Comfort In God's Word

I am reminded of someone who is currently going through a great trial similar to one that I went through a while back. It took my mind back to the time when God's Word was the greatest comfort of my life, and it's very presence in my hands brought me rest. A great friend read some scripture to me during that time and she "personalized" it. I didn't realize it at the time, because I was so distressed, but when I went back and read the passage again, I saw where she had inserted me into the passage. It's from Psalm 34.

I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.
I looked to Him and was radiant, and my face will never be ashamed.
This poor woman cried, and the Lord heard me and saved me out of all my troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.
The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers me out of all my troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves me when I am crushed in spirit.

What a frightening time that was, and yet what sweet assurance from the God of the universe, that He heard me and saved me. Your Word is my delight!

Vindication

This picture is for all of you who, over the years, have ever given me grief over my fear of spiders. And believe me, there has been some grief. Anyone who has ever seen me kill a spider (a skill I only achieved since moving to the country) knows that I don't just casually commit the deed, I annihilate it. No sweeping pass at it. No knock off the wall and let it drop. I smash it with all the force I can muster. Again and again. Until it's dead. Really dead. Because for me, the only thing scarier than a spider minding his own business, is a spider with a vendetta. So I don't take that chance.

Anyway.......when my mother-in-law was here she tried to kill a couple of spiders for me, but she does not subscribe to the same "kill or be killed" creed that I have. So a couple of them got away. Sorry, Grandma Poo, but you just gotta be more aggressive! One came back. And it got me. This picture is soon after I discovered the bite. It itched for a day, then my whole leg started to ache, then I couldn't put any weight on it, then the red ringed area turned black. Finally, after several days it has turned red again and started to fade. It itches again though, which kind of freaks me out. So stop giving me grief already! I was RIGHT.

Just Checking In

We have been having a very busy time in our house for the past month or so. Not that we've really gone anywhere or done anything of great importance, but when you have a nine month-old, you are just plain busy. Jack is a very active little boy. He doesn't take good naps, which is still a tragedy to this worn out mom, but he sleeps great at night, so I really can't complain. He is sooooooo busy! He crawls everywhere, pulls up to his knees on the couch, the end tables, and the bathtub (which makes mommy nervous). His word of choice is still "Da da", and so far he has still never said "Ma ma" even though he knows that we want him to say it. When he plays in the floor he plays very seriously, and his love for electronics is growing by leaps and bounds.

He only drinks two "ba ba's" (bottles) a day, and sometimes only one (in the morning). He LOVES to eat--especially anything off our plates or out of our cups. One of his favorite treats? Well, of course it is a White Mocha Frappaccino from Starbucks! If I give him a drink from my cup, he will sit with his mouth open and little hands shaking as he begs for more. He drinks from a straw with no problem.

He has two teeth and he's working on another one (bottom left). So far no top teeth yet. The teeth thing is funny--some days he's fine--other days he is just miserable. We never know from day to day how it's going to go.

He doesn't like the nursery. At all. The last several weeks we have been paged several times by harried nursery workers who shake their heads and say, "We don't know what else to do for him". So daddy brings him out into the hallway and he and Jack listen to mommy's choir sing. Sometimes I can get him back in the nursery and sometimes I can't. This last Sunday we had a whole bunch of people coming over for lunch, so when we were paged we just went ahead and came home.

He is nine months old tomorrow! I don't know how much he weighs, but I'm guessing it's over 20 lbs. and he is LONG. He can wear 18 month pj's and 12 month shirts and pants. None of his 9 month pj's or pants fit him. He can still wear some 9 month shirts, but it's tight. He's gonna be a big boy. He's kind of like a puppy--if he grows into his paws he's gonna be big! But he's not chubby at all. He's just very long.

He's very sweet and he loves us very much and we, of course, are goofy about him. We love him so much and I am so thankful that I can stay home and spend this time with him. Now the next question is--do we want another one?

Summer Vacation Clips

Here is a short video that has some short clips of the kids summer visit. We really enjoyed having our whole family all together under one roof! I miss you Anne & Bryan!

Our Lil Peanut

Just a few video clips to show you what a fun baby our little peanut can be. We are truly blessed to be his parents.

Date Night!

For a few months now Betty and I have been attempting to purposely spend an evening together. We realized that with our busy schedules we just had to put a date on the calendar - then the only challenge would be actually keeping that date! Last weekend we were discussing the upcoming week and I actually thought to plan it myself! I called grandma-poo and asked her when she could watch Jack Jack she threw out a string of possibilities that would work with her schedule (yes she is back at work now!), we decided on Friday night because I get off earlier on Friday. Then grandma said that Jack could spend the night!!! I ran the idea past Betty and she jumped with glee - not that she doesn't love her baby you see, but we really haven't been alone since our honeymoon, and that was just a three day weekend!! We finalized the plans and dreamed of all the fun things we would be able to do without having to go and wake a sleepy baby and then transport him back home (usually crying halfway home till he would fall asleep again).

Friday came quickly enough and inevitably I got out of work later than expected. When I got home I found that betty had packed every single toy that our boy has into bags along with enough food to sustain a navy seal for a month. Before we left I set down at her desk to check my email and I noticed that she had a word document open on her laptop. I clicked on it and it was a FULL page of instructions on the care, loving, changing, playing, and feeding of our baby boy! The funny thing about this is that she is the one who jokes about me having "engineer brain" and planning every project down to 5 minutes. I got a kick out of her list!

We went to grandma's house and I took care of a few things for her while Betty fed jack one last time. We left and went out to eat at Olive Garden where we had yummy food and a waitress who blatantly lied to Betty (whole other story) Then in typical Jeff fashion we proceeded to go to best buy to spend the reward zone certificates and gift certificates that have been burning a hole in my pocket. Believe it or not, we actually couldn't find anything that we had to have! We went to Barnes & Noble and got some yummy coffee and a book on Excel VBA. We talked about going to a movie but we weren't interested in anything that was playing at the time.

We ended up getting home early... as we pulled into our driveway it really hit us... our little boy is going to be away from both of us at the same time overnight!!! We allmost turned the car around right there and headed back to get him! We decided to leave him with grandma and try to enjoy the evening even though we both wanted to see him so much.

We ended up having a pretty normal night, we watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica (our new favorite thing to do together) and went to bed. While I was last out of the bathroom and as I was headed to our bedroom Betty emerged from Jack's room, I smiled as I realized that she really did miss her little baby boy. We both went in his room and stood by his crib, then we went to bed and talked about him. Betty even slept with the baby monitor on.

We love you Jack. You are such a sweet baby and we love you with ALL our hearts.

Daddy.

A Happy Solution

Jack is fascinated by anything electronic (hmmm..... I wonder where he got that). In particular, he is obsessed by the computer. For Jack, everything is about the computer. If mommy is taking him down the stairs, he knows that the computer will be within sight. If he is riding around in his car, he inevitably ends up in front of the computer. If we sit with him in the big tan chair, he must stand up and look over our shoulders to see the.....you guessed it....computer! Basically, for Jack, all roads lead to the computer. It makes it very difficult to play with anything else or get anything done with him begging to be at the computer. He has even taken to crawling through the end table in order to reach the computer desk. So, today, I finally came up with the solution. You can see by the pictures that he is thrilled. He spent 45 minutes in this chair this afternoon. I got two loads of laundry done in that amount of time! The only reason why he left it is because he was getting bleary-eyed from looking at the screen and needed to take a nap. So he's napping now, but I expect he'll be back. Here are some other fun photos from the last few days.

What Do I Think?

Recently, I have been asked by several people what I think about what is happening at my alma mater. At first I really didn't understand what I was being asked. I knew that the president had stepped down for "personal" reasons, and while I was somewhat puzzled as to what those reasons were, I realized that it didn't really involve me personally and so I put it out of my mind. Yesterday and today I have come to realize what a huge thing is happening there and all around the nation regarding this incident. My first instinct was to dig for more information. I realized that I was not in possession of all the facts and could not make a real decision. I believe that I was given some very good information from Godly friends whose only goal is to serve Christ and see good come of this situation. I also feel that I received some very shocking information from the internet. After several hours of digging and sorting through this information and becoming more and more distressed over what I have been reading, I have come to this conclusion:

• God's Word is the only source of Truth in this world.
• God is not ignorant of this situation and was not surprised by it.
• My prayer and hope is that all parties involved would seek to give God glory. (Glory is defined as "giving the right opinion of God")
• The bottom line: I am not a part of this problem, nor do I believe that God would have me be a part of the solution. Therefore, with the exception of praying that glory is given to God through this situation, I'm out of it. Period. There are more important things (and that does not mean that it isn't important to those who are genuinely involved in the problem and the solution) that God wants me to accomplish today. Like laundry. Ugggh.

So, there you have it folks, my official thoughts on the matter.