the unlikely orange

happy halloween! here is scary little dracula-boy. he lives in our house, like an impish terror on the loose. he turns curtain rods into trumpets! he says ridiculously cute things! he wears wax teeth! we carved pumpkins monday night. you can see the final results above and below. considering that shannon and i did all the cleaning/carving while jack mercilessly flung pumpkin seeds at the dog and cade made generally unsatisfied baby noises, i think they turned out pretty well. mine is a steelers logo. jack's is a dragon. which, interestingly is one of his favorite creatures while at the same time being something that he is scared of. he wants to go the ABC store (that's what he calls toys-r-us) and look at dragons and 'push the buttons,' but when we actually get up close to one, he is scared of it. it makes me wonder, am i like this somehow? this is shannon's. she is the best pumpkin carver in the house, and she did this one at the end of our night in ...

okay, so this picture is from several months ago. sorry. still, its cute. anyway, here are some cute things jack has been saying lately: ---------------- j: i smell sumpin'. g: what do you smell? j: dirt. ---------------- j: i am cookster man! g: who is cookster man? j: cookster man! g: do you cook things? j: yes. g: what do you cook? j: beans. g: anything else besides beans? j: oranges. cookster man wears gloves, too. (now jumping around) cookster man! ------------------ j: i smell sumpin'. g: what do you smell. j: i smell your poop. stinks like a stunk (this is how he says skunk). ------------------- g: jack, come here i want to show you something. j: (entering the room) what's up? -------------------- the phone rings, but mommy doesn't hear it because she is vacuuming. jack goes and gets the phone then brings it to mommy, j: mommy, you need to call somebody. ---------------------- after i had just secretly eaten some doritos, j: i smell sumpin...

cade turned 6 months old yesterday. so he celebrated by going to the doctor and having both of his legs pierced several times with various needles. fun! shannon said he did better than i do with shots. i'm not surprised. he doesn't know enough yet to be as afraid as he should be. the picture of him above is from his baptism almost a month ago already... anyway, he has a clean bill of health. and he's growing like a weed. he is 20 pounds. he is in the 97th percentile still for weight and for height. i guess he grew 2 inches since his last appointment. basically, he is still really big. still blonde. still blue-eyed. is this my baby??? we are all, i think, basically over our illnesses and back in the swing of things. it is supposed to rain here for the next, oh, 83 hours straight, so it looks like we'll be thinking of some fun 'inside' activities for the weekend. we were supposed to go on a hayride but that's been cancelled. so, put on a swea...

so i've been leading this bible study on tuesday nights on the psalms, which i have really enjoyed so far, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is simply reacquainting myself with some of the amazing poetry of the bible. when we really take a look at it - really listen to the words, really dig to understand some of the ancient imagery and cultural references - we find such beautiful testimony to the human experience of God. it is inspiring, in that it puts Spirit in me. so, feeling inspired, i took a stab at writing my own psalm. its a psalm of praise, but a more personal (first person) psalm, like psalm 23 (the lord is my shepherd, i shall not want) than communal. still, you may find something in there to identify with. i tried to connect it with a common policy of the biblical poets: to remember creation as a method for offering praise to God. a psalm of praise to the creating God ------------------------------------- the very core of my soul sings out to the LORD: p...

being sick sucks. it is just miserable when you feel physically awful. we've all been there. you should know that i am particularly bad at at. but nothing is as bad as when your whole family gets sick. shannon: achy, vomiting, nausea jack: diarrhea cade: vomiting, extremely sleepy greg: achy, diarrhea, exremely sleepy, unable to deal with the above. i mean it is one thing to clean up your son's liquid feces when you are well and you have all your faculties to fight off the gag reflex. but it is another thing altogether when you are already feeling like you might toss your cookies. there has been vomit and poop everywhere around here since saturday afternoon. i could go on and on, but will spare you any more disgusting details. suffice to say that we haven't been feeling well here at the milinovich house. i swear that this has nothing to do with the sickening display the steelers defense put on sunday night, or the fact that the boston dread sox are going to the world...

go steelers!

its too warm today for october. it should be all cidery and pumpkiny, but instead its the windows open and faint leftover smell of summer. still, sitting here in my office with the windows open gives me the opportunity to hear the concert going on outside. and so i'm thankful for the warmth. otherwise i would have missed it. the geese are quite talkative today. there is a river that runs right behind the church and the geese are often here during the day. i think there are other rowdier spots where they go for nights and weekends, but during the day they seem contrite enough to gather near the big white church in the shadow of the steeple. and they swim and look for things to eat and talk. alot. i don't know enough about animals to really understand if they are somehow communicating to one another with those throaty honks, but today, as i sit perched in my second floor office, i can't help but wonder what those sounds say to me. i am busy. way too busy. i have to...

parenting is so much fun. i mean, just look at these pictures taken the other morning on our bed. their faces are so innocent; so pure. their eyes are so full of promise, so wet with what else there is to see. their skin is so young, so barely touched. they stand up for life in the face of death and age and all that is hard and their tiny little bodies seem to shout: there is a purity that you cannot steal! they are beautiful. they are hope-giving. they are defiant without even knowing it. but they are also just defiant. not just against all the hopelessness of the world, but against all the authority i can muster. take naptime, for example. this week, jack decided that 'time for a nap' was code for 'time to create a miniature model of dante's inferno in my bedroom.' not that i would know, exactly. i was at my office. the dominant noise was whatever itunes was shuffling on my computer. then the phone rang. it was shannon. i don't remember her exact words. i rem...

doesn't joe look like he's about to cry? well, he wouldn't be the only one, then. i shed my own tears last night, sitting upright in my bed, shannon sleeping next to me, unable to watch the horrid defeat. with the only light in the room the flicker of the tv screen's unfolding disaster, i felt the wetness of a tear on my cheek. i admit it: i cry at sporting events. i always have. i just get so darn invested. but this, this was even more. yeah, it hurts to invest your energy and passion in following a team so closely for 7 or 8 months only to see them fall apart in 4 short games. but this was more than defeat. this was, it seems, the end of an era. steinbrenner said that if the yankees didn't get out of this series that mr. torre's job would be on the line. well, if he meant what he said, joe will soon be fired. and apparently joe thinks the boss meant what he said because if you listened to any of the post game (which i did - i am a sucker for misery) joe kept t...

wow. long time no talkie talk. sorry about that. we had an amazing weekend with all kinds of family in to visit, and i have spent the week trying to catch up. when i get busy this blog usually becomes one of the first things to be left undone. thats just the way it is, people, so deal with it. okay, on a friendlier note, i just wanted to recap this last weekend for everyone. caedmon was baptized on sunday (september 30) at an outdoor worship service our church held. in order to celebrate the event with us, many of our family members traversed interstate 80 and the pennsylvania turnpike to join us. we had people staying in the house, people staying in a camper at a local state park, and even some people staying in a house of one of our church members who was away. All in all we had 17 people around the house this weekend, which was crazy but wonderful, too. saturday night we had a fire and cooked hot dogs and mountain pies and just enjoyed the warm fall evening (outside, where ...

stay tuned, friends. a new post will come soon. i promise. greg.