Learning Something New Every Day

Christmas in July

Going for a Stroll

It's Thomas!

An Evening with Uncle Jeff and Cousin Hayden

Eric's brother Jeff and his youngest son Hayden came through town on their way to a football competition.  It was great to see them!  We're all wishing Hayden the best in his snapping career.

Pizza Warrior

Eric loves pizza.  Shortly after we got married, Eric broke my wimpy normal pizza cutter and bought a manly Kitchenaid pizza cutter.  I don't remember how much he spent on it, but I remember thinking it was an outrageous amount at the time.  Ten years later, he still regularly comments about how well it cuts.  Today he said, "You know the nice thing about this pizza cutter?  When you pull it out of its sheath, it rings."

Ballerina

Super William

It's so fun to watch William's language blossom.  He had a number of sentences now that he uses fill-in-the-blank style. 

Yesterday the kids watched a Bob the Builder video where one of the machines wanted to be a super hero.  Last night as we were getting ready to walk the dog, William kept saying, "William's turn to super.  William's turn to super." 

I didn't understand what he meant till raced out of the gate yelling, "Super!  Super!"  When I finally caught up to him, I asked, "Are you Super William?"  To which he responded by racing ahead again saying, "Super William!  Super William!"

The Ministry of Authority

In chapter four of Life Together Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about ministry.  First he describes the ministry of holding one's tongue.  Then he talks about meekness, listening, helpfulness, bearing, and proclaiming.  Finally he explains that authority is Christ's kingdom is based on service (Mk. 10:43). 

 "Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community; indeed it poisons the Christian community.  The desire we so often hear expressed today for 'episcopal figures,' 'priestly men,' 'authoritative personalities' springs frequently enough from spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishment of visible human authority, because the genuine authority of service appears to be so unimpressive.  There is nothing that so sharply contradicts such a desire as the New Testament itself in its description of a bishop (1 Tim. 3)....

"...Genuine authority realizes that it can exist only in the service of Him who alone has authority... The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren.  The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.

"The question of trust, which is so related to that of authority, is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents which he possesses.  Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word." [emphasis mine]

Circus

Saturday evening I took the kids to a circus (Eric was at a church event).  They had animal rides and other activities beforehand, and I'm so mad at myself for not getting a picture of William and Lily on the elephant.

It was not the most amazing show in the world, but definitely enough to mesmerize my crew.   When they put a dog in a cage, covered it, and then uncovered it to reveal a girl, Lily was convinced the dog became a girl.  "They have good magic, huh?" she said.  When the acrobats were twirling upside down on ropes high in the air, Lily said, "I don't think I'd want to do that."  (I tried taking pictures of the performance, but it was too dark in the tent and none of them turned out.)

William was also very engaged.  At first he seemed scared for the performers, especially the clowns who were always falling down and getting "hurt."  But then as everyone laughed and cheered, he seemed to catch on to the fact that it was pretend and suppose to be funny.  The best part of the show was when a clown kept "falling" off a high stand onto a trampoline, jumping back up to the stand in a funny pose, and then "falling" again and again. 

Abby, who's been miserable for days (and we now think has hand-foot-and-mouth disease) was completely enraptured, clapping and laughing along through the whole thing.  And so, to my amazement, we made it through the whole two hour program and didn't leave till "the very end" just like Lily wanted.

Toddler Life

Abby is 16 months now. She can now climb up and down stairs and onto chairs, and generally get into everything. She loves doing whatever the big kids are doing- riding bikes or going down the slide or going potty. She even likes helping carry in the groceries. 

She seems to have more opinions than my other two had at this age, as least as I remember it. She still loves Bingley and loves to hold the leash when we go for walks. She is pretty sweet and smiley most the time. 

The only complaint I have is she hardly naps- about 45 minutes a day. Not sure how that's going to work next year as I was counting on doing homeschooling during her naps...  And the lack of naps doesn't mean she sleeps more at night, usually 9-10 hours and often with interruptions.  Still, there could be worse things.

(For those of you who know of Lily's love for her purple blankie, you may notice she doesn't have it any more.  She ate it to bits.  Now she's working on her white blankie.  I figure, it's a bad habit that will take care of itself...)

Fort/Store

I thought William was building a fort in the swingset.  Lily informed me it was a store.  "We're closed now, but the grand opening is tomorrow."

Cooling Off

Obedience: the Way to Peace

In 1934 the 28 year old German pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave a talk at a world ecumenical conference in Denmark.  The talk was primarily about hearing God's Word and obeying it.  In the process he talked about peace.  In an age of appeasement, his words stood out in strong contrast:

"There is no way to peace along the way of safety.  For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe.  Peace is the opposite of security.  To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself.  Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes.  Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God.  They are won when the way leads to the cross."

qu. in Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas p. 241

Fourth of July Parade

Our town has a little parade for the Fourth.  It's pretty much firetrucks, veterans, and few businesses.  The bulk of the parade is made up of children.  Any child can decorate their bike and sign up to be in the parade.  This was the first year we did it.  Daddy walked with the kids and Grandma & Grandpa B watched and waved with Abby and me.

I didn't have any info or know anyone who did it before, so I didn't know if we were suppose to be patriotic or not.  I decided to let the kids do their own theme, since that'd be more fun for them.  It turned out everyone else was patriotic, but William still won third prize.

Then there were games, free food, and a bounce house at the park.  It was super hot, so we didn't stay long.  But we got to see the hoola hoop contest, which I found amazing.  I think Lily had hoped to participate in that, but when she saw how good the kids were, she enjoyed just watching.