Our Aspiring Ballet Dancers

Watch out Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Baryshnikov! After performing on the "big stage" for her dance recital at the end of May, Anna has not stopped dancing around the house. She's been dancing so much that John Caden even knows"1st position" now! All joking aside, there's nothing sweeter to a mother's soul than to see her children unreservedly pouring their hearts out to Jesus in praise. Here's a precious reminder of perhaps what Psalm 9:1 ("I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart") should look like:

"Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk!"

"One day, Little Sal went with her mother to Blueberry Hill to pick blueberries. Little Sal brought along her small tin pail and her mother brought her large tin pail to put berries in...Little Sal picked three berries and dropped them in her little tin pail...kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk!" These are the opening lines of one of Anna's favorite books, Blueberries for Sal. And this was Anna's reaction today when she dropped our first ripened blueberries of the season that she picked into her little tin pail:

They truly made the "kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk" sound!!!

Here are some more blueberry picking pictures from our "Blueberry Hill" :)

The Blessing of Seeing Like Father, Like Son

Spilled milk, toothbrush struggles and collared shirt refusals. That's how our Father's Day started out with John Caden this morning. In the midst of these one year old battles, a mommy easily forgets that he will not stay one forever---he will indeed grow up quickly and be a young man one day. I was reminded of this very thing during our worship service at Christ Community Church this morning---specifically I was encouraged by the love that I saw evidenced between a father and a son. One of our friends, Jeff Holton, was ordained as a deacon this morning. Jeff's father being an ordained officer himself attended our church this morning and was able to participate in Jeff's ordination. Mr. Holton's face understandably was beaming with delight. What a blessing it was to see Malachi 4:6 before our very eyes: "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers." It served as a great encouragement to me to continue to "Look up and look ahead." In talking to Mr. Holton after the service, he was quick to point out that it was not of his or his wife's own doing but of the Lord's mercy and grace that Jeff's heart had been captured by the gospel. Only God of course can give our children spiritual life. As Jean Fleming says in A Mother's Heart, "God doesn't need our help, but in His sovereign plan He invites us to take part actively, to co-labor with Him as He works in their lives." The daily trifles as we experienced in trying to get our children out the door to church this morning often blur our eternal perspective. Sally Clarkson in The Mission of Motherhood reminds us to ask ourselves these questions to help us keep our focus: "What did you do with those precious eternal human beings that I entrusted into your hands? Did you sacrifice your own life to give them my life? Did you pass on my purposes? Did you do the work in your children that will result in praise to my names throughout all of eternity?" Tomorrow morning when I'm wiping the sticky fingers of a one year old, I hope that I will not just see them as fingers to be cleaned, but rather I pray that I'll be more mindful to see them as hands that need to be nurtured and equipped so that by God's grace and mercy, thirty something years from now, they, like his own dad's, will be serving Christ, his family, and his church.

Tim's Elder Ordination October 2005

Trying to Get a Smile

My neighbor has recently established her own clothing line for little girls. She has made Anna several adorable dresses and needed a picture of Anna in one that she had monogrammed. After 69 shots, with the help of a little flower, I finally convinced Anna to smile (but even her solemn, pouty faces are sweet)!

Anna's Photography

We recently discovered that Anna's new found hobby is taking pictures. (Watch out Angie---she might be giving you some competition soon)! It's been fun to see what she captures with our digital camera. Besides photos of John Caden (which amazingly she's snapped some shots of him sitting and smiling which no one else has been able to accomplish), so far it appears that her specialty is shots of strategically aligned toys. :)

What Will She Think of Next?

At three years of age, Anna amazes us with the things that she thinks of to do and say. Tonight while putting her to bed, she asked for one last thing and I told her I would get it for her as long as she stayed in bed---to which in one breath she replied with a sweet little sincere Anna voice "If you don't see me and I don't tell you, then you won't know." (The expression on her face looked just like the one captured in this picture by SamsCreek Photography). Although admittedly cute for the moment, it was a reminder of the innate sin that looms in all of our hearts and was a great opportunity for us to remind Anna to "Waltz" in her relationship with Christ---to repent, believe, and fight in her heart with Jesus' help to do what was right. We encouraged her with truth's such as "His eyes are on the ways of men; he sees their every step" Job 34:21 and "The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good" Proverbs 15:3. When I returned, she was right where I left her...or at least I think she was, but then again, if I didn't see her, and she didn't tell me, then I will never know. :)

By the way, what she had asked me to bring to her were her scissors and paper so that she could make John Caden a "medal" like the one that she had received at her dance recital. Amazingly, I thought it did turn out looking very similar to her own medal! Such a sweet and thoughtful big sister!

A Lollipop Deserving Day

Anna had surgery at the end of April for chronic nose bleeds and a blocked tear duct. Considering that she's had no complications post-operatively, I was assuming that her post-op ENT appointment today would be super quick. However, while sitting waiting on the doctor to come, her nose began bleeding profusely! (I, of course, had just bragged to the nurse that she hadn't had a single nose bleed since her surgery). After almost 2 hours of pinching her nose at the ENT's office they sent us to Children's Urgent Care. She ended up having to have labs drawn to check her blood count and clotting factors and faces another potential surgery. :( She declined Children's offer of a popsicle and sticker and Mommy's offer of a milkshake---stating, "Mommy, I think I deserve a lollipop." So, needless to say, on the way home we stopped for a lollipop treat (and of course she wanted to buy one for her brother too)!

"Look Up and Look Ahead"

When you're washing bed linens from a leaky pull-up by 7am and mopping spilt apple juice off the floor by 7:30am, you know it's going to be one of those "character building days." In my moments of frustration today (in addition to calling Granna to come to the rescue :) ), I found myself crying out to God, as Paul did in 2 Corinthians 2:16, "Who is sufficient for these things?" The answer lies in 2 Corinthians 3:5: "our sufficiency is from God."

Below is a great devotional from Elisabeth Elliot's Love Has a Price Tag, reminding us not to get dragged down by the daily routine tasks of the day, because even in cleaning yogurt off of little faces and answering "Why" questions for the umpteenth billionth time, we can be spread "the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere" and be the "aroma of Christ" 2 Corinthians 2:14-15. The devotional is a bit long, but well worth the read even for those who aren't mommies. So be encouraged, and as Sally Clarkson, states in The Mission of Motherhood, "Look up and look ahead." (That is, in the here and now, look up to Christ for strength, while looking ahead to the eternal purpose to which He has called us for the future).

On Motherhood and Profanity

"OK now, which one of you clowns put that bag of M 'n' Ms in the grocery cart?"
The mother looks harried. Two boys, maybe five and seven, eye each other and
race away toward the gumball machine near the supermarket door. There is an
infant strapped to a plastic board on top of the groceries, and a two year old
occupying the built-in child seat in the cart. The mother picks up the M 'n' M
candy bag and starts toward the aisle to return it. The two year old screams and
she relents, throws the bag in with the rest of her purchases, patiently waits
her turn at the check-out, fishes five ten-dollar bills from her purse, receives
her small change, and pushing the cart with the babies in it, herds the two boys
through the rain to the station wagon in the parking lot. I go with her in my
mind's eye. Jump out in the rain. Open the garage door. Drive in. Close door.
Babies, boys, bags into the house in how many trips? Phone rings. Answer phone,
change baby, wipe muddy tracks from kitchen floor. Feed baby, put groceries
away, hide M 'n' Ms, start peeling vegetables, take clothes out of dryer, stop
fight between two older children, feed two year old, answer phone again, fold
clothes, change baby, get boys to:1) hang up coats,2) stop teasing two year
old,3) set table.Light oven, put baby to bed, stop fight, mop up two year old,
put chicken in oven, answer phone, put away clothes, finish peeling vegetables,
look peaceful and radiant--husband will be home soon.

I see this implacable succession of exigencies in my mind's eye. They come with being a mother. I also see the dreams she dreams sometimes--write a novel, agents call, reviews come in. TV interviews, autograph parties, promotional traveling, a movie contract--preposterous dreams. Try something a little more realistic. Cool modern office, beautiful clothes, make-up and hairdo that stay done all day. A secretarial job perhaps, nothing spectacular, but it's work that actually produces something that doesn't have to be done over at once. It's work that ends at five o'clock. It means something. I know how it is. I have a mother. I am a mother. I've produced a mother (my daughter, Valerie, has a two year old and expects another child soon). I watched my own mother cope valiantly and efficiently with a brood of six. ("If one child takes all your time," she used to say, "six can't take any more.") We were--we still are--her life. I understand that. Of all the gifts of my life surely those of being somebody's
wife and somebody's mother are among the greatest.

But I watch my daughter and other mothers of her generation and I see they have some strikes against them that we didn't have. They have been told insistently and quite persuasively that motherhood is a drag, that tradition is nonsense, that what people have always regarded as "women's work" is meaningless. I hear this sort of claptrap, and young mothers often come to me troubled because they can't answer the arguments logically or theologically. They feel, deep in their bones, that there is something terribly twisted about the whole thing but they can't put their finger on what it is. I think I know what it is. Profanity. Not swearing. I'm not talking about breaking the Third Commandment. I'm talking about treating as meaningless that which is freighted with meaning. Treating as common that which is hallowed. Regarding as a mere triviality what is really a divine design. Profanity is failure to see the inner mystery. When when you start seeing the world as opaque, that is, as an end in itself instead of as transparent, when you ignore the Other World where this one ultimately finds its meaning, of course housekeeping (and any other kind of work if you do it long enough) becomes tedious and empty. But what have buying groceries, changing diapers and peeling vegetables got to do with creativity? Aren't those the very things that keep us from it? Isn't it that kind of drudgery that keeps us in bondage? It's insipid and confining, it's what one conspicuous feminist called "a life of idiotic ritual, full of forebodings and failure." To her I would answer ritual, yes. Idiotic, no, not to the Christian--for although we do the same things anybody else does, and we do them over and over in the same way, the ordinary transactions of everyday life are the very means of transfiguration. It is the common stuff of this world which, because of the Word's having been "made flesh," is shot through with meaning, with charity, with the glory of God.

But this is what we so easily forget. Men as well as women have listened
to those quasi-rational claims, have failed to see the fatal fallacy, and have
capitulated. We have meekly agreed that the kitchen sink is an obstacle instead of an altar. This is what I mean by profanity. We have forgotten the mystery, the dimension of glory. It was Mary herself who showed it to us so plainly. By the offering up of her physical body to become the God-bearer, she transfigured for all mothers, for all time, the meaning of motherhood. She cradled, fed and bathed her baby--who was very God of very God--so that when we cradle, feed and bathe ours we may see beyond that simple task to the God who in love and humility "dwelt among us and we beheld his glory." Those who focus only on
the drabness of the supermarket, or on the onions or the diapers themselves,
haven't an inkling of the mystery that is at stake here, the mystery revealed in
the birth of that Baby and consummated on the Cross: my life for yours.
The routines of housework and of mothering may be seen as a kind of death, and it is appropriate that they should be, for they offer the chance, day after day, to lay down one's life for others. Then they are no longer routines. By being done with love and offered up to God with praise, they are thereby hallowed as the vessels of the tabernacle were hallowed--not because they were different from other vessels in quality or function, but because they were offered to God. A mother's part in sustaining the life of her children and making it pleasant and comfortable is no triviality. It calls for self-sacrifice and humility, but it is the route, as was the humiliation of Jesus, to glory.

To modern mothers I would say "Let Christ himself be your example as to what your attitude should be. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God's equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as a mortal man. And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal. That is why God has now lifted him so high. . ." (Phil. 2:5-11 Phillips). It is a spiritual principle as far removed from what the world tells us as heaven is removed from hell: If you are willing to lose your life, you'll find it. It is the principle expressed by John Keble in 1822:

If on our daily course our mind

Be set to hallow all we find,

New treasures still, of countless price,

God will provide for sacrifice.

10 Years!

As a child, I remember my 4th grade Sunday School teacher encouraging us to start praying for our future spouse. My simple prayer then was that God would provide me with a godly spouse to marry one day and that He would save us for each other until His perfect timing would allow us to meet. God faithfully answered my prayer during my Freshman year at Samford University. All throughout college, God confirmed that Tim was the man with whom He had planned for me to spend my life. Here's a picture of us "kids" the night of the rehearsal dinner. 10 years later, I can honestly say, my love and joy for this man is 10 fold! What a blessing it is to be able to rest in knowing that although I have captured his heart while here on earth, it belongs to the Lord for all of eternity. As sung at our wedding, "One purpose, one truth, one life to live. One promise, one faith, one life to give. Joined in Your body, Joined in Your blood, Eternally, united by Your love."

Here are a few pictures of special memories from the past 10 years:

(China Mission Trip / Mercy Ships Medical Trip to Belize / Visiting Cousin in Pocono, PA)

(Running 5k & 10k Races / 5th Year Anniversay in Vail, CO / Hiking in North GA)

(Becoming Pregnant / Birth of Anna July '05 / Birth of John Caden August '07)

"Where's that Baby Boy?"

"Where's that Baby Boy?" is a perpetual question around our house. He's a boy on the go---or a "Go, go, go boy" as Anna calls him. Soooo....to answer why I don't have any posts with pictures of John Caden yet, it's simply because he's too busy to stop for a picture. The last good pictures we have of him were captured by our professional photographer friends---Sam and Stephanie Napper with SamsCreek Photography. And as you can see, they had to catch him on the run.

Scripture Memory System

Here's a great Scripture Memory System by Charlotte Mason to incorporate scripture memory into your family's daily routine. Rather than a box, I made two binders. One contains the daily, odd/even, day of the week verses and the other contains the day of the month verses. (I decided the binders rather than the box idea will work best for our family with two kids so that each child can have a binder as we're reviewing our verses and also the cards don't have to be pulled out/refiled every night which equals getting lost). Our goal is to make it part of our nightly dinner table time. Anna loves it---since she already has a lot of the verses memorized from "Mommy homeschool time," she thinks she's teaching them to Daddy! Here are the verses we're working on: (They're formatted to print on 3x5 cards).

• Genesis 1:1
• Psalm 119:11
• Luke 1:37
• Joshua 1:9
• Proverbs 3:5-6
• Psalm 118:24
• Philippians 4:13
• Philippians 4:19
• Jonah 2:1
• Luke 2:11
• Matthew 5:16
• Psalm 62:6
• John 6:35
• Proverbs 3:9
• 2 Peter 3:18
• Ephesians 4:32
• 1 Corinthians 15:33
• Psalm 34:13
• Romans 5:8
• John 3:16
• Psalm 8:8
• Hebrews 13:5
• Colossians 3:23
• Proverbs 2:6
• Proverbs 17:17
• Colossians 3:13
• 2 Corinthians 9:7
• Proverbs 12:22
• Philippians 2:3
• 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
• Luke 6:31
• John 15:12
• Colossians 3:20
• 1 Corinthians 14:40
• Ephesians 4:2
• Proverbs 15:1
• Philippians 4:6
• 1 Peter 2:17
• 1 Corinthians 4:2
• Galatians 5:13
• Hebrews 12:11
• Psalm 136:1
• Romans 12:10
• Psalm 139:14
• Psalm 18:30
• Psalm 23:1
• Genesis 26:24
• Psalm 106:1
• Luke 11:28
• James 1:17
• 1 John 3:23
• Matthew 28:20
• Psalm 56:3
• 1 John 4:8
• 1 John 4:19
• 1 Timothy 1:15
• John 14:6
• Proverbs 20:11
• 1 Peter 5:7
• Matthew 19:19
• Psalm 145:9
• Romans 3:23
• Acts 16:31
• Matthew 7:12
• Isaiah 43:1
• Exodus 20:12
• John 15:5
• Hebrews 13:8
• Matthew 6:24
• Psalm 89:8
• Ephesians 6:11
• 1 Thessalonians 5:19
• Exodus 20:8-10
• Matthew 6:33

How Will Our Garden Grow???

Last year we ventured back behind the woods of our house to plant a small summer vegetable garden. The path to it was long and muddy and Mr. Scarecrow" was not proficient in warding off hungry deer and rabbit. Our "patio tomato" on our deck ended up being about our only prolific crop of the summer.

This year, thanks to the help of Poppa, we created a whole new raised vegetable garden area closer to our house. We're hoping the raised beds will make for a successful garden spot and not just an expensive balance beam area for the kids.