Just Keeping Up

Since this blog is my way of keeping up with our lives and the kids as they grow, I wanted to do just kind of a catch up entry.

The kids on the train at the Jackson Zoo. We went with some friends and they had such fun!!!

We have stayed too busy this summer. I keep saying things like "once we make it through this week, we'll settle down" but I have realized that settling down will have to be a choice. Though busy, things have been good for the most part. The kids are thriving on lots of sunshine and we are upping our trips to the pool.

Daniel was away at the Graduate School of Banking at LSU and while he was gone, Addie started piano lessons. She has been begging to take, so we decided to let her give it a try. She has had so much fun with "Mrs. High" the past few weeks. She has also begun to show a talent for photography. I think the best part of seeing what she takes is seeing things from her perspective. I get really tickled with her, but she takes great pics for a four-year-old. Here are three pictures she took:

One of our favorites -- her perspective of her Daddy. He is 5'10 but in this pic, he looks like he's up by the ceiling! And this is how he really appears to her...

My mom and dad/her Nana and Papaw.

Her own sweet little hand.

When Daniel returned from LSU, Carter had a piano recital and we also celebrated my Daniel's 32nd birthday. Aw, man. Can that be right? We're aging around here... :)

Here is the video of Carter's recital. As you can see, he is a HAM. He got very tickled on his way up there, and if you can't hear it, he says "I know, I'm hilarious," right before the first song, which is what set the man in the front row off before his second song, in turn setting Carter off. I wish we had been on the other side of the piano because my mom and dad said he kept looking out at the audience as he played and making eye contact with people. He was so tickled I'm surprised he made it through... He is an entertainer at heart, and that scares me a little bit, but if a child has a certain bent, the best I believe we can do is allow him to develop that gift and try our best to teach him about God's glory in giving us certain gifts. I will say, though, that as his mother, I felt my face heating up. We NEVER go anywhere without him making new friends or being noticed. He's just exuberant -- ALL the time.

** You may want to click on the video and watch it ON youtube. I couldn't get it the right size so the right half of the screen is cut off on my blog.

Carter thanks you for watching his recital performance.

The Funfetti cake that Daniel requests every year. I make so many homemade cakes and used to sell them, have even done a wedding cake. But THIS man LOVES his Funfetti. It used to offend me but now I'm just glad that I get to make such an easy cake and the kids absolutely love helping with it.

Carter has discovered the joy of Legos. Yes, he's a bit old to just now be discovering this. He is a smart little boy, gifted in many things, but fine motor skills came late to this young man. I noticed him playing around with the old "baby" Duplo blocks though and said, "You need some Legos!" He LOVES them and won't quit building things. That's all he wants now -- more Legos.

Our Arts and Sports Camp (a VBS where they get to choose their activities like a day camp but are still taught the word like a VBS) was last week and Addie got to sign up with the 5K's since she's too old for nursery and there weren't any specific 4K activities. She did cooking and dance and had a BLAST! Carter did crafts and basketball. I think the exposure was good for both kids. And they learned a huge chunk of Philippians 2 (Ladybird's age group learned verses 10-11 and Carter's learned 5-11). I was really excited for Addie because she won awards in both of her activities and they only gave out two for each activity. She was very excited as well. We're not big on competition just for the sake of competition around here and I try to tell the kids that I expect the same behavior from them when they're not competing for awards as when they are ("Work heartily as unto the Lord..." behavior, if you will).

The kids on "green day". I ran out of green hairspray on his hair so she settled for white. Won't she make a great old lady some day??

I have been studying up on some curriculum changes I'd like to make. We had a whirlwind of a first semester and I was pleased with some things but not with others. When all is said and done, I think we're changing everything we did! I guess maybe I wasn't that pleased... I have just been exposed to some things that seem a bit more well-ordered than what I was trying to do. There are so many good curricula out there, it's hard to know what to choose, but I believe I have found most of what is going to work with our philosophies on what education should be and what we want for our family...

The garden is growing CRAZILY! We have had giant cucumbers and yesterday my first tomato turned red. There is corn on Carter's corn stalks. When it is ripe, we will FEAST! And Addie's watermelon vine has one medium watermelon and several babies. I have had a fiasco with keeping our homemade cages upright. We are learning lots of "what not to do" lessons for next summer's garden!

Addie's watermelon three days ago. Today, it is twice that size (about the size of a NERF football). We cannot WAIT to eat it!

Well, that's all for now. Happy early Father's Day to any man who may glimpse this (and especially to YOU, 'Rie -- I look forward to hearing what gifts "the Maxter" grants to you).

Couldn't resist one more pic of my sweet kiddos -- at the zoo, pretending to be SUPER scared of the 'gator.

What are YOU laughing at??

The "YOU" is me, so don't think this post is about anyone but myself. I got really convicted Sunday night. It wasn't the sermon, and it wasn't a book I was reading. It was the Holy Spirit and me.

Daniel and I left church and put the kids to bed. He ran back out to grab some Chinese food (we were hungry but too tired to worry about making anything) and we settled down to eat our dinner and watch a little TV. We don't often turn the thing on but when we get takeout, a lot of times we do, just for background noise and distraction. I know, this is a terrible habit (really, I know it is) but we do it.

Summer TV is worse than the norm. Has anyone else noticed that? They don't rerun the season that just finished anymore, like in the good old days of Cosby. They put all these three-month-long reality shows on and they are not only ridiculous but just pointless and crass.

We settled on Last Comic Standing. I've never seen it and I thought maybe someone might be funny. The first couple of people were ok. Then, they got to this lady who is a single mom. It showed her dragging her three, maybe four-year-old son into a new apartment so they could stay there for the show. As they unpacked, she said, "Here are some toys to play with" and handed him a few empty liquor bottles. Now, I realize that maybe she was exaggerating and trying to be funny for the camera, but still... Then, they were playing hide and seek and on the wall, she had drawn a stick woman and little boy with a sign over their heads that said "Where's daddy?" She talked about how she had taken her son to many nightclubs because sitters had bailed and she had to do stand up, mentioning how many hundreds of waitresses he had been held by.

My heart was BREAKING! This precious little boy was all giggles. Some day, he will grow up and realize how NOT funny all of this is. My favorite quote by this woman was, "I may not be doing a lot right but I figure I'm not doing much wrong." Now, how do you make that make sense?

"Let's turn it, why don't we?" my husband's voice broke the horror. We chose something much more uplifting (an NCIS Los Angeles rerun) and watched for a little while.

As I turned in for bed, all I could think was, What is wrong with that woman? What is wrong with those people?

And then, the quiet, whispering conviction came: What is wrong with YOU?

The problem is NOT this woman. She's not a child of Jesus Christ. I should not be surprised. I can be sad over it, but it's silly of me to expect anything more. The problem is not the network. Many of them are not saved either and they are doing their job -- airing what sells. The problem is not the unsaved viewers out there. They are laughing at the tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the sad realities of their world.

The problem is ME.

In many situations lately, I have realized how much I am the problem. I mean, sure, I could lay the blame on everyone else, but in this situation, I should blame myself -- the Christian viewer. The mother who has given up so much to stay home and raise her babies. The one who wants to tell everyone else what they're doing wrong. ME. Me. With the Holy Spirit at work in my life and His word waiting readily to be opened and an Internet full of good sermons and a house full of good books to read, WHY am I sitting in front of the "tree of the knowledge of evil" and filling my head and heart with evil? When I watch that show and many others, I am paying credence to that lifestyle and to the advertisers.

Monday morning. The alarm goes off and I shower and head to the doctor for a check up. People magazine is in the waiting room. I finish my Bible reading and instead of going ahead and reading more, I stop there and pick up People. On the cover is Kate Gosselin and her passel of children. The children are beautiful and smiling. Kate looks pretty good for all of the crap she has been through. And I'm off again, but this time only for half of the article. The nurse opens the door and calls my name so I carry the mag with me. I can finish while waiting on the doc. But before I can open it again, the conviction comes: What are YOU looking at and why?

An article about a family that has fallen apart and is exploiting the children for their worldly gain. A family who tells us that for whatever reason it's not working, even if you're a Christian, you should just sign papers and walk away (this is NOT a judgement on divorced people -- please remember that I myself am a second wife and God has graciously blessed my marriage for reasons I will never know). What is wrong with her?

And He's right there, quick and loving in His questioning of me: What is wrong with YOU?

I set the magazine down and close my eyes, breathe deep. I have allowed culture to indoctrinate me to be a part of the problem. There is no blame in that statement, only acknowledgement. I will have to begin to work very hard to be a part of the solution (quietly, winsomely). I finish up with the doc and on my way out, drop the magazine back into the basket on the waiting room table. I'd love to throw it away but that's not going to help anyone either.

Now, I am NOT saying I have it all together or all figured out. I am NOT trying to start some sort of boycott. I am just saying that I have realized how much Christians (namely THIS Christian) add TO the problems rather than becoming a part of the solution.

Ouch, God, ouch. You never let me take the easy way. It just wouldn't be fair to me, would it? No, I know it wouldn't.

Thank you.

"Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy your body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness." Luke 11:34-35

At Books-A-Million 10:17 am

Half finished latte on the side table

Warm grey pleather chair

Myriads of books that tell me...

who to be

how to be it

where to go

how to get there

and why I am doing it all wrong.

Memories of senior dismissals in high school

Visiting the new-fangled book/coffee store around the corner

We were so informed

We knew it all

Or we thought we did.

Gonna be SOMETHING

Gonna CHANGE the world

Never gonna be CONFINED to a small corner

Gonna GET OUT of here.

I mill through the shelves

Smell that refreshing new paper and old coffee smell

Pick one up

Put it down

Do it again

Feel the twisting in my guts as I wonder how young and old minds alike

Navigate the shelves of wisdom and trickery.

Return to my latte.

Pick up the book I brought with me

The only perfection in an otherwise imperfect framework.

No purchases today other than my soul

And He bought it because I couldn't.

My book falls open to a well-worn passage that reminds me

That HE allowed me to live FREE

In THIS small corner

By NOT getting out

But by STAYING put

And hoping to see the lives of two little ones change

As they learn of His free gift.

They may fly far one day

Leave this all behind.

But wherever they go

May they not forget to take their FREEDOM with them

Because once it is received it cannot be TAKEN away.

That will be my joy.

A Poem

This is by Amy Carmichael and is beautiful. It speaks for itself so I won't comment further:

In Acceptance Lieth Peace

He said, "I will forget the dying faces;
The empty places,
They shall be filled again.
O voices moaning deep within me, cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action
The strife of faction
Shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of Manhood cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in endeavor lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,
Why meddle in life's riot?
Shut be my door to pain.
Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit;I am defeated.
God hath depleted
My life of its rich gain.
O futile murmuring, why will ye not cease?"
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God to-morrow
Will to His son explain."
Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.
Not vain the word, not vain.
For in Acceptance lieth peace."

~Amy Carmichael

I Had to Chuckle

So, as most of you know, Daniel came back yesterday from two weeks at the graduate school of banking at LSU. They pay a fee beforehand and when they get there, they have a goodie bag. Keep in mind that this school is supposed to be comprised of very smart bankers. I guess even super-smart minds need a good editor. See anything wrong with this picture of the pen that was in his bag?

I definitely feel ok about the grammar and reading skills I'm teaching my children... :)

A Girl's Best Friend...

Almost eight years ago (it will be June 28), I got married. My husband took this skinny little band of white gold and slipped it on my hand and promised to honor, cherish, care for and love me no matter how good things were, and more importantly, no matter how bad. It was not a fairy tale wedding. I was far from a princess and he was far from a prince on a white horse. We were three months pregnant with our precious son and he was fairly newly divorced, and we were both hauling some serious baggage into the marriage. But still, that ring said it all. He promised. I promised. And so, our life together began.

A couple of weeks before that day, we sat at a restaurant in Kema, TX. He had in his pocket the engagement ring he had selected for me. It was a beautiful antique from the 1920's. It had intricate carving in the setting and displayed a shiny diamond with a rainbow deep down in the pinpoint as if it was on a pedestal. Though the engagement and the ring were just formalities, my friends oooohed and ahhhed. I had arrived. I had "the ring". No one really cared how I got it. I had the holy grail that we all idolized. We believed that the size and worth of the engagement ring symbolized how much our future husband loved us. We believed that the shinier the diamond, the more like Cinderella we would feel. We believed the whole pack of lies we had been told by society. My ring was big and beautiful but I would have traded it for anything if I could just change how I "got it". I couldn't have felt less like Cinderella.

Last weekend, my engagement ring broke. There had been a few times when the intricate carving had split and we had been able to have it soldered, but this time, it split in several areas. Because of it's age and all the soldering, it is not fixable. We can't get a new setting for the diamond immediately. It's just too expensive right now. And I am 100% fine with that. I opened my mouth and words I never would have thought would come from me came out. "Honey, this little band is the one you put on my finger when you promised. It's the real one. I'm content to wear just it for the rest of my life." And I am.

This skinny little band reminds me of the horrible first years that we had set in contrast to how good things are now. It reminds me of the night that I laid in the hospital bed after trying to nurse a screaming baby and my husband laid his hand right over my heart and begged God to please cause the milk to come in and somehow comfort me, and the Holy Spirit did (give me peace, that is -- the milk came a little later) and I was His. It reminds me of Guido helping me shower because I couldn't care for myself after a c-section, and again after I fell and tore my ankle up. It reminds me of the hard lessons he learned through a failed first marriage and he has taught them to me so that we will never see walking away as an option, and hopefully will do better than "just staying in it". It reminds me of the night where I decided to share my deepest secrets with him and I was so ashamed that I made him turn off the lights because I didn't want him to see my face as I shared, and when he turned the lamp back on, he held me and loved me even more. It reminds me of the sweetness that has begun to come in the past few years, as what was once that intense, romantic flame has softened and matured into what I know will always be my best earthly friendship "til death parts us".

I don't want my daughter to do things the way I did. But I do want her to realize that a poor man who can only give her a wedding band but loves Jesus and her and is going to be her prophet, priest, provider and protector is worth more than all the diamonds in the world. I don't know if my finger will ever wear that sparkly gemstone again. But I do know it doesn't mean I've lost my best friend. He lives in the house with me...

What SHOULD We Feel??

I'm going to divert from my "normal" entries of daybooks and fun with my children to share an entry in a devotional book I'm reading. I was talking with a dear friend yesterday who has been struggling. She shared that she felt she shouldn't be struggling, shouldn't be crying. She's sorry for her tears. I was so burdened for her. I was a bit angered also with Satan and American society. Those two things have combined to make so many of us (even those who know Christ and know that it is only through His death and resurrection we live) feel like we should be "self-made", like we should always be strong. "Do it yourself," we say, and, "pick yourself up by your boot straps and go on!" Sometimes, those things are true. We should definitely be able to fend for ourselves on some level -- that is survival.

But emotionally, God made us for relationship and we should NOT be ashamed when we need the love and support of family and friends. I am absolutely appalled by the lack of compassion our society has for those who are grieving -- we are uncomfortable with it and so we just want it to get better fast. And I have news for you: EVERYONE has a breaking point and no one is in a place to decide what that point is for anyone else or how they should feel. I read this devotional entry to my friend and hope that if any of you have hidden tears, it will help you just a bit. This is an entry from Week 1 of Nancy Guthrie's One Year Book of Hope (click the title of the book to read more about Nancy and her writings). The following is all from her. I will not make any comments at the end of it.

Your Tears Matter to God

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. -Psalm 56:8

I remember going up to the cosmetics counter a few weeks after my daughter, Hope, died and asking if the mascara I was considering would run down my face when I cried. The salesperson assured me it wouldn't and then asked with a laugh in her voice, "Are you going to be crying?"

"Yes," I answered, "I am." And I have. I used to rarely cry, but now tears are always close to the surface, just waiting to be released. It is as if there is a broken place inside me where tears are stored. Letting them out has been the only way to release the pressure of the pain.

Along with relief, there is also the uncomfortable loss of control that is a companion to tears, isn't there? Some see tears not only as a loss of control but also as a lack of faith. It is as if the physical manifestation of tears gives evidence of a spiritual deficiency -- that if our faith was big enough or deep enough or developed enough, we simply wouldn't be this sad. It is as if we think our grasp of spiritual realities can erase the hurts of being human. But when you've lost something or someone who is valuable to you, when you have been forced to let go of a dream or live within a nightmare -- that is something to be sad about. So let yourself be sad.

And know that God does not discount or dismiss your tears. They are precious to him because you are precious to him. In fact, when God reveals glimpses of the culmination of human history -- in a future that will fully reveal and be fully worthy of his glory -- he includes, as a centerpiece, this promise in Isaiah 25:8: "The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears." Picture in your mind right now the Lord of the universe reaching down to gently and lovingly wipe away your tears. He doesn't ignore them or tell you that if you really had faith you wouldn't cry. He wipes them away. And Revelation 21:4 tells us that not only will he wipe away tears, he will remove all of the sorrow that caused them. God's plan for the future is to destroy forever the evil that has brought you so much pain and then to live forever with you in a place he has lovingly prepared where there will be no more tears.

My Tear Collector, sometimes you seem so far away, it's hard for me to grasp that you are sad with me. Give me the faith to see you now beside me and to see a future in which your hand will wipe away my tears forever.

Digging Deeper
Read Psalm 56. Make a list of what Davide determined to do despite his tears.