of my family was joined by most of the Howard clan: Heidi, Emily, Kirstie, Seth, Joe and Katrina for a little bit of sledding, snowballs, popcorn and hot cocoa. They had a blast! As we wrap up our final weeks if not days of this cold winter, we’ve posted a few of our snow day photos.

Some folks said I would not like the winters out here or be dying for San Diego. This is of course, my first winter. Maybe I’ll get sick of it in a few years. All in all, the winter in Maryland was not that bad. I enjoyed most of the days. The things I did not like were staying in side most of the time and work being extremely slow. However, I think I will appreciate spring 10x more than I ever have before!

This is the blog entry we alluded to in our mini mailing. We promised an update to those interested enough to type in our worldwide web log and here it is!

This has been one of the most eventful years of my life in so many respects. First of all, Aria Noelle Chism entered our family on May 28th beating her big bro and sis’s entrance into the world weights by several pounds (8lb.s 4 oz.s for the female readers out there who care about such details). Aria happened upon a bustling time in Chism history as we had just sold and moved out of our condo and moved into a rental home in San Diego with a bright blue baby room! Aria started off life needing only to be cuddled to be happy.  Since this was not possible all of the time, she was a little fussbudget. But after much (loving) older-sibling abuse, a drive across the country, and several months of bustling life, she has become the world’s easiest baby and we all just love squeezing her pudges and returning her wide smiles.

David signed off a fabulous eight years of service at Chism Brothers Painting. He made the monumental decision to move our little family all the way across the continent to his wife’s hometown, to start a new job, in a new house, in a new climate. It is evident that the Lord had really paved our way in so many respects as all the details of this big move fell gracefully into place.  David took his marketing prowess, family work ethic, sales and business savvy to Hallco Enterprizes, another medium-sized family painting business. Speaking of savvy, David has dusted off his three-point shot, and enjoys playing basketball with a great group of men every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 6 AM. Now that’s dedication to a good thing!

My country-girl’s heart is at home seeing wild turkeys and deer out the windows of our home. My mother’s heart is thrilled to be so safely off the rode with our adventurous little ones. While we deeply miss our dear family, friends, and church family in San Diego, we are much enjoying reconnecting with loved ones on the east coast. One of my joys is an in-home gym-membership/accountability package of my sweet sister, Heidi, showing up at my door each morning (before the kids are up) to exercise with me. I have so appreciated the opportunity to reconnect with my siblings in a way that was impossible before. David and I sure don’t mind the awesome free sitters either!
Joel and Chalice are a fun duo. Their communication has really taken off this year. I never realized how many funny things I say until we got these cute parrots!  Joel is forever plotting his next venture with Chalice close behind. Now that he can peg his little sister, Joel is doubly ambitious with some of his mischief. They love reading books and our frequent trips to the library. Joel is an avid train enthusiast. Chalice is crazy about her little sister!

This year we welcomed three new family members into our extended family—a niece (Kathryn Jean Weld), a nephew (Randy Nathanael Beaty), and a new brother-in-law (Jesse Beaty). Some of our year’s highlights included David’s thirtieth birthday—woohoo! We took my first trip to Disneyland—just David and me—on our fourth anniversary. That was shortly after Aria was born and just before our trek across the country. It was sheer bliss to leave all those boxes behind and enjoy some magical time together in the land where dreams come true!  On our drive across the country, we stopped in Colorado and enjoyed visits to three good friends’ homes. We got back to Maryland in time to watch the autumn foliage change followed by not nearly enough winter snowfall. David purchased his first riding lawn-mower and looks like a natural on it.

Thanks so much for sharing in this journey of life with us! We love you and pray God’s empowering strength to you this new year: “Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength…Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:28,29,31

With love,
David, Joli, Joel, Chalice, and Aria Chism

The Chism Family stayed home this Christmas. It was the firs time since we married that we did not travel across the United States during Christmas. We decided to stay put because we just had a very expensive move the end of August to the east coast, and with the economy the way it is, we felt it was best to celebrate Christmas in our home. We still were able to attend all the fun parties out here and continue with Joli’s family Christmas Traditions. The Howards celebrate Christmas typically on the 23rd and 24th. Because I am a traditionalist, I asked Joli if we can celebrate Christmas twice! She willing said yes! So, we had Christmas at the Howards 2 miles away and Christmas at our home on the real Christmas Day with just our family of 5!

Christmas morning at the Chism was very relaxing. We started with a traditional egg, bacon and pancake breakfast followed by stockings and presents. The kids loved it! The rest of the day was filled with finger painting, a trip to the bathtub with dirty kids, playing with their new block set, tea set and tinkertoys and naps! Unfortunately, Joli and I did not take naps, just the kids.

Joli and I then headed to the kitchen to make Christmas cookies. Joli whipped up her batch in seconds (as she normally does) while I requested her help to speed up my recipe. She made a peanut butter chocolate cover cookie while I made Candy Cane cookies.

We ended the day with the Howards coming over for a late night movie of Home Alone. All in all, it was a good day for our little clan. I enjoyed the day/week off of work and am very grateful to have such a wonderful family.

The past couple of days you will find us resting, playing with our kids, taking a few quiet walks with family members, having a few friends over (Laughman’s last night), watching a movie or two or reading a good book. Joli got me a few John Grisham books that we are going to read out loud together. I also just started an amazing book called, “Worldliness” edited by C.J. Mahaney. It is powerful and just what I needed to read right now in my life.

Congratulations to Kendra and Jesse on the birth of Randy Nathanael Beaty this afternoon! I am SO excited for my sweet sis and bro and can’t wait to meet my new nephew!

I was pondering how magical are the little things in life through the eyes of a baby. Aria plays delightedly with her feet every time I change her diaper. She has become the world’s easiest baby. She smiles and plays and eats and sleeps and hardly fusses when her overly-zealous sister sits on her or enthusiastically pats her head or face. Although I’m trying to lead a peaceful and simple life, I can scarcely find time to update our little blog. I have written scores of interesting posts in my head like the one about my bubble bath with Joel and Chalice in our fancy whirlpool tub with Aria looking on, or the delightful snow flurries I experienced just the other day. I am proud of my sister Jenny as she books many Premier Jewelry shows and thrives with her new side job. Oh she is so entertaining! Heidi shows up faithfully every 6:30 AM of the weekdays to exercise with me. Sometimes I think it is a conspiracy to get me in shape and get me out of bed before my kids! David is playing basketball two early mornings a week with a group of guys. He’s such a good basketball player. It takes a real man to brave the cold at 5 something before work to shoot hoops. Kendra and I decided to start keeping eachother accountable for Bible memory. We now have nearly half a dozen people memorizing Isaiah 40! Please join us if you feel inclined. I plan to sign off this popcorn sort of post and head to bed so I’ll look perky when Heidi shows up tomorrow morning. Yay! for my new little nephew!

Well, I was get’n all geared up for the cold season the past week and a half until I woke up this morning! It was 60 degrees outside!!! Last Monday I got to experience my first very cold morning as I got ready for work. It was 26 degrees outside, my truck’s battery was completely dead (my fault) and my other car was layered with ice! I had to use what the easterners call an “ice scraper” on my windshield! It was very cool! The huge blessing was that I got to drive my Acura to work instead of my truck, which has heated seats! I also got to wear a long sleeve shirt and a jacket! Wow! I almost forgot what those things were collecting dust in my closet! All of this past week, it was too cold to wear a short sleeve shirt so I figured the fall and early winter was set’n in! This morning I found myself talking on the phone to my mom outside on my front porch with a short sleeve shirt on again! This Maryland weather is rather confusing!

Besides the crazy weather situation, the kids and all of us are doing just dandy! Joli is off to deliver some delicious white chili to the Hjembo’s house. She’s hav’n to guard it from me (it is amazing stuff). Alyssa and Karl were just blessed with a beautiful baby girl, #3 for them! Joel, Chalice and myself are hang’n at the house await’n our next adventure…hmmm…still trying to be creative this morning. Unfortunately, I have some manly “chores” to take care of first before I can have fun with the kiddies. I have to get an oil change and a flat tire fixed on Joli’s Honda. I am then headed to a few baby shops to look for some more train gear for Mr. Joel. This evening, if it is not raining, which is currently is, I hope to find a cool little town our family can walk through and be tourists. I drove through several beautiful old towns on Thursday on my way up to Hanover, PA for a sales presentation for Christmas lights and just was fall’n in love with the old towns I saw! I could not believe how old and historical things looked to me. I can’t wait to take my family to some of those places!

Work is going well, though I need to start bringing some closure to some of my sales calls. I’ve been working 100% of my time on marketing and selling Christmas lights for Christmas Decor. I had never done it before, but I am really enjoying it. I have had some big accounts this week, the biggest being 9 shopping centers! I was surprised to hear from the property manager, as I just called a listing in a parking lot and got a call back saying, “we are interested in not just one but in 10 other properties! So, I will find out next Tuesday how much the shopping centers want to do for Christmas. We don’t just hang lights but get to help with anything related to decorating for Christmas: banners, signs, wreaths, bows, garland, reindeer, anything! It already feels like Christmas to me! So, things are well but I’m a little frustrated that I have not sold more. I think I need a few more leads to see some fruit as it is still a little slow. It is also October with halloween and a big election coming up! I’ll be glad when those events have passed so we can focus on Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!

Drop us a line when you have time. We miss all of our west coast family and friends! Please come and visit us anytime!!!!

How delighted I was when our little Chalice was born! She came so quickly we barely made it into the hospital. While David had announced, “It’s a boy!” when Joel was born, I got to make the declaration at Chalice’s birth. We were excited to use the name we had selected for a little girl–Chalice Joy– a cup of joy. Chalice was a little blessing to me and very familiar as I had much experience with baby girls. It’s so special for us to see the friendship that is evolving between Joel and Chalice. They are often partners in crime, but still the best of friends. Chalice seems to like learning how to communicate these days as she tries out new words. She’s a little mixed up about her animals. The other day she said, “COW!” and waved, “Good bye, Doggie!” at the nonplussed bovine creature. Dog is her universal term for animals. Chalice is most frequently noted for her long eyelashes and her quizzical expressions. :^) Happy 2nd birthday to our little Chalice!

The high ceilings and spacious rooms of this home are so cozy when it is raining. This past week gave us several days of steady rainfall. Mopping my floors from the days of applesauce-making I listened to Mullan Rouge and thought of the sad beauty expressed in some of the songs. Movies are made of such bittersweet drama, but what a horrid sad existence that sort of life would be–much more depressing than romantic. It’s only in fairy tales that such sorrow turns into “happily ever after” and Prince charming rescues Cinderella.  I could never imagine being in such dire straits as some of the sad classics present. “Someday I’ll fly away, leave all this to yesterday…” The music soars to glorious major keys as the singer imagines her dreams, only to abruptly crash back into minor tones, darkly portraying the singer’s inescapable reality. I thought of my simple sweet life. How could I be any happier! This past week was long because my husband was in Ohio training for his new season of selling Christmas light-hanging services. What a happy reunion we experienced when he returned to us yesterday evening! I am so spoiled to enjoy dinner as a family nearly every evening. Today was like a Saturday as we enjoyed a pancake breakfast followed by a 7-mile triangle hike of Liberty Road, Dollyhyde, and Mapleville with our lime green stroller and a backpack for the kidlets. Our lives would make a boring Halmark film, but I much prefer banal happiness to a Hollywood melodrama!

Not long after my college girlfriend informed that her first word was “apple,” Joel came home from a day at Grammy’s house saying “apple” over and over. I had thought it a peculiar word to commence speaking. Today, I peaked in on my two little rascals in the garage where I had let them play and they were both perched on our riding lawn-mower and down to the core eating apples left over from my two day canning spree with my sister. I guess apples and youngsters do get along well together.

Stella’s Dream is a bucolic farm on the outskirts of Sugarloaf Mountain. Mr. Pepe diligently tends his perfectly spaced trees day after day only to give them away to his friends, amongst whom my family is prized to be called.  Grandimary Howard, Mama, Jenny, Kendra, Jesse, Seth, Joseph, Trina, and Karl and Alyssa Hjembo’s family carrivanned to the orchard with my mom’s many 1/2 bushel buckets in tow. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows on the mown lawns around us as we all sampled the sweet yellow apples. Kendra and I agreed to meet the following day to put up our pickings. We were both equally ambitious, wanting roughly 50 quarts each for our little families. Jesse was probably our best asset when it came to getting all the apples down from the trees. He used an apple picker, shook the branches vigorously and the trees dropped their produce. My hands quickly tired from my inferior method of hanging out of the tree middle while trying the shake the branch I was holding. Joel and Chalice were delighted with all the apples around them as long as they could avoid standing under the trees that were being shaken. Before going to bed, I garnered my many supplies from the Howard family menagerie. I was planning on purchasing jars, but Mama told me I cold have as many jars as my heart desired! So the only thing Kendra and I needed to purchase were the dome lids to seal the jars.

The next morning (Wednesday) Kendra arrived before 7:30AM having already changed a flat tire! We worked steadily, scrubbing, quartering and removing bad spots from our many apples. We were quite the domestic young housewives. I periodically charged into the kids room to change a diaper or wipe a bottom and administer marshmallows. The kids took long naps and cooperated nicely with our applesauce canning efforts. Kendra and I experienced the joys of watching caramel colored applesauce stream from the nifty “squeezo” as Kendra cranked and I filled the jars, cleaned the rims and lowered the jars into the Amish 15-jar canner. We let out a little cheer each time a jar lid popped indicating that our work was successful and the jar had sealed. All 75 of the quarts we processed canned successfully. I got an early reprieve the second day because I had company coming at 6 for dinner so Kendra and Jesse whisked away the supplies around 5:30 and David and I enjoyed our evening with friends!

Hours of apples left my fingernails short and my fingers sore and brown! But I still had about a bushel of apples left over. David mentioned to his boss that I’d been canning applesauce. Mr. Hall soon gave us another half bushel of beautiful apples from his orchard in Pennsylvania. There will be no dearth of apple pies, tarts, apple crisp, apples and peanut butter at this house! Amy kindly volunteered to help me finish out the last bushel of apples yesterday, which I froze and refrigerated as applesauce. That will allow me to store my canned quarts for weeks to come.