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Friday, December 19, 2008

The Story Of My Daughter


Growing up not being the child that dreamed of having babies and being a mommy, God had a lot of preparing to do to get me ready to enter into this sacred thing called motherhood. And how blessed I am by His faithfulness to do so. It all started with a dream:

After my grandma (my mom's mom) went home to be with the Lord in March 2006, my mom was at her home going through some of her things when she decided to take a nap in her room. That afternoon she had a dream that she was in a hospital lobby. She could see me in the distance being wheeled out holding a newborn baby. The message of her dream was the generation continues.

A few months later she had another dream that she was holding a baby that had a really round face.

November 2006...Vox Dei retreat (voice of God retreat)...Perry's cabin: During one of our morning worship sessions I noticed Matt across the room in tears. He didn't look sad, but he was covered in tears nonetheless. Later on he asks me if I wanted to know what he was crying about. Of course I did! He said that the Lord told him our daughters name (which, by the way, I wasn't pregnant)! He said her name is Alyssum. Of course, I had no idea what the name meant or where he had even heard of it before. He explained to me that it was a beautiful flower, typically used as ground cover in gardens because it grows in bunches. I knew exactly which flower he was talking about because my grandparents (from above) always had Alyssum growing in their garden and it smelled wonderful. He continued by explaining to me that this was her name because just as the Alyssum flower is very small and often not noticed its fragrance is so wonderfully strong that you can't help but take notice.

After we shared this with my parents my mom had yet another dream, except this one was more about her name. She saw a picture of a big bushful of Alyssum flowers in the ground. She could see its roots reaching down into the earth. However, these roots weren't just going straight down, they were reaching across and springing up new Alyssum flowers all across the meadow. Meaning: Alyssum's roots were reaching down into God's soil and therefore it was springing up new life. Amazing! If you've never been over to our house my mom painted a huge mural on her wall with this picture.

Late December 2006. During a time of prayer the Lord told my mom that something significant would be happening in my life in 10 months.

Beginning of January 2007. Last dream. This one actually woke my mom up and caused her to look around... She dreamt the voice of a little girl full of spunk and life saying to her, "Hey grandma, I'm on my way!"

A couple of weeks later my parents came up to visit us and it was at that time we shared with them the good news! I was pregnant!

So her name is Alyssum Angela. Angela was my grandmother's name...the grandma whom she apparently crossed paths with on her way down to us! She was born 10 months later from the December prophesy at a whopping 5lbs 12oz. She was and still is very petite. Her personality is also as strong as the fragrance of the Alyssum flower. God knew her before the foundations of the earth and I feel so blessed that He introduced her to me before she even came into this world!
Although her strength can be very challenging at this point I can't wait to see how God uses this to further His Kingdom!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A Wonderful Night

Last night was my wonderful night. Not only was it 8 blissful hours of not having to utter the words "no bite"; "no, that's not yours"; "get out of the water bowl"; "that's not your toy that's Alyssum's"; "that's not your toy that's Sugar's"; and many others, but it was 8 hours alone with my husband...2 1/2 hours away from our normal life...and 2 1/2 hours of amazing culture and entertainment. On one hand, it stinks that we have to drive that far to experience good culture, but on the other it's kind of nice to get away for just a little longer because of it.

Back in July, I found an amazing deal for floor seat tickets to see Sarah Brightman in concert. For those of you that don't know who she is (which I'm finding out is quite a bit of Redding-ites), she was the original Christine in the amazing Phantom of the Opera. More than that, however, Andrew Lloyd Weber actually wrote/composed the part for her voice specifically. So her voice is phenomenal...especially live! Because of her theatrical background, her concert isn't just her singing, she puts on a very theatrical show which makes it very entertaining, even if you've never heard one of her songs before. Her costumes, backup dancers, and special effects makes her show one of the best I've ever seen. It was a very "Lord of the Rings" style show, which of course is wonderful to us. Plus, just to hear her powerful voice belting out sounds I didn't know were humanly possible made this a jaw dropping experience. Oh, and what other kind of concert can you sip on a glass of red wine while you watch? Amazing! And because of the great seats, I could see the sparkle on her false eye lashes. I was also glad for these seats because she had so many cool special effect stuff that there was no room for the usual big screens that they usually put up on each side of the stage. Oh, and to top it off, she sang a David Crowder Band song! I didn't even recognize it...Matt gets props for that one.
So after the show, we went and grabbed some coffee at our favorite coffee shop in Sac and headed home. It was fun to talk, laugh and dream about the future again with my very romantic husband. It was really nice to create a little margin for that. The cherry on top of our cake was to come home and hear that Alyssum had a great night too! This was the first time we have been away from her for this long (our options are slim) and thanks to Emily and Sarah, we now know that she can do ok without us for an extended period of time. That's HUGE for me...whether I actually use it or not, just knowing that the possibility of more freedom is there frees me up in my mind.
So, something you might have learned about the Brams: we love to dress up and do rich people things...like the symphony, fancy dinners (like the Equinox in San Francisco), amazing concerts, theatre, ect...

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Bram Pics

Well, it's done! We have beautiful Emily Faulknor Photography family pictures. She makes us all look amazing...thank goodness! I tried to narrow it down to the favorites and still ended up with 30 pictures...so it's up to you if you want to scroll through them all. Have fun :)





She is so beautiful!!!
In this next one Alyssum is doing the famous Magnum pose!This next one made me cry!After being together for 10 years we're still in love...sigh!

The scrunched nose will now live forever!