Tuesday February 10, 2009

So these…
 
…are surprise [drop.dead.gorgeous] red roses from my adorably romantic husband.
Why?, you ask.
Because two years ago tonight he proposed to me.
Yep, and all the rest is an amazing book of God’s providence & romance.

Love you, sweetie. Here’s to waaaaaay more than two. xxx

Sunday February 8, 2009

We had SUCH a fun time at the shower yesterday for Ashley, Noah, & Hannah! Here are some pictures as concrete evidence. 🙂

The garlands hanging here say “Handsome Baby Boy” and “Precious Baby Girl” — I made them for Ashley for Christmas. And the “Noah” and “Hannah” name signs were made by Colin & Ashley for their nursery. We just borrowed them for decorations. 🙂

Everything was half pink and half blue — as much as possible! Here we had pink and blue jelly beans; then two kinds (plain or mint) of Double Stuffed (haha — pun definitely intended) Oreos, dipped in colored chocolate.

We also have onesie-shaped cookies (decorated girly & pink or boyish & blue), Twin pretzel bites (two bite-sized pretzels stuck together with pink and blue chocolate), a coconut flavored cake in which the batter was pink & blue swirled (and obviously decorated super duper cute in pink & blue by Grandmama), Twins in a Blanket (a bend on the common Pigs in a Blanket snack of bread-wrapped li’l smokies), and Twins in a Wrap (two Asian-marinated water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and brown sugar). Yummmmm! Also: coffe and punch (cherry limade punch with a fruit ring).

Yay for the happy Mommy and Daddy!!

Here’s my mom with Ashley & her cake.

Here’s the table set-up before ladies arrived. See that huge, amazing diaper cake? My mama made that! Wowza! 225 newborn sized disposable diapers, with dozens of little baby items to decorate it: socks, onesies, pacifiers, wash cloths, headbands, hats… I don’t even know what else. 🙂

And here’s another angle — judging from the pile of gifts, this was definitely taken after people arrived. 🙂

Here, I was orchestrating the Dirty Diaper game. I love watching people get queasy about looking at diapers with melted candy (we used Baby Ruth, peanut butter cups, Raisinets, Snickers, and 100 Grand) in them. Too funny. We also played a word scramble (twin themed!), and Sweet Baby Concentration which I half made up and half found online (my new favorite shower game).

L to R: Auntie Melissa and Cousin Gabriel, Grandmama Bennett, Mommy Ashley & the Twins, Grammie Schmidt, Aunt Whittney.

Still on doctors orders to lie low and keep her feet up… but she was allowed to come to the shower, hurray! So she kept her feet up even while opening presents. What a trooper. 🙂 Maybe bedrest isn’t so bad, after all. 😉

I gave her the thumbs-up for something… Hm. And Gabriel enjoyed sitting between me and our friend Mrs. Peterson. He loves to sit like a big kid.

Here’s my mister handsome!!

The musical mobile that matches her bedding sets — from Great Grandma.

Gabriel was enamored with this gift — it was from us (two Bumbo seats, one pink & one blue!) so he had been playing with it the evening before and again during the shower. He was playing it like a drum, as well as crinkling the wrapping in his hands over & over & over… 🙂

NOAH

Rest, Comfort, Peace

Genesis 5:29 – This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands.

Genesis 6:8 – Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Genesis 6:9 – Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.

Genesis 6:22 – Noah did all that God commanded him.

Genesis 9:1 – God blessed Noah, making him fruitful and multiplying him.

Genesis 9:9 – God said He established His covenant with Noah and with all his descendants.

Hebrews 11:7 – by faith Noah moved with godly fear and became an heir of righteousness.

2 Peter 2:5 – God saved only eight people, including Noah, who was a preacher of righteousness.

 

COLIN

Young creature/cub; people of victory; dove; virile (characterized by a vigorous, masculine spirit)

 

HANNAH

Gracious; favored; grace of God; favor; grace

The Lord visited Hannah – 1 Samuel 2:21

Hannah was a woman of prayer – 1 Samuel 1:13

She pours out her soul to the Lord – 1 Samuel 1:15

The Lord remembers Hannah – 1 Samuel 1:19

The Lord grants her the desires of her heart – 1 Samuel 1:20

Hannah realizes that her son belongs to the Lord – 1 Samuel 1:22

Hannah is prayerful and poetic – 1 Samuel 2:1-10

 

LADONNA

Lady of the home; lady

 

BENNETT

From the medieval name Benedict, originating from the Latin “benedictus” meaning “blessed.”

 

 

Prayer:

 

Ashley, I have a word of blessing for you today.

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Luke 1:42).

Genesis 49:25—may the Almighty God bless you from heaven above, from earth beneath, and from your womb.

 

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”—we see this throughout Scripture—2 Samuel 6:18, Psalm 118:26, Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:9, Luke 19:38, John 12:13.

 

As children of Christian parents—Colin and Ashley—these children are coming in the name of the Lord. These children are covenant children and God’s blessing is to them. And to their children. And to their children’s children. By giving birth to these little babies, Ashley is spreading forth the Gospel not only to one more generation, but to generation upon generation. Ashley, may your children rise up and call you blessed (Proverbs 31:28). And may God have mercy upon these babies, for they are His (Mark 10:14, Luke 18:16).

 

Now, let us come with humble hearts before our Lord and pray for Ashley and her babies.

 

Father God, we come to you in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ. Bless us, Lord, today as we fellowship and seek to bless the Bennett household. Send Your Spirit and hear our prayers. Be quick to answer and faithfully grant our requests in Christ’s name.

We enter Your courts with thanksgiving and praise today (Psalm 100:4), for these babies—Noah and Hannah Bennett—and their mother Ashley. We thank You for giving us this time of celebration, the means to shower them with gifts, and for safely bringing each woman to this celebration today. Bless our efforts, Lord, and provide for some of the Bennetts’ physical needs and also for joy & encouragement for Ashley today.

Give grace and strength to Ashley as she continues to hold these babies in her womb. Give her patience to lie low, give her courage to give birth, give her joy in motherhood, give her rest in weariness. Grow her faith.

 

Grow also, good God our Father, the faith of Noah and Hannah. These are Your children: do not leave them or forsake them (Deuteronomy 21:6, 8). Even as You have fearfully and wonderfully made this little girl and this little boy, knitting them together in the days You have recorded (Psalm 139:13-16), be their Lord even today and reveal Yourself to them in the womb (Psalm 22:9-10). You are God and You alone are able (2 Corinthians 9:8). From the mouths of Noah and Hannah, Lord, proclaim Your strength and power (Psalm 8:2). Teach them to honor their father and their mother (Deuteronomy 5, Ephesians 6), and to love their neighbor as themselves (Luke 10:27).

 

For Noah, Father, we beg of You to make him into a righteous man of Christlike character. Even like his biblical namesake, O God, find favor with this boy (Genesis 6:8). May he walk with You all of his days, following Your commandments (Genesis 6:9, 22). Make him a fruitful man, multiplying him, and continuing Your covenant through his faithful line of descendants (Genesis 9:1, 9). Make Noah Colin Bennett a faithful man, faithful Christian, faithful son, faithful grandson, faithful husband and father and friend: fill him with fear of his God and King, making him an heir of righteousness and proclaimer of Truth (Hebrews 11:7, 2 Peter 2:5).

 

For Hannah, Lord, we likewise beg Your mercy. Visit this little girl with Your grace and favor. Pour out Your Spirit upon her (Isaiah 44:3). Make her a woman of patience and prosperity. Bless the work of her hands and the toil of her loins. Mold Hannah into the likeness of a corner pillar in a palace (Psalm 144); strong and faithful while graceful and beautiful. Remember Hannah, O God, and grant her the desires of her heart (1 Samuel 1:19-20). Give her a poetic tongue and an ever-prayerful heart (1 Samuel 1:13, 15; 1 Samuel 2:1-10). Cause Hannah LaDonna Bennett to be a submissive daughter and wife; a diligent woman of prayer and service; a faithful woman, Christian, daughter, granddaughter, a faithful wife and mother and friend. Give her joy in being a weak vessel (1 Peter 3:7), and teach her to gain strength from Your Spirit (Ephesians 3:16).

 

In all of these things, O Lord our God, hear us and fulfill Your will through our petitions. Keep Your hand upon the Bennett family, giving extra portions of grace and patience to each member. Provide through Colin’s diligent labors, nurture through Ashley’s loving service, and bring joy beyond measure through these little babies.

 

By the power of the Holy Spirit and clothed in the blood of Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday January 31, 2009


Highlights from Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life
by Margaret Kim Peterson

 

·        Was keeping house really a waste of time, at best a hobby to be indulged in by people who like that sort of thing and at worst an unpleasant set of necessary chores? Or were there broader cultural and theological factors that made housekeeping seem like all of these things when in fact it was, as I had found it, a discipline as interesting and worthwhile as many other kinds of work? (xi)

·        Of course housework is about making a home, but a Christian home, properly understood, is never just for one’s own family. A Christian home overflows its boundaries; it is an outpost of the kingdom of God, where the hungry are fed and the naked are clothed and there is room enough for everyone. (xii)

·        Keeping house can be a very mundane activity. It is certainly repetitive, and the kinds of work that it involves are varied enough that few people enjoy all of them equally. But at the very same time, housekeeping is about practicing sacred disciplines and creating sacred space, for the sake of Christ as we encounter Him in our fellow household members and in neighbors, strangers, and guests. (xiii)

·        I measured my days by whether, at the end of them, the members of my household had been dressed and fed and bathed and put to bed. If we had been, then that was a good day. I had done what mattered most. (2)

·        …Housekeeping—cooking, cleaning, laundry, all the large and small tasks that go into keeping a household humming along—was not a trivial matter but a serious one. (2)

·        Housework is a beginning, not an end. (3)

·        Housekeeping, in other words, may be mundane, but it is not simple. (7)

·        [Housework was] suspected of not being work at all, even by the men who benefited directly from it and by the women whose lives were consumed by it. (10)

·        God does not appear to think as lowly of housework and housekeepers as members of our culture are apt to. (12)

·        The first commandment (to love God with all one’s heart and soul and strength and mind) always takes precedence over the second commandment (to love one’s neighbor as oneself). But in the paradoxical realm that is real life, it is not possible to love God without loving neighbor, and a primary and essential way of loving one’s neighbors is to feed and clothe and house them. (16)

·        Precisely because human beings are both physical and spiritual beings, even so profoundly physical a discipline as housekeeping has a spiritual dimension. (17)

·        If we are feeling the ill effects of being spread half an inch thick and going a million miles an hour, the solution is not to go ever faster and be spread ever thinner. The solution is to take a deep breath, identify what really matters, and do more of that and less of other things. So what really matters? Well, housework, among other things. It is not the only thing that matters, but it does matter. (18)

·        …Housework forms part of the basic patterning of our lives, a pattern that we might identify as a kind of “litany of everyday life.” (18)

·        Litanies tend to be both repetitive and comprehensive, and in both of these characteristics there is a certain analogy to housework. (19)

·        When we have prayed through a litany, we may not have prayed at great length about everything of concern to us, but at least we have covered the bases. Housework, too, is about a lot of different things. (19)

·        …Repetition, in itself, is not equivalent to oppressive futility. (20)

·        …Housekeeping is part of a tradition that takes seriously the basic, homely needs of people for food and clothing and shelter. These are needs that God takes seriously and that Jesus encourages Christians to take seriously. (20)

·        Christians are admonished by various contemporary theologians to avoid the comfortable complacency of supposing that this world is our true home… But home is not just an eschatological expectation, not just an existential category, not just the object of our deepest longing. Home is a practical, daily reality. (24-25)

·        [Housekeeping is] part of the day-to-day working out of God’s redemptive activity in the lives of individuals and in the world. (25)

·        …Making a beautiful, comfortable home is a Christian thing to do. But what that involves is not necessarily the same as throwing oneself headlong into the world of upscale decorating magazines. Making a home involves constructing and maintaining an environment in which people can flouring in ways in which God desires for people to flourish. (27)

·        To be beautiful, a home need not be luxurious in size or in contents. The beauty of a well-kept home may arise simply from structure and ritual and attention to detail… (29)

·        The reality is that even with modern “conveniences” like automatic washing machines and microwave ovens and vacuum cleaners, keeping house is a lot of work. (30)

·        …Young childhood is just as normal a state of life as adulthood; we just tend to forget that, in our age-segregated society. (32)

·        Precisely because housework is necessary, it is not contemptible. (35)

·        Keeping house is a big job, and we all need help, at least on occasion. (35)

·        How much more conducive to the well-being of the household it would be, both before and after children, if housework and housekeeping were treated as an intrinsic and positive part of life in the body and in community rather than as a set of boring and limiting chores imposed on you by parenthood. (36)

·        If we want our children to develop and enjoy competence in the practices that go into making a home, we will have the show them by our own example that these are things that really matter: they are worth doing, worth caring about, and worth handing on to the next generation. (37)

·        Housework is work, and as such it has characteristics typical of many other kinds of work, including God’s work. (37)

·        When God created the heavens and the earth, He started with chaos and ended with a finely differentiated and beautiful universe. Housework is all about bringing order out of chaos. (38)

·        Housework and gardening and God’s providence itself are exercises not in futility but in faithfulness—faithfulness to the work itself, to the people whose needs that work serves, and to the God whose own faithfulness invites our faithful response. (39)

·        We have all heard the saying “A man’s work is from sun to sun; a woman’s work is never done.” This is a fundamental reason why so much of “women’s work” is construed and experienced as drudgery—not simply because it is repetitive, not simply because it involves manual labor, but because it comes with not time off, ever. (41)

·        Often all it takes to give beauty to a home is that it not be overfilled with too many things of any kind and then that there be just a few objects of special beauty or meaning. (52)

·        [A house] is rather like hospitality itself—part warmly inviting and part unobtrusive and self-effacing. (52)

·        Picking up a house requires that there be places to put things—and then that we put them there. (53)

·        As Christians, we are called to respond differently to abundance. Many things in life, whether food or household objects, are truly good. They are to be treated with appreciation and respect, and sometimes this means saying no to too much. This does not necessarily mean being “less materialistic.” In a way, it means being more materialistic. It means taking material things seriously enough to be willing to get rid of them or to decline to acquire them in the first place. (54)

·        …Standards of cleanliness vary. The meaning of cleanliness varies too. (58)

·        How clean any individual or household chooses to keep a house will depend on many things… And how clean is really reasonable or desirable, given the particulars of your circumstances? (59)

·        A primary objective of keeping house is to make room—room for connecting and reconnecting with other people and with the rhythms of individual and common life: meals, rest, work, play. (61)

·        Clothing, for its part, serves as a symbol of care and protection, beginning with God’s provision of clothing for Adam and Eve in the wake of their sin… (63)

·        Redemption consists not in being restored to some primal, unashamed nakedness but in being finally fully clothes, with bodies that are truly alive and in clothing that is truly glorious. (65)

·        I have a friend who confessed to replacing her husband’s holey socks not because he cared about the holes but because she worried that his socks would reflect badly on her. (67)

·        It seems that many of us would like, if only in a secret corner of ourselves, to be like the virtuous woman in proverbs 31 of whom we read that “all her household is clothed in scarlet.” Their clothes are warm, in other words, and beautiful and substantive, and—best of all—they reflect well on the person who provided those clothes. (68)

·        Wearing, and providing others with, clothes appropriate to the season of the year is a way of living in harmony with the God-given character of our surroundings. (69)

·        Seasonality is about more than weather. Our own lives have seasons to them: childhood and adulthood, singleness and marriage, before children and after children, work and retirement. (70)

·        The way we treat both our bodies and our clothes can reflect our willingness—or unwillingness—to live in the moment, at the particular time and in the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves… God is lord of time; if He gloriously clothes the lilies of the field that bloom one day and are gone the next, will He not also clothe and care for us? (72)

·        …Heaven is all about feasting and… it is therefore an act of Christian faithfulness occasionally to put on tuxedos and formal gowns and anticipate the heavenly banquet… I do get dressed up, on some occasions more than others, and as I do so, I express the truth that my life is about more than me. (74)

·        It is this capacity of handwork to make room for joy, room for grief, room for hope and waiting and process, that makes it so valuable a practice in a world that increasingly has no room for any of these things. …We expect everything to be instantaneous and are indignant when our e-mail takes more than two seconds to arrive in its recipients’ in-boxes. But life is not instantaneous. (80)

·        Cooking, cleaning, laundry—these things are necessary and important and perhaps more lasting, at least in their effects, than we tend to give them credit for. But it is important to make things too—things to wear and things to use, things to keep and things to give, things that can remind us of our own essential physicality and of our links to past and future generations. (81)

·        Gather up the clothes from all over the house. Look at the stains; wonder if they can be gotten out. Wonder if it matters. Sort, wash, dry, fold. And then report at the end of the afternoon that this is how you spent your day. Does it have to be this way? Is laundry so different from other kinds of work that it cannot be seen and experienced as worthwhile rather than worthless? (82)

·        Christian reflection on work emphasizes the value of work that serves the bodily necessities of those around us, the ways in which work can bring people together as they learn from and care for one another, and the pleasure in a job done well as people imitate God’s own persistence in perfecting his creation. (83)

·        Laundry is a work of providential care; mending is restorative or healing; ironing is an act of perfecting. (84)

·        Laundry may no longer be as physically demanding a task as it was in past ages, but it is still time-consuming and needs to be deliberately women into the structures of our days and weeks. (90)

·        The bigger the job, the more it needs internal structure to be manageable and pleasant. (92)

·        …There is a kind of perfection that ironing serves. Linen tea towels dry the dishes just as well unironed as ironed, but they lie stacked on the shelf and hang over the oven door handle so much more nicely if they have been ironed. Permanent-press shirts may not really have to be ironed, but they look nicer if they are. (97)

·        …It is important to put things away. Putting away things that get daily or weekly use is a way to exercise a kind of providential foresight. We will, in fact, need these things. (100)

·        Our needs are not a perpetual emergency but are anticipated and provided for ahead of time as a matter of course. (100)

·        “Food is so daily.” Jesus Himself, as He taught his disciples to pray for daily bread, acknowledged as much. (103)

·        Jesus does not only feed people. He sits down and eats with them, and every time he does, we learn something about who Jesus is or who His companions are (or both). (105)

·        Serving God faithfully, these words [in Matthew 24:45] suggest, is like feeding a household; it is a daily responsibility that requires attention and diligence and that brings blessing on the one who does it faithfully. (105)

·        Few crises compare with being hungry and having nothing to eat, and few acts of care compare with being fed when one is hungry. (107)

·        Eating and not eating are related, just as sound and silence are related in the making of music. If you have only sound, then what you have is not music but cacophony. You need silence too, at least in some of the voices some of the time, if you are to have music. Good eating likewise requires that at least some of the time we not eat, and that we make a habit of eating moderately rather than to excess. (109)

·        Many Christians today continue the practice of saying grace, and many more would readily agree that thankfulness is a proper attitude with which to receive one’s daily bread. … It can be easy to find ourselves resenting the time that it takes to shop for food, to cook, to eat, to clean up. But it can be precisely as we resist our culture’s encouragement to rush through preparing and eating food and instead take the time to cook and to eat that we show our thankfulness for daily bread, even as we may also say our thanks before we partake. (111)

·        …Cooking does matter. It matters in part because of the nature of food as gift. … Cooking can be a way of actively receiving the gift of food and actively participating in handing that gift on to others. (118)

·        When we cook, we produce things to eat, of course, but we produce something else too: acts of care. (119)

·        Cooking is something that naturally overflows its boundaries, that leads to there being leftovers to share with someone, a pot of soup that can stretch to feed a guest or two, an extra loaf of bread to give to a neighbor. (119)

·        …If we make realistic plans, shop for quality ingredients, and take adequate time to prepare them, we can make real food that truly satisfies. (120)

·        Food and eating are at least as much about social relationships as they are about nutrition. (121)

·        The simple act of eating together is perhaps the most fundamental of all the ways in which food can express and foster the community that God desires should exist among people and between humans and God. … There is a sense in which [after Genesis] the rest of Scripture can be seen as an account of God’s efforts to get humans back at the table with each other and with Himself. (123)

·        Feeding a household and its neighbors and guests is a big job, in others words, one that ebbs and flows with times and days and seasons but that continues from day to day and from year to year. It is this never-ending quality to the job of feeding a household that can make it seem like such a burden. … At the same time, it is precisely this ongoing need that makes feeding a household akin to the providential work of God. (127)

·        Most meals are everyday meals, but some meals are—and should be—feasts. (128)

·        …Meals that express their joy in God’s present grace and their hope in His future and ultimate faithfulness. (128)

·        A meal is a feast not because any particular amount of money has been spent or any particular level of sumptuousness achieved, but because time and care has been taken to make this meal as event that all around the table can celebrate together, taking pleasure in the food, the company, the occasion—all of which, in their own way, are foretastes of the kingdom of God. (128)

·        …Meal planning is a skill that is honed by experience; the longer you have been at it, the more instinctive becomes your approach to it, until you are able to make many of the decisions involved without consciously thinking about it. (129)

·        Everyday food is about moderation. (130)

·        Real cooking, it seems to me, happens on a stove or in an oven, where dishes can be stirred and aromas can escape and the cooking process is accessible and invites, even requires, interaction with the cook. (133)

·        The properly Christian delight in created things… ought to characterize our relationship to food and cooking. It is glorious that there are such things as onions and even more glorious that people have figured out how to make things like French onion soup out of them. One of the ways that we can express our delight in God’s good gifts is through a wholehearted willingness to cook and eat real food made with real ingredients—like onions. (134)

·        Good tools are part of the cook’s delight. (134)

·        …Holiday cooking is for the household cook as running a race is for an athlete—an occasional, strenuously exhilarating event, in contrast to the kind of regular exercise that takes place from day to day. (136)

·        The point of cooking is to feed people, and so no meal is truly finished until it has been eaten. The food exists for the sake of the meal, and those who eat are just as important participants as those who cook. Sitting down at the table is as significant an act as setting the food on the table; eating with appreciation is as much an art as preparing food with generosity and care. (137)

·        The kitchen is not, perhaps, the first place that we might think of as being one of those joining points of earth and heaven. Dishwashing itself, though, is a kind of liminal task; it takes place at the edges of things, as we finish one meal and set the stage for another, as we wash dirty pots and pans and glasses and plates and put them away clean for their next use. (141)

·        …A kitchen is meant to be dynamic rather than static; you equip a kitchen so you can work in it, not so you can look at it or bypass it on the way to the microwave. (143)

·        How much better it would be if we were to respond to the needs of the body not with resentment or denial or suspicion but with humility and compassion and thanksgiving! (149)

·        No one needs to be the diva of domesticity or the queen (or king) of clean. What we need is to do the best we can with what we have. (150)

·        We have ideas about what we want to be doing, or think we ought to be doing, that are simply overambitious. And it is easy to be overambitious because there is always something more that you could be doing. (151)

·        The day’s own work is sufficient for it; tomorrow will bring its own opportunities. (153)

·        When small jobs are woven into the fabric of daily life—a floor swept here, a wastebasket emptied there, a bed made soon after its occupant has gotten out of it—then the work of making a home and the pleasure of living in a home are intertwined, rather than being experienced as separate from—or worse, opposed to—each other. (153)

·        …This is the stuff of which human life is made. Things do not go as planned; they always take more time than it seems they should; they have to be done twice when it seems that once should be enough. (155)

·        People need dinner even on good days, and on bad days they need it even more. (155)

·        A well-kept house… is a house in which it is safe to be hungry (there is food in the cupboard), safe to be tired (there are places to sit and places to sleep), safe to need clean socks (there are some in the drawer, and if they all happen to be in the hamper, someone will put in a load of wash soon). (155)

·        The Christian community is not a spiritual club; it is a household, God’s own household (Ephesians 2:19), whose very sacraments are physical acts evocative of home: a bath and a meal. (163)

·        Our aim in keeping house cannot therefore be to do so “perfectly,” because that is someone else’s job (namely, God’s). Our aim is much more modest: to practice “good enough” housekeeping. None of us needs a perfectly kept home. Indeed, we are likely to find homes that seem to be perfectly kept rather off-putting. But we all need homes in which the housekeeping is good enough, in which basic needs are provided for rather than neglected and in which welcome and care are routinely and cheerfully extended to both members and guests of the household. (164)

Wednesday January 21, 2009

L: two puppies (haha) looking out our front window.
R: the blue-eyed puppy dog looking very mischievous.

L: he loves to stand by the couch!
R: at the airport, saying goodbye to Grandmama, as we left for a trip to the east coast.

L: the 3 of us — ready to fly away!
R: taking a bath in Grandma Deb’s new sink. 🙂

L: playing on Aunt Beth’s lap with Uncle Chris’s keys 🙂
R: cuddling with Grandma Deb.

L: dinner at my sister-in-laws house.
R: Gabriel loved watching Uncle Chris’s fish tank!

L: I like this sepia picture of my boy gnawing on his toy.
R: Grandma Deb was changing him and playing tickle-games. 🙂

L: Gabriel watched Baby Mozart on Aunt Beth’s tv. Oooooooh.
R: Grandma, Grandpa, and Great Uncle Drew with Gabriel David & his trusty spoon.

L: paternal family photo
R: making Southern Snow Cream 😉

L: we went on a walk today… see Gabriel & me in front of the house? and did I mention that snow follows us everywhere — even to eastern North Carolina!! School’s been canceled the last 2 days due to these 2 inches of snow — that should tell you just how unusual this is. 🙂
R: self-portrait on our walk in “all” the snow. 🙂

Friday January 9, 2009

hey, Laura, are you still out there?? 🙂

EDIT: yes you. 🙂 just wondering if you were okay and how all is. maybe this is a sign that you should UPDATE YOUR BLOG. hehe.

EDIT #2: okay then. how about a photo post? belly shot, anyone?? 🙂
glad to know you are well. just want you to know that you are thought of & missed in blog-land. 🙂

FINAL EDIT: thank you, thank you, thank you. Loved the post and especially the pictures! SO CUTE. and since I can’t comment on your wordpress account, take this as my comment there: “adorable and just in time! I  had been going through withdrawal — don’t let it happen again, haha.” 😉

Friday January 9, 2009

Gabriel — I love this boy. He loves to chomp on his fingers like that, maybe it makes teething less owie. And although he is still wearing 3-6M size clothing, they’ve gotten a bit short. 🙂 You can see his ankles! Hehe. So maybe we will finally graduate to 6-9M size. 🙂

I like to tickle his neck and make him chuckle. These baby laughs are precious!

Sledding at my parents’ house. We let all the guys make the sled run, as the snow was almost waist deep and it’s hard to trudge through. They ended up making a path using snowshoes. 🙂

Family picture — my brother/his wife/their twins in the womb — us — my parents — my grandparents.

The guys all working to remove snow from the roof — they worked for about eighteen hours over the weekend on our house and my brother’s house. Total, they moved approximately 40 tons (yes, I typed that correctly) of snow off the roofs! Yikes. Thankfully they got it off before our homes caved in. Many others around us were not so fortunate.

Friday January 2, 2009

So that’s the sound Gabriel now makes as he’s munching on his favorite toy: ye ol’ spoon.

HE JUST GOT HIS FIRST TOOTH!!!!!!!!

I’m.In.Shock.
Sigh.
Bye bye baby, hello big boy.

Friday December 26, 2008

Gabriel’s first Christmas was a blast. For all of us. I didn’t think he would get a kick out of opening gifts at just seven months old, but he did. Too cute! He loved bags, tissue paper, ribbons… and yes, he even liked some of his gifts. 😉 I still think his favorite “toys” are spoons. He loves spoons. Go figure.
We have more snow forecasted for the weekend. So maybe our snow will soon be up to my shoulders… wouldn’t that be interesting. 🙂 We think we may invest in a snowblower next year. hehe.
My parents also just celebrated their 33rd anniversary this week, so the four of us kids and the grandbabies took dinner there for a celebration that day. It was fun.
Plus, my grandparents are in town, so we’ve had good times with them as well.
I will upload some pictures to show y’all what we’ve been up to. I’m especially pleased, since I was given a fantastic new camera yesterday! Now my pictures will hopefully be consistently more in focus. 🙂
We’ve sure enjoyed the Advent season of prayer, song, chocolate, and lots of expectation. Now we are enjoying celebrating Christmas! And we are also looking forward to Epiphany. Although we are not really doing anything for the 12 days of Christmas until then, it’s fun to see what some of our friends are doing. Gives us ideas for the future. Tonight is our church dinner and Christmas celebration. Steven and I were so involved in the Christmas Eve service (did I mention that we managed to get my harp to and from church that night without incident, even with ALL the snow??), that tonight we are mostly just going to enjoy the food and fun and fellowship. The only thing I’m “involved with” is singing a duet — the Benjamin Britten version of “This Little Babe.” That’ll be super fun. We’ll see if the cold I have allows me to sing as high as I’m supposed to… wish me luck. 😉

Enjoy the pictures. Hopefully you blogging friends will post your own pics soon too. Can’t wait to see ’em!
 

Monday December 22, 2008

Just a note.

Yes, it’s still snowing.
No, we still haven’t gotten mail in a week.
Yes, our road finally got plowed out about two hours ago!!
AND one of our neighbors even surprised us by snow-blowing our driveway!!
Yes, we were able to have our Christmas party.
No, we are decidedly not dampened by the weather.
WE ARE SO EXCITED ABOUT OUR INCREDIBLY WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!!!
Woo hoo, wading through butt-deep snow is FUNFUNFUN!!!

🙂
the end.

Thursday December 18, 2008


So…. our entire county is practically snowed in. Woo hoo! It’s awesome. Unprecedented and gorgeous. 🙂 Thankfully Steven can work from home, so he was blessed not to have to take the last 2 1/2 days of the workweek unpaid. Praise the Lord! And it gave me lots of time to finish up all my Christmas baking! Today I just did a double batch of cookies plus four kinds of breads (whole wheat, pretzel white, banana, & gingerbread), after yesterday doing two kinds of cookies and another day doing three kinds of cookies. Yay for being done a week before Christmas!! I also got all of our gifts wrapped and under the tree. So pretty!
And today we went on a Family Outing in the knee-deep snow: we delivered plates of Christmas cookies to our neighbors. We knew they’d be home,  since no one is really leaving their homes at all. 🙂 We have 27 inches right now, with more in the forecast. So pretty!! I loves it muchly. 🙂 And it’s been super fun trying to introduce Gabriel to his first big snow.