2 years ago today, my friend Annalee (the Cochran Crew from our sidebar) gave birth to her 2nd son, Josiah. 7 weeks and 6 days later, Josiah left this earth to be with his eternal father. Annalee has posted a testimony she gave about the difficult time she and her husband Brian went through and are still going through and the grace God is faithfully showing them. I would encourage each of you to read her post and be amazed and humbled by this woman’s faith and our almighty God whose wisdom is beyond all understanding. Glory be to God!
May Family Update May 31, 2007
We are going to try to give a family update once a month to all of you who rarely see us, an idea I stole from my good friend Kacie. Hopefully this will help us feel connected and will give you some pictures to help keep up with the kids and us.
Bill is still working hard at Humana. God has blessed him greatly there, giving him many opportunities to learn new skills and prayerfully to advance within the year. We can truly look back at our most difficult season so far and praise God for the way He worked and was glorified. For those of you who don’t know, within 2 weeks last November Bill resigned from his church position, we moved back into Louisville to be closer to UPS, Bill lost his job at UPS, and Ariana was born. Though those trials are nothing compared to the struggles of most of the world, it was a hard time for us. Now, Bill has one full-time job that allows him to pick his hours and pays much better. We have grown so much through this time and have learned more about God’s faithfulness.
Not much has changed with me. I’m still home with the kids and laughing all the time watching them interact. I enjoy the extra time I have with Bill now so much and am still having to adjust to having a hubby who isn’t always ready to fall over from exhaustion. Bill and I are both attempting to lose weight by running and changing our eating habits, so we’ll try to keep you updated on our progress. Any encouragement you can give would be great!
Liam just turned 2 this month. He is now talking quite a bit and prefers jumping as his method of transportation. He’s obsessed with airplanes and his adult size Coca Cola hat. For all you musicians, you will be happy to know he sings with amazing accuracy; however, he’ll probably run from being a musician since that’s what both Mommy and Daddy are (though we’re not doing much with it anymore).
Ariana, 6 months old now, is a true joy. She is the happiest baby, and she loves her big brother. She’s sitting now and is close to crawling. She’s already doing that rocking thing on her knees. I’m amazed at how quickly babies grow and change. Makes me want another one…hmm.
We have an amazing chuch called Sojourn Community Church. It is solid in its truth and very gospel-centered. Because the church is so large they have something called Community Groups that meet once a week and have anywhere from 5-25 people in each. We have become part of one that has approximately 10-15 others, and they already feel like family. We can be open with them, and they help to encourage us and hold us accountable. The church is very artsy, so we’re always joking about how we don’t belong, but the truth is, it’s exactly where we do belong. God has answered so many prayers by bringing us here, and we praise him for it.
Here are some recent pics:
Oompa-Loompa May 30, 2007
Bill and I rented “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (BTW, did you know you can get old movies free every Wednesday at the Movie Gallery here on Brownsboro Rd? This may be the deal at other Movie Gallery’s also.). We thought it was great, but the best part was in the special features. You can actually learn two Oompa-Loompa dances. It rocked, and I would highly recommend spending some time with your honey to learn how to dance the night away with the Oompa-Loompas.
What Do You Get… May 29, 2007
…when you cross a toddler, markers (washable, thank goodness), and a mommy who isn’t in the room and doesn’t know the toddler can get to the markers?
Schedules–Part 6 May 25, 2007
It’s time for the final post on scheduling. I will try to wrap up with a few more explanations of things that may not be clear. If you look at my schedule, you’ll see that I have very few times for to-do’s throughout the day. As I have previously stated, this is mainly because my children are more important than a perfectly cleaned, organized home, so there are few times I get to work on these things. I have heard it said that the most important things to have ready for your family are food and clothes; therefore laundry, menu planning, and shopping are always my first priorities each week. Once those are done, I begin to work down the list of other priorities, doing as much as I can. Usually on the weekend, Bill and I will work together to finish up what was absolutely necessary.
After a little outing I nurse Ariana, and Liam has quiet time. This is comprised of him sitting on the couch listening to a Bible story C.D. and looking at the pictures in one of his Bibles. He then has blanket time for 15 minutes (I set a timer so he knows when he can get up) where he gets to sit on his play mat and play with a toy he usually doesn’t get to play with. I have heard of many people using this for their younger children while they are homeschooling. I then put a gate up to keep him in his room where he plays while I prepare lunch. Ariana plays in her crib during this time.
After lunch, we all take a nap. Yep, me too! Because of my early morning start, I need this power nap to make it through the rest of the day. It’s amazing what 15-30 minutes can do. When the kids get up, Liam and Ariana both eat and then Liam watches a video for 15 minutes. We are very careful about the videos he gets to watch. For instance, he never gets to watch something where the kids are always outsmarting the parents. It’s a poor view of the Biblical family and can teach children to disrespect their parents and elders.
When Bill gets home, we have 15 minutes of couch time. We sit and talk while Liam plays (usually with Ariana), and Liam is learning he is not to interrupt. It’s important for our children to know Mommy and Daddy’s relationship comes first, so we feel this is a good way for us to catch up after a long day.
We have family worship (and family clean up) during the dinner hour. We actually are revamping this a bit. We are now teaching Liam songs that teach him about God (our favorites are songs from the Awesome God C.D. by Sovereign Grace), and Bill is teaching him Biblical truths. Then we all play as a family and Bill reads to the kids (one of the most anticipated times of the day–it really is entertaining).
After the kids are in bed, Bill and I read together (currently When I Don’t Desire God by John Piper) and pray. Then it’s beddie-bye for us. Yeah!
Hopefully, this has been of some use to some of you. It was definitely helpful for me to evaluate once again why I do what I do throughout the day. Again, I am always changing things to meet our needs at the time, and I am always open to suggestion from those much wiser than me.
P.S. Bill is still going to post his follow-up on humility. He had to come home early yesterday (yes, our anniversary) and play nurse to me and babysitter to the kids since I was sick. This has been one of those crazy weeks where nothing has gone as planned. Can anyone relate? 
Happy Anniversary! May 24, 2007
Happy 4th anniversary, Baby! How blessed I am to have an adoring husband who is worthy of my respect and love because of his love for Christ. I always have such a hard time understanding how women don’t respect their husbands. Why would I not respect the person I most enjoy spending time with, trust more than any other, am one with, and have grown in godly living because of His beautiful example? Did I mention that he is also the most amazing father and an awesome lover? Praise you God for the man of my dreams and for your great mercy each and every day as you constantly draw us closer to you and each other! I am so unworthy of Your’s and Bill’s love.
Ariana’s CT Scan May 23, 2007
Just wanted to apologize for not putting up a follow-up to Courtney’s last post as promised. I ended up taking the day off to go with Courtney for Ariana’s CT scan. For those that are wondering, they were checking for a cyst, but the results were all clear. Our little girl is doing just fine.
To make up for my lack of posting (and I will post that follow-up tomorrow), enjoy a couple of picures of our sweet little girl.
Striving Toward Humility May 22, 2007
Something has been on my heart this morning that I want to share. A little over a year ago, Bill began studying humility because it became very apparent to us how prideful we really were. After looking at this topic, we began to believe that pridefulness is at the root of all sinfulness. I can’t think of a sin to date that has not stemmed from my ambition for greatness. Anger–I think I’m better than someone and don’t deserve to be wronged. Envy–I want an easy life and think I’m worthy of it. Sexual sin–I only care about my own pleasure, not God’s glory. Worry–I think I can control my life and don’t trust God to control it. The list goes on and on.
Bill read C.J. Mahaney’s book Humility: True Greatness when we first began looking at this, and God has truly changed his life as a result. One of the great truths we realized from this book was the importance of being vulnerable. The Holy Spirit helped us realize that to have true humility, we must realize how sinful and unworthy of Christ’s love we are. A step to truly understanding God’s greatness is to be absolutely raw about our sinfulness with others. So, with difficulty, I began putting this into practice.
When I began to be truly honest, let me tell you what happened. People began to lose respect for me. Sounds appealing, huh? Here’s why this is so great, though. I think I am great. No, you don’t understand. I think I’m greater than all of you who are reading this post. In fact, I think God gave me as a gift to this world and this world is better because I’m here. I think I am the wisest, most godly woman who was ever created, and I think everyone should highly respect me and want to come to me for counsel. Many of you who have talked to me have thought I really cared about what you were saying, but really I was thinking about my own superiority to you. This is not an exaggeration. It is the absolute truth.
Now that you all know my true heart, I would venture to say many of you no longer think as highly of me as you maybe did once (and you probably never thought that highly of me in the first place, praise God!). That is an example of what has happened to me often since I have been pursuing true honesty. The more detailed I get about my sin, the more it makes me feel like people don’t respect me, and the more I realize how much of a peon I am compared to God’s glory.
Here’s what I think. Almost every Christian I know will admit that they are sinful. How many times have we heard preachers, teachers, and fellow believers say things like, “I am so prideful” or ”I’ve not loved others”? How about ”I don’t pray as much as I should” or ”I am not a good parent”? Though confessions like this are not wrong, I believe most of the time they do more harm than good because they are generalizations that can cause more pridefulness. We think, “I ’confessed’ my sin. I’m great!” The fact is, confessions like this very rarely confess much of anything.
What if Christians began admitting things like this: ”I don’t pray because I have no desire to. I don’t really believe it will do any good.” Or, “I sometimes get so angry at my child that I want to hit him/her in an abusive way.” Or, “I enjoy it when someone who has wronged me suffers.” What about, “When I have sex with my spouse, my main concern is my own pleasure.” Even confessing to a friend, “As we’re talking right now, I am feeling like I am much wiser than you.”
Let’s admit it. If someone we knew, especially our pastor in the pulpit, actually got this specific or more so, most of us would be at least a little shocked. It would probably make us uncomfortable and we would wish it hadn’t been said. However, I believe most Christians feel things similar to these statements quite often (I know all the above have been in my heart at one time or another, and I still don’t confess them openly). Guess what, that makes us grotesque sinners, and we need to confess that. Jesus did not call us to confess only those sins that don’t make us look too bad, but all sins. God knows every thought in our hearts all the time, and if we don’t call others to hold us accountable for our sinfulness, we run the risk of forgetting how sinful we really are.
Here’s the deal. If we begin to look too righteous, God begins to look less so. How can others understand God’s grace if they don’t think we’re all that bad? Actually, how can we ourselves understand it if we see ourselves as wise and pure in our own eyes? It is an abomination.
My challenge to all of you is to make yourself, not just let yourself, be vulnerable. Be intentional about it. Be so raw about confessing your sin to others that you begin to feel like no one respects you anymore. Then give all glory to God for His greatness and righteousness. Be reminded and remind others of how amazing His grace really is, that He chose us, even us who are this wretched and disgusting. How the world would be transformed if all Christians would strive for this kind of humility!
(For clarification, I think it’s important to note that I have never and could never harm either of my children. I’m afraid something I said above may have given that implication, and I want to make it clear that though I, along with every other parent, can get pretty frustrated with my kids, I would never abuse them. Abuse is a sad and appalling act, one that I do not and would not condone.)
Schedules–Part 5 May 21, 2007
Before I continue my schedule series, I think it’s important to say again that a schedule should never be a source of pride. Things can only be in order and get done by God’s grace. Your schedule should also never cause legalism. Many times when I don’t have a good day or if I decide to sleep in, I think I have failed and am no longer worthy of God’s love. The truth is, I was never worthy of God’s love. He chose me apart from all my own works so that I could never boast, and He chose me when I was spitting in His face with my sinfulness. What’s more is that He bought me by sending His son, Jesus, who had never sinned, to take my sin upon Himself, and He faced the wrath I will never have to face–death and being separated from God. His is true mercy. Praise you, Lord Jesus! It’s imperative to remember that truth in all we do if we have accepted God’s gift of salvation. If you have not, I appeal to you to throw your burdens at the cross, make Christ and Christ only Lord of your life, and give your life in service to Him, glorifying Him in all you do. It is the only way to true joy.
Having said that, I will continue explaining my schedule. While Ariana is nursing in the morning, Liam “reads” books in bed for 30 minutes. This gives him a little private play and gives me a little more time to get things ready. When he is a little older, and especially when he moves out of the crib, I plan on having a clock in the room and telling him he can leave the room when the clock says 7-3-0. If he leaves before this time, he will be disciplined. It’s important he learns to play alone and learns patience.
Some things on my schedule after this don’t require explanation, so I will only touch on the things I feel should be explained. MM stands for minimal maintenance. This is time I can empty the dishwasher, make beds, do a general pick-up if needed, etc. This usually doesn’t take very long and makes things less stressful later in the day.
I’ll briefly define the next few activities below:
School Time–read books and work with learning toys (i.e. anything that teaches about ABC’s, numbers, colors, etc.)
Game Time–activities appropriate for his age that teach various things; my favorite site for this is Fisher-Price
Table Time–crafts or coloring; again one of my prefered sites is Fisher-Price , but I also use Crayola, Family Fun (this is also my absolute favorite magazine), and Wondertime (this is a good site that is just for young children–it also has ideas for activities)
Computer Time–There are a few sites with online games for toddlers where they basically only have to push a key to play; big surprise, but my favorite for this is Fisher-Price (can you tell I visit this site often?)
Circle Time–I don’t know why, but toddlers usually will sit still longer in a circle, so we make a circle with stuffed animals and learn a Bible story. Liam probably doesn’t get most of what we do, but I would rather start too early instead of too late. He likes it because we use a lot of music and play-acting.
Things rarely go as planned, but as I said before, I try not to stress about it and just pick up where we left off.
There’s only one more post in my schedules series, so I would appreciate any more suggestions you all can give me.
Liam’s Birthday May 19, 2007
As you may have seen, Liam’s 2nd birthday was this week. We only had a small party–my parents and us. The rest of the family was at our sister-in-law Lisa’s graduation party. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in secondary education, and we hated that we couldn’t be there to celebrate with her, but we offer her huge CONGRATULATIONS!
We don’t have pictures from her party, but here are a few from Liam’s:
A gift from my parents (Nana and Peepaw). It’s a playmat with roads leading from us and our apartment to pictures of our parents, siblings, and their houses (Liam’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins). I wish you could see this up close. It’s amazing!
Playing with the favorite new toy–a dump truck from Grandma and Papa.
