Happy Birthday Lucy!

Let the Festivities Begin!

Sorry that this is sideways . . . not sure why it is.

A boy and his chainsaw . . .

Merry Christmas!

I feel like I'm living in a snowglobe.

Home Repairs

We did some work on the inside of our house. We knocked down a wall to make a den or family room (sorry I have no before pics). Joel did it on his own, even the woodwork. We love it. Note: The laundry on the rocking chair is waiting for someone to come fold it.

There use to be a wall between the blue paint and green paint. Putting the wood where it is allows us to keep the two different colors (which I like). It also kept us from painting the ceiling which neither one of us wanted to do.

Today, we have been working in the upstairs bathroom. I took down the floral border and am now cleaning the mold off the ceiling . . . ugh! Obadiah has been working hard at my feet by screwing, scraping, and hammering (with a small plastic hammer) everything and anything.

We sent it out today . . .

Turkeys!

These neighbors were out bright and early this morning. We often see them this time of year but not this close to the house. They were fun to watch.

Add to the Careful-What-You-Pray-For File

This morning I received a message that meant the end of a long-cherished hope (though not of all hope). And I'm afraid that this personal setback threw me into a bit of a funk.
The first thing I had to do was to deal with the demon of self-pity. I remembered that one of the questions from Wesley's list of questions for self-examination was "Am I self-conscious, self-pitying or self-justifying?" I decided that I would not require that anyone coddle me.
The second thing was that I decided to pray that God would use this as a sanctifying event in my life. That's a prayer he usually seems pleased to answer.
Then tonight while I was mopping the art room at the school I began to sing a song and it was one of those moments where God was so real to me that I was able to overlook the fact that he was being hard on me. He drew my attention to the words that I was singing and showed them to me in a new light. The song I found myself singing is a hymn I wrote in response to "O For a Thousand Tongues To Sing," which is a favorite hymn, but its sentiments are more often something I aspire to than something I feel.
This was my response:

How dare I ask for extra tongues,
When my one tongue yet fails,
When all the breath that fills my lungs
Just silently exhales.

I know my Savior bought for me
The free but costly grace:
How ugly then that I should be
So stingy with my praise.

Lord break my heart to mend my voice
And stir with what must sting;
Lord make me cry til I rejoice
And shake me til I sing.

For when the instrument is dull
The Artist must be sharp.
Lord strike me notes til I'm tuneful
And feel my tongue Your harp.

I sing that song pretty frequently while I'm mopping floors at the school. It's a prayer. I think God answered it. I had my heart set on extra tongues though I'm not using the one I have as well as I might. So God broke "my heart to mend my voice."
Oddly, my heart's been a lot easier since that moment that I shared with the Lord in the art room.

Best of all, I can report that I love Jesus more now than I did when I woke up this morning. I love him more than I love my own ambitions, even.

NCWC Christmas Pageant

The ram with curly horns

There are more pictures with videos on Strangely Informed. There is a link on the side of this blog underneath NCWC.

Thank you, Lord

"If my children wake up on Christmas morning and have someone to thank for putting candy in their stocking, have I no one to thank for putting two feet in mine?" - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Our Christmas Tree!

Snow Day!

I couldn't take pictures from the back of the house because all those doors are frozen shut. It is heavy wet snow that is slowly freezing as the temperture drops . . . yuck! Joel shoveled himself out this morning and is now shoveling out the school. All the schools are closed today so I gave my children the day off as well. At least it is pretty to look at and if the roads get better the plan is to get our tree today.

Buyers Remorse

Chicago native and ardent Obama supporter, Jerry Posnewski, reports today that he is so upset about the Blagoyevich scandal that he wishes he could take back at least four of the six votes he remembers casting for the governor.

Happy Birthday Uncle Job!

I was going to just post one of these but they are all very funny. My kids love their Uncle Job but they had other things that they wanted to do at that time. Elisabeth wasn't willing to put down her book for this. We love you, Job, despite the lack of enthusiasm in these videos. Happy Birthday!

Here's a thought

It occurred to me this morning that I think, unless I'm missing something, that my brother Joshua at Camp Maranatha, is the only person in my entire family that someone might refer to as his or her "boss." And I'm not even sure about that.
This also goes, as far as I know, for everyone on Christine's side of the family, including the Browns.
I'm not sure what, if anything, this indicates about the heritage my children are getting. Hard workers with no career ambition? Diligent people with a knack for subservience?

A Day Without Snow

Yesterday's thaw was remarkable and remarkably complete. There was hardly a remnant of the snow even in the places where it lasts the longest.
And I woke up this morning to find a nice dusting over everything.
After 35 years of experiencing the weather it still has the potential to surprise me. I don't enjoy all the surprises but I do like knowing that it is bigger than I am.

Happy 10th Birthday, Elisabeth!

A special holiday memory

was not what I had in mind yesterday when I locked everyone out of the bathroom at the store where the girls were up to some holiday activity. Leaving the bathroom (and yes, I washed my hands) I closed the door behind me and realized as the door clicked into place that I had not unlocked the door first. The young lady behind the register noticed my anxiety and came over to assist. I had to explain to a mother with an anxious little boy, that I had clumsily made the bathroom completely unavailable while the young lady went in search of a paper clip. She returned with a paper clip, a knife and a couple of spatulas. I wanted to tell her "we're trying to open the thing, not bake it!" But I was nice and grateful.
But the frustrating thing was that she was very determined to be the one to open it. She couldn't get the paper clip to work. She finally let me try and I was not successful, either. Then she resorted to the knife, which was what she'd been anxious to do all along. I grew increasingly uneasy about the matter. She seemed intent on using the knife to carve the door out of its opening. I tried to talk her out of her aggressive techniques and she replied, with well-intentioned earnestness, that if the door had to be broken open she would prefer that she be the one to do it.
At this point it was all just too emasculating and embarrassing. We popped the pins out of the hinges but that didn't do it either. I finally got the pin to work and turned around to listen for the applause. There was no applause. My family was hiding so well that you wouldn't have been able to spot them at all if it hadn't been for their eyes rolling so much.
But the thing that bothered me the most wasn't my clumsiness or ineptitude, but the philosophical approach of the employee, even though it was very kind of her.
I would have preferred she let me sweat it out. I would have liked for her to tell me "You have five minutes to fix it or I'm calling the locksmith, whose bill you're going to pay." Well, maybe not really. But the point is that she decided awfully quickly that the only way to remedy the situation would be break the door and that she would spare me the consequences of my stupidity by breaking it for me.
Which shows that she is ready to go to Washington and take a position in government.
I want to live in a place where I am allowed to take risks and enjoy the rewards when it works out and suffer the consequences when it doesn't.
I don't want anyone to be in a hurry to break the door down for me.

I love moments like these . . .

Elisabeth's 10th Birthday Party

We had a family celebration today after church. Grandma & Grandpa Tate were here but left after the gifts beacuse of the snow . . . its snowing here to beat the band!

The birthday girl requested a chocolate & vanilla ice cream cake.

It was a rowdy crowd.

The cake was really hard to cut!

Our 10 year old! I can't believe she's ten!

We had lots of fun with the blue frosting . . . check out her teeth.

more blue frosting

Can you find the ice cream in her hair?

He ate his entire piece of cake and licked his plate too! Can you see the blue frosting?

The large white spot on his sweater is ice cream.